Last Day of Tomorrow
2. Judge
John wondered whether the machines saw them the way that they saw the machines. Countless identical flawed copies marching endlessly over an unseen horizon, staking claim to a world that if they won, they'd only destroy.
"Sir?"
"Give me a moment, Mod," John said.
"With all due respect sir, we don't have much time." Mod said.
From the other side of the skull-white room Kate barked out, "Fifteen minutes before Skynet crashes and we lose access to all the programs."
But how do you choose? Twenty identical models of the latest T-101s behind glass casings in a row: perfect skin, dead eyes and a face that only a father-hungry child could love.
Though as long as he chose it, it would be the right one.
"That one. Number seven," John said, pointing.
The team got to work, their equipment just a tad louder than the faint humming of machinery around them that was the machine's heartbeat. Skynet hadn't detected them yet, being too preoccupied with the sentries attacking them on the outside, though it was only a matter of time.
"It's going to be tough keeping enough power for the device," Dean said from between the loose cables of the console he'd jimmied. "If the sentries are too efficient and they take out the mainframe before we're done..."
"It'll work," Kate said sharply.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Reprogramming is complete," Gret announced, sliding shut the casing of a mechanical skull.
John watched as the T-101 unfolded itself with mechanical grace. Its head turned to look at John, while behind him Gret and Luis lifted their pulse rifles in caution. Red diodes behind fake irises glowed as the human-touched numbers melted into its brain; they were all that separated a killer from a protector.
"Your mission parameters have been defined," John said. "You will go back to 1994, where you will find and protect your new commander, young John Connor."
"Yes," was all the terminator said.
John turned to the last member of their team. "Reese."
"Ready, sir," Reese said. His uniform was in his hands, neatly folded and a faded photograph set on top. John took the photograph and slid it into his own shirt pocket without looking at it.
"Time-dilation device is ready," Mod chimed in from the other side of the room.
"Ready?" John asked.
"As I'll ever be, sir," Reese said.
The terminator stared impassively.
John was suddenly thinking of dominoes again, rolling endlessly around time and making heroes as it tumbled along.
"Reese, you're first," Gret said.
Reese nodded and stepped forward into the metal hull. John saw the brief fear in his eyes that was quickly masked by disappointed embarrassment, but Reese was more a hero than John could ever hope to be because it couldn't possibly count as heroism if you knew that you weren't going to die. Which meant, of course, that John had never done anything truly heroic before today.
When the shockwave from the time-dilation device dissipated, the lights corridors flashed bright red, indicating that Skynet had finally seen the organic intruders that had brought filth into their perfect system. The distant mechanical humming got louder, warning of an angry machine about to retaliate.
"Cyberdyne systems model 101," Gret said. "You're next."
The building shook just after the T-101 disappeared in the electromagnetic field. It felt like something large had hit the superstructurea cruiser, perhapsand Skynet was enraged.
Chaos, panic, crumbling metal and falling cables. A pulse rifle went off. Gret was screaming. "Dad!"
But John was on the finishing line. He'd long wondered how it would happen, and finally his question was answered.
When the metal hand with pretend skin wrapped itself around his neck, it was almost like coming home.
John looked up into the face of the second T-101, skin torn where it had smashed its way out of its case. Its eyes were as dead the first, though Kate would argue that that was the wrong term to use because a thing can only be dead if it could have ever been alive.
He was going to miss Kate.
The T-101's eyes flickered red.
You can't just go around killing people.
The hand squeezed.
Why?