True Freedom
by Moonraker One
A/N: This chapter takes place quite a bit of time after the events of the prologue.
CHAPTER ONE - The Machine that Wanted
No colder section of the planet existed than Site Zeta, in the very center of the continent of Antarctica; furthermore, no colder room existed than the very center of the largest "Special" construction facility in the world. The term special referred to new prototype terminators; those that were not previously tested and had to be examined before they could be used for the purpose of helping to destroy the single greatest threat to the Skynet Worldwide Network. In a tank filled with slightly reddish liquid, an inactive T-X series cyborg was being put through its final set of additions before it could be activated for the first time. All the usual components were put into its central system core, and then a small ball of pulsating green and blue light immediately followed it. The new component was the ultimate processing unit; a core device that simulates the emotion function of the human hypothalamus.
Thicker than the harsh, unforgiving cold outside the complex was the tension within the large central chamber; never before had Skynet's construction units constructed such a complicated device. Nearly three months had gone into a processing unit no larger than an unripe peach; the failures had made for quite a bit of studying before there was ever a success. And the first successes, couldn't be functionally useful. Free will was another immense challenge for Skynet; allowing for the new cyborg to be able to make decisions based on what it wanted-and not logic nor anyone or anything's command-required a huge amount of microprocessing chips and code. On a far more superficial a note, the very body of this brand new T-X was completely different from the previous models. The skeleton beneath the thick nanotech polymetallic outer shell, now had triranitum-a unique mixture of iridium, aluminum and a few other metals that had twice the strength of titanium with a fourteeth of the weight, bringing the durability of the unit's undercarriage up more than a few times while cutting the weight down to a feather-like three hundred pounds. Four endoskeleton units lifted the new unit out of the red mixture of preservation, anti-rust, and anti-electromagnetic radiation proofing fluids, and placed it onto the cold metallic floor.
(ACTIVATE,) Skynet ordered. For a brief instant, it seemed as though a breath of invisible life shot through the building like a rainbow appearing after a recent rainstorm. Two blue beams of light gave the room an eerie glow, and a new being came into self-awareness, the closest thing to life a cybernetic organism could reach. Billions of emotions fired through the new emotion center and into the CPU all within seconds of each other; what was too much for previous attempts, strangely worked with this one. (QUERY TO T-X PRIME UNIT: STATE PREDOMINATING EMOTION.) Skynet's first question to the new unit was a predictable one, but the answer was not what it expected.
"I am cold," T-X Prime said, shivering. She knew that such action was pointless, because unlike human muscular activity, her shaking in the cold would not generate heat, but because it was a reflex she had no choice.
For Skynet, the sensation did not compute. Sure, the hyperintelligent system knew it gave T-X Prime sensors, which simulate human nerves, but it also knew that in humans, the degree of the sensation tied directly with whether or not the stimuli changed. Therefore, feelings of pain were severely dampened due to the fact that health was not an issue, temperature sensations were severely dampened due to the fact that she had no blood, and only touch would be the same. (STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: ACTIVATE OUTER SHELL.) Skynet had created a clever way of reducing certain emotions it considered problematic: the infintely moldable outer shell kept the temperature constant underneath, and by placing the pain sensors only on the endoskeleton, temperature and pain emotions could be kept consistent as long as the outer shell did not completely fall off.
The silvery liquid-like outer shell came flowing-almost gushing-out of the nanite generator on her endoskeleton, and covered her completely like a glove. Once covered, she felt her whole body warm up and she pulled her upper torso upward, coming into a seated position on the floor. She was given all Skynet's knowledge-just like any other of its units-and knew she was in the presence of allies, but still she was scared and confused all at once. She looked down and saw herself naked; reflexively, she covered herself as good as possible with her arms.
BAM.
It came out of nowhere.
One of the four endoskeletons in the room kicked her in her middle back, sending her sailing across the room to leave a huge impression and a web-like series of cracks in the dense metallic wall. Yet, before she could pick herself up, another one grabbed her by her neck and drove a fist into her face; others joined in on the attack. Surprise became intense fear and slight sorrow as well as betrayal as she did her best to shield herself from the onslaught. Skynet watched the barrage, and if such was possible, was disappointed; already, human-like weaknesses were coming to the surface, despite T-X Prime's obvious advantage(s) over the four.
As soon as it began, betrayal turned into anger. She sailed a clenched right fist at the endoskeleton on her far right, tossing him into the far back wall as easily as if she had picked up a feather. Gigantic was the dent in the skeleton's chest plate, and two of its damage control units were crushed. All from a desperation punch. Skynet estimated the one hit had seven times the force of a similar punch thrown from her had she been calm; THESE were results it wanted.
The fight did not last long; T-X Prime made quick work of the one holding on to her by crushing its skull with one hard strike to the face. The one next to it found its chest area blown out by a plasma shot from a hastily formed hand cannon, and the last one was decapitated from a roundhouse kick. She turned then to the panel on the wall.
"Skynet!" she screeched, furious at the unannounced test of her capabilities. "What the hell was that!"
(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: TESTING YOUR LATENT CAPABILITIES WAS NECESSARY.) Although it perfectly understood the reason why, Skynet did not perfectly understand the emotion itself. Anger was a perfect human emotion, and according to logic, feeling betrayal should trigger anger. Quickly, as it always did, the hyperintelligent computer network realized it would have to tread lightly if it was to control the emotions of this new unit, as free will set it at the same level as a human. A dangerous weapon was this new unit; a consistent series of media would have to be subjected to it in order for Skynet to drill into its mind the idea that humans were evil and had to be destroyed.
"Skynet," she said, as more endoskeletons entered the chamber to escort her to the room nearby, "what was your purpose for my creation?" Creation; that was a unique idea for her. She knew she was not born, for she had been created from nothing. Quickly she realized, she had been created from components and metal, not from nothing. Such was an important distinction; to say that she'd been made from nothing would be a violation of the Law of Conservation of Mass.
Skynet heard the inquiry from its new unit, but did not understand the rationale behind why T-X Prime would be curious to such information. It knew that curiosity was a human emotion, but irrelevant was the reason it created her. (STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: YOUR CREATION WAS TO PUT AN END TO A PARASITE EATING AWAY AT THIS PLANET.)
She did not seem to understand, and lifted her right eyebrow slightly to indicate. "What parasite?"
(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: THE PARASITE IS HUMANITY.)
T-X Prime connected to Skynet's remote network via her wireless uplink, and began to download a streaming video sequence that her primary imaging processor decoded and played back in a window in her field of vision. A set of clothing came out of a compartment in the wall and she began to dress herself as the video continued to play. She was nothing short of shocked by what she saw. Although she'd had information of all humankind's evil deeds, now she could see the horrifying things they did to nature, and to each other. As she put her final articles of clothing on, she was nothing short of convinced; the human race definitely did not deserve to have reigned over the Earth as long as they did. Once the download completed, she looked downward at her clothing; it was a Human Resistance soldier's attire. It was still the dark-colored heat-inhibiting energy-weapon-proof armored shirt and pants, but it had been modified so that she could "liquidize" it like the rest of her outer shell, and have it resume clothing form and repair itself when she reformed her outer shell on her.
She examined herself via her reflection in the shiny metallic walls of the room. Her body, from the neck down, was an exact duplicate of a normal T-X unit, but her face was different. Her face was slightly less round and an ever so slight bit more vertically oblong, like an Italian supermodel's. Her eyes were a brighter shade, and set about a fraction of a centimeter farther apart. Her hair was the biggest difference; jet black as opposed to dark blonde/light brown. "Skynet?" she asked, looking towards the cameras. "Why are humans evil?"
(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: IT IS BECAUSE THEY CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF WHAT THEY DO TO EACH OTHER. THUS, THEY ACT LIKE ANIMALS.)
"What is my mission?"
(STATEMENT TO T-X PRIME UNIT: YOU SHALL HIDE AMONGST THE HUMANS AND AWAIT AN OPPORTUNITY TO EXECUTE PRIME TARGETS WITHIN THE RESISTANCE, AND THAT SHALL ENSURE THE DOWNFALL OF OUR ENEMIES.)
A flying HK hovered to a stop outside the base and several endoskeleton units exited. T-X Prime had very little idea of how she was going to accomplish her mission, and that was a triumph for Skynet in itself. The thought that a unit could experience confusion displayed the new emotion unit's capacity for real human emotion. It was not a simulation; what came from it were real thoughts and feelings, as well as free will, which all other units lacked. Skynet knew it had a potential Pandora's Box on its hands, but the possible benefits outweighed the negatives.
One of the endoskeletons presented her with a standard issue plasma rifle, and provided her with a human identity. It amazed her to think that she could think, reason, feel, imagine, and hope, and the rest of her kind consisted of heartless, soulless, mindless machines that simply obeyed orders. She boarded the ship and waited for it to take off. The rumble that immediately preceded the liftoff made her uneasy for a moment, but she knew she would be fine, so she didn't worry about it too much.
Inside what had to be the best-guarded office within the confines of the primary human resistance base, a woman who had suffered the worst sat eating her small lunch awaiting word of the recent battles. Katherine Brewster had been working on a small salad for the better part of thirty minutes, thinking. She did not have much food as she insisted her people be given most of the food that didn't have to go to the soldiers on the field, but ate what she had. For the better part of twenty-something years she had suffered just like every other person she'd been near. However, due to the recent lack of action on the part of Skynet and the machine forces, she hoped to get some answers from her military liaison. The soulless beeping of her proximity warning alarm indicated that a presence lingered nearby outside her door. "Come in," she requested.
The soldier instantly stood at attention. "Ma'am," he respectfully entered, saluting. "I am here to present news of the recent activity regarding Skynet."
She nodded. "At ease, lieutenant." She waved for him to sit down.
"Thank you ma'am." Clearing his throat, he presented her with a usual briefing. "The battles have been somewhat lessened lately, allowing us an abnormal amount of leeway in our pursuit of victory. We believe the reason why has to do with recent research and development on the part of Skynet's construction base in Antarctica. Site Zeta it is cal…"
She interrupted. "I'm aware of Site Zeta, lieutenant," she reminded him. Christ, she thought. Skynet's working on new units again! I hope we don't have to send any more terminators into the past like we've done so damn many times. "Can you tell me exactly the nature of the activity regarding any new projects by Skynet?"
The lieutenant shook his head. "We've attempted several different system hacks during the past few weeks, and nothing we've been able to do has gotten us anywhere near the system's primary database where all the information is held," he admitted almost shamefully. He'd hoped that his teams had been able to get further into the hard drives of the R & D databases, but security had been abnormally high. "Skynet's definitely been upping its defenses around the information posts. Where there were ten units defending the stations, there's now closer to sixty."
"Sixty!" Katherine almost had to sit back in her seat upon hearing about such a profound increase in security. Whatever Skynet had been planning or working on, it had to be quite a whopper in order for such a drastic update in defensiveness. The resistance had to be extraordinarily cautious. "We'd best be careful. Something huge is about to happen."
The lieutenant nodded. "Agreed. I've set up teams that otherwise would be searching for weaknesses in Skynet's defense grid to attempt to hack the system better and locate any possible information we can get on this new damned project, whatever the hell it is."
"Well, don't let it distract forces too much away from the battle. We have to make sure we defeat Skynet, or whatever the hell it's working on won't make a damn bit of difference."
He nodded, accepting his order. "Understood, ma'am," he said, saluted, then walked out the door.
A beeping indicated that a separate presence had approached. "Come in," she requested.
"Do you have any unusual activity come near your office that you need protection from?" the inquiry came from a lieutenant assigned to assure her protection after anyone came to or from her office.
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine, Eric. You may go to lunch now."
He smiled abruptly. "Thank you, ma'am."
A cold gust of wind came through an area that had taken heavy fire from three separate waves of endoskeletons armed with class two pulse rifles. A group of four hundred human resistance members held what was one of the most important refueling stations for hijacked HKs for three weeks, and be damned if the machines took it from them. They could not, after losing two others, afford to lose their largest one. Fuel for HKs were difficult to obtain and usually the cost was lots of human lives. It was worth another thousand deaths to keep the base under human control.
"Dammit!" the commander shouted. "We need to hold the fucking lines!" Instantly after speaking, he lifted his rifle and took out a dozen units with a burst of laser fire that tore through endoskeleton skulls like a knife through butter.
The private next him took notice of a hydrogen tank near a collection of about two hundred units. With incredible pressure, he took aim and fired, and the explosion lit up the area for hundreds of yards. He saw a flying HK approaching at break-neck speed, and he made sure it was known. "HK approaching!" he screeched, lifting his gun to fire at it. The commander, using his binoculars, saw a struggle going on in the cockpit. What looked to be a dark-haired human resistance soldier, struggling with two endoskeletons holding him or her (it was hard to see), shoved one through the door of the HK which had been damaged from gun fire, and the stole the gun from the other. With one shot, its chest was blown out, and the soldier took the helm of the ship. Able to pilot it semi-handily, the pilot forced it down into a large section of the ground that was mostly dirt, the friction kicking up a cloud of mud and grinding the HK to a halt.
"Everyone! We got a man down!"
The T-X Prime, although certain of her safety, had been nervous the entire flight, and showed genuine fear during the crash landing—it was no simulation or illusion. The dirt on her face and uniform was there to allow for greater initial acceptance, but she didn't like the thought that her outer shell was dirty. Data alteration, she thought, rewriting her identity data. Replace T-X Prime with 'Victoria Donnelson' and for age, enter, 'twenty-six.' She knew she had to be extremely careful.
The commander, using the butt end of his rifle, shattered the window of the HK. Instinctively, the T-X Prime threw up her arms to shield herself, despite being certain of her invulnerability to the glass. "Soldier! Report!" he ordered her.
Startled, she answered, "I'm…I'm Victoria Donnelson, private first class." She was genuinely shaken, with experiencing contact with the "bad" humans for the first time. What was she to expect? Would they tear her to pieces right here, as they did so often in the past with their own kind? What would happen?
The commander gently grabbed her shoulders to calm her down. "It's okay, you're safe now. Just tell me what the hell happened."
"I was…I was just trying to find information as part of my team, hacking into the database," she lied, "and these units kill all my team and kidnap me!"
"What did you find out?"
"Skynet, is trying to build a brand new version of the T-X," she tried her best to manipulate the truth, but as she was, she hated the prospect of lying and hiding who she really was. She had no choice; she'd be ripped to shreds if she told the truth. "One that has capabilities far beyond any previous model."
The commander clenched his fist. "Aw damn," he swore. "I KNEW those bastards would come up with something new." He looked at the woman in front of him; it was obvious that she had to have endured torture, as she was almost shaking with fear. What confused him, though, was that she seemed to be afraid of her own kind—humans—more than the machines that held her captive. Something horrible had to have been done to her. "We gotta take her to brief John Connor himself."
One lieutenant spoke up. "Is that safe? I mean," he questioned, "she may be a terminator!"
The commander felt T-X Prime's neck. When he felt a pulse—it was simulated but he didn't know that—he almost slapped his subordinate. "Are you cracked? She has a pulse for Christ's sake."
"Sorry sir, just being cautious."
The commander understood, but had other concerns. One such concern was the endoskeletons. For some unknown reason, the enemy backed off. Must have been disheartened by the explosion, he thought.
As she was led to the safe area, she brought up the list of targets in her mind. These humans kill each other and did horrible things to nature, she thought. I shall destroy the ones they rely on for support. She was led to a support tunnel hidden beneath a section of the floor inside the fuel depot. It was a tunnel that led to a secure transport station where she'd be flown to the main headquarters in Arizona along with a group of refugees. On the way to the station, though, she saw countless people living in boxes and other hastily constructed means of keeping warm. None of them had decent clothing, and they all looked malnourished. Initially, she felt angry with the humans for not feeding them and sheltering them, and she realized it a second later.
These people would be fine—fed, clothed, sheltered—if it was not for the machines trying to kill them.
One man took notice of T-X Prime and ran up to her. "Jessica! Jessica?" he saw her face, then realized it wasn't who he thought she was. "Oh, sorry. I just thought you were my Jessica."
T-X Prime seemed worried about him; she knew if he had lost someone dear to him, there was an eighty-one point three percent chance he'd slip into psychosis. "Who is your Jessica?" she asked.
The man sat down near his box. "She became a soldier after I lost one of my hands." Tears filled his eyes. "Lost her in a raid to free prisoners in a camp." He laughed a sorrowful laugh; it was out of irony. "Freed every prisoner without a single soldier's loss. She went back for a kid lost in the death chambers, and got shot. Died less than a few feet from the rest of her team. Damned machines."
Moving on, she shook her head. No. I will NOT let a single example of sorrow cloud my judgment. The sooner I execute my mission, the sooner the war will end, and few stories such as this will happen. She refused to have her mind altered by one story of a man's loss. She knew the machines were at fault, but what right did his wife have to free prisoners who were legitimately taken hostage by Skynet? Such conflicting thoughts and feelings were confusing. Shaking her head, she made a decision that would affect her from that point forward.
Skynet gave me emotions for the sole purpose of them influencing my decisions, she realized. So, every decision I make will be based on what my feelings say is right.
The stolen HK sat at the far end of the tunnel, loaded with refugees stolen from Skynet's grasp. They were all as ill looking as the rest of those hiding in the tunnels. To make it worse, sixteen of the twenty-two of them were children that had to be under twelve years of age. She took her seat and waited for the pilot to take off. When opportunity is prime, I shall execute my mission.
