Chapter 91

Rampage

The four Terminators moved into position to grasp and pin Cameron down. If she went on a rampage, she was going to do a lot of damage to herself and to the others. No one was sure about what would happen next.

John held a Taser that was armed and hot. It was ready to strike if needed. He did not want anyone damaged unnecessarily. He was not sure what Cameron would be like when she rebooted. Vanna warned him that Cameron might have 'gone bad' or reverted and try and terminate him. That was not a pleasant thought.

Cameron rebooted. She went on a rampage. At least she tried to.

The four Terminators could barely keep her down as she trashed about violently. She seemed very confused as to what was happening.

"Cameron!" John said.

The wild thrashing continued as the four Terminators tried to keep her down. John moved forward with the Taser.

"CAMERON!" John shouted.

Cameron relaxed and stopped struggling. She looked around and tried to place where she was at.

"John?" Cameron asked.

John moved up to where Cameron could see him. He moved the armed Taser behind his back so she did not see it. It was still ready to fire.

"I'm right here, Cameron. Are you alright?" John asked.

There was a disgusted look on Cameron's face.

"What does it look like?" Cameron asked.

John thought that statement said it all.

John motioned for the four Terminators to let go of her. They did so but were right there ready to grab her again. It could be a trick to get to John. They all still worried that she might try to terminate him if she'd gone bad again and reverted to her original programming.

John wanted to give Cameron some options.

"Cameron, what do you want to do right now?" John asked.

The answer came easy for Cameron.

"Go!" Cameron said.

John knew what that meant. He remembered when Cameron begged him before that she 'didn't want to go'. He'd deactivated her anyway, even after she told him she loved him.

"NO!" John said. "I would like everyone leave, please."

Vanna didn't think it was a good idea.

"John, I don't…." Vanna said.

John cut her off. He still held the Taser behind his back.

"It's fine. Everything is OK now. Isn't that right, Cameron?" John asked.

Cameron looked a little blank.

"Yes." Cameron said.

Cameron continued to lie flat on the floor. She made no attempt to get up or even move.

Everyone left the lab but Jesse.

"Cameron, I will be outside. Everything will be OK." Jesse said.

The tears welled up in Jesse's eyes as they did in her heart. She joined the others outside.

Everyone waited outside in the hallway.

It saddened them all to see Cameron in such pain and hurting inside like this.

"What do you think happened?" Allison asked. "I want to help her."

John Henry was not sure but knew what Cameron discussed with him right before this event.

"Cameron fears she may have created new timelines or altered this timeline trying to correct her 'mistakes'." John Henry said.

Vanna wondered about that.

"How?" Vanna asked. "When?"

"She thinks it may have been by going back in time and starting or stopping events." John Henry said. "Based on our conversation, she may think she is - Skynet. It is possible Mrs. Weaver is Skynet. Cameron wants to go back to the future and return as a Liquid Metal Terminator."

That revelation sent an alarm bell off in Allison's head.

"Do you mean like the one that assaulted John?" Allison asked.

It still creeped Allison out the way the Liquid Metal Terminator came after her and what it demanded.

Allison crossed her legs tightly as she thought about it and what it 'wanted' from her. It wanted her 'anatomy' and to absorb her. She felt it was going to take 'what' made her a female from her.

"Yes, that may have been Cameron or 'a Cameron' or some Cameron aberration." John Henry said.

The impact of that hit Allison like a sledge hammer. She remembered holding her Model 66 pointed at it.

"But we killed 'HER'. All of us did. We killed her!" Allison said.

Allison remembered she'd opened fire first. She pumped all six rounds from her Model 66 into the Liquid Metal Terminator's head. She did not want her anatomy absorbed.

The women now wore very distressed looks on their faces. The Terminators all looked at each other. The wave of guilt was heavy in the hallway.

Bob felt it too as did all the Terminators.

"We did not know it was Cameron or 'a Cameron'. It was unstable. It was incomplete. It was going to attack you, Allison. It said it was going to take your 'anatomy'." Bob said.

John Henry didn't think it was their fault that they didn't know. They still didn't know.

"We don't know that it was 'Cameron' either." John Henry said. "That may have been the problem. It may have escaped or been interrupted from becoming 'Cameron' completely. Its instinct was to find John. We pulled it in from the future, some future, when we were running the TDE. It was drawn here and it found John."

Vanna wanted some specifics. This guilt trip was one she did not want to take.

"Do we have any facts?" Vanna asked. "Is there anything one way or the other?"

John Henry felt drained. He'd checked further into things after Cameron left him earlier. There were no answers.

"No." John Henry responded.

That was the trouble. No one knew for sure about anything. They already knew that there were alternate timelines. Now maybe they were in one if Cameron actually changed too many things…. There was no way to know. Mrs. Weaver too could have created new timelines with her vendetta against Skynet. There was still no clue as to what ever happened to her or where she ended up at.

More or different Skynets seemed to be popping up. They ran across Skynet Metal on several occasions. Where did they come from? Were these here all the time? Were they only being activated if a previous version failed to do something by a certain date? Skynet could have 'salted' Terminators throughout time to further its agenda.

There were a million things Skynet or different Skynets could have done or be doing. The fact Cameron herself wanted to go back, or into the future to alter events and create new timelines was proof of that. The goal of a Terminator was to achieve what they wanted or didn't want to happen. The collateral damage didn't seem to bother them.

It did appear that the longer a Terminator was activated and in the company of humans, the more human like they became. The infiltration units seemed to be the most affected. That was Cameron. Her association around humans was the longest. It was evident that she developed feelings and emotions of some type. They seemed quiet human like at times. Sometimes they seemed more intense than what a human felt. There were no integral safeguards to control them. Time did not dull them as it did to human feelings. For a Terminator any event was as if it just happened to them. Its impact had the same affect as the initial event. It didn't matter if it was five minutes ago or five years ago. They felt it the same way when they thought of it.

John and Cameron were alone in the lab. Everyone else left like John asked them to.

John held Cameron as he tried to comfort and soothe her.

"Cameron, talk to me." John said.

Cameron didn't say anything at first and then it just blurted out.

"John, I am the cancer that is ruining every timeline." Cameron said.

That was not the way John saw it.

"No, Skynet is." John said. "Skynet is the problem, not you."

Cameron said what she believed.

"I am Skynet." Cameron said. "That is what will happen."

John said nothing.

Cameron wanted to make sure he understood.

"I think I become Skynet, John. You must destroy me." Cameron said. "I want you to be the one to do that. I want you to be the one to destroy me. It will prove your love to me if you terminate me to keep me from becoming Skynet."

John ignored Cameron's statement. He was not about to kill Cameron to prove he loved her, even if it meant his own life.

Cameron got up.

John did too.

"I think it was me or some version of me that assaulted you in your room before." Cameron said.

John found some comfort in that idea, even as creepy and disturbing as that was. The very idea that it may have been 'Cameron' or some version of Cameron anyway and not some 'thing' else was somewhat comforting. He always thought it was a new Skynet weapon. He was never sure since it did not actually kill him or even try to kill him. If it really was some version of Cameron, maybe that was why it didn't try to. Maybe it couldn't because it 'loved' him.

"How is any of this possible?" John asked.

"I may have altered and changed the timelines. I may have created new ones. I don't even know if this now is the correct timeline or an alternate one. I think I have done all this several times. I may have lived my life more than once." Cameron said.

Cameron now believed that was the base of where her nightmares came from. They weren't dreams, thoughts or nightmares but actual repressed memories of past lives. All of those things happened in some way. She was sure of it.

That was a new revelation to John. Cameron could always replace her power cell, go back in time, replace or terminate 'herself' and relive her life over again from that point. If she 'reset' her chip to 'forget' what terrible events she left behind, each 'new life' would seem like the first or same life as she lived it again. She could do this indefinitely. Each time would create a new timeline as she did events differently. Maybe they were always the same.

John thought of Savannah's words. 'Cameron is invincible. Cameron is eternal.' Maybe this was why she said that.

John shook is head and decided to continue. Speculation was just that, speculation.

"We are here together now, does it make a difference?" John asked.

Cameron was not sure. It shouldn't make a difference but maybe it did.

"When we destroyed the Skynet mainframe, I told it I will terminate it in every timeline. I do not know why I said that." Cameron said.

Without some fact or proof this was all meaningless guessing.

"Is there any evidence that any of this has actually happened?" John asked.

Cameron checked her files again.

"No." Cameron said.

John didn't see any substance to any of it.

"Well?" John asked.

There was still what Cameron 'wanted' and what already 'happened'.

"It was when I told John Henry of what I intended to do, he pointed out that those things already happened in some manner. That is when it hit me. Maybe I have done some already, maybe even more than once." Cameron said.

Cameron looked at her hand. It turned silver then morphed into a blade. Her eyes went wide with terror.

"CAMERON!" John shouted.

Cameron blinked. Her hand was still the same, a hand.

For a brief moment John thought Cameron was going to 'flip out' again.

There was a deeper fear inside Cameron.

"I'm sorry. My mind wandered." Cameron said. "John, I am defective. I must be deactivated or reprogrammed. I am a threat to you. I am a threat to all of you."

John moved forward and embraced her as they kissed. He could not understand why Cameron would want a different body. Why a Liquid Metal one? John did not know how to make Cameron understand he loved her how she 'was'. John would love her no matter how she was.

"Cameron, I love you no matter what. I will stand by your side always. If you want a different 'body' I will still love you. I love you, Cameron. I cherish you. We don't know if any of that is true, yet. Let's just deal with the here and now, not tomorrow or yesterday."

John knew life moved forwards, not backwards.

'Yesterday' by 'The Beatles', played in Cameron's mind as they walked away together.

Deep inside of her, she longed for Yesterday.

Cameron wondered if there was even a Yesterday - anymore.

Rampage

When we look at life
Is it really a stage
Or is it actually
Nothing but a cage

Love may infect us
Like some type of phage
No matter how hard we try
We can't turn the page

Time is the enemy
It seems the more we age
The harder it becomes
To break free and disengage

Deep within each of us
A silent war does rage
To know if we can ever win
There is no way to gauge

Whatever this life delivers
Our soul it can not assuage
Leaving our mind to attack itself
In a never ending rampage

Nobody