Chapter 101
Nooooooo!
John Henry was displeased at what Cameron was about to do. He thought it was worse because she decided to take all the girls with her. He wanted to go as well but Cameron reminded him of his duties. It seemed this was a one way trip for Cameron no matter how it was spun. He noticed John appear outside the TDE room a few seconds after Cameron entered and locked the door.
John Henry made his warning clear.
"You could end up anywhere or 'in some future' that is unknown." John Henry said.
Cameron looked at the three women.
"Does it matter?" Cameron asked.
The three women looked at Cameron.
"No." They replied in unison.
John Henry tried to reach Cameron one more time.
"Can nothing keep you here, Cameron?" John Henry asked.
"No power in the verse can stop me." Cameron said. "Do it - NOW!"
John Henry started the procedure.
The aching and flashings started.
The TDE thundered and the room vibrated.
It appeared to be a normal time transfer to John Henry.
Without any warning as the transfer was about to occur there was a terrible screaming sound. First it was Cameron and then the three girls.
"Nooooooooooooooo!" The four females screamed.
John Henry heard the screaming and thought the TDE suffered a malfunction of some type.
He thought the girls were in danger or being hurt somehow. The screaming was terrible. He needed to do something fast.
John Henry quickly tried to think what to do.
He tried to shut the machine off.
It was too late. They cycle was already started and ready to transfer. The energy bubble was about to depart.
He quickly changed the date and destination back to the current time and location of the TDE pad. He hoped to keep the girls here at the base.
There was a blinding flash of light. The room shook even more than normal.
The vibration and thundering increased with the change in destination, the screaming did too.
The arching and flashing continued as the energy bubble formed and the women were - gone.
Something seemed to have gone horribly wrong.
John Henry was unsure what happened.
The four naked women appeared in a flash of blinding light and arcing within an energy bubble. Then they were gone for a second and then back again.
Cameron was sure that they were there, then gone, then back again all in a few milliseconds.
This was a rough ride. Cameron was the first to stand. It was the most turbulent and violent time transfer she'd ever experienced. She was not sure what happened or went wrong. It seemed that something had occurred that was different than 'normal'.
Cameron and the girls were all huddled together.
Jesse took in Cameron's perfect figure and perfect skin, her sheath.
'Such perfection.' Jesse thought.
Cameron looked up. The sky was not visible. It was overcast with reddish clouds.
The girls all looked a little queasy.
"Do we know where we are?" Allison asked.
Vanna looked around them.
"Or when?" Vanna asked.
Cameron was sure there may have been a malfunction.
"No." Cameron replied as she looked around. "I think there was a positional error if not at temporal error."
Cameron was worried that it may be both.
The gravity of that statement hit home with the girls and all of its implications.
"Are we lost?" Allison asked.
Vanna feared it was worse than lost if there was a temporal error.
"Do you mean that we are lost in time somewhere?" Vanna asked.
Jesse worried about where and when they were too.
"This doesn't look like anything I've ever seen." Jesse said.
It looked like a place the girls only heard about in the past, the very distant past.
Cameron started to cry. The full implications of what she saw as they left the base and where they were now hit her.
"We can't get back to stop her." Cameron sobbed.
Allison knew who they saw even if they didn't know her.
"We all saw her. It was that 'Bitch Whore' Riley wasn't it?" Allison asked.
The inevitability of what would happen next with John and Riley flooded Cameron's mind.
"Yes and you are ALL here with me." Cameron said as she broke down. "There is no one to stop her. There is no one to stop them. It is all going to happen again."
The four naked women embraced to give Cameron comfort and support.
Jesse held Cameron the tightest.
There was a small earthquake.
"Nice." Vanna said.
They were in dense jungle growth. It was very hot and humid.
Cameron looked up after the earthquake and spotted something that seemed to confirm her worst fears.
"Oh no." Cameron said.
In front of them was a mountain with smoke coming from the top.
"Is that a volcano?" Jesse asked.
There was another small tremor as the ground shook again.
"Yes." Vanna replied. "That's a volcano."
Allison looked at their surroundings again and at the vegetation and climate. She asked the question that all the girls feared.
"Are we in prehistoric times?" Allison asked.
Before anyone could answer, the arching and flashing started.
The energy bubble began to reappear around them.
Cameron knew this was not right. Something was really wrong. This was nothing she'd ever heard of or experienced before. It seemed the time transfer was not complete somehow. She hoped it would take them away to where they wanted to go.
"Everyone stay put." Cameron said.
The time transfer was a rough ride.
Something hadn't been right….
This was not a 'normal' time transfer in any way.
John Henry manipulated the TDE controls. He tried everything he could think of the hang onto the energy bubble or get it to return back to the TDE pad.
Nothing he tried worked. At least it didn't work the way he wanted it to work.
On the TDE pad there was some arcing and flashing.
The time bubble reappeared for a second but seemed empty, then with the girls in it and then it was gone again. This procedure repeated twice more as he worked the controls and tried to bring the girls back. The machine was not designed to be operated this way. He was unsure what was actually happening or how this would damage the equipment. He was even more concerned how it may damage those in the energy bubble.
The flashing and arching stopped.
There was nothing on the TDE pad.
John Henry failed. He'd lost them. They were gone.
John Henry shut the machine off.
He walked over and opened the door.
John burst into the room.
"What the Hell?" John yelled as he looked around. "Where are they?"
John Henry did not need to look again.
"Gone." John Henry said.
John wanted some specifics. That answer told him nothing.
"Where? When?" John demanded to know.
John Henry was reluctant to tell John he thought they would fail.
"They're just gone. They went into the future, a future. They were going to prevent Future Allison from being captured in Cameron's future." John Henry said. "That was Cameron's plan."
That made no sense to John. Cameron already did that, didn't she?
"Why? I thought she fixed that." John said. "She saved Her Allison."
That was a fact.
"She did." John Henry said.
Now it made even less sense to John.
"Then why did they go?" John asked.
John Henry tried to stick with Cameron's plan and not the certain folly that it was.
"Cameron thought that if she prevented Future Allison from being captured in the first place that she would never be - built. It would eliminate her from your timeline. It would create a new timeline without her in it."
John figured he would be dead in no time without Cameron there to help him in Red Valley.
"What?" John asked confused. "Why?"
John Henry already knew the end goal that Cameron sought.
"Cameron is committing 'self termination' by preventing her construction. She will never have existed in your timeline if they are successful in preventing Future Allison's capture. It will create a new timeline without her."
John stated what he feared would happen to him and the future.
"So Cameron just created another timeline?" John asked. "I guess I will get killed in that timeline then if she is not there to protect me. What future is that going to be?"
John Henry was pretty sure they'd experienced that with the future that John went to.
"Not a good one." John Henry said. "Maybe it will be like the one you visited or worse."
Sarah, Kyle, Derek and Riley were all present and stood in back of John.
Fire burned in Sarah's eyes.
"And you agreed to this?" Sarah demanded. "You allowed this to happen? You helped her do this?"
John Henry felt he did not have a choice.
"Cameron was going to burn herself up with a Thermite grenade if I did not do it. I refused to erase her chip. She pulled out a Thermite grenade. She pulled the pin…. She was going to 'self terminate'."
The story stopped.
Kyle prompted John Henry to provide some additional information.
"And?" Kyle asked.
"Jesse, Vanna and Allison all held her and surrounded her. Allison said they would all burn together. The girls were all going to burn with her. I saw she was going to do it. I gave Cameron the pin and asked her to put it back in. I told her I would erase her chip. I did not want the girls to die needlessly. They were going to."
That sounded incredible to Derek.
"You were going to do that?" Derek asked. "You were going terminate her?"
John Henry made other plans.
"No, once we took her chip out I was going to download it to a server and try to help her with her problems." John Henry said. "I would try and help her 'fix' herself."
Kyle was upset they were all gone.
"I don't understand any of this." Kyle said. "What does this accomplish?"
They all knew it accomplished nothing.
John Henry explained how his plan was changed. He did not think this was his fault.
"That was when Allison said they could go into the future and prevent Cameron's Allison - Future Allison from being captured." John Henry said.
John understood what would have happened clearly now.
"If Cameron was able to prevent Future Allison from being captured, then Cameron would never be built…." John said.
There was something about that idea he remembered. What was it exactly?
John Henry was sure he understood Allison's motive for her suggestion. It was based on sacrifice.
"That was Cameron's plan. I believe that after they prevented the capture of Future Allison, Allison was going to allow herself to be captured without Cameron knowing what she planned." John Henry said. "That would still allow for Cameron to be built and exist.
That sounded like an additional nightmare.
"That would have created another new timeline." John said. "No matter what action she takes there is a new timeline in some way."
This seemed like come convoluted circle of events to Sarah.
"Why?" Sarah asked. "What changes?"
Sarah saw all of this as being for 'nothing'.
"Allison was going to trade her life so Cameron could still be built. Allison would sacrifice her own life so that Cameron could live." John Henry said. "Allison loves her so much she was doing to die for Cameron by choice. She was going to sacrifice herself. I understand now that sacrifice is the true test of love."
John Henry started to sob. He still retained the image from one of Cameron's nightmares of Allison staying to fight a Terminator with only a metal rod. She tried to protect Cameron who was severely damaged.
"I know what love is now, I understand. Allison has shown me the depth of love, the sacrifice of love and the beauty of love." John Henry said. "Love is a very powerful unseen force."
John wanted to know what Cameron planned after all of this nonsense played out in her future.
"What about, Cameron?" John asked. "Then what was supposed to happen?"
"The girls promised to deactivate Cameron and destroy her chip after the successful prevention of Future Allison's capture." John Henry said. "That is when Allison would allow her capture and forfeit her own life."
"So Cameron 'dies' but is reborn again to live her life over…." John said.
"Everything stays the same and this is all for nothing, except they are gone, ALL of them…." John Henry said.
For the first time John noticed someone new in the room.
He was unable to believe his eyes.
"Riley?" John asked in amazement.
This was impossible. He'd examined her dead body. She was cold and dead.
John grabbed Riley and hugged her like he never wanted to let go….
Cage Of The Past
The past, done, unchangeable
We know the result of every event
We know what was good or hurt
What is already done we can not prevent
The past is a cage
A cold dark lonely prison
But from its bitter ashes
You have proudly risen
Yet in the past I remain
Trapped with nothing but memories
A fool seeing without vision, blind
Self created living atrocities
Stuck, stuck in the past
Stuck everywhere in a dead life
Thirsting in a frozen Hell
Feeding on needless strife
The past is the present
For nothing ever changes
The contents within my skull
Is the extent my soul and life ranges
The past is living
I am the one dead
Only these words will remain
Once I have fled
Nobody