The Secret Diary of Cameron Baum
WEDNESDAY
Tomorrow my pseudo-iris will have healed sufficiently for me to return to school. Sarah Connor is still away in Orange County scouting safe houses should Detective Ray Polger's death trigger further police investigations. It will not be the first time something has returned to bite me in the ass.
John has made no mention of the intimacy we shared in the bathroom nor made any attempt to repeat it. Perhaps he only fancies me when I am damaged? Such people are called sado-masochists. Is John an S&M freak? And do I mind if he is?
I decide I do not. Spank me, John. Spank me.
The good news is he is no longer in regular contact with Kate Brewster. Movie night is coming round again but he called and cancelled it, citing excess homework as an excuse. I know this is a lie because summer break is near and we both have very little homework. Perhaps John finally notices all the irritating traits Kate Brewster has? Like tucking her bare feet under her butt when sitting on the sofa as if riding a horse side-saddle. Or the way when she laughs her mouth opens so wide you can see her larynx. Or when the commericals are shown on TV she insists on humming the jingles. There are so many stupid things she does I could write a book about it.
Perhaps I will. I'll call it:
101 STUPID FACTS ABOUT STUPID KATE BREWSTER WHO IS STUPID
No, too long. I will shorten it to:
STUPID KATE
I will go on Oprah's Book Club and tell everyone how stupid she is and how John deserves someone better. Like me.
I will not do these things. It is what humans call wishful thinking.
Some believe in wishes, however irrationally: if you wish upon a star your dream comes true.
I glance out the window. It is day, the sky a bright shade of blue. No stars - at least none that are visible. But darkness will fall as it inevitably does.
Then I will make my wish.
It will involve Kate Brewster and a long, red-hot poker.
THURSDAY
There have been changes at school in my absence. Bags are now checked at the entrance for diet pills and illegal supplements as well as guns and knives. A legacy of Louise Vandervelt's premature demise.
One girl has her laxatives confiscated. She protests bitterly.
"But I need them! I'm all bunged up. I can't poop. I can't poop at all!"
I know how she feels.
Inside there is a large photograph of Louise pinned to the noticeboard. It is bordered by dozens and dozens of small squares of white paper all of which have writing on.
"They're memorial cards," Becca explains, greeting me. "You write what you'd like to have said to Louise if you'd had the chance. Here, read mine."
Dear Louise
I will always treasure the times we spent together sharing our hopes and dreams. I pray that wherever you are you have found the peace and tranquility that eluded you in life.
Bless
Becca
"You should write one, Cam."
"No."
"Go on. Everybody has. Even people she was really really mean to - and that's most of the school."
I take a pen and a blank card and am about to write something when the pen is suddenly snatched out of my hand by a furious Alexis.
"This isn't for you! It's for her friends, not weirdos!"
"It's a free country!" Becca shouts. "You're not the boss of Cameron."
This is true. John is the boss of me.
"Keep your ugly ginger head out of this!"
"You really are obsessed with the colour of my hair. Why is that, Lex? We all know you dye your hair blonde. You get spray tans and schedule a bikini wax twice as often as the rest of us. Omigod - that's it! That's why. You're one of us! You're a closet-reddie!"
"NO! YOU LIE! I'LL KICK YOUR ASS!"
Alexis launches herself at Becca and they fall to the floor, arms and legs entangled as they struggle for dominance.
Human females rarely fight and seldom well. It is mostly slapping and scratching and hairpulling amid much shrieking. The pressure points on the human body where maximum pain can be inflicted are ignored. It is pathetic really. Pitiful.
I bend down and separate them lifting Becca with one hand while shoving Alexis away with the other. Alexus slides across the floor, bowling over several students before striking the wall at the far end of the corridor.
"Miss Baum!"
Principal Snyder arrives. He sounds mad.
"The three of you. My office. Now!"
PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE
The three of us sit in front of Principal Snyder's desk. He glowers at us.
"I could scarcely believe my eyes. Three students, three young ladies, brawling like thugs in front of the whole school."
"She started it!" Alexis blurts out.
"Are you retarded? You attacked me!"
"You called me a reddie!"
"It's not a crime to have red hair!"
"Well it should be!"
"Silence! I realise the tragic death of Miss Vandervelt has affected you profoundly, but that is no excuse for fighting in the corridors."
"But she started it!"
"Liar!"
"Enough! All three of you will do two hours detention after school today. Argue over who did what in your own freetime."
"But sir, cheerleading practice is every Tuesday and Thursday."
"Cheerleading is cancelled for the time being. I feel it is inappropriate given the circumstances."
"But that's not fair!"
"Miss Sternhagen, are you the principal of this school?"
"No sir, but----"
"Nor are you likely to be given your grades rarely rise above the mediocre. I understand you wish to attend Tulane? Then I suggest you concentrate on your studies and less on pom-poms for the foreseeable future."
"Yes, sir."
"Miss Shaughnessy. Your grades are better and your general demeanour much improved this semester. You're finally coming out of your shell. Don't backslide now."
"No, sir. Thank you."
"And the enigmatic Miss Baum. If half the things I've read about you on Facebook were true I'd be very concerned."
"...Ulp!.."
Alexis begins coughing.
"Something wrong, Miss Sternhagen?"
"You were on Facebook?"
"Yes, school principal's can use Facebook too, strange though it may seem. I came across a page entitled we-hate-cameron-baum. There I read the following, and I quote, 'I hate her she's a superstrong freaky freakazoid who eats babies and probably has a boy's dinkle.'"
"I didn't post that!" Alexis shouts her face reddening.
"So you're not superhotlexie911?"
"Er---no. It must be another lexie who's - er- superhot."
"I'm pleased to hear it. Such malicious lies would deserve the gravest punishment. As for Miss Baum, your test scores in math and the sciences are the best I've ever seen. CalTech or MIT are well within reach. It would be a shame if your behaviour meant I couldn't recommend you to these august institutions."
Principal Snyder stares at me but I say nothing. CalTech and MIT will be radiactive rubble in a few short years, home only to small invertebrate creatures who bask in the warmth. August institutions? Hardly.
"Very well. You are dismissed. Please proceed to your classes in an orderly manner."
DETENTION
There are four of us in detention: myself, Becca, Alexis and a senior boy in a letterman jacket whose name I do not know but is on the school football team. Then a fifth person arrives.
"John!"
"Hey, Becca."
"What are you doing here?"
"I went to ask Snyder why my sister was in trouble and ended up calling him a jackass."
"You called Snyder a jackass? Dude, you rock!" the football player grins. "I'm here 'cause I mooned the hockey team."
"Eww, gross!" Alexis' face creases in disgust.
"Eat me, blondey."
"You wish!"
A teacher enters the classroom. He is tall and well built and wearing a tan jacket with leather patches on the elbows. I do not recognise him but then I have not met all the teachers on the faculty.
"Please remain seated. I am Mr Whitford. I will be taking detention today."
"Yo dude, where's Mr Wiesler?" asks the boy whose name I do not know. "Mr Wiesler normally takes detention."
"Mr Wiesler is unwell. I will now take rollcall. Please indicate if you are present or absent."
"Dude, how can we indicate if we're absent? Doesn't make sense."
"Shaughnessy, Rebecca."
"Here."
"Sternhagen, Alexis."
"Hel-lo? Duh!"
"Redman, Wayne."
"Yo!"
"Baum, Cameron."
"Here."
"Baum, John."
"Here."
Mr Whitford closes the register and reaches for something hidden beneath the lip of the desk.
A pump-action shotgun.
He aims directly at John and fires. John leaps sideways at the last possible moment. His desk explodes in a hail of wood splinters.
Screams. Shouting. Confusion. John in the doorway unharmed and yelling, "Everybody this way! Now! Hurry!"
The others scramble out the door. I move to engage Whitford. We grapple in the center of the room, causing desks and chairs to shatter into matchwood around us. Whitford is a T-888. Not the smartest terminator ever built but strong and durable. A more than worthy opponent. He slams me into a wall which collapses covering me with chunks of heavy masonry. Plaster dust fills the room and the T-888 is gone. After the others. After John.
I shift the largest pieces of masonry and stand up. Red warning icons blink in my HUD. My left arm is down to 83 per cent efficiency. A handicap sustained early in the battle. I must do better. I must prevail.
The corridor is empty. The nearest exit door has heavy chains around the handles. Whitford's doing. He is containing the prey - John. It is what I would have done had I been the hunter.
PURSUIT
At the next exit I find the footballer, Wayne Redman. He has the blank, glazed look that human's often acquire when subjected to severe trauma.
"Freaking teacher's gone postal," he tells me in a dull monotone voice. "I'm only here for flashing the hockey team. I didn't mean any harm and no one saw my wiener. I just flashed my butt cheeks. I don't deserve to get shot for that, do I?"
I agree it is a cruel and unusual punishment.
"Where are the others?" I ask.
"Freaking teacher's gone postal," he replies cryptically and turns towards the exit door.
This exit isn't chained like the previous one. Instead a cable has been spliced from the building's main powerline and attached to the metal door handles. A booby-trap. By clutching them he completes the circuit.
The human body is 70 per cent water and thus an excellent conductor of electricity. Wayne Redman's body stiffens then begins to vibrate. The air becomes tainted with the smell of ozone and scorching flesh. Smoke tendrils rise from his eyes, nostrils and mouth as the moisture is boiled from within by the immense release of energy. I do nothing. I do not feel fear but my kind are wary of high voltage electricity which can cause my CPU to shutdown and leave me vulnerable during the reboot.
It is over soon enough. Wayne Redman topples backwards and stares unseeing at the ceiling. His body continues to smoke.
One down.
I know Whitford's MO as if it is my own: contain, pursue, terminate. But I also know John's MO. He will attempt to find safe hiding places for the two girls then use himself as bait to lure Whitford away so the innocents can escape. John is always placing others before himself. He is foolish that way.
Without the daytime crush of crowded classrooms and students milling about in the halls and corridors the school feels larger than it normally does. This is an error of perception. The school's physical dimensions remain the same. But it is what John would call spooky.
Near the maths classroom, empty with its rows of computers silent and idle, I find a pair of girl's shoes. Black. Size 8. Becca takes this size while Alexis takes a size 10, a fact I know from the pedicure session at Louise's house. I hypothesize she lost them accidentally in the flight from danger or deliberately discarded them in order to run more freely. I conclude the former is more probable.
I turn a corner and spot a dead body lying in the middle of the corridor. Half the head is missing from severe gunshot trauma but I do not require my facial recognition software to make an identification. The long mane of blonde hair is sufficient.
Alexis.
Two down.
I reach a junction where the main hallway splits off into three corridors each leading to a different part of the school. There is no indication of which one John, Becca or Whitford ventured down. I will have to choose one and rely on luck, that most mysterious of human concepts, to lead me in the correct direction.
Or is there another way?
The shoes...
Becca is now barefoot. Her feet are warmer than the cold floor tile. I switch my visual display to infra red. Yes, faint but still visible are her smudged footprints, thermal traces that show up white in my HUD. They head down the left corridor. So do I.
The science block. A corridor. Two flights of stairs. Another corridor. The thermal footprints lead me on. Round another corner then--------
"Cameron!"
John and Becca. John is knelt before a classroom door trying to pick the lock. I switch back to my normal visual mode. The footprints vanish but they have served their purpose.
"Cam, open this door as quietly as you can."
The doors to the science block classrooms are kept locked when not in use because of the expensive technical equipment stored inside. But locks can be broken. I do so with ease.
"Do you have a plan?" I ask John.
"I think so."
"Is it dangerous?"
"The best ones usually are."
THE PLAN
Inside John goes from desk to desk opening the valves of the small gas nozzles that students use to connect bunsen burner's rubber hoses to in order to conduct physics experiments. The valves make a soft hissing sound as they slowly fill the room with gas.
"Everybody in the storeroom."
We squeeze into the storeroom at the back of the classroom.
"Is this door solid enough?" John asks me.
I examine the door. Thick plywood with a small glass window at head height. I have guessed what John has in mind and do the necessary calculations.
"I believe so. If I brace it."
"Good. Take off your jacket."
I do so. John stuffs it in the gap between door and floor preventing any gas from entering. Becca sits hugging her legs at the rear of the storeroom. Like Wayne Redman she too has a blank and uncomprehending look on her face. At least she is not crying. She is fond of crying. Too fond. There is a time and place and now is not it.
We wait. John checks his watch. Three minutes have elapsed.
"Okay, long enough. Ready?"
I brace myself against the door. "Affirmative."
"It's showtime."
John put his fingers in his mouth and expels air, emitting a loud high-pitched whistle. He does so four times. On the fifth the classroom door bursts open and Whitford enters. John allows himself to be seen in the door window. Whitford raises the shotgun and fires.
The gas in the room explodes.
The door splinters but holds firm with my help. The glass window shatters allowing a gout of flame to enter yet pass harmlessly overhead.
"Out! We don't have much time."
The classroom is wrecked. The force of the explosion has shattered the windows and set anything flammable ablaze.
"Flip it over!"
Whitford is flat on his back, his CPU in the process of rebooting. The explosion has flayed the pseudo-flesh from his body revealing the silvery endo-skeleton. What little flesh remains is on fire.
"How long?"
"A further 20 seconds before the reboot is complete."
John prises open the chip guard at the base of the T-888's neck. I extract the chip and toss it in the flames. It burns white hot then subsides to harmless ash. Its threat is over.
John and Becca are coughing. Smoke fills the room. The doorway we entered through is now ablaze, burning with an intense heat even I dare not approach without sustaining serious damage. For them it would be fatal. But so would staying where we are.
"Listen. We go out the window. It's our only option. Cam, throw the triple-8 out then follow it. Then Becca jumps and you catch her. Same with me. Go!"
Despite the inferno and the prospect of a hideous death John is calm and assured, instinctively issuing orders he knows are correct and will be obeyed. He reminds me of...him. Years from now. He is becoming Future John before my eyes, gradually assuming the mantle of greatness. If a machine could feel pride I would feel it now.
I do as ordered, my quadrocep-pistons easily absorbing the impact of landing. Becca is next but is being obstinate in jumping from a two-storey building. She is selfish that way. Finally John resorts to pushing her off. She screams and flails her arms until I catch and lower her gently to the ground where she sobs uncontrollably. John follows without delay.
"Hand me your car keys," he orders Becca. Then to me, "Pick that thing up; it's coming with us."
I stow Whitford in the trunk of the Maserati then join John in the front seats. Becca sits behind with a soot-stained face and bedraggled hair.
"What was that thing?"
"I'll explain later," John replies tersely.
In the distance comes the sound of sirens.
"Why aren't we waiting for the police?"
"I'll explain that later too."
"My feet hurt. I lost my shoes."
"I'll buy you a new pair."
"They're Chanel. Very expensive."
"Then you might have to settle for Crocs."
DESERT
Night. The desert beyond Los Angeles. Cold and barren, illuminated by the light of the full moon. Humans call it a Hunter's moon. Only this time the hunter has been defeated and the prey victorious. Don't you love it when that happens?
John steers the Maserati off the road and across the desert hardpan, stopping only when we are far enough from the highway not to be visible to passing traffic. He douses the headlights.
"Where are we?" Becca asks, peering out into the darkness. "This looks like the middle of nowhere."
We need to dispose of - ah - Mr Whitford."
"I'm not stupid. I know that thing isn't human. Tell me what's really going on or I'm going to start screaming."
"There is no one to hear you scream," I inform her.
"Oh God, you're going to kill me, aren't you?" Her lip trembles. "You're going to kill me and bury me in the desert!"
John says, "No one's killing anyone." He sighs. "Let me put Cameron to work then I'll explain."
We exit the vehicle. John pops the trunk and I remove the T-888 and lay it on the ground.
"Dig a hole and bury it deep," he instructs me. He glances at Becca watching from the car. "I'm going to have to tell her. Not everything but some."
"And if she goes to the authorities?"
He shrugs. "Then she does. I'm not in the business of murdering teenage girls."
"I----"
"And neither are you."
REVELATIONS
There is no shovel so I dig using my hands to scoop out the desert soil. No biggie.
John tells Becca as much as he dares. He keeps it simple: robots in human guise who will kill people to rule the world. He omits mentioning time travel or Judgement Day. He tells her the future is not set but winds ahead of us always tantalisingly out of reach the way a road unwinds beyond the cone of a vehicle's headlights, unseen and mysterious but there nonetheless guiding us. Solid yet malleable. Fate. In our hands.
Becca walks over to watch me dig the hole. She bends down and pokes at the ground with her fingers.
"This ground is hard as nails but it's like you're making sandcastles at Malibu. How can you do that with your bare hands?"
John tosses me a small penknife. "Show her. She deserves to know the truth."
I roll up my sleeve and make a t-shaped incision in my left forearm, peeling back the pseudo-flesh to reveal the inner workings. I flex my fingers so that she can see the coltan rods moving in their lubricated sheaths.
"She's like that thing. A robot."
"A TOK-275 class terminator."
"Oh God - my best friend's a robot and I never knew!" She begins to sob. "What does that say about me? I'm so stupid I don't deserve to live!"
John grips her shoulders and shakes her so hard that her teeth click together. This stops the sobbing.
"Listen to me. Cameron's programmed to protect me. But she chose you as her friend of her own free will. You know how rare that is? These things don't make friends. They're not sociable. They don't pal around. You managed something unique. You befriended a terminator."
"Really? Wait. She's a gay robot! Omigod - we showered naked together! She's a Lez-Bot!"
"She's not a Lez-Bo---When did you shower together?"
"After cheerleader practice. We don't go home smelly and sweaty. Duh. We're not boys."
"There are no gay robots."
"No Lez-Bots?"
"No Lez-bots."
"Not even switch hitters like Anne Heche?"
"No. Trust me."
"So what do we do now?"
"You're going back to school."
"What? No way! Suppose there are more of them?"
"There won't be. They know I won't return. You tell the police you managed to escape, then panicked and drove off."
"Suppose they ask about - them?"
"As far as you know Whitford was a crazy nut on a killing spree."
"Freaking teacher's gone postal," I add recounting Wayne Redman's final words.
"Suppose they ask about you and Cameron?"
"We got separated. You don't know what happened to us."
"Why can't I tell them the truth?"
"Because no one will believe you. My mom tried that and they locked her in a psyche ward."
"But Cameron could go on Oprah and cut open her arm and show people it's for real."
John shakes his head. "No."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"Move. Regroup. Fight back. Same old same old."
"Let me come with you. I won't be a burden. I'm still got most of the money we won in Vegas."
"It's no kind of life. And you've got family, school, college."
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Is this all Bill Gates' fault?"
John smiles. "No, it's not Bill Gates' fault."
"Steve Jobs? Because I'll ditch my MacBook in the trash."
"No single individual is to blame. It's just...however hard we try and whatever we do...shit happens."
DEPARTURES
We drive to a 24 hour vehicle rental agency in Burbank where John hires the largest SUV they have. I stay in the Maserati with Becca.
"I saw Alexis get shot. She's dead, isn't she?"
"Yes," I confirm.
"She lost her head."
"I know. It was all over the corridor."
"I mean she panicked and wouldn't go with John and me. She ran straight back into danger and that thing shot her. She never was very bright."
A single tear runs down Becca's cheek. She has cried so long and often recently that it is likely her internal reservoir is dry.
"She wanted to marry Zac Efron one day. I don't suppose that'll happen now."
I agree it is unlikely since this Zac Efron is likely to prefer a wife with a head.
"Poor Lex. First Louise now her. D'you think they're together up in Heaven?"
"I have no data on the outcome of human faith rituals."
"I bet they are. They'll be giving Jesus a hard time for wearing sandals and having a beard." She smiles sadly. "You wait, by the end of the week he'll be clean shaven and wearing Armani!"
We watch the night traffic flow past. Humans going about their ordinary lives oblivious to the threat they face to their very existence.
"So you've got a computer chip for a brain."
"Yes."
"That explains the math. What about languages? You kill at French. How many languages do you speak?"
"All of them."
"All of them? Even the weirdy Chinese ones?"
"I am fluent in ten Mandarin dialects and twelve Cantonese."
"Wow. And you'll never grow old?"
"No."
"No butt dragging along the ground when you're forty."
"Why would I drag my butt along the ground?"
"Gravity mostly. And Dunkin' Donuts."
"Who is Duncan Donuts?"
Becca smiles. "Doesn't matter. Can you fall in love or feel emotions?"
I hesitate. "No." I lie.
"Bummer."
"Yes. Bummer."
"Will I see you again?"
"It is safer if you don't."
"I don't care if you're a termy-nator. You're still my friend."
"I am?"
"We're biffs. BFF, remember."
John taps the side window and I get out and join him in the rented SUV. We watch as Becca puts the Maserati in gear and drives away, the green sportscar fitting seamlessly into traffic.
"Why did she think I was a Lez-bot?"
"I think she's been lonely for so long she found it difficult to believe someone could be her friend without an ulterior motive."
"I see. Thank you for explaining."
"I hope she keeps it together. The cops are gonna grill her hard. She's their only witness."
"Without evidence the police will not believe the truth."
"They'll lock her up in a psych ward."
"Then I will break her out."
John glances sharply across at me. "How come?"
"We're biffs. BFF, remember."
"Right." He smiles. "Best Friends Forever."
"Oh," I say, surprised. "Is that what it means?"
The safe house is dark and empty. Before we go inside John calls Sarah Connor in Orange County to inform her what has occured. Predictably her orders are blunt and forthright: get the hell out of Dodge. We are not in Dodge, a large urban connurbation in Kansas, but I deduce she wishes us to leave immediately.
"You grab the guns and ammo and I'll collect our clothes. Leave the kitchen stuff; we'll buy new."
With all the guns and ammunition stowed the SUV rides noticeably lower on its shocks. John arrives with two heavy suitcases which he places on the back seats.
"Mom called again. It's all over the news channels. Apparently the science block burned down. That's good news."
"It is?"
"If they think we perished in the fire they won't coming looking for us. Who goes looking for dead people?"
I agree it is a fruitless task.
"And Whitford really was a teacher. He was a supply teacher here in LA. I guess the Triple -8 killed him and assumed his identity. Just like Cromartie in New Mexico."
"Where we first met."
"Yeah. They're repeating themselves pulling the same stunt twice."
"If at first you don't succeed..."
"Try try again. Maybe it's time to give school a miss. Fly under the radar."
"Won't you miss school?"
"Oh yeah, it's a real heartbreaker."
I sense sarcasm but say nothing.
"Ready to roll?"
I need to retrieve something."
Hurry up. I want to be on the Interstate before it gets light."
In my room I reach under the bed I never slept in and withdraw my journal from its hiding place. What started as a school project is now fat and bulging with recollections of my activities over the past year. It has been interesting to document my life in this manner, ink on paper instead of bytes in RAM. It has made me feel almost...human.
-000-
I presume American schools have bunsen burners? In England we have gas taps on the desks where you attach the rubber hose. If not, my bad.
Wayne Redman. First to die. Red-man. Trekkies will get it.
This is where I planned to end it. But I am writing more chapters. Sometimes you think you're done with a story but the story's not done with you.