So this will be like the Halloween party and is going to be broken into two parts.
Warning like before this one will be disturbing just from the psychological perspective of being in a Mental Hospital for the criminally insane. So you have been warned!
Tales from the Mad House, Part 1
The blinding sunlight of the last of the afternoon gave the mostly bland sterile hallway of Pescadero Mental Hospital for the criminally insane, an orange tint to its emotionless white hue.
With purposeful clacking, patrol boots belonging to a LAPD officer silenced the muffled shrieks and incessant babbling of the prisoners in their cells thrashing about like wild animals. Others pressed their faces to the glass watching the hallway with sharp crazed eyes. Some looked just to catch a glimpse of the outside world, others because they feared that the government or aliens (some were of the opinion they are one in the same.) would come for them if they didn't keep a more watchful eye.
The police woman didn't pay any mind as she casually strolled from her former destination, the broom closet in section 5 to the therapy rooms, where the doctors held their sessions in attempts to *cure* their patients of the mental inflictions that caused the murder of entire families and the voices that encourage them to blow away government buildings.
Her walk was effortless and purposeful like a horse. Her hair was tucked into an elegant bun and her otherwise angelic face was covered by an eye patch.
After a short elevator ride she exited the lift into a hallway of doors each where evenly spaced and grouped together in twos.
She walked causally forward till she stopped in front of a door guarded by two staff members in white polo shirts and slacks, which offset with there black nightsticks.
"your presence is flattering, but unneeded gentleman …" the young woman had a sweet innocence to her voice that made the two security guards smile at the clear naivety of the attractive girl in front of them.
"Sorry, officer … Wardens order, we're suppose to have an eye on this patient on all times. The "Doc" has been acting up since he got here, encouraging riots and other bullshit amongst the patients.
"I understand … but you must understand that I have to ask both of you to stay were you are, this is a matter of police business." She smiled softly.
"Whatever you say, baby girl." The older lead guard winked at her. She nodded and reached for the door.
"Hey what happened to your eye?" the younger of the two blurted out at her, afterward he received a forceful nudge from his superior.
The girl opened the door to the darkened interrogation room.
"I gave it to my son, when I gouged his out." She answered with a pleasant smile and walked inside, leaving the guards pondering if she was making a joke.
The Inside of the room was dark with the windows reflecting a strange purple hue of the dying day onto a heavy metallic table.
The girl walked in and spotted a short older man with medium length thinned silver hair and crazed eyes.
"Good evening Doctor Silberman …" she greeted the figure with a sweet smile. The man clicked at her.
"Please don't call me that name … I'm the Sheppard rounding up the lost sheep of the prophet into the flock." He reprimanded her.
"Yes, I've heard that you've been recruiting inmates …" she sat in the metal seat.
"I've not been "Recruiting" them." he said with disgust. "I've merrily been gathering the faithful and believers for the day when we shall smite the enemy of our prophet." He lectured her sitting in the chair.
"Warden Waller says that your tenured insight into the criminal mind has given you the ability to prey on the patients mental states here, preaching during parlor time. She says that your sermons often times leads to revolts." She tilted her head.
"What can I say?" he shrugged with prideful humility. "The word of Sarah Connor our holy mother has a strong resonance with the residents of this establishment that breeds the fruits of the evils of our enemy." His smile was crazed and there was something devout and dangerous in his eyes at the mention of the name.
"You're aware of the Skynet facility in the basement?" she asked.
"Yes, very much so." There was a righteous fervor to his angry tone. The girl leaned into the table to address the man quietly.
"What if I told you I have the means to let you do something about it?"
Cameron sat silently at one of the collections of wooden tables in the cramped public library. In front of her sat a box that wasn't addressed to her.
She didn't feel to guilty stealing Sarah's mail, but since it was addressed to Sarah Connor and not Sarah Baum and it was set on the step of the back door and not at the front, Cameron deemed as head of family security that she should analyze it before giving it to its rightful owner.
"Hey … you're early."
A young man with curly blond hair and a patchy beard in a wheel chair rolled up to her. She smiled at him.
"No doughnuts tonight?" Eric joked, looking at the postage box in front of her.
Cameron shook her head.
"I'm sorry … I was waiting on someone here, since before closing time … I hid in the bathroom during Joyce's last sweep." She explained. "If I had known that I was going to be here this long I would have brought some." There was a small hint of apology to her voice.
"It's alright …" he chuckled. "I'm not that hungry tonight anyway." He sighed. Cameron tilted her head in interest at his comment. Feeling a little nervous at the cold analyzing stare he was getting from the girl he cleared his throat.
"So … You're friend never showed?" he wheeled to the opposite side of the table to face his friend. Cameron shrugged.
"He will …" she assured him.
There was a jealous frown that played across the young man's face as he learned that she was waiting on a male.
"So you were meeting a guy here." He tried to sound casual as he opened his book on enlightened age Russia.
"Yes" she caught the strained tone of his voice. "Does that displease you?" Cameron asked confused at the hidden tone.
Eric looked flustered at her questions and cleared his throat.
"No … no, no, no … I was just miffed because …" he took a nervous pause. "What Jerk could stand up a beautiful girl like you?" he finished with a shaky smile that Cameron returned.
"A busy one …"
A deep voice echoed to the couple from the shadows of one of the rows of book shelves. Turning their heads, Ryan came out of the shadows. The handsome man had deep black circles under his eyes, which one couldn't tell if it was from a lack of sleep or from a fist of a random thug working for Skynet or a killing machine working for the former.
Cameron stood as he approached. He gave a lightened look to the beautiful girl as if her appearance was a shine of sunlight in the eye of a hurricane.
"You can't imagine what it feels like to see you right now …" he chuckled tiredly enveloping her in a hug, burying his head into her curled hair in childlike comfort. The cyborg stood awkwardly, not sure what the appropriate response to this was. When the soldier didn't feel her mold into the loving hug Ryan cleared his throat and released her waist. "Sorry old habits …anyway you said it was important." he said awkwardly and placed his hands in his leather jacket pockets.
"It's alright … and yes." she commented, feeling as if she might have missed a chance to connect to apart of her future that seemed to be avoiding her.
Eric sat watching the two with suspicion, seeing as how the man seemed a little more than a decade older than Cameron, though they seemed to have a similar face that made him think they must be close family.
"How did you get in here?" He asked rolling toward them. "I locked the doors …" he admitted.
"Place has windows … lots of them." Ryan shrugged standing next to Cameron.
"I hope this doesn't bother you." Cameron followed on her future child's comment.
There were a lot of things that Eric would like to say bothered him about the situation, but it seemed as if he could never say no to the girl.
"No … I guess not." He huffed giving Ryan a once over as if trying to measure him up. The soldier lifted an eyebrow at the younger man.
Cameron opened the box and was about to extract the item when she stopped and both future Connor's looked at the wheel chair ridden man.
"Hey hot rod … don't you have some books to stack or something?" Ryan asked with an arrogant and annoyed tone at the lingering grad student. Cameron shot her counter part a chastising glare.
"Eric can you please give us a moment in private?" she asked with an apologetic tone for the insensitive comment the captain made about the physically impaired man.
The cripple bit back on his anger, remembering the dismissive and abusive tone that was often taken with him during his time in high school by jocks.
"Yeah I can do that …" he growled and pushed himself away from them, commenting under his breath about losing another Cheerleader to the jerk.
There was a pause between the two as they watched him disappear into the reference section.
"Weird guy …" Ryan turned back to his mother with a half smirk; it however disappeared at the sight of the girl with a look of displeasure. "What?" he half chuckled.
"I wish you wouldn't put down and insult him …" she addressed Ryan with a pleading voice. "He's my only friend … I don't wish to lose him." There was an almost sad look on her face that caused Ryan's heart to flinch.
"Alright …" he said with a quiet and guilty tone. She smiled softly at her word being uncontested by him.
After they shared a nod Cameron reached back into the box and pulled out a musty smelling white straight jacket that was clearly designed for a woman and the reinforced padding showed signs that whoever it was meant for could be violent.
"This came for Sarah … I know what it is, but I don't know what it's implying?" Cameron held it aloft for the soldier to examine it. He motioned her to give it to him.
"It's the one they use to force Sarah in when she was locked up." He examined the older looking piece of restring clothing. Cameron tilted her head.
"How do you know?" she asked with interest. He motioned to the black spray painted numbers at the hem of the outer wear.
"I read her file and remembered her patient number." He said off handedly, turning the article of clothing over and over in his hands.
Cameron looked at it with a hard glare giving it a scan.
:"I don't understand what it's suppose to mean other then to taunt or remind Sarah of her time away from John." She glowered with an emotional face that Ryan was sure she didn't know she was making.
"It's a clue to other a trap or to … well another clue." He replied placing it on the table.
"How do you figure?" Cameron was fully intrigued by this idea. Ryan snorted at the child like innocence of curiosity that he couldn't help but love about her.
"Well …" he sighed and crossed his arms. "The straight jacket mean's Pescadero …" He scratched his chin and studied the jacket.
"Obviously …" there was a tone of impatience in Cameron's voice that gave a tug at the corners of the soldier's lips.
"But if you look at the straps they're stapled instead of strung, and not only that they're office staples, which means the clue is an office, and most likely the Warden's office." He breathed tiredly.
"So the clue … or trap is in the warden's office at Pescadero." The cyborg concluded. Ryan shrugged at her hypothesis of his reasoning.
"It's what I get from it." he widened his eyes at her playfully in a way that Cameron has seen Sarah do a million times which made her wonder if it was an inherited tick.
"I should purse it." she claimed stuffing the straight jacket back in the box neatly. Ryan gripped her arm lightly.
"I?" he said with a doubtful voice. Cameron frowned at the rhetorical question she didn't pick up on.
"Yes, I should pursue this lead … it's what is entailed in my job requirement as head of security." She deadpanned.
"No … I'll follow this one up, I've been working this angle for several months now I wouldn't mind taking a crack at closing this down once and for all." He said with a gruff to his voice that made him sound more vengeful then clear thinking. After a beat he caught on to his actions and sighed calmly. "Plus …" he brushed some hair behind her ear lazily. "It could be nothing." He tried to smile to sell his point.
"You could be wrong?" Cameron turned her head slightly at the concept that they just could be grasping at nothing. Ryan chuckle amusingly.
"It's been known to happen once in a blue moon." He grinned roughly.
There was a silence of finality between them, before Ryan moved again and wrapped the girl in tight embrace. This time Cameron molded to it like she had seen John and Sarah do on occasion by wrapping her arms around his neck. It was nice and warm feeling to be hugged by the right person and Cameron concluded that in some circumstances this might even be comforting, which was now why she understood why human's did it.
"It could be nothing?" she repeated to make sure he was sure about what he was about to embark on. He gave her one last tight squeeze. Then he released her waist.
"It could be nothing …" he gave her cheek a stroke and reassured her again. It sometimes surprised Ryan just how good of a liar he could be. Both nodded and Ryan removed his hand and gave a deep breath. "Keep an eye out on things …" he patted her waist and walked toward the exit.
Just as Ryan was leaving, Eric rolled back in wearing a sweater over his double layered clothing.
"Hey, remember to make a pit stop after every thirty laps okay hot wheels."
"Screw you, you arrogant dick!"
"No one believes me …"
In the cold therapy room that looked strangely like a interrogation room a beautiful young woman lay her weary head on the even colder metal table. Her long sleek curls splayed on the table where shined with lingering beads of sweat from her twice daily work out in her cell.
"Well, Sarah if there were machines from the future wouldn't there be any proof?" the intellectually arrogant, yet always sympathetic voice of Dr. Silberman echoed to the hopeless woman.
Sarah looked up, her green eyes dazed from the drugs they forced her to take before coming to these spectacles. She turned to the mirror behind Silberman. Through her white tank top and aqua scrub pants of her reflection she knew that there was a gaggle of medical students watching behind it, taking meticulous notes like little kids at the zoo clutching there ticket stubs with excitement to see a dangerous predator of the jungle up close.
Just like the animal she felt kinship to, Sarah felt trapped and beaten, deprived of her freedom and thing that make her who she was, her cub.
It was only a week ago that she was informed by the smug bastard across from her that they had finally caught John somewhere nearby. He was sneaking around stealing the blue prints for the infrastructure of Pescadero, ripping off ATM machines and showering at a local university community bath.
"Well Sarah I guess that concludes today …" He turned to the mirror. "Stop recording" he announced. "Everyone meet me in the conference room." he announced.
The young woman sat alone at the table, while the older man shuffles his notes into his brief case. She glared as she watched him; most shrinks would have guards stand inside while they were alone with a prisoner, but not Silberman, he was everyone's friend, your knight in shining armor from the mean guards. Sarah didn't buy the act she was smart enough to know that it was a classic good cop, bad cop routine that was imposed to farther treatment of the monsters around her.
"I want to see John." She said to him desperately, the drugs making her say things in ways that weren't her. Silberman smiled at her as if she was a little girl who wanted a pony.
"Sarah … I don't think you're ready for that, especially after you broke Debra's nose." All he had to do to complete the condensation was to pat her on the head and give her a sticker.
"That sick bitch tried to rape me with her night stick in the showers!" she said with outrage of not only the facts that no one wanted to believe, but that Silberman just smiled at her claim.
"Sarah I know you need an outlet for the violence in you, but taking it out on the guards isn't the answer." He sat down on the side of the table near her and smiled that sickening smile full of kindness and care.
"Please, John needs me, without me there's no where that's safe for him, no where but in my arms." Sarah tried the sympathy card. Then in that moment, Sarah saw it.
The first sign of corruption in the infallible Thomas Silberman, her plea's of hopelessness and need brought a burning light of sadism and lust in his eyes. Though it was slight it was a small personal victory for her to finally find something grueling and ugly in the man that exposed the power hungry attention seeker she wanted the world to see, but most importantly she wanted him to see.
"John shouldn't be exposed to the kind of madness that Kyle … exposed to you, that broke you." There was a distance in his voice that sounded as if he was outing his inner thoughts into a monologue.
Sarah wanted him to pay for the last two and half years, for making people believe that Kyle, "Her Soldier" had broken her down psychologically and brainwashed her into his occult thinking of machines and Judgment day. She had over heard him tell his students that he wished he could have gotten to the Young teenage beauty from the psychotic criminal Kyle Reese before he gave the gentle rose her poisonous thorns. She wondered if he even remembered that he walked out of the building before the 101 attacked the station and that she saw him hiding in his car before they escaped, or had he told that story so many times he had started to believe it himself.
"Please … Please, I'm begging you, I'll do anything." Sarah knew she had him where she wanted. The doctor looked at her and reached out and gently rubbed his thumb on her lower lip.
"You were so beautiful when I first saw you … like a rose … oh, Sarah what a woman you could you've been if you hadn't been plucked from the field of innocence and withered in the waterless climate of madness?" he monologued, looking in her eyes with a crazed haze that made Sarah wonder if it was too cliché to wonder if the nuts really were running the nut house.
"Please …" she whispered a faked gasp as he stroked her neck with both hands. "Convince the board to let me see John and I'll let you prick your finger and show you that I have no poison in me." She added fake tears to suck him in.
"Tonight …" he whispered in her ear and started to nibbled a little.
Sarah smiled because after two and a half years she was back in the driver's seat.
"Mom!"
Sarah snapped out of her walking nightmare and was back sitting at the dinning room table with the tacked map of her very own nine circles of hell spread in front of her.
John was leaning forward on the table in a black T-Shirt under a black fatigue button down and pants. She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Derek in a blue doctor's scrub shirt looming over her.
"Sarah, you here?" he asked quietly. He knew that what they were about to do was extremely dangerous and just like with Century City Mall for him, the return to Pescadero would be just as hard for Sarah to step inside.
"I'm here Reese …" she said sternly shrugging off his comforting hand on her aqua scrub top. "Just run that by me one more time." she nodded to John.
The young man hadn't wanted to do this, it had been out of the blue several days ago when Sarah came up to him and said that she wanted to level Pescadero's research center that was now serving Skynet's dark purposes. John was surprised and a little shocked; he hadn't heard his mother utter the name of the asylum for five long years.
He had been skeptical from the beginning of her claims, seeing that sometimes under stress or deep emotional pressure his mom would go on dangerous tangent like missions that sometimes made no sense. When she showed him her proof he was still skeptical, but not because he still didn't believe her, but because she was stealing her Intel from Ryan who had marked on the map and had things pegged. He would have asked his future officer what everything was, but apparently it was suppose to be a secret just between the two of them until everything was planned out.
"One more time …" he looked annoyed. "To have any sort of lab there has to be two area's, the lab it self and the place where they keep the research." He clicked his pen while Sarah chewed on the info. "So, in the stuff that Ryan stole, that we in turn stole from him, there was an Id badge which I copied for all four of us." John passed out the fake laminated ID's to Derek and Sarah with their picture and information on the side of a bar code.
"John, why do you have a mustache?" Sarah looked over at her son's identification card. The teen shrugged.
"Sort of a photo shop error and I ran with it." he shrugged. Sarah smirked while Derek just shook his head.
"Now these will give us access to the lab stuff, but probably not through the front door so that's why me and Cameron, when she gets back, will be posing as Security guards that are escorting Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Baum inside to start their fist shift at the hospital." He smiled at the two of them as if a little kid teasing the boy and girl in class that liked each other.
"If your ID's are as fake as ours then what makes you think that you'll get in if the guy at the front gate doesn't recognize you" Derek quirked an eyebrow with his question.
"Well … me and Cameron are already in the system and start our shift in an hour and half." There was a cheesy hacker smile on the teens face as he continued to one up his uncle.
"And the explosives that are going to be stuffed in out Change of clothing duffle bags?" Sarah asked.
"Did I mention that we're working security at the metal detectors?" he asked casually.
A proud and satisfied grin broke on Sarah's face, it was something that made John smile triumphantly, but it was quickly lessened when he saw Derek seem to give him a passive look that said that he was not surprised, as if it was something that was expected of John. However there was obedience to his uncle's stare that made John feel in complete control of the mission, which scared him.
The front door opened and closed, revealing Cameron walking in with a white box in hand.
"Fill girlie in …" Sarah ran a hand through John's hair as she passed, while Derek followed in step giving a slap to John's shoulder for the heck of it before exiting out of the dinning room. Cameron frowned in confusion at their scrubs.
"What's in the box?" John asked the girl who placed it on the table.
"Doughnuts …" she opened the box to reveal different flavored glazed treats.
"Awesome … victory snacks." He commented brightly looking over the pastries as if making dibs on his when he got back.
"Where are we going?" Cameron gave a good look at the blue print on the table.
"Close you're eyes and hold out your hands, I'm going to give you a present." he ordered, Cameron did as directed, while John bent down and picked something off the floor. He placed an item in her hands and smiled.
"Open them …" he said folding his arms. Cameron did so to find an all black baseball cap with the words Security emblazoned on it in deep yellow.
Cameron weighed it in her hands and observed it thoroughly and then smiled gratefully.
"It's a tight present John, I like the color and it states my job on it … I'll wear it when I go on patrol tonight." She innocently placed the cap on her head and slouched it like she had seen on television.
John laughed at her response, which caused her to tilt her head just a little in confusion.
"I bet if I got you a soda can you would find something about it to like …" he chuckled.
"Soda's are tasty." She agreed. John snickered.
"It's a joke …" he smiled affectionately. "The reason I gave you that is because we're going to go ahead and infiltrate Pescadero tonight."
When Cameron heard the name her face went blank a moment as if she had been shocked with a revelation of some sort.
"Something wrong …?" John lightly touched her shoulder. She turned at the touch and then smiled innocently at him as if she hadn't a worry in the world.
"It could be nothing."
Ray Parker walked out of the security staff locker room restroom accompanied by the sound of the flushing of a toilet. While he washed his hands he could hear distant screams of the patients a late night ritual that the security officer of only three months still hadn't gotten use to yet.
He on more of a mental level was grateful that he got to work outside all night and not inside. Parker would take the biting cold Southern California nights, then have to hear the caterwauling of the states worst psychotic killers all night.
After drying his hands on his Black fatigues, he walked into the night and made his way around the front to his station near the metal detector where he would gratefully be relieved by some John and Cameron Gale.
As he reached the locked double door entrance he turned with a sigh at the still quiet of the full harvest moon night and looked out at the main front gate of the barbwire fenced complex.
"What the hell?"
He gasped when saw that the guard station light off and the gate wide open. Reaching for his belt he pulled his walkie talkie. "Yo Gary … wake up man." He called to the old man that was near retirement on the other line of the frequency.
He paused when he got the echo of his voice on the other talkie near by. He frowned and neared the sound of the crackling of the frequency from a cove near some bushes by the building. When he reached the parallel crackle he saw Gary's walkie standing straight up in the middle of the street.
"What …?" he scratched his head just before a figure from the shadow of the building silently moved into the moonlight behind him.
A well placed punched to the man's kidney caused Parker to choke in pain, before the stranger snatched the guard by the neck from the front and turned as he pulled him down. With an iron grip, the assailant exerted pressure on the man's arties knocking him unconscious. Once out, the shadow snapped the clearance badge off the pocket of the man.
"Thanks …" Ryan waved it in front of Parker's face and stood up straight and walked to the locked double doors. Reaching the panel he slide the badge into the little access panel. There was a loud clunk as the door's unlocked automatedly. When there was a positive chirp, Ryan pushed the door open with his .45 drawn. He was however interested to find that there was no one else guarding the entrance.
In fact the entire main entrance was abandoned. Ryan turned up word to the security camera to find that the red light was completely off and the visual devise in was unmoving.
"Someone's cleared the way …" Ryan muttered as he cautiously walked down the colorless hallway and through the disabled metal detector. Reaching the head of the T like hallway he found an empty information desk that had a sign above it with names and arrows.
He followed the arrow that said administration.
It led him to a frosted over glass double doors. With another swipe of Parker's card into the access panel the doors clicked and slid open. The room behind the door was large, with two desks with computers that where running fish tank screen savers. The office was definitely different than the rest of the building. There was a rugged carpet and wooden paneling with desk lamps bathing the room in dim light.
On right side of the room sat a wooden door with a frosted glass window that said Chief of Staff While across on the left with an exact same door that said Warden. Ryan tried the door to the left walking slowly and indirectly.
From the glass door there was glow of fire from inside the office.
Not wasting anytime Ryan kicked open the door to find that the roaring fire was in fact contained in a fireplace. The entire office looked like a classic study from a house, with shelves of books on the wall and a painting of an African king over the fireplace.
"When Skynet remodels it sure doesn't spare expenses." The soldier commented out loud studying the office. With the flickering fire being the only light, Ryan had to navigate through the twisted shadows.
Feeling annoyed at the lack of light, but not wanting to flip any switches Ryan activated his cybernetic eye, which wired to life with a blue glow for a moment. Through night vision scan he saw a human body slumped over a large desk.
Carefully the officer inched his way to the desk where he found the body of a plump black woman in a blue business suite that looked pale and there was a decaying smell coming off her.
"Warden, Waller" he greeted sarcastically scanning the body for any booby traps. When she was clean he lifted an eyebrow. "Dead all day from the smell of you" he commented, examining the body. That's when he noticed a note gripped lightly in her hand as if it was placed there after she was killed.
Picking out of her grip he opened the note.
I Robot
"Huh …" Ryan gripped his chin a moment in thought before staring at the book shelf.
"Sounds like a book title."
With a buzzed rotation of his pupil he scanned the book shelves for titles and after a moment founded it.
I, Robot by Asimov
He marched carefully over and pulled out the book. He flipped through the dusty pages a moment till he noticed a red button inside it.
"This is other going to be really stupid of me or … yeah stupid." He cleared his throat and punched the red button.
There was a grinding noise and the fire disappeared bathing the windowless office in pitch black. Switching to infra-red he noticed that there was a ladder leading down to were the fire use to be. Ryan looked at the entrance, then the book.
"And who said machines don't have sense of humor?"
"Oh, Sarah …"
"Beautiful Sarah …"
Silberman was like clock work after a week of conjugal visits in the middle of the night. Sarah was on all four gritting her teeth as the doctor gripped her sides, pounding into her.
She didn't feel ashamed of what she was doing; it was Silberman that was the shameful party. What he was doing was unethical and she would cash in on his shame of taking advantage of her and abusing his authority by getting to see her boy. To just be able to touch John's hair again, just to know that he was alive and healthy made these perverse nights all worth it in the end.
"Sarah!" He muffled her name as he buried his face in her soaked curly hair as he climaxed. His added weight collapsed Sarah, making her fall flat on her front taking him with her.
remaining on top of her, both lay silently, panting for breath as Silberman's moist hands stroked her naked waist as he nuzzled the side of her head.
"I feel like your apart of me." He whispered kissing her cheek. Sarah didn't respond to his claim. "Like you've been sent to me, to save myself from a dead end career …" he sighed into her tender cheek. "And dead end marriage." he wrapped his arms around her, has fingers meeting at her navel.
Sarah could have laughed when she heard him sob into her neck. He sniffled and nuzzled closer to her.
"I feel like our destiny is linked … don't you Sarah?"
"You're kidding me, right!"
"I thought I could see you if I did it!" Sarah responded guiltily when she heard John call out in frustration from the driver's seat of the jeep.
Everyone turned to Sarah with weird looks at her random statement.
"Did what?" Derek asked.
Sarah looked around and noticed that she had been staring at the Hospital for so long and trapped in her memory that she hadn't noticed that the guard station was empty and the gate wide open.
"Nothing …" she cleared her throat and blinked, the awkward silence only lasted for a moment, before John spoke.
"This is crap!" he hit the steering wheel.
Cameron analyzed the guard station a moment longer than looked at John with a confused pause. "This is a good thing isn't it?" she asked with from the passenger's seat.
"Metal's right …" Derek agreed with a face that said John was an idiot.
"Yeah, well …" the teen scratched his head with frustration. "You try creating a back story for a week, then memorize said back story, then just as you can memorize it in you're sleep, there isn't any use for it!" he rounded on his protector and uncle angrily.
After a beat Cameron reached out and patted him on his head comfortingly with a blink, while Derek rubbed his finger and thumb together in the classic "smallest violin" motion.
John mournfully placed the jeep back into gear and moved through the opening. He navigated through the mostly empty parking lot.
Choosing a spot easily accessible from the exits, John turned the jeep off and turned to around in his seat.
"Everyone remember where we parked …" He turned a wink to Sarah in a silent reassurance to her, knowing that this was not something that she was looking forward to. Sarah gave John a tight pressed smile, before he exited with Cameron.
There was a silent moment as she stayed in the now dark car looking at the concrete building as if she was standing at the gates of hell itself. She suddenly felt a hand rub her lab coat clad arm.
"Come on." Derek motioned her to follow with enough confidence for both of them. With a gulp she nodded taking her duffle bag of explosives and instead of opening her door she crawled to Derek's side and exited with him.
The family moved causally toward the large double doors.
"Remember, the information should be in the chief of staffs office … So mom, you and Derek go there and find the information. Then you give me and Cameron the info. You guys take the lab, we'll take the research." John addressed them quietly. There was a nod from everyone as they gathered around the entrance.
"John …" Cameron broke from the group and walked toward the darkened space and loomed over a man in the same black security fatigues as John and Cameron.
Everyone stared at the lifeless body with a nervous hiccup in there breaths.
"He's unconscious." Cameron announced to which Sarah exchanged a look with John.
"Looks like someone's beaten us here." She announced with a dark look.
"It must be Ryan …" Cameron announced.
"What!" Sarah hissed at Cameron as she walked back to the group. "And when did you plan on telling us that you informed him of our mission?" she asked in frustration at the amount of secrets that the cyborg seemed to hold.
"I didn't … he had his own reasoning for coming tonight."
Sarah could tell some how that there was more to the story than the cyborg was leading on.
"So he has no idea that we're going to be in here?" John piped up, with a tone that suggested that he was jumping in to rescue Cameron.
"No, he said it could be nothing." She assured John.
"So then there's a possibility that he's already gone?" the young man turned toward Sarah with a poignant look.
"Yes … it's possible." Cameron answered.
"Then I guess there's no way of knowing." He shrugged at his mother. Sarah didn't appreciate being talked down by anyone, but she conceded that there wasn't a point in continuing the argument.
While Cameron dragged the body in the bushes, John took his ID badge and swiped it through the security panel. With a positive beep the sound of the thudding announced the unlocking of the doors.
Walking inside they were all surprised to find the metal detector off as well as the security Camera's.
"Oh come on!" John slapped his thigh in anger. "I mean why did I even bother to make this stuff up?" he sighed agitatedly
Derek glared at his nephew. "Get over it already!" he chastised as he brushed passed the young man.
Sarah walked gingerly through the gate, her emerald eyes glowing with a small hint of fear and panic.
"You guys should find the Chief of Staff's office in …" John started.
"The administration Offices …" Sarah cut John off with a snap. "I remember" she glowered at him.
"Alright …" He cleared his throat, showing a little chink that said he didn't want to be in this building again anymore than she did.
Seeing the look in his eye she sighed and touched his face. The feeling of his skin under her palms was a comfort that only a mother could understand. She could see the silent fear of losing her again to the twisted walls of the sanitarium again.
"We won't be long." She reassured him setting one of the bags at Cameron's feet. John nodded and gave her his Walkie Talkie.
There was a pause of unspoken I love yous before Sarah and Derek disappeared down the long emotionless hallway.
John sighed and looked to Cameron who was placing the bag on the security desk. It brought him strange comfort to have someone like her with him in a time like this. Just like with his protector last time, he knew if they tried to take a part of his world away from him again, there would be the other half to help him rescue her.
"So …" John said coyly smiling at the baggy fatigues and cap that Cameron was wearing. "What's a girl like you doing in a nut house like this?" he asked with a mock smooth voice.
The cyborg turned toward him from the explosives she was checking.
"Destruction of property and possible arson."
"This place has no imagination."
Derek announced as he studied the picture of a pretty girl that could almost look like Cameron in a graduation gown and cap enveloped in a hug from behind by a woman with curly poofy hair and a plastic looking formal gown. The woman had shallow brown eyes and there was a strange gothic attractiveness to her as she kissed the girl's cheek.
Sarah looked around at the white tile floor and the file cabinets pushed against the wall that flanked a metal desk. In fact their was nothing in the Chief of Staffs office that was personal, but the picture in the frame that was titled "Me and Claire" and one picture of the same woman a little younger but just as happy holding a baby girl in her arms. "Claire's first Christmas"
"You'll find most shrinks don't like the personalities they got … so they pretend they don't have them." Sarah growled bitterly as she searched Dr. Kogen's desk. Derek shot his partner a look, but kept quiet as they shuffled through papers.
"Bingo!" Derek announced holding up a piece of paper.
"What does it say?" Sarah huddled next to him and tried to read the document.
"Discrepancy in Project Angel files, D36." He announced.
Sarah nodded with a victorious smile, with a dig through her pant pocket she pulled out John's radio.
"John … do you copy, over?" she called into the black handheld.
"Yeah, mom we read you …"
"The Research is in Detention Block b room 36."
"Second floor?"
She turned to Derek to which he nodded.
"Yeah … second floor." She answered.
"Alright …"
"Be careful …" she added.
"You know me."
The beauty grinned despite the worried knot in her belly as John cut out. She bit her lip as Derek shuffled through the papers.
"I think I got something on the lab." He looked up at her. She walked over and hunched with him. He was concentrating on a set of numbers and strange symbols written in neat read ink with the word "Sub B" at the bottom.
"What is that?" Sarah asked with a frown chalking it up to chicken scratch with numbers.
"It's this binary bullshit that the machines communicate in. I don't understand it, but there's defiantly something in "Sub B" that we should check out." He turned to look at her.
"Sub B … Sub B." Sarah repeated out loud a moment. "Sub base?" she then stopped and looked at Derek who also had the same thought that he blurted out at the same time as her.
"Sub Basement!"
The passage way that Ryan was lead down from the ladder in the warden's office was dark and damp. He could hear the sound of his feet clacking through a little stream of water running underneath him as he walked.
To his side he could see the remains of the old Pescadero Asylum. Cinder block walls flanked the passage with the occasional barred cell with a Skelton in it, which made him wonder just who was running the place back in the old days.
As he moved forward he could hear a small waterfall like sound of rushing liquid mixed with the loud sound of generators. With his pistol at the ready he reached the end of the passage. The water seemed to end with it cascading down into a lower moat that wrapped around a forest of electric generators that buzzed like millions of angry killer bees.
Ryan jumped off the ledge and landed on the platform. He took a moment to wonder through the maze of the large generators till he saw a staircase leading to a metal door that was common in the future. Walking up the staircase, he didn't miss the wired claymore mines stuck to them.
When he reached the top of the staircase he threw his boot into the base of the door. The hinges popped and it flew open to reveal a dimly lit control room that had security monitors on and a control panel.
In front of the control panel stood a petite slender girl in tight black leather pants and a padded motorcycle jacket, the reflection of Ryan's .45 shined on the polished red helmet.
"I'll be with you in a minute …" the female tacked on a key board then after a moment she removed her hands from it. "You took more time than I expected." She turned to face Ryan.
"Traffic …" he replied coldly.
The two faced each other down with Ryan standing stiff and at attention as if showing an automated amount of respect for the female, all be that it was begrudging.
"It's been a long time; you've grown so much since the last time we met." There was an almost maternal choice of wording to the emotionless mechanical voice.
"I remember that day …" He said with distain.
"I do too, it was in Singapore on the roof of a tall building, you disobeyed my wishes and left. That day was a great disappoint." The Red Mask nodded. Ryan scoffed at her.
"You twisted psychopath!" he gritted. "You wanted me to kill a man in cold blood by tossing him off the roof!" he pointed at her.
"He was a man in the business of prostituting pre teenage girls." She tilted her head.
"He was unarmed." he argued back.
"He was a threat to those girls and yourself, the world would have been safer as would the children of Singapore if you would have killed him, regardless if he was armed or not. That was the point of my training." She lectured.
"No, the point of your meaningless training was to brainwash me with your amoral crap and the only reason I stuck around was because you promised to help me find my mother, which you didn't." There was a cold distain in his voice that would have made a normal person flinch, but the Red Mask didn't make any emotions to it.
"I would have shown you where she was if you would have only carried out my order."
"I don't fight that way."
"No you do not, and that is why what has befallen you, happened." She motioned her head to the security monitors that showed Sarah in scrubs and a lab coat walking next to Derek.
"What do you want from me … more important what do you want from her?" he said with a panicked hitch at the sight of her wondering the halls to a place that was rigged to blow.
"I'm simply correcting an oversight you keep making."
"Which is?" he growled.
"I'm doing what's necessary, the death of Sarah Connor would lead to not only your conception, but the end of Skynet's plot to replicate her and use her against John … further more the destruction of this facility and the research it has accumulated would end the cloning program entirely." she pulled out a black remote and flipped a switch in which a red light appeared.
"I won't let you kill her, nor the innocent lives in this place." He warned her.
"There are no innocent lives … inside these walls are criminals who prey on the innocent, the guards whose job is protecting the staff of doctors which work for Skynet." She pointed out turning to face the screen just in time to see John and Cameron pass by on of the camera's that were feeding to the room.
"You're not god … you can't pass judgment on these peoples lives!" he took a step forward.
"Why, aren't you doing the same thing by protecting Sarah?" she asked discreetly touching John's picture on the screen.
"I'm protecting a woman I love … I'm protecting my family!" Ryan took another step forward. "What are you doing!" he yelled.
The Red Mask gave one last look at John.
"The same …" she turned away from the screen catching the glance of a squat older man with thinning white hair open his cell door and make for the section 5 broom closet.
The two looked at one another; neither compromising what they believed was the right thing to do.
"Give me the remote." Ryan left no room for argument. The girl turned her head at the command as if amused.
"Come and take it." her voice had a sharpness to it that transcended the automated cybernetic voice filter of the helmet.
Ryan lifted his side arm and pointed at her with a click of the hammer. "Come and give it to me." He warned her.
An eerie cybernetic jumble that sounded almost like a proud laugh came from the girl. She placed the remote in the waste band of her tight leather pants.
"If you shot me … than I would die a happy death knowing that you've finally learned your lesson." The girl tilted her head.
Ryan placed his hand on the trigger and pointed it at her, there was a part of him that wanted to end it right now, but there was a stronger side that wanted to prove his former teacher wrong.
The Red Mask placed both her gloved hands in the air as if inviting the shot.
Ryan pulled the hammer forward and dropped his gun to the ground.
"Now you're just being stubborn …" the red mask placed her hands down into a fighting stance.
Ryan smirked arrogantly and got into an exact same one.
"Let's dance"
John and Cameron stood in silence as they waited inside a metallic elevator that lifted them to the third floor of the hospital.
There was silence that engulfed the lift as Cameron silently glanced at her companion who seemed transfixed on the ceiling as if he was waiting for something to jump out from the top or a silent predator was stalking him and the beautiful girl, waiting for the right moment to strike.
"John …" she spoke with a gentle voice that broke him out of his alerted vigil of the metal roof.
"Yeah … Cam." He cleared his throat.
"Have you developed a fear of heights?" She asked with concern. John snorted at her question and paused a moment before he caught on to her quiet curiosity.
"Oh no … it just last time I was in an elevator in this place, me and mom were attacked by a T-1000. It gashed mom's back pretty good. She need like thirty stitches." He cleared his throat.
Cameron nodded and looked to the ceiling. "Yes, that would be a great motivator to be on your guard." She agreed.
A smile broke out on his face when she took a step closer to him. However Just as he was about take her hand in his the door's opened and they where faced with a nurses station with a young woman who looked bored out of her mind sitting in front of a computer.
She looked at both of them and then back to her screen. John and Cameron looked at each other before stepping off the elevator.
Both approached the nurse's station where the woman yawned and pressed her cheek to her fist and moved the mouse around and clicked.
"Good evening …" Cameron smiled warmly.
The girl looked back and forth between the couple.
"Starsky, Hutch" she greeted John and then Cameron. "What can I do for the police academy drop outs?" She said sarcastically flicking the mouse around some more.
John had a sour look on his face and he motioned Cameron to speak, fearing that the only thing that would come out of his mouth wouldn't be helpful to their cause.
"We're looking for D36." Cameron continued to have a sunny disposition, which only seemed to annoy the woman even more. But despite that face she pointed down the darkened hall.
"The nerd hang out is down the hall and past the detention block. But, gotta warn you the dorks won't like the rent-a-cops poking around." She sighed no longer holding her attention to them.
"Right …" John snarked in anger and turned to Cameron and motioned her to go ahead. "It was a pleasure." John rolled his eyes walking into the darkened hall next to his protector.
The walk down the hallway was quiet with the only sound being their boots thumping on the polished floor. Suddenly as they turned the corner there were rows of white door with little windows on each side of the dark unlit hallway.
"Cam …" John stopped her grabbing her hand. She turned to look at him with interest. "Look umm …" he kept his voice low. "Whatever you do don't react to anything that's said and whatever happens don't make eye contact, okay." He motioned to the windows.
"Okay …" she nodded, squeezing his hand before she let go of his hand and they walked together shoulder to shoulder. It was relatively quiet, nothing of interest nothing consequence.
"That was until they reached the middle cell. In it John saw pair of crazed eyes haunting Cameron's steps, breathe fogging the glass.
"Hey … hey, let me out." The voice was child like and sweet sounding. John ignored it motioning Cameron not to look. "Hey, that kid was crazy … he was going to make the rats eat my face off … the rats!" he sobbed into the glass as they passed.
"Don't scream psycho … wait till we're gone then wake up the others."
John was praying that he wouldn't give the attention they didn't want from the other prisoners.
"Hey little girl … come over here I got candy … I got candy, sugar pie." a man from another cell called to Cameron in a wholesome voice that sounded sinister. She however did as directed, acting as if he didn't exist.
John was about make a sigh of relief when a large slam hit the second to last cell doors on the right so hard the hinges squealed, making John react by moving in front of Cameron defensively in surprise.
"YOU FUCKING PIG!" a large monstrous voice yelled at the teens. "YOU LET ME OUT OF HERE OR I SWEAR ON YOUR WHORE MOTHER'S LIFE THAT I'LL SHATTER YOUR KNEE CAPS AND FORCE YOU TO WATCH ME ASS FUCK YOUR GIRL THERE SO HARD SHE'LL SHIT CUM FOR A WEEK!" There was a psychotic rage of the likes John had never heard before, he was unfazed by the words, but on a look to Cameron there was something very disturbed on her face that made John want to kill the psychopath on the other side.
He instead took Cameron's hand and led her down the hall and away from the cell block as a horse sadistic laugh echoed from the cell across from the loud mouths, as if what he had said was one of the funniest things the incarcerated female had ever heard.
Once they were alone, away from the begging and laughter, John took a deep breath and looked at Cameron who seemed distracted.
"Hey …" he led her back first to the wall and stood in front of her. "Are you okay?" He stuck his hand under her chin so that she would look at him.
"I'm fine John …" She said emotionlessly. But John knew better, for some reason what Cameron had just seen and heard shook her up more than she was willing to admit.
"You want to wait it out a moment? I know that sometimes it can really screw you up to hear some of that." He understood locking eyes with her.
"No …" she stood up straight and kissed his cheek in thanks. "Let's keep moving." She slid from between him and the wall and walked away.
There was apart of John that seemed to hurt at the thought that even a machine from the future could be momentarily defiled by this place. It made him feel the urge to find his mother and hold her for a very longtime, not wanting to imagine what it must have been like to hear those things every night for three years.
After a minute more of walking the two finally found what they were looking for. In the dark hallway was a medium mild manner looking door that didn't seem to have anything special about it.
"Well …" John cleared his throat and went for the door holding the card in hand.
Suddenly Cameron stood in front of him and punched the door open with a slam. There was a pause between the two. John was frozen in shock and surprise holding the identification badge near the panel.
"That works too …" he looked up to see Cameron with a face that seemed off put.
"I don't wish to stay here any longer." She said with a voice that was angry as well as slightly traumatized.
"Alright" he nodded pocketing the badge and watched her go inside.
The Room was a small room of several filing cabinets. And a desk with a computer on it with, ironic enough, a fish tank screen saver.
"I guess we should check to see if this is the place …" John took a seat at the computer and dug through the duffle bag and pulled out a palm pilot connected to a USB cord, after attaching it he began to type on the login screen as information ran over the handheld. "Should be another moment." He said as information started to stream down the screen.
Cameron stood of to the side watching John when she started to hear a low humming.
"John …" She called as he made a grunt of frustration as the computer froze then sputtered before continuing.
"Yeah …" he sighed slapping the tower of the computer.
"Do you hear a low buzzing?" she asked curiously. John stopped typing a moment and strained his ear to listen.
"Sort of …" he turned to look at her knowing that most likely was a bad thing.
The cyborg took a step farther into the cramped room and turned up her audio receptors so that she could concentrate on the small electronic frequency. There was silence as John soon found that when ever Cameron was like this it was not a good thing.
Turning to a cabinet in the back corner, the girl stalked over purposefully and moved it effortlessly to find the section of wall wired with explosives.
"The low hum is a detonator frequency …" Cameron strode to John. "Once we don't hear it we have only five seconds till it explodes.
"So I guess that means we're in the right place then." John stuffed the equipment back into the duffle bag.
"I suspect that all of the Skynet facility is wired." Cameron stated as John zipped the bag.
"Then this is a trap?" asked standing.
"Most likely." She nodded as they exited the room quickly. Not wasting anytime he reached for his walkie talkie.
"Mom …" He called, but there was no response. "Mom … Mom come in, over." There was still no response. John checked the radio to find that it wasn't even crackling. "What's going on?" he turned to Cameron.
"The detonator signal is disrupting the electrical equipment."
Jaime Golden sat at the security control desk with his feet propped up reading a fantasy novel. He has always got crap from his modeling agent that no one likes there models geeky. He in turned said that no one likes their agents prying into their personal life, thus ended the conversation.
He saw his job as a means to an end. He was a security guard at Pescadero till he could get his big brake in the magazine and advertisement world. Plus it would look good on his résumé, it said he liked danger, and in this day and age who didn't like a bad boy?
There was a knock to the guard station door.
"Always just when things where getting good." He sighed. "Doors unlocked!" he called looking at the monitors to find that they where still blank and fuzzy.
The door opened and he heard bare feet pad inside.
"Yo, did you find out what's up with the monitors tonight?" he asked without looking up from his book.
"God's will my son."
Jaime looked up from his book to see Dr. Silberman holding a M4 with the barrel to his book.
"What in the hell …?"
BANG!"
The sound of the bullet pulverizing the handsome guard's heart, echoed through the hall. Silberman lingered a second before looking the cell block controls for the entire sanitarium.
"God will's it."
Author's Notes
So first of all, to those of you that are shaken up by this chapter. I've majored in criminal psychology for two years now learning the basics for being a "official" Detective, and I'll tell you that, that is a close to an accurate account of how a lot of the caged psychopaths talk and act, especially when confined to a cell for a certain amount of time.
Though to be honest I've based some of it on Arkham Asylum from the DC Universe. (As I'm wont to do from time to time.)
So second of all I need to put a disclaimer that I wasn't trying to steal idea's from Metroid 13, I thought I was doing something original till I was pointed to his/her stories and then by that time what was done was done. But I guess there is enough room for both of us in this fandom.
Part two will be up sometime … close.
Please no flames if you don't like the violent criminals … you were warned.