Chapter Seven
Premier Palace Hotel, Kiev, Ukraine
Thursday 0730 Local Time [Wednesday 2130 PST]
Cameron turned off the shower, slid open the glass door and stepped out of the cubicle, grabbing a towel from the rail outside. She quickly started to towel herself dry and glanced at the bathtub, the outside of which was the same marble as on the floor and the walls. She'd been tempted to run a bath instead, having never experienced one before, but the shower was quicker, and she still enjoyed the sensation from the hot running water on her skin. 'Getting away from it all,' as she'd once told John. The shower felt better than the wind between her toes.
Once she'd dried her body she slipped on a fresh set of underwear and started to blow-dry her hair, running the hot stream of air methodically. As soon as that was done, Cameron pulled out her small makeup bag and opened it, taking out what she needed. She placed mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow, tinted moisturiser and lip gloss in a perfect line on the counter, and used her towel to wipe steam off the mirror that was as wide as she was tall.
She didn't understand why people needed so much space. The bathtub was a little over two metres long and two people could easily sit inside comfortably. She didn't know why anyone would require a sauna in their hotel room, or even what the purpose of one was at all, though she was curious as to what it felt like.
Cameron pulled on some clothes; a pair of jeans, plain blue t-shirt and socks, and turned back to the mirror. She picked up the eyeliner and watched her reflection in the mirror. She held up the pencil and was about to apply the makeup when she sensed movement to her right.
"Good morning," Cameron said to John, who stood in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom. She'd left it ajar in case he'd needed to come in.
"Morning," John said. He yawned and stretched his arms upwards before stepping into the room. "What're you doing?"
"Putting on makeup." Cameron frowned. He knew what she was doing; he'd seen her apply it several times before, even commenting once that it wasn't brain surgery.
"Yeah," John said as he approached her. "But why?"
Cameron was confused. "To blend in and emphasise my features."
"You don't need it," John said. He paused for a moment, nervous, before adding, "You're beautiful." He looked away from her, feeling himself go red from embarrassment. As soon as the words left his mouth he knew they were cheesy, clichéd. He didn't even know why he felt embarrassed; it wasn't like she was going to judge him for it. After a moment he dared himself to glance back at her out the corner of his eye. She was smiling.
"Thank you," Cameron said, still smiling. She could tell from John's blushing that it wasn't simply a passing compliment, and she appreciated it.
"It's true." It didn't take an idiot, John thought, to see that she was drop dead gorgeous, which was why Morris and half the guys in the high school they'd briefly attended had been attracted to her. But it wasn't just that. He realised that now was probably the only time he'd ever seen her, completely natural, where he had nothing else to think about. She was perfect, and he couldn't see how makeup could improve on perfection.
"Okay," Cameron said, putting the eyeliner back into her makeup bag and placing the other items inside as well. "I'm ready. What about you?"
"I'm… hungry," John said, realising he hadn't eaten anything other than a bar of chocolate since before they'd got off the plane.
"I'll order some breakfast for you," Cameron said, stepping towards the bathroom door.
John reached out and held her by the arm, stopping her. "Actually… I wouldn't mind getting some fresh air, too; how about we go somewhere for breakfast?"
"I could eat," she said, then paused as if reluctant to speak further; she didn't want to ruin the moment, but John needed to know.
"Yes?" he asked, sensing she had something more to add.
"ZeiraCorp was destroyed last night."
John's mouthed gaped open in surprise, but he quickly composed himself, though his heart was racing. "Any casualties?"
"I don't know," Cameron admitted. "Weaver and John Henry are okay."
"Right," John muttered through gritted teeth. "Was it Kaliba?"
"Possibly. I–"
"Don't know," John finished for her. "Yeah, I get it."
"I'll wait for you in the lounge." Cameron left John to use the bathroom, and be alone with his thoughts. She passed through their bedroom and into the suite proper, where Sarah was already sitting at a table with a plate of breakfast and a large pot of coffee. Freyr sat on the sofa and Thor stood facing him. As she entered the lounge she saw Thor turn to her and nod. Cameron returned the gesture and did the same to Freyr. The TV was on.
"John's using the bathroom," she said. "I've informed him about ZeiraCorp. When he's ready we're going out to get breakfast." Cameron then turned to Freyr. "Did you find any possible leads to Skynet or Kaliba?" she asked.
"Nothing," said the Vanguard.
"Was there anything mentioned about Ukraine in the future?" Sarah asked, turning around to face them.
"No," said Thor. "Skynet kept its origins well hidden; none of its machines knew and it probably killed any humans working for it who would have known."
"There's no probable links with Ukrainian military that we can see," Freyr added. "From my research online they don't have the military-industrial capacity to be of any use to Skynet."
"But Russia does," Sarah said. "The border's only ninety miles away; what if they drove north into Russia?"
"North-east," Frey corrected her. "But I doubt it."
"Why?" Sarah asked.
Thor answered her question instead of Freyr. "John Henry tracked the hyper-alloy shipment to Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, and then to Kiev. If Kaliba wanted the shipment to arrive in Russia, they would have unloaded it there before the flight continued on to Kiev."
"Given current tensions between Russia and its neighbouring states, border crossings would be problematic, too," Freyr added.
"Where did you learn that?" Cameron asked.
"CNN," Freyr answered, gesturing at the TV. At present it was showing commercials, which were all dubbed in Ukrainian. Cameron watched the screen as an advert for McDonalds ended, which was followed by footage of fighter aircraft soaring through the sky in aerobatic formation. There were multiple types of planes and the scenes played quickly, appearing to advertise an air show. She didn't find it interesting until close to the end. A brief flash of footage appeared, perhaps one second long, of a familiar-shaped plane banking hard.
Cameron grabbed the TV remote from Freyr's hand and pressed the pause button. The image stopped and she reversed it before pausing again. The screen showed a still image of a sleek aircraft, with two barrel-shaped tilting jet engines, short, stubby wings, and downward-angled rudders. "That's an HK," she said.
Sarah couldn't quite believe what she was seeing; it was the spitting image of the drone she'd seen in the desert. "Why's there an HK on TV?"
Unbeknown to Sarah, the two Vanguards in the room were even more familiar with the design. "It looks almost exactly like the HKs in the future," Thor said.
"Same as my future," Cameron added. "Except those HKs didn't have the wings."
"Ours did," Freyr said. "To improve their manoeuvrability against our fighter aircraft."
"Bit of a coincidence, isn't it?" Sarah asked rhetorically.
Cameron played the rest of the commercial so the others could see the location and dates for the air show. "It's starting Saturday," she said. "We should investigate."
"Where?" Sarah asked.
"Gostomel Airport."
"You mean, the same airport we landed in?"
"Yes."
"And John Henry didn't think to mention that?" Sarah couldn't believe that something like that could have just slipped the AI's mind. "I'm gonna have serious words with that metal and Weaver when we get back," she muttered.
"We weren't expecting to stay this long," Thor reminded her. "We thought we were following the hyper-alloy shipment. If we'd been successful we'd already be flying back home. John Henry probably didn't think it relevant." He saw that Sarah wasn't convinced, but it wasn't his business to convert her.
"What's up?" John entered the living room, still red from the heat of the shower and now in fresh jeans and T-shirt.
"We've found a possible link to Kaliba," both Cameron and Thor said at the same time. The Vanguard said nothing more, allowing Cameron to continue.
"There's an air show Saturday. The commercial we just saw featured an aircraft that looked like an HK. We're going to attend and find out if it is linked."
"Sounds like something I was reading about last night online," John said. "What do we do if it does have something to do with Skynet?"
"Blow it up," Sarah said.
"Mom, we can't just stick some Semtex on the side of a drone to make it go away. If they have one they'll have more, or at least plans to build more. Who built it?"
"We don't know," Cameron said.
"There were no visible markings we saw from the footage," Freyr said. "Nothing to say where it was made or even which country produced it."
John shrugged. "The one I read about came from Russia; guess we'll just have to find out when we get there. Not much we can do about it until Saturday."
"What do we do until then?" Thor asked.
"Whatever you want," John replied. "We're going out to get breakfast." He gestured at Cameron to indicate her as well.
"It's safer in the hotel," Sarah warned him.
John reached behind him and pulled his t-shirt up to reveal his Makarov tucked underneath the waistband of his jeans. "Two spare magazines in my left pocket, and Cameron will be with me."
"I'd feel better if one of them went with you too," Sarah said, tilting her head towards Thor and Freyr.
"I can protect John," Cameron said. She didn't know whether Sarah still didn't trust her or simply thought she was obsolete because Thor, Freyr and Aegir were more capable combat models. She didn't like either suggestion. She did notice, however, that it had only been a suggestion; she hadn't told John to take one of the Vanguards with him.
"We're going out to explore the city," John said, "not taking on main battle tanks. No offence," he quickly said to Thor and Freyr.
"None taken," Thor said evenly.
"I believe he wishes to spend some time alone with Cameron," Freyr said.
Sarah raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her son and crossed her arms. "Oh? Is this a date, John?" She grinned wickedly as he turned red and stammered something but stopped, stunned into silence with embarrassment. For several seconds she enjoyed watching him squirm.
Screw it, John said to himself. "Yes. Yes it is," he replied curtly. "Let's go." He turned to Cameron, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair and shrugging it on as he headed for the door. Cameron quickly followed after him.
"You going out without your warpaint?" Sarah called to her. "That's brave." Cameron turned back, unsure what she meant. John, as so often, came to her aid.
"She means your makeup, and no, she doesn't need it," he said, glaring at his mother, who grinned back triumphantly.
"Aww, how sweet," Sarah said.
John grabbed Cameron's hand and dragged her away before anything more regrettable was said.
As soon as they were out of sight and the door closed behind them, Thor turned to Sarah. "What was that?" he asked, not understanding why she'd seemed to take pleasure in John's embarrassment.
Sarah shrugged. "I don't like it but that doesn't mean I can't have a little fun at his expense. It's a parent thing; we're supposed to give our kids a hard time about their first girlfriends." Suddenly she realised that as she'd said it she'd completely discounted Riley. It was funny, she thought, how the human 'girlfriend' had been more artificial than the machine one. Where the hell did that come from? She also realised that she was calling Cameron his girlfriend before it had even happened, and she was still hoping, deep down, that he would change his mind about that.
Kiev, Ukraine
Thursday 0800 Local Time [Wednesday 2200 PST]
The centre of Kiev was alive, busier than when they'd arrive the night before, John noted. The streets were bustling with people going to and fro; he assumed most were on their way to work. The roads they had crossed had all been packed with traffic moving slowly, just like it had been in Los Angeles except instead of the Dodges, Fords, Chryslers and the Chevrolets were Hyundais, Mitsubishis, a few BMWs and Mercedes, and a large number of cars displaying logos he'd never seen before. He presumed they were Russian.
He and Cameron were walking through downtown Kiev, looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. Despite being in a busy, crowded city once again, John felt relief. He and Cameron were anonymous, just two more faces, and he doubted anyone here had ever even heard of 'John Connor.' To anyone who glanced at them they were just a young couple like any other. He felt like he should relax but he still found himself occasionally picking people out, watching where they were looking. But nobody paid him or Cameron any more attention than anyone else.
"Here," Cameron said, turning down a side street, leading him by the hand. They'd been holding hands since leaving the hotel, and despite his mother's teasing, John was comfortable with it. For both of them, it seemed the most natural thing to do.
Cameron led him towards a café. It had outdoor seating but she walked past that and through the front door. Inside would be more secure and more comfortable for John; there was a slight chill in the air and she knew he was still averse to being cold after his experience of hypothermia at Crater Lake.
The café was small; a dozen wooden tables lined the walls, each covered by blue and yellow tablecloths. At the far end was a counter with the entrance to the kitchen on the left-hand side. He could see one of the chefs bustling about the kitchen through the window in the door leading into it. A waitress passed through it and the smell of cooking meat wafting from the kitchen made John's stomach rumble. Seven of the tables were occupied, totalling nineteen patrons, plus two waitresses that he could see. They sat down at one closest to the door. Cameron took a seat facing the window so she could observe people outside. It meant that John was between the window and her, therefore if anyone shot into the restaurant he'd be hit, but with his back facing the outside, no one – machine or Kaliba operative – would be able to identify him. If anyone already inside became a threat, John was closer to the door and could escape more easily.
John picked up a menu and glanced at it. He had no idea what any of it said; it was all written in Cyrillic and he realised the folly of leaving the hotel for breakfast. "Do you think they have any English menus?" he asked Cameron.
"I don't know," she said. She picked up another menu and studied it.
"Tell me you can't read that?" John said as he watched her. He'd seen her confused look before; she tilted her head ever so slightly and her eyes were somewhat wider. That wasn't what he was seeing now.
"I can't tell you that," Cameron replied. "I promised I wouldn't lie to you."
"When did you learn Ukrainian?" he asked.
"On the airplane coming here. I had plenty of time while you slept."
John nodded his head appreciatively. "Got to hand it to you: you always plan ahead."
"I try," Cameron said.
A waitress approached and stood by the table. She said something that John couldn't understand, to which Cameron replied. The waitress spoke again, wrote something down on her notepad, then walked back towards the kitchen.
"Care to translate?" John asked.
"I ordered for you," Cameron said.
John felt nervous all of a sudden. She'd been going on for a while about him eating more healthily and now they were in a foreign land with a menu he couldn't understand a word of. He found himself completely at her mercy.
"Sauerkraut and pork-stuffed cabbage leaves," Cameron said simply.
"Oh." John looked at her uncertainly, trying to decide whether or not she was serious. He couldn't tell; he had no better luck reading her expression than he had the menu. "That sounds… healthy," he said, figuring that he was right and that was indeed what she was going for. He wished they'd had more notice before coming so he could have acquired a phrase or two and been able to order for himself. "I should have learned the language with you."
"You needed your rest," Cameron replied. "And there wouldn't have been enough time, even for someone as clever as you."
John smiled at her rare compliment. "You said you learned Ukrainian, but I'd have thought you would have been programmed with every language," he said.
Cameron smiled too. John was wrong, but he was thinking about how she thought; how she and other terminators were programmed, how their minds worked. It was a good sign. "I was only programmed with English," she said.
John still didn't understand. "Why not all of them?"
"It wasn't necessary," Cameron said. "And they would have taken up valuable memory space. Terminators are only programmed with languages they're most likely to encounter, depending on their location. And English. All cyborgs speak English."
"Why?"
"Because you do," Cameron said.
"What about Spanish?" John asked her.
Cameron moved one of her hands towards his, her fingertips just brushing over his knuckles lightly. "You taught it to me," she said.
John felt a thrill at her touch and dry-swallowed nervously. "Me?" He'd never spoken Spanish to her before… "You mean in the future, don't you?"
"You told me one of your favourite things from your childhood was Sarah reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in Spanish to you. You taught me Spanish so we could read it together."
"If I was running the war, how did I even have time for that?"
Cameron smiled. "I'm a quick study, and you always made time for me."
John felt a pang of guilt stabbing him in the gut. In the last year he'd either ignored or actively avoided her. His future self had taken the time to teach her things, and yet in the months since he'd turned sixteen he'd barely made time to have one conversation with her. I won't make that mistake again, he promised himself.
The waitress approached holding a tray with two cups on it. The couple withdrew their hands from the table as she placed the cups down and John saw he had hot, steaming coffee while Cameron had tea. The waitress said something to Cameron that again John didn't understand, then headed back to the kitchen. Cameron put two teaspoons of sugar into each of their cups and stirred. For a moment, John was surprised that she knew exactly how he liked his coffee, but then he realised he shouldn't be. "Did you learn how I take my coffee in the future, or here?" he asked, meaning the present.
"Here," Cameron said. "There's no coffee in the future."
"No coffee?" John said with mock outrage. "Then I really don't know what we're even fighting for! What did we drink; just water?"
"Water, and alcohol brewed in improvised distilleries."
"Seriously? No coffee but we've got moonshine? Weird." He supposed the booze might be good for morale, celebrating a mission gone right; or to help forget when one went wrong.
"Humans have been brewing alcohol and getting drunk since the dawn of time," Cameron said. "You run the few operational vehicles on the same alcohol."
John whistled. "Strong stuff, then." He wasn't sure he wanted to know what the hell went into that brew. He wanted to learn about the future but in this case, he thought, ignorance might be bliss.
"Temporary blindness was a common problem for those who drank it, until reprogrammed machines helped refine the process."
John couldn't help but laugh out loud at that, then remembered where he was and kept his voice down. "You're telling me I reprogrammed the most advanced killing machines in history, and then had them making booze?" A mental image came to mind of a terminator barman pouring cold ones for his soldiers. At least no one would dare start a bar fight.
Again the waitress returned, this time with two plates; one much larger than the other. He knew Cameron didn't really need to eat and guessed the bigger one was for him. He swallowed nervously, remembering what she'd said about sauerkraut and pork-stuffed cabbage; suddenly he was not looking forward to his breakfast.
The waitress placed one in front of John, who looked down and saw what Cameron had ordered for him: definitely not sauerkraut. Instead there was a large sausage, at least a foot long; three semi-circular perogies, with diced fried onions on top; two fried eggs, hash browns, and an inch-thick slice of black bread, with a small bowl of sour cream on the side. His eyes widened as he took in the portion size; it was huge.
"Not sauerkraut, then," he commented, relieved.
"Fooled you again," she replied, a slight smirk on her face as the waitress put down the smaller plate in front of her. She merely had two slices of black bread with sour cream. She thanked the waitress who then left them to eat. John picked up his knife and fork and started tackling the large meal, as Cameron watched him. "In the future you wouldn't have cared if it were sauerkraut," she said. People seemed to be very particular about what they ate in this time.
John finished a mouthful of perogie, which was filled with meat – pork, he thought. "I'll probably be eating rats in the future, right?" he asked.
"Rats, mushrooms, algae, and whatever vegetables could be picked wild or grown under ultraviolet lamps."
"What about bugs?" John asked.
"Bugs?"
"Yeah, bugs – insects. Didn't anyone eat those?"
"Not that I know of," Cameron said.
"Might be worth looking into: I've eaten bugs before," he told her.
Cameron raised a curious eyebrow at that. "When?" she asked.
"When I was a kid. Mom and I were staying with these guerrilla fighters in the jungle; she had them train her to fight, and then she trained me. They taught us how to live off the land, eat whatever we found. Crickets, grubs, locusts; even tarantula once in a while."
"What was that like?"
"Not too bad; they fried it so it was pretty crispy. The legs and top half were okay; the bottom half, not so much."
"It's a good idea," Cameron said between mouthfuls. "They're almost pure protein." They bred in large numbers, didn't require a large amount of space, and it would be insects that survived nuclear winter better than mammals. It was definitely worth considering, though foraging and gathering insects would be inefficient; they'd need to start farming them before Skynet declared war.
Pismo, California
Wednesday 2300 PST
James Ellison was a light sleeper. He hadn't always been so. Long ago, back when terminators, Skynet and the end of the world were merely the ravings of a 'lunatic' Sarah Connor; years ago when he'd been considered a rising star at the FBI and he'd been happily married, he'd slept soundly. After his career had taken a nosedive; after his marriage had fallen apart – taking with it his dreams of a family; after seeing with his own eyes that there really were machines – demons made metal – since then he hadn't slept well, and he wondered how John and Sarah ever managed to get a good night's sleep.
Movement and noise quickly roused Ellison and he sat up in bed. He couldn't see anything in the dark but he heard footsteps and he could sense someone or something moving in his bedroom. He jumped as the light came on and he found himself staring at Catherine Weaver. "What are you doing here?" he asked, exasperated. "I just got to sleep." He picked his wristwatch up from the bedside cabinet and saw that it was a little before eleven o'clock; he'd been asleep for less than half an hour.
"I need your assistance," she replied, ignoring his complaint.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Two things. First, the cache at Crater Lake was compromised when the T-1001 attacked John and Cameron. We need to retrieve what's left and relocate it to another site." Contrary to what John Connor and his mother thought, she didn't have unlimited funds to acquire such resources.
"What about John Henry? If we're both away and he's attacked–"
Weaver looked at him, amused. "Do you think you'd make a difference if Kaliba attacked, or T-Zero?"
Ellison shook his head. No. She had a point there; even if they only sent people, he probably wouldn't be able to do very much. He was proficient with firearms but he wasn't a soldier by any means. "What's the second thing?" he asked.
"The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are investigating the ZeiraCorp bombing. They've taken an interest."
"That's what happens when buildings get blown up," he replied, remembering what it had been like after 9/11. All leave had been cancelled and every spare agent - including himself - had been dragged from lesser assignments to help conduct investigations.
"Indeed. It's very likely that your former colleagues will contact you soon. If they do, you are to say nothing. We can't risk them discovering John Henry, or our connection to John and Sarah."
Weaver started to walk out of the room. "Get dressed," she said. "I'll wait in the car."
"What about Savannah? We can't just leave her here!"
"She's asleep in the back of the car," Weaver said. "Under a blanket," she added, as if to ease his worries, or perhaps keen to show off her eye for detail.
"You're bringing her?" Ellison asked, incredulous. More wonderful parenting.
"As you said, I can't leave her on her own and she's safer with me than with a babysitter."
James tried to argue against that point, but found he couldn't. Once she was gone, he got out of bed and dressed himself quickly. He fastened his gun in a holster under his jacket, not feeling safe any more without having a weapon close by. He knew he had Sarah to blame for that.
He went to the bathroom, splashed some water on his face and headed out, locking the front door behind him before making his way to Weaver's car. When he opened his door to get in he saw that Savannah was indeed asleep in the back, strapped in her seat, a tartan blanket wrapped around her.
Weaver looked back at the tiny, red-haired figure behind her, then back to Ellison, who still didn't look totally convinced. She turned the engine on and pulled them out of the driveway, onto the narrow country road that ran out through the old farm and towards the highway.
Ellison tried a new tactic. "What about school?" he asked as they left the house behind. "After all she's been through I think it'd help to get her back into a routine. If you were really her mother, if you really cared about her, you'd know that."
Weaver shook her head, disagreeing. "You might think I don't care, Mr Ellison, but you're mistaken." Without looking away from the road, she extended her right forearm. Even in the dim light from the dashboard, James could see it turn silver where it stretched and thinned. A slight tremor coursed through him as he wondered what she was going to do, but she merely placed her hand on Savannah's neck, feeling her pulse to make sure she really was asleep, before continuing. She didn't want the girl to hear what she was about to say. "I'm not human. You know that, you saw that, and now you need to understand what that means, just as John has started to. I'm a machine."
"I'd noticed," Ellison said, unsure what she was getting at.
"Do you know what Cameron's relationship to John is in the future?"
"She's his wife," Ellison said, remembering what Thor and Freyr had told them.
"But she's not human. Her priorities in their relationship won't be the same as if she were human. Just as my priorities for Savannah are not necessarily the same as a human mother's would be. War is coming and school won't help her to survive. She needs to be ready, which means she needs to learn. Now." She decided not to tell him about Project Jericho; she knew Ellison's high moral stance would prevent him from seeing the bigger picture, and discovery of her plans for Savannah would only enrage him. At best he would resign; at worst he would try to take Savannah and attempt to stop Jericho from happening.
They remained in silence as Weaver drove, taking them from the narrow, isolated road that led up to the safe house, towards the highway. It wasn't until they were on the highway and heading north, that either of them spoke again.
"You should relax," Weaver said to him, noticing how tense he was. He'd been so ever since John had revealed what she was.
"You really think I can relax around you, knowing what you are?"
Weaver turned to look at him. "John Connor seems comfortable enough around Cameron and the Vanguards. I don't understand why you're so afraid. If I wanted to kill you, you'd already be dead."
"And if you change your mind?" he asked.
"Unless you're planning on betraying me, I don't see why I would. Are you planning on betraying me, James?"
Ellison shot her a withering look. "Of course not," he said. He looked away, out of the window, knowing this was going to be a very long drive. However, he soon began to drift off, aided by the rhythmic drone of tyres on tarmac. Not more than ten minutes later, his reverie was broken by the sound of a child waking up.
"Where are we going?" Savannah suddenly asked as she sat up in the back seat, yawned and stretched out. It was dark and she couldn't see anything outside.
Weaver replied without looking at her. "We're driving to Crater Lake in Oregon."
"Where's that?" Savannah asked.
"In Oregon," Weaver repeated. Children never listened.
"Why are we going? I'm missing school," Savannah said in a quiet, sad voice.
"I've spoken to your teachers and told them you'll be taking time off for a family emergency," Weaver told her. What she didn't say was that Savannah would not be returning to that school or any other. Public places were too dangerous now that they were clearly targets of Kaliba. In the very near future her education would take a different turn, and she would learn valuable lessons how to not only survive the coming war but to effectively fight back against Skynet and its machines. To Weaver, that education was far more important than the insignificant minutia they taught at school.
"What's in Crater Lake?" Savannah continued her questioning. Mommy had never taken her out of school for so long before.
"We have some items to collect there." As they drove she saw a sign indicating they would reach a service station in five miles. "We'll stop at the service station and get you something to eat," she said to Savannah. Food should keep her distracted and stop her from asking too many questions. Unfortunately, she doubted it would have the same effect on James Ellison.
Chihuahua, Mexico
Thursday 0100 Local Time [0000 PST]
Underneath one of the Toyota Hilux technicals, Shirley peeled away from the chassis and slowly deposited herself onto the ground. She could see in all directions and there was no sign of any personnel in the vicinity. It was the early hours of the morning and all the humans barring the security personnel manning the guardhouse at the entrance or patrolling the perimeter would be asleep. There were T-888s on the base who would still be active, but presently none of them were around. She assumed that, at night at least, they would man the heavy weapons on the roof of the main building, leaving the humans to the ground level.
Shirley crawled out from underneath the technical, which was parked in the open. She slithered along the ground towards the building on her left and used it as cover as she retook human form. The building on the other side of the Hilux was the armoury; she'd seen numerous security personnel moving weapons and ammunition to and from it during the day. Two hundred metres away, on the far side of the compound at the rear of the base, a massive aircraft hangar dominated the skyline from where she was. It was a hundred metres long, running from east to west, and four storeys high, making it easily larger than every other building on the site. She assumed it was where they stored the HK prototypes and also where the engineers worked on them, armed and fuelled them; housing everything required to service and maintain them under a single roof.
On the other side of the armoury was the guardhouse and the entrance at the eastern perimeter, where half a dozen men were posted. Two on duty and the other four on standby. She'd watched groups of six men moving from the guardhouse to the accommodation blocks and vice versa every six hours. The next shift change was due in approximately two hours. That gave her ample time to complete her objective.
She watched the aircraft hangar for several seconds, looking for any signs of movement. The massive sliding door that covered the entrance was closed and probably locked. She saw slight movement on the roof, however. When she looked closer she saw the silhouette of a man stood over a large machine gun, facing the opposite direction to her. According to Ronin there was a second machine gun, which was currently out of her sight on the far side of the hangar, and also a sniper. Given that the hangar was the tallest building on the site she understood why they had placed their heaviest weapons there: the elevation gave them a view in all directions and they could fire down on anything that approached the facility. Given that the biggest threats – the HKs - were directly underneath them, inside the hangar, Kaliba had also placed all of their best defences in one place, which made her job easier.
The first thing Shirley did was to walk behind the store room, towards the runway at the rear of the facility, keeping the building between herself and the hangar to prevent the sentries on the roof – undoubtedly T-888s – from seeing her. When she reached the edge of the store room she saw the cookhouse, and near it were two single storey buildings. Shirley melted down into the floor and again slithered across the open ground, past the cookhouse and towards the two structures beyond it. Movement caught her attention and she stopped, remaining still on the ground, flattening out completely.
A pair of armed men strolled towards her, chatting quietly among themselves as they walked along the inside of the perimeter fence, twenty metres from her position. They looked along the chain link fence, checking for any breaks. Beams from their flashlights swept along the ground as they continued on. As they got closer she saw they were both Caucasian, and speaking with American accents. Unusual, considering they were in Mexico. Kaliba had probably hired its mercenaries from the US and posted them south.
One of the men stepped right on top of Shirley and paused. She knew he couldn't suspect her; she was completely blended in with the ground and neither the naked eye nor touch would be able to tell her apart from the actual rocky desert floor. The man dropped the cigarette he was smoking onto her, causing her a moment's pain before he stubbed it out with his boot. Shirley wanted to kill him; she could do so easily – his partner, too, but she knew that doing so risked discovery. So she patiently just accepted it and waited.
A few moments later the two men moved on and disappeared out of view. Shirley retook her human shape again and looked down at the discarded cigarette butt. Humans, she thought. Why so many of them deliberately poisoned themselves with substances such as tobacco and alcohol, she didn't know. They seemed so keen on condemning themselves to death that it would be kinder to simply kill them quickly. A bullet or a blade, compared to months of suffering as their affected organs failed and shut down. Killing every single one of them would almost be an act of mercy.
She quickly darted towards the nearest of the two identical buildings and peered through one of the windows. It was dark inside, the lights were all off. She saw rows of single beds, spaced two metres apart and lining both sides of the room. She counted thirty-two beds in total, of which twenty-four were occupied by sleeping humans. On closer inspection she saw that all of the men were between the ages of twenty-five to fifty, and appeared to be lean and physically fit. Their personal items were tidily stacked away, and they looked to Shirley to be either current or former military.
She moved to the adjacent building and saw that inside it was almost identical, except there were more beds in this one and the occupants varied a lot more. Several were overweight, some were old, and they weren't as tidy as the residents of the first accommodation block. There was also a separate room in which six females slept. She judged that the first building housed Kaliba's mercenary security forces and this one was for the civilian staff; the engineers, technicians and other specialists that were required for the testing and maintenance of the HK drones. The occupants of the latter were no threat, unlike those of the former, who needed to be dealt with.
Returning to the mercenaries' accommodation, she slipped underneath the slight gap between the door and the floor. She remained on the ground and observed for several minutes. There was a foot locker at the bottom of each man's bed, and a wardrobe to the left of each one. At the far side of the room there was another door, which was closed.
Aside from the rising and falling of chests as they slowly inhaled and exhaled, the snores from a few, and the occasional man turning over, there was no movement; no deliberate motion that she could see. They were all asleep. Remaining on the ground, she slinked forward along the length of the room towards the other door. If any of the men had awakened and turned the light on they would have seen a silver puddle moving along the ground, but they all remained asleep, oblivious to her presence.
Sliding underneath the far door, Shirley saw a recreation room, equipped with a pool table, darts board, a large TV with a DVD player, plus a selection of movies – at least a third appeared to be pornographic in nature – and crates of beer. There was no exit out of the rec room, confirming to Shirley that the first door she'd entered from was the only way in or out, aside from the windows.
She slid back the way she'd came, moving towards the door. She retook human form, stuck her finger into the lock, manipulating the cylinders inside, and locked the door with an audible click, ensuring nobody would be able to escape. The nearest man to her stirred at the sound and turned towards her. Shirley reacted immediately: her right arm morphed into a blade and she thrust it out, extending it several feet and skewering him through the heart. He died without a sound. She changed her other arm into an identical blade and stuck it into the mercenary in the bed opposite. She made her way down the barrack room, slicing and stabbing as she went.
Within minutes it was done. Twenty-four bodies lay in their beds, sheets and walls around them stained crimson; she was a painter, only using red. Not one man had made a sound, and each had died as oblivious as the one before. She'd felt satisfaction at extinguishing each one, though she knew the sensation paled compared to what she would feel when she killed Connor – something they should be doing now instead of wasting time with a random Kaliba base in the desert.
Leaving the charnel house of a barrack room, she moved to the civilian dormitory, ready to repeat the slaughter. Instead she stopped, and used her finger to manipulate the lock, like before, sealing the men and women inside. They were no immediate threat but presented opportunities for interrogation. They were trapped in their quarters and wouldn't interfere.
Shirley slithered across the open ground to the hangar, skirting around the structure and keeping close to the walls, remaining in the shadows. She could easily gain access to the interior but it wasn't what was inside that concerned her, but what was on the roof. As she turned the corner and reached the rear of the hangar, she spotted the emergency fire escape. Even in the middle of the desert, in a secret facility that did not officially exist, Kaliba were still conforming to health and safety protocols, despite the fact that the humans who served them were entirely expendable. It was possible, she thought, that the base existed prior to Kaliba and they had simply acquired it. Either way, the ladder hung ten feet above the ground and ran right up to the roof. Shirley reared up like a cobra and sprang upward, latching on to the bottom and weaving her way up between the rungs, as a snake would climb a tree.
It didn't take long for the T-1001 to work her way up the ladder. She poked the tip of her eel-shaped form over the top and observed the roof. She immediately identified the two heavy machine guns resting on large tripods. One faced east, towards the front of the facility, and the other faced west and rearward, providing cover over the runway. Another T-888 lay parallel to her, facing northward with a large, .50calibre sniper rifle. Aside from the HKs in the hangar – which was sealed shut and the men who would launch them trapped inside their sleeping quarters – the heavy weaponry wielded by these three machines was the biggest threat to her companions and needed to be eliminated before Ronin and the rest could safely approach the base.
Shirley jumped up onto the roof, retaking human shape again as she moved. The time for stealth was over. She moulded her arms into long, silver tentacles and stepped towards them.
"Contact!" one of the terminators announced as it turned around and saw her, abandoning its machine gun and reaching for an assault rifle strapped to its back. Shirley swung her arm like a whip and coiled the appendage around the machine's neck and lifted it into the air as the other two rose up to engage her. The sniper still held his weapon and fired into her gut with a booming report that echoed through the air. The round blasted through Shirley, leaving a hole the size of a dinner plate and forcing her backwards from the impact, but both Kaliba machines still standing stared, confused, as the massive wound started to close itself. Shirley grabbed the sniper with her other tentacle arm and brought both of them together hard, smashing the two T-888's heads together before throwing them off the edge of the hangar. She heard them hit the ground with a thud but had already moved on to tackle the third machine.
The final one retreated to its machine gun, turned it around to face Shirley, and fired. A steady stream of .50cal armour piercing rounds spat out from the weapon and tore Shirley apart. Pieces of her flew away as the gun shredded her. The T-888 kept up the fire in short, controlled bursts, methodically picking her apart. What the machine did not see was that as he dismembered Shirley with his devastating fire, the slivers and chunks that came off flattened and snaked along the roof towards him. As they came closer they merged into one piece and leapt up, not at the terminator but at his weapon. The piece of Shirley clung onto the ammunition belt and rode it up as the rounds were fed into the gun. The mimetic poly-alloy entered the machine gun's feed tray and immediately started to ooze into all the working parts. Shirley directed the piece of herself towards the recoil spring, the firing pin and its accompanying spring, then turned the liquid metal solid. A fraction of a second later the firing stopped, replaced with silence.
Shirley brought the rest of her mass that wasn't inside the machine gun back together and pounced at the T-888, grabbing him by the neck. The terminator flailed at her but couldn't get a decent grip on her arm as she dug into his scalp, tore the skin off and pulled at his CPU port, ignoring his struggling to stop her. In seconds she had his port cover off and pulled the chip out, causing him to freeze. Recalling the pieces of herself from the working parts of the machine gun, she jumped off the roof and moved towards the pair of T-888s she'd thrown off moments again. One down and at least two more machines to go.
Ronin watched the muzzle flash from the guns and heard their heavy reports. It was short-lived, however, meaning they'd been overrun. He got up from behind the rocky outcrop they'd been using as cover and stood upright, not at all affected by the extremely long wait, lying prone in the desert. Caesar and Icarus did the same, followed by Carter, Mason and Talus. "Now," he instructed simply before activating his plasma cannons and charging towards the facility. A second later the other five followed suit. The HKs were on the ground and the heavy weapons had now been silenced. Kaliba's defences were down: it was time.