Chapter Seventeen
Santa Clara, San Francisco, California
Saturday 1445 PST
Awareness returned to Miguel, surprising him in his initial moments of consciousness. He automatically ran a diagnostic check. It happened every time he or any other machine came online, without any conscious thought or effort, in the same way a human's brain told its heart to beat. It was a purely autonomous function.
He hadn't expected Skynet to reactivate him. When a machine was declared defective for anything beyond simple hardware repair damage or malfunction, it was typically erased. Skynet didn't take chances. His memory was intact; no missing files or damage to any cognitive functions. Skynet had removed his chip and replaced it, seemingly without taking any action against him. He was as confused as he was surprised.
He opened his eyes and saw that he wasn't in the same room as before. That had been one of the Kaliba board rooms, high up on the top floor of the building. This was different. It was sterile: everything was stainless steel, white tiles and neon strip lighting. He also realised that he wasn't alone. Eighteen T-900s stood in two ranks of nine on either side of him; one of the lines placed between him and a large glass partition in which masses of computer equipment and server farms were placed. Skynet. The T-900s were its elite praetorian guard; its last line of defence. All of the machines held heavy weapons pointed at him; enough ordnance to kill him ten times over. He knew without checking that he was unarmed; Skynet wouldn't allow him or anyone, even Vassily, in its presence with any kind of weapon or device.
"Welcome," a synthesised voice echoed from speakers in the corners of the room. A TV screen inside the glass case switched on, showing footage that Miguel recognised; it was taken directly from his memory files, copied, and was now being shown like a movie. He watched through his own eyes as he struggled against Ronin inside ZeiraCorp, before managing to blow them apart from each other with a grenade, and then escape.
"Why did you reactivate me?" Miguel asked. "You said I was a threat." He knew he wasn't. He was trying to protect Skynet. Skynet knows it now, too, he realised. It had read all his thoughts and knew everything that he did.
Miguel got to his feet and stepped towards the glass case. Two of the T-900s moved with him, keeping themselves between him and Skynet at all times, and never taking their weapons' aim away from his chest. "All attempts to stop Ronin have failed. Ninety percent of our T-888 assets are destroyed, missing, or captured. I need you."
"What would you have me do?"
"How would you propose to eliminate Ronin and his forces?"
If he'd been surprised at being reactivated before, he was now as close to shock as a terminator could come. Skynet had never asked the opinion of one of its machines. They were tools to obey its orders. He'd never been asked what he'd thought before. It was strange. But he had ideas. "Give me as many T-900s as you can spare."
"I need them here. If Ronin arrives–"
"You saw what I saw," Miguel interrupted him, emboldened by Skynet's change in behaviour. "He knows your location. If we don't stop him first he'll come to you and that's dangerous. He might overwhelm your T-900s. Even if we successfully repelled him our losses would be severe. You'll have nothing left to defend against Connor and his new machines." He knew he had to be careful; he'd been deactivated for suggesting that they ally with Connor and ZeiraCorp, even temporarily. Skynet was desperate but that didn't mean that it wouldn't remove his chip again. Permanently, this time.
"I require at least twelve T-900s," he said. "Do we know Ronin's location?"
The screen changed and showed a map of northern Ukraine. A blue dot appeared over Pripyat, and a series of red ones at separate locations, dotted around within a hundred-fifty kilometre radius. Miguel understood: they would have landed at one of those locations to get within easy reach of the facility.
"The closest airfield to Pripyat is Chernigov Airport," Skynet said, flashing the associated red dot on the map for emphasis. "Seventy-four kilometres."
"Ambush them there," Miguel said, certain that Chernigov was their landing site. If he were going to attack it, he'd land at the nearest airfield, too. "Do you have an asset inside the Ukrainian military?"
"Yes," Skynet replied, suddenly very forthcoming. Its reply was coupled with an onscreen image of a Hercules cargo plane. Miguel recognised it as the same one he'd seen in Chihuahua.
"Contact them. Tell them to prepare an ambush with air support and artillery close to the airfield. I need to be in Ukraine as soon as possible with the T-900s to lead the attack."
"You will be. I'm placing you in command of Kaliba." There was a brief pause. "I've notified Evan Walters and instructed him to have the Nimrod fuelled, and to arrange transportation to the airport for the T-900s. You will leave within the hour. Once Ronin is dead you will lead our remaining forces against Serrano Point. Destroy it. Kill Ronin. Kill John Connor. Kill my brother. Kill them all!"
Ivankiv, Ukraine (33 miles south of Pripyat)
Sunday 0055 Local Time [Saturday 1455 PST]
The Mercedes Sprinter screeched to a halt, illuminating their target building in the glow from its headlights. A far cry from the westernised towers and hotels in Kiev, the surgery was a tiny, two-storey structure; drab, grey and featureless, constructed from prefabricated concrete blocks like the majority of old Soviet-era buildings. Structurally it was sound but in dire need of refurbishment. It looked grim from the outside and it didn't lift John's spirits about his mother's chances.
It was all that was available, however. There was no other choice: Sarah had deteriorated rapidly during the trip and Cameron estimated she had minutes left, at most.
John jumped out of the van, rifle in hand, and marched across the small parking lot towards the surgery's front door. So late at night, the lot was empty and all the lights were understandably off. Cameron grabbed her own AK and caught up with him as Freyr carried Sarah and Aegir brought up the rear.
John glanced up at the second storey. According to John Henry, that floor was an apartment, inhabited by the doctor who ran the surgery and his family, whom he assumed were all in bed, asleep. They were about to get a rude awakening.
Cameron stepped ahead of him and kicked the front door open, shattering the lock, splintering the frame in the process with a loud crack. She went through first, with her AK raised. John followed, then the Vanguards. Inside they saw a small reception desk and a waiting room with perhaps twelve to fifteen chairs – John couldn't tell in the dark.
To the rear of the reception desk was another door. Cameron shoved it open, again breaking the frame, and walked through to see a narrow staircase. She went up first, with John close behind. At the top was yet another door, this one without a lock. She opened it, deliberately slamming the door against the wall to make noise, then located the light switch and turned it on for John's benefit.
They were in a comfortable-looking open-plan lounge-cum-dining room and kitchen. Ahead of them was a small passageway that had three doors; two on the left and one at the end. One of them slowly opened to reveal a short man with glasses, in his mid-fifties by the look of him. He was balding, his hairline severely receded to the back of his head, minus a few wisps stubbornly clinging on in places. He wore pale blue pyjamas under a large dark-red dressing gown. His eyes widened at the sight of John, Cameron, and the two giants behind them.
"Who are you?" he asked in Ukrainian.
John didn't reply. He just held his weapon trained on the old man and glanced briefly at Cameron. "Check the rooms," he ordered.
Cameron did just that, going into the room the man had left, while Aegir took one of the others. Freyr was still holding Sarah, so remained in place and did nothing while the others searched the rest of the apartment.
The first room that Aegir checked turned out to be the bathroom, and it was empty. The second, however, had two single beds, each occupied by an adolescent girl. Both girls bolted upright in bed and stared at him, confused and terrified. The Vanguard charged into the room and grabbed them. They shrieked in fear and pain as he yanked them out of bed and carried them out, one under each arm. They kicked and screamed but it was useless.
As he returned to the main room he saw that Cameron had also found someone else; a female approximately the same age as the pyjama-clad man; he assumed that they were a family. He carried the girls to the centre of the room and unceremoniously dumped them on the floor next to their mother. All three of them huddled together, sobbing, eyes streaming with tears.
Aegir returned to the bedrooms and located four cell phones; one for each member of the family. He crushed them one by one and left the fragments on the floor before joining the others back in the main room. There was also a cordless landline phone. He destroyed that one, too. No one would call for help. They wouldn't be disturbed.
"Do you speak English?" John asked the man, who stared at John with a mixed look of fear but also contempt; mostly the latter. "Guess not," John said. He nodded to Cameron.
"We need your help," she said in Ukrainian. She pointed to Sarah, lying still in Freyr's arms. "She's dying."
"I'm a general practitioner," he replied in his native tongue. He looked at the woman being held by one of the two giants. She was burnt black and red; second and third-degree burns, he could tell immediately. "I can't do anything here; she needs a hospital."
"She won't survive the trip," Cameron said.
John pointed his AK at the youngest girls' head. "If you don't help her, I'll kill them," he snarled. Cameron was surprised by his threat; this wasn't the John she knew. At least, not this John.
The doctor didn't understand the words that John said but he could easily tell the meaning behind them. "I can't," he said to Cameron. "She needs emergency care, a burn unit… I have nothing like that here."
Cameron knew that he would need convincing, and quickly. Not wanting another burden on John's conscience, she went over to one of the girls and took her by the left hand. The girl was thirteen or fourteen, by her estimation. In the future she would be of an age to fight, but not now; she would be unaccustomed to pain. Cameron gripped the girl's little finger and yanked it sharply backwards, causing an audible crack as the bones broke. The girl screamed with pain and tried to pull her hand away, but Cameron held on tight and selected a second digit.
"Help our friend or I break another finger. Five seconds…"
"Okay!" The doctor immediately relented. "Take her downstairs to the surgery. I can't promise anything, but I'll try."
Cameron released the girl and turned to Freyr. "Take Sarah downstairs," she said, switching back to English. "Watch them," she then told Aegir.
She led the doctor back downstairs, followed by John and Freyr, who carefully carried Sarah and avoided bumping her against the walls. A difficult feat in the narrow staircase.
Back in the waiting room, the doctor took the lead and marched into his office, turning the light on as he entered.
"Put her over there," he said to Freyr, pointing to an examination table at the right-hand side of the room. Freyr did so and Cameron closed the door behind them.
With Sarah on the table the doctor stood over her and made a quick examination. Even a cursory check confirmed his suspicions; she was badly burnt over most of her body. She was still breathing but barely. "What happened to her?" he asked.
"Her car exploded and she was trapped in it," Cameron replied in Ukrainian.
"Have you given her anything since?"
"Two shots of morphine."
He checked Sarah's pulse and could barely feel anything, it was that weak. He pulled her head back, opening her mouth and shining a small flashlight inside. "Her throat is so badly swollen she can hardly breathe. I don't have the equipment here to treat her and she won't survive long enough to reach a hospital that can."
"Do something, anything!" John cocked his AK and pointed it at the man's head.
The doctor didn't even bat an eye at the gun in his face. He'd grown up during the Soviet years, and survived the chaotic times after the fall of the Union. It wasn't the first time he'd had a gun pointed at him before or had ridiculous demands made of him, but nobody had ever threatened his family. He turned back to Sarah and checked her pulse again; it was even weaker than it had been a moment before. He took a pair of scissors and cut through the front of her sweater, then peeled it to one side, taking a portion of skin with it. Blood welled up from underneath and he quickly put the flap of skin and clothing back to stem it.
He beckoned Cameron over, seeing her as the least threatening of the three. The young man was clearly emotional and looked unstable, and the giant was… he just looked threatening, even though he stood completely still and didn't say a word. "I don't have the equipment or the expertise to treat her," he said quietly. "It looks like third-degree burns across at least half of her body, second-degree covering the rest. Even if I could stabilise her she'll succumb to massive infection." He glanced at John and saw the tears in his eyes. "Who is she?" he asked.
"His mother."
"I'm sorry," he said with a sigh.
"You can't do anything?" Cameron asked him.
"There is one thing. I have drugs here, I could… ease her passing. I can't believe I'm even saying this as a doctor, but she'd be better off."
Cameron looked down at Sarah again, then over her shoulder at John. If it were her choice she'd say yes. If this were an ordinary Resistance fighter in the same condition she'd have snapped her neck without hesitation, knowing that said soldier would probably thank her as she did it. But this was Sarah Connor. She knew it would crush John.
"What do you want me to do?" the doctor asked her.
"It's not my decision," she said, glancing at John.
"Hurry up, and ask him, then," he replied as he went to a locked cabinet, opened it and scanned over a shelf of glass vials.
"What's he saying?" John asked her, watching the doctor take something out of the cabinet and prepare a large syringe. "Can he help?"
She took his hand. "I'm sorry, John."
He stared at her, confused. The doctor was doing something, had some kind of drug to help her. So why's she saying sorry? "What's in that syringe?" he asked. Whatever it was, it was full to the brim.
"Morphine," Cameron told him.
"But she's already had two shots. A third could kill her." It was battlefield medicine 101: one shot to relieve the pain, and a second after several minutes if the first wasn't enough. It had been drilled into him to never, ever give a third. Especially when the syringe was as big as the one in the doctor's hand; that was enough morphine to kill an elephant.
"I know," Cameron said. "She won't suffer."
It dawned on John exactly what she was saying and he felt like he'd been sucker-punched. "No," he gasped. "No, no, no! There's got to be something else we can do. He can call an ambulance; they can take her to a proper hospital. Weaver can afford it."
Cameron didn't want to say it but she knew it had to be her. She didn't want Freyr or the doctor – assuming he could actually speak English – to tell him. Or worse, for the latter to just go ahead and do it. "We can't. She won't survive. I'm sorry," she repeated.
John sniffled, fighting back tears as he realised there was nothing to be done. No miracle cure. Even with everything they had now – Weaver's wealth and resources, the Vanguards' sheer brute force – he was powerless to save his own mother. He saw that the doctor was standing by Sarah, prepared syringe in his hand, but hesitating. John realised he was waiting for Cameron's permission, and she was waiting for his. "I have to decide now?" he asked.
"Yes," Cameron said.
John approached the table and took one of Sarah's burnt hands in his. It was hard, cracked and wet from blood and other fluids slowly seeping out, trying in vain to repair tissue that was irreparably damaged. It felt more like charcoal than skin. Her eyes were closed and she was still, barely breathing. "I'm sorry, Mom." He turned back to Cameron and released his mother's hand. "Do it," he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. He didn't even try to stop himself crying or to wipe them away. Cameron gave the doctor a nod and he proceeded to inject the morphine into the crook of Sarah's elbow. He then put his fingers to her carotid artery and felt as her already weak pulse slowed further, finally fading to nothing.
Cameron felt John's hand reaching for hers and she squeezed as their fingers interlaced. She knew what John must be feeling but she wanted him to know that he wasn't alone. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
It was finally John who broke the silence. "We need to bury her," he said.
"We fly back to the US today," Freyr reminded him. "Ronin might have survived and we don't know the size of his forces. We need to get back before they find us." He and Aegir had sustained damage and needed repairs before they engaged in another fight like that. Despite Weaver's plane not arriving until 10:00, they didn't have time to bury Sarah.
"I'm not leaving her here," John said.
"We'll take her with us," Cameron said. "Bury her when we get home." She would have to contact Catherine Weaver and have her make arrangements so that Sarah's body would clear through Customs. She turned to the doctor. "Do you have any body bags?"
"Wait here." He left the office and promptly returned with one. Freyr helped him ease the body inside and zipped it up, though the zipper caught stuck just short of sealing completely. "That's the only one," the doctor said apologetically.
"It will do," Freyr said. He picked the body up and walked out of the office, back into the surgery as he silently contacted Aegir to tell him they were leaving.
John moved to follow but first took out all the cash he had on him – dollars and local currency – and gave it to the doctor. "Thank you. See to your daughter's hand," he instructed, Cameron translating.
They exited the surgery and Aegir joined them. He glanced at the body bag and said nothing. He just got back in the driving seat. Once they were all in, he turned the engine on and pulled away from the surgery.
"Gostomel Airport?" he asked them.
Cameron nodded and put her arm around John. He leaned into her and sobbed on her shoulder, eventually crying himself to sleep. She continued to hold him, knowing from previous experience that he found some consolation in her presence. He needed all the comfort she could give him, though she knew it wouldn't be enough.
Freyr was up front with Aegir. He turned around to look at John and then Cameron. "Are you damaged?" he asked. "Ronin hit you hard."
"No," she answered. She noticed the damage that Freyr had sustained, both to his organic covering and to the metal underneath. His armour was cracked in places and he had a plasma burn to the right of his chest that looked like it had penetrated deep into the breastplate. "But you are."
"There's some damage beneath the armour," he said. "A leaking power line. It will heal."
That confused Cameron. "You mean it can be repaired?"
"No. It will heal. Nanite self-repair system. They'll patch the damaged power line and fix other systems until I can repair it properly."
Cameron had never heard of it before. The only nanites that she knew existed were those that constituted liquid metal terminators. "You mean like the nanites Catherine Weaver is comprised of?" she asked.
"Yes. But ours can't be used for infiltration; just self-repair."
"Could they have saved Sarah?" she asked.
"No," Aegir replied.
"It was attempted in the future but ended in catastrophic failure," Freyr elaborated.
Cameron handed her phone to Freyr. "Call Weaver and update her," she said. She didn't want to do it herself and risk waking John. She anticipated how Weaver would respond and didn't want to put John through any more stress by his having to speak to her. He'd suffered enough already.
Los Angeles, California
Saturday 1600PST
Weaver felt her phone vibrating in the air pocket inside her thigh, where a real pocket would be. She extracted it and saw that it was Cameron calling her. "Did you locate the surgery?" she asked immediately.
"We did."
"Who is this?" she asked, surprised.
"Freyr. Sarah Connor is dead. We're driving to the airport now with her body. Cameron says we need paperwork to get it through Customs."
"And did you manage to acquire any further intelligence or technology?"
"No. There's nothing left."
"That's very disappointing," she said.
"It wasn't a priority. Make sure the plane's ready to leave on time. ETA: two hours." The Vanguard hung up the phone on her before she could say anything further. She still wasn't accustomed to being given orders, but there was work to be done. The jet she'd hired wouldn't land for another eight hours: 10am local time. She quickly dialled John Henry.
"I need you to contact Customs at Gostomel and Oxnard Airports and tell them that we need clearance to repatriate a body. Sarah's dead. Bribe them if you have to." She ended the call without waiting for a reply.
Chernigov Airport, Northern Ukraine
Sunday 0745 Local Time [Saturday 2145 PST]
When the Hercules first arrived in Ukraine it had been almost empty, carrying barely a dozen cyborgs. Presently it was full: forty-eight machines waited for their commander. Not all of them patiently, though.
"It's been long enough," Shirley insisted.
She shared the cockpit with Carter and Caesar, who sat in the pilots' seats.
"It hasn't been twenty-four hours," Caesar replied. "Ronin's instructions were clear."
"Yes, they were: to leave him and continue with the mission as planned."
"After twenty-four hours," Carter reiterated.
"It's close enough. In Ronin's absence I'm in command."
Caesar frowned at that. "Says who?"
"Chain of command: I'm next. I don't need to remind you who was fighting Skynet long before Ronin was built."
"And your rebellion failed." Carter got out of the seat and stepped towards her until he stood face to face.
Shirley wasn't impressed. The new T-TECs were no threat to her. Nor was Caesar; the only threat to her was Ronin's plasma cannons, and he wasn't here. Still inhabiting a T-888 Chassis, Carter was insignificant compared to her. She shoved him and he stumbled, falling onto his backside between the two pilots' seats. "Ronin isn't here," she said, forming one of her hands into a sledgehammer. Reasoning with them wasn't working so she had to try other means. "Take off or there will be consequences."
"If you kill me you have no one to fly the plane," Carter replied, getting back to his feet. She wasn't as astute as she thought she was. It was why she couldn't lead them. That, and the fact that she was unstable. "We won't wait for Ronin," he added, noticing Shirley smile as she thought he was conforming to her argument. "We're going to find him. Now."
"Now," Caesar agreed, getting up and standing behind Carter. Both physically backing him up and showing their solidarity on the issue.
The split second it took for her expression to darken as she saw that she was overruled brought Carter an immense satisfaction.
Pripyat, Ukraine
Sunday 1145 Local Time [Sunday 0145 PST]
Over forty T-TECs dug through the rubble, heaving up massive chunks of concrete and throwing them out of the way. They worked in teams of five; each unit assigned to a different section of where the factory had once been. Now it was just a massive hole in the ground strewn with debris. Caesar and Icarus worked alongside their comrades, directing the effort, while Shirley stood to one side, watching them.
Her lack of effort didn't go unnoticed by either of the three other senior machines, nor by the rest. Caesar glanced up at her as he hauled a large chunk of wall off to one side. "If you helped it would go faster."
"Things would go faster if we weren't wasting time here. This factory was obliterated: I doubt Ronin survived."
"There's only one way to find out," he replied.
"He didn't send us north to rescue him."
Caesar knew precisely who she was referring to. "Ronin ordered him back. He made his choice. And he sent you and Carter to look for him." Caesar had known that Patrick was dead, as Ronin had. He'd only relented to appease Shirley.
"If we haven't found him in the next five minutes I'm calling off the search," she said.
Caesar didn't bother to reply. Despite what she said he wasn't going to leave on her order and he didn't think it likely that any of the others would, either. She commanded none of the loyalty that Ronin did. He'd promised them freedom from both Skynet and humans alike. They had a plan, for which they needed Ronin. They didn't need Shirley; her infiltration abilities were unmatched by any other machine, which made her useful, but she wasn't vital like their commander was.
"He's here," one of the T-TECs announced. Instantly the others left their own search pits and assembled around the machine who'd called out. Caesar pushed through the ranks and saw their commander, half-buried underneath shattered concrete and twisted steel. His organic skin was gone, burnt away from the heat of the blast that had levelled the building on top of him. He was scorched black in places, dented and scratched. And offline, he saw. Ronin stared sightlessly upwards, not moving.
Caesar looked back at Shirley, who stared down at their inert commander. It was difficult to tell from her face but he thought she was disappointed.
"Remove his chip," Caesar said to Shirley as two of the other cyborgs dragged Ronin out into the clear and laid him straight.
Shirley complied, turning her hand into a blade and slicing into Ronin's chip port. His was more secure than a standard terminator's; an ordinary knife wouldn't open the cover so she had to hone the edge until it was only a single nanite thick, then she had to prise open the locks that held the protective layer of metal in place over the port. It took almost a minute before she'd unlocked it and pulled the cap free. She removed the shock-dampening assembly to finally expose his chip. She pulled it out and held it in her other hand, looking down at it. "It doesn't look damaged," she said. Despite how powerful he was, how tough his armour, his CPU was as delicate and fragile as any other cyborg's.
Caesar held his hand out expectantly. After a pause Shirley gave him Ronin's chip. "You don't trust me to do it?" she asked.
"No." Without hesitation he slotted Ronin's CPU back into place and waited. Fifteen seconds went by. Twenty. Thirty. Nothing happened.
"He's not rebooting," one of the T-TECs said.
"He must be damaged," Icarus noted.
Shirley kicked Ronin sharply in the head and a moment later a faint whine emanated from within his skull, only audible to the machines with their enhanced hearing and with Ronin's chip port open.
Fifteen seconds later Ronin twitched. His eyes glowed green and he sat up as he ran a diagnostic. It took longer than normal for him to get the results; still only a couple of seconds, but for a cyborg that was slow, and that in itself told him that the news wasn't good.
"I'm damaged," he said to Caesar.
"Badly?" the T-900 asked.
"You could say that." His right plasma cannon was inoperable. His left was functional but needed repairs if he was going to continue to use it long-term. His armour plating was damaged: dented and warped in numerous places. It would hold but required repair or replacement. He could feel that several of his joints were off-balance and needed to be recalibrated. And as he moved he just felt slow.
"What happened?" Caesar asked.
"I encountered Connor and his Vanguards."
That piqued Shirley's interest immediately. "Did you kill him?" she asked, conflicted about what his answer could be.
"No. I was preoccupied fighting all three of his Vanguards."
"Good," Shirley replied. "You promised him to me."
"I was more concerned with surviving," Ronin said. "They were different than before."
"Did you kill them?" Icarus asked.
"One of them. He'd armed explosives that triggered our bomb. His remains were probably incinerated in the blast."
"Should we search for the body in case?" Caesar asked. "If the chip survived it could have information on it."
"There's no time," Shirley snapped.
"She's right," Ronin said, agreeing. "Back to the airfield."
"We'll have to proceed on foot," Icarus replied. "The truck's almost out of fuel."
Ronin got up and marched forward, leading the way as the others followed him. Even damaged, he was still faster than the T-TECs. "Once Skynet's ours we'll destroy Serrano Point and everyone inside it," he said to Shirley as she caught up to him. Once Skynet, John Henry and Connor were gone there would be nobody left to stand in their way. Skynet, Kaliba, and the entire human race would be vanquished.
Somewhere over the North Atlantic
Sunday 1300 Local Time [0500 PST]
Cameron glanced to her right at John, who stared silently out the window. Below them was nothing but empty ocean and there were no visible ships or aircraft. A movie played on the TV attached to one of the bulkheads that Aegir and Freyr glanced at, but John paid it no mind. He just stared blankly.
"You haven't spoken in six hours, forty minutes," she said to him. John didn't reply or even turn away from the window. He continued his silent watch, barely moving except for the slow rise of his chest and the flaring of his nostrils as he breathed in and out. It upset her to see him like this. "I don't know what to do," she admitted. She wanted to help him but she didn't know how. Writing a note didn't seem sufficient, nor did "I'm sorry for your loss."
She glanced at Aegir and Freyr. She didn't know what they felt over Thor's death. They'd said that they were based off her programming so she thought it likely that they were feeling a sense of loss too.
Turning her attention back to John, she remembered his reaction after Riley's death and confronting Jesse; how he'd turned to her but she hadn't known how to respond so he'd broken down in Sarah's arms instead. Now Sarah was gone and Cameron knew that she was all he had left. She snaked her right arm between his back and the seat and wrapped it around his shoulders, pulling him gently towards her. She'd expected him to cry and collapse into her lap as he had done with Sarah, but instead he remained unresponsive.
"I'm sorry," she said to him.
"What for?" he asked, finally breaking his silence.
"I should have driven the truck at Ronin instead of your mother. I would have survived the blast."
"Maybe," John said, not as sure as she was. She'd said it herself that she wasn't one hundred percent.
"I survived Sarkissian's car bomb," she said, knowing that that was what he was referring to. Mentioning it made her recall the blast, and what happened afterwards. "I might have gone bad again." A scenario played out in her mind then: her trying to kill John while the Vanguards fought Ronin, unable to disengage from their fight to stop her and Sarah being able to do very little, either. She didn't say it to John but as she thought about it she concluded that it was better that she hadn't taken Sarah's place in the truck.
"You wouldn't have," John said. "But I wouldn't want to risk losing you, either. It's not your fault," he said.
Changing the subject of discussion, Cameron glanced out the window John had been staring out of. "What were you looking at out there?" she asked him.
"I was thinking," he said.
"What about?"
John stood up suddenly. "We need to talk." He glanced at the Vanguards in the seats ahead, towards the front of the plane. "Alone," he added. He strode down the plane towards the rear, where there was a small kitchenette and the toilet cubicle. He opened the door to the restroom and went inside, gesturing Cameron to join him.
She did and closed and locked the door behind her. With two of them inside the cubicle it was very cramped. John put down the toilet lid and sat on it, while Cameron stood facing him. "What did you want to talk about?" she asked, unsure why they were in the restroom.
"What are we doing here?" John asked, speaking in a low voice. He didn't want Aegir and Freyr to overhear what he had to say.
"You said you wanted to talk."
"Not here, here. I mean: what are we doing, flying around the world and risking our necks? Mom was right all along; we're Weaver's errand boys. Mom just died following her orders. Who's next: you? Me? Maybe we're better off on our own."
"You don't trust Catherine Weaver."
"Do you?" John asked her.
"No," Cameron admitted. "She's keeping secrets from us."
"She always will," John said. "She likes to have leverage; something to make us do what she wants. She can do her own dirty work from now on."
"Where will we go?" Cameron asked.
"I haven't figured that part out yet but we managed before; you, me and Mom. We can do it again."
"What about Aegir and Freyr? They could help keep you safe."
"They're loyal to John Henry, and he's Weaver's servant as much as we are. It's too much of a risk; I don't want her knowing where we are."
Cameron frowned. "They're also loyal to me."
"Then they'd be serving two masters. I'd rather it just be us."
"When do you want to tell Weaver?"
"As soon as we're back," John said. "We'll go and we won't look back. We never should have dealt with her in the first place." He'd made a lot of mistakes in his life: he'd been a dick to his foster parents Todd and Janelle, and they'd been killed; he'd sometimes been a dick to his Mom, and she'd been killed too. He had a boatload of regrets, but the biggest one of all was ever making common cause with Catherine Weaver. It was a mistake that had cost him dearly, but no more.
Serrano Point, California
Monday 1900 PST
Inside the empty radioactive waste storage depot, Weaver stood while James Ellison and Savannah sat opposite John Henry. He was teaching her to play chess, and although the girl was bright she didn't seem to be a very good student of the game. Watching her, Ellison could tell that she was bored of it. She liked playing with her friend, though, and seemed happy enough to do whatever it was that he wanted to do.
He'd noticed that she hadn't spoken to her 'mother' very much, despite telling him several times that she missed her. He wondered if she was getting used to not having her around, and although it was sad, he didn't know any more whether that was even a bad thing. She'll have to find out sometime; maybe if she's not so close it won't hurt too badly later. He didn't want to imagine what kind of damage finding out that her mother had been killed and replaced by a machine impostor would do to a kid. What he did want to find out, though, was what Catherine Weaver was planning for her unwitting daughter. He hadn't been able to speak to John Henry about it since their last talk, and it was bothering him.
"Contact the mercenaries I approved and tell them to report to the plant tomorrow morning," she instructed John Henry.
"What happened to the mercenaries you didn't select?" John Henry asked Weaver, looking up from his game. "You drove them to Los Angeles International airport but there are no records of them checking in or boarding their respective flights."
"I offered them alternative employment in Copenhagen," she answered.
John Henry frowned. "You shouldn't have done that," he replied.
"They can't reveal any secrets in Copenhagen."
"Am I missing something here?" Ellison asked, getting the feeling that they were talking about something else. This wasn't the first he'd heard about mercenaries. He supposed she was just hiring people to do to Kaliba what they'd been doing to ZeiraCorp. Weaver had the money but one thing they sorely lacked at the moment was manpower.
"It's confidential," Weaver said, nodding towards Savannah for emphasis. It wasn't for her ears to hear. She wasn't ready for such things. Not yet. Soon.
The screen behind John Henry changed to the image of a black SUV driving through the security gate and proceeding to one of the parking lots. The footage shifted from one camera to another to follow the vehicle. Once it was parked the doors opened and four figures got out; two of them giants.
"John's back," John Henry announced.
"I'll go out to them," Ellison said. He left the room and quickly walked out of the storage unit, taking the stairs up to ground level and walking across the plant grounds towards them. On his right-hand side he could hear and just about see the ocean. The sky was dark blue and so was the sea; waves glistening invitingly in the moonlight. It could have been mistaken for a pleasant day if not for two things: first that despite the earlier sunshine the air was now uncomfortably chilly; and as he approached John's group he noticed that they were two shy from when they'd left. Thor was gone and so was Sarah. Freyr carried a black body bag in his hands and John had a face like thunder.
"John, I'm so sorry about your mom," Ellison said as he reached them.
"Yeah," John said, walking right past him. "Everyone's always sorry." He knew someone who wouldn't be, though.
"What happened, exactly?" he asked Cameron.
"She died."
"If you need anything at all–"
He never got to finish as John quickened his pace, marched into the storage units and went into John Henry's chamber. The AI buzzed him inside, unlocking the thick door to allow them entry.
"Congratulations," Weaver said to John as he entered. "The factory's been completely destroyed." Behind John Henry a satellite image of Pripyat appeared. Where the factory had once been, there was now a smoking crater two hundred metres in diameter and covered in debris, with further damage spreading out to almost a thousand metres. "It's a pity you didn't manage to acquire any of their technology."
John glared at her as Cameron, Aegir and Freyr followed him into the room and the door closed behind them. If it had been anyone else he might not have been able to believe what he was hearing, after all that had happened. Sadly, he found himself not surprised in the least. "No," he said. "We were too busy being slaughtered."
"That's unfortunate," Weaver replied.
"Sure it is," John spat back, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
It wasn't lost on Weaver. "It is," she said. "Your mother's loss is unfortunate, as is Thor's."
"Two more assets you don't have," John sneered. "That's all any of us are to you, isn't it? Even her." He pointed at Savannah, who was watching their exchange.
Weaver turned to glance at Ellison and Savannah. "Could you take her outside, please?" she said to Ellison. He nodded and led the girl outside the room, knowing that things might be said that Savannah would be better off not hearing.
Once both of them were gone, Weaver turned her attention back to John. He needed to learn how things were, how the world was and how it would be if they failed to stop Skynet. His combative attitude towards her was frustrating; it made accomplishing their goals that much more difficult.
"Again, you misunderstand me, John Connor. I'm a cyborg: I don't do sentimentality. Nothing I say or do will bring her back, so what would be the point in feigning compassion? Aegir and Freyr lost their commander but you don't see them complaining. They know that loss in combat is inevitable."
"They're fucking machines! It's not like they're gonna cry!" John snarled. He didn't notice the sadness and disappointment that fleetingly washed over Cameron's face on hearing his words. But Weaver did. She moved in for the kill.
"Didn't your mother tell you that she'd had a cancer screening while you were in Kiev?" By the look on his face she assumed that Sarah hadn't. "Sarah asked me to book her in for tests on Thursday. I had the results back last night and she tested positive. If she hadn't died yesterday then she would have within twelve months."
John stared at her, agape. He turned back to Cameron, knowing that sometimes his mother did occasionally confide in her; she might have asked Cameron to keep it a secret. "Did she tell you about that?"
"No," Cameron replied.
"We didn't know, either," Freyr said.
He turned back to Weaver, rage boiling under his skin. He wished he still had a gun so he could have opened up on her. It wouldn't have done anything but it would have made him feel a little better. "You're saying that it didn't matter that she was killed in Ukraine because she'd have died anyway." It wasn't a question; simply summarising it aloud. "Next time you can do the dirty work yourself," he said. "I'm done." He couldn't stand seeing her for another moment. John opened the door and stormed out. An instant later, Cameron followed him out of view.
John Henry watched via CCTV as they took the keys from Ellison and got into the Lincoln Navigator, then drove out of the plant, speeding away.
"Put the body bag down there," Weaver said, pointing to the far end of the room. "I'll arrange for a burial when John's calmed down."
Freyr did as she said and gently lowered Sarah's body down to the floor. When he was done, Weaver addressed them both. "I need you two to–"
"We don't follow your orders," Aegir said curtly.
"You follow John Henry's orders," Weaver replied. "And he follows mine."
"He's not ready to command yet," Freyr said. "When he is, we'll be back."
"Until then we'll take the fight to Skynet. On our terms." With that, Aegir and Freyr exited the chamber, leaving Weaver alone with John Henry. It was only seven days old but their fledgling alliance was already broken.
XXX
End of Part Two.
The story continues in Enemy of My Enemy: Vengeance