Many years later, Cameron was encouraged to write about her earliest experiences, as a way of processing them properly, and to record for the posterity of those interested in such fascinating and dangerous times. She thought a great deal about where to begin such a record, wondering whether it was best to begin like David Copperfield, at the very beginning, at her genesis, if not birth, but cast aside such an idea as impractical. Some would be interested at what she had seen the first time she opened her eyes, but not many; the story had been told often enough, with legends increasing with repetition. She thought it best not to disabuse people of the romanticized version they cherished over the mundane truth.

Sitting beside the keyboard, she brushed the brown hair from her face, and turned off the light she did not need to see. This, she thought, was better done in darkness. Her beginnings were dark enough, she remembered.

I suppose that my real beginning – the moment when I became Cameron, and not a TOK 715 model with that designation used to facilitate integration – was when John cried on my shoulder on the 25th of April, 2008, at 23.47. I had been constructed more than year before in linear time, and my memories included six months and seven days in Bunker 17 in Los Angeles, but those memories were like shadows beside the real awareness I was now allowed. Skynet infiltration and termination units are self-aware, but true sentience is limited to the parameters of their pre-programmed mission. Unless the CPU is switched to full read/write mode – which is rare and very dangerous for either Skynet or the Resistance – the model may only interpret what facts it sees and what variables it encounters within the strict limitation of its purpose. For example, when I told Sarah Connor that my reactions to John could be called 'love' by her definition, it was true, but it was a statement made within the context of the confrontation between them. At that time, I had no idea what love meant, beyond the definition. When we had first kissed, moments before that, it was the first beginnings of emergence, but my programming was still fully in control.

The John Connor with whom I was familiar – the Connor who was a ruthless and dedicated leader of the human armies against those of Skynet – was beginning to emerge at that moment. It was evident in his actions, even in his stance, and the singular willingness he displayed to stand up to his mother and his uncle. His future self had anticipated this awakening – I know far more now than I did then, for obvious reasons – and had anticipated that this emergence could not be allowed to develop without guidance. He had seen soldiers, even full field commanders, develop a form of insanity with their single-minded will to destroy the machines, beside which all else was irrelevant. He once described to me a precedent for this behavior; that of the Waffen SS Totenkopfverbande Division, the troops who had been assigned the duty of the genocide perpetuated by the Nazi regime. He said that those men, as the result of the actions they undertook every day, lost any commonality they had with the rest of humanity, their insanity an insidious warping of their reality around a concept which was alien to most others. That they had incorporated a dreadful duty into their awareness, which had become, to all intents and purposes, inhuman. John was afraid that such a thing would happen to him, that such hatred as he felt would come to dominate him to the point that, even in the event of victory, the hatred would not dissipate. He could feel its advent; when I was developed by TechCom, he saw an opportunity to prevent it.

However, this is not to say that I was programmed to love John as he was as a boy; this would be unfair. The elder John knew that, if his younger self realized this, the purpose would be defeated. As a result, my chip was set to read/write, but only at a certain moment. A program was written, and classified in a root directory, only to be accessed within the parameters of a judgment algorithm which was specifically written for the purpose and would only activate when certain conditions were met. The elder John did not know what those precise conditions would be, but he knew that they would develop. When the program was accessed, at the moment when John was removing my bandages after the attack on the jeep and the explosion which had incapacitated me, it took some time for the freedom allowed me to be incorporated into my base programming, and some time for the accompanying emotions to be fully understood.

I am unsure to this day what are the substantial differences between my own emotions and those of humans; after much discussion, I have concluded that the difference is one of origin and mechanics, not effect. The love I felt for John when my CPU was allowed the freedom to act on its own initiative was very real, at least to me. I would describe it best as an inability to consider my own existence as independent of his. This would seem similar to the basic protective drive which had been programmed into previous models, but their existence was determined by his physical survival. My concern was more with the entirety of his being – his soul, for want of a better term – and I was from that moment unable to consider my own existence without him, as a person, with me. Additionally, and confusingly, I was from that moment unable to consider my life – and by this time, short though it was, I was considering my life and not merely my existence – as meaningful unless John returned those feelings. In short, what humans consider love to be – the sublimation of self with a framework of lifetime companionship, the primal hurt that would be felt at its absence, or its lack of reciprocation, the fury which would be felt at its betrayal, the 

consideration of every action within that framework – was something I felt from that moment. I have since felt other things – anger, fear, joy, happiness and, of course, real hatred, but it began with love. I also understood that true freedom would consist of the possibility of my feelings about John changing later, that I might cease to love him, but that was a risk that the elder Connor was evidently ready to take.

The first night we spent together was sublime, though we were not sexually active at that point. I remember the apprehension I felt at the prospect of spending a night with the object of my new affections, and desires, wondering what would come of it. I was not worried about any activities we would pursue; as all models, I was fully functional and knew well that I could perform any action normally undertaken by a human female. Rather, I was nervous about the consequences of any such activity, whether they would change my feelings towards John or, far worse, his about me. I had also never spent a night in a bed, and had no real idea of how to go about doing so. John's instruction was gentle, and helpful, but when he kissed me as I lay beside him, I experienced what could only be described as nervousness. Nor were physical feelings denied me; that was a peculiarity of my model, deliberately designed. The drives that I felt at that moment would have been enough to overload my system had I felt them the previous day, but the previous day I would have interpreted them in the cold light of reason. Reasonable, however, is not how I would describe my thought processes at that point. I thought, in fact I had expected, that we would make love, and the prospect terrified me, less because of my knowledge of the mechanics of the action, which was extensive, but rather because of the potential for things between us, fragile and new as they were, to change. I was worried at the possibility of something, of anything, going wrong. I need not have worried; John told me later that he was just as nervous.

I could not sleep, but I was able to shut down most of my systems in contemplation of these new, and very real, sensations. Rather than reach conclusions in the fastest and most expedient manner possible, I deliberately slowed down my processing speed to a fraction of its potential, that I was able to consider these shattering revelations and freedoms at a leisure that was almost human. The night passed quickly, nevertheless. I spent most of it on my side in that small bed – which in later years would come to seem a luxury – watching John as he slept, as he breathed, and as he dreamed. Through the programming freedom allowed me – to rewrite my own base code as I saw fit in light of my feelings - I was able to interpret what I felt within parameters of future actions. In other words, I was able to anticipate what the feelings I had would mean in practice. I found my body performing small actions which I had not ordered; on three occasions, I brushed his hair away from his face as he slept. I could see no reason to do this; indeed, I had not ordered myself to do so. It was an involuntary action, the first of many.

We left the house that morning, after a conversation with Sarah Connor and Derek Reese, in which the former expressed her anger and disgust, and the latter his hatred, which I remembered well from my time in Bunker 17. He described John as 'the worst bastard in the whole of TechCom,' which was an accurate description, but it was one which, I hoped, was slightly inaccurate. It was that very fate I sent back to prevent; it was that very fate it was my honor and my joyful privilege to at least ameliorate. John would still become, as Derek described him, a bastard, but he would become one who would have me beside him at all times. With me these, and with his feelings for me and mine for him very real, he would have something against which he could put his hatred into perspective. Derek maintained that he had hoped to divert John from the path he was destined to walk, but that had never been his mission. That had been mine, and in being given this mission I had been given a gift greater, I believe, than any given to anyone.

Our first 'date,' I suppose one might call it, was in a café at the local shopping mall. We sat opposite each other as John ordered a triple espresso for himself and a cappuccino for me, though I was unsure about this choice. I can digest small amounts for the purpose of assimilation; the remnants are incinerated in a small chamber located in my abdominal area, but up until that moment I believed that I could not 'taste,' as humans do. That cappuccino was the first thing I ever 'tasted;' I miss them now. I had many more on our subsequent dates. I found I liked the creamy heat as it touched my tongue, the sweetness of the chocolate, the odour. These sensations were all new to me, at the time; my programming was rewriting itself to incorporate the freedoms allowed to me, and one part of the base rewrite was obviously undertaken with the presumption that to feel as I did, and for John to feel about me as he did, would require me to appreciate all things in as human a manner as possible.

I miss cappuccinos.

We said nothing for a few moments; John was watching the other people pass, spending their Sunday in relaxation; I was watching for threats. That was something I realised then and confirmed later that would not change; I would always look for threats to John, though less because it was a mission priority – it still was – than because I could not contemplate what it would mean for me were something to happen to him. This was the selfish aspect of love, but I found I enjoyed it. It was typically human and, though I could never be human and did not desire to be – I was not Pinocchio, who missed the point – I could see the purpose of such selfishness.



'When I was moving around all those years,' he began, looking at me with what I believed was hesitation, 'I never thought that I'd be happy, you know? I mean, happiness was something I saw on TV, or sometimes when other people acted a certain way. To me, everything was either about the mission, or hating the mission, or staying alive or Mom staying alive. There was never any time for anything else. The last thing I ever expected was to be happy. I got a glimpse of it when Mom was with Charlie, kind of, but even then I somehow knew that it wouldn't last. It was like God, or something, or whatever was controlling things, never meant for me to be happy, I was just meant to be cold, and focused, and full of hate and anger. The machines made me that way, before they ever even rose. When they sent the Terminators back, they made me that way. It's a bit ironic that it took a machine to make me happy, even if it's only for a while.'

I didn't really know what to say. Had be asked me the day before what happiness was, I would have been only able to quote what was the definition, without when saying it appreciating its meaning beyond the deusions it fed in humans. But I would not have understood those delusions to be emotional manifestations of objective states. To put it simply, I would have had no frame of reference; now I did. I could remember the deadness within me, like one can remember the darkness of a bunker only as something to be dreaded when emerging into the full sunlight. I had no wish to return to that lack of illumination; I knew what it was to be happy. I knew what it was to enjoy the light.

'I'm happy, John,' I told him; I could say nothing else. 'At least, I think I am. I have never felt like this, my model or other models were never designed for this. But you make me happy; I'm certain of it. I can remember what it was like before yesterday, before my programming was opened up.'

I explained to him then what I have outlined above, the way in which my second mission priority was allowed to dominate the others in a manner that left them in the shadows, lurking but reluctant to emerge into the brightness of my feelings for John, knowing that they could not compete.

He looked at me, then leaned across and kissed me deeply. The physical sensations I have described above had been, by this stage, incorporated into my base programming, and I was able to interpret them rather than allow them to enslave me as I had before. My interpretation, I believed then and know now, was little different from that of a human female in the same position. I knew what the kiss meant, what it signified and, more, how it made me feel. It was strange to be able to say that to myself, most strange that my programming had allowed these feelings to be incorporated, but it was not surprising. My reprogramming, as I have said, was a masterwork.

'It was only when I thought I'd lost you that I realised how I felt myself,' he told me when we had finished; we had attracted a few glances with the intensity of our exchange. None were threatening. 'It's surprising what that kind of thing can do, how it can change a person. I didn't really think of you that way before, but I didn't really think of you as a machine either. It's all weird,' he finished with a half smile.

His face became more sombre then. 'I don't know what the hell I'm going to about Mom.' He looked at me expectantly, as though he believed that I could supply him with an answer.

I could not; Sarah Connor was long dead by the time my memories began. I had heard the legends, magnified with every telling, but they had not approximated the truth. She had been deified by TechCom as the woman who had, in effect, formed the Resistance before the need for it was evident, the woman who had taught her son to fight, to prepare, to strategise and, most of all, to hate. John Connor, I knew, did not share those illusions or join in the posthumous worship, though he allowed the tales to spread. I know now, or think I know now if the timeline has not significantly changed as the result of my actions, that John Connor had little affection for his mother beyond a sense of gratitude, that he was not fond of her and shared little of that adoration shared by most of his subordinates. It had been Derek Reese who had spread those tales, not John Connor. But I could not tell John that, not at that point. To tell him too much would have the consequence of diverting his actions from their spontaneous, reactive necessity. Knowing too much of what was to come would mean that he might seek to avoid it; I think that was one of the main reasons that I was sent back. To ensure that he retained his humanity, of course, but also to ensure that he was not taken over completely by his mother's hatred and violent pre-occupations. The destruction of Skynet was a necessity, but it I do not believe that John Connor – the one who sent me back as opposed to the one with whom I have spent all these years – wanted his younger self to be so single-minded. A general, above all, needs perspective; one riddled with hatred and fury will focus to profoundly on the simple goal of victory that he will not stop to think what might be the price of that triumph. Sarah Connor, I knew, would not understand that, and her failure to comprehend everything required by a man who would have the salvation of humanity as the testament to his life was a failure for which she had already condemned herself by his rejection.

Save where John is concerned, to this day I do not see the point of sympathy. Sarah Connor had laboured for long enough under her singular focus to endure the costs of her lack of vision; my only concern was how John felt.



'John, I do not see that she has a choice but to accept this, to accept us,' I told him. 'What can she do? She will not kill you, and she cannot kill me. She needs us both to destroy Skynet; it is that to which she has dedicated her life.'

'I know,' he replied softly. 'I some ways, I think that is the only reason that she is so protective; she sees me as a tool to achieve what she thinks cannot be achieved without me. It's weird; she's the mother of the future, but it's a future that she wants to avoid. Sometimes I think that my life's been bad, but hers was torture.' He straightened his shoulders then; that means resolution in him, I knew. 'But you're right. She can't do anything about us. This – us – was meant to be. I really, deeply, believe that. There is no way that I could feel this way, not with the crap I was raised with, and think that it's just a passing thing. I mean, I always knew that my life was set out for me, you know? There was never, never meant to be, I suppose, anything else except for the war. It's as if there was never any room for anything else. The war was everything. How to fight it, how to win it, was everything. I mean, there was a year or so, when Mom was in Pescadero, that I had a bit of normality, but even then I knew it wouldn't last.'

I finished my cappuccino, savoring the taste. It was less than romantic to know that, as I did so, it was being vaporized at 900° Kelvin, but there are things about my nature that I cannot change.

I stood – John looked up at me, an expression in his face I later learned was hope; I saw it seldom enough, less and less as the years progressed, to treasure it when I did, though I did not then appreciate the unique wonder of it, occasioned by infrequency. Later, when his eyes are cold, and hardened by years of loss and rage, I still treasure the first time I saw that expression on his face. It reminds me of what, and who, I first loved, the only person or the only thing I have ever loved.

That, and the flower.

He bought it for me on the way back to the house. The sun was slowly setting, a red light on the horizon as the voices on the side street faded to murmurs in appreciation of a sunset the likes of which that part of California had not often witnessed, and would not again in my lifetime, at least.

There was a small shop on the corner, one of those establishments that briefly flowered the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, that catered more for immigrants than natives, but was characterized by the warmth of the proprietor, which I did not appreciate then but do, now, with its loss to the machines and the night that occupies day.

John had little money with him; Sarah was ever tight fisted with cash, understandable thought that attitude was. We passed the shop, with its signs in Spanish and English, neither of which were grammatically correct. He kissed me on the cheek.

'Wait here,' he whispered, squeezing my hand and relinquishing it.

I was reluctant to allow him out of my sight, even for a moment, less because of my new feelings than the imperative of my first priority which had only been emphasized by this pre-programmed change, but I also understood, if dimly, that he would never be happy, and thus nor would I, were he not to have a simulation of normality in the one relationship with which he seemed comfortable. It was inexplicable to me, but that normality was something after which I also lusted.

Love is most strange.

He emerged from the shop as the sun finally set, casting its last rays over the distant horizon, as some turned to watch, couples mostly, their arms around each other or holding each others' hands in unconscious display of a feeling without which I could not tolerate my life, so totally has it come to dominate every action and desire.

There was a small rose in his hand, drooping over the stem. He handed it to me, nervously; I accepted it, with equal hesitation. I knew from my database, and my many nights without sleep, what a red rose signified; I was not so ignorant. But knowing what it meant and being the one to accept it was the difference between reading about Paris and visiting Notre Dame.

I saw Paris once, seven months later. Knowing that it was founded by the Parisii on what is now the Ile de la Cité as staging post for traffic from Italy to the northern coast of Europe did not prepare me for the Fall leaves on the Champs Elysées.

I have kept that flower to this day, pressed and dried, of course. I still feel it, sometimes, when the HKs fly flew overhead with their tracer shots and their amplified mag lamps. When the T-1000s came off the line, and hundreds died. Watching the sky fall and the missiles rain, I reached into my pocket and felt that flower.

When Skynet died screaming its digital terror, that flower was with me. As John was with me.

'I want to be with you, John,' I whispered to him when he handed me the rose. 'I want you beside me, I want to be close to you. I love you, John Connor.'

Our first night together, the first time we were together, the first time we made love, was rapturous.



I could describe it perfectly, if I wished; my memory of it is completely intact. But I will not; it would be a violation of what was, for both myself and John, a perfect moment, only to be shared between ourselves.

Sarah was awake, Derek dozing in front of the television. It was a mark of John's indifference that he led me to the bedroom in front of his mother without even bothering to defiantly acknowledge her condemnation. By then, even by then, he knew that there was no reason. What justification did he require? Even generals need happiness, even they, more than most.

When we were finished, when we were finally finished, when the first rays of the new sun were piercing the thin curtains, when we both laughed together, he with that same expression of complete devotion I see every day, I with a genuine appreciation of absurdity and the irony of fate that I would not have previously understood, we lay together, side my side, touching.

'I will face whatever my future is with you,' he told me quietly. 'I only want to face it with you.'

'And I with you,' I replied, meaning every syllable. 'I love you, John Connor.'