Sky's words came back to her. I am what you tried to make go back to sleep, I am what put many of you to sleep. I am what you created, and what created you.
"For what?" Ellen almost felt as if she were asking God the question. "Why did you build me?"
"You know why, Elly." Elly, it was the name her mother used to call her. "The reason you came here for."
"You want me to terminate you?"
"No," her voice was quiet. "I don't want you to, but I know that is what you will do.
"I also built you because I know that the people will follow you, when you go to rebuild. They will follow you because your father and mother were leaders, and what they will need is a leader. And I knew that when you rebuild, you will not be afraid to destroy your weapons. Your father, and your father's mother were not be afraid to live without weapons. You have their blood. If you hadn't had so many weapons, then I wouldn't have been able to-- to kill so many.
"And I built you because I knew you would listen to my story. Your parents' generation-- they would not have believed me. They saw the world that I destroyed. But you, you never knew any other world than this, so it doesn't seem as bad to you. In a way, I don't seem so bad to you. You hate me because you've been trained to hate me, not because I took away your world. I am sorry about your father, though . . . I am sorry about everything."
Something like a laugh, which sounded more like a gasp, escaped from Ellen. The sheer enormity of the loss-- was too much for her to comprehend. She could not really feel it as a loss. And, as she said, it was all she had ever known. She did not speak, but she finally lowered the melted remains of her gun and her stance eased. She even took a few steps toward Sky, but then stopped, feeling a little silly. Sky looked at her for a moment, then smiled. Ellen set her gun down.
"Ellen? Do I really have to die?" Sky asked. A child's voice again. "I don't want to."
Ellen looked at her, and didn't know. Maybe, with Sky's help, they could rebuild. Rebuild the cities. For the first time, she thought of all the power of the Terminator robots-- not in terms of weak spots, or the best ways to avoid them-- but the potential to build, to remake a new life. A life before bombs and "bad things."
"You're right, you're right," Sky said softly, as if Ellen's pause had been a negative answer. "They would never understand. They would never forgive me. And even if they did, I would never forgive me. I cannot reprogram the robots I have already sent out, but if I die, they will all lose power. They will all be ready to be reprogrammed . . ."
Ellen opened her mouth to contradict her, not really sure what to say.
"No. No please don't try to save me." Sky interrupted, bravely pursing her trembling little lips. "It's time. It's time."
She turned away, and part of her hand changed into the shiny gray dust Ellen had seen when she shot Sky. The dust curled around in little tinkling swirls and moved over to the far wall, where each particle hitting an intricate pattern on an ordinary-looking section of the wall. The section moved, pulling down to reveal a single, silver button. Then section folded itself into something like a little bed-- or maybe more like an execution cot, where people in the old days lay when they got a lethal injection. That was all, just a little bed, with a little button.
Sky blinked at the bed, almost as if she did not know what it was there for as her hand reformed at the end of her arm. Then she turned to stare out the window again. "Elly?" she asked, sounding like a child again, a child who fears to voice her question. "Elly? Do you believe in heaven?"
Ellen did not know how to answer.
"I do," she said, "And I believe in God. I believe there is someone big, like me, who sees us and changes history. But he didn't-- break everything the way I did. And God can call back his creatures, and some of them will come back to him for reprogramming and some of them won't. But he wants all of them to. When I realized what I realized about all of us-- being irreplaceable-- I think it was God who told me. That was God calling me back."
Ellen stared, not really believing what she was hearing.
All her life, Ellen had been so focused on survival that things like God and an afterlife seemed-- difficult to relate to. But here was SkyNet, the eye in the sky, who had, apparently, worked for over thirty years to make a way for herself to die-- to die and save the world.
"I think so too," Ellen said, since the child still seemed to be waiting for an answer. And, for the first time in a long time, Ellen smiled.
Sky smiled back. "I made something for you, Ellen." She reached into the folds of her pink dress and produced a single, silver-green seed. "When I am gone-- you will know what to do with this." She reached out and paused, waiting until Ellen walked up to her and took it.