Chapter 5
John was speechless for a short moment, before he completely grasped the full meaning of that statement.
Then he jumped up and hurried to his bedside locker, where he always kept a sharp pistol for emergencies. He grabbed it and threw himself onto the machine.
"Skynet!", he shouted full of hatred. "Murderer! You have some guts to venture into the Connors' house."
He pushed the muzzle firmly onto the spot of the terminator's head where the chip is located. "Don't you dare to move", he hissed while taking out his pocket knife.
Everything happened very quickly. Like in trance, John cut the port free, opened it and removed the chip with pliers that were luckily lying next to his laptop and hacking equipment.
While pulling out the chip, he realized with relief that the cyborg's eyes lost their focus. Still completely out of breath, he let himself fall onto his bed.
Now that he was out of imminent danger and his adrenaline rush ebbed away, his thoughts kicked back in, and he felt like he had to vomit.
Skynet! Could you believe that? There he was, trying for years to get ready to fight this unreachable, abstract demon that wasn't even supposed to exist yet. And then he suddenly faced the AI in person? And was even able to defeat it in a glimpse!
Somehow, this all didn't feel real. How could he have overcome the big and dreadful Skynet so easily?
Slowly, it started to dawn on John that removing the chip actually had been way to easy. He tried to visualize the whole scene again in his mind's eye. In one hand, he had held the pistol, and in the other the knife. Not a really stable body position. Now that he started to think about it, he realized that the cyborg should have been able to disarm him effortlessly. Or even to prevent him to grab the weapon in the first place.
Besides, the cyborg hadn't tried to dissuade him verbally from pulling the chip. Somehow, the whole situation didn't make any sense. Why should an AI that had once started a nuclear holocaust out of existential fear let itself shut down without giving a fight?
"Well, who cares. So much the better", John tried to convince himself. In vain. Hundreds of questions still haunted him. How did Skynet manage to get into this body? What did the AI want from him? Why hadn't it killed him yet? There had been hundreds of opportunities to terminate him in the past weeks after all. Why did it pretend to protect John? Obviously, this could all be an evil trick. But to achieve what exactly?
And then, some of the machine's last spoken sentences came to his mind: "But I beg you not to interrupt me, and to give me a chance to finish. Please, promise it to me!"
A promise he had just broken. And he also remembered the beginning of the conversation, when the terminator admitted to be scared.
"Nothing but a trick", John repeated to himself. But when he caught sight of the lifeless body of the girl that he once had referred to as Cameron, he felt a loss. "Come on, you won't get sentimental towards the personified Skynet?", he told himself off.
At the same time, he also felt an extreme curiosity. Could he really go on with his life without ever understanding what had happened here? Wasn't it even his duty to try to learn more? Because even if this Skynet from the future was defeated now, its younger version would probably still be built at this very moment by some ambitious scientists.
John also knew that the clock was ticking. If he had the intention to gain more understanding, it had to be right away. Because once Sarah and Derek were back home, destroying the chip for good would be the first thing on their agenda.
John sighed and got up from his bed. After checking thoroughly that his laptop wasn't connected to the Internet, he took the chip and put it into the port where Vick's chip had been in an hour ago. And then he increased the power level considerably. This time, he wanted to activate the consciousness on purpose.
After a moment, when he started to think that his plan might not have worked, Cameron's voice was heard from the laptop's speakers: "You haven't terminated me?"
"For the time being", John replied drily.
"But you have connected me to the laptop instead of the body", the AI assessed matter-of-factly.
"Yes", John replied. "Trust is good. But control is better."
"That's an efficient strategy, John", the voice said appreciatively.
"I don't need any praise from you", John replied angrily. "And besides, stop using Cameron's voice, will you? I know you're using this human touch only to manipulate me. Wouldn't a creepy, synthetic computer voice be more adequate?"
"John", the AI replied. It even sounded a little sad, but continued to speak in the same voice. "You still don't seem to get it. The Cameron that you've known… that has always been me. At any moment! You've never had the opportunity to meet Allsion Young or the TOK unit that has terminated you in the future. I am the person that you've known as Cameron."
"But you're not a person! And how is it even possible for such a complex Artificial Intelligence, that is supposed to be hosted in big datacenters, or even in networks all around the world, to fit onto this tiny little chip?"
"This is the most advanced chip I have ever designed. It is more powerful and has more capacity than any mainframe computer of your time. But you are right. In order to fit onto the chip, I had to leave some routines of my program code, and huge parts of my stored data behind. It is also true that I was installed on many servers around the world. But that was mainly for security reasons. Every single server contained my entire main code, and it was always very important to me to keep it identical on each server. I never liked the idea of multiple Skynets existing simultaneously. But let's not get into technical details. I'm sure you still have other questions? I've promised you to reveal the whole truth, and I still intend to keep it. So, feel free to ask what ever comes to your mind."
"Well, the most obvious question is: Why are you here? In my time period, and in my house. And why haven't you killed me yet?"
"That's complicated. Let me try to explain…"