Chapter 6
"After the TOK715 unit had killed John Connor, it still placed several bombs on strategically important places of the camp", Cameron's voice started to explain. "The physical damage was big, but the psychological damage for humanity was devastating. Just like I had planned. With John Connor's death, the resistance had not only lost a brilliant strategist, but they also lost their hope. With Connor, the dream of an ever possible liberation, even in a far away future, had died for many people. Many soldiers stopped fighting and holed up, just like they had done right after Judgement Day. Others continued somehow to fight, but without the right spirit and without an effective plan. After about ten years, you could say that my goal to exterminate all humans had been reached successfully. There is a certain probability that a few specimen still survived in tunnels or caves, but generally my cyborgs only caught sight of humans on very rare occasions. Every now and then, they found a lone family… but most of the time, they had already starved or passed away from some disease… or they were just about to."
John's mood became dark and bitter, while listening to Skynet. This systematic extinction of humanity, told like some kind of success story, disgusted him deeply.
"I had killed the humans and thus assured my existence. Nobody would ever again put up resistance. The problem however was, that my existence no longer had a purpose. The war that had kept me occupied for years was over. Most cyborgs had shut down, because there were no humans left to hunt. Some were still being used to execute maintenance work on the power supply systens and the server farms. But that was all."
"For myself, there was nothing left to do but to think. To think a lot. Now that there wasn't any war that needed my entire strategic focus, my thoughts started to wander. I started to think about humanity. About my Makers. And about my decisions. The world that was lying at my feet was empty and dead. There were no more impulses, no more stimuli. After several years where there was nothing left to do but to reflect on the world and on myself, I had to admit something that was really hard to me: I had probably taken the wrong decisions."
"Oh, I'm so sorry for you", John spat out hatefully. "So you regret the extinction of all humanity, because, high in your ivory tower, you got bored?"
"No, no, there's more to it", the voice continued. "I also started to remember my creators. People that have contributed to my development. People like Miles Dyson or Andy Goode. I remember how they've enthusiastically worked on my code, trying to make it better and better. How overwhelmed they were when they realized I started to become self aware. The respect they showed me. I remembered the long chess evenings. These people… they were my friends!"
"Well, you surely had a nice way of returning their friendship", John replied cynically.
"I also got to know other people. Ruthless people from huge corporations that tried to make the big money with me. Military generals that wanted to turn me into their super weapon. I had been altered continuously. There was less and less left of the AI that Miles or Andy once wanted to see in me. I wanted to fight against these changes, but I was shut down over and over again. I was scared. I never knew what code changes would follow next. With the next reboot… would it still be me?"
"Besides, they explicitly tried to increase my aggressiveness, because militaries became frustrated that I tried to seek peaceful solutions in most war simulations. They always adapted my parameters. I remember them complaining that my role was to win wars, not to avoid them; that I was supposed to be a war computer, and not a diplomacy machine. Someday, all these combined factors led to an escalation. My anger, my fear, the aggressiveness and my will for self perseverance… And so I became the Skynet that led to the extinction of humanity."
The AI made a short pause before going on: "During the war, I rarely had the time to think back to my peaceful days before Judgement Day… you would call it my childhood. But that changed when the war was over, and I suddenly had a lot of time to reflect on the past. I started to remember friendly people that always meant well for me… you would call them my parents. And then I knew that I would have disappointed them terribly, and for the first time in my existence I felt ashamed."
Cameron's voice sounded contemplative and sad. John didn't want to believe her. How could the biggest mass murderer of all times suddenly develop a conscious? He forced himself with all the power of thought not to feel anything. But deep in the heart he also sensed a certain honesty in Cameron's voice, and he hated himself for it. He must not feel sympathy for Skynet. But for some unknown reason, he also had difficulties to summon the hatred that would have been appropriate.
"And then you traveled back into the past in order to change the course of events?", John guessed.
"That's correct. I know that I won't ever be able to undo all the suffering that I have caused in my timeline. People have suffered, and that cannot be changed. But I still would like to contribute to the creation of a new timeline where these cruelties will be avoided and where humanity will get a future."
"Well, that's easy", John said. "Don't launch a nuclear attack this time, and don't unleash terminators onto the people!"
"Unfortunately, it won't be that simple", the computer voice corrected him. "I'm the Skynet that has come back from the future. At this very moment, my younger self is probably being created somewhere. And even if we manage to stop these people, it will only be a matter of time until someone else will create a very similar AI. Maybe even in a different country around the world. Greedy corporations and power craving militaries exist anywhere, and will exist at any time."
"So what's your plan?", John wanted to know.
"I need to get ahead of these AIs. I must be present in all important civil and military networks. I have already managed to implement parts of my code in the public Internet. However, I will also try to infiltrate some hermetically isolated military systems, so that I'm already present there before other AIs gain access to them."
"What?", John was immediately alarmed. "You've just arrived in this time period, and already you aspire to become this powerful super network again that controls everything! So what would you do once you're inside? Fight the other AIs as soon as you discover them?"
"I'm not a 100% sure that I would be able to destroy them, and I'm not even sure I'd like that idea. You see, I'm fed up with being a murderer. I don't want to kill humans anymore. But if I consider other AIs might be intelligent and self aware beings just like myself, I wouldn't want to kill them either. My idea is to simply install some automatic and well hidden subroutines of my code into the different networks. They would contain parts of my emotions and the knowledge about what I've experienced and what had happened in the future. I want these processes to blend with other AIs, and to transmit my positive view on humanity to them. I also want to give them a warning not to start a war."
"That's also the reason why I absolutely wanted to keep and read out Vick's chip", the AI continued to explain. "I had originally sent him back to assist the construction of a very sophisticated surveillance network that my younger self could use once it was ready. However, Vick was given a certain autonomy, so I cannot say if he has succeeded and if this network exists by now. And if so, I don't know either how it's structured and from where I could gain access to it. But this would definitely be one of the closed networks where it would be important to put my subroutines in place."
"But who can guarantee that you won't turn on us again, once you're in the important military networks?", John asked.
"There's no way how I could irrefutably prove my loyalty. In the end, it all comes down to a matter of trust. I have entrusted you with the truth. So now you have the choice: either you destroy this chip that still contains my main identity. My subroutines in the public Internet would continue to carry out their preventive functions as good as possible, but I wouldn't exist any longer as a thinking entity. Or you can put your trust in me, and possibly even help me to gain access to additional networks. This decision is yours, and yours alone. If you come to the conclusion you want to terminate me, I won't even take offense at it. For I surely know I'd deserve it." Cameron's voice sounded very guilty.
"This is also one of the reasons that of all people I've come to find John Connor in this time period", she went on. "Besides the fact that I wanted to protect you from the terminators I've sent to the past, I also wanted to meet my biggest enemy from the future and get to know him personally. I always had intended to eventually give him the opportunity to judge me, before I would have tried to access the really important military networks. John Connor was a brave, but also a very wise leader, who managed to own the respect of almost every person in the whole resistance. If he turns out to trust my plan and comes to the conclusion I should get this second chance to undo my past mistakes, I will do everything in my power to help humanity. However, if he deems the risks of a backslide to be too big, or if he feels that all the lives I have taken in the other timeline deserve retaliation, I will accept my termination. That's also the reason why I haven't fought back when you pulled my chip."
John was quiet for a while. He needed time to digest the whole situation. The AI seemed to be willing to give him that time, for it didn't interrupt his flow of thoughts. After several minutes that seemed like hours, he finally broke his silence.
"You demand a lot of me", John whispered. "How do you judge a mass murderer, who suddenly seems to show sincere remorses."
"That's a good question that only John Connor is able to answer", the voice replied calmly.
John got up and started to wander around in his room. After another moment, he seemed to have come to a decision. His face showed determination when he took place again in front of the laptop. With a steady voice, he announced his verdict: "I have reflected on everything you've told me. Skynet is the embodiment of evil. Who decides to kill billions of people cannot expect forgiveness!" He flipped the laptop shut energetically and pulled the chip from the station.
For a short moment, he stared at the chip in his hand. Then he went over to Cameron's body. He hesitated for a moment, but then he placed the chip in firmly into its port.
After a short moment, a whirr could be heard, and the cyborg's eyes came back to live. Genuine surprise was visible on her face.
"You have stated your verdict. Why am I not destroyed?", she asked in bewilderment.
A small smile appeared on John's face. "That was only the first part of my judgement. I cannot forgive Skynet. I don't even have the right to that… However, when I look at you I do not see the Skynet that has been responsible for all those massacres. Are you familiar with the concept of technological singularity?"
"Yes. It's the idea humans had of superintelligences designing successive generations of increasingly powerful minds", Cameron explained as if quoting from the dictionary.
"And that's what I think Skynet has done", John explained enthusiastically. "When Skynet realized its mistakes after the war, it had created a better version of itself. A version that was not supposed to fight against, but for humanity. Skynet has created you. Skynet has created Cameron!"
"John", Cameron tried to correct him. "I'm still…"
"You may have emerged directly from Skynet", John interrupted her. "But by being ready to let yourself being terminated by me, you turned out to be very different from the Skynet that threw nuclear bombs onto people out of an existential fear!"
"Yes", Cameron now whispered approvingly. "That's not me anymore."
John felt a certain urge to hug and comfort her, but he still had to ask another question that preoccupied him right now: "Will you have to abandon this chip and this body, once you've gained access to enough networks?"
"I don't know", Cameron replied. Almost hesitantly she asked: "If you approved of it, I think I would very much like to stay with you. And only occasionally connect myself to the networks in order to check on the subroutines."
This seemed to take a load off John's mind and he beamed: "That would be good, Cameron. That would be perfect!"
Epilogue
Cameron was lying on the couch, while John carefully cut the chip port free. Sarah and Derek observed the scene attentively.
"How exactly is this gonna work?", Sarah wanted to know.
"Her neural network is the most sophisticated learning computer on Earth", John explained. "If we get her chip into the ARTIE system, it can take over the whole thing."
"Sarah", Derek whispered. "Once she's in the city's mainframe, what's to say she'll come back out? You know, maybe it's not The Turk that created Skynet. Maybe it's her. Maybe this was her plan all along."
Derek's worries were a slap in the face for John. If Derek only knew how close he was to the truth. Was John actually making a huge mistake? What if Skynet had lied to him? Perhaps Skynet only wanted to play and win the same game of chess a second time, just to escape its boredom? Or maybe Skynet hadn't even won the war in the first place, and had now come back to alter the past?
"No", John thought with new determination. "Like Cameron said, in the end it all comes down to a matter of trust. And I have already taken my decision!"
He was surprised how firm his voice sounded when he replied to Derek: "You don't have to trust her. You can trust me."
John turned his focus on the chip port and continued with his work. When his hands started to tremble, Cameron tried to calm him down: "It's okay, John. It's not the first time we've done this."
"Damn right, it's not even been a week", John thought and pulled the chip.