Epilogue: Persephone
December 22, 2008
In the early morning a blood red sun rose in the east. Its presence was a cruel joke, a fool's hope. For in its rays there was no warmth to be found in the rugged tundra of tall pines and jagged rocks below a tall cliff face. There was no wind, no animal sounds, a deep and mournful calm had bestilled the frozen wilderness that surrounded the ruined and twisted metal remains of a sleek, steel bullet train. Its separated hinges and overturned cars made it seem like a great metal serpent lying broken and overturned waiting to be scavenged by hungry woodland predators. Amongst the jumble of smashed cars and bent hallways was a dark cavern populated by dashed and broken monitors and fried control panels. On its side red sunlight spilled from a broken porthole in a trains window, angling a sliver of warmless sunlight over the scene of two bodies lying face up trapped by rubble. It was like the spotlight on the final scene of a macabre stage adaption of a Brother's Grimm fairytale.
The first thing the woman noticed was that there was a harsh sound of a squawk, and how very cold and tired she was. God, did she want to go to sleep. She was already lying down, arms draped around her tightly as if she and her companion were spooning. Too cold and stiff to move, the woman couldn't turn her head, but looking down she saw a faded green tattoo of a Chinese dragon swirling around the pale frozen arm braced protectively around her stomach. More forced together and trapped in the debris than snuggled intimately, she felt like this was the perfect place to close her eyes and join her protector in a small nap. Everything will work it's self out in a couple of hours when she just got some rest. She leaned her head back and winced painfully. It hurt to move, but the reward was resting the back of her head into the crook of her companion's neck.
He wasn't breathing, wasn't moving … he was gone. She closed her eyes, shedding one tear that froze on her cheekbone. She let a small strangled whimper as she touched her numbed blue cheek to his frozen face, his implacable facial hair like little frozen thorns. A part of her knew that she couldn't linger like this. There was someone important that she had to find, to make sure they were okay. Even if she couldn't remember their name, she knew that they were the whole crux of her existence. But that was another woman, her real self. Right now that woman was a shadow in the back of her mind. That woman, the fierce warrior … she wasn't present. This frozen captive was all her base instincts, guided by tactile emotions and sentimental feeling that had been welled up and guarded; now spilling out in dazed confusion from concussion and cold. She squinted her eyes closed and sputtered a harsh breath as she buried her face into the side of a man's face that might as well have been carved from an ice sculpture. He didn't smell like anything, not even a whiff of aftershave. Her rugged soldier smelled of ice and death. There was devotion and sorrow in her heart at the way he lay under her, his embrace protecting her from the fall, his body taking the breaking punishment of the impact. For that he had earned her loyalty and companionship for their final journey. She closed her eyes and painfully gripped his hand with hers. With a sigh she opened herself for the long dark to embrace them both.
SQUWAKE!
She opened her eyes at the harsh sound echoing through her metal tomb. She squinted at the sharp noise of tapping talons and another unpleasant bird call. From the horizontal vision of the upturned train car a black blur shuffled on the stainless steel door that had sealed them in. A raven, black as night, pranced and skipped around and over the open port of their bent door. She watched with muted and daze fascination as the bird fell through the hole once or twice, giving a startled shriek, fluttering its wings to return.
She turned back, and laid her head against her dead companion's. He's waiting …. Derek was waiting for her. It brought her comfort that she remembered his name here at the end of all things. She closed her eyes and saw herself in the middle of an ice rink in some long forgotten shopping mall. Amongst the 80's paint chipped designed walls and bleachers of blue carpet, a man with cropped hair and designer stubble sat in perfect view of her skating. Next to Derek was a less familiar face at first. But in his blue eyes and blond locks was something familiar, something that brought out a primal reminder of passion and devotion. She could never forget her first love, the young soldier that had given her his love, his life, and her everything. Derek and Kyle Reese, brothers, were side by side, shoulder to shoulder again after so many years. There was no words between them, but there was a contentment, and for the first time since an April afternoon, a worriless smile on their hard faces as they watched their Ice Queen. She stared at them, their moment of elated shock and recognition played under a Bee Gees song about too much heaven. A smile touched her lips in their unburdened relief.
SQUWAKE!
Her emerald eyes fluttered open, once again. The raven had denied her long earned rest from such a harsh and cruel world she had lived. It had fallen through the broken window again, but had become curious with exploring the room where she was trapped forever. Tired and sorrowful eyes watched as it flew from one snow drenched control panel to the next. Its shriek was ugly and uncomfortable as its black beak pecked at the loose wiring from a smashed monitor.
Soon, she thought with resignation. Soon, she reassured Derek, and Kyle, her soldiers. She would join them in their ice rink and they would all finally be together. Their hardships would be over and there would be time for so many other things that had been denied to them in their lives of violence and fear. When she'd finally come to them they'd embrace each other openly and wait patiently, contently to be rejoined by the missing piece of their family, the lynchpin of all their happiness and hope.
"J …. John!"
BANG!
BANG!
CREEEKK!
There was a terrible thumping and tearing that echoed through the pitch black halls of her metal prison. Beams of light flashed through the broken port hole, their stray rays touching the frozen material of her red satin party dress. Settled snow fell like sand in an hourglass coating her with each pounding and scrape of the blast doors.
The screech of twisting metal was torturous as the doors pulled apart above. She squeezed her eyes shut as the last of old snow and pine needles floated slowly to settle on her brow and bosom. It smelled like Christmas all around her, and it brought back profoundly unhappy memories of her childhood. Flashlights and powerful illuminated torches began probing the twisted cavern of wire and leather below. She turned her head painfully to avoid the energetic strobes of blasphemous light searching every nook and cranny of the train car like a desperate robber looking for anything valuable.
"We found something, sir!"
"John … where's J …ohn?"
Her delirious quarries were lost in the sound of metallic clinks and the zipping noise of a man being lowered by harness into the overturned boxcar. They wore black plastic masks with clear eyes slits to protect from the harsh New York winter. All of them dressed in black mercenary clothing, worn under puffy thermal coats with fur lining. The soft material made the woman lust after the warmth that they looked to be providing. In one of the men's hands there was a little computer, its screen had looked to be a topographical map of the area. There was a GPS marker that kept blipping on the screen. The black helmeted mercenary looked down at the GPS and then back to the woman.
"It's her, sir." He talked into a com-link. He paused a moment longer. "Yes … Yes, sir, she's alive. But barely." He nodded in confirmation. The leader of the rescue made a motion above to the rest of the team. There was a storm of movement above as supplies in duffle bags began being lowered along with more men. One of the mercenaries began checking the frozen woman gently, rattling off diagnosis of injuries and conditions into a headset.
"We'll have her out in two hours. Evac on alert five … yeah, halo 6 med team stand by. The Boss wants her alive for project Lioness." The leader ordered. She found that speech pattern alarming, had this been a real search and rescue team, that would've been a given. It was the prelude to an all-out panic when the men began unloading welding equipment from black stitched duffels with the "Western Iron and Metal" logo on the sides.
Immediately she reached out and weakly pushed the paramedic away, screaming in pain at the knee jerk reaction. The medic and team leader pounced, holding her down as she babbled and gurgled in ferocity. Her strength however was non-existent while she put up little resistance to her easily restrained broken limbs.
When the woman felt the pinch of a syringe in her neck, she knew it was over. A strong sedative began to take hold, her world turning blurry. She watched as sharp blades of cutting machinery carefully, with calculating cruelty, sawed off the dragon tattooed limb to pry her from his cold, dead hands. As the darkness dragged her under, she felt a broken defeat cascade over her now shattered heart. Her soldiers and her protectors would be waiting for her in their shared heaven. They'd wait for her in vain, for she had failed them, failed her son. For her life would no longer be hers when she woke. Her mind, her body, but most of all her talent for death and destruction would belong to the enemy.
The last image that the consciousness of Sarah Jeannette Connor would ever remember was a patch on the mercenaries' arms. It was the old Cyberdyne symbol that haunted her memories and nightmares. But now there was a new word blazoned below in bold …
Kaliba.