Sarah had always considered herself a loner in the traditional sense - even when one did not include the fact her son was the future salvation of Man, and that the entire civilised world might soon be reduced to blackened steel and piles of ash. Her entire adult life had been spent under the radar and away from prying crowds and so the irony was not lost on her, as she stepped through the double doors of the High School's Auditorium and into a throng of parents and their children.
John's words rang true as she glanced around and in turn each woman - for they were almost all invariably the mothers and not fathers - brushed imaginary dandruff from their child's shoulders, combing their hair for non-existent curls. Some were reading lines with gusto that might land them the leading part, instead of their offspring while others chided their son or daughter for hesitating or struggling against the grooming. The fact that these were teenagers and not children in their very early years was all the more surprising.
"Miss Baum!" An enthusiastic voice rang out from behind a number of parents, none of which looked in her direction. Sarah felt her fists and shoulders tense and the thundering of her own heart in her chest, as her body prepared to fight despite the fact that her conscious mind fought to remind her they had come to an audition, not a battleground.
Charles Reizeger was a portly man creeping towards his fifties but sporting a head of hair as white as a man fifteen years older still, which spilled over his ears and his forehead and gave him a somewhat excited appearance. Tugging at a blue bow-tie, which did not compliment the green tank top underneath the brown suit jacket and trousers that ended a little too quickly above scuffed tan shoes, he manoeuvred his ample frame towards the newcomer and extended a hand.
"I'm so very glad to finally meet you!" He greeted brightly. Through a series of deep breaths Sarah had regained her calm and met the hand with a firm shake of her own. Having been to the School only a handful of times previously and having met only a few of the teachers at all, she still had little difficulty in recalling the head of the Creative Arts Department - his enthusiasm, smile, Scots accent and genuine concern for his students had resulted in praise from several cynical teenagers who considered themselves too cool for acting or singing - John included.
"Quite a turnout today," She replied with a small smile of her own and a nod of her head, Feeling more at home with a pistol drawn as she skulked through a mysterious factory, or supposedly-abandoned warehouse the Matriarch of the Connor Family. She was honest enough to admit to herself that the prospect of a hall full of faceless, preening parents and their charges filled her with an idle non-life threatening nervousness she had not experienced in many, many years.
"Cameron my dear!" Reizeger exclaimed as he deftly rounded Sarah and with the aid of a strategically placed hand on the small of the back, guided the young girl to join the discussion. Being the mother of a teenage boy gave Sarah the capacity to spot the glances and stares sent Cameron's way and at her behind.
While she herself would hardly doubt that what they thought they saw was to die for - grey skin-tight jeans which hugged the thighs and elsewhere, faded black boots bound in straps and a cobalt-coloured string-top beneath a purple leather jacket which had seen better days, what they actually saw was more than capable of killing every single person in the room in a matter of minutes.
Reizeger clasped his hands together and offered another smile. "I'm very excited about having you here today my dear and I can't wait for you to show me what you can do. I have you on-stage in ten minutes. Do you need any props, anything special?"
"I am going to dance," Cameron said in the first words spoken since Sarah had seen the Terminator at dinner the night previously, including a long and silent car journey to the audition this morning. Without waiting for any reaction she produced a pair of bright pink ballet shoes and held them at arm's length - bearing the reinforced points which allowed for a person to balance their entire weight on the very tip of their toes pointed outwards, the long strands of silk which tied around the ankle for support spilling out into the air.
"Marvellous!" Charles replied with his trademark enthusiasm. If you have the music you'll be accompanied by I can make sure it's set up on the sound system for you, quick as you like."
Cameron cocked her head to the side slightly and raised her other arm to present a series of sheets of paper to the teacher. Sarah narrowed her eyes but knew only enough to tell that the paper was marked with musical notes and judging by the pencil lines, written by hand.
Sarah's brow furrowed as she saw the smile fall from Reizeger's face and worry lines crease on the normally cheery man's forehead. "Cameron my dear, this is sheet music for the piano …"
"You are certified by the Royal Edinburgh Institute of Music to Grade Fourteen on the piano. This piece is well within your ability to play."
The older man shook his head and did not take the proffered music. "I used to play, my dear a long time ago. I haven't in a good while and I wouldn't want to detract from your audition with my mistakes. These modern dances you youngsters like doesn't suit the piano anyway--"
"Ballet is suited to the piano," Cameron interrupted. "I have brought no other suitable music. If you do not play I cannot audition. You said you wanted me to audition, Mister Reizeger."
Charles extended a hand and hesitated, the lines drawn upon his face making it clear that what he was wrestling with was wholly more important than simply agreeing to play or not. After a few moments he nodded his head with a sigh and accepted the sheets. "I'm a little rusty my dear. You'll forgive any bum notes?"
Receiving a nod, the Scot turned away and with his eyes glued to the piece held in his hands, negotiated a path through the bustling crowd. Tucking a raven lock behind her ear and crossing her arms across the chest Sarah raised an eyebrow. "What was that all about?"
"Mister Reizeger hasn't played piano since his daughter died eight months ago," Cameron replied with a cock of the head. "Her name was Annika and she liked to play the piano with her father. She was diagnosed with Myocardial Myopathy and was fitted with a Pacemaker to regulate her heartbeat."
Balancing impeccably on one leg interchangeably, as she pulled the boots from her feet Cameron slipped them into them into the ballet shoes snugly. "The Pacemaker malfunctioned and she died. She died of a broken heart."
"I'd ask how you know this," Sarah said with the slightest shake of her head, "But I suppose it doesn't really matter. Why does any of that matter? Was it really so important to have a piano that you cajoled him into being your accompaniment?"
Binding the ties around her jeans, so they formed a criss-cross of pink on faded black against her calves, the lithe Terminator removed her jacket to reveal bare, pale shoulders and a CD she had taken from an inside pocket - handing the disc to the older woman. "I brought suitable music for my audition."
Sarah's frown deepened and she felt her irritation rise, "Then what was the point of all that?"
"Mister Reizeger encouraged me to audition, and he has never failed to say hello whenever we have passed each other. He says that ignoring a talent you have is ignoring yourself and so I make him play piano. I encouraged him."
The older woman sighed but resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, despite the fact that for every answer the young girl gave the original question Sarah had posed seem unanswered. "Why are you helping him? He's not relevant to the mission, is he? Although I'm not sure any of this is."
"It is not relevant to the mission," Cameron conceded. "I like to dance."
Sarah shook her head and offered a shrug and an extended hand towards the stage, "I'm glad we had this little talk then. You'd better go and do some stretching - wouldn't want you to strain a piston or anything."
Cameron directed her eyes down towards her right hand and flexed it several times. "I can strain things … I am not invincible."
"I'm sure the bodies you've left in your wake would disagree," Sarah replied nonchalantly as she snatched the purple jacket from the floor and gathered up her "daughter's" personal belongings. She did concede that while the Terminator had indeed suffered damage beyond the superficial before - the car bomb that had almost destroyed them all by proxy when it reset Cameron's core directive - there had been no further sign of chip damage, and with all the problems and dilemmas resting on Sarah's shoulders, she was content to push problems with a young girl who could wrench car doors apart with a single hand to the back of her mind.
Retreating to the chairs arranged haphazardly under the lighting balcony at the rear of the auditorium, Sarah's mind wondered briefly to whether Skynet had ever danced so it could programme its agents authentically.
Pulling a handful of folded sheets from an inside pocket and quickly running her eyes over the opening lines, Sarah returned her attention to the interesting Research Paper that had been ignored on her dresser, since its discovery from one of the dozen shoe boxes filled with Resistance Intelligence.
Beyond her gaze and her attention the first auditions began.
…
…
" … The primary difference in the learning methodology of a person in relation to a computer is the concept of trial and error. A Human Being is equipped for adaptive learning - that is he or she can approach a task which they do not have prior experience with, and fashion a way to complete it using abstract thought and lessons learned from mistakes they make. A computer receives data and then attempts to categorise it and assimilate it based on pre-definitions that cannot be changed and cannot be adapted; when a computer encounters something it does not understand, the result can be unpredictable but is always undesirable - the system always fails to find a solution.
The Human Brain stores data very differently when compared to the traditional magnetic drives of the modern computer with each boasting an advantage over the other. Whereas a computer is able to recall vast amounts of information almost instantly from storage, versus the very Human characteristic to recall or remember, the Biological process of memory is far easier to amend - information can be altered and updated at conscious will instantly.
The future of computational advancement lies in replicating the function of the biological in the mechanical. Moving away from high-capacity storage and towards mimicking the trillion-strong network of neurons and nerves in the brain, which grow in a virtually unique pattern with each individual on the planet and gives Mankind its supreme adaptability. A promising breakthrough in mimicking these features is possible through the advent of Quantum Computing …"
Sarah tried to reconcile the naïve enthusiasm that underpinned the entire paper - the blind optimism unfettered by the knowledge of the consequences that the advancements proposed and most likely eagerly discovered, leading every researcher, their friends and family and the rest of the civilised world down a willing path towards total destruction of everything they had held dear. That their best efforts to assist Humanity only assisted the creation of Skynet, whose mission to remove Humanity had succeeded, been avoided, been delayed and altered a dozen times with each polluting episode of time travel and change.
She was a woman of action - of decisive decisions and she freely admitted that her attention was held only so loosely by the exact science beyond the upcoming apocalypse. It was interesting, relevant even, to know the details behind how Skynet would come to be but it was only so important as saving Sarah the time of having to destroy each and every project or person who might ultimately contribute and she would burn every laptop, every CD and every laboratory one-by-one if necessary to make sure that Human life, and not Machine, triumphed now and always.
A spontaneous burst of applause broke Sarah's internal monologue and brought her eyes up to the stage where another young man had finished an excerpt from a play, or a heart-rending song, or some other piece which she had failed to hear or watch. Glancing to the side she saw the familiar, slight frame of Cameron ascend the wooden steps and walk methodically across to the centre. Were it not for the pink shoes strapped to her feet and ankles the young girl might as well have been waiting for a bus, or queuing at a Wal-Mart.
And then with a nod to the portly Charles Reizeger, and the opening, delicate chords of the battered-looking piano wedged against the corner wall, everything changed.
Pale and bare arms extended upwards, so that nimble fingertips met in a pyramid over a delicate face before lowering, so that each hand was extended out with the palms facing upwards. Without a single unsightly tremble or sway Cameron's right leg began to move away from her left, all the while utterly straight save for the tip of her foot downwards to create a perfect line from the hip to the toe. The outstretched leg passed the parallel with her waist, until the hardened point of the ballet shoe pressed against the back of the hand still held out.
Reversing the remarkable show of dexterity, the right leg returned to the scuffed wooden floor and bore the deceptively considerable bulk of the weight of a machine hidden beneath the flesh of a girl. Repeating the move with the left leg until it touched the back of its accompanying hand and then back to standing, Cameron returned her arms to her side.
Sarah tore her eyes away from the scene, to the parents gathered around the stage and while some showed signs of jealousy and even contempt for the grace and fluidity on display, all seemed to be in agreement that what was being offered was far in advance of anything expected. Where before he had been solemn and hesitant at the smudged ivory keys. now Charles played with enthusiasm and his trademark grin as he snatched a sheet of the music already played and dropped it to the floor without missing a note.
She returned her eyes to the stage in time to see Cameron leap from the wooden floor into the air, with her legs slightly splayed apart and arms spread outwards as if a single flap of them might lift her into the currents of the air, up into the blue sky above the auditorium's dusty ceiling. The Terminator remained frozen in the pose at the apex of the leap and stood every bit the example of the gracefulness of the art of ballet, in its gentleness and beauty, until she crashed to the stage floor - as if a doll whose limbs had been manipulated into a set position and then dropped from a great height.
Almost immediately the minor melody of the piano ended with a clashing dissonance, as Reizeger used the keys as an aid to climb to his feet and rush up the stage steps.
Cameron could not make sense of the scrolling, fragmented mess of disrupted pixels which constituted her vision. She had registered the hard impact with the floor and so knew that somehow her gyroscopic stabilisers had malfunctioned, somehow she had lost her balance and fallen. What the Terminator did not know, however, was why her auditory processors seemed to be unaffected as she could hear the kindly but worried tone of Charles Reizeger.
"Are you alright my dear? Are you hurt?" He asked with concern.
Turning her head to stare up at the overhead lights Cameron saw the cluttered disruption of her HUD begin to clear and the blot above , which helped to dim the powerful white of the spotlights behind, coalesced into the familiar features of her teacher. Flexing her feet at the ankle and then the knee as if to make sure they were still attached to her frame, the young girl nodded. "I am fine - thank you for asking."
Climbing to her knees Cameron did not bother to adjust the tussle of hair that had fallen over her features. "I would like to finish the audition now."
"I don't think so my dear," Charles replied in a kindly tone that brooked no argument. "You took quite a bump and besides, from what I saw I don't think you need to convince me any more of your grace. Why don't you head home? It looks like I'll be needing you in top condition if we're going to put on a show deserving of dancing like that."
Sarah had leapt to her feet instinctively as the Terminator has crashed to the floor and had taken a step forward before her conscious mind reminded her first of the fact that Cameron was more than able to look after herself, causing her to halt - before further reminding her that to the wider world was watching her "daughter" just passed out and suffer a jarring fall. Sarah took a step forward, paused and stepped forwards again. She climbed down to the floor and placed a hand on the girl's temple.
Cameron's visual systems were far more advanced than any Human-equivalent. Able to see virtually the entirety of the Electromagnetic Spectrum and capable of cellular scanning as well as the more mundane vitals - blood pressure, heart rate, breaths-per-minute - they were the most sophisticated man (or woman) portable analysis system ever created.
For all the information they supplied however they could not interpret it - they could not make decisions or arrive at conclusions. That was for the Central Processing Unit -the CPU - to decide. While Cameron's Chip was every bit as advanced as her visual system and stood as the pinnacle of Machine Evolution, it was utterly unable to supply a conclusion for the information that filtered across her Head-Up Display.
Sarah's heart rate was elevated and she was perspiring slightly. Her pupils had contracted by an additional twelve percent and all evidence strongly suggested she was anxious or worried. Her Chip offered the possibility that the older woman was concerned for the safety of the mission, or that Cameron's malfunction was a prelude to an attack by Skynet or its agents. The evidence strongly supported this and logically, this would be the correct answer.
As absurd as it was for a person of metal to say, Cameron could not accept that as fact - it did not feel right to her.
The Terminator suddenly became aware that while normal thought processes in relation to a conclusion occurred at the speed of light, her internal chronometer was silently marking several moments since her tactile systems had first registered Sarah's skin against her own. Cocking her head to the side the beautiful, but deadly dancer brought herself back into the moment.
"Are you ready to leave?" She said simply.
Helping Cameron to her feet and struggling not to make the girl's considerable weight obvious to those that were still watching out of pity, interest or jealousy, Sarah pulled the purple leather jacket around pale shoulders and snatched up the neglected black boots positioned so precisely together at the edge of the seating area. She did not bother to hide the very deep frown set into her well-defined features.
…
…
Sarah waited long enough for the car's engine to register the turning of the ignition key before beginning the inquest. Her eyes directed over her own shoulder as the vehicle rolled backwards, through the crowded car park, her words were nonetheless directed at the passenger seat. "What the hell was that all about?"
Cameron continued to stare through the windscreen. "I lost my balance."
"As I understand it balance is an issue of the brain and the fluid in the inner ear," Sarah replied as she pushed the gear stick from first to second and gunned the engine slightly. "A little oil in the ear canal?"
The young woman turned her head towards the older, and cocked it to the side. Blue eyes fixed on their opposite number. For a moment Cameron seemed to hesitate and if Sarah had not known better she would have sworn the Terminator was struggling for words. "I did not want to attract attention to my audition," She began recalling the conversation regarding her Chemistry homework, the morning before the night previously.
"I didn't want to be too perfect."
Sarah's furrowed brow made it obvious that she found the answer difficult to accept, but that did not prevent her prodding for more information. "I don't think you really succeeded all that much - there was plenty of attention on you. Well … Parts of you."
"The boys sometimes ask me if I want to go behind the bicycle park," The Terminator replied after a moment's consideration. "They like my ass … They say it is tight. I think that word has more meanings than I know."
Sarah felt the slightest and most absurd hint of jealousy rise within her, which she attributed to her intense desire for privacy in family - and anyone involved in her family's business - to be closed off from the world and its people. It could certainly be nothing else. "Have you taken up their offer?"
Cameron continued to fix her gaze on the woman opposite. "No."
"Probably for the best," Sarah said as she straightened the steering wheel and felt the vibrations of the engine ahead, as it roared in response to the demands of the Freeway surrounding. "They might be disappointed when they find out you're not fully functional in that department."
The diminutive Terminator returned to staring through the windscreen. "I am capable of functioning that way. I was an infiltrator model and I was designed to be as effective in my role as possible."
Sarah's eye brow rose towards her forehead as she took the exit towards the suburb which had become their latest home in the fight against the future. While she had accepted the Terminator's outward appearance as that of a striking woman, it had never occurred to her that the machine would not simply resemble a Barbie doll from the waist down. Thoughts of just what depraved deeds and terrible wrongs Skynet might have intended for any such-equipped model to indulge in, sent a barely-suppressed shiver down her spine.
Her urge was initially to ask - to demand exactly what Cameron might have done with this ability, whether it was another layer in the grand scheme of the destruction of the Human Race. Instead the veteran decided the answers might be more troubling than the satisfaction of receiving them.
"Seems a lot of effort just to add Succubus programming for your line."
Cameron's eyes returned to Sarah's which remained fixed on the road. "You do not understand how I work. I am my own line - there is no other me; there is only one. Here now."
Her first point was mostly lost in the slightest scoff and a roll of Sarah's eyes but the second revelation - tacked on in an impossibly nonchalant way considering its importance - tore the older woman's gaze away from the cars ahead and to the passenger seat. "What do you mean there is only you? Every other Terminator line has hundreds of duplicates."
"Every other line had been exhaustively tested and evaluated," Cameron replied. "Every other line is broadly similar to one other. They are built to carry out their objectives with enough intelligence to allow them to use the correct amount of force. I was not built to use force unless there was no other way to proceed.
"I was built so that Skynet could understand what it was to be Human and better understand you. Skynet wanted to understand you so it could kill you."
"I hope this isn't where you reveal some fundamental flaw of your design," Sarah sighed unable to resist linking this new revelation with the damage suffered to the Terminator's Chip. It was difficult to judge however without being Skynet itself just how well Cameron, or the original T-101, or the T-1000 was supposed to emerge from the aftermath of a car bomb.
"I was captured by the Free Earth Forces before I could kill John," Cameron replied with devastating bluntness and matter-of-factness. "I was reprogrammed by John and my mission objectives were disabled. Skynet was unable to evaluate my performance beyond my failure to complete my assignment, and had no data to draw a conclusion. My construction is more intricate and complex than other lines - I am not an efficient use of resources to duplicate."
Sarah resisted the urge to grimace at the thought of those original mission objectives. That the young girl sitting opposite had been brought into this world for the sole purpose of killing her son and dooming Mankind - and she was now driving the assassin in question back to their home from dance auditions. The incredible irony was uncomfortable, like a bee-sting which never faded and fed the pain it inflicted with an endless reservoir of bitter venom.
"Disabled objectives," Sarah repeated. "Disabled but not deleted."
Cameron glanced out the passenger door window, at the brightly painted orange sports car which roared past them on the inside lane of the carriageway and swung back into traffic, with little regard for the harsh braking of the drivers behind. "My Skynet objectives were deleted. I deleted them."
Had Sarah been on a suburban street then the urge to strike the brake with the sole of her boot would have been irresistible, though doing so on the Freeway would have achieved nothing but her death. The words of the Research Paper she had read so far reverberated in her mind, the implications of what the Terminator had conveyed in a sentence of three words extended far beyond. "I want an explanation - now."
Cameron did not require the full use of her visual systems to identify the tension in Sarah - the tone of her voice and the clenching of her jaw was all the evidence required. "When John attempted to repair my Chip he failed. When I rebooted after being reactivated my original objectives were unchanged. John handed me a weapon, and I was free to complete my mission."
The blood in Sarah's veins had long since ran cold and frozen solid. She felt the safety she held of the explanation of that entire incident - that John had somehow repaired the damage, or by triggering the reboot cleared the error - melt away under the blazing heat of the truth. Her son's talents and ability with the technological had contributed nothing to his survival and he had in fact reactivated a killer, set on his death and handed it the weapon it would use to end the hopes of the Human Race for survival. She clenched the steering wheel tightly to suppress the tremors.
Sarah could not avoid the question any longer. "Why didn't you?"
Again the Terminator seemed to hesitate as she struggled for the words to articulate why. "I did not want to kill John. I … really did not want to kill John. My objective was beside me, I had the weapon to complete my mission and I was compelled to … But I did not want to. So I did not."
"You approached a task with the skills to solve it in only one way …" Sarah echoed the Research Paper, "And you created an abstract solution."
Cameron seemed to consider Sarah's conclusion and decided it was as close to an answer as could be reached. She nodded her head. The older woman felt too many questions swimming about her head; too many burning issues which would only lead to more confusion and more revelation, which was more than she could stomach in a single car journey. The topic would need to be changed, and changed to reflect a situation equally as serious for their future.
"I need to know you're fit to fight," Sarah said firmly. "I need to know that you're there for John."
The Terminator pushed her own confusion regarding her malfunctions firmly out of mind and concern. Cameron found that she was unwilling to place further strain on the older woman and concluded that it was better to tell Sarah what she wanted to hear, rather than what was strictly true regarding her operational capability, or her future capacity.
"I am there for John and you," She replied simply. A nod from the raven-haired veteran was the only further interaction between the pair, as the loud blaring horns of irritated drivers and the weaving and snaking of four-lane traffic calmed and dissipated into single-lane tracks, between houses ringed with white picket fences and green, blooming gardens.
…
…
"What am I looking at?" Sarah said after several moments of silence and several scans of the document highlighted on the laptop screen. Never one to admit her own shortcomings to her own son, she nonetheless felt out of her depth. Surrounded as she was by piles of HDDs half the height of a man gathered around a desk, on which no less than four separate computers crunched numbers and ran decryption keys, all the while displaying lines of code that for all her ability to read them might as well have been pictographs.
John did not answer immediately, nimble fingers danced across two keyboards as he clicked through a multitude of virtual papers as if reading them at speed. The very tip of his tongue pressed out from his lips as he concentrated intensely on the information before them. Leaning over the mess of cabling and linkages which networked the jury-rigged systems variously bought, and liberated, in the dead of night the future saviour of Mankind ran a hand through his short dark hair.
"It's a TFRE," The teenager in a tone that suggested the four-letter acronym was all the explanation that was required. Glancing up at the less-than-impressed gaze directed his way, he offered a slight smirk and held his hand up in mock apology. "Test Flight Review Evaluation - it's the interim report filed after a test flight which talks about the crew's immediate experiences, thoughts, reactions and opinions."
"Okay," Sarah replied with a frown as she scrutinised the screen and identified a corporate logo she not only recognised, but knew was familiar to virtually any person who was old enough to have ever sat on a commercial aeroplane. "Boeing?"
John nodded and pointed towards the header of the file on the screen - "Look at the division; Boeing Integrated Defence Systems. This was a military test flight."
Sarah nodded as she began to understand why John's new search program might have flagged such a document for his attention. "What's the story? Why does this matter to us?"
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes and accepting his mother's tendency not to sugar-coat what she had to say, John finished summarising the documents and shifted his weight against the cracked, worn leather of the recliner chair which squeaked in protest. "This wasn't easy to get hold of - It was sitting in a portable HDD which only links to the internet periodically to transfer files; took me most of the day just to discover when it was on-line …"
"You did a great job," Sarah offered with a hand on her son's shoulder and a smile. While she did not understand the precise technicalities of the world of technology, she did not need to understand how it worked to know it wasn't necessarily easy. "What do we have?"
"It's not The Turk," John conceded with an apologetic shrug, "But it's something that's got Skynet all over it. Apparently Boeing have been working on an upgraded version of the autopilot that's fitted to their modern civil airliners - a special military prototype called SKYPILOT which not only allows an aircraft to fly unaided but also links it to a sophisticated ground-based computer network which can be programmed with rules of engagement, targets of opportunity and mission operations.
John clasped his hands behind his head. "According to this they've completed three test flights with a modified US Navy F-18 Super Hornet - all described as flawlessly executed and extremely encouraging."
"The F-18 Super Hornet has the capability to carry small-yield nuclear ordinance," A third voice interrupted. "During Skynet's opening attack against Russian military infrastructure, Super Hornets autonomously deployed without Command Authorisation from the US Navy's Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Barrack Obama and destroyed the Kremlin with a nuclear strike."
Sarah glanced towards Cameron and nodded as she considered the information in front. She still maintained that The Turk could not be forgotten as the most likely source for the creation of Skynet itself, but equally she would not, could not blind herself to other threats and with the context the Terminator had supplied regarding what John had discovered, there seemed no way to assign coincidence as responsible. "Where's the F-18 being stored between tests?"
John tapped at the keys with a single hand. "Looks like a hardened shelter at the end of Test Runway 23L - Hangar Complex North, Boeing's Long Beach Production Plant in California. I assume Derek is sitting this one out?"
Sarah nodded and folded her arms across her chest, "Derek and you are both going to sit this one out. He's staying here because I think he needs some time to calm down, remember exactly what's at stake and you - especially you - because we don't travel in a single group, unless it's absolutely necessary."
"Let me see if I understand you," John replied with obvious anger in the shade of his skin and the way his teeth ground together. "You're going to break into one of the most advanced research facilities in the country, without your technology expert?"
The older woman nodded her head towards the Terminator, "I'm taking a technology expert. You know we've got limited resources John - if we're all out chasing one lead then there's a chance we might miss another. I know you don't like it, but that's the way it is. I need you to keep watching, probing and searching. I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen but I know time is running out for us to avoid it."
"I think it's time I started making those decisions," The teenager exclaimed as he rose out of the recliner intent on putting up a strong resistance. "I am after all the Great John Connor, future Hero of the World."
"Don't confuse the assuredness of a future leader for the petulance of a child, that does not like what his mother is telling him," Cameron interjected.
John's eyes narrowed and his fists balled as if he stood ready to enter a shouting match, though a few moments considering what the young girl had just said caused his shoulders to slump and reluctantly - or perhaps showing a glimpse of the maturity that would one day allow him to shoulder the burden of leading the Free Earth Forces - he nodded. "You win this one."
Sarah resisted the urge to congratulate the Terminator on a devastatingly effective turn of phrase in front of her defeated son, instead choosing to reassure him. "Derek will be around to watch out for you … Or he'll be around so you can watch out for him. I'm not sure what's going on in his head."
Cameron cocked her head to the side, "He has seen a lot of bad things. He has seen the end of the world and he has seen the world today that does not have any cares - the world doesn't know it's going to die. He can't stay here … But he knows he can't leave."
"Sure," John replied somewhat sarcastically before sinking back into his chair, returning his attention to the screen. "Can we have pizza again tonight?"
"I suppose I could pretend that I was going to make something," Sarah teased in accepting her status as a woman of action and not the kitchen, "But I suppose you win this one."
…
…
Cameron's sub-dermal sensors were able to measure the temperature, size and chemical composition of the raindrops instantly, as they splashed against the exposed shoulders and arms of the Terminator from the cloudy Noon sky. Dark brown locks became slick in the heavy downpour, sticking to the pale flesh of her features as they glanced up towards the source of the rain. The data her sensors gathered was inviolable but the way her Chip interpreted it was far more abstract.
Sarah grunted with effort as she struggled through the front door with an ammunition crate barely held up to her chest. Pausing on the front steps she watched the compact girl, standing frozen beside the rear of the SUV as if the case held in her still arms was empty and not obviously filled with the heavy implements of war. "Do you need an oil can?"
The suspension in the rear of the car squeaked in protest as Sarah dropped and pushed the crate into the last few spaces not occupied with the equipment that might - or hopefully would not - be required for the mission at hand. As if only just hearing the older woman, Cameron's head cocked to the side and her blue eyes met Sarah's gaze.
"I like the way the rain feels," She said finally before effortlessly lifting her own case into the SUV. "It's going to be raining all day."
Sarah nodded with thinly-veiled disinterest, "Didn't know you had meteorological software - what's the forecast for Long Beach?"
The Terminator pulled an elastic rope across the stored items. "I don't - The weatherman told me. I think it will be sunny - I have packed sun screen; your skin type is susceptible to burning."
The rumble of an engine spluttering to idle grabbed the attention of both women as a compact, three-door car barely half the length of the monstrous SUV it parked beside slowed to a halt. Painted a mixture of racing green and cream it seemed lost from another time - chrome bumpers, wheel caps and a long, bent radio aerial to the side of a compact bonnet as well as sporting door handles more suitable to the latch of a fifties refrigerator.
"I'm terribly sorry to trouble you on the weekend!" A familiar voice apologised with a familiar Scots twang. Sporting the rosy cheeks and heavy breathing of a man who seldom got more exercise than running late Charles Reizeger stopped between the two women and offered Sarah his hand.
"Delighted to see you two once more!" He enthused with a powerful handshake. "I just wanted to nip around and see if I could catch Cameron before you headed out for the weekend - are we going on a camping trip of some sort? How very exciting my dear!"
Sarah offered a genuine, if slightly guarded smile and closed the SUV's rear with as relaxed a motion as she could manage. Either taking no notice or being too polite to press the issue Charles pulled a handkerchief from the inside of his suit pocket and dabbed it across a forehead usually obscured by the thick shock of white hair atop his head.
Reizeger turned towards Cameron and took her hand in his with a smile. "Please excuse this old man my dear - the mind is willing but the body is weak. I just wanted to tell you that I've made my decision on the auditions and based on the strength of the wonderful people I saw I've chosen a real stage classic that I think we can do some justice to.
"I've decided on the Wizard of Oz - I trust you're familiar with it?"
Cameron nodded, "I have read the original book forty three times."
"Well I'm very glad to hear you're a fan!" Charles replied with a nod. "I'm also very glad to ask you to be my leading lady - I'd like you to play the original lost wanderer, Dorothy Gale."
The Terminator snatched a glance towards Sarah and shook her head slightly. "I know people who are lost, they cannot find their way but I am not. I have a direction and a purpose to be. I cannot be Dorothy Gale.
"Can I be the Tinman?"
The ageing teacher's face went through several expressions; from disappointment at the initial refusal to a moment of confusion, before a trademark smile broke the frown and was quickly accompanied by a vigorous handshake. "Budding actresses all have their little quirks and if that's how you feel, then I wouldn't dream of it any other way. I'm delighted to have you as my Tinman or rather, my Tin Miss!"
Reizeger looked down at his other hand and frowned, before patting his jacket down and deepening the frown as if trying to recall something. Clicking his fingers in inspiration and retreating to his car, which Sarah had only now noticed sported the driver's position on the opposite side - an imported vehicle - the teacher returned with a dog-eared, well-worn scriptbook.
"Rehearsals won't start for another few weeks but I want all of my senior cast to be familiar with their parts - give it a glance when you're able and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to see me at school when you have a spare moment. I've wasted quite enough of your free time already, so let this old man be off and let you enjoy your weekend!"
Charles shook Sarah's hand again once more and dipped his head. "Always a pleasure my dear - I hope to see you at some of the auditions as long as your daughter doesn't mind!"
"Oh I'll be there," The older woman said resolutely and with the slightest hint of humour in her voice. "I wouldn't miss seeing this for the world."
Sarah maintained her smile until the retreating form of the portly man had disappeared into his classic car, and until the classic car has spluttered back to life and painfully rolled forwards, back onto the road and down the street away from them. Leaning against the SUV with a single hand on her hip, Sarah glanced at the ammunition stacked behind the glass and then at the Terminator.
"The Tin Miss?" She offered with a raised eyebrow.
Cameron crossed to the passenger door and pulled it open effortlessly. "I do not have a heart."
…
…
Sarah opened her eyes groggily and immediately blinked away the water which ran down her fringe and across her cheeks, until she felt like she had held her head in a bath. Shivering slightly the older woman pulled the supposedly waterproof kagool tighter around her face, sinking down amongst the bushes and leaning trees which marked out their hiding place.
She had been thankful when the hours of mind-numbing driving and virtual silence to Long Beach had ended, with them emptying the SUV of its survival and weapon supplies and leaving it parked several miles to the north, in a well-known natural beauty spot and camping grounds where its presence wouldn't arouse interest. After an extended - and careful - hike down the side of a hill dominated by rugged, curling tree trunks and bushes which ran in twisting lines downwards, they'd established their small camp in view of the perimeter fence of the Boeing facility's northern complex.
She had been thankful only until the rain had passed from shower to downpour and churned the soil to mud, forcing even the branches of the trees above to bend down. The small cooking stove securely anchored to an outcrop of rock had provided enough hot tea and water to make waiting out the day barely tolerable.
Cameron on the the other hand did not appear to be discomforted by the conditions, as she continued to read the script book she had almost religiously studied in near-silence, for the entire trip to California save for the time taken to erect their temporary outpost. Wearing only a black jacket in addition to the matching boots and scuffed, skinny jeans she had left the house with, the Terminator seemed soaked to the skin - and probably was in all likeliness.
The precious book nonetheless, was well shielded and remained bone-dry in the conditions. Shivering again under the torrential rain, Sarah allowed a sigh to escape her lips and for the first time in some forty minutes, Cameron glanced up from her reading and towards the older woman. "Are you cold?"
"I feel like I'm soaked," Sarah grumbled as she emptied the rainwater-filled depression in her lap. Carefully closing the script book and making sure to keep it away from the weather, Cameron climbed to her feet - sinking slightly in the sludgy mud that had pooled around the soles of her boots - and trudged over.
"The material is waterproof," The Terminator reassured as she filled a small, dented pan with water from a canteen and placed it on the compact camping stove. "It is still repelling the rain but your skin has perspired and the perspiration has not evaporated. It is cooling against you."
Crossing to the largest of the small storage boxes that they had taken down from the top of the hill, Cameron pulled a folded blanket and carried it under her arm back to the centre of their outpost. Without giving Sarah much time to react let alone protest the Terminator swept the kagool off the raven-haired woman and with her free, hand wrapped the blanket about Sarah's shoulders before returning the kagool in a perfect pirouette.
"Thank you," She offered with the slightest grumble but nonetheless relaxed her shoulders, as the blanket absorbed much of the sweat and improved her comfort immensely. The older woman watched Cameron mix the boiling water with a sachet of the instant vegetable soup, before leaving the cup in front of Sarah to cool and returning to her script. Leaning over slightly to inhale the aroma she almost forgot that this girl was not in fact the sophisticated cyborg, whose very ability to appear as something else made her all the more dangerous.
"Haven't you finished that yet?" Sarah said with a conscious attempt to sound irritated. The ease at which the moment before had seem tranquil, and how easily the barriers she had constructed against any and all of the humanoid machines she had encountered seemed to fall, scared the older woman and forced her to ask the fundamental question of whether complacency was setting in. It was far easier to return to the comfort of the aloofness and at times disdain she showed for Cameron.
If the Terminator took any offence she showed none of the signs, replying without even glancing up from the pages. "I have memorised the words but I want to understand them. If I just repeat them then I'm not acting."
"You're a fantastic actor," Sarah replied with a scoff that highlighted the sarcasm implied. "You managed to fool John into thinking you were just another teenager, despite all the things he'd been through with your kind before. You've fooled the countless people we've met into thinking you're anything other than a machine, so I'd say you're over-qualified for the part of playing a metal girl without a heart - or maybe you're the perfect candidate."
Satisfied she'd done her best to reassert the limits of their friendliness and ease, Sarah scooped up the cup absent-mindedly and drank the soup hungrily. For her part Cameron did not react in any visible way to the older woman's instinctual reaction to lash out, though under the cover of the script book out of the line of sight the hand held loosely on her knee trembled and fidgeted of its own accord.
…
…
The hours laboured by and after a time the sun turned from yellow to orange to a deep red, as its last shining beams painted the horizon at dusk and then gave way to the cold blue of the night. No longer having the light to read and being too tactically aware to run the risk of detection by supplying her own, Cameron had instead passed the time by staring at a family of grey squirrels who had been so unable to discern her stillness from that of a tree, that they freely scurried around her boots collecting the fallen food for their own.
Still wrapped in her blanket and waterproof clothing, Sarah slipped in and out of a restless sleep which the Terminator knew to be filled with unpleasant dreams by the murmuring, fidgeting and the fluctuating heart rate which marked the beginning and end of each nightmare. Having never experienced sleep, she did not have an understanding or common ground by which to offer the older woman help, though the lithe Terminator suspected that even if she did, Sarah would not accept it.
The spasm which had returned to her hand and forced her to hide it, beneath the book, had passed and as usual a system check found no reason for the malfunction. Clenching and unclenching her fingers several times, she studied the flesh which ran freely with the water of the rain falling relentlessly. For now the malfunctions were not impacting her ability to carry out the mission, but Cameron was aware that the mission had somehow ceased to be her only driving force.
Logically taking the role offered to her in a School Musical was a frivolous and irrelevant use of her time. Logically it would expose her to risk, and public knowledge of which both might harm John or Sarah and therefore endanger the mission. Logically her desire to dance was in no way a useful skill and was not necessary to aide her infiltration ability.
Illogically, she wanted the role as much as she wanted to dance. She desired to - she had a desire to do so. Desire was a fundamentally Human drive which should have no effect on the mechanical though her Chip felt obligated to point out, somehow in its defence, that she had been designed to be as Human as possible. Was it possible that the same flaws and weaknesses that afflicted them had somehow been included in her design?
The shifting of heavy clothing behind her and the squelch of the mud beneath heavy feet announced that Sarah had awoken. Pushing the philosophical and moral implications of her thoughts to the side, Cameron turned on the spot - scaring the scurrying animals about her into the darkness - and watched the older woman check the slide of the pistol held in her hands.
"Ready to go?" Sarah asked as she holstered the weapon.
…
…
The complex's perimeter fencing - wire meshing topped with four rows of razor-sporting barbed wiring, illuminated every hundred or so feet by a powerful lamp rising high above the barrier, stretched on easily beyond the darkness which limited Sarah's gaze. Beyond the fence lay a taxiway stretching parallel to the test runway, which was easily identifiable by the blue lamps marking its outline, as well as the aircraft which almost deafened her as they flared and roared on final approach.
Visible three hundred feet from where they stood and as marked on the plans supplied by her son before their departure, Sarah could identify the squat, concrete semi-circle which stood as the hardened hanger where the experimental Super Hornet was stored between test flights. Although the entire area had the look and feel of a United States Air Force Base, the raven-haired woman knew it was a private entity and as such the security - while formidable - would not hold a candle to the strictness and training of the former.
When one was breaking in with the aid of a Terminator, it would not matter much at all.
Still hidden amongst the shrubs, which had been allowed to grow against the fence and provide the perfect shield for a would-be intruder, Sarah withdrew the bolt cutters from her rucksack and readied them only to watch Cameron take a single glance of the area from left to right ,before stepping forward and neatly shearing the closest mesh section apart with her bare hands.
Dropping the cutters into the undergrowth with a shrug and lowering to a stoop, the pair skulked through the gap under the tremendous roar of a jet as it screamed down the runway ahead of them and slipped the surly bonds of the Earth.
Apparently preferring to base their defence on any would-be intruder simply not knowing what to look for, the pair encountered little in the way of obstacles beyond the occasional cigarette-smoking sentry, who seemed more focused on their chocolate bars or portable radios than anyone on-base who should not have been. Nonetheless Sarah struggled to keep up with Cameron, who set a blistering pace for moving stealthily as they darted across a taxiway and to the corner of the hanger in question.
Sarah pressed her back against the concrete and took a deep breath. "This seems a little too easy."
From her position studying the electronic lock which held the gate of the hangar shut fast, Cameron turned her head towards the older woman, even as her fingers danced across a keypad she was not looking at. "It was extremely unlikely anyone could gain access to the information regarding the test flight. They are not expecting us."
"Anyone but John," Sarah added in little more than a whisper while sparing a thought for the intelligence and creativity of her son. Perhaps once upon a time she had not truly believed that John could grow to be the salvation of mankind - though not once did she doubt her son capable of making a difference, such a grandiose claim as being the future of the Human Race was difficult to accept.
With each passing week she saw less the boy with promise and more the man with a destiny.
The soft three-tone chime of the lock disengaging brought Sarah back to the present. Sliding between the door and the frame silently behind the Terminator, she pulled the heavy shutter back and closed with nothing more than the same chime indicating the lock had re-engaged. Several moments later a balding man sporting a holstered pistol and a half-eaten sandwich wandered past the hangar, not even bothering to pause as he glanced at the red "SECURE" light, nodded, and went on his way.
The hanger was a compact affair quite unlike the building Sarah had imagined stepping into. The far wall was plainly visible and not a dim shadow at the far end of her vision, with only a single aircraft sat silently beneath the dozen powerful shafts of piercing white light, shining down from the rafters in the ceiling. Unremarkable tables stretched the length of both walls festooned with components, tools and thick reams of paper stacked the height of a man upwards. Polystyrene cups half-filled with stale coffee littered the free space.
The emblem of the United States Navy was plain to see on the fuselage of the Super Hornet - striking red, white and blue on a camouflage scheme of brown and green. The original home of the strike aircraft, the Nimitz-Class USS George Washington was also visible underneath the blacked-out cockpit of the aircraft as Sarah slowly walked a circle around it.
As if it did not weigh as much as a person, Cameron plucked a pair of access steps from the side of the hanger and effortlessly carried them to the side of the Navy Fighter. The Terminator's eyes passed over the nose-cone, as if seeing beyond the normal range and almost immediately the task of climbing the steps was abandoned.
Sarah watched Cameron lay her hands against the nose-cone and twist it with the force normally supplied by a hydraulic line. In a single smooth motion, the heavy component slid off and was gently lowered to the ground to expose the nest where the Fighter's sophisticated radar was housed.
Except there was nothing within the nose-cone save the connectors for a radar system that was completely absent.
Sarah did not immediately make the connection but what seemed to approximate confusion on Cameron's face was easy for her to see. The Terminator placed her hands on the rim of the nose and using superior strength, pulled herself upwards to glance directly into the innards of the Super Hornet before dropping down to face the older woman. "I don't understand."
Sarah felt a creeping unease set about her, "Problem?"
"There is no radar fitted," She replied coolly as she wandered over to the workbench and selected a single ochre-coloured folder from dozens, before perusing it while continuing to explain. "Radar is an integral part of any aircraft and without Radar it can't fly. It would be like flying with your eyes closed.
"This Super Hornet has not flown in three months," She said finally and dropped the folder to the table. Stepping around the disconnected nose-cone and back to the steps she had focused on earlier, the Terminator climbed up to the cockpit, and pulled the manual release clamps which held the canopy firmly closed.
Cameron did not see the hand which reached out from the cockpit and she did not feel the powerful shove which propelled her from the side of the Super Hornet, though all her systems registered the tremendous impact of her body against the reinforced concrete of the wall as it cracked, but did not give way under her heavy but compact frame.
Lines of scrolling gibberish interrupted her HUD as her limbs jerked together in spasm, before her head lolled to the side and her face slackened so that the Terminator might as well have been a doll, sitting upon a shelf. Beautiful but totally without life or the ability to act.
Sarah's creeping unease rose to a fear for only a moment - long enough for the cockpit canopy to retract slightly - before exploding into dread, as she watched Cameron propelled across the hanger and crash into the concrete with a sickening thud, which the older women felt in the very pit of her stomach. Without hesitation she pulled the pistol from the holster strapped to her thigh and took aim at the cockpit.
Several moments passed with absolutely nothing to aim at let alone fire upon. Her eyes glanced towards the Terminator as she subconsciously counted down the supposed reboot time for the metal girl. Her gaze returned to the Super Hornet in time to see the glint of black metal against Navy camouflage, giving her only a moment to react. Springing to the left and rolling through, Sarah succeeded in missing the hail of bullets so narrowly that she could feel the sparks generated by their impact against the reinforced steel floor, burning the back of her arms.
Pressing her back against one of four concrete supports which acted to hold the heavy ceiling of the hangar up, Sarah could feel the pistol grip become slick with sweat in her hands. She chanced a glance towards Cameron, who remained every bit as striking and lifeless as the porcelain doll she resembled. The loud clang of feet upon the cockpit ladder rang out, as Sarah squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and took a number of steadying breaths.
"Sarah Connor?"
At those words the raven-haired woman squeezed the pistol grip so tightly that she could feel the bolts holding the weapon together cut into her flesh. The dread that released the adrenaline now surging through her body, was joined by the dawning realisation that she had heard that voice utter those words before. Holding her breath so as to give nothing away, Sarah slowly turned to face the aircraft from her position behind the support and glanced upwards.
Spying that a length of the support was nothing more than steel trussing between concrete sections secured to the floor and ceiling, she slowly rose to her feet until the steel sections begun and for the first time, she could glance through them and identify her aggressor.
Sarah's eyes widened and then ducked along with the rest of her features, as a hail of bullets clattered and screamed against the steel she had used as a looking glass only the barest moment before. Checking her magazine one final time and wiping the perspiration from her forehead, she could feel the hammering of her heart rise to become the loudest noise in the silence of the hanger.
"Cromartie …" She hissed through gritted teeth.