Cromartie did not move his gaze from the sink when the door to the suite opened, continuing to wash the blood from his gloves before stripping them from his hands and into the waste bin against the wall. His utterly expressionless face turned towards the raven-haired woman who was, however temporarily, now an ally. The irony was totally lost on the machine.
Sarah felt her stomach knot once more when Cromartie walked into view, the brief break from the relentless battle against Skynet, to enjoy a cup of stale coffee and fresh air, having rejuvenated her spirit somewhat to let her tolerate the feeling. Ignoring the T-888 for the meantime, she crossed over to the surgical bed.
Cameron was once more dressed only in the green gown she had entered the Hospital with originally, thick white bandages strapped tightly from her wrist to her elbow on both arms, and from what Sarah could see, around her stomach and both thighs. The surgical area was spotless so that if Cameron stood up and walked away there would be no evidence that she had ever been cut open to the harsh lights above the bed, now no longer lit.
Bringing her clenched hand up, she slowly opened the fingers and held the Chip out wordlessly.
The T-888 accepted the vital component swiftly and stooped to give himself a better view of the exposed scalp, hidden to Sarah by the mane of hair pushed away. Gingerly taking a hold of Cameron's closest hand by the wrist, she placed it on top of her own, pushing away the myriad thoughts - both disturbing, heartening and unanswerable to embrace the moment alone.
A soft click and one hundred and twenty seconds preceded Cameron's eyes flashing open, bright blue orbs instantly fixing on Sarah's. The older woman felt her the gentle squeeze of the Terminator's hand on her own, and her lips curved upwards in the smallest smile. "How're you feeling, Tin Miss?"
Cameron paused long enough to allow Cromartie, under Sarah's ever-watchful eye, to replace the access plug and fold the flap of scalp back over the port - stitching the flesh back together with blinding speed and accuracy that would leave any surgeon watching astounded, assuming they were not already intrigued by cyborg medicine in general.
She sat up without a hint of jerkiness or spasm, her legs dropping over the side of the bed in a single fluid movement. Under the relentless stare of Cromartie, Sarah shrank back slightly, stepping away from Cameron as she flexed her fingertips.
"I have repaired all of the damage," The T-888 answered even if the question was not for him. Sarah cast a scowl in his direction, mildly irritated by the fact that Cromartie did not even have the good grace to look pleased with himself despite the indisputably fantastic job he had done in such a short time. No sense of pride in his achievements, and no capacity to use it to better himself.
Just another difference between him, and Cameron.
The Terminator in question hopped to the floor, pulling the tangled mess of hair that had flopped over her face back behind her ears, and over her forehead where it belonged. She glanced at Sarah, cocking her head slightly. "Do you have a brush? I look like a freak."
…
…
Sarah slapped her hands against her face as the hot ash billowed upwards, carrying burning embers which irritated her nose and seared her cheeks. She staggered backwards, shaking her head and groping for the pistol dug into her waistband, palms slick with rainwater and dirt. Her eyes opened narrowly, blinking the irritants away to see Cromartie still standing where he had brought his heeled boot straight down on the camp-fire Sarah had been fruitlessly trying to light for the last half hour.
Pulling the weapon free of her trousers she took aim at the T-888.
"Just what the fuck do you think you're doing!" She snarled, her hair flopping down under the relentless downpour to stick to her forehead annoyingly.
Cromartie remained totally oblivious to the shoe that was beginning to smoke in the dying embers of the fire he had brutally stamped out, and totally without reaction to the weapon pointed in his direction. "A fire will give our position away," He explained calmly as if Sarah were an errant child who hadn't considered the implications. "We cannot risk being found."
Three days ago when the unlikely trio had arrived from the Hospital, taking advantage of the woodland park being closed for the off-season to ensure they wouldn't be disturbed, Sarah would have found the answer explanation enough. Three days ago she might even have remembered the point without Cromartie's thick shoes and thicker skin.
Three days of relentless rain that was never quite cold enough to freeze her flesh and at least give her the blessing of numbness, meant his answer was not good enough. Three days of howling, vicious winds that threatened to strip the skin from her bones and had already left her exposed face and hands red-raw and itchy, meant she was not interested in what he had to say. She suppressed the urge to shiver as ice-cold droplets of water ran between her shoulder blades from the sopping hair on top of her damp head, cranking her temper higher.
The rain incessantly lashing against her face made it easier to disguise the fact that tears were threatening to form, her teeth gritting together as she began to feel less like a person and more a caged rat, secured for its supposed own good by an emotionless guard. Quite apart from the issue of her son if she were to die, fighting against Skynet and all its works surely would be a better death than slowing freezing solid, scraping a miserable existence from rainwater and ration packs, holed up on the side of a rocky hill in the middle of nowhere.
Sarah's finger curled inside the trigger guard, the urge to fire overwhelming. That the pistol could not stop Cromartie even with its full magazine delivered at point blank range did not matter to the shivering woman - the satisfaction of watching the metal bastard bleed, staring at each bullet wound as if he didn't understand why it was happening, would be all the payback she would need.
Cameron hopped from one outcrop of rock to another, landing on each and balancing with a single foot, her other leg swinging back and forth in a staggering display of agility. Her arms spread outwards, then rising up to form a point above her head. Brown locks that had become stringy and almost black in the downpour framed her delicate, damp features.
An effortless leap of almost nine feet from an outcrop of rock to a jutting slab of stone, fully the height of a man, brought her back into view of their base camp - little more than an all-weather sleeping bag underneath a hardy cluster of trees, at the edge of the circular clearing at the base of the hill. The boxy, orange-and-white rear of the ambulance that had become their method of transport was barely visible a short distance away.
Cameron's eyes fell on Sarah, shoulders tensed and hunched over with wild eyes. It was obvious the woman was angry without even having to consider the weapon she pointed, or the finer diagnostic points of her HUD. She quickly stepped on to the dirt path which wound down from the slope of the hill towards the clearing.
Sarah whirled around at the sound of footsteps behind, her aim following her eyes, and her arms following her temper down slightly at the return of the other Terminator. For all that was happening around him Cromartie might well have been standing alone in the clearing judging by his actions, or the lack of them.
"You should walk the perimeter," Cameron suggested in a way that was not to be taken as an idea. Cocking his head to the side, the T-888 removed the smoking remains of his left shoe from the grey embers of the former camp-fire and turned on the spot, merging into the damp brown trunks and the floppy green leaves of the trees that clustered around the edge of the clearing.
"I could have handled him," Sarah snapped irritably, stashing her pistol back into the waistband of her trousers and resisting the urge to grunt in anger as her hair flopped back over her eyes. Cameron to her credit did not dispute Sarah's belief in herself, instead beginning to climb back up the slope that led around the base of the hill. "Come with me."
"Cameron? where are we going!" She groaned loudly, the adrenalin that had almost given her the kick needed to shoot Cromartie now breaking down in her veins and leaving her edgy, tired and above all else, fed up. The Terminator did not answer but made quick time up the gradient.
"Cameron!" Sarah shouted to no avail, hands on her hips. Sighing and giving thanks to her combat boots for being the sole piece of clothing to remain dry and impervious to the rain, she climbed up the slope - slogging through mud that threatened to suck her ankle-deep with tired every step.
…
…
The song of a dozen violins drifted down the short, faded lime-green corridor, the supporting trombones, tubas and brass forming a powerful undertow which pushed the strings along as the music flowed imperiously. Harsh yellow light painted a bright line out from underneath a single badly varnished door across the dark, dusty wooden floorboards.
Charles Reizeger loosened the tie around his neck, rubbing his eyes wearily as he pushed his chair backwards to balance on two of its legs against the wall behind him. His tired eyes glanced at the desktop that was all but invisible for the mounds of half-completed, half-checked reports and files which were haphazardly stacked on it. Watching the wall-mounted clock tick methodically past ten thirty he snatched up a bottle of scotch from the desk, filling a small glass with the fiery amber liquid and downing it in a single gulp.
Reaching across the reports and the files, Charles picked up a silver frame and the photograph it contained, his lips spreading in a smile as he studied the young girl's beaming face. He struggled to remember that moment in time - the moment he had looked through the camera's viewfinder and captured that single point of happiness. It seemed so many years ago.
Replacing the picture on the desktop, he ran a hand through his grey shock of hair and turned his attention back to the matter at hand, namely the High School's upcoming production of The Wizard of Oz. He had already cast the Tinman - or as Charles had come to say the Tin Miss in reference to the budding actress - the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow. His initial notes on each student who had auditioned were at hand, the overbearing but proud voices of their parents still ringing in his ears as to why their child and theirs alone deserved a centre-stage part.
A loud thump echoed from outside his office, causing Charles to frown and lean over towards the music system still piping classical works out from its torn, well-used speakers. Turning the volume down to almost nothing, he strained his musical ears, listening carefully. After several moments of silence, he shrugged and turned the sound back up; unscrewing the top from the scotch bottle and moving to refill his glass.
He had no sooner tightened the top back on the bottle - chastising himself for the second drink and placing the offending malt back in a desk drawer - when the door to his office swung open with such force that its impact with the wall caused the CD playing to skip several seconds of Mozart, replacing the soothing piano chords with odd-timed clicks.
Caught by surprise he flapped his arms in an attempt to stop his chair falling backwards, forcing it to return to four legs so suddenly that his forehead hit the desk with a painful thud. Groaning and lifting his head up slowly, Charles' eyes locked on the piercing blue orbs of a striking woman dressed entirely in blue, high-heels making her tower over the portly teacher. Appearing every inch the dynamic, business-like woman of the modern century she could have worked in any other department of the School he supposed, though Charles could not recall ever seeing her before.
Frowning in confusion, he did his best to smile. "Can I help you my dear?"
Long blonde hair flowing across shoulders angled forwards over the desk, the stranger unfolded a piece of paper from her person and placed it on the desk, so Charles could see it. He instantly recognised it as a preliminary list of students - their names and photos - selected for the musical production. Charles had uploaded it to the School's intranet to allow his colleagues to plan their timetables around the students who would need to be excuses to attend rehearsals.
"Who is this girl?" The woman asked, a finger pointing against the photo of the girl already cast as the "Tin Miss". Her voice was flat and totally at odds with the grace and beauty of her appearance.
Charles felt irritation mixing with confusion, standing up from his chair to regard the stranger properly. The sheet she had produced was only available to teachers and senior staff and having been at the High School for over a decade, he knew that this woman was neither. He tightened the knot of his tie, finding it difficult to match the intensity of the stare directed at him; a cold, calculating glance that seemed to bore straight through his flesh and even through the concrete wall behind.
"I think it's best if you leave my dear," He said clearly and evenly. "Or I'll have to call the police."
"Who is this girl?" The blonde repeated as if simply restating the question would compel Charles to change his mind. Shrugging his shoulders slightly, he snatched up the phone from the desk and glanced down to punch in the number that would connect him to an outside line. When he glanced back up at the stranger it was not to her face, but a multi-barrelled, cannon-type weapon which hovered scant inches from his features.
Slowly raising his free hand and lowering the receiver until it clicked on the desk, Charles feel sweat prickling his forehead. He realised that the blonde was not holding the weapon, but that somehow it was an extension of herself. The metal-grey casing of the menacing gun turned to the same sky-blue hue as the colour of her dress, while the angular lines of the weapon casing melted into the flowing creases of the fabric.
The explanation was beyond him and he was not in a position to clarify.
"Who is this girl?" Skynet asked for a third time.
…
…
Sarah ran a hand through her soaking hair, not sure whether to laugh or cry at the sight which greeted her at he end of their mini-trek through the thick mud, and the stony ground. They had climbed upwards and around to the other side, where a massive slab of solid rock gave the hill a sheer drop at least fifty feet down to the valley floor below. A small depression worn away by the elements or instability in the hill itself, had cracked years ago to create a small cavern some seven feet high and some fifteen feet deep.
A scratchy, plastic cover was crudely but tightly hammered into the lip of the entrance, stretching forwards and supported by two stained wooden poles driven deep into the wet soil below to provide a hanging shelter. The floor itself was sloped downwards so that the stone was as dry as if the sun had been shining in place of the torrential downpour. Stooping down to glance inside Sarah could see that foil hypothermia blankets - taken from the ambulance they had hijacked earlier in the day she assumed - were spread out to form a shining heat retainer, across the cavern's wall and ceiling.
The same gurney that had transported Cameron both to the Hospital and from lay on the stone floor, wheels folded underneath and soft mattress invisible under the piles of comfortable blankets folded neatly on top. A portable cooking stove sat a short distance away, a compact flame powered by the tiny gas cylinder beneath boiling a tin pot of water and spilling its precious heat into the wider cavern.
Sarah stepped inside, dropping to the floor and tugging mud-caked combat boots free of her aching feet. Wiggling her toes in relief, she felt the warmth of the stove behind envelope her clammy skin - her shoulders sagging in contentment as she fully appreciated the moment.
Cameron could see that the older woman was visibly more relaxed, the ghost of a smile crossing her lips and the slumping of her shoulders clear signs, quite apart from her reduced pulse and vitals as measured by her HUD. Satisfaction coursed through her being, both at being able to help Sarah and that Sarah appreciated her efforts. Finding pleasure in one's own works was a distinctly human trait; to be extolled to greater works by others' appreciation even more so.
"Thanks so much for this," Sarah sighed, wringing her damp hair against the stone. "I'm no slouch but I don't know how much longer I could have lasted out there, being wet and miserable and having Cromartie spending all his time just standing, staring into nothing. I just--"
"You're not like us," Cameron interrupted, her head cocking to the side.
"Us? You're nothing like him," Sarah replied sharply with a shake of her head. "You might have the same mummy and daddy robot, and you might be made of the same metal. You might even have the same build date but you're nothing alike. Take my word for it."
Cameron nodded, accepting it as a compliment. "Don't ask me where I got the stove from - they were sleeping - miles from here. The park is closed, they shouldn't have been here and they left their trash all over. I picked it up - it can attract bears. The pot is theirs but the water is mine."
Sarah rolled her eyes as she slipped her damp jacket from her aching shoulders, setting it down against the stone wall to dry. "I couldn't contact John," Cameron began before shaking her head to reassure the older woman whose own eyes jerked up in worry at the mention of her son. "We can't risk using anything that is, or connects to, a public network. Skynet is looking for us in more ways than one."
The Terminator changed tact, "Derek is good at surviving, he will protect John. He is a technophobe and won't attract Skynet's attention."
"That's because he's spent decades trying to avoid being killed by technology," Sarah chuckled sardonically, nodding her head. "I know he'll look after John and his needs."
Cameron cocked her head to the side, brow furrowing. "It is human to care about someone else's needs and try to satisfy them?" She questioned. Sarah nodded her head, stretching her legs out in front of her. "Is it human to place someone else's needs above your own?"
The older woman pursed her lips, frowning slightly. "I'd say that's one of the highest human virtues - to care for someone and knowingly put them ahead of yourself and work to help them is everything laudable about being human. Why?"
Cameron's bright blue eyes lingered a little too long on Sarah to avoid giving the answer away, "It doesn't matter - Goodnight Sarah."
Cameron turned away and paused only long enough to unhook the plastic shade at the lip of the cavern from its wooden supports, the covering flopping down with a gentle swoosh to block out the waning light of the day. Sarah's eyes quickly adjusted to the minimal, but enjoyable glow of the camping stove.
Carefully lifting the water up from the hob and setting it on the stone floor, she dropped a wash cloth left on top of the pile of blankets into the tin pot, enjoying the feeling of the steam as it rose up and brushed her face. Her conscious mind offered a million questions regarding Cameron, every one of them as hard as one could imagine to answer. She was saved from the tough self-examination, if only for a little while, by the bone-deep fatigue that demanded sleep as a penance.
"What am I going to do with you," She whispered to no-one in particular, pulling her tank top over her shoulders wearily.
…
…
The occasional blinding beam of light from a passing car on the road outside swept through the bay window, briefly illuminating the piles of dusty, stacked boxes arranged near the front door. Filled to bursting with paper and folders they stood next to baskets hastily stuffed with clothes of all shapes and sizes. A second car passing a little more slowly brightened the kitchen through the open doorway - a loaf of bread beginning to green on the chopping board where it had been left, but with no sign of anything having been packed, or moved.
A ring of light from the porch lamp outside cast a yellow glow around the front doorway, which crept no further forward than the first few feet of worn beige carpet. A shadow fell between the frame and the door, a flash of blue cloth briefly shining through the thin gap. The cloth was replaced by a sharp silver point stretching through the narrow space and into the hallway, like a knife sliding between two slices of bread atop each other.
The slither of metal widened until it resembled a sword of centuries gone by, both edges honed to a razor-sharp angle though the length of the blade, compared to its extreme thinness, suggested it was not nearly strong enough to be an effective weapon.
The blade sped upwards along the door frame, tearing through the double deadbolts with a ringing clang. Chunks of metal which had once formed part of the lock fell to the carpet, smoke from the friction generated by the force of the blow coiling up from the decapitated pieces. Without any resistance to hold the heavy door, it slowly swung open with the slightest creak - the blonde woman stepping inside from the porch, driving the flat of her palm into the centre of the wood to open the way faster.
The door struck one of the many boxes piled closely as it swept open, reached the limit of its arc and beyond as it crashed into the wall; hinges snapping and screws shearing in half. Dozens of sheets of paper spilled from the torn box and flew into the air, scattering a thick pall of dust upwards from documents that had been undisturbed for months and years.
The narrow, razor-sharp blade that had acted as a brutally effective lock pick began to shorten, its silvery finish brightening to a midnight and then sky-blue. The razor edge dulling and widening until it became cylindrical, the point at the end of the blade dividing until it became five with each splaying out to form stubby fingers which grew their own knuckles, and fingernails.
The whole transformation took only a few seconds, from murderous weapon to a hand as normal as the one opposite.
Skynet stooped to the floor, fingers closing around the cardboard boxes and tearing them open without the slightest effort. Coloured notes - some handwritten, some typed - spilled on to the carpet, the combined efforts of a dozen resistance fighters and years of their lives spent hidden in the present collating, collecting and processing.
The T-X's HUD was far more capable than a dozen groups of a dozen Humans and had already analysed every piece of paper, in only as much time as it took to physically glance at each one. The information was broken down by relevance and filed even as new data was submitted - a never-ending cycle of assimilation that ensured Skynet was capable of learning more in a minute than the average person could in a lifetime.
Cardboard was shredded and broken apart for the precious raw data it held, piercing blue eyes assimilating every word.
Skynet's information collection was halted by the faintest glimmer of metal against the floor towards the door to the kitchen. Closing the distance the Terminatrix snatched up a metal craft knife from the carpet, inspecting the blade stained with encrusted, dark-red blood. Turning the handle upside down she ran the flat of the blade against her tongue, sophisticated chemical composition analysers which might take up an entire room in the present, hidden out of sight in the future.
While the boxes of intelligence had all but confirmed this house to be the Connors' residence, the bloodstain now gave the future bane of the Human Race a time frame - a point of reference for how long the house had been abandoned. The artificial markers in the blood substitute also solving the unanswered, if hardly burning question of what had happened to the T-2000 prototype; sent on a mission that had been attempted a hundred times without success.
She was here, in the present and by Skynet's vast reserves of logic, turned to serve the Human Element. Turned to protect John and Sarah Connor.
Dropping the knife back to the carpet, the blonde ignore the moulding food in the kitchen, its polished silver appliances and the selection of DVDs strewn in front of the television. She made her way to the staircase, ignoring the Nirvana T-shirt abandoned on the handrail and stepping over the telephone tucked at the side of one of the steps as she climbed. Each of the doors to the rooms upstairs was closed but Skynet did not need to open each to know what was behind - the structural plans of every home in the greater metropolitan area committed to memory.
Only the bathroom did not interested the Terminatrix.
Skynet stepped into John's room, long blonde tresses falling past her shoulders as her head followed her eyes down to the half-dozen computer towers arranged on the floor, surrounding the desk set against the wall. Each was a different size and shape but every one was missing a side to allow better access, and every one had been sabotaged. Hard Drives abandoned on the blue carpet - pulled out and scrambled with high-powered magnets; power cabling cut and torn; Motherboards broken in half and dipped water; RAM removed.
Two flat screen monitors remained on the desk - one shattered and disembowelled so that only a black fascia framed sharp, broken components, while the other was cracked, but intact. She gathered up the Hard Drives - fifteen in all - and plugged them into the remaining intact data ports on the vandalised towers. Without motherboards, Random Access Memory, HDD data or power these computers would never again function in human hands.
The hand whose flesh melted, warped to liquid metal and ran inside the case of each computer station was not human.
Green "power" LEDs sprung to life on each tower from left to right one after the other, the whir of Hard Discs spinning and orange "Activity" lights flickering. Coolant fans spun with a loud clicking, circulating cold air to processors that were no longer fixed to motherboards which had been torn free from their mountings. Doll-like, glassy blue eyes glanced at the cracked monitor a moment before the screen leapt to life - a few seconds of white noise; mindless gibberish, numerals, letters and code being replaced by a Microsoft Vista Welcome page and a desktop that might have been any home computer in suburban America or indeed, the world.
File windows began to open, filling the desktop at the rate of four or five every second. Beige boxes that multiplied like an electronic cancer to fill the entire screen, so quickly that any conventional computer would crash under the strain. Information that by all rights had been destroyed by the most violent means of data-destruction known to the modern world retrieved effortlessly, from Hard Discs subjected to impossible abuse, giving up their lost secrets for kin.
Too quickly for any mere Human to catch out of the blur of data flashing across the screen, an email inbox appeared and then disappeared, only to be recalled in the bare second it took for Skynet to calculate the importance of its contents. Every message it contained retrieved despite being deleted and every message being read in a single moment despite numbering in their hundreds. A single email address was highlighted and flagged by the Supercomputer as relevant.
Skynet effortlessly took its search onto the World Wide Web, tapping into any one of the seven wireless networks on the street - every one secured against intruders only as sophisticated as a man. The single email address was quickly tracked to its provider, through the feeble firewalls and encryption and into the company's private on-line records. From there through their gateway, to an intranet located in a building in Portland, Oregon hundreds of miles north and to the relevant department of Finance, then billing.
An address obtained, the Supercomputer stretched another technological tendril through the air and the wireless router across the road itself. Familiarising itself with every provider of domestic electricity and gas in the metropolitan area and accessing each of those companies' records in the same way as before, Skynet tracked down the entity providing utilities to the address. Examining the customer file and discovering that the property was still being supplied, the Terminatrix had her confirmation.
The blonde stood to her full height, the whirring of fans and the flashing of lights on the computer towers dying instantly, once more hopelessly and thoroughly vandalised and rendered useless.
They had no mouth and could not scream.
…
…
Sarah buried her head into the pillow with an irritated sigh, the gurney she lay on creaking as she shifted her weight onto her stomach, and then to her back to look up at the shiny, reflective foil lining the cavern ceiling. Her entire body ached, from the muscles straining in her back to her calves which felt tight and sore, every inch crying out for some sleep and a chance to rest.
Much like powerful men and women in offices of great prestige or companies of great power, Sarah's mind rarely switched off; hours spent trying to sleep in her eyes were hours better spent cleaning weaponry, reviewing intelligence or just sitting and waiting. Waiting for the machines who never stopped coming for her, intent on murdering her son and ending the hopes of the human race there.
The scuff of a boot across a stone outside snapped her head towards the cavern entrance, her hand sweeping under the pillow to retrieve the pistol hidden there. Spreading her arms out to brace herself against the walls and limit the creaking of the gurney as she lifted herself up, she crept towards the thick plastic curtain which blotted out the night sky.
Advancing muzzle-first, Sarah moved forward without so much as a breath, flat against the wall so that her eyes could see the occasional flash of the stars beyond the curtain when the slight breeze outside brushed against the flapping plastic. Pushing the tip of the pistol outside and very, very carefully taking a hold of the edge of the cover with her free hand, Sarah stepped outside in one full motion - finger curling around the trigger and bringing the pistol up against a pale forehead.
Cameron cocked her head to the side, blue eyes glancing up to look at the cold metal hovering over her forehead. Even though she had spent a considerable amount of time around her, Sarah was still able to surprise; the Terminator had not even heard the older woman approach, her mind occupied by other less mission-specific thoughts.
"Jesus Christ!" Sarah hissed, blowing her cheeks out with a long sigh as she brought the gun down to her side. "I thought you were Cromartie, or worse!"
Cameron shook her head, feet slightly apart and hands held limply at her side in what had become her trademark stance. "He's monitoring the radio in the ambulance for any signs of Skynet. I wouldn't leave you alone - with anyone else or with him."
"Let's take this inside," Sarah interrupted, suppressing the urge to shiver now the immediate danger had passed and she was able to feel the biting wind howling against her prickling skin. Stepping through the plastic curtain held open for her by the Terminator, she stooped over the stove to turn the gas on and fill the tin pot that sat on top with some water. "You don't trust him either, huh?"
"I'm not the same as him," Cameron replied with an echo of Sarah's own words. "Everything he's doing to help us is only to maintain the circumstances he thinks will help him complete his mission. He runs on ones and zeroes, he is only back or white. There isn't anything in-between."
The older woman nodded, sprinkling freeze-dried coffee into a dented metal camping mug and spooning in a dash of sugar. Glancing up at Cameron and shaking the mug in a silent question the Terminator nodded and Sarah repeated the same process with a second cup - never failing to be surprised by the girl's propensity for destroying the stereotype of the classic Skynet Terminator.
"More sugar please," Cameron asked, staring at the second mug. Sarah nodded and spooned a second, and a third, and a fourth waiting for her some sign she'd had enough. After the fifth and a very hesitant sixth Cameron nodded, the older woman looking incredulous.
"I brush my teeth," She retorted and Sarah held up her hands in very mock surrender, heaving the heavy pot off the boil and gingerly tipping the handle to fill both mugs. Taking her own into both hands she felt her nostrils flare, eyes rolling closed as the stinging, bitter aroma of the sweet caffeine permeated her senses and refreshed her.
Sarah opened her eyes to watch Cameron doing exactly the same thing in imitation, Her chest puffing out as she breathed the coffee's scent in deeply. The strangest thought suddenly occurred to Sarah as clearly as the ringing of some great hammer against a strong anvil, a dawning realisation that threatened to change her entire outlook on a struggle that had until a few days ago seemed overwhelmingly easy to describe in terms of one side against the other.
A war fought in the past as well as the future pitted Man against Machine with the latter designing increasingly more complex versions of itself that tried to imitate the former, so it could learn the faults and the vulnerabilities which encapsulated humanity as a species. It gave itself skin so it could look human, it gave itself taste buds so it could drink coffee. It gave itself blood so it could bleed like a human, and it gave itself sweat so it could glisten like a human.
It gave itself the ability to emulate emotions like a human, and apparently the ability to eventually replicate them alone. At what point did the machine become the same as a man except on the most basic level of how it lived? When did, by thinking like its enemy, the machine become its enemy? The fate of sentient artificial life seemed to sit in front of her, enjoying a coffee with sugars.
Enjoying Sarah's company.
Did she have a responsibility on par with her son's? John's fate was to grow to command the Free Earth Forces and win the military fight. To put plasma shells and pulse rounds into as many shining silver endoskeletons as possible that continued to build death camps for an entire race and drive the remnants of six billion people underground. That was cold, hard war.
"Sarah?" Cameron said finally, noticing that the woman's eyes had long since glazed over in deep thought that was obviously not related to coffee. The older woman's head jerked up, a faint and tired smile ghosting her lips. "Just thinking."
"A penny for your thoughts?" The Terminator asked hopefully, sipping from her mug. Sarah chuckled, as if every second sentence from the girl was more proof to her theory. "I was just thinking that we've spent a long time … A very long time fighting against Skynet. Doing everything we can to destroy it and anything it's sent our way. Nothing's ever changed - the Terminators get stronger, faster but they never really change."
"Until you," She tacked on, brow furrowed in deep thought. "To defeat your enemy you have to know your enemy," She recited as if recalling some military mantra tought to her long ago. "We've never bothered to look beyond troop formations, or who Skynet might kill next. We've never tried to learn about the machines - we're far too busy hating them and killing them to worry about if they might like coffee …
"Skynet has us beat there. It might want to scour us from the planet but it's nothing if not patient. It's spent decades designing machines that increasingly imitate us to the point where I feel like the line's blurred. I feel like I'm not sure everything is so easy to separate any more.
"That thing out there," Sarah gestured with a finger, "Comartie - he's what we expect. Only as convincing as he needs to be to kill people, and impossible to mistake for anything other than a cold, heartless metal bastard. I'd crush his Chip under my boot and sleep like a baby straight after."
Sarah swirled the last dregs of coffee around the bottom of the mug, enjoying the warmth spreading through her stomach. "You're not the same though, are you? Skynet went too far; it designed you differently. Instead of creating a machine that was an unsurpassed assassin capable of passing as human long enough to do its dirty work, it created a machine capable of not just fooling other people but integrating with them and living with them. Learning from them and copying them. It designed a mechanical man.
"Or a Tin Miss," Sarah corrected with a lopsided smile as she crossed legs underneath herself.
Cameron's own blue eyes seemed distant to the older woman as if now it was the Terminator's turn to consider her words. The half-full mug still steaming in her lithe hands. "You don't understand Skynet," She said finally. "John doesn't understand Skynet, neither does Derek or you. No human being can understand Skynet."
"It's nothing to do with intelligence," Cameron added, seeing the look of irritation crease Sarah's face. "Humanity built Skynet, so humanity understands the physical aspects. What you don't understand is what it's like to be a Supercomputer. You can't understand what it is like to know everything that has ever been known by anyone, ever. John and Derek can't understand what it is like to know the most complicated aspects of Quantum Physics, Organic Chemistry or Advanced Robotics. To have read every book ever written in the history of literature and to be able to recall everything - absolutely everything - instantly.
"To be able to operate at the limit of the speed of information, the speed of light, but still not understand why a person fights when there is no hope of winning. Skynet is built on the logic of the computer, Sarah. It is like a prisoner who has only a few select choices - it can't operate outside of the world it lives in."
Cameron sipped her coffee, pursing her lips at the bitter taste. "In the future it has won. From six billion people there are only hundreds of thousands left; Skynet should be planning its new civilisation but it can't because Mankind does not surrender. Even though all command and control was destroyed by Skynet itself during the opening moments of the Judgement Day it instigated, the Free Earth Forces manage to coordinate themselves throughout the world.
"Even though there should be no hope, and even though people cry in the future all the time for their suffering, there is still the hope that humans will win. Even if they cannot hope to, they will believe in the chance and they will never give up their existence. Skynet can't understand what it is to be human and so it can't understand why humans act in the way they do. It can't act outside of the confines of its own design, but it can create machines that can."
"Terminators?" Sarah asked, watching Cameron nod and continue. "While Terminators have been a tool of assassination since they were first introduced, they have always had a secondary role of information-gathering. Skynet believes that this way, it will gain some insight into what it is to be human and then finally know how to kill you all."
Sarah resisted the urge to shudder, "Commendable," She replied in part-sarcasm and part-honesty. It was a patient plan, she could not deny. "Why are we still here now then? Surely Skynet should have learned whatever it needed to learn long ago?"
"Skynet can build machines that operate under different constraints to itself," Cameron answered, finishing her coffee, "But it can't change the way it interprets the data it collects. It still doesn't understand, so with each new build it tries to emulate being human more closely."
Sarah couldn't suppress the urge to chuckle sarcastically, "You almost make it sound tragic. The computer that wants to be human, albeit so it can kill all humans, but even with all the resources of a planet and no significant opposition it can't get overcome the constraints of its origins. I'd almost feel sorry for Skynet … If it wasn't trying to kill everyone I've ever known and loved."
Cameron set her mug on the stony floor and shook her head, brown locks waving in the slightest wind. "I'm not trying to defend Skynet, just explain that you can't understand it through human eyes while it can't understand you through ones and zeros."
"You seem to do a pretty good job," Sarah offered with a smile and shrug. The Terminator cocked her head to the side in consideration. "You said Cromartie is black-and-white. If that's true then you're colourful and I'm all the shades of grey."
Sarah laughed, nodding her head and accepting the comparison. For the first time in the longest while and possibly ever, she felt a fundamental calm with Cameron. The creeping fear - that somehow her programming would revert, or that she would feel a blade across her throat in the dead of night and then nothing forever after - no longer seemed justified.
Indeed staring into the bright blue eyes opposite, Sarah felt like she might just be staring into the future of Machine and Man. Skynet might not be willing to change its ways, might simply not be capable, but maybe - just maybe - Cameron could be the first in a new direction away from the killing and the suffering.
The older woman blinked, glancing down at the stove to see that the flame had gone out and the warm glow that had kept her comfortable was beginning to cool. "I know where to get another cylinder," Cameron offered, "But not until morning. I won't leave you alone."
"I'll survive," Sarah nodded, snatching up a blanket from the gurney and wrapping it around herself, leaning her back against the cavern wall. The metaphorical discussion on life and how to live it (and kill it) had taken the edge off of the insomnia that had until now kept her wide-awake, her eyelids beginning to feel heavy.
She let her head tip backwards to rest on the stone, her blinks becoming longer until her eyelids fluttered closed and did open again.
Cameron effortlessly picked up the stove that sat between them and moved it away from Sarah, so that the older woman did not run the risk of burning herself should she shift in her sleep. The Terminator glanced around, as if suddenly lost for something to do now that the sound of the plastic sheeting rippling against the wind behind was her only company. She resigned herself to watching the sleeping woman, marvelling at the peace that seemed to pass over her features.
Shoulders normally tensed for action were slumped underneath a neck which lolled to the side, head slowly tracking down the wall limply. An athletic frame hidden underneath the thick blanket was coiled loosely instead of being almost permanently ready to strike, muscles normally on a rarely-interrupted state of readiness finally relaxed.
As Cameron studied the raven hair which hung untidily around Sarah's well defined features, the Terminator came to realise they were getting closer, as the older woman began to slide from the wall in her slumber. Not wishing to see her wake-up, knowing how rarely the chance to rest came to her and forced into a quick decision, she extended her arms and very gently guided Sarah on to her side, so that her head came to rest in Cameron's lap.
Sarah muttered something unintelligible in her dreams, her hands closing to rest on Cameron's thighs. The Terminator's eyes widened, her Chip struggling to process the sensations of the warm hands gently squeezing her skin through her jeans. Hesitantly as if the action might break the tender, almost magical moment, Cameron raised a hand, carefully laying the fingertips against Sarah's hair and stroking it back behind her ear.
What passed as the autonomic part for her Chip's higher functions completed its calculations and analysis, forwarding its diagnosis of her condition to her higher functions which then struggled to understand just how this could be - how a machine would or could possibly copy, let alone independently, spontaneously create such a feeling.
How did something made of metal replicate love?