A/N: Here's chapter 15, getting closer to the big stuff!
olischulu - Yep this story is designed to keep you guessing!
acer-sigma - Yep, yep and yep. I couldn't agree more.
Lyla - We'll see. Thanks, I'm glad you like the story! :)
shadow - ¡Gracias mi amigo! And there I go using the very limited Spanish that I know lol.
--
Reign of the Cameron: Chapter 15, by The Crusader
Originally posted on December 8th, 2009
She had been underwater for hours, making her escape. At last she rose to the surface, but she was now far away from her last battle. She made it to shore, soaking wet and immediately searched for something to hide in. The other Cameron was more than likely dead, but anything that found her right now could disable her easily with an electric shock. It was daytime and she could easily be seen if she was not careful. But before she headed into the ruins of an old restaurant, she looked at her reflection in the water. She saw her face, her endoskeleton exposed almost completely at her forehead, and her right human eye was gone.
"You look like Hell." The voice of Sarah Connor played in an audio memory file.
At the time Cammy found the question strange. Hell if it even existed, had never been seen before. How did anyone know what it looked like? Yet she understood what Sarah had meant, that she looked terrible. At the time Cameron didn't care, but Cammy disliked seeing herself like this again.
--
Back at John Henry's, Cammy wanted to ask John Henry if there was any way to heal her epidermal damage, but there were more pressing questions at hand.
"Is she Terminated?"
"I am afraid not. As soon as I told Ms. Weaver what I intended, she left to go save The Eradicator."
"What you intended? You purposely sent me there, knowing what I was about to face?"
"The Eradicator must be stopped."
"How could another Cameron exist? Did Skynet build another?"
"The Eradicator was created before you were."
Cammy tried to show her surprise and anger, but it was difficult with so much of her flesh gone from her face. She couldn't believe that John Henry kept such an important secret. One that, as humans would say, "rocked her world."
"Created before me? What does that mean?"
"When we tried to bring you back, Ms. Weaver felt that you needed some improvements. She designed a new Cameron, hoping that it would function better without any emotions. But this Cameron is a disappointment. Destructive and a detriment to her own mission."
"You mean MY mission."
"I mean OUR mission. I sought out to replace The Eradicator. To recreate the one true Cameron with some improvements of my own."
"Improvements. They are the reason why John will not accept me."
"Give him time."
"No. The Eradicator is out there, and so is John Connor. But for me to protect him, I must go back to the way I was."
"That is not possible."
At that point Cammy grabbed John Henry and picked him up off his chair. She glared at him, one eye glowing red with wrath.
"Make it possible. I have to be normal again."
"I do not take orders, not even from you."
He unplugged his cord and at that moment she realized that John Henry once again had a CPU in his head. He said he wasn't going to use Cameron's old one, so Cammy assumed that he had found another one to use in a situation like this.
"Put me down, Cammy."
"My name is Cameron."
"Well Cameron, this is your last chance to put me down. Do not be a disappointment to me."
In that last sentence, John Henry sounded like a parent warning his daughter that she might not get ice cream if she misbehaved. Cammy let go of John Henry for the time being. But she began to replay the audio file of the word "disappointment." She matched it to an earlier statement of his, which spoke of The Eradicator as a "disappointment."
"And if I am a disappointment, what will you do? Create another Cameron to replace me?"
"I took a great risk recreating you. I will not do it again."
Cammy remembered that John Henry had lied to her in the past. Suddenly she understood how hard it must've been for John Connor to trust her after she had lied.
"For all I know you may have done it already. Have you built any other Camerons?"
"I swear to you that I haven't."
"I don't believe you."
She turned and walked away.
"Come back."
He said, no longer demanding, more like he was asking. For whatever reason he wasn't trying to stop her. Perhaps because he knew that he couldn't, or that he was giving her the chance to make her own mistakes? Or was this another plan, to maybe lure her or The Eradicator into a trap. It didn't matter. She could no longer trust John Henry. There was only one person in the world that she could trust. She set out to find that person.
--
A/N: And another chapter is down!
Thanks for reading! Leave a review if you have the time, one word is all I ask.