NOTES: This is the sequel to my previous story "Only Lonely". I'd recommended reading that one first. This story takes place during "Strange Things Happen at the One Two Point".
SUMMARY: The truth of John and Cameron's relationship spreads to those willing to go to any lengths to undermine it.
DISCLAIMER: All characters herein are the property of someone other than me. No profit has been earned.
"Fuzzy Dice"
Chapter 5
T.R. Samuels
The desolate sands of the desert valley stretched out into the night, its peaceful serenity torn apart as plasma-beam fire lit up the landscape in a hailstorm of crisscrossing light. The Battle of Bighorn Basin drew to its bloody climax as fire raged from the smatterings of dry vegetation, all the fires of hell burning high beneath them.
Across the scorched earth swarmed the metallic army of Skynet, slithering over the rustic sands as it glistened in stainless perfection. HK-Aerial units swooped overhead like vengeful angels, searchlights casting downward onto the battlefield in blinding strobe light. Screaming and shouting pieced through the explosions as Skynets' enemies were cut down, its metallic creations spearing the relentless extermination of the human vermin.
Amidst the inhuman onslaught clung the remains of a division of ragtag guerrilla fighters, yelling and running as they moved about the desert in hand-stitched camouflage, welding a bastardised arsenal of old projectile weapons, homemade grenades, and high-tech weaponry.
As the machine march toward victory neared completion, the ground was torn apart, the smoke trails from a barrage of stinger missiles and mortar fire swooping out from the darkness and tearing through the metallic ranks, shredding combat chassis and armoured vehicles into shards of flying metal.
Lieutenant Jesse Flores raced across the plumes of smoke and sand, firing her rifle as she went before diving headlong into a crater, a river of white-hot plasma streaking above her head.
"It's a lightshow alright, sir!" She yelled to the man she fell next to, his head buried against the sand until the barrage of fire ceased. "We need to get to higher ground!"
Colonel Charlie Wade looked at her as though she had gone mad. "In this shit-storm?!" He yelled. "The metal already has reinforcements on the way! We need to retreat!"
"There's nowhere to go! The east passage is blocked!"
Wade paled, eyes closing in brief prayer before he reached over to his radioman. "Get Eagle-4 on the line! Tell Chen to pour on the artillery! Real close this time, you hear me?! We can take it!"
"Yes sir!" The young man began yelling into the receiver on his helmet.
Wade rolled back toward Jesse, a nearby explosion rocking their impromptu foxhole as it lifted the remains of Triple-8 up into the air. "We need to get out of this hole before they roll right over us!"
"They got Ogres?!"
"Oh… they got Ogres alright! Ogres, HK's, Triple-8's, and whole mess of firepower! Someone said there were some 900's to the south!"
Her face fell hard, the mathematics of defeat mounting to a hateful equation. "To defend this shit hole outpost?! You've gotta be kidding me!!"
Another explosion made them bury their heads, earth raining down on them like a waterfall, almost burying the hole.
Jesse raised her face from the dirt, soil clinging to her sweat as the ground beneath her began to vibrate, the sand around her hand slithering away as the thunderous rumble of Skynets' forces came upon them. She heaved her body forward, uncovering it from the mound of fallen earth and reached the edge of the crater.
Her heart sunk as her gaze fell upon a landscape in hell.
Across the darkness, she saw the towering behemoth of an Ogre as it rumbled straight toward them, its rolling base surrounded by a platoon of walking chrome skeletons, crushing the fallen beneath them as demonic eyes swept for targets.
"Oh shit! We've gotta get…" Her voice died as she looked at what remained of the colonel, everything above his waist a smouldering gap, the radioman nowhere to be seen.
She lifted her hand and saw the congealed blood run down it, following it to where it clumped together with the dirt all over her. Panic flashed through her as she recognised some of the pieces, slapping away what was left of Wade where it covered the side of her body.
The sky lit up in white, casting a ghostly glow across the valley as artillery shells rained down from the surrounding mountains, deafening her as HK-Aerials tore off after their source.
She looked around at the carnage, the hopelessness of it all. Human soldiers littered across the desert, splayed like bloody rags amidst the twisted metal of fallen terminators. A man and machine graveyard filled to the brim.
A shadow loomed over her and she was suddenly seized upon by inhuman strength, flung onto her back at the base of the crater where the wind was knocked out of her, her rifle clattering away.
Terror coursed through her veins as her eyes fell upon the giant figure that towered over the edge, bare hydraulic actuators and battered joints wrapped together beneath dull metal plating. The machine was old and ugly, grimy beyond words as it looked down at her with burning red eyes, its right arm terminating in a frayed stump as broken ceramic teeth grinned in a hellish smile.
Her hands fumbled for her sidearm, levelling the tiny weapon toward the head of the T600 and unloaded the clip. The machine remained unfazed, bullets skipping off its metal plating as the magazine clicked empty.
"Come on then!" She yelled, flinging her gun into the dark. "Do it you bastard!"
The machine advanced, dragging its leg along the ground, the knee joint shot as it went to reach for her.
Jesse closed her eyes, serenity engulfing her as she thought of Derek.
The last thing she felt was the ear splitting whine of a stinger missile squeal overhead, her body lifted off the ground from the shockwave as it collided with the Ogre, sending her into a blinding white abyss.
####
Darkness. Perpetual black. A black far greater than that on the surface, the Earth's daylight little more than murky twilight since the bombs fell, kicking up plums of ash and dust from the burning cities. It would be over a hundred years, she'd heard, before it even began getting better. More than a century before they'd see the sun again.
Not in her lifetime. Not in her universe.
She opened and closed her eyes against the gloom, shapes emerging slowly as her eyes found focus. Her hand reached up to her jacket, feeling the pain in the bones as she pulled out a chemical flare, letting her arm fall back down to smack its base on a rock.
The cavern burst into luminance, craggy rocks all around her whose shadows danced in the flickering light. High above her was a gapping maw that led to the surface, her body lying beneath it in a splayed mess. Liquid pain rolled around inside her as she tried to get up, managing to roll herself onto her side to ease her shallow breathing.
Adrenaline burst through her as her eyes locked with the dull ruby orbs of the T600, its head smashed on a rock where its lower jaw jutted out at an extreme angle, its broken teeth on the ground. As the relief washed through her she tasted blood in her mouth, tonguing her gum where two of her molars gave way.
She spat them out at the terminator, blood and saliva running down its face, teeth clattered away.
"Pussy."
Jesse rolled upward, muffling her cry as every part of her body screamed in agony. She reached down to her boot, grasping her last remaining sidearm, the one she'd kept for years as double backup. She pulled the magazine before sliding it back, cocking the slider as she built up what remained of her strength.
It felt like hours before she managed to stand, joints creaking as her muscles burnt, each one begging for mercy.
She pulled out her radio, its innards spilling out on the rocks before she threw it away. She couldn't call for help and only humans yelled for it. Whatever metal was left on the surface would be on her in seconds.
Looking around the cavern she saw timber support beams buried in the rock, splintered and shrivelled by time. She was in an old mineshaft. Probably abandoned ages ago, built even further back. She followed it with her torch, shaking the battered rod against a lose connection, the passage leading off into darkness.
Hefting the sidearm she moved slowly into the gloom, leaving behind the warm glow of the flare as it slowly died away. As the light faded, her eyes focussed on something in the dark, blinking slowly on and off, eyes squinting as they came into focus and she slowly advanced toward it.
As she neared her sidearm drifted down, confusion filling her as she looked upon a metal door, a keypad at its side where an LED light crackled. Her fingers slid over the pad, its screen smashed as it struggled to function, the frame around the door looking worse for wear.
It must have been damaged in the cave in.
Reaching forward with her fingers felt around the door, feeling warm air pushing through from the inside.
Determination steeled inside her. This was her exit.
Drawing her combat knife she pressed its blade between the miniscule crack in the door, twisting as hard as she could to try and force it open. For a moment it refused to budge, but Jesse felt the battered door begin to slide and she pushed as hard as she could.
In a rush of movement, the door sprung free, damaged electric motors scraping it away to reveal a metal corridor bathed in warm orange light, the contrast dazzling. Inside it was hot, so much that it made her sweat, drowning out the chill from the cave and there was a strange smell in the air. Sickly and sweet like over-glazed ham.
The corridor bent to a corner and she peered around it, confusion filling her as she tied to piece together the clues. At the end lay another door, not like the one to the mine, but with a handle and hinges, made of polished metal with a taste of aesthetics. Nothing like a machine door; cold and uninviting, built like a portcullis.
She approached the door and her hand slid out to the handle, fingers rejoicing as they wrapped around the warm, ergonomic metal. Slowly she eased it all the way down, steeling her nerve before yanking it open and burst inside, eyes and gun everywhere as the sickly smell hit her mouth and lungs, making her gag as her guts filled with bile.
Before her lay the laboratory from hell.
Cold sweat beaded her forehead and she began to shake, blood turning to ice as her stomach wretched. The air was filled with the pungent tang of chemicals, computer screens displayed physiological monitors, and dark containers sloshed with unknown biological fluid.
At the heart of the ensemble a human body lay inert on an operating table, its face twisted and sliced open the entire length of the torso. Surgical clamps positioned along the incision held the flesh apart to allow access to what dwelt within as bloodied instruments lay discarded on a nearby tray.
Jesse cringed as she saw the organs shudder against a device that sprouted downward from the ceiling like a stalactite, thick circuitry sprouting from it as it hung above the table in an arm-life fashion, culminating into serrated spikes that reached into the body like a monstrous hand.
She clutched her mouth and turned away, acid filling the back of her throat before she caught sight of the other horrors. Organs in containers covered with electrodes, transfusion blood on hangers, severed limbs pulled apart for study.
Her stomach wrenched and she recoiled, somehow preventing herself from retreating altogether as the full horror of what she had found made her realize what she had smelt in the corridor.
Rotting flesh.
Her head spun and she saw stars, bending over as her stomach contracted and she lost everything inside.
"Is that you, Mac?" A voice suddenly erupted and Jesse took aim. "I need you to help me move what's left of…"
On the other side of the bay a young man froze, panic rooting him in place as he gripped a silver metal tray in front of his apron, its material and his latex gloves glistening with blood.
Dark fury settled in Jesse as the jigsaw clicked into place. The door, the comfort. The machines would only provide that for one reason.
"Go ahead," She dared, voice dipping to a dangerous baritone, standing tall as she levelled her gun at the man's head. "Talk your way out of this one… Gray."
The man turned as pale as his apron, body shaking as she stepped toward him, the two coming face to face.
"Get on your knees."
"W-what…?"
"Only soldiers die standing, Gray. Traitors die on their knees."
His eyes closed in the sullen motions of doom, sinking slowly to his knees where Jesse loomed over him, pressing the barrel of her gun to the back of his head.
"I'll give you one last chance to save your soul, Gray." She promised. "Tell me what's been happening here."
The man swallowed hard before her launched into explanation, laying it all down in a fumble of clinical words, each one a nail in his coffin. As he explained Jesse felt her body shake, the anger and adrenaline coursing through her as she grit her teeth, hating the bastard with every fibre of her being.
"I didn't have a choice. They were going to kill me."
She shook her head, no way falling for that old line. "We always have a choice," She clicked back the hammer.
"You should have let them…"
####
On the mountain slopes outside Bighorn Basin, Jesse trudged down the rocky incline, her mind a raging blur of possibility as she turned over the Grays' words, searching for its sense and meaning. It was insane what he had told her, the words sticking on a permanent loop as they replayed in her mind over and over.
After emerging from the research facility she'd looked out across the spent battlefield, human and machine littering the landscape, not a single one left standing. Some of the metal didn't even look damaged, as though they had just stopped dead in their tracks and keeled over, stopping in their hundreds as HK's fell from the skies into the twisted metal junkyard.
It was like someone had just flicked off a switch.
She had gathered what supplies she could salvage, all the water she could carry, and made her way out through the east passage, for the entire distance never crossing a soul or engaging the enemy.
As her mind raced to try and understand she lost her footing, slipping onto her back where she slid down with a shower of gravel to a large rock, grabbing it before she passed. She released an exhausted breath, no strength remaining to get back up.
That does it.
Today was the day and nothing was going to stop her as she righted herself against the boulder and reached into her satchel. Inside she found a small container, the pride of her possessions she'd kept hidden from envious eyes.
It wasn't lunchtime, but she didn't care. She was finally going to eat it.
Stainless steel scraped against polished tin, echoing in soft percussion as she began the tidy motions with the can opener, fumbling against the cold and dark as the tool dug for that initial purchase. As the metal lid peeled away she smelt the citric aroma, bubbly and sweet, the crooked shovel of her rusty spoon sliding between the slices, lifting one up to her mouth where she savoured every moment.
Her tongue reached out and accepted the fruit, crushing the segment in the vacuum of her mouth where it released the pungent tang of fermented orange. A sigh rose up from deep inside her as she tasted a piece of paradise, the feelings it bloomed better than a drug.
Better than whiskey. Better than unlimited ammo. Better than sex.
It was the best thing she could ever remember.
Swallowing the second piece of fruit the taste turned bitter in her mouth, the initial euphoria ebbing away to reveal what was rotten underneath. Like the world. Struggling along day by day. No food. No sunlight. All that was once lush and green slowly decaying away until nothing would be left.
No way out. Nowhere to go. Not for her. Not for any left behind in the valley.
Not for a hundred years.
The can clattered against the rocks, its precious cargo splashing into the sand where it was forgotten. Jesse fought with it a best she could, forcing the torrent of emotion back down, all the despair and hopelessness welling up inside her as her face twisted in sorrow and a sob burst out of her throat.
Raymond. Wade. Peterson. Shoaib. Chen. Even Crazy-Jeff.
Every one of them was lying somewhere in that valley and she'd left them behind. All her friends. Her family. The only people she had left after Derek disappeared.
Her hands found their way to her face, burying inside them as her legs pulled up against her, rocking back and forth like a child.
Get a fucking grip soldier! Despair is useless!
Before she could obey the sky was lit up in a blinding flash of white light, burning through her eyelids as a thunderous roar pierced her eardrums. Wind tore down the mountain side and lashed against her, her hands wrapping around the rock as she looked upward into the sky.
Somewhere in the basin, a mushroom cloud rose up toward the heavens, turning night into day as the winds began to die; the great mountain protecting her behind its mighty walls as the cloud began to blow to the west.
Jesse lay staggered in its wake, the yield no more than a few megatons, but still demanded respect. Flashes of Judgement Day passed by in an instant.
What the hell?!
Skynet had no nuclear weapons. Every last one spent on J-Day.
That left just one. The only one left with the chilling, inhuman resolve to do something like this.
She watched as the valley went up in a raging inferno. The battle, the facility, all the evidence; turned to smoke and dust.
The seeds of a lifelong anger began to germinate inside her. The face of the enemy emerging in her mind. A lightning rod for all that had been destroyed this day and taken away from her, piece by bloody piece.
As the cloud above her lost its frenzy, a nuke went off in her soul. The poisonous seed growing a fatal, microscopic distance as a resolve of her own set inside her in unbreakable stone.
One way or the other, John Connor was going to answer for this.
Don't worry, the answers are coming.
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