Chapter 5- The Engineer

Crawling on the bedroom floor, blood stain trailing behind on the beige carpet of a gun shot wound to his chest, a man frantically was trying to get away from the monster standing in his bedroom doorway. Breathing heavily, using his left arm to drag his body across the room, he made his way to his desk smearing blood on his papers trying to force himself up to his feet. However, the pain to his chest was hindering his mobility as all he could do was stare at the tall man that slaughtered his entire family.

Entering the room as the gun man stepped to the side; Ms. Dealer casually walked over the wounded man's dead wife on the floor like a useless object, not phased by the bullet in the woman's skull and headed over towards her husband.

"You monsters!" The man shouted watching his wife be treated like she was nothing.

"You killed my family! My children! They were just kids! H-How could you?!" He shouted in rage remembering the blood stained beds his children laid in coming home from work.

"You humans call it free will," said Ms. Dealer emotionless, unaffected by her actions of the murder. "Now use that free will to talk Mr. Downer."

"What do you what…from…me?" He asked trying to catch his breathe from the gun shot wound as it was making it difficult.

"A person came by and asked you some questions about the new SNP-BXX serious you're working for me. I told you what will happen if you told anybody about any of our work unless instructed by me." Ms. Dealer explained as she bent down in eye level towards Mr. Downer making sure he wasn't going to lie to her.

"I didn't…I didn't tell anybody, I swear!" He said terrified.

"Oh, but you did," said Ms. Dealer. "A student that goes to University of DeVry, came to you two week ago asking about the new SNP-BXX that the company was producing. Do you know what that product does, Mr. Downer? It power design for large machines and electromechanical control of our facilities."

"B-But that's not…i-important." Mr. Downer said knowing those products were used by big machine companies all around the world.

"Everything is important," said Ms. Dealer sternly. "When our products are out shipped, there all tracked on the central database."

"This person wasn't going to say anything. It was for her class project." He said pleading his argument.

"Sometimes class projects can end up on the authorities' door steps." Ms. Dealer said scathingly.

Ms. Dealer stood up and took out her gun inside her black long trench coat. She placed a silencer on it. Downer's eyes widen as his eyes was flooded with tears, shaking to death in fear.

"Your service is no longer needed." Ms. Dealer said and shot the man three times, two in the chest and one to the head.

Downer's body stopped shaking and sled to the floor.

"The Engineer was here," said Dealer to her personal bodyguard. "I want SF Gate Company swept clean for anything that looks irregular. I know she left something behind and I want it found. Send Clinton's team to DeVry University. I want to know what she was doing there."

Barrack nodded his head to her command as he walked out of the room to carry out his employer's orders.

Stepping out of her car, Madison eyes gaze upon San Diego police station. Closing his door and fixing his suit jacket, Ellison was still puzzled why his new partner dragged him two hours out of LA to visit a police station. A simple phone call would have made it easier.

They both started to walk up the long steps of the police station together.

"So what are we doing her and not investigating the crime scene?" Ellison asked.

"A police officer was the only witness when the incident happened. I want to get his personal words on what he saw. I could have talked to him on the phone, but I learned people tend to lie over the phone." Madison smirked.

A young male cop, eating a Boston Cream donut, was flipping through papers on a case he was working on. He placed his donut on a napkin and grabbed his coffee cup and sipped it, enjoying the decaf in the evening to jump start his day. He placed his coffee down releasing a small burp, tapping his chest and then looked back at his files.

The police man looked up and flinched, startled by Madison's presence in a chair in front of him.

"You scared me." He said looking at the unknown woman.

"I get that a lot," said Madison. She showed her his badge as Ellison walked over and stood behind her showing his badge as well. This surprised the young cop wondering why two FBI Agents were at his station during this time of day. It was unusual from his previous visits from them.

"Can I ask you some questions about the Trenton street crime case from two weeks ago, Mr. Riddle?" Madison asked politely.

"Sure, sure no problem and please call me Jack," He said as he straighten himself up in his chair. "Why the interest? That case was closed, unsolved."

"Unsolved means nobody have solved it yet which is not officially closed in our book." Ellison stated as he took a seat next to Madison in a chair.

"You're not in trouble Mr. Riddle, we think your case is involved in national security we're investigating. Just tell us what you saw." Madison said hoping his story wouldn't be a waste of there time.

"Even if it sounds crazy, we won't laugh at you." Ellison informed him from what he read on the file coming to San Diego as it sounded farfetched even to him.

Jack looked around watching the other cops go about there day as they were not particularly interested of the two people in front of his desk. He leaned forward as if about to tell a secret and not wanting others to hear in his department.

"People around here think I'm crazy but I know what I saw that night," said Jack which drew in Ellison attention quickly. "I was just on a routine check in my scheduled area at night. I know I worked almost twenty hour shift for extra pay…but I was walking to my car and I heard gun fire. Not the regular run of the mills little BB gun turf war would carry, but standard military weapons. I thought I was briefly living in a movie for a second of how quick it happened."

Ellison looked at his partner puzzled then back at the young cop.

"I saw a girl, around the age of sixteen or seventeen, running across the street from an alley with an M16 assault rifle in her hands. She stopped and fired into the alley. Must girls I seen are afraid to fire a gun properly, but this girl was firing it like a pro military marksman. Then an RPG came shooting out of the alley, missing the girl and blows a car up. The girl runs for cover behind a car, unfortunately it's my police car where I was hiding behind as I was trying to call for back up." Jack explained.

Madison becomes curious by his story as she sat up in her chair.

"I asked the girl what was going on," Jack continued. "She said stay and don't move or they'll kill you. Then she used a grenade launcher attached to her M16, fires it and then runs down another alley. I was going to follow her until I saw three men running after her dressed in black opts clothing, down the alley. I figured out what her words meant when she said stay down. In all my rookie years being on the force, I've never seen anything like this happening in my life."

"Wow, that does sound like it comes out of a movie scene," said Ellison thinking why his peers thought he was crazy. "Do you know what the girl looks like?"

"Actually I have seen her around, hanging out at DeVry University…my younger brother takes Computer Science courses there. When I told him what happened, the girl I described sounded just like a girl in one of his classes. But he thought it was impossible because she was like a normal girl. She liked comic books, games, nerd stuff my brothers likes in which he had a crush on her. I would have blown it off but I had to see for myself. The next day all information of the girl was deleted, it was like she never existed."

"Never existed?" Ellison thought strangely.

"The teachers that knew who she was couldn't find any information on her, homework papers…nothing. My brother said only FBI, CIA or grade A hackers could pull that off to not be found out or erased from the world." Jack explained.

"What was the girl's name?" Madison asked.

"Ehh…her name was weird…Seen Xavier." Jack told them.

Madison stood up from her chair hearing everything she wanted.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Riddle." Madison said.

Walking out of the police station going down the steps, Madison and Ellison was coming towards the car.

"Always interesting in person." Madison said feeling anxious in finding this girl.

"As intrigued by this story as you, how does this help our case?" Ellison asked skeptical of this girl related to finding the machine.

"Bread crumbs Mr. Ellison, bread crumbs. A teenage girl carrying an M16 and can fire it right, whether this becomes a dead end or not, I want her off the streets. Luckily nobody besides the unidentified men was the only ones dead at the crime scene or it could have turned into a blood bath. I find it even stranger that a girl can cover her tracks like an FBI Agent, which kind of scares me, just like our impersonator Agent Kester by placing himself in the FBI database system." Madison explained.

"You think she could have helped him somehow?" Ellison asked curious what she was truly thinking of this case. If he thought about it, ignoring the fact Kester was a machine, it does sound plausible.

"Even if it's a machine from the future as you say, it will still need help on accessing information of this time. Or this little girl could be tied end with the new mysterious person that everybody down under is afraid of. Either way," Madison opened her car door. "Where not completely wasn't our time trying to find her."

Madison got into her car followed by Ellison heading towards there next destination, DeVry University.

A swarm of men, some cops while others wore bright orange jackets saying LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) were outside fixing the brownout of the blown electrical transformer that left ten blocks without power last night. Two men were taking off the cover of the transformer attached to the top of the power pole and placed it down gently on there loading pad. Both men looked baffled and curious of what there eyes were gazing upon.

"It's as if it's been melted on the inside," said one worker still smelling the burning wires. "There were no storms yesterday, so what caused it to fry up like this?"

"I don't know. Look, I want to get home by dinner time. Let's just fix the entire board." An older worker said not caring about the situation.

"But don't you find it weird that this is the only one like this and not the others."

"No not really." The older worker said leisurely.

Scanning the perimeter through a window, not liking the crowded crew outside, Derek was on alert as he stood in an unlit house. This type of attention was what they couldn't afford as they were lucky the power outage was just in there area and not the entire city. He wasn't sure what the power the machine's chip could do. Derek saw what it did to one traffic light; causing a brown out should be nothing in the machines capabilities.

"This is great. No power until god knows how long. Lucky for us the cops are not asking question or we're all be sharing a cell together." Derek said as Sarah come into the room and looked outside with him.

She hears footsteps coming up from the basement seeing her son holding a flashlight.

"I fixed the circuit breaker to the house but won't do us any good until the transformer is fixed outside," said John walking over to his mother and uncle. "But on top of all this, my laptop is fried along with all the equipment that was attached to it. I can't even repair any of it."

"Looks like we got knocked out and Skynet didn't even lift a finger to help." Sarah said shaking her head of the bad luck her family have been running into everyday.

"Sure about that."

John looked at his uncle. "What are you saying?"

"Maybe the machine was sent back to actually cripple us in stopping Skynet." Derek stated.

"I wouldn't of sent her back if she was unstable," said John frustrated by his uncle accusations all the time about Cameron. "Beside the virus is man made anyway."

"Man made?" Sarah glanced at her son curious.

"Well, if you think about it, it's actually pretty funny. It's like giving Skynet the middle finger if Cameron was recaptured by them again." John chuckled about the Pacman idea.

"Wait…why didn't future John use this in the future?" Derek said confused. If they used this the war could have been over already.

"Judging from what this virus can do…who's to say I created it. If we find the Engineer that put the virus in Cameron's chip in the first place, maybe we will get our answer." John replied.

Derek chuckled to himself. "That's if the person is real."

His smart remark started to piss John off even more. "She wasn't sent her to kill me, but to help us…to stop Judgment Day, okay. We need all the help we can get."

John saw Derek un-care-free attitude which irritated him to no end. "Forget it. Nothing I say will change your mind!"

John gave his uncle a stern look and headed towards the door.

"John wait!" Sarah shouted for her son. "Where are you going?!"

She saw him grab his light weight sweater jacket on a chair and stormed out the front door.

"John I said wait a minute!" Sarah yelled chasing after her son down the driveway.

Without a protector to be with him, Sarah wasn't ready to let her son wonder alone on the streets. Sarah immediately paused, coming to the end of the driveway. A cop car drove up to the side of the walkway as she quickly turned around, concealing her face to not be identified. She was still a fugitive and she didn't feel like having a showdown with the cops today.

The cop stepped out of his car and walked over to the men repairing the transformer on the pole next to the Connor's house.

"Gotta love children, especially boys."

A familiar voice caught Sarah's attention as she saw her pregnant neighbor who looked to be do at any time, was watching the repair man fix the transformer.

Sarah smiled at her then turned her attention towards the direction her son went as he was out of site.

"You have no idea."

Collecting his thoughts and still fuming from the words from his uncle, John was walking the streets of Los Angeles trying to clear his head. His mind was too jumbled at this point, from the fear his world was collapsing upon him sooner then expected. With Cameron out of commission and them not even close in finding the Engineer, what did the couple of days lied in store for him. It was never a dull minute in the Connor family, John thought.

A PC store caught his eyes as he walked over to the window. In the window display, the store showed different verities of laptops brands as one caught John's interest in the new TZ Sony Vaio. He glanced at the price over eighteen hundred and thought that price was ridicules which made him walk away from the store window. It would be fun to own one of them since his laptop fried, but he would have to wait to address the money issue in the household. They were still poor in a since to acquire any new technology at this moment.

Curious, John paused in front of a comic book store as he looked at a superman poster. When was the last time he come into one of these stores, he thought. When his mother wanted him to be a big hero for mankind, John always thought of Superman, Batman, X-men and his childhood favorite Iron Man. He forgot what it was to live in those dream worlds and be a true hero to the people eyes, without having an apocalypse happen to become one.

Seeing through the window he saw the store owner at the counter as John figured it would be nostalgic to read a good comic book again, wanting a little piece to remember his childhood imagination.

He opened the door and walked in. His eyes wondered around the clattered store seeing four rows of comic books in brown boxes on long tables in the middle of the floor, resembling more of a flee market. John quickly browsed through one set of boxes looking at an old X-Men comic book from the 80's. He smiled remembering those high color uniforms the X-Men team wore.

A Superman book placed on a chair caught his attention. John looked around, seeing only two customers in the store and picked up the book. The artwork on the cover was amazing as he looked at the official title, Superman: Kingdom Come. He smiled and opened the book gazing at the detail artwork of the first page. The comic book must have been up to date as it didn't resemble any artwork he seen when growing up, John thought.

Skimming through a few pages, John closed the book and looked on the back. He saw the price, finding it affordable and started to walk towards the counter.

Before he could arrive at the counter, a teenage girl jumped in front of him in a hurry.

"Did you get it in, Mr. Thomson?" She asked the store owner politely.

He smiled at the girl's eagerness. "Yes, Yes Seen. I got it for you. Hold on, I'll go get it in the order bin in the back."

Seen brightly smiled. "Thanks."

"Anyway, what's the hurry? On the clock?" Thomson said going through the order bin to look for her item she ordered.

"The boss says I can't keep hanging out her to much while on the job. He says I have a bad habit or something." Seen answered as she looked to her right spotting John overhearing the conversation.

She paused as she gazed at him curious which caught John's attention of her stare. Before he could fully see her face, Seen looked the other way quickly trying to ignore him. John thought it was odd and then looked at his clothing making sure it was nothing offensive that would offend her to put her on edge such as blood stains.

"I hear you on that," said the store owner as he came out the back with a puzzled look. "That's strange. I put the book in the order box this morning. Where it go? My son must have moved it. He's probably outside. I'll go get him."

Before he could move, he acknowledged John standing next to Seen. He smiled. What he was searching for was in his hand.

"Hey, there it is." Thompson said pointing at the Superman book John wanted to buy.

Seen looked at John as her book she ordered was in his hands.

Caught on the spot John smiled at them. "Sorry, I saw it on a chair. I didn't think it was held for anybody. Here."

John held out the book for Seen to take it.

"You sure? It took almost two weeks to get this book in." Seen said not wanting to take away from him buying the book.

"It's okay." John said smiling at her.

Seen took the book from his hand. "Thanks."

She pulled out her money from her pocket and placed it on the counter. The store owner took the money and apologized to the two teenagers of the misplacement.

John and Seen walked out of the comic store as Seen was excited to read the book. She looked at John one last time.

"Thanks again." Seen said and walked away from him.

From the small mix up, John thought he still should have bought a comic book before he left the store. Maybe next time, whenever that will be in his busy schedule, he thought.

A six year boy playing with a tennis ball caught John's attention as he was hitting the ball against a wall in front of the comic book store. He threw the ball to the wall very hard but the ball bounced back over his head and onto the main street. It rolled near a car as the boy felt depressed that his father told him not to run into the street without an adult to escort him. John smirked at the child's disappointing expression.

"Wait, I'll get it." John said being helpful.

"Thanks." The little boy said watching John go into the street as the ball stopped in front of a Cadillac Escalade.

Up high on a building across the street, a window washer was washing the windows being suspended by a landing pad to hold him steady. He took out his scraper and did one window in a slow motion to make sure he collected all of the suds in every angle. He wiped it clean and started to collect more of it again.

The belt bungle that was attached to his landing pad started to loosen. The man was oblivious to it and kept on washing the window.

A bicycle biker with head phones on was riding down the side walk, enjoying his heavy metal music which made him unable to hear much around his surrounding.

The Window washer pause his movements. Screeching noise from the rope caught his attention. He started to look around him to identify the noise as his eyes shifted up. The buckle was unloosing itself that held the landing pad together. His eyes widen in shock as he looked down of the long drop below.

"Hey kid STOP!!" He shouted as the biker was almost in direct line into his path underneath him. The window washer quickly ties himself to his landing pad to secure his position to not fall off before the rope snapped.

The people below heard the man's screaming voice as they look up.

The rope gave way on one side of his landing pad. The window washer screamed and held onto dear life while his landing pad fell vertical. The material that was held on it fell off and landed on the ground, causing a loud bang.

The biker's eyes widen as he swerved, missing the debris in front of him and turned his bike to the left quickly. The high speed of his bike acceleration didn't make the situation easier as he collided into a car which flipped him over the roof of the car and on the other side harshly.

The biker cursed to himself holding his head, dazed from that mere miss of death as he looked up. His jaw dropped in shock. Body paralyzed in fear, he saw a Ford Dodge truck about to ram into his body. The truck driver quickly put on his breaks as the truck swerve to the left. The biker quickly ducks down in a fetus position as the truck misses him by inches from his body.

John finally grabbed the tennis ball but looked up hearing skidding noise from a truck. Stunned, as his body froze, the Ford Dodge truck was directly coming towards him in full force.

Pain struck his leg as John body collapse backwards, hitting his head on the concrete ground. An unknown force grabbed his chest and pulled him backwards like a rubber band.

The speeding fast out of control truck crashed directly into the Cadillac Escalade which stopped the movement of the truck.

Screams, disarray and panic filled the once peaceful street in seconds of the accident. The witness that weren't hurt called the police immediately as one witness looked above. He glanced at the Window washer still in trouble. The witness shouted for him to don't move around as he did what the man instructed him to do.

Touching the back of his head, feeling lightheaded, John finally started to come around. His eyes slowly opened, but was startled when he saw the front of the Ford truck smashed hood. He quickly glanced up seeing the engine of another car as it was suspended high off the ground for him to fit under.

Confused and frighten, John felt something hug around his chest. His eyes shifted downward seeing a human arm. Baffled, as he moved backwards, he felt something behind him. Unsure, John felt the presence started to move hearing footsteps leading away from him.

John slowly turned around to his other side but was in shock. A hand was placed out for him to take it as John was flabbergasted. His life was saved by the girl he gave the comic book too.

"Come on take my hand." Seen said reaching her hand out.

John crawled out from under the car and toke her hand to help himself up off the ground.

Still dazed, John wasn't sure what was going on but he had to move before the cops arrived. He looked at Seen staring at him as he noticed she wasn't much in a panic mode as he was. His heart was beating faster then his mind was thinking of what to do next.

However, the change in Seen's expression as people started to gather around her, made her panic. Seen quickly looked around and then at the person she saved.

"Don't cause a scene, John. Just run."

John eyes widen surprised. "How…how do you know my name?"

Standing up, not answering him she quickly made herself disappear as she pushed herself through the crowd fleeing the scene.

Looking around, people started to ask questions if he was okay. In the distance John heard police sirens as he had to disappear before they came. His eyes shifted forward one last time where his savior vanished and then followed her advice, running away from the horrific accident.

Frustrated, nervous and furious of her son's actions earlier, Sarah was pacing in the house back and fourth looking out of the window every minute. Eating chips at the kitchen table, Derek have been watching Sarah movements as it was becoming irritating the longer he kept watching her. Power was still not in the house as watching TV to divert his attention was out of the question. However, there was one behavior he never seen Sarah do as she was biting her nails. For almost two hours he saw her file both her nails down which he thought was odd.

Derek ate another chip watching Sarah look out the window again.

"Okay I had enough of this," said Derek as he stood up putting his bag of chips down. "We'll look for him."

"Come on." Sarah said as she grabbed the keys on the lamp table near the couch. The lamp light came on which puzzled her. Her eyes drifted to the living room as she saw the kitchen light came back on and then the middle hallway light. She thought to herself the power was fixed, however finding her son was her top priority.

She walked over to the front door but it flung open quickly.

Out of breath, frantic, John looked at his mother.

"John what's wrong?! Are you hurt?!" Sarah went over to her son's side seeing his frighten expression which alerted his uncle. A red stain on his jacket caught Sarah's attention as she looked at her son.

"You have blood on your jacket?" She said trying to get some words out of her son's disarray.

John waved his hand back and fourth. "I'm fine! I'm fine!"

He looked around noticing the power was back on and rushed over to the TV. The controller was on it as he hastily picked it up. He turned on the TV, flicking quickly for the news channel. An anchor woman came on for channel 6 being at the crash scene reporting what happen.

Sarah and Derek looked confused at John, trying to understand what he was telling them.

"I was there, in the accident!" John said.

"Wait, what?" Sarah was still confused.

"I think I found her," John gave his mother and uncle a serious look coming to a conclusion as he was running home. "I think I found the Engineer."

Sarah and Derek paused, in shock.