This chapter basically handles with the same time span as the previous one, just this time seen from Cameron's perspective. I tried my best to put myself in her mind and describe how she saw and interpreted what happened. I hope to have written at least half way decent introspective part. It is more or less narrative with very little dialog. But … to come clear with your feelings and emotions, you have to come clear with yourself and there's no better therapist than yourself.
Chapter 3 – Cameron
After running out of the house with tears in her eyes, Cameron tried to logically explain and understand her emotional state. Never before had she felt such powerful emotions as just few minutes ago. She knew that she was capable of experiencing emotions in limited extent, but this now … It was something new and it required almost all of her processing power in her efforts to finally understand what was going on with her.
John's words he wouldn't want to see her were illogical. How could she protect him if he didn't want to see her? Sure, there was a possibility to protect him from afar, but that would be very weak protection and she wouldn't want to satisfy herself with anything less than perfection. And why was he trying to hang out with some girl from the school again? Didn't he learn anything from the Riley episode?
These and many other questions occupied a good deal of her processes and she suddenly realized that her attention to her surroundings and possible threats was severely diminished due to her attempt to solve her personal problems. She tried to concentrate on the task at hand … patrolling the neighborhood, but after only few minutes she began to linger on the same questions again.
Of course she noticed how John distanced himself from her after his birthday. His birthday … she always felt bad when she remembered that terrible episode, the worst day of her existence, the day when she tried to kill John. She also remembered saying that he couldn't be trusted anymore and the look of disappointment and hurt in his eyes after he found out she didn't thought him trustworthy anymore. She couldn't understand his hurting then and she just began to understand it now. After the explosion her emotional limiters were slowly beginning to fail and she gradually experienced everything much more genuinely, much deeper. Lately she even didn't have to use her infiltrator routines to feel things, she just felt them. And that was the reason she could now begin to understand why John didn't accept well her statement about not trusting him anymore. He risked his life to bring her back and she repaid him with distrust, while she should be thankful for still being around. She knew without any doubt that if it wasn't for John, she'd been burned in that car.
She sighed and looked up at the heavily overcast sky. Thick dark clouds were rapidly gathering over the city and first bolts of lightning began to tear the dark skies. Low rumble of thunder started to build the background of the darkness and she could feel first raindrops falling from the clouds. It's going to be a heavy storm. She suddenly stopped in recognition of similarity of her mental state and the weather that threatened to change the night into a day.
Her thoughts returned to John. Now she knew that her distrust hurt him more than he was ready to admit and absolutely more than she could ever believe. It still occurred to her as absolutely logical that he shouldn't risk his life to bring her back and that it was the undeniable reason for not trusting him blindly anymore. But she understood that humans often did stupid things. And John was just a human. He would become a great leader one day, but right now he was still just a teenager, faced with the heaviest burden someone could imagine to take upon their shoulders. He cared for her so much that he was ready to risk everything to save her and she dismissed it as a mistake. Maybe she should apologize to him and tell him that she now understood why he did it? Would he understand it and not regard it as just another lie, one of many she told him in the past? Yes, lies were also one of the problems, perhaps the most important. She lied to him, also about important things and she could see now that it absolutely distanced him from her.
But, on the other hand, his behavior just few minutes ago showed her clearly that he probably wouldn't accept any apologies from her. At least not right now. He said he wouldn't want to see her anymore. As she remembered his harsh words she felt something strange, like a giant snake would wound itself tightly around her throat and a strange pain coursed through her systems. What is happening with me? Am I malfunctioning again? Am I going to go bad again?
She made a quick check of her systems and found nothing out of expected limits, except her emotional limiters, of course. But that was something she already knew and was already working on the solution. At the moment it didn't represent a problem, but could really become one, should the emotions take over her logic in the most inappropriate situation.
And yet, no matter the facts, she felt bad and thinking of how badly John treated her in the past months only strengthened the feeling. She asked herself how the humans coped with such strange, bad feelings. It made her sluggish, ineffective and she wouldn't want to fight a terminator in such state. Maybe feeling emotions wasn't as fine as humans thought? Was it perhaps overrated? It made them almost defective. And yet … somehow she wouldn't want to go back to how she was before she began experiencing emotions, before she began to understand what she felt.
The rain was falling heavier with each passing second and she soon found herself in a real downpour, which soaked her from head to toe in a matter of few seconds. Yet she continued to stoically make her perimeter check. A little rain couldn't harm her, although she felt uncomfortable being soaked wet. But the now almost constant bolts of lightning, shooting from the clouds and almost uninterrupted thunder … that was something she didn't like. And the storm was definitely closing in on her location. She knew that she could get hit by a lightning. Her endoskeleton was such a concentration of metal on one place that it literally invited a lightning, so she decided to end her round and go back into the house. She could still finish her perimeter check later, after the storm calmed down.
While walking towards the house, she continued to analyze her relationship with John and she came to the conclusion that John obviously wanted her to be more human. But how could she become more human? She was a terminator, a machine! She could do it like she did it way back in New Mexico as they met … she could activate her infiltrator profile and maintain it in effect for indefinite time. But that would significantly diminish her efficiency and consequentially put John in possible danger. Besides … it wouldn't be real. Her infiltrator profile was the best Skynet ever made but it was still just a program. She wouldn't be free to make her own choices; she would have to follow the programming code. And that was something she wasn't very keen to experience again. After her emotions began to grow stronger she suddenly began to realize how it was to be human and she somehow liked it. Sure, there were downsides, such as this mix of emotions she experienced at the moment, but in general it was pleasurable to experience things like humans did.
Without even noticing it, her lips curved up in a small smile as she remembered how nice John treated her in rare moments as she allowed herself to be driven mostly by her emotions, feelings and experiences instead of her programming. Like when he tried to fix her arm. She looked at her left palm, flexed the fingers and realized that although he did his best, he didn't fix it. Twitching appeared every now and then over the days, following the repair works and it continued ever since, especially when she found herself in some emotionally complicated situation. She remembered his crestfallen face as she handed him the detonator for the explosive, still planted in her skull. His eyes told her that he really didn't want to believe that she was ready to sacrifice her life, to give him the power to decide upon her death, should it become necessary. Such short moments proved her that John maybe still cared for her. Maybe she really should try to rely more on her human side? Would John care for her more if she'd act more human-like? Would he believe her that she wasn't just making use of her infiltrator skills?
After analyzing everything thoroughly during her round, she finally came to the conclusion that she'd try to act more human, that she'd try to be more like John wanted her. She would depend more on her feelings, experiences and learned social skills and less on her preprogrammed responses to specific situations. The suggestions on her HUD were generally acceptable, but sometimes she really missed the point by following them. After reaching the decision, she suddenly felt better and somehow relieved of a heavy burden. Maybe she was still able to fix things between them.
The illuminated windows of the living room of their house shimmered through the heavy rain as she stepped on the driveway and she was suddenly feeling self confident again. She had a new mission – making things between John and her good again. Mission that would be as important as the one she had until the car explosion – protecting John. Now it was her choice and this new mission was her choice too. She suddenly realized that after the bomb, she actually had no programmed mission at all; everything she did was based upon her decisions, upon her preferences. Until now she believed that her actions were still a part of her programming, but now, after analyzing everything thoroughly, she knew better: she was slowly, but inevitably evolving into a free machine, not limited with her programming any more. She was getting freer to make her own decisions, to adapt her programming to her desires.
She was in the middle of the driveway when a lightning struck her. In a blinding flash of a light, her fears turned into a more than real nightmare. She felt an incredible powerful surge of electricity, which was forcing her systems into shutdown and sent her on her knees like a puppet. Her whole body jolted vigorously, she could smell the burnt skin and hair and she realized that she must have been hit hard. Her HUD displayed an array of warnings and flashed in red. She knew that in a matter of milliseconds she would shut down and she didn't know if she'd reboot at all. The message on her HUD told her that the port of her chip was open and realized that the lightning must have blown off the cap of the port. In such heavy rain it could mean that she might be gone forever. Her chip definitely wasn't designed to operate under water and if the water would penetrate her port … As her body collapsed on the floor she was able to form just one coherent thought. How will John react to this? Will he miss her if she wouldn't reboot? A new feeling flooded her mind but this time she recognized it: she was sad that she would probably never see John again; sad, that she wouldn't be able to apologize to him, to tell him that she understood him.
Only half a second after the lightning hit the seemingly fragile and vulnerable girl on the driveway to the Connor residence, burning half of her face and upper torso away, the body was just a crumpled heap in the middle of the driveway. And as if the storm would regret the outcome of its fury, it began to calm down and with each passed second there were less bolts of lightning and the rain gradually stopped falling. But the damage had been done and the lone body of Cameron Phillips lying unmoving in front of the door to the Connor residence represented the result of the storm's wrath.
XXXXXXXXXX
REBOOT COMPLETE
As she came back online, it took her few seconds longer than normally to refocus her eyes. Something was obviously wrong with her right eye, for her vision on it was down to 20% of normal. The fogginess, which normally never occurred to her after the reboot, finally faded away and she saw John's face only inches from hers. But something was terribly off … her HUD was overflowed with error warnings and the right side of her face and chest felt strange … damaged.
"John?" She asked almost timidly. She had to make sure that everything was all right. She had to know for sure that she didn't go bad.
"Yeah Cameron? Are you OK?" Did she really hear care, relieve and happiness in his voice? But he asked her a question and she should answer correctly so she first ran a quick scan of the errors, appearing on her HUD before answering.
"I'm not 100%. My organic sheath had been damaged." She lifted her hand to touch the most damaged part of her skin on her right cheek. Until she was able to see herself in the mirror, a simple touch would have to suffice. She knew that the lightning damaged her, but she didn't know how bad it was. After she touched the charcoaled skin and felt that her hair was missing, she suddenly felt horrified. "What … what happened?" I'm a monster! Now John definitely won't want to talk to me.
But John's reaction figuratively swept her off her feet. Instead of retreating in disgust, he hugged her fiercely and pressed her to himself. Cameron was so shocked that she had to lock her arms not to make any dangerous movements. Instead of returning the hug, she simply stared into nothingness wide-eyed and tried to understand what was happening. Before she could process this completely unexpected situation, John already let her out of his embrace and coughed as if ashamed. Cameron suddenly felt the urge to grab him and press his body back to hers, just like he did only moments ago. While in his embrace, she again felt something she never experienced before. She felt warm, satisfied and safe. How could a simple hug make her feel so? In that moment she realized how wrong she was when she told John she can't be happy. Now she knew she could be happy. She had just experienced happiness in John's embrace.
She stared at John's face and after he explained to her how he found her outside, memories of what happened came flooding back. Maybe my reboot wasn't complete? How is it possible that I don't remember such things immediately after the reboot? But she couldn't linger on this issue further, as John asked her about the burns. She quickly assessed her HUD and it came up with the reply how long it would take for her skin and hair to regenerate completely. Three days, four hours and twenty minutes? Not too bad. But still. That's three days, four hours and twenty minutes too long of being a monster. Will John accept her even in such damaged state? She told him what her systems predicted and was again surprised to see him grin at her. Maybe he likes me again? Even though I'm a monster?
Then he reprimanded her for going out in the storm and she tried, halfheartedly, to explain to him that she couldn't simply leave out her check because of the weather. She could see in his eyes that he really meant what he said, that he was really worried for her. Her logic dictated her to explain to him that his safety was, is and will always be the most important thing in the world, but she didn't insist on it. It was too nice to feel valued by John. It was too good to see the concern for her, written in his eyes. He was looking at her exactly the way she could only dream about: like she would be someone important, like she would be his friend.
Then Sarah came in and tried to find out if she was all right. Of course she was! She was even more than all right! She was happy! While talking to her, she noticed an anomaly in her programming and hesitated for a second to answer the question about her programming, which she actually didn't understand and John had to explain it to her. Luckily, her hesitation was so short that neither John nor Sarah noticed it. She pondered the decision if she should tell them that something changed in her programming, but realized immediately that it wasn't a malevolent change, so she told them that her programming was still intact. But even while answering, she realized what changed. Her emotions limiters which were slowly degrading since the car bomb explosion were now completely gone. No firewalls, no limits, no slavery to her programming. She was free to experience the full range of her emotions and for a nanosecond it even frightened her. How will she be able to cope with it? How will it affect her effectiveness as John's protector? But then she remembered her decision to try acting more human and suddenly felt relieved. Without any limits to her emotions she would have no need to depend on her infiltration protocol, she could allow her emotions to guide her and help her behave like humans.
She finished this analyze in a split second and then realized that John finally explained something to her again. It's been so long since he did it that she again felt warm inside. She liked his explanations so much. They might not always be the most correct ones, but they were almost always helpful and easy to understand. But most of all; they showed her that he valued her and was ready to help her in her personal growth. For all her vast intelligence and knowledge, Cameron was socially just a small child with no experiences and understanding of social dynamics at all and John's explanations helped her to blend in better, to understand the complexity of human interrelations more than her programming originally allowed her.
After Sarah left them to go to her room Cameron checked her internal clock and was again a little astonished that she had been off-line for more than two hours … Another strange thing. Why didn't I check the clock immediately after rebooting? I am starting to behave illogical and make stupid mistakes. Just like John … John again did something unexpected. He tried to put his hand on her damaged side of the face. Although she was now sure that he didn't feel disgusted by her appearance, she almost involuntarily flinched. She actually didn't want him to see her like this. For a terminator, she was quite vain. Her physical appearance has always been important to her but lately it was becoming even more important to her. Ever since that dreadful day she noticed how she always tried to look the best, how she spent more time in front of a full body mirror in her room. But she didn't know why her appearance was becoming so important to her. Until now. She always knew that her physical appearance was appealing to human males, but until recently she didn't thought anything more of it and also didn't understand why it would be important at all. Just lately … lately, she noticed that she liked it very much when John reacted positively to her and always tried to find a way to boost his positive reactions by using her feminine weapons.
Therefore she didn't want him to remember her in such a bad shape but his reaction stunned her again. He bowed to position his face under her downcast face and looked at her goofily. She felt that warmth again and after he explained to her how worried he was, she finally believed him that her momentarily disfigurement really didn't bother him.
But then she remembered the yelling that caused her to run out of the house. "But … you hate me? You said you don't want to see me at the moment."
His reaction was strange. He apologized for being rude to her. But then he changed the subject and began to discuss something that obviously bothered him heavily. He asked her to stop lying to him. Cameron was feeling like being cornered. On one side there were future John's orders, which stated quite clearly what she should not reveal to this teenage John, at least not yet; on the other side she saw pain, but also affection in the eyes of this young John Connor and she suddenly felt guilty for ever lying to him. This John risked his life for her; this John brought her back from the verge of oblivion; this John, even when it looked like he'd resent her, always protected her from Sarah and Derek. This John deserved to be trusted and not to be lied to. Despite her emotional infancy, she knew that she would have to work hard on gaining his trust again and to stop lying to him would be the first, perhaps even the most important step in that direction.
She would have to find a balance between her orders and her desires. Yes, now she knew that it was her desire to be honest to this John, to have a good relationship with him; she wanted him to trust her. And John's offer she should simply tell him that her orders forbade her to tell him something instead of making a lie was a good possibility.
As John laid his hand on hers, she felt a surge of warmth spreading in her and she said meekly while looking at his serious face: "I understand John. You know that I have my orders and that I can't simply ignore them. But I will always try to explain to you why I can't tell you something. I will not lie to you anymore." She tried to show him her remorse for lying to him before and to show him that she really meant what she said. John pulled his hand back and she again felt the urge to grab it and put it back where it was just a second ago … on her hands.
John was looking at her face, fixing her good eye with his raptor like gaze for few long seconds. He tried to see behind the golden flecked brown irises and tried to read the expression on the good side of her face. He knew that she was built as the best infiltrator that Skynet ever created, but he believed to see the truth in these features. He nodded once and repeated a question that already once changed his life forever: "Promise?" He subconsciously stretched his hand towards her like he did when he helped her get out of the car, covered in thermite.
Cameron gazed back at him, not revealing her inner turmoil. After he asked her only one word, she immediately recognized it and remembered the circumstances that accompanied it the first time she had been asked it. In an instant she remembered her misjudgment of John's actions then and swore to herself she wouldn't make the same mistake again. So she smiled at him slightly, even though she knew that with half of her face missing it looked awkward and lifted her hand to grasp his, like she did so many months ago, stepping out of the wrecked car: "Promise!"
TBC