Saturday 13th October 2029 – 12.40pm

Erica slipped into the farmhouse. It was a small room, but packed full of the highest ranking military leaders in the base. This was where they planned, and discussed and decided the fate of the human race every single day. No-one from the mart had seen this before; civilians and military were kept completely separate.

Connor stood up on a chair, his head cramped under the low ceiling. Erica found another chair nearby and did like-wise – she needed a good view for the camera. The loud buzz from the gathered people died off as Connor began to speak.

"It's like this folks. Alison found out this morning that the machines are updating their communications." Everyone groaned. Someone shouted from the back "So?" Erica was shocked. Everyone was being really disrespectful. This was John Connor.

But John Connor took it in his stride. He almost smiled.

"So, this is how we win the war."

Silence. No, it was even quieter than that. It seemed as if all the noises of the camp were silent too.

The world stopped, and stared and took a minute to process. It held it's breath as Connor continued; "Okay, you know that telepathic internet thing that the robots have got?" Erica was surprised at this too. Connor always sounded so formal when he spoke to everyone else. Then she realized that the people in this room were the closest things John Connor had to friends.

"The link." Alison added from beside him.

"Yeah, the link," Connor continued. "They're taking it offline to do these updates."

"For how long?" It was the same voice that had questioned Connor a moment ago. Erica whipped the camera around, and was interested to find that it was Sackhoff, Connor's second-in-command. They always seemed so together, so on the same page, whenever anyone saw them, but Erica saw now a hint of friction between them.

"Two minutes." The crowd did not like this at all.

"What good can two minutes possibly do?" Sackhoff again.

Connor found Sackhoff's eyes somewhere down in the back of the room and stared so long that everyone began to feel uncomfortable.

"Two minutes is long enough. We launch an all out assault on Skynet HQ just before it's about to go down. Everything we've got. A huge distraction. A small team, led by me, will infiltrate the base. Their communications being down will give us a fighting chance."

This was true. In recent years, the machines had networked themselves. They could interact mind to mind. If one saw you, all the rest knew immediately where you were. They immediately had a plan, and a back up and a back up to that. Basically, if one saw you, you were screwed.

It was why most of their plans had been failing of late – without that advantage, fighting the machines would be like fighting ordinary humans. Super intelligent, super strong humans, with extremely fast reflexes, some of whom had guns for hands, and outnumbered them probably a thousand to one, but humans none the less. This was starting to sound possible. Kind of.

"We blow their communications hub, once and for all. As far as we can tell, it'll take them months to get it back online. We can pick them off one by one."

"Those of us who survive." Sackhoff was right, it was risky. Very risky. There would be huge casualties

"Yes", said Connor simply, "those of us who survive."

No-one knew how to respond. Erica panned the camera around the faces in the room. Some, like Sackhoff were extremely doubtful. Others were at a complete loss. But a few – enough – had a small glimmer of hope in their eyes.

"When is it happening?" Sackhoff didn't sound quite so aggressive as he had a minute ago.

"Three days."

The room erupted. Arguments broke out around the room. As far as Erica could tell, it was the it-can't-possibly-be-done-ers versus the we-have-to-try-ers. No-one seemed to think it was as big of a slam-dunk as Connor clearly did.

Friday 30th August 1996 – 1.01 am

The bar was snazzy and thronged with people; the bartender was too busy to even glance Markus' way as he asked "what can I get you?"

This stumped Markus. He had no idea. He'd only ever had beer before, and it had just tasted like bread.

"Scotch, neat." It was what his Mom drank. He didn't notice the man-from-the-puce-volvo barge through the bar and upstairs behind him. The man-from-the-puce-volvo didn't notice him either.

Two drinks later, Markus had found a quiet chair in the corner. He wasn't much for socializing, particularly with strangers, so he sat alone, observing the wildlife before him.

For starters, he wasn't the only one not wearing shoes – several of the more drunk girls had abandoned their impossibly tall heels in various corners of the bar. The crowd seem to be mostly young and wealthy and good-looking. Markus didn't stand out too much, although the hoodie that he'd gotten for volunteering to help build a homeless shelter was not the standard attire.

He watched as slowly the crowd paired off, or left in groups of friends, or some left wistfully alone. Another two scotches after that (he'd hated them at first, but as he drank, it became easier to stomach) he was pretty much alone.

He'd been charging the drinks to the room, and when his parents found this out there would be hell to pay, but at that moment, he was too drunk to care.

Markus had never been drunk before, and he tried to observe the phenomenon scientifically. The room spun, and everything was furry and sort of black. He stumbled slowly towards the lobby, but a couple of chairs and a table jumped rudely into his way. He managed to dodge the chairs for the most part, but the table presented a much bigger problem.

Markus didn't see it until it was too late, and without being quite sure how it had happened he was on the floor, with an arm that was too fuzzy to hurt right now, but would definitely be very sore in the morning.

The bar was empty now, there was no-one to help him up, so Markus sat happily on the floor for a moment, head whirling, stomach churning. He tried very hard not to vomit.

Standing up presented a problem, but using the table and a nearby chair as supports, he somehow managed it. Across the acres of carpeted lobby, he only stumbled twice, but he was very glad to reach the wall. He slumped against it as he waited for an elevator to arrive.

Saturday 13th October 2029 – 6.40pm

After dinner Erica, feeling guilty at having abandoned her mother earlier, sat with her and talked. Collette didn't say much. Erica wasn't really sure how much she understood any-more

Erica'd spent the afternoon interviewing the various people who'd been at the meeting and getting their take – it'd been about sixty/forty, with more people against than in favour. But every single one of them was willing to try. This plan meant the end of the war, one way or the other. Any outcome, good or bad, was probably better than watching the human race be extinguished one by one, dying out slowly like rats in the sewer.

Neil appeared after a while, as he usually did. He had no family of his own, and Erica and Collette had sort of adopted him. They chatted until eventually Collette nodded off to sleep. The medic had stopped giving her meds, said there was no point any-more; they needed to be saved for the people who actually had a chance. So Collette's dreams were fraught with pain. She tossed and turned frantically.

"I talked to the medic. He cleared me." Neil didn't betray any of his emotions. But Erica had known him long enough to know that for Neil, this was not a good thing. They sat in silence.

"There's a meeting tonight, you should come." Neil had been trying to get her to go to these meetings for weeks.

It had started as a group of twenty or so, who questioned the decisions Connor had been making. But it had grown. A lot. Erica had always refused to go on principle, but with her new status as documentarian, her curiosity got the better of her. Connor had told her to get all sides of the story. So she wilted and she agreed.

Friday 30th August 1996 – 4.47 am

Markus had been wandering the corridors for a good twenty minutes. They all looked the same, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to find the elevators again if he tried, but the room numbers around here looked promisingly close to his own.

He rounded the corner. There were clothes strewn across the floor - what kind of idiot would leave pyjamas... Oh, yeah, right.

The doors to what he was pretty sure was his parents room, and the one he and his sister shared were wide open. Huh. Weird.

At the other end of the corridor was a girl. She was about eleven or twelve, Felicity's age, but he was pretty sure it wasn't Felicity. As he approached his room, she motioned furiously at him, but in his drunken state, the motions were incomprehensible, and he just wanted to get to bed. She realized she wasn't getting through to him, and raced towards him, just as he was getting to the door of his room.

It was dark inside, but Markus could have sworn he saw two red lights staring out at him, before the girl tackled him away. There were noises inside, someone getting up and coming after him. He started to shout out to them "hey gu-", but the girl clamped her hand over his jaw.

Somehow, Markus' brain slowly kicked into gear and he began to realize he was in danger. The girl had dragged him off the ground and a few feet down the hall before the man-from-the-puce-volvo appeared out of the room door.

Glancing back, Markus saw that he had a really big gun, and that was all the motivation he needed to run full pelt – or what passed as full pelt in his current state – down the hall, rounding the corner before the man could get a shot off.

The man didn't seem to be in much of a rush, and Markus and the girl managed to stay a corner ahead of him as she navigated the maze and found the way downstairs. There was a staircase to their left, and the elevators beyond that.

Markus pushed open the stairway door, but she shook her head, grabbed him firmly by the front of the shirt and pulled him heavily into the elevator, pushing the button to close the doors. She didn't, however, press a button for a floor.

Markus collapsed unhappily to the floor, and began to sob loudly, but she shut him up with one look. Outside they heard the man thunder down the stairs. Once the noise had subsided, the girl began to talk.

"Listen." She pointed at herself. "Patton. Sarah sent me." Markus had no idea who Sarah was. The running had sobered him up a little and he began to realize how much danger he was in. And how much his arm hurt.

A few minutes passed, and the elevator began to move.

"Shit!" Patton whispered under her breath. It was an understatement. "Get up. Do not run unless he is there."

Markus clambered to his feet. The doors opened on the second floor and a couple of old ladies with sleep in their eyes tottered in, dragging massive suitcases. One of them smiled kindly. "Bit late for you two to be wandering around isn't it?"

Markus ignored her, and when the floor moved out from under him again he stumbled. The old lady realized the state he was in, saw his lack of shoes, and her kindness turned very suddenly disapproving. She exchanged a look with her companion, pursed her lips and turned away to stare pointedly at the now opening door.

"Act sober," Patton ordered under her breath. She put her arm around him and they emerged into the lobby. There were a couple of people there now, and Markus examined their faces as they passed. Were they in league with that guy? Any one of them, at any moment, could turn and pull out a gun and shoot him in the head.

They managed to make it out the front door. The ground was wet from a recent fall of rain. There was a puce volvo parked across the street. It was at that moment that Markus realized he still didn't have any shoes. They power-walked for a couple of blocks – or at least, Patton power-walked and Markus stumbled along behind as quickly as he could.