Saturday 31st August – 8.42am

A bedraggled woman in her late forties opened the door, wearing a plaid shirt that was too big for her, and little else. Last night's make-up was smeared across her face, which lit up when she saw him.

"Markus! Come in! Hang on a second, I'll just get rid of last night." He'd underestimated how much she liked him, clearly.

She ushered them inside, and they found themselves in a large-ish sitting room. In here was much dirtier – there were wine bottles and full-to-the-brim ashtrays everywhere. Here and there were articles of clothing, some of them Cecilia's, and some, presumably, belonging to "last night".

"It's not safe."

Markus ignored Patton and headed straight to the corner where he sat, ignoring a very questionable stain, at a piano. The rest of the scene played out to a bastardized version of "Clair de lune" - he could still only use one hand.

Cecilia roared; "Get out!" There was muffled scrambling coming from upstairs.

"You're still rushing that middle section. Why are you only playing right handed?" she added to the unconcerned Markus.

Presently, a stark naked man appeared at the top of the stairs. He took stock of the situation, noticed Patton and froze.

"Out! Get out!" Cecilia roared in a half-joking manner. The poor man didn't seem to catch on and looked utterly terrified. He sheepishly came down the stairs, gathered his clothes from around the room, all while Cecilia roared abuse. She was a singer, as well as a piano teacher (and artist, and many other things. Markus gathered a lot of them were slightly shady) and her shouts were impressively loud.

She clearly didn't mean any of it, but the naked man didn't seem to understand that, and winced every time she called him a faggot, or a retard. Markus winced along with him, but for different reasons. He loved Cecilia like a second mother, but she really could be a little more PC.

The guy looked back at Markus and Patton carefully. There was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, just for a minute. As he left, he looked wistfully at his shirt, but dared not ask for it back. He meandered unsteadily down the garden path, and Cecilia watched, slightly regretful. "Nice guy. Nice arse. Wish I remembered his name."

She shrugged with an oh-well sort of attitude and slammed the door.

Markus stopped playing when she said, "Now, let me look at you, I haven't seen you in months." Truthfully, Markus just hadn't bothered to come visit once his piano lessons had finished for the year, and she read it all over his face. She didn't comment though, and said instead "C'mere, gimme a hug."

This made Markus feel a whole pile more guilty. Cecilia didn't have a lot of consistent people in her life.

She pounced on him, almost before he could get up, and clung tight for a moment before recoiling. "Gawd, you really smell. Who's the young wan?" She was ignoring the elephant-shaped-news-report in the room.

In typical Cecilia manner, as she said this, she cycled through various accents. Over the years, he'd heard Russian, Chinese, Indian, Australian, Polish, English, French, South African, Nigerian - the list could go on. Her favourites though were a sort-of Cork accent, and a hybrid Southern one, and it was these she used now. Markus still had no idea where she was from originally; she never would tell him.

"My arm, I think it's fractured."

Cecilia nodded and examined the arm. "I'm not a doctor kid. You should get this looked at."

"No hospitals," Patton announced.

"Ah, it speaks. Does it have a name?"

"Patton," Markus said, matter of factly, "but that's about all I know."

"I can wrap this tightly and it'll probably be okay. Although when I was twenty-two I fell over roller-blading away from some nasty drug-dealers and hurt my arm. Didn't get it looked at, and it still hurts when I lift something heavy. Just don't say I didn't warn you."

Cecilia told a lot of stories like this, and Markus never knew if she was telling the truth. This time he thought she probably was.

He didn't really care, he just wanted it not to hurt.

"Have a shower first though. And there's a spare toothbrush in the bathroom. I'll dig out some clothes." She turned to look at Patton. "You don't smell nearly as bad. I don't have anything kid sized."

Sunday 14th October 2029 – 9.16pm

Joan and the radio-woman from earlier were practically beating down the door. "Connor! CONNOR!"

Erica, coming down the corridor outside Connor's room, hadn't know Joan could be so loud. She was turning out to be a bit of a bad-ass.

The radio-woman turned to Erica. "Came to warn him too?"

Erica nodded.

"We've been trying. He's been locked in there most of the afternoon. We think he's trying to fix her chip. He came out for a minute to get her body. Wouldn't let anyone help, he just dragged her off and disappeared back into his room."

The radio-woman sighed. "We need him. I just don't know what else we can do."

Joan gave up on her banging too.

"Did you know there's no security guard in the corridor between the mart and here any-more?" Erica asked them.

"No," said Joan worriedly. "But I'm not surprised. People have stopped showing up for duty all over the camp. Some of the soldiers have even resigned and moved out to the mart."

"I didn't know they could do that any-more"

This had happened a couple of times over the years – someone got injured, or just couldn't fight any longer. But never more than one every couple of years. For more than one to leave at once -

"They can't. We still need them to fight, and they will. But they just don't want to follow Connor any-more They say they'll come back if he's replaced. This is what Sackhoff wanted all along. He just wanted power." Joan's eyes were lit up furiously.

Erica didn't quite think this was true. Sackhoff had been a loyal commander to Connor for the entire war, she didn't see why he would suddenly become a power-grabbing-meglomanic right now, just as Connor was starting to lose it. But she didn't understand Sackhoff any-more either.

She knew what she had to do.

Sunday 14th October 2029 – 9.20pm

Phew. Big moment. Kinda scary.

Erica raised her hand and knocked.

"Come in."

Erica's legs didn't really want to work any-more, but she slowly pushed the door open. As she did, a wave of music rushed over her. It was beautiful and well-played, but every once in a while there was a jarring discordant note.

"Um, yeah, hi." This wasn't going well.

He didn't even look up from the piano, just kept playing, back to her. She looked around the room, trying to gather her thoughts. It was tidy, almost pathologically so. The bed was made. Some clothes were folded on a chair. A bookshelf was full of old, mismatched but well-looked-after notebooks.

The music stopped. He picked up a pencil, wrote something in the notebook that was propped up in front of him, closed it, put the pencil down. He slipped back on his hand support and then Sackhoff turned to look at her. There was an intelligence in his eyes that Erica hadn't seen before. "Sit."

Erica sat. There was a chair nearby.

"What do you want?" It was said kindly, but with a note of tired resignation.

"I'd like to interview you, if that's okay."

"Why?"

She didn't really know how to answer that, but said "I'm trying to get to as many people as I can."

"Yes, but why me, why now? It's getting late. You weren't interested in me this morning."

"I was busy and -" She hesitated, was this going too far? "You weren't as interesting this morning."

He roared with laughter. It made her jump.

"Alright. Get on with it."

"Oh, okay, thanks."

Not what she'd been expecting, but totally great. She shuffled around setting up, white balancing, checking eye-lines, playing with the composition

"Can you say something?"

"Something. Why?"

"Sound check."

"Oh, right. Um, I'm saying things, lots of things, they're very interesting. Can I stop now?"

Erica smothered a laugh. "Yeah, thanks."

She sat back down and said "Okay!" brightly as she pressed record.

"Markus Sackhoff."

"That's me."

He wasn't at all like Erica had been expecting. He was kinder, softer, more child-like and a whole lot less scary. She liked him."Why'd you do it?"

"The speech?"

Erica nodded.

"You've seen him. He's loosing it. He thinks she's a person. He thinks she loves him back." Sackhoff leaned in towards her. "She's a machine. She's not even a she. How can a machine love?"

Erica didn't know, but she asked "Does that make him a bad leader though?"

"When I met him first – I had this friend. How can you have a twelve-year-old who is so grown up, and then there's John, still very much a child in his mother's shadow."

"No, it doesn't make him a bad leader. Well, I mean it didn't. I've seen this growing within him for years, ever since he saw her, when she was pretending to be human I mean."

"So what changed?"

He shrugged.

"Everything. This plan of his... I mean the communication thing is great and if we pull if off..."

He stopped and smiled, "Could you imagine if we pulled it off?"

Erica let him think for a moment, and then he said -

"But it's totally nuts. It won't work. And all of those people in the mart who've never fought a battle before, all those young soldiers I've trained and fought with, and looked after, they're all going to die. And then who'll be left to look after the people here – the old, the sick, the children?"

He was definitely charismatic, Erica would give him that. Her own faith in Connor began to shake a little.

He was on a roll now. "And the thing is, it's all dependant on her. We only have her word for it that it's actually happening. We only have her word for it that she's not connected to the link any-more We only have her word for it that she's on our side now."

"But then what happened this afternoon? Surely the fact that she tried to kill everyone shows that she'd been working for us before and something flipped or something? Otherwise, why risk all that she'd worked for? If you're right, we were doing exactly what she wanted anyway - what the machines wanted."

Sackhoff nodded. "You're a smart kid. Yeah, I've been wondering that myself too. But I mean maybe she got new orders or something. I don't know how their minds work. And even if she had been on our side before, surely she connected to the link this afternoon and told them everything."

He paused. "What happened this afternoon is why I had to do what I did."

Erica couldn't really argue with that. So instead she said - "You knew about the camps though. You've know that since it happened."

"Yeah, I did."

"So you lied?"

"Dramatic licence."

"Did you lie about anything else? Did one of them try to kill you when you were younger? Did they kill your friends, your family?"

He smiled sadly. "I wish I'd made that up. No, that's true."

"It all is? The hand."

He laughed outright.

"I fell over a table when I was drunk."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Do you think you'd be a better leader than Connor?"

"A few months ago, no."

"Now?"

"Now I think anyone would be a better leader than Connor."

"It's that bad?"

He nodded. "It's that bad."

Sunday 14th October 2029 – 9.42pm

After she'd finished the interview, Erica went back to the mart. There were people everywhere, and it was a whole lot nosier than usual. No-one was actually physically fighting, but she could see a few that were close.

She passed Mr. Sansom, sitting up in his cot. He nodded at her.

"Can't sleep Mr. Sansom?"

"Could you after today?"

Erica shrugged and kept walking.

Without even changing into her pyjamas, Erica collapsed onto her bunk, face down. She buried her head into the pillow.

It had been the longest and worst day of her life. As she fell asleep she wondered if tomorrow and the day after would be worse.

Saturday 31st August 1996 – 9.08

Cecilia had a whole bathroom full of smelly girly crap, so Markus came out of the shower smelling of flowers and coconut, but he was clean and he didn't care. He hadn't pissed in a day and a half and doing so was a massive relief. Brushing his teeth was incredible too, it felt like there were years of plaque that he was scrubbing away.

He emerged from the bathroom to find Patton waiting patiently in the hall, stock still, back to the wall. Wordlessly, she walked past him, and a few seconds later he heard the shower.

Back downstairs, he could hear something frying and smelt something delicious. He tried to remember the last time he'd actually eaten something, and couldn't. Then it hit him – dinner with his family two days ago. He tried not to think about it.

There were clothes on the couch that looked like a decent fit, but then he looked at them properly.

"Cecilia! What the hell?!"

She called out from the kitchen. "They're fine."

"Fine" was a multi-coloured aran jumper that looked like the knitting machine blew up, a Hawaiian-print shirt, khaki military pants and sandals that were at least two sizes too big. He was going to stand out like a hooker in a convent.

Monday 15th October 2029 – 5.12am

Neil was shaking Erica awake. "Come on!"

Erica had learned not to question Neil when he did things like this; it always led to something interesting. She grabbed her camera and silently followed him out of the darkened room. He pulled her down some corridors. She was too sleep to pay attention to where they were going, but they ended up somewhere outside the farmhouse.

"Damn, the door was open a minute ago." His face fell. Clearly, the interesting thing was inside the farmhouse.

Erica laughed inwardly and pushed open the door.

"No, what are you doing? What -?"

"I'm allowed in, you idiot," she said, waving the camera in his face. "Just say you're my sound guy if anyone asks"

"We don't have sound equipment."

Erica shrugged. No-one would care anyway.

The farmhouse was pretty busy for this hour of the morning. Everyone lined the edges, and a couple of people shifted around to give Erica, Neil and, most importantly, the camera, a good view. Sackhoff stood in the middle of the room. In front of him were five dirty and bloodied soldiers Erica didn't recognise them.

One of them, man in his thirties, was saying, "It was on us. Maddie got shot, and we had to leave him. I'm still not really sure how we got away."

"We'll send out someone to look for Maddie - George," Sackhoff said, nodding at the radio-woman, George, who started elbowing her way out of the room to make it happen, but the man said, "No point. If the machines didn't get him, he's still dead by now."

"Okay."

George went back to her place. The man wobbled and shook a little, and Erica noticed a big gash across the back of his head.

"Can you continue?" Sackhoff sounded concerned.

The man took a minute to steady himself, and then said "Yeah. Um, yeah, I was saying Maddie's dead. We all had these little explosives with us. I heard Maddie's go off as we left."

"Do you think he got the terminator?" The woman-solider next to him spoke up suddenly.

"That's the only thing that makes sense really. I don't see how we'd have gotten away otherwise," the man said. "That's pretty much it. We didn't have too much trouble after that. There was a patrol about half a click back, but we hid behind a car and they didn't see us."

"How many of you left from thirty four? Nineteen?"

"Yeah, it was supposed to be nineteen, but seven more volunteered before we left." He looked Sackoff square in the eye.

"Five of us made it. Five out of twenty-six. I hope their deaths are worth something to you."