Monday 15th October 2029 – 6.02am
"Connor's gone missing, there are machines everywhere. The question shouldn't be how we complete the plan, the question should be whether we attempt it at all!"
Everyone was still in the farmhouse, except the new arrivals, who'd been taken to get cleaned up.
The argument had divided into so many different factions that Erica couldn't really keep them straight any-more.
"Connor is our leader. We do as he says until the day he dies, or the day we all die."
It kind of boiled down in to three main ones – those who wanted Connor to remain their leader and believed in the plan, those who wanted Connor out, but still supported the plan and those who thought they'd be better off without either.
"The day we all die will come a lot faster if Connor is left in charge."
"You're just too scared to do what's necessary."
"We're all scared. You should be too."
Sackhoff stood in the corner. Erica watched him closely. He was the person most likely to be humanity's next leader, and it looked like he had no idea what to do.
"Look, we're getting nowhere."
"Well, what do you think we should do?"
"I think we wait for Connor to tell us."
This was met with groans all around.
"Connor is useless. He's nothing. He's locked himself up in his room with that broken machine. He cares more about her than about us, and I say good riddance!"
Most people in the room shook or nodded their heads. The rest waved their hands about and everyone loudly expressed their opinion. And then the door started to open. They looked at each other, confused – everyone who needed to be in the room already was.
John Connor walked in.
Some of those who'd been denouncing him looked ashamed and guilty, others looked even more angry than before. A lot of people looked relieved, while some looked at him as though he were their Messiah. Sackhoff was expressionless.
Alison followed him.
At this the room exploded again. A couple of people lunged aggressively at her, while one woman shouted loudly that Alison had killed her best friend yesterday. Others held the aggressors back, but no-one was happy. Voices were raised loudly, and any semblance of rationality vanished.
Connor's voice cut through the noise, and people gradually consented to listen.
"I know – I know you have doubted me. I know you feel betrayed. I know you have questions, and I know you are worried. I am too. This plan is a little nuts." There were murmurs, but no-one dared challenge him outright. "It is a little nuts, but it is our only hope."
He looked around. "It is our only hope. Two thousand, four hundred and eighty seven."
"Two thousand, four hundred and eighty seven." They were listening now. "That's it. That's all that's left of the human race. We are all that's left of the human race."
"We have all watched, over the years. We have watched our numbers dwindle slowly. People get killed, people die of illness or starvation. People die from accidents because all of the crap we use every day is so old and worn out. We are dying off one by one."
"Two thousand, four hundred and eighty seven. We are dying off at a rate of thirty-seven percent per year. By 2036, there'll be less than one hundred of us left. That's seven years from now. Seven years from now, all the people in this room will be dead. But there will be no hope for humanity long before that."
"If we do this, sure, we might all die. But if we don't, if we do nothing, humanity is dead anyway. This. Is. Our. Only. Chance."
Connor grabbed a chair and sat down. They gaped at him. "Okay, let's get this sorted out. Who's first?"
aturday 31st August 1996 – 9.12 am
Cecilia placed a chickpea and tofu omelette in front of Markus. It had some vegetable coloured lumps inside it, and a whole heap of avocado on top. There was some sort of sauce – green with little flecks of orange in it. Cecilia was an ambitious, if not always successful, chef.
The food was, for once, pretty good, and they both wolfed it down. "Okay," Cecilia began, "I saw the news Markus... Now they're saying you've kidnapped this girl."
"I didn't hurt anyone. Patton didn't either."
"I know. Of course, I mean, I know. But it's good to hear you say it. So that guy's after you?" She looked at Patton "You too?"
Markus started trying to explain, but Cecilia held up her hand to silence him; "actually, I don't wanna know. But you can crash here for a while if you want."
He was still exhausted, and sleep sounded amazing right now, but Patton shook her head. "We need to get going. We're meeting someone."
This was the first indication Markus had that Patton knew more than she was letting on, but her face gave nothing away. She was right though, it wasn't safe to stay.
Cecilia ran upstairs for a moment, and came back with a brown clay pot that looked home-made. It probably was. Inside were wads and wads of cash, a couple thousand at least. Markus tried to thank her, but she stopped him again.
"While you were in the shower, I got together some things." She handed him an old backpack.
There was a knock at the door.
Crap. Cecilia waved them back, and they stood silently in the kitchen.
She opened the front door. "Ma'am, we've received a report that you were seen harbouring fugitives."
Police. It could have been worse. But if the police had found them, the man-from-the-puce-volvo wouldn't be far behind.
As quietly as they could, they headed for the back door, but there was the shadow of someone already outside. A large dark someone.
They legged it back into the kitchen. Patton clambered up onto the counter, forced open the window and wiggled her way out. Markus followed, but he was a lot bigger than her, and was semi-stuck when the man entered the room.
Patton pulled, and they were down behind the wall outside when the first shots rang out. Two of the four police officers forced their way past Cecilia. More shots, and the man kept coming.
Patton and Markus ran round the side of the house and out the front. They were a small way down the road when the policemen spotted them. He shouted and gave chase, but it just made him and his partner easy targets for volvo-man when he came out the front door. He walked straight past Cecilia.
Until - "Markus!" She screamed at the top of her considerably sized lungs. "In the bag Mar-"
The man turned and suddenly, coolly, shot her twice in the chest and once in the head.
Markus' ears rang, his head spun. He turned and started to run back to the house. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but before he got more than a couple of feet, Patton had tackled him to the ground. At that moment, there was a gunshot, and Markus realized that tackle had saved him twice over.
"Do not get yourself killed."
These words were all Markus needed and he nodded. She quickly let him up, and they raced down the street, hiding behind cars, dodging bullets.
Markus saw a man come out of his house and get shot for his troubles. Markus couldn't tell if he was dead or not. A teenage girl too, thirty seconds later.
Patton smashed the side window of an ancient car, and unlocked it from the inside. "Get in!"
As Markus risked his way round the other side, the car burst into life. Patton's head was under the dash as he got in, and she wasted no time in slamming her foot down on the accelerator.
"You're what, eleven, twelve? How do you know how to drive? Or hot-wire a car?"
It dawned on Markus that they had much bigger problems as they roared at top speed towards the crazy-man-with-a-gun.
Patton slammed full force into the guy. There was a sickening metallic sort of thud – not really the sound you'd expect from someone being hit by a car. The man flipped over the roof and rolled off as they got away.
As they left the estate, Markus glanced back – the man was gone.
Monday 15th October 2029 – 10.47am
Erica rushed back into the mart. It was deserted – most were training, at the farm or at school, although Erica had seen a large contingent of older civilians hiding out down the end of the hall outside. Bottles were being passed around and most were pretty drunk. She'd be surprised if it let out before everyone left for the Final Battle.
Erica hated calling it that. It was so... final. It suggested everything was going to end, one way or the other, but she doubted it would be so clean cut. If they won, the machines wouldn't suddenly disappear and the whole world wouldn't be magically fixed. If they lost – well, she preferred not to think about it.
But if they did loose, well the human race wouldn't immediately stop either. Sure they'd be pretty fucking screwed, but she was sure all of the few survivors would be able to look forward to many more months of cowering, fear, and final inevitable death.
Erica had just come back for a change of clothes and a new camera battery. The meeting was still going on and she wanted to get back. She hadn't been recording that much – she was starting to be worried about running out of tape. She had a decent stockpile left, but she didn't want to waste it. And anyway, the documentary was already several hours long, and she had no way to edit.
It was really fascinating, the meeting. They'd almost finished nailing down tactics and timing and logistics and a whole bunch of other things that Erica didn't really understand, but even the smallest thing had to be argued about, and compromised on and then, finally, agreed on.
She got the impression that they didn't put this much effort into all their battles, but this was the biggest one, with the highest stakes, that anyone had ever attempted, and they wanted – needed to get it right.
Connor had been magnificent. He'd listened to everyone, brought them to agreement, found the best way to do everything. But it was more than that – he inspired them, he got them to think more, think better. He had led them. People just believed in him, and all doubts about his leadership, at least for the moment, fell to the side. It was incredible to watch.
She was just thinking about all this, and pulling on a jumper, when shouts and jeers from out in the hall caught her attention. Camera in hand, she went outside to see what was going on. The drunk people had migrated up the hall. They were now very fixated on something that was happening in their middle, and Erica pushed her way through.
The corridor was quite wide, and the people had pushed back to the edges to make a space in the middle. Alison was lying on the floor, curled in the foetal position. Two or three of the men surrounding her were kicking and beating her mercilessly. The crowd jeered and whistled and baited them on. Neil stood to one side. He was drunk, and enjoying himself as much as everyone else.
Erica started to record. She stood there for a few minutes with everyone else, watching as these men beat Alison to a pulp. Her skeleton was metal, so Erica didn't really think she could have any broken bones, but she had real skin, and it was bloody and bruised. In some places, Alison's metal had begun to show through.
Erica knew that Alison was a machine. She knew it, she did. But looking at Alison's face – it was blank, completely. Erica had never seen a human face look like that, so empty. But she couldn't help wondering what was going on behind that face.
Was there any point in beating Alison? Could she feel physical pain? Emotional pain? Could she get angry? Would she, could she fight back? She wasn't making any attempt at the moment, but would she – snap?
The only real reason Erica could see to beating Alison was a sort of weird catharsis. Alison represented everything that was wrong with the world. Everything outside of the base was Alison's fault by proxy, and everything within the base was Alison's fault, because it just was; the internal divisions, Connor's lack of leadership, Sackhoff's grab for power.
Everything was Alison's fault, and Erica found herself joining in the cheering. Everything that had been inside of Erica, all the emotions from her entire life, every single time one of them had taken something, someone from her, from any of them, all of that came out right now. She cheered the men on; Alison deserved everything she got.
Eventually, the men tired out. The crowd wandered off in groups, and a big clump of them returned to their spot at the end of the corridor. Erica was left standing alone, camera still recording, pointed at Alison's face.
After a moment, Alison began to move. She stood up unsteadily.
She looked Erica in the eye.
"I came to find you. The meeting's over. John's looking for you."