Saturday 31st August 1996 – 11.33pm

A long drive in a stolen car. They'd abandoned it in a car-park outside Miami.

Markus flopped down onto the bed. Cecilia hadn't gotten around to wrapping his arm and it twinged as it hit the mattress. Patton had found a Chinese place near the motel, and they'd had a decent meal.

He looked at her as she emptied the bag Cecilia had given them. She pulled out a bright red baseball cap. Was anyone missing her? She pulled out a gun. He thought not.

Now that the only people who were chasing them were the police – who probably weren't out to kill them – Markus felt safe enough to sleep the night through, but found that he couldn't. He didn't trust the bedspread.

His mind flew away without him, and thought followed thought quicker than he could keep up. But there was one thought he could not get rid of.

Ten definite. Seven maybe. That was how many people had died because of him. And those were only the ones he knew about, he was sure there were more.

"Patton?"

"Yes."

"Did you get the name of the truck driver?"

"No."

That made it worse. Ten definite, seven maybe.

Monday 15th October 2029 – 11.53am

"I think we're done." Erica stopped recording.

Connor nodded. "Thanks. Now get out."

Sunday 1st September 1996 – 11.32am

The IHOP was busy, and they kept their heads low. Markus pulled the baseball cap low over his face. They'd had a good night's sleep and he felt kind of okay – physically at least, for the first time in days. Emotionally, he was pretty rocky.

"We need a plan."

"I have one," Patton said vaguely, watching the people outside – or at least, she was trying to; she wasn't quite tall enough to see over the top of the booth. The waitress came over. "Can I get you something?"

"Markus." Patton warned. Markus ignored her.

"Pancakes," he said firmly.

"Yeah? What kind of panc-"

"Markus!" Patton got up and started to pull him out of the booth. He looked over his shoulder. The man-from-the-puce-volvo was walking down the street outside.

"No." Markus was in shock. "No, it can't be. We killed him."

"Killed who?" this was from the waitress. She was looking at their faces now. "Hey, you're tha-"

"Yeah, I am. I didn't hurt anyone, and we need to get out of here."

"You just said -"

"Yeah, well he's over there, so clearly he's fine." Markus gestured at the man-from-the-puce-volvo who'd started to come in the door and the waitress seemed to catch on.

"Follow me." She led them down the back and into the kitchen.

"You can't bring them back here!" some sort of manager complained half-heartedly. The waitress ignored him.

"Why are you helping us?" Markus asked.

"I've been in a couple of... misunderstandings with the law myself." The waitress pushed open a door to an alley out the back. "Good luck."

The manager-guy started shouting distantly. "You can't be -"

There was a gunshot. Markus and Patton looked at each other and started to run, Markus shouting back at the waitress, "Get out of here!"

But it was too late. Just as they got to the end of the alley, the man-from-the-puce-volvo came out of the door. The waitress stood in his way; Markus hoped she wasn't trying to buy them time, she'd get herself killed. But it looked like she was.

"Woah Mister. Where do you think you're -?" And he shot her in the head.

There was a time, just a day or two ago, when this would have floored Markus but he was kind of getting used to it. They kept running, down the street.

"This way." Patton led him into a large mall. Shops lined both sides and there were people everywhere – families, teenagers. This wasn't good.

"Lose the cap. Stop running," Patton ordered as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. "And the jumper."

She pulled off her cardigan too, as Markus lifted the jumper over his head. This was hard to do one-handed, and Patton had to stop and help him.

As they passed a news stand, Markus noticed a headline "Sansom Behind in Polls". The election. Markus had totally forgotten about it. He supposed it didn't really matter too much who the president was – he'd probably be shot before then. He just had no idea why.

There were screams behind them. He was here. Markus hoped he hadn't killed anyone else – he hadn't heard any shots. Just the sight of volvo-man with a gun in his hand was definitely enough to cause screams.

People started running every-which-way. Patton's theory was to blend in as much as possible, so they ran too. Markus pulled the gun out of his bag. This was what Cecilia had been trying to tell him about when she got shot. Having it made him feel safer.

There were shots. Markus risked a look backwards. It wasn't the man this time – there were three security guards shooting at him. But the bullets were bouncing off. Markus tripped over his too-big sandals.

He filed the magic-bouncing-bullets into his worry-about-it-later category. He really was getting better at this running-for-his-life business. Volvo-man shot back at the security guards and they fell in rapid succession. Crap.

There was an exit ahead.

Monday 15th October 2029 – 3.15pm

Joan had spent the last ten minutes trying to shuffle them into straight lines, but it was finally done. They were divided into their eight groups – about twenty, give or take, in each.

Some stood proudly to attention, while others slouched and clearly couldn't give a damn. Erica didn't blame them; the whole thing was a farce. Training that, under normal circumstances, would have taken weeks had been condensed into two days, and after interviewing them, Erica knew that very few of them thought they had learned anything that would be useful when trying to break in to a Skynet base.

Plus, no-one there had gone through any screenings, or tests, or interviews to determine whether or not they were even remotely suited to being soldiers – they were the bottom of the barrel, drafted out of desperation. And most of them really didn't want to be there.

There hadn't even been enough uniforms to go around – some were wearing jackets or shirts, while others wore pants, combined with the best of whatever they had themselves. None of the uniforms fit properly either, and Erica wished they hadn't bothered – they would have looked much better if they'd just worn their own clothes.

She walked up and down the lines as Connor talked about the "noble sacrifice" that they were giving to "protect and serve the human race". She focused in on certain faces – those of the most devout and those of the most resentful. Neil was one of those who looked like they wished they were anywhere else, but Erica was not sure why – did he not believe in the cause? Not believe in Connor? Was he just scared?

There was a lot of fear around the camp. Most thought this plan was doomed and would incite massive reprisals from the machines. But there was hope too, or at least the seeds of hope; was it possible, just maybe, that they could pull this off? Despite lack of leadership and a coherent plan and with soldiers so inexperienced that they might very well shoot themselves in the foot by accident. If this worked... And that was about as far as anyone Erica had talked to went. It was almost like they didn't want to jinx it by saying it out loud.

Connor finished his speech and started to walk up and down the lines, repeating the same rehearsed couple of sentences of congratulations to each new graduate. Erica quickly stood back, and tried to capture the faces of some of the soldiers as Connor spoke to them.

There was a lot of awe – even the most resentful of them still admired and respected John Connor. He was almost like a religion himself. He had rescued humanity in its darkest moment and had saved them so many times since then. The doubts on most of their faces slipped away as he congratulated them, but there were a few, more than a few, whose faces distorted into a mask of utter hatred and disgust as he shook their hands.

And then the ceremony was over. Connor returned to the stage and asked the couple of hundred watching civilians in the barn to leave. Once the room was clear, he nodded to some soldiers who were stationed around the room, and they pulled the massive barn doors closed. Erica didn't think she'd ever seen them closed before. It was just Connor, a couple of soldiers and the new graduates now.

"I know you're scared," he began. It seemed a little patronizing. "I'm scared too. But we have to be brave, we have to face this together, and we have to triumph. Joan," he added, nodding at her, "will give you your parts in the plan. This is the last time I will speak to you as a group before we leave, so I wish you the best of luck."

At this, he left the stage. There was silence as everyone watched him leave – the soldiers had to open the doors a crack to let him out. As soon as he was gone, everyone relaxed out of their lines – some began to talk to each other. There was a sense of underwhelmed relief. That hadn't been so bad after all.

Joan took to the stage. "Attention!" she barked. The troops looked at her surprised – the formal bit was over, wasn't it?

"Attention!" she repeated. Reluctantly, they rearranged themselves roughly back into their lines, although they were not as neat as they had been before. She stared at them as they did so, and did not start speaking until she was completely satisfied.

"Sevens and eights will be coordinating with the soldiers from camp three. They will infiltrate the building ahead of Connor's strike force, and clear it of as many machines as possible." There was muttering, a few groans and a couple of shouts. This wasn't popular.

"Fours and sixes will be assigned to work with my squad and we will lead the offense around the back of the building." More complaints.

"Ones, twos, threes and fives will be involved in the assault at the front of the building. This is to be our distraction, and where we anticipate the bulk of the fight to take place." This almost sparked a mutiny. There were shouts of "cannon fodder" and people broke out of their lines, fury in their eyes. But there was nothing to do, no-one to fight, no way to make this better. This was the plan, and there were no other options.

Still, Joan and the remaining soldiers exited the room with no delay, leaving the troops ready to riot, but no-one to riot at.

Sunday 1st September 1996 – 11.41am

Markus turned to run down the street, but Patton shook her head and pointed towards a tall office building. He went with it – Patton was usually right.

Through the lobby – the receptionist shouted something incomprehensible at them as they ran past.

"Sorry, our mom works upstairs," Markus shouted back as they disappeared into the stairway.

"I thought we were safer taking the lift," Markus panted two flights up. He wasn't nearly as fit as he liked to think and all this running was killing him. Patton, on the other hand, was totally fine as she said, "he'll expect it now."

"Why are we going upstairs? We're totally trapped now."

"We'll slip past him."

"Oh. So we just have to slip past the crazed serial killer. Can we take the lift on the way down?"

Patton turned off inside the building.

"But there's more stairs! Aren't we going to climb all those lovely stairs?" Markus asked. He was trying to make Patton smile as a sort of experiment. She didn't.

"Now the lift."

Markus was putting a lot of trust in the military knowledge of a twelve year old he'd known for, like, a day.

They went through a crowded office, trying to blend in as much as they could. Markus thought they got away with it – no-one looked too closely.

There were screens hanging from the ceiling showing the news – something somewhere had blown up. From the half finished articles on the computers and the dramatic front pages framed on the walls, Markus surmised it was a newspaper office.

They got into the elevator. It was crowded, and they got some funny looks off the trendy twenty-something office-people. Markus wasn't surprised at this – he was an out-of-breath teenager in a Hawaiian shirt and sandals, and Patton was a twelve-year-old. You didn't come across that combination a lot in office buildings. On holidays maybe, but not in an office building.

The elevator reached the top floor, and they all got out. The man-from-the-puce-volvo was coming straight down the corridor. He saw them.

"Crap. What do we do?" Markus asked under his breath. The man had put away his gun and, while he was getting some funny looks, people weren't running in the opposite direction.

The stairs were on the other side of the building and the elevator had already been called away. There was a door nearby. There was no way of telling where it led, but it was literally their only option. They rushed through it. Stairs. Leading upward. But they were on the top floor.

They opened the door at the top, and Markus finally figured it out – the roof. He was thick. There were a couple of people standing around chatting and smoking.

"Get behind there," he yelled, pointing at the shed-thing they'd come out of "and don't make a sound."

They looked at him blankly. If they were too stupid to listen, then they deserved what they got. He turned to Patton.

"Okay, what's the plan?"

Patton looked, for the first time, like a twelve year old. "I don't know,"

"What? You said you had a plan."

Patton didn't respond – she was looking around, weighing up options.

"Okay. Okay. Um. We can't let him catch us. We don't know what he wants." Markus was kind of panicking now.

"Over to the side."

Markus followed instructions. Patton climbed up onto the little wall running around the edge, dragging Markus with her. He did not like where this was going.

"We jump," Patton was completely matter-of-fact.

They were at least fifteen stories up. There was no surviving that.

"What? No! I did not go through all this just to give up now."

Patton grabbed his head, and turned it so he had to look at her. "We don't know what he wants. This is better."

There was a kind of logic to that, Markus supposed, but it went against everything he believed. Volvo-man came out the door, gun firmly back in hand. He'd taken his time getting here. How many were dead downstairs?

The smoking people screamed and ran in all directions. It bought Markus and Patton a few minutes while the man shot them one by one – enough time to get away.