San Francisco

1975

There was a cool breeze that caressed and stewarded the masses of people that wandered through the neon lights that shaded the sidewalks of the city by the bay. It was more than just a pleasant night. It was the kind of night that you opened your windows to, sat on the front porch and crack open your favorite book, call up your girl and ask her out to your favorite spot to propose marriage. The light kisses of the pleasant weather, the history of the old streets humming off the crowded sidewalks, and the shops advertising the same unique merchandise in the storefront windows. No one out in the heart of the city —the bay salt whipping through their hair, and the smell of traffic and Chinese food in the air— no one could deny that there was some sort of strange magic working its way through the town on this night.

The sounds of a city echoed through the starry and bustling atmosphere all around. The honking horns, the revving of engines, the thousand indistinct conversations, and the tingles and jingles from the store doors. All of it called to the normal Saturday evening that could be found in this part of town. The young exploring the shops, the old going about the evening schedules they have kept for decades when they had discovered the shops and eateries in their youth. Older men and women in their fedoras and pearls walking arm and arm, their love dimmer, but never to be parted as they passed the girls and young men looking through the windows and the glass counters at the jewels and real estate magazines. The promise and hope to a future beyond the poverty of youth sparkling in their eyes. Hand in hand, boy and girl make promises that may never be kept or remembered many years from now. But for tonight, those words would never be forgotten when so much life was ahead of them in the possibility of tomorrow.

Yet no one on this perfect evening batted an eye to the rhythmic clacks of little shiny black shoes on the cracked pavement. A blur of long curls and pea coat sprang through crowds, splitting couples, and nimbly weaving around benches and public trashcans. Unconcerned eyes watched from sitting and static positions with mild amusement for only a moment before returning to their own business, as was the custom of any urban environment. Strobing bulbs of the theater marquees, and the active neon flashing above shadowed and colored the glistening tears on a young girl's milky cheeks. She bumped and shoved her away through the crowded sidewalks earning curses and snarls as she flew without abandon in a dead sprint.

No older than six years old, this living porcelain doll had long tresses of black curls in tight regal ringlets tied by a virginal, white bow on the top of her head. Her pale face shadowed in the alley she turned into. She was breathing heavily, fear gripping every fiber of her being as she desperately fled from it. Dirty water and slippery muck stained her shined shoes while splashing through the dark narrow space. From her right to left stacked crates of alcohol and other inventory sat in reserve from the bars and restaurants that lined the downtown miracle mile. Above she saw red lights sitting in the upper apartment windows and metal grated stairs leading up to the second stories.

The little girl had become so distracted by her new claustrophobic setting that she slipped in an open pothole lying in wait in the untended asphalt. She gave a cry of surprise as she spilled to the ground, the sound of expensive thread ripped to accompany the painful smack and scrape of the fall. Immediately the little black stockings had tears, and blood welled from the scrapes on her knees. A streak of dark brown slime slashed across the chest of a lacy white dress. Her face fell as she sat up straight and looked down at herself. She was filthy now, and she had ruined her dress. It was enough to make her cry.

The flicker of movement caught her eye from her left. Buried between two large stacks of crates were two shadows rustling and overlapping one another, oblivious to the girl's presence. A tan skinned woman of Asian descent leaned back against the cold of a brick wall. She was dressed in an opulent silken robe of bright red, a yellow and black dragon slithering around its waist. A bare breast with an ashy nipple peaked out from the open clothing as she lounged back, easy smoke rings spewing out of brightly colored lips. Pressing against her was the large frame of a black man. He wore a purple pinstripe suit, his shoes white and black. Leaning on a moderate stack of empty crates next to them was a bejeweled cane, and an audacious wide brimmed hat with a matching feather. The bald dark skinned man's close-cropped beard scratched at the nape of the Asian woman's neck. From his throat, hungry aggressive noises could be heard. They were emotions that didn't seem to be shared by the Asian woman who took another lazy draft of a cheap cigarette. Through the slow gathering clouds of smoke her golden eyes fell on the little girl still lying on the ground. She didn't speak, didn't draw attention to the sight of the young child dressed clearly for the wrong side of town. In the gathering haze of smoke that spewed like a chimney from her open mouth, the girl became frightened by the long blank stare. In the obscurity it looked as if her blank eyes were slowly becoming slit like a reptile. The emotionless woman's face began taking the same likeness to the dragon on her robe. Her eyes starting to glow a familiar … machine like red.

But before the girl could look any deeper into the growing unnatural, something inside her belly turned. Over her fallen figure, a tall, shadowed silhouette was growing. Someone stood at the mouth of the alleyway. She couldn't make out anything distinctive about the presences except for the glint of the marquee lights on a pair of eyeglasses. She was suddenly filled with fear again, the same that had brought her to this point now. Instinctively she fumbled for the item next to her. It was a porcelain doll, dressed in high Victorian style, her face cracked, her tumbles of auburn hair caked with alley muck. She held her dolly to her chest and found her feet. A playful voice called to her mischievously, covering a deep-seated wrath underneath as it echoed through the narrow space.

The back alley led to a narrow path between rusted gates of small, low-rent, whitewashed houses. They were cheap, rotted homes built during the expansion years after World War II. In the subsequent era since the homes had become dilapidated, and fallen to disrepair. She sobbed as she continued on, her soles clacking away on the dusty concrete. She nearly fell again as a hound dog, all black with a cataract clouded right eye came racing up next to her. It met the rickety fence that separated them with an angry rustle. His barking was loud and aggressive, the demeanor not frightened or curious, but angry and dangerous as it snapped and snarled at the fleeing little girl.

Emerging from the narrow passage between rundown houses, she appeared on a chalk white street. The noise and motion of the downtown area was snuffed by the suburban silence of the old neighborhood in which she had found herself. Behind her was a row of the old, decaying, ground level homes. But surprisingly, across the street was a section of old Victorian mansions that seemed at least ninety years old. Their exotic colors chipped and weathered with time; their appearance drawing direct lines to the early years of a city's history. They were certainly not the first homes built, but one might consider them the first true houses that brought a small port town into a larger world. In their heyday they might have been sparkling examples of a worldly city trading with the markets of Hong Kong and Sydney. But almost hundred years later, the homes seemed shambled and forgotten, only a block from modern life. Their lawns were overgrown, and weedy. Their cast iron bared fences off angled and rusted. It had been true that there was some strange magic working its way through the buildings tonight. It was like being drawn to a far-off light, your imagination teeming with possibility of what the brilliance might hold. But up close where the origin of this feeling was, the girl felt it twisting her insides, knowing that it was all coming from this place … and it was a fool's gold, for under its shiny exterior hid something black as night.

The same mischievous crooning voice carried on the wind to the little girl. From the exit of the alley a tall, lanky shadow in a knee length blazer, bowtie, and glasses stood under the spotlight of an ancient street lamp. There was something off kilter and malevolent in his amused grin as he spotted the girl standing alone in the middle of the street. The terror and dread of the sudden embodiment of every nightmare she had ever experienced ran through her. She could feel him hold her down, work his will through her, make her do things she never dreamt of doing … especially to the people she loved. She had this one moment to flee, but no matter how far she ran she couldn't escape him— his cold and angry voice whispering such horrible intentions as she drifted to sleep.

Standing apart from all the houses in the neighborhood was one that didn't take on a Victorian architecture, but that of an old southern gothic mansion. It was a tall two story, made of chalk white stone. A matching stairway leading to the front doors was flanked by towering Roman columns on each side that held up the edge of the massive roof. Above the brittle, stained glass double-doors was a marble balcony on the second story that looked out over the large front of the home. Something about the grandeur and size of the manor reminded her of her own childhood home and drew the girl toward it.

An unearthly wind kicked up, swirling a collection of fallen autumn leaves of reds, oranges, and yellows all around her stained ankles, sticking to her stained skirt and coat. Gasping desperately, she leapt up two steps at a time toward the front of the mansion. Her breathing was ragged and cut short as she sprinted under the shadow of the balcony to enter the home. The combination of oak and custom stained glass made it nearly impossible for a girl so young to pull open the doors. But fear and adrenaline rushed through her system and her small victory was announced in the unoiled creek of the hinges as she squealed in the use of all her strength. Slipping through the crack, she immediately closed the door behind her with a clank.

She thought, at least for the time being, of having in her possession a moment of safety. She leaned against the heavy doors, her slender hand resting on her heaving chest, new tears staining her fair cheeks. But just as she tried to catch her breath, a horrible sinking from her chest into her belly came over her. She had thought that she was safe, but when the stale smell of neglect, and the taste of dust was in her mouth she knew she had made a terrible mistake.

The lobby of the mansion and the large expansive sitting room had no sundries, no rugs, or carpets, and no furniture. It was completely bare but for the hunter green, soot contaminated drapes that hung adjacent to the brittle windows. Stripped of everything but the thick wooden floor boards, sanded of its mahogany finish, the floor and walls were adorn with dungeon cuffs and dark age chains screwed to the foundations. The black haired girl began to hyperventilate at the sight of mounds and mounds of skeletons still in captivity. The blackened irons rusted by blood, still clamped to fractured wrists of intact skeletal remains lying on the floor, and propped against the walls. In her fear she had fled back to the place she didn't want to be, that she had tried to escape from time and time again.

With a gasp she began to run again. Away from the horrible sights that plagued her every night, always coming after her, in every happy memory of her childhood she tried to hide in. They always found her. The girl fled deeper into the mansion, away from the skeletons of a far flung future. She turned corners, her shadow leaping through gaps in the wooden beams of a torn out wall. Her little shoes thumping over dusty boards. She didn't stop till she reached a lone corridor, past a downstairs washing room.

She skidded to a halt at the opening to a room with a descending wooden staircase shaded in a pitch black abyss. The aged off-white door leaned open, the loose hinges made it wobble as limp as a drunk, banging back and forth against the wall. There was a dollhouse next to her—a replica of the home she was trapped in—sitting on corner table. She began to shudder violently at the sheer sight of the black blanket in front of her. The little girl would go anywhere; do anything, as long as she didn't have to go down there … anywhere but the basement.

"No!"

She heard the squeal of a door at the other end of the stairs. Then there were feet, just feet. They were slow taps like a heartbeat, like the rattling chains of a damned spirit in a Dickens novel. From down below they methodically made their way up toward her. Each placement echoed with a squeak of aged wood, each mounted step like a tormented cry for mercy. She would pray, beg, and hold tightly to whatever she could find. But cold, lustful hands would always take her in their grasp and carry her down into the dark depths to poison her with the relived memories that made her go away … helped something else, someone else take her place.

The girl had to get out of the house, had to get back to another yesterday in her mind. But when she turned, the way of escape was blocked. The tall stickily figure of her tormentor stood hunched, a fist grasped in his hand. He was a stately and intelligent looking man of high breeding and even higher education. His face was distinctive with a protruding chin and hollow features. His smirk was never predatory, never aggressive. It was a mild mannered gesture that exuded a primal sense of arrogance and progressive condescension of one who knew he was always the smartest man in the room.

He bowed in order to come eye level with the girl. "You ran again." He whispered gravely in an intellectually concise English accent. He nodded as his face took a mock seriousness in the furrowed brow. "What did I tell you about running?" The voice he chose to address the girl was like that of a chastising parent.

Filled with resentment toward the way she was being treated and the feeling of fear of being cornered, the girl lashed out. A glob of spit smacked the Englishmen's glared lens glasses. The primal aggression on the girl's face was not one that any at the age of six could know. That kind of anger and hatred was reserved for tired souls who knew years of pain and loss, who lived each moment in fear for many years.

There was no anger in the man's demeanor as he straightened his back. He smirked mildly at the girl's actions. He removed his glasses placing them in his breast pocket. "I told you, there's no use in disguising yourself." He suddenly kicked the girl in the gut with a polished business loafer. She let out a gasped growl at the explosion in her stomach. Knees buckled with a thump of hard wood, she cradled her stomach, drool leaking from the corner of her rosy lips. "No use in hiding …" He grabbed the pretty girl by the bow in her long ringlets and smashed her face first through a wooden beam. For a long moment she was planted to the boards before she finally slipped to the floor. Blood ran down her nose in rivers as she fell flat on her back.

"You belong to me now." His temperament never broke as he observed his handy work.

She spat blood out of her mouth like an experienced prize fighter, instead of an aristocratic tot. "I'll never belong to you." The proper English accent she had been speaking with went away, and another darker, older voice of an polished accent that covered the distinctness of the one she used to speak with in youth took its place.

There was amusement in the man's face at her response of defiance. He leaned down again. "If you wanted to fight, you should've chosen a different newer memory to hide in." He removed his glasses again and from his breast pocket he removed a silky item to clean them with. "I did warn you …" he paused to look at the top of the dark basement steps.

"No … oh no, no, no, no!"

A figure appeared out of the darkness. She was a very stern older woman with hard wrinkles around the corners of her mouth and eyes. The wrinkles would have been more front and center had she not pulled her main of tangled silver hair back into a very constricting bun. Her looks suggested that she might have been a great beauty once, but now a lifetime of displeasure had drained all the light from her. "What have you done to yourself … oh my poor, poor, yummy girl." There was something maternally playful and cutesy about her usually refined and elegant voice as she made a perfect spectacle of the sight of the girl on the floor.

"No, no …no!" The girl cried at the first sight of the woman who had emerged. She was fell upon with a barrage of playful kisses all over her face, pressed down on the dusty floor by cold bony hands that found their way to her soft dress, caressing her stomach intimately.

The old woman only shushed the girl between wet stringy pecks. "Oh … look what you've done to this dress." She clicked her tongue at the girl in disappointment. "You're just so filthy, filthy, filthy!" Her hands began to slip the girls shoes from her feet and coat in succession. "You're such a dirty girl, my princess." She cooed with eyes that stood contrasted of the voice she used. The old woman's hands diligently unhooked and zipped the back of the lacy dress with an obsessive compulsion and uncaring manner for the girl's decency. "And what do we do with dirty girls?" She asked almost manically.

"Please, don't …" the girl with a woman's voice begged in a deep depression of a long lost part of an unhappy life of wealth, high society, and secrets locked in the darkness of lavished bedrooms.

Skeletal hands squeezed the girl's cheeks together almost viciously, clamping her mouth shut. "Hush!" The old woman snapped possessively. She was a woman who always got what she wanted, no matter the cost, and the girl, who she dotted and worshiped, was no different. When she had gotten the obedience she wanted, she proceeded by lifting the soiled dress over the girl's head, tossing it to the side. "Dirty girls need baths, Princess!" She announced with an inescapable darkness hidden underneath her loving voice, like a crocodile under a pond of lily flowers. Without missing a beat she scooped the girl up in her bony arms and turned on a heel toward the pitch black.

"No! Not down there! NO!" A now lean figure of a grown woman, disguise shed, struggled fruitlessly as the crone descended the steps with her helpless prize. The woman's terrified and desperate protests echoing off the walls were deluded with the drifting notes of a classical piano from the abyss below. Suddenly all noise was finally stifled by the sound of a door slamming shut from the basement.

For a long moment the man in the bow tie stood in the halls of his gothic mansion. The silence echoing through the dust and decay of a sand strewn tundra of a dead city going on endlessly from the view of the broken windows. "If you run you only make it harder." He finished his thoughts. Placing the glasses on carefully, he glanced at the dollhouse.

The final act of "Giselle" came, hummed from his hollow throat as he gave a wistful move of graceful ballet interpretation toward the play set. The table scraped when he turned it so that the inner workings faced him. He moved his head with the unseen notes of the music in his mind as he reached inside. His thin, delicate fingers extracted an item that had been lying on a king size bed. It was beautifully crafted doll of a ballerina. She had satiny chocolate hair in a tight bun, her face paled like the moon, with life like golden eyes that seemed bereft of emotion. His loving and caring digits felt up the white wedding dress she wore, letting the sinfully soft material sooth his cuticles.

Indifferently, the man began to hum louder as a tortured scream pilfered from the black lodging. He just simply stroked the doll's hair venerably as the voice trapped below called out a single name in her fear and shame.

"John!"

Chapter One

"The Woman."

There were places like this all over the City of Los Angeles. These establishments tucked in corners in the dirty grimy alleyways in North Hollywood and behind warehouses on the docks. Made of cheap tinder wood, they sat like eye sours around the dusty deserts and mountainous terrain outside the city. They were the cheap bars and dives, not the expensive meet ups and hot scenes were reality stars, and A-list actors go after hours on Beverly. These were the lowest of the low, the dusty and dirty joints that no one wanted to go if they could help it. But with this crowd … it looked like they hardly had a choice.

There were pendants and championship banners from professional sports teams that gathered dust behind shut down pinball, and roller ball machines on the wood paneled floor and walls. Whatever this place was now, it had started years ago as a sports bar. But hard times had made it change hands, and themes. Places like this were revolving doors to ownership. One business owner can't pay, and the bank sells to another, machines, decor, and sundries included. Somewhere down the line of owners since the early 80's they forgot or found their caring wanton as what this place was supposed to be. There wasn't a cute theme, or a real purpose to a place like this. That is, beyond the obvious. They served hard drinks for hard luck cases that wanted to get hard drunk fast. That was the nature of these places, the nature of this city built on material dreams.

Suffice to say that this was not James Ellison's kind of place. He had grown up in Georgia where there were a thousand shacks and rundown biker haunts like this all over the cotton and peanuts covered back roads. His grandfather and his great grandfather had died in places like this. Sometimes he wondered if it was why his father was so hard on his children, on James most of all. He got a whipping when his report cards didn't have A's. He couldn't even remember the first time he had his first cigarette, even now when he smelt the tobacco in the air, he could see his daddy's fist snapping back to strike him again after the initial shock of the opening blow. Daniel Ellison wanted his children to be righteous, to be good. He wasn't sure he could sit with his wife and watch another member of his family get put down by the state.

To most kids this would make the other side more attractive, to desperately seek the unknown, the forbidden. But not James Ellison, from his pastor to his coaches, to even his training officers, they always said of the man that he was a good mold. He was a model student and he carried lessons in and out. He let them shape him into who he was. All his life he respected the law, as he did his father's desperate discipline. Between his Mama's bible, and daddy's hands he thought himself an instrument of Justice. It was an old arrogance carried by devout men of every religion. They did not question their obedience to God, and their purpose in his plan. For the Lord's will was righteous where ever his path may lead, as long as they follow.

But lately James Ellison had found a different path, a back road that he walked in the dark. Many nights he spent with his bible studying, wondering, and searching for salvation from the conundrums that haunted the still of his humble home and the sterile environment of his work office. There was darkness in his mind that sat heavily on his soul. It had been a year since he discovered the truth. It was a truth of Machines, Messiahs, and the end of days. He sat long into the night and wondered, and prayed on what it was he would do, what could he do? Forever did he fear of turning into Peter Silberman. The former Chief of Staff at Pescadero who had took to murdering hikers, and kidnapping people out of fear when James first met him. It was the fear of Sarah Connor's prophecies of the future. But for weeks and months Ellison knew that he couldn't just sit around. He couldn't wait, checking the bones, burying the bodies when the smoke cleared on the battlefields of a covert war that was yet to happen. But when he was deepest in his lost state of mind his salvation came. She came.

The Woman

He wasn't sure how she found him, but she had. He knew it wasn't the first time that she had been to his home. Opening that door he knew what he expected when he found her standing on his front porch. He expected to be thrown around, choked out … they found out about Cromartie. But The Woman told James that they needed him, she needed him. For a long time he hadn't thought her human, it helped not to think of her like that. But he wasn't ready for her to come to him in that moment and show how vulnerable she was. How impossibly wrong he could've been about her. They didn't understand her the way he had, she told Ellison. They didn't have the heart, the capacity for what had to be done. For a moment he thought she had come to the wrong house, if she was asking him for help with her mission. She shook her head, told him that she didn't want him to kill anyone. She just wanted information. She told him that she knew about Cromartie, knew what he wanted to do, and then she told him what his boss Catherine Weaver wanted to do with the machine.

After that he promised to help her.

The weeks and the months went by and she stopped by every Friday night. He'd tell her about what he could learn, who was operating the basement levels. Her face was stoic, nodding once or twice. In a strange way it had become a regular thing, three maybe five hours after work. He started making her dinner, not sure if she ate … what he ate. But she didn't complain, and she didn't refuse. It had been so long since he had a friend, and even though what they talked about was life or death, and it was her he was talking too … he liked it.

Ellison gave a cough and mistakenly took a helping of rank dust from the wood paneled dive in his lungs. To make matters worse, a strong flop sweat beaded his bald head and ashy brow. He reached down under his arm pit and scratched through the material of his starched white button down, beads of blood staining the inside. He had always wanted to vacation in Mexico, but after what happened in Dejalo, and this nasty skin infection that wouldn't go away. At this point, after needing steroid injections for the Anti-biotic, East LA is was as far to Mexico as he wanted to get ever again.

He looked at the collection of neon signs and stared blankly into the spot where all the neon lights came together. Golden flecked chips of green and blue. It reminded him of The Woman's eyes. It reminded him of how stupid they made him feel when he offered to show her a movie he rented. She glared that stoic, guarded frown at him, reminded him that she didn't come over to watch movies. He put it in anyway while he let her nose through his notes and observations of what Catherine was doing down there. She'd look up now and again and he even saw her smile once or twice. It was the first time that he had truly realized just how beautiful she was. After that she was no longer opposed to movies or opening little by little of her life to him over wings and pizza. It seemed almost healthy … as healthy as she could be, given who she was. He'd like to think that his home was a place where she could be herself, whatever or whoever that was.

But it eventually grew more than that.

The first time they made love it was like getting hit by a hurricane. She was like a force of nature when she was in his bed, leaving marks on him with her nails, and wanting him to leave marks on her. She promised that no one would see them by the time she got back. When they were done he'd be exhausted, and all he wanted to do was sleep. But she was never tired, and he began to wonder if she ever slept. He fell in love about the time she got up from the bed, wandering around unashamedly naked. There was a glistening sheen of heavenly sweat on her smooth beautiful body illuminated by the late wisps of evening sun. Ellison watched her pick things up, and try things on with curiosity. It was like she was looking at the mundane, every day thing for the first time. It made him wonder how long she had been living this life or if she always had. There was innocence to her curiosity and it made him love her even more.

Whirlwind was how he described it. The whole notion, the idea of what they were doing, what they were trying to stop. It should all be ludicrous to Ellison. And yet The Woman made it seem so romantic. When he had been married to Lila it was a quiet love. Lila was fun and happy, but career driven. After the chaos of a case she wanted a nice quiet night with a book and chest to lay back on. But with her, James had never felt more alive. He had never loved deeper, had laughed harder, and made love more passionately. She was like a fire, a flame of righteousness. The desperation, the spontaneity, the do or die of all her and James's plans and fears made the colors brighter, the sunsets more beautiful, and the nights more mysterious. Somewhere between looking into her stoic eyes as she shuttered from the throws of her last climax of the afternoon, and watching John Henry's development day after day. It had gone from a mission to preserve all of humanity, to just wanting to protect her, this woman he had pegged and feared as one thing long ago. He no longer thought about Messiah's and Machines. When he went to work, when he took information, he only thought of her.

And it scared him.

He'd open the drawer next to his bed, where he kept his grandmother's bible, his condoms and the nine millimeter and now he realized it might be all the same thing now. He knew what The Woman was capable of, he'd seen it first-hand. The bible had warned of selfishness, and the repercussions of the great sins he was committing. In her hot embrace as she rode him, her glassy eyes looking through him as she gasped softly he'd told himself that they were sinning for the good of all. But nowhere did it say that anything good ever came from the sin of the flesh or of the barrel of a gun. She had assured him from the beginning that he wouldn't hurt anyone. But somewhere deep in his mind he knew what her intentions were. They were the same from the first time he saw her all those years ago. James Ellison's ignorance was gone and he knew now why they did it, her and her companions. But did that make it right? Was he doing the right thing? Was it selfish for loving her, and was this shadow of greed damning his soul and all of the people's he worked with and saw every day?

But what shamed him most of all even after leaving the house with her still inside, lying in his bed, it was that he had broken his father's rules. Cast away his hard teachings and turned to the bottle for the first time in his life. And all of it for one pondering query that he already knew the answer too. Was she actually capable of loving him, loving him the way James loved her? But most important of all was simply this …

Had he thrown his soul away for this woman?

Out on the water waves came on and flowed out in a rhythm that was timed to seemingly nothing. It was possibly why many found the ocean to be a comfort through hard and anxious times in their lives. There was seemingly nothing that drove it, nothing that held it back for long. And all the great sea had was time. It put a man and his trouble in prospective when sitting at the shore and looking out at the vast empty spaces beyond the coming and goings of barges and large ships from port. It wasn't a typical evening that touched the California sky. It was soft and clear, a peaceful coagulation of autumn colors and violet that was so clear on the surf that it was like a rolling wash of two skies that seemed to meld together that went on and on, beyond the horizon.

While on the rocky shores the sound of commotion of a busy Friday evening rushed over the serene calm of solitude. Strings of lights on the marina and the active piers came on to wink and twinkle with enchanting patterns, their reflections in the water was like a fallen star field in the receding tides. The nightly calm brought with it a unique gleaming portrait of a city of metal, glass, and concrete's lights glimmering in the calm Pacific waters. It was a cornucopia of color tonight, oranges, reds, purple, and all to the twinkling lights dancing to the obscure music of a radio in the distance. Sitting in the medium of natural and artificial beauty which man had wrought was like greeting an old friend to darkened emerald eyes.

It was a trait that not many possessed, to find the beauty and unique nature in all things. But it came second nature to John Connor. Since he could remember the youth had always seen the world differently than most people. In a childhood spent alone in motels with infinite time on his hands, John had learned to enjoy the simple things. He learned how each of their positive attributes and little miracles helped him. In a life in which he was supposed be afraid of everything, he had learned how to think beyond fear, and how to control his environment, to make use of everything around him. In doing so, he used each small moment to make his life better, to find the sweet spot and hold onto it.

To most people, behind him was a mismatch of glass, concrete, and metal. The city was jagged and ugly like the granite jaw of a hungry mythological beast. A dirty ocean of contaminated water, filled with sea weed and litter. Beyond it was an eye sore of a marina and crowded piers, horrid examples of extravagant wealth, loud mouth breathers, and obnoxious horns of large ships steaming into port. It should be the perfect picture to the bitter of an awful city. But only a man like John Connor could find a place somewhere were each factor met and within it created something so profoundly beautiful where he may make his home.

John wasn't particularly a positive person, and he knew too much of the future to be optimistic. But in a world of tragedy and loss, his only saving grace was to find whatever happiness and beauty he could squeeze out of his survivalist, drifter life, and marry himself to it.

Perched on the rocks he waited patiently, solitary amongst the pairs and groups of shadows and silhouettes that moved in his vision on the piers and yacht decks. In the time since John had arrived in 2007, he had longed, even before that to be a part of those groups. To be normal like all of his peers, flirting, laughing, and being happy. But recently he had become the opposite of that longing, embracing the label he had always been known as by others. In the months since he had thought "her" dead and afterward in danger of being murdered, John had to deal somehow with the misplaced anguish of those weeks. Somewhere deep inside himself he had touched a true darkness in his despair and fear. He had become dangerous and out of control in his hunt for the killer from the future that had come for the cyborg girl he loved. In his rage he had permanently maimed and crippled those he thought were his enemies and those who stood in the way. It all ended with the brutal slaying of the monster at his hands in a savage fight. Afterward, even in peace, you cannot touch the kind of darkness the youth had and simply go back to who you were, what you were. The hatred, the fear, and the desperation that turned to vicious rage, he wore all of the effects like a visible facial scar. His friends and family could tell there was something different about John, even if they couldn't put their finger on it. He seemed darker, more mature … tortured.

That was why his mom had encouraged tonight, thought that it would be good for John to get out. He was supposed to meet up with Morris and a couple of his cousins, pal around the peer, and ride the Ferris wheel. John left the house, but never showed up. He went to a seaside diner ate lunch, picked up a few things for the computer, and then he waited. Here by the rocks, John Connor waited as he had many nights. He fielded texts and phone calls from Morris. . "She" showed up looking for him, wondering if he was there. But then they weren't complaints from Morris, if anything they were courtesy calls from the kid to John asking if "She" taking his place that evening was cool. The youth didn't want to say yes, but he couldn't say no. No was a dangerous word, no was suspicious, no brought up questions that were circumvented to mothers who knew when something was going on under her own roof. Yes was not what he wanted to say … but it was safe.

With a glower he looked out toward the piers and the stands beyond. He could hear the laughter from where he sat. In his vision he could just make out the couples draped over one another on top of the large neon flashing carnival wheel. Somewhere Morris was in there, being himself, being the kid that made him John's friend. The youth knew that he would use all of that charm on her tonight. She was already his prom date and he would try so desperately to make her more than that. He'd take her on the Ferris wheel, buy her corn dogs, and fail miserably at knocking down cups with whiffle balls. John wasn't stupid. He knew that she would never fall for it. But deep down a part of him wished that he could be out there, that they could be out there with everyone else.

What he would give for just the novelty of placing his arms around his lover in a photo booth, for John to win her a stuffed animal in a marksmen contest. Or more likely she would win one for him. Throwing the blanket down and listening to a free concert, looking to the stars as the music washed over them. Her head laying against him as they counted constellations. But life had seldom been that easy for him, for them. For now and maybe for many more years to come this would be his life. Pretending to be the errant brother, the no cares roommate, the casual friend. Meanwhile he would wait on these rocks, knowing how he felt was so much more than that. But his emotions had to be hidden from the sight of others, like they always had been since that one question in Red Valley a thousand bullets, and imagined futures ago.

But this time it was different, this time he had been gratified. For just a moment he held his lover too close and knew what forever should feel like. It was like letting a thirsty man have a sip of water in the desert and letting the rest of the canteen tip over into the sand, making him watch the sun dry it all out. Some nights he thought he might go mad in his room, knowing she was just an open door away. But somehow he held on, like he always had. This wasn't the first time that John Connor had confronted the lonesome and solitary feelings of waiting alone in the dark evening for the one he loved the most to return to him after a night of entertaining another man. There was even a small part of himself that wondered if he had always been here waiting.

As he looked out toward civilization, which he had momentarily been distracted by, a figure walked across the shortened beach. Slender, stiff, and oddly graceful, she skimmed the surface. Her long legs carried her along as if she was floating, despite the deep impression she left in the soggy sand that was soft as a cotton pillow under her bare feet. Her long locks of straighten hair fluttered in the wind as she looked out toward the ocean and the painter's sunset that fired the last colors of the day. But when she became adjacent to John sitting above on the rocks, she paused. He felt her eyes on him, before he ever saw her. She was a presence he could feel in intuition that he couldn't explain, and that she herself doubted when he told her.

His head snapped back to the beach and found the lone girl standing below him, yards away. He didn't need the moonlight falling over her waterfront silhouette or the salty breeze caressing her hair to know the kind of beauty that had found him in his usual spot. They locked eyes, and even in the gathering darkness he was hers. He couldn't pin point if it was the setting of their meeting place somewhere between the sea and the stars, or it was just the smell of the night that got under his skin. But the girl had him in a trance.

Yet, instead of coming to him, she simply continued onward. He watched her leave a trail of perfect dancer's foot prints on the beach. The trajectory led to the forest of rotted wooden columns underneath an old abandoned peer. Standing on the edge of that forgotten place, she turned back to the young man on the rocks and enraptured his attention one last time, before entering. For a long moment John sat by himself, bereft of sense. It was as if he had been hit by a tranquilizer. His brain was sluggish and swimming in the intoxication of a calming drug. When he came to he was looking into his lap.

Slowly a large grin spread across his face.

Before leaving his perch, he gave a thorough look around to make sure he wasn't being watched. Coast clear, he hiked down the rocky seawall, landing with a puff and a crouch when he leapt off half-way down. Following her foot prints toward their usual meeting place, John kept a close eye on the rock line behind him. He was always aware that he might be followed by a host of people or other with ill or misplaced intentions.

He could smell the damp, salty, mold that always hit the senses hard. It should be unpleasant for him, but there was so much good that came from it, that he welcomed the stench of the unused pier. It was stuffed with old newspapers from the late 20's and other garbage pushed by the wind. It was dark underneath the wooden structure, but he went inside fearlessly, his love baring him with mighty cables toward the one who had tied them. He stepped over rotting cardboard, broken surf boards, a bikini top styled in the sixties, covered in decade's worth of grime. He placed a hand on the hollowed wood for support as he moved toward the end of the pier. At the edge, where the sand and ocean touch, the last several boards above had fallen away leaving a sunroof through the rotted frame. That's where she waited for him.

Cameron was standing as straight as a board the low tide rushed over her bare feet and ankles. She was looking out toward the horizon where the low hanging moon sat just above the water line. There were times in people's lives when they wished they could take a picture of a moment and keep it with them forever. Though knowing that it could never capture it as perfect or profound as what they saw in that moment. With the moonlight shimmering off her perfect peachy skin and glimmering in her golden eyes, John Connor couldn't think of one thing in the eternity of time that could ever be wrong or despicable about the love he had for the cyborg.

"I wasn't supposed to leave early."

When she spoke there was no emotion behind her voice, no inflection. "But I told Morris that Sarah demanded that I return home." She didn't turn to face him, and John didn't approach her, He took his time admiring the picture she posed against the setting. She was like a dream that he didn't want to wake up from, perfect in every way in his eyes.

"Why?" He asked watching the skirt of her white dress flutter in the wind.

This time she did turn to face him. She gave a rare blink and observed him with all the naivety in the twitch of her head of an avenging angel fallen from her heavenly sentry. "Because I knew you were here, alone." She replied.

He wished he hadn't, but he replied with instinctual anger, almost defensively. "Why? Thought I was vulnerable to attack?" He sniped at her possible reasoning.

She didn't seem to respond to his tone. "Yes …" She agreed softly. Then, the girl turned back to scanning the ocean.

He suddenly felt so self-conscious about himself. John Connor was his mother's son and often had a short and defensive temper. Whenever it surfaced it was often met by his family with counter snaps or hard glares. All that resulted was bickering or arguments about all things big and small. But for the Cyborg, she never met John's inherited temper with anger, never snapped back. She took it, a face the mask of naivety and innocence, as if she couldn't understand why he was angry with her. It used to make it worse. The girl had her ways of making flaws shone in the light with her passive attitudes.

"And because you were here, alone …" She repeated, her voice this time having something in it that was softer, the ghost of longing. She turned back to him. "I didn't come here to be entertained by Morris." As their eyes met the wind kicked up. Her hair was tussled forward, glossy strands framing her blushed cheeks. "I came here to be with you." She finished with a hard sincerity that punched John in the heart.

For the young man's part he had always been like this. Even when he was small he always punished the only woman he had ever loved when she returned after being away for so long. It took a night, a day even before he'd come around, to forgive Sarah for leaving him. But eventually waking up, seeing her there, her arms holding him … the love in her eyes. He could never punish her for long.

But tonight John Connor didn't have a night, he didn't have a day to punish Cameron. He only had these few precious hours when the world thought that they were at the pier or on the road home. He only had now to be with her, to shed this blanket and let the truth have its moment.

He stepped forward as if racing the seconds themselves. His callous hand reached out and gently brushed her soft hair behind her ear. His palm fell low to cup her cool fair cheek that felt like silk against him. It had occurred to him only now when they prayed for just a few moments alone, how little of it they had always had. Before they surrendered to destiny it seemed as if it was a slow torture to have so much time for themselves, alone and longing. Now it seemed what felt like eternity was actually only a few moments in real time. Now that they were alone with not a soul around them he put forth all the longing and need for her in a kiss that captured her lips.

It had taken time, a trial by fire, for the girl to understand this form of affection. John always had an abundance of patience, but he would admit stolen moments were ruined now and again by the cyborg experimenting rather than how a normal girl would have an intuition for her kisses. He had become frustrated with choking on a tongue, or his lip being bitten causing his curse to be loud enough for Derek to come see. He had the unlucky fortune of getting slapped by Cameron to cover the bloody lip with the excuse that John said she'd look fat in leather pants. But this time she had found the right placement and the right amount of force, and give. Her plumped glossy pink lips tasted like wet cherry, tasted like all of the hopes and dreams of what the future should be.

After a long moment they broke apart. When they did there seemed to be an enchantment carried by lapping tide, the night air, and the impossible love that the human and cyborg felt when they looked at one another. They didn't take even a split second to let John catch his breath. Almost immediately, he wrapped his arms around the ballerina's waist, her arms slid around his neck. They crushed against one another. John's maturity of body and spirit showed when he lifted the killing machine off her feet. He spun her in a circle just once like he always did. When they halted he buried his face in the crook of her neck with a smile. The girl looked satisfied, pushing her head against his.

There was something intoxicating, exhilarating, and potent proof about the forbidden nature of their love. It was the week's longing, the quiet traded looks across the table, quick kiss in the shed, holding hands in the bathroom for just a moment or two before Sarah passed by with the laundry. All of it building over days and sleepless night to that final moment when they could take refuge in their secret meeting place, to be together. To have just an hour or two to wrap themselves in a lifetime's worth of love.

They kissed again, it was shorter this time, their lips smacking as they broke apart. Golden eyes watched as John buried his face in her chest, breathing in the scent of her sweet perfume. Her slender fingers threaded through his hair watching her lover with an unreadable expression. John never now how deep and satisfying the belonging and purpose of this moment was as it flashed through each wire and processor in her one of kind chip.

BUZZ!

BUZZ!

The cyborg's head snapped like a bird of prey to John's jacket pocket as it buzzed. She looked back down to John who placed a kiss against the peachy skin of her chest, seeming to ignore it. "John …" She alerted him. He shook his head.

"Let it ring." He muttered into her skin.

BUZZ!

BUZZ!

"John." She replied again, looking down at him. "It could be important." She nagged, but allowing him to capture the supple skin of her throat between his lips.

"It could be mom telling me to get dinner." He kissed her cheek.

But before he could capture her lips again the girl craned her head back away from him. She didn't say a word, just tightened her cheek as her golden eyes met his disapprovingly.

BUZZ!

BUZZ!

With a long sigh, he kissed her soft throat again and set her back down into the sand. With one hand he retrieved his phone, with the other he continued to hold her close. As he answered, he shot an incredulous glare at his companion as she watched with anticipation. He was met with a beeping combination of code, to which he matched accordingly.

"John?"

"Yeah, mom …" the minute he heard the tone in her dark brooding voice he shot daggers at Cameron. Seeing that glare, the girl innocently looked away. Her hands clutching his old battle damaged black field jacket in her grip, taking in its familiar must.

"Where are you?"

"The pier." He leaned down and smelled Cameron's hair as she listened to the phone conversation attentively.

"You're with your friend, Horace?"

John glared. "Don't get cute. You knew the name of my second grade teacher's mistress." He chastised. At this Cameron twitched in eyebrow in interest. John kissed it.

"I didn't trust her."

"You didn't have too, if he was hiding her from his wife, odds are mom, that he's not going to bring her to school."

"I don't like secrets …"

At the admission, both John and Cameron shared a dependent look. For just a moment John felt ashamed of the game the two of them were playing with the family. If his mother or uncle knew what they were doing, it could get more than ugly. It could get very deadly. He knew that Cameron was in his head, when she attempted to take a step back. John didn't let her.

"It wasn't your secret to know." He argued as if they were talking about something else completely. To prove the sentiment he pressed Cameron anew to his chest, kissing the top of his lover's head.

"Anyone who is in our life, I make it my business to know."

John grinded his teeth and was about to respond to a clearly baiting authoritative tone Sarah used. But before he could answer, Cameron touched his chest. She gave a shake of her head. As an infiltrator she could easily pick up on voices and pitches. She knew almost immediately that Sarah was starting to become suspicious. John gave a long and agitated sigh into the phone, a slender hand resting on his heart as it thumped hard in anger in his ribs.

"John?"

He reached out and cupped Cameron's cheek, rubbing a thumb over her solid cheek bone. "Yeah …" He was only momentarily distracted by the contact, addicted to just being able to touch her.

"I know that you're with your friend, but I need you to come pick me up. I'm in Burbank."

John frowned separating from Cameron at the admission in alarm. "What the hell are you doing so far out there?" He asked in confusion.

"John, I need you to come get me."

Sarah Connor sounded uncharacteristically harsh over the line. The attitude she hit him with made her son defensive. "Why didn't you call Derek?" He asked hotly looking to Cameron longingly. Deep down he had a feeling their hard won, and long anticipated time together was slipping away like the tide at her feet.

"He's stuck at the house … Cameron took the truck this morning, and we don't know where she's gone."

He wished he hadn't, but the youth rounded on the cyborg immediately. John trusted her, he really did. But in the back of his mind he couldn't help but ask the old questions that often plague him. Where had she been all day? And what was she doing?

Sensing the suspicion Cameron reached out and traced John's temple. The soft, and strategic feeling of her slender fingers on him was like sunlight parting the threatening storm clouds in his mind. He let out a long sigh in her touch.

"I'm sure she'll show up." He smirked knowingly, turning his head into her open palm.

"I'm sure …"

With all his will he tried to make time for the feeling he didn't want to give up in Cameron's arms. But suddenly a question began forming in his mind that he couldn't shake. "If I have the Jeep and Cameron the truck … how did you get to …?" He started.

"John Connor, I won't tell you again … Now!"

He rolled his eyes. "I get it!" He snarked with a vicious snap. It was the first time in months John actually sounded like a normal teenager. He shut the phone with a clap and entertained Cameron with the frustrated motion of attempting to throw it into the sea. When he was done he sighed, and returned to Cameron who greeted him with a consolatory kiss. He buried her into his chest with a tight squeeze.

For a time they were quiet. John closed his eyes, absorbing everything around him. He could hear the sound of the gentle waves lapping close, the smell of the evening, the chill of Cameron's bare skin. For just a moment he held the girl too close, took too much of her into his heart. It made him sick, made him weakened in the knees knowing that they were out of time and yet, he couldn't let her go.

"We should go, John." The girl pressed her forehead to her peer's.

Emerald eyes welled with tears at the phrase. He shook his head, his eyes closed. "It's not enough time … they didn't give us enough time." Who "they" were was up for debate, Sarah and Derek, or the powers that be. Life seemed hard enough as it was living and sleeping under a time bomb that so few people knew was about to go off. But to live everyday under the same roof with the one you love and not be able to touch her, to hold her … Some mornings left John sore and aching.

Just when he was ready to resist the notion of leaving this spot till death, two hands reached up and framed his stubbled cheek. Dark, tormented eyes opened to find Cameron watching him with just a hint of sympathy. "There's next weekend and every one after that." She comforted. The emotionless, steady, unwavering assured statement gave the youth just enough strength to let go.

Fingers intertwined, the two teens returned to light from under the darkened remains of an old pier. They walked slowly back to their separate vehicles. The lovers savored the last moments of looking out over the shimmering water, reflecting the moonlight as they tarried hand in hand.

In the distance a tall silhouette stood against the back drop of glimmering city lights, concrete, glass, and metal. The figure was unseen as he watched the secret lovers retreat back into the moonlit beach as the boy halted their departure to catch one last glimpse at the silvery orb that lay parallel to the water line as if it was being raised from the oceans depths. A single grimy boot was perched on the retaining apex of the sea wall while shadowy eyes looked heavy and haunted as they watched the teens. From a coat pocket of beaten leather the man brought to light a pocket watch looped around a chain of tarnished silver. The old talisman seemed to have seen its better days many years ago. Scrapes and age was beaten all over the thick protective cover. Carbon scoring and fire scorches obscured the fine craftsmanship.

Thick grown out raven curls fluttered in the breeze. The moonlight highlighted a thin diagonal facial scar across one of two emerald eyes that watched as the boy brought the girl toward him with one last parting kiss. The two figures cast large shadows against the white washed sea wall as they came together. The man above lowered his head at the sight and closed the old pocket watch in a fist emotionally.

He gave the lovers one last longing gaze as they departed their separate ways into the night. When they were gone he looked out toward the horizon.

It was the feeling of the metal against his palm, the salty wind through standing buildings, and the sight of two opposite beings that should be enemies in the embrace of a secret, but true love. And it was this place, this glimmering, ugly skyline. As he slipped back into the shadows, he could feel all of this time period, in the air, in the taste of his mouth, and in the smell of the night. In them was every forgotten memory and emotion that crowd around him and filled him with a reminder of an old vow sworn long ago.

Like it was yesterday.