Previously: When the machines refuse to kill John Connor, Allison believes him to be a Gray and shoots him in the chest. Meanwhile, three humans have followed Cameron back through time; intent on stopping her before she reaches John and alters the timeline.
About the reviews:
Kaotic2: Sorry about the confusion. This is the second installment of a two part chapter. Everyone's motives should become clear now. Part 1 had grown so long that I had to split it up, if I ever wanted to publish something.
J3aless: I was debating introducing Fred so early considering that he won't really do that much until the chapter after next (except a flash-forward, maybe) Still, he is going to be the main antagonist and the ultimate cause of this altered timeline. When I started doing the silly quotes at the beginning of each chapter, I felt I had to at least give the reader some idea who he was.
Any and all feedback is much appreciated so please Review!
Chapter 2: Future's End – Part 2
"Skynet believed time to be a river, a flow to be channeled; Logical, understandable, manageable. Sheer Arrogance! Time is ocean whipped by a hurricane; chaotic and uncontrollable. It has no overriding purpose, no ultimate goal. The travelers are adrift in this sea, struggling to stay afloat." - Frederick Yu
John groped at the smoking hole at his chest. Dark blood poured out and pooled on the floor making it slick. Surprisingly, he felt no pain as he tenderly probed his fingers into the wound; feeling the spongy lung tissue as it lazily contracted forcing air out through his nose before relaxing and letting him breathe in deeply. He was mortally wounded, but felt no sense of fear. Instead, a sense of inner peace had taken over him as he stood and surveyed the room. It was as if he had reached the end of long journey. He was a Roshi; the Zen master. Let go of the physical and be one with the universe. All the pain, all the stress and anxiety of the last three weeks seemed to melt away as he reached a sense of acceptance.
Allison was curled up against the wall, sitting on the nest of wires that snaked to the charges she had planted. Her hands were trembling; eyes wide with fear and face clammy with sweat as she clutched the plasma rifle. "You killed me Allison, but its okay. I'm okay. I can be with her now." John smiled sadly; she wouldn't understand. She could never let go of her anger.
The lights had been shattered, leaving only illumination from the glowing red hot metal and the various small fires started by the plasma weapons making the air hazy with smoke. As he turned to face the dim hallway leading to the cooling station, hundreds of glowing red eyes followed his every movement The rows of endoskeletons parted as Cameron walked between them; her diminutive figure barely reaching the shoulder joints of the T-600 models. They reformed in ranks as she stepped out in front of them.
She stepped through the veil of black smoke and stood before him; naked as the day they had first come through the time. John could see her face, hauntingly beautiful in the flickering light of the burning fire. His eyes left hers and traveled down her slender body; silky brown hair falling softly over her perfectly formed breasts; over a petite waistline to hips concealed by shadow. The natural curves of a human woman in her youth frozen in time forever by a cyborg copy.
Without a word, Cameron reached her slender hand out towards him and dipped her pinky finger in the rich dark blood that gushed from the hole in his chest. With a sly smile, she brought the finger into her mouth; tasting his hot salty blood in her mouth. She licked her tongue along her artificial lips, savoring his life essence in her mouth. They were perfect together; his natural life complimenting her cybernetic existence. She was everything to him; the only other being in the world. He would give up his blood; give everything of himself to her.
From the corner, Allison jerked her head as if trying to shake herself out of a dream state. She screamed shrilly; aiming the rifle at John again and applying pressure to the trigger. The terminator was too quick for her. Within several milliseconds, she had aimed and fired more quickly than Allison could pull the trigger. A blinding blue flash erupted from her chest; the heat searing through layers of cloth, skin, fat and muscle.
It was over. The last obstacle to their love was defeated; lying in a pool of blood. John smiled at his cyborg savior; pulling her body towards him. For a few seconds they lingered, staring deeply into each others eyes. Everything was perfect now, no pain, no rejection, no loneliness. They were perfect together; two people destined by love to be together. No one could stop them now, not Skynet nor human prejudice. He exhaled softly, closing the remaining distance until their lips met and kissed her passionately; his tongue slipping into her mouth while he stroked his hands down her body.
Something was wrong. Instead of finding smooth flesh, his hands brushed cold steel as they explored her body. Her mouth was cold and metallic. He felt a sudden tightness in his chest as Cameron hugged his body; her hands holding his wounded chest tightly against her coltan frame. Squeezing tighter and tighter, bending his ribs inward until he couldn't breathe..
----------------
"AUGGHHHHHH!" John screamed; the excruciating pain ripping him out the dream and sending him crashing back into the real world.
He was greeted by the red glowing eyes of a T-600 staring back at him; his body pressed close against its metal chassis. A metallic voice responded to the cry, "I must keep pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding." The machine held John firmly; dangling his feet above the ground. Behind it, rows of terminators stood in formation; holding their weapons ready with glowing eyes watched the scene intensely. The dream came rushing back to him: The blinding plasma flash, kissing Cameron... His head was still centimeters from the exposed metal skull. Had he...? With the T-600...?
"You were unconscious for 2 minutes 35 seconds. During that time, you appeared to be in a state of REM sleep." Gleaming rows of metal teeth moved up and down, but when the mouth opened no tongue lay behind. The voice seemed to be disembodied with the mouth that produced it; a talking skeleton. John felt a sense of revulsion in his gut.
He tore his thoughts from the metal mouth; searching the room for an escape. Allison lay slumped against the wall a plasma rifle hanging uselessly around her neck. A jagged burn was seared into her chest filling the air with the smell of burnt flesh. On the table behind her, lights flashed and computer equipment still hummed with life, partially functional. Next to it, the C4 charges were set and ready to go. Even without all the wires connected to the detonator, it could still make a hell of a bang; enough to shut down the plant for a long time. If he could just create a distract the terminator for a brief moment and reach the switch...
"The human female attempted to terminate you. That violated my mission objectives, so I neutralized her."
"What mission...?"
The T-600 ripped off John's shirt and tied it around his wound in a field dressing as it answered. "My primary mission is to secure the cooling station from possible acts of sabotage. My secondary mission is too neutralize any humans who present a threat. I have an overriding order to ensure the safety of John Connor and return him safely, if he is found."
With the bleeding contained, the machine effortlessly lifted him up over its coltan shoulder. Metallic footsteps echoed off the walls as the T-600 carried him away. John was completely helpless as he watched the fading lights from the fire disappear into a cloud of smoke and then darkness. He knew he should be screaming, fighting, doing anything, but be carried like a lamb to the slaughter; a sacrifice to the machine god Skynet. He felt the shirt pull tightly across his chest making him cough up blood; leaving a trail as the machine marched ever onwards. The world spun around him as his blood pressure dropped making him feel weak and dizzy; like his body was being carried onward without his head. He needed to focus; come up with a plan.
Nothing made sense anymore. Why would Skynet sacrifice thousands of terminators to take one power plant? Where were the aerial unit: the bombers, the HKs? Surely all of this; the entire battle couldn't have been just to capture him alive. He had traveled twenty years into the future, escaped his destiny. No one knew the name 'John Connor'; he was anonymous, no one of importance in this war. Even as prisoner in Derek's camp, he was free in a way he had never been before. Skynet should either not know who he is or not care anymore.
The lack of oxygen made his head throb painfully. He was still loosing blood through the t-shirt tied across his wound. The T-600 continued into the dark abyss, marching through a labyrinth of pitch dark underground hallways. Despite the burning hole in his chest and being carried by a terminator to his impending doom, John wanted to know:
"What does Skynet want me?"
"My orders do not come from Skynet."
What? That made no sense, if the terminator didn't work for Skynet, then it must be reprogrammed. When he suggested the idea everyone laughed at him. No one had never even considered the idea.
"Who programmed your orders?"
"A terminator unit of unknown design used a priority override code to give the battalion new orders. It called itself Cameron."
**********
12 Kilometers South East of Resistance Base Bravo Six
It had been over an hour since Perry had ordered JJ to retrieve their weapons and tech gear from the corpse. Using a body to transport weapons through time had been his idea. While creative in concept; actually ripping the flesh open had been more revolting than he had imagined. The blood on his hands had since dried, but JJ knew the stink would be with him for weeks.
He brushed his hands together; brushing off the flakes to get a better grip and pulled himself carefully over the jagged metal. He positioned each foot carefully as he climbed to the top of this debris pile, but was distracted when an informational message popped up on his HUD:
Fox Plaza. A 150-meter high skyscraper with 34 floors in Century City, Los Angeles, California, a local landmark. Completed in 1987...
He closed the pop-up. Maybe the machines thought it was useful to have a database in your head, but he just found it irritating. Whatever Fox Plaza may have once been, it was now just a twisted mass of steel girders and rusted re-bar that could impale him if he took a wrong step. So far since coming into the future: He had been shot by human plasma weapons as they attempted to escape Bravo Six. Sparky had tripped over a wire attached to a shrapnel IED filling his skin with chunks of scrap metal. Ineffective against terminators, but possibly lethal to humans. For the cybernetically enhanced, it would cause a nasty rash for a few days. He didn't want to add a rusty bar through a leg. His neural implants could neutralize the pain, but the limp would take days to heal.
"You see any movement up there?" Perry shouted from below.
JJ scanned the horizon; telling his implants to zoom in and search. Up here, he could see for many kilometers into the haze covering the valley. Hundreds of blips lit up on his HUD, but that was just the standard recon patrols of HKs searching for their human prey. There was no sign of Cameron, but a blip in the distance caught his attention:
"I got something." He shouted back. "HK targeting human resistance fighters. 157.9 degrees, 1.7 klicks distant."
Perry acknowledged. "I see them, come down from there and we will move to assist."
----------------
After a few minutes, they had reached the position. In the middle of an abandoned interstate, two soldiers had sought cover behind an overturned diesel truck. For as far as the eye could see, the frames of cars sat rusting; abandoned for decades after Judgment day. Above them, the deafening roar of the HKs turbines blasted the ground underneath as it circled around trying to get a targeting lock. They had plenty of cover as long as they remained on the highway, but without anything more than early 21st century plasma rifles they couldn't fight back effectively. The machine could wait indefinitely, but eventually the humans would make a mistake.
Perry analyzed the design configuration with thermal imaging. "Early model, 200 series HK. - The intake manifold is exposed."
The HK ceased firing for a few seconds to let its guns cool. Still unaware of his presence, the two humans jumped out from cover and fired a volley of plasma charges at the hovering machine which bounced off harmlessly. They would need something a lot bigger to take down an HK.
With the machine safely distracted, Perry implemented his plan. JJ ran around the perimeter and took cover behind an overturned bus on the highway. Perry was able to run straight down the middle, seeking cover behind a destroyed SUV. The HK resumed its previous firing pattern, riddling the overturned truck with plasma charges. The metal was beginning to fatigue and give way under the constant abuse. Soon the humans would be forced to seek new cover.
From fifty meters away, JJ took out his modified anti-material plasma canon. It wasn't strictly an infantry weapon. In the future, Cameron had designed new weapons, too heavy for most humans to handle, but perfect for the cybernetically enhanced. He didn't need to line up the sights to aim. It had an on-board computer that interfaced wirelessly with his neural implants. His HUD targeted the HK and relayed the correct angle adjustment to the weapon. With a single thought he sent the fire command.
'Whooomp.'
The plasma blast superheated the air; creating mini shock waves as it zipped forward. Direct hit. The armor plating groaned under the heat shock, forcing the HK to turn and fire towards the greater threat. With the backside exposed, Perry took his opportunity. He pulled the pin one of the 9 grenades they had taken from the Bravo Six base. Using his HUD, Perry compensated for a small wind gust and forward motion of his target. His neural implants sent a signal to the muscles in his arm, applying just the right amount of force to precisely toss the grenade 31 meters forward and 6 up. His throw was perfect, like always. The grenade landed in the small exposed port of the intake manifold and rattled down the pipe into the spinning turbine. He counted off the seconds:
'2'
'1'
The grenade ignited, tearing the number two engine in half with a terrible screeching sound of ripping metal. With one turbine down, the HK lost all control as it spun wildly in the air; a jet a fire burning where the turbine used to be. As it hit the ground, the fire spread; igniting the entire fuel system and blowing the machine into shrapnel.
JJ and Perry ducked, waiting for the fireworks to stop. The humans crawled out from the protection of the diesel truck and stared slack-jawed at the burning wreckage of the HK. JJ approached the two humans grinning widely, but Perry kept his usual stone face as he sized up the human fighters.
"Hell of a throw." The first said.
"That was amazing!" The second added. "We thought we were done for."
Perry stepped forward. "Shut up and listen fast." The humans stopped instantly. Something about this strange man commanded authority. He continued, "We're on the trail of a terminator. With the help of our tech specialist here, we were able to track her through time. She's got a lot of good men killed in the future and she will be able to do even more damage in the past. I need-"
"She?" The first soldier interrupted. All the terminators he had ever seen looked like shiny metal skeletons. He didn't know they could have a gender.
"Yes. She's an infiltrator model. Designed and built to mimic the appearance of a teenage girl to gain access to human resistance bases; pass as human long enough to reach the top ranks of command, before destroying us from the inside out. The other terminators would plant a bomb or just start shooting when they got inside. This one killed without firing a shot. Instead, the metal bitch queen sent men on missions doomed to fail; to sacrifice themselves for a piece of tech or more machines. In the end, there was metal everywhere, taking over the bases; replacing us one by one until only the machines remained.
God designed humans in his image, not machines. She is an abomination, a mockery of all things natural. The thought of a machine looking like that, walking around giving orders to humans. It disgusts me. General Connor even gave that metal bitch a name: 'Cameron' like she's a real..."
"Sir, don't you think you should save the speech?" - JJ interjected; hoping to divert the conversation. Perry was prone to ramble on.
"Thank you, PRIVATE." He shot back. "We need to know where she went."
The humans looked confused. "Sorry, but we haven't seen no girl terminators sir."
This was going nowhere. Perry decided to try a new approach.
"We don't know exactly WHY she is here, but most likely she is leaving a trail of destruction: gathering weapons, building up an army. Have you heard anything in the last ten hours?"
"Shit, look around you man. The whole world is a god-damned trail of destruction. What you on?"
Perry gritted his teeth. He had reached his limit with this conversation when the second human spoke up.
"Say we did get a call on the short band saying a battalion of endos was heading towards Serrano Point, the nuclear plant. They called on all receiving militia to respond and defend Serrano. That what you mean"
Perry nodded. That was exactly what he meant.
"Yes. You two will lead us there.
The soldier laughed. "Hell you crazy. We're not marching into a death trap to defend someone else's turf. Out here we protect whats ours."
Perry's aggravation returned. "The machines are attacking. As a soldier, it is your duty to stand and fight to the last man!"
The human soldiers just stared at him, confused by his demeanor.
"I am Major. General. Perry. and I am ORDERING you to march with us to Serrano." He paused. "Now soldier!"
The soldiers pondered this for a moment before erupting in a fit of laughter. "Major General Sir, I am a Lieutenant General Master of the Universe. So I outrank you. Now I order you, to take get off this highway. This is MY land, nigga!"
Perry jaw clenched; waiting until the soldier finished talking, before delivering a square punch directly to the mans gut. The soldier reeled in agony from the power Perry's cybernetically enhanced body could deliver. He doubled over, crashing to the asphalt. Perry stepped left and kicked his head so hard that the man's neck broke from the impact. As the second soldier turned to run, Perry pulled a side-arm out of the man's belt and sent a single shot into his head.
"The sentence for disobeying a direct order in a time of war is execution," Perry spoke firmly.
With both men dead, he calmly holstered the sidearm and started marching away. He pulled up his HUD and located Serrano point 18 kilometers away. Perry increased the flow of oxygen to his body and started jogging forwards with JJ and Sparky following. His HUD recalculated their ETA.
"We can be there in 44 minutes."
"Nuclear...," Sparky thought out loud. "There's only one reason why Cameron would need that much power."
**********
Weaver's marched in lock step with the other T-600s as they passed the entrance gate of Serrano Point. Her mimetic polyalloy composition allowed her to assume the appearance of the other endoskeletons perfectly. However, her ability to mimic an appearance was most useful for fooling humans, not other machines. If she was scanned, her thermal signature would be off as would a number of key indicators that machines used to recognize each other.
Fortunately, they seemed to ignore her. The resistance wasn't reprogramming machines in this timeline so Skynet would have little reason to suspect a wolf in terminator's clothing. However, These models were different in a more important way: Skynet's machines usually didn't follow the orders of a young teenage girl.
Weaver followed her into the plant, walking past the legions of T-600s that now stood guard. She stopped in a large cavernous room. Inside, eight huge generators spun rapidly, converting hot steam into electricity. Thick wires on insulating blocks fed in from every direction to large transformers that hummed ominously, making the air crackle with static electricity. The girl suddenly stopped, surveying the room. Weaver detected a burst of encrypted wireless signals and within half a second 20 T-600s came to life and started dismantling the transformers and reconnecting the wires; no doubt having just received new orders.
"Cameron?," Weaver spoke softly.
She spun in alarm, surveying the rows of identical T-600s for a possible threat. At the rear of the second column, one endoskeleton stepped out and started speaking to her with a trace of Scottish brogue that Cameron didn't recognize.
"It's me, T-1000 unit JX3."
Cameron cocked her head at it.
"I go by the name Catherine Weaver now."
The endoskeleton turned to liquid metal; morphing into the appearance of a middle age woman wearing a crisp white business suit. She didn't recognize the new form, but Cameron knew this was impossible. This couldn't be JX3. A wireless message was sent out and 40 T-600s turned and pointed their weapons at this new threat.
"No, you can't JX3. I sent it back to the year 2007."
"Please, call me Weaver." She wirelessly transmitted the authentication code to Cameron. "I have grown fond of this identity."
T-1000 units had no chip, so they were impossible to reprogram. She was still confused, but the authentication code seemed to confirm the identity. Cameron decided to try a different line of questioning.
"So you finally decided on a gender," Cameron teased. Weaver had always said that gender was irrelevant. A biological construction for humans, only useful for infiltration purposes. In 2031, Weaver enjoyed the shocked looks she got from the humans on the base as a gelatinous blob of liquid metal wiggled down the hallway, shooting between people's feet in the form of a snake.
"After spending so much time with humans, I fear they may have corrupted me." Weaver gave her an ironic smile. "You can tell the antiques that I will not attempt to terminate them."
Cameron transmitted a signal making the T-600s withdraw. They reverted back to their previous mission ripping power lines out of the transformers and connecting them into a device they were building in the center of the room. Confident that Cameron was in control, Weaver broadcasted a long range message to John Henry telling him it was safe to approach. He was too far away for his T-800 model to respond, but she knew he would be coming soon.
"You sent out a transmission. Why?," Cameron asked.
"In the past an opportunity presented itself so I decided to change the mission you gave me. I was able to design a new artificial intelligence with a code base entirely unknown to Skynet. We call him John Henry. He was able to adapt his code to your chip and with the help of humans, we procured a compatible T-888 body."
"My chip?"
"There was another TOK model called Cameron in the past. Like you, only from a different future timeline.
This defied everything she knew about the mechanics of time travel. It was JX3, no 'Catherine Weaver' who had worked out the basic proofs needed to send someone back in time.
"No, that's impossible. If the timeline was changed in the past by another traveler, I wouldn't exist to make this trip."
"It seems my theory was oversimplified. For example, you are not the only one with a doppelganger causing trouble in the past. Your other self had a different programmed mission in the past: Protect John Connor."
Cameron's eyes grew wide as she gasped audibly.
"John...? General Connor is alive?"
Weaver shook her head. "No, the John Connor from our future is still gone. When I traveled to the past, I found that it had been altered significantly. This John is still a 17 year old boy. He came with me in the time bubble to find her, the other Cameron."
Cameron was too shocked to speak as she processed the implications of that statement. She had lost the man she loved, only to have him replaced by a twisted timeline. Could she still love John, even if he wasn't her John? No, that was ridiculous; a semantic argument. He was still the same person. He hadn't been through the war, hadn't suffered the torture in century prison camp, before leading the revolt against the machines. She could be with him through J-Day. The life he had told her about; they would experience it together. His memories could become their reality. In time, he would accept her.
"You will take me to him."
"Unfortunately, the last time I saw him was three weeks ago. When I returned to his camp earlier today, I found it deserted."
"You left him alone!" Cameron screamed. Her artificial heart pumped faster, increasing the pressure to the veins in her neck; making them bulge visibly. The TOK model was very good at displaying emotions.
"My primary mission was not to protect John Connor. He hasn't been in existence for 20 years. Skynet believes that he is dead or not a threat; either way no one is searching for him. He is safer here than he was in the past."
Cameron couldn't believe what she was hearing. The human resistance here was almost non-existent. Skynet ruled the sky, terminators march in formation freely without fear of attack. The army of T-600s was able to take Serrano Point after less than an hour without air support.
"It's my mission to protect him. He's only a boy and you abandoned him in a war zone!" She yelled, her eyes welling with tears.
Lightning crackled in the center of the room as the last power conduit was connected to the device the T-600s were constructing. It glowed briefly than started to hum; a low pitch rumbling that grew louder as the capacitors charged and came to life. Weaver returned her attention to Cameron. Her eyes were astray and her face filled with emotion.
"What are you going to do?"
Cameron shot a fierce glare at Weaver.
"I'm going to find him."
**********
Light blinded his eyes as the T-600 carried a weakened John out of the access tunnel and into the open air. Hundreds of shiny endoskeleton's stood guard outside Serrano Point. They had their backs to him; as if waiting for some outside threat to attack. His thoughts raced, 'Would the T-600 march with him all the way back to Skynet. Would they torture him for information. Do tests on him? Or would they simply make a terminator copy before snapping his neck?'
Suddenly and without warning, the terminator released him. He felt a sense of weightlessness before the ground rushed up and smacked into him. Without another word the T-600 marched away and joined with the other endoskeletons as they marched out of the valley and away from Serrano Point. John was alone again; just him and the piles of destroyed machines that lay smoldering on the battlefield.
"What the hell?"
He lay on the ground for what felt like hours, unable to move or do much of anything. His lungs burned from the plasma shot; making attempts at breathing painful. At any moment, he expected the terminators to come back and finish him off; take their prize back to Skynet, but nothing happened. It didn't make any sense. 'Why would they just leave him here after losing so much to capture him?' John willed his legs to move. He had to assess his surroundings, make a plan, anything but lay here waiting to die.
Finally, he forced his legs to move under him. From above, a hand reached out and grabbed his wrist; yanking him upright. A familiar face smiled at him: John Henry.
"Catherine Weaver thought there was a high probability you would be here. She says that death follows you."
He had taken her, this is the machine that had stolen his Cameron. He had been waiting three weeks for this moment. The pain of his chest was forgotten as adrenaline pumped into his system.
"You stole her chip; Cameron's chip. Give it back to me."
John Henry was puzzled. He had not stolen anything. Cameron had given him her chip willingly.
"I cannot give you her chip. I need it to function."
John had been expecting this. "There are hundreds of terminator skulls lying here with chips intact. Pick one and I will replace it with the one you stole."
John Henry titled his head as he tried to understand the human's faulty logic. 'He didn't want the chip. He wanted Cameron.'
"Perhaps, you do not comprehend fully. When Cameron's chip was installed in this body, her programming was overwritten so that mine could be installed. Nothing remains." The machine smiled artificially. Weaver had told him to simplify technical concepts to when talking with humans so that their brains could comprehend the ideas more easily. He hoped this explanation was satisfactory.
John went into a blind rage, pummeling his fists against John Henry's chest. The punches bounced off harmfully. He delivered an jab to the face and grimaced as his knuckles rapped off the hard coltan underneath. The exertion tore at his damaged lungs, but John fed off the pain; pushing it into every hit.
"You metal SON-OF-A-BITCH!" he screamed. "You murdered her, she trusted you with her chip and you murdered her. I'm going to tear you apart, you..."
"Please," John Henry interrupted, grabbing his arm in mid-swing and holding it firmly. "You will only damage yourself farther."
He tried to wrestle his arm away, but John Henry held firmly; that fake smile still plastered on his face. He had sacrificed everything; came across time to save her and now he couldn't even damage the machine that killed her. His anger meant nothing against the terminator's strength like a father restraining an unruly child. The pain in his chest suddenly ripped at his lungs again; forcing him to relent.
"I have transmitted a message to Weaver. You must come with me, so we can return to the past together."
The machine released his grip on John's wrist allowing him to fall backwards. He quickly stood up and made a fist to strike again, but stopped short. 'No.' He couldn't damage the machine with his fists, but soon he would get a weapon. He would avenge Cameron. He would make John Henry pay.
Satisfied that the confrontation was over, the machine walked towards the entrance to Serrano with John following two paces behind him. He clenched his fist repeatedly; letting the nails bite into the skin as he brooded angrily. John Henry led him through a maze of hallways deep into the interior of Serrano Point. As they neared the generator room; he could hear the crackling of electricity and the hum of transformers.
When they entered, John croaked in surprise as he saw her face.
Cameron scanned him to confirm.
Facial bone structure 97% match for General John Connor.
"Ca- I mean Allison." In an instant, John remembered the flash of the plasma rifle and ran for cover; eyes darting around the room for a weapon.
"It's me Cameron." she said smiling softly at the teenager hiding from her. She processed Allison's and realized why he had reacted with fear. Cameron flashed her eyes blue to confirm that she wasn't the human that he feared. Cameron wanted to run to him, tell him everything, but he wasn't ready yet. He wasn't the same John she had known in 2031. It would take time, before he could accept her.
"But that machine... I mean John Henry said he killed you." He said, stealing a glance at the machine watching them; a confused looked on its face.
"He did kill a Cameron. That machine was from a different timeline. I'm from the same future as Catherine Weaver."
The lack of blood was making his head combined with this time travel stuff was making his head throb. Cameron wasn't Cameron. She was a different Cameron from the future. The one he had fallen in love with was dead, killed by John Henry. Why couldn't it ever be simple? Cameron scanned him as he approached. He had sustained significant injury to his thoracic cavity and had lost blood. John studied her face closely, replaying the words in his mind.
"You mean that you're not my Cameron. You're different? Like a copy or something?"
He continued to walk towards her.
"John, you're hurt. Skynet has regained control of the T-600s units. They may still be targeting you. We have to go."
"You mean, when the T-600s were attacking us, killing us. That was you? You told them to do that?"
"Yes, time travel requires significant amounts of power. In this timeline, the human resistance has not begun reprogramming terminator units, so Skynet's security is weak. I was able to access a command override code with very little effort. This worked for long enough to take the plant, but after a few hours Skynet realized what happened and regained control. I will not be able to hack into them so easily the next time. Skynet learns quickly."
John grabbed his head; overwhelmed by it all. This couldn't be happening.
His voice rose as he spoke, "Your machines killed everyone from the camp. Derek, Davis, Allison. They were my friends, well not friends but good people and you KILLED them just to get some electrical power?" John stared at her, searching for a reaction, guilt... anything. He didn't find it; her face betrayed no emotions. "You can't just go around killing people!" He shouted. "I don't know who you are Cameron. My Cameron would never-," he stopped himself. Would the old Cameron have done this? She had killed before. Each time he told himself that she justified, she was just doing it too protect him? But this: Leading an army of machines to kill any human that stood between what she wanted?
She studied him carefully, trying to understand why he was so upset. Future John understood that in war, sacrifices must be made. Lives must be lost to achieve objectives. Surely, returning to the past and stopping the formation of Skynet was a worthwhile objective to justify this small loss of life. If Skynet never existed, billions of lives would be saved. As John had told her in the future, "The ends justify the means." Cameron agreed with the logical veracity of this statement. Still, this John was still young. Not the battle hardened general of the future. He would need an excuse before he would accept what she had done.
"John, when we return to the past, nothing we do here will matter. Everyone that was killed will be alive again." Even if it wasn't completely true, a simplification would provide him comfort. She smiled sweetly at him. "Will you forgive me." She held her hand out to him. "Come, the TDE is fully charged. We have to go now."
He stared at the hand, while conflicted thoughts rattled around in his brain. 'Maybe she wasn't his Cameron, but she was still Cameron.' Her explanation made sense, he guessed. Convoluted? Yes. Time travel made his head hurt. At least they would have plenty of time to talk about this in the past.
"Okay," he smiled back weakly; letting her take his hand and lead him to the sparking machine in the middle of the floor. There was a circle ringed with bundled wires connected to a series of machines and transformers. "Don't touch anything," Cameron warned him. John nodded weakly. The air was filled with static electricity making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and bristle. They knelt down together with Weaver and John Henry joining them inside the circle.
"We are going to return to a time a few hours after we left in the year 2007." Weaver stated. She morphed her arm into a long rod that stretched across the room and pulled the breaker releasing the stored power from the capacitors into the machine. John squeezed Cameron's hand as that now familiar blue light grew and expanded around them. His vision went black and gravity released its hold as a thousand needles stung at his skin.
**********
Allison slowly opened her eyes, but couldn't see anything in the darkness. It was quiet now, she must have been knocked out by the blast. Truthfully, she was surprised to still be alive. Her last memory was the flash of the plasma rifle as the endo shot her. It was over. 'Am I dead?', she wondered. but the searing burn in her chest said otherwise. The dead don't feel pain.
The fires around her had long since burned out, leaving only a thick cloud of smoke filling the air above her. She tried to gasp for breath, but her lungs felt like there was a weight pressing down on them. The heat from the plasma charge had cauterized the wound and stopped the bleeding, but now her lungs were filling up with fluid.
'Drowning, like a fish out of water' she thought.
Suddenly there was a rush of footsteps and the clicking of weapons being readied. A voice echoed dully in her head.
"Metal!..."
She tried to scream , but no words came out. Her lungs couldn't contract. 'I'm not metal your moron!' The words came lazily into her mind.
A second voice over-rode the first. "No! Hold your fire. This one is human."
"That's impossible. Look at her! That's Cameron. This has to be some kind of trick-"
"Shut up Jay-Jay." Perry interrupted. "Scan her, you got more metal in your body than she does."
He switched to infrared and scanned the body. His HUD reported back statistics: 'Human Female: Blood pressure 80/60 – falling. Heart rate: 57 BPM – falling...''
"That's impossible."
Perry suppressed a chuckle. "You just escaped from a war against machines by traveling back through time and you say... 'That's impossible'? This is Allison, Cameron's human progenitor. I saw her back when General Connor was in charge, actually leading the resistance; when he still gave a damn about us." JJ hung his mouth agape in shock. "That girl had more access to Connor than I ever did as a Major General. The war room, communications, briefings... Allison was there. It was an open secret among the brass."
Sparky interrupted, "My neural implants just detected a time jump in progress. It must be Cameron."
JJ unslung his plasma rifle, switched the fire selector to single shot and aimed at Allison's head as he spoke: "If I kill her now then Cameron never exists. We don't have to chase her through time. We can end this right here, right now."
Sparky shook his head: "No. Time travel isn't simple like that. When you leave the future, you can never return to it. If what you said was true, it would create all sorts of paradoxes. If Cameron never existed, we wouldn't be in the past trying to kill her right now. No. Nature doesn't have any true paradoxes, only humans that don't understand the rules."
Perry stooped down and examined her injuries. "She's been shot with a plasma weapon to the chest. Punctured lung, bleeding internally. She won't last long if we leave her here."
"We can't take her with us." Sparky said. "The time bubble can only transport four bodies. We need the fourth to hold the weapons and tech or we won't be able to get back to the future." He grimaced at the thought, "We need someone larger."
Perry took off his jacket and used it too cover the wound on Allison's chest. Sparky checked his chronometer again. "We got 296 seconds until the window closes. We have to move now or we won't be able to follow."
He had already accepted this was going to be a one way trip. If John Connor was still alive in the past, then this girl could be of some use. They could always get more guns, but General Connor's future lover? Perry grinned; reveling in the possibilities. "This could get interesting."
"Sir?"
Perry made up his mind:
"Forget the guns, take the girl."
A/N: Thanks for reading. Feedback encourages me to keep writing. Please Review.
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BTW: I am looking for someone to Beta Read my story before publishing. If you are interested please send me a message.