In the Hands of an Angry Machine
Chapter Nine: Without Her Consent
A/N: Re-edited for typos.
Derek heard the sharp screech of ripped metal. An instant later came the sound of a rifle shot.
Cameron stood in the doorway for a moment, then toppled over like a felled tree.
In Derek's thirty-two years he'd been through half a hundred gun battles. The shock, the fear that came with the first shot that made lesser men freeze in their tracks -- that had faded away years ago. Derek didn't feel that anymore. No, that wasn't true. He felt it more than most, but the fear worked for him.
Derek didn't freeze. He boiled.
Derek didn't think. He acted.
Grabbing Cameron by the arm, he dragged her back inside. Another round punched a hole through the wall to his right, and tiny fragments of brick and mortar sprayed him in the face. A wooden crate to his left jumped slightly in a cloud of splinters.
He dragged her to the stairway. Another shot. More debris in the air.
Cameron weighed more than he did. Dragging her felt . . . unnatural.
He pulled her down the steps. Out of the line of fire now. Safe. Sort of. His head cleared somewhat. "Why the fuck am I rescuing the metal?" he thought, and almost tripped down the steps.
A shot. He looked up the stairs and saw unsettled dust swirl in the room above. Something landed in his eyes and he rubbed at them.
At the bottom of the steps he squatted on the floor, Cameron in his arms. He spitted out dust and gravel. Two more shots rang out, but he was safe now.
Safe.
Yeah, safe with a machine.
He looked her over. A shallow crevice, about the length of his index finger, ran ragged through the coltan on the right side of her head. The top two thirds of her ear were gone.
Is she going to wake up? Is she going to go bad when she does?
His phone rang. It was Jesse.
Jesus Christ. He flicked it open. "I'm kind of busy right now."
"Is she dead?" said Jesse's voice.
"What?" He felt cold.
"Did I kill her?"
"What the--?" Derek began.
"Is the machine dead?"
"No, I don't . . . I don't know . . . Jesse, why the fu--"
"Why the bloody fuck did you pull it inside?" she asked, her voice almost shrill.
Derek's hand tightened on the phone. "You . . . You bitch! You followed me! I warned you not to fu--"
"Kill it!" Jesse shouted. The tiny speaker distorted the sound.
He looked down at Cameron and wondered how many seconds had passed. Forty-five? Sixty? God damn it. "And why should I do that?" he asked. "Because you fucking told me to?"
"It's to save John," she said. "It's for his own good! That thing will --"
"You killed John!" Derek snapped.
Oops. Way to show your hand there, Derek.
A pause. "Who told you that?"
He hesitated. ". . . Cameron did . . . "
"You'd believe metal?"
"Well, you were plotting with Riley . . . " Or did she? Cameron could've been lying about that too . . .
"Riley was to keep him away from that thing!" Jesse said.
Guess not.
"In my future," she went on. "Cameron is all he'd listen to. She was always by his side. For twenty years. His confidant. His lover!"
"You're lying. John wouldn't . . . " But then Derek thought back to John pulling a gun on his own mother and uncle . . . to protect her -- it. That John and that thing could . . . The fact that it wasn't unthinkable terrified him. His bowels churned.
"He was fucking it!" Jesse continued. "It was fucking with his mind!"
"You fucking bitch!" Derek said into the phone. But Jesse was right. Cameron had already gone bad once. And she was confusing John. Manipulating him. She'd have to go.
"You have to destroy it, Derek!" she urged. "You're running out of time. I'll explain later, I promise."
"All right, all right," Derek said. "You win." He picked up a canister of thermite. "How much time do I have?"
Jesse paused. ". . . a minute?"
A guess. Fucking great.
Derek popped open the thermite and started to pour in out on her. He stopped himself.
But what about Jesse? Was Cameron lying? Jesse? Killing John? It didn't make sense, but if he never found out for sure he knew it would gnaw at him for the rest of his life. He had to know. He must know. And there was only one way to know for sure.
"I was there," Cameron had said.
Derek put down the thermite and pulled out a combat knife from one of the shelves.
"All right, I'm throwing down the thermite," he said as he knelt down and began to cut around the right side of her head. He remembered John had used some computer voodoo shit to read the memories off Vick's chip. Derek didn't have the slightest idea how he was going do that, but he knew it was possible, and if it was possible, he would find a way. Even if he had to force John to do it at gun point.
He had to know.
Have I been fucking John's killer?
Derek put the phone on the floor next to him and wiped sweat from his eyes. Forty seconds left? Thirty? He should have started count at the first shot. And wore a watch.
He could just make out Jesse's voice on the floor. ". . . never killed John! I swear. But I'll tell you what I did kill . . . "
Derek finished cutting a semi-circle around the CPU port. He peeled back the skin with the tip of his knife. Jesse had to be telling the truth. Why would she kill John? It didn't make sense.
". . . John was picking up pieces of its head!" her voice said. He heard crazed laughter. "He was actually crying!"
What the fuck was Jesse raving about? He worked the knife blade under the port cover and began to pry it up. He felt like a little kid doing something naughty. Any second now his mother would come down and catch him red handed. No, not his mother. The machine. She'll rip my throat out.
How much time now? More than thirty seconds, surely. His heart hammered in his chest.
The vacuum seal popped with a hiss.
". . . are you there, Derek? Have you killed it yet?"
"I'm getting a flare," he said as he dragged over a nearby tool chest and opened it, fumbling with the latch. Numb hands pulled out a pair of needle nose pliers. Got to be quick. Only a few seconds left. Twenty-five? Twenty? Maybe? He used to the pliers to grab the insulated end of her chip. He squeezed and gave a light twist.
Nothing.
He tried again, wiggling his hand back and forth. Ten seconds left? He felt like he was about to throw up.
Still nothing. Jammed. The headshot must have screwed up the port.
Shit.
". . . hurry up and kill it!" came Jesse's voice.
"I'm about to," he said, trying to jiggle the chip loose. Any moment now. Oh God.
Screw it. He tightened his grip on the pliers and prepared to jerk and twist wildly, snapping her chip off in her skull.
Cameron's eyes looked into his.
Usually they were blank. Dead. Like a shark.
But now Derek saw fear in them.
He hesitated.
". . . Derek? Are you there?" Jesse said.
The fear turned to anger.
Oh, fuck.
Derek tried to back away, but she moved fast. A small right hand grabbed his own. She squeezed, and he felt bones snap. She twisted, and his wrist made a ripping sound.
He wailed in pain and tried to pull out his Beretta with his left. She bolted up and plowed her hand into his sternum. Something broke, and he flew backwards, crashing into the shelves behind him and slumping to the ground.
". . . What's going on . . . ?" asked Jesse's voice, almost too faint for him to hear.
Lying on his side, Derek tried to push himself up, but the agony in his chest kept him immobile. He took a breath and felt his ribs squeeze the air from his lungs. Something loose shifted inside him. His eyes watered, and Cameron stood over him. He saw what could have been triumph in her eyes. Or hate. He remembered the music. The basement. Those eyes. His face trembled, and he wept.
Above him the shelf began to wobble. Then fall. Canisters of thermite rained down upon his head, and he knew no more.
Cameron came to.
". . . hurry up and kill it!" she heard. Corporal Flores. Her voice sounded distant and electronic. A cell phone?
"I'm about to." Derek's voice said.
Her CPU port was open.
Apprehension.
She looked up and saw Derek. In his hand he held a pair of needle nose pliers.
An irritated sensation.
Derek attempted to withdraw, but Cameron reached out and grabbed his hand. She squeezed, breaking two of his metacarpal bones. She twisted and jerked, and something in his wrist snapped. Ligaments, probably.
Derek screamed in pain and reached behind him, most likely to retrieve a weapon. Cameron rose into a sitting position and struck him in the chest with her palm. His sternum cracked, and he flew backwards and fell into the thermite shelves.
". . . what's going on?" came Jesse's voice from a phone on the ground.
Cameron stood up and watched Derek. His eyes teared with pain. Behind him, the shelves tilted forwards and fell on top of him with a crash. Three canisters of thermite broke open, peppering him with white powder. He appeared unconscious, but she drew her Glock and aimed it at his head, just in case.
". . . Derek? Are you all right?" Jesse asked.
Keeping her gun trained on Derek's head, she knelt down and retrieved her CPU port cover off the ground. She reinserted it and evacuated the air from her chip's chamber. Then she picked up the phone and switched to Derek's voice. "I'm all right," she said. "The machine is destroyed."
"What happened?"
"The machine reactivated," Cameron said. "I pulled it's chip. It's destroyed."
"You said you were using thermite," Jesse said. One silent second passed. "Where did we meet this morning?"
Cameron dropped the phone. Her attempt at deception had failed.
". . . What did you do to Derek? If you hurt him I'll fucking kill you! You fucking . . . "
Jesse sounded psychologically distressed.
From the phone Cameron heard a rifle shot. One-third of a second later came the sound of bricks shattering from the room above. A second after that the report from the gunshot reached her from Jesse's position.
A .50 caliber armor-piercing round, probably fired from a Barrett M82. Two-hundred and fifty to three-hundred yards away. She felt the torn metal on the side of her head. Her hyper-alloy offered inadequate protection.
Another shot.
Jesse must not know Cameron was in the basement. Her shots were ineffective.
Cameron looked down at Derek. Thermite covered his face and chest.
On the shelf to her right sat a box of flares.
No, she decided. Derek needed to be interrogated first. His betrayal didn't make sense. Cameron would have to question him until it did. She pulled him out from under the shelves and lifted him up, slinging him over her shoulder.
Another shot. She heard Jesse screaming obscenities over the phone.
Cameron waited.
Another shot. And another.
Through the phone Cameron heard what she had been waiting for: a faint metallic 'click.' Jesse was out of ammunition.
Still carrying Derek, Cameron raced up the stairs to the room above. Fragmented brick and wood covered the floor. Near the exit door lay her duffle bag full of weapons. She snatched it up and slung it over her other shoulder. She couldn't go outside; Jesse would have a clear shot, so Cameron went to the other door, the one leading to the warehouse floor. She didn't open it. The door splintered around her as she ran through.
Another round fired. Jesse had reloaded.
Cameron ran down the length of the building. Large wooden crates and metal cargo containers lined her path.
A bullet punched through the wall to her left and pierced several layers of wood and sheet metal. It had missed Cameron by six feet. Jesse was trying to predict Cameron's next move; she was expanding her field of fire.
Jesse was south. Cameron should go north. Along the north wall of the warehouse were two metal doors. Cameron kicked them, and they opened. She ran outside.
She heard three consecutive shots. Jesse was wasting her ammunition; her shots were increasingly unlikely to be effective.
Cameron needed a vehicle. Using her memory of her drive to the warehouse, she created a composite simulation of the area in her mind.
There. On the way over, in her peripheral vision, she had seen a car parked by a gas station on North Avalon Blvd, approximately a mile north-west from her current position. She turned in that direction and sped up her pace. She crossed a street and ran down an alleyway.
Jesse's existence did not make sense. Back in 2027, after Jesse had killed John, Cameron had fired three nine-millimeter hollow points into the center of her back. She had seen blood; Jesse had not been wearing body armor. Though Cameron never had the chance to confirm the kill, there was a 97.4% probability that the wounds had been fatal, and a 99.98% probability that Jesse would have suffered permanent paralysis below the waist.
Perhaps Jesse had beaten the odds.
Perhaps.
Cameron jumped on a dumpster and leaped over a fence. Her right knee sent stress signals when she landed. It had been doing that since John's birthday.
She crossed two empty lots, and came up to the rear end of the station after running down another alley. The car was parked off to the side.
She walked to the car and dropped Derek onto the ground. She looked at him.
Derek had tried to remove her chip.
He had tried to remover her chip.
Without her consent.
Cameron's fingers twitched. She took a moment to disengage her combat alert status.
On the ground Derek moaned; his limbs began to move. She lifted him by the scruff of his jacket and swung his head into the car door. The impact left a dent in the metal. Derek stopped moaning.
Nothing about Derek's behavior made sense. If he had wanted her dead, why not let Jesse complete the task? Why drag her to the basement? Perhaps they wanted her chip intact. An advanced neural net CPU chip would sell for a substantial amount of money.
It would also help advance Skynet's technological progress.
Cameron had misjudged Derek.
He would be questioned thoroughly.
Before she drove away she made a in-depth diagnostic of the damage she had sustained. She detected a 8% drop in audio sensitivity in her right ear, but other than that her endo-skeletal systems were still operational.
She analyzed her chip. Had she "gone bad" again? Would she attack John?
No. There had been no damage to her neural net systems. But if she had regressed, her higher chip functions would have been offline, and she wouldn't have been able to ask herself those questions anyway.
She moved her fingers along the pocket of her pants and felt the small piece of plastic inside.
Cameron should get her patch installed.
Even though it was the middle of the afternoon, John ate pancakes. He hadn't eaten anything since the day before yesterday, and all the vomiting last night had left him feeling weak. He finished his glass of orange juice and wished he had more.
The waffle house next to the hotel was a fairly run down place, but then again they weren't exactly in a good part of town. John noticed that Kyle had chosen a booth that allowed him to keep an eye on their room.
Kyle sat across from him and picked at some hash browns. "I guess he isn't much into food," John thought. Kyle had either bought or stolen -- John didn't ask which -- some new clothes while he had been out. His dark-green trench coat suited him niceley, though the Pink Floyd shirt beneath made for an odd juxtaposition.
Neither of them had spoken in while. And he's not much into talking either. John decided to break the ice.
"What was Cameron -- your Cameron -- like?" John asked. He took a bite of the pancakes. They tasted gammy, but better than mom's.
Kyle's smile was nearly undetectable. "A lot different from your Cameron."
"More human, you mean?"
Kyle shook his head. "Hardly. She could act human, when she needed to. But I don't think she liked it that much." He took a sip of his iced tea. "She didn't do it around me."
John frowned. "So it is all just an act?"
Kyle cocked his head and blinked. "What's an act now?"
"Her emotions."
"I never said that," Kyle said, looking almost offended.
"But you said --"
"I said she didn't like to act human." Kyle took a nibble of his hash browns. "But she had emotions."
"I don't understand." John said.
Kyle gave him a wry grin. "You know she's a cyborg, right?"
"Yeah, but --"
"She had emotions, but her concerns weren't . . . petty like those of a human. She wasn't motivated by power or greed." Kyle glanced through the window at their room. "Or pointless bigotries." He gave John an intense look. "She's more than human. Better."
"Okay." John decided to leave it at that, for now. "Did she ever . . . talk about me?"
Kyle used his fork to scoot his food around the plate. "Yes, but not often. Talking about you . . . bothered her."
John looked down. "Yeah . . . I'm . . . "
Kyle didn't let it go. "She told me what your last words to her were. About wanting her to burn." He stared John in the eyes. "That was the only time I ever saw her cry."
Crying? John remembered the hurt look in her eyes when he had said that. The idea that those careless words had carried on through time, haunting her for years afterwards . . . A lump grew in his throat. "I know," he said. "I apologized to her about that."
Kyle continued his stare. "You never apologized to my Cameron."
"Fuck you," John said, his voice nearly a whisper. "I can't change what I did. Or would have done. Or whatever. I'm sorry. I was stupid, all right?" His eyes began to water. "I'm sorry." he added.
Kyle broke his gaze. "You're right. I'm sorry, too. Just remember, everything has consequences. You once did a terrible thing, but now you . . . haven't." He smiled. "Not many people get a second chance." His smiled waned somewhat. "See that you don't waste yours."
A small sedan pulled into the hotel parking lot. Kyle glanced over. "Cameron's back," he said.
Kyle paid the waitress and left the restaurant. John followed after him.
Cameron got out of the car and walked towards them. John thought he saw metal on the side of her head. Something had happened. "Wh--?" he began to ask.
"Derek's in the trunk," she said.
Kyle's eyes widened. "Derek?"
Jesse drove up to the warehouse and stepped out her truck. She held a M16A1 with a M203 grenade launcher attachment, even though she knew the machine had to be long gone by now.
Long gone. Thanks to her.
She stood outside the door. She didn't want to go in there; she knew what she'd find. I've failed. The machine escaped, and Derek's dead. If only she hadn't been so stupid. She could have waited. Set an electrical trap. Make a thermite bomb. Anything. What the hell had she been thinking?
Or not thinking. That was always Jesse's problem. I should have stayed on the Jimmy Carter.
"I'm so sorry, Derek," she thought. But no. It was the machine's fault. The machine killed him. Not her.
But what if she had hit him with the M82? She'd never forgive herself. His body could be . . . Oh, please no . . . I should just walk away, pretend none of this ever happened. Then she wouldn't know. Derek could be alive as long as she didn't know he was dead.
No. That wouldn't work. That was crazy. Stupid. Think, Jesse! Think!
Jesse took a few deep breaths and forced herself not to cry. She had to do this. She had to know.
She shouldered her rifle and entered the building. The floor of the maintenance room was littered with broken pieces of wood, shattered brick, and dust. Between two damaged crates laid a staircase leading down. The door at the bottom had been left open, and Jesse could see the lights were on.
Step by step, she slowly moved down the stairs, her M16 ready to spray bullets into the machine's face should it appear. Gooseflesh sprouted on her skin, then sweat. The perspiration made her shiver, even though the air was humid. She stepped through the door.
The basement was a weapons stash. Mostly small arms, some high explosives; Jesse's stash was better. One of the shelves had fallen over, and open canisters of thermite lay on the ground. She saw white powder sprinkled across the floor. A struggle . . .
But no body. Maybe Derek was alive.
And maybe it was torturing him.
No. I did this. Jesse's knees buckled and she fell to the floor, bursting into tears.
I'm going to kill that machine -- again. I'll kill it, and I'll do it slow. Or better yet -- not kill it. Ruin it. Take it apart. Make it watch. Melt it down. Piece by piece -- until only a head and a power cell remained. Then she'd hang it on a wall as a trophy. And Laugh in its face. It's misery would never end.
It'd deserve that. The machine was a lie. And a liar.
It had tried to turn him against her. Me? Killing John? Why would Derek have even considered that? Unless the machine had gotten to him too . . .
Was Derek fucking the metal?
No. He was fucking her. Why would he want metal when he had the real thing? Jesse mulled that over and chewed on her nails. Her teeth chattered slightly. Derek was her fault. Once again she had fucked things up.
Now the machine would be after her. Escape time. The cycle continues.
She hoped Derek was dead. He had already been broken by Fischer, he didn't deserve to be . . . No, wrong Derek.
But it didn't matter. Derek was Derek.
And Jesse still had a job to do. The machine had to go down.
She searched the rest of the warehouse, then loaded the unopened thermite canisters onto her truck.
"I'll avenge you, Derek!" she silently swore as she drove away.