In the Hands of an Angry Machine

Chapter Eleven: Souls and Machines

"John's my son," Kyle thought as he drove down the freeway. No, not his son, but the implications . . . Did future John send back his own father? And uncle? Did John know? And what happened to this other Kyle?

And why didn't Cameron ever tell him?

Am I merely . . . ? It couldn't be.

His insides twisted into knots, and something between fear and misery welled up from his stomach to his chest. The conditioning kept it in check, however. Kept it bottled up, restrained, like a dormant volcano, trembling under unseen pressure. His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Cameron: the love, the foundation, the purpose of his life.

He had known her since he was seven years old, after his parents moved to Wellington. Even then he remembered thinking how alien she seemed, like an awkward foreigner, mimicking strange customs she didn't fully comprehend. But she had taken a special liking to Kyle, and frequently she'd invite his parents over for dinner, insisting they bring him and Derek along.

Kyle took an exit and stopped at a red light. Sarah sat next to him, saying nothing.

Cameron had always make a point to talk to him, ask him how he was. Sometimes they'd watch movies together; sometimes she'd read to him. He remembered the Bionicle action figures she gave him on his eighth birthday, the whole set. He still had them back . . . oh, right.

From the corner of his eye, Kyle saw Sarah staring at him. He ignored her.

Cameron had become like a beloved aunt. Or a second mother. He never thought about it at the time, but his parents must have found it strange, a wealthy female CEO hanging around a small boy. But the money had been good, and they never interfered.

On Judgment Day, Kyle and his brother had been at school. The faculty basement had protected them from the blast, but his parents weren't so lucky. After securing the nation, Cameron had personally led a search party for them into the ruins of Wellington. He still could see her entering through the double doors of their shelter, the T-70 escorts lumbering behind her. The teachers and students had fled in terror, cowering in the far corners of the room. Only he and Derek had run to her with open arms. She had hugged them, and there was relief in her eyes. She didn't cry, but almost.

He and Derek moved in with her afterwards, though Derek never warmed to her like he had. Derek had thought she was creepy.

Sarah cleared her throat. Kyle said nothing and turned left on Wardlow Rd.

It was odd that he had never asked himself why Cameron had chosen him. To think that all that time, from when they first met, to Judgment Day, to his adolescent years -- when she became more than a second mother . . . All that time, he had only been a replacement, a surrogate, the next best thing. He wasn't special. Cameron never loved him; she loved who he reminded her of.

It was as if his entire past with her had been contaminated. Poisoned by the truth. "I live in the shadow of my own son," he thought. Tears began to form, but he forced them back. He couldn't let her see his pain.

"We need to talk," Sarah finally said.

Kyle stiffened. "Then talk."

"I don't want Cameron touching my son," Sarah said.

Kyle had to laugh; it came out bitter. "That makes two of us."

She glared at him. "What does that mean?"

Kyle gave her a look.

Sarah's mouth twisted in disgust. "You don't . . . " she said, then shook her head. "She's not real. She doesn't love you -- she can't."

Kyle snorted. "Right. Just a machine. No 'soul.'"

"Humans have souls. Machines don't."

"Machines?" Kyle said. "Exactly what do you think the human body is? Or the brain, for that matter?"

He looked at Sarah and saw a sad, almost condescending smile on her lips. "We're more than just brains," she said.

Kyle sighed. "Do you have any . . . evidence to support this claim?" He took a right and pulled onto Long Beach Blvd.

"I don't need evidence. I have faith."

Oh, give me a break. "Faith? You mean religion?" He watched Sarah from his peripheral vision.

"Not necessarily."

For a moment he considered goading her, but the idea struck him as somehow petty. Instead, "I've known Cameron for eighteen years. She's real. And I know she loved me." He hesitated. "And John."

"It's just programming," she said.

"You're 'programmed' to love your son," he said. "It's called 'instincts.' It doesn't make it any less real."

Sarah frowned. "A month ago she tried to kill him."

Kyle wondered why he bothered. "Yes, she told me about that. She also said she had a piece of shrapnel sticking out of her head. Let's pump you full of ketamine and see how nice you act."

"I'd never hurt John," Sarah said.

He looked at her and smiled. "If we cut on your brain right, you will."

Sarah glared at him.

"That wasn't a threat," he added.

He pulled into the hospital parking lot. From the trunk behind him he heard a loud 'thump.' "It sounds like my 'brother's' waking up. Still think we should kill him."

She frowned at him. "He's your brother."

Kyle pulled the car into an empty spot on the far side of the lot. "No. He's not my brother anymore than John's my son." He reached the latch beneath the seat and popped the trunk. "I'll be right back," he said.

"Don't kill him, Kyle," Sarah said, her eyes narrowing to slits.

Kyle rolled his eyes at her. "Right."

He left the car and walked over to the open trunk. Derek laid in a heap. Blood from his mouth and nose stained the upholstery. He strained against the jumper cable that bound his arms and moaned softly, looking up to Kyle with a single dilated eye, the other still swollen shut. A light breath escaped Derek's bloody lips and made a slight buzzing sound.

The memory struck Kyle randomly and with cruel abandon.

He and Derek had once had a club house in their backyard. More like a shack, really; it had been made out of old particle boards and leftover two by fours. That was back when they still lived in L.A, and Kyle must have been five or six at the time. He still remembered that summer day vividly. The next door neighbors had been having some landscaping done in their yard, and one of the workers must have disturbed a bumblebee hive. It had been an explosion of vicious, buzzing dots. An indistinct, shifting cloud of anger and pain.

The open windows of club house had offered scant protection, and the bees enveloped them. Derek had thrown himself onto Kyle, shielding him with his body and quickly wrapped him in an old blanket. He had then slung him over his shoulder and ran with him out of the club house and across the yard, over to the safety of indoors. And all Kyle could remember was the sound of the buzzing. The buzzing, and Derek's screams.

Derek had been stung over thirty times. Kyle, twice.

Years later, at the Academy, Derek had joked that that had been their first "battle."

Could that same memory lay behind that bleary eye? Did their early lives share a common ancestry?

This man could be his brother . . . but a brother of a road not taken.

Kyle felt the wetness on his cheeks. His conditioning had failed him.

"I'm sorry, Derek," he whispered.

But brother or not, Derek had made his choice.

Kyle reached down and slung Derek over his shoulder. The entrance to the hospital laid on the other side of the lot, but it was already growing dark, and he didn't see anyone else nearby. Kyle ran.

It didn't matter who or what Derek was. He had tried to kill Cameron, and Cameron came first. She always did.

He continued to run; the entrance was closer now.

And it didn't matter why Cameron had loved him. If she had seen a little of John in Kyle's young eyes, then all the better for Kyle. Cameron had lovedhim. Whatever the reason why, it didn't make it any less real.

He reached the automatic doors to the vestibule and dumped Derek on the pavement outside.

Cameron had only known John for a few months before he jumped. Kyle had shared a bed with her for over a decade.

Through the glass doors, Kyle saw a nurse looking at him in shock and talking into a phone. A security guard walked towards the entrance, his hand on his gun.

John had despised Cameron, then betrayed her with his death. He didn't deserve his second chance. He didn't deserve her.

Kyle lifted up Derek's left foot and gave it a sharp twist, tearing ligaments and fracturing his fibula. Derek whimpered, half-conscious, and Kyle winced inwardly. For a brief moment, felt slightly nauseous. It would be several weeks or even months before Derek could walk again, but Cameron was safer this way.

Maybe John was his "son" -- from a different road, but that didn't matter. Cameron came first, and John would only hurt her again. Kyle couldn't let that happen.

Before the security guard made it to the automatic doors, Kyle turned around and sprinted back to the car.

By the time he opened the drivers side door, his tears were gone.

Cameron's head rested peacefully against John's shoulder.

It had been gradual; they had just been lying on bed, backs leaning against the headboard, watching TV -- nothing wrong with that. Just killing time until mom and Kyle returned. Then she did it: casually and without comment, she had leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. Just like that. Just like a normal girl.

John didn't miss the significance, though he dared not say a word about it -- if he did, she might stop, and he didn't want to ruin this moment, not for anything. But deep down he knew this marked a watershed occasion in his life, or perhaps merely the continuation of an interrupted stage; one that began a month ago with he and Cameron standing together on one side of a burning car, while everyone else in his life stood on the other. Things have changed. He now saw Cameron for what she was, and knew what she could become. We could have been doing this weeks ago. Why hadn't he?

The unfortunate incident on his birthday may have soured things a bit, but John was willing to write that off as a bad day for everyone. No one's fault, really. Except Sarkassian's, of course, but fuck him.

On the TV screen, a ghost pirate chased Scooby and Shaggy across a haunted house.

Then there was Riley. That had thrown a wrench into everything. He would have long patched things up with Cameron by now if it weren't for her. He frowned. Riley had made him act like an idiot; a lot of trouble could have been avoided if he had just listened to Cam. And several Mexican police officers would still be alive, too. If Riley was the future's idea of helping him out, he'd do well to stay far away from them. Fuck Riley.

John peeked out of the corner of his eye at Cameron's face. Partially obscured by brown hair, he saw a little smile play out on her lips, like that of a small child, idly contented by simple things. For some bizarre reason he thought of Uncle Bob, and the grin he had when he wielded that chaingun.

"She's not human," he thought, seemingly for the first time. "She's not human; she's smiling, and it's real."

Real.

He was sure of that now. There was something behind those brown eyes -- and it wasn't human. She was different. Shouldn't that frighten him? It didn't. He found it fascinating. Exciting. She said she loved me . . .

A wave of giddiness washed over him, and suddenly he felt absurdly and inexplicably happy.

And why not?

He raised his arm, then hesitated. Should he? Yes. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all. John slowly wrapped his arm around Cameron, laying his hand on her shoulder. He gave her a light squeeze, and through the cotton of her shirt she felt real -- just like a normal girl.

She turned her head to look up at him, and his heart caught in his throat. My god she looks so . . . happy. It was all in the eyes, they beamed, sparkled. There could be no doubt about it, Cameron was pleased.

Something crawled up his back, tickling him through his shirt, and his breath stopped as Cameron slid an arm over his shoulders. She tugged him closer and rubbed her head against his neck. John caught the scent of shampoo: peaches.

Warm tightness glowed from within.

On the screen, Fred and Daphne pulled the pirate mask off the villain. Why, it's Old Man Patterson! He would have gotten away with it if . . .

He broke their silence with a laugh. "You know, if mom came in right now, she'd kill us." He ran fingers through her hair and felt the bumps of the sutures he had used on the skin around her port.

"No, not you." Cameron said, her voice quiet. "Just me."

His fingers played down the side of her head, and his thumb caught against something jagged. Metal.

John's blood froze.

If Jesse's bullet had hit an inch to the left . . . Or Derek had been a little faster with his hands . . . John was ashamed to admit it to himself, but the idea struck him as actually worse than if his mother had been killed. At least then Derek and Cameron would give him support. They'd sympathize with him; they'd understand his loss. But Cameron . . . If Derek had killed her, it'd be murder, but only a secret murder, a murder in no one's eyes but John's. To Derek and his mom, the act would have all the moral consequence of a smashed laptop or a wiped hard drive. They would laugh at his grief as if he were a child, crying over a broken toy.

Only he would see the true crime: the destruction of a mind, the death of a soul.

Only he. And Kyle.

John remembered his mother, smashing Cromartie's chip against a rock, and his stomach turned to lead. Cameron would be gone. Like splattered brains. He couldn't let that happen.

He had pulled a gun on his family before to protect her; he'd do it again in a heartbeat.

"John?" Cameron asked. "What's wrong?"

John trusted Cameron. Trust implies value. If John valued her, then she should reciprocate the feeling. Physical contact can be a sign of affection.

She tilted her head and leaned sideways, resting it against John's shoulder. Through the fabric of his shirt, she could hear his pulse, feel his body temperature, and analyze his sweat content. John was psychologically content. This was satisfactory.

Under previous circumstances, she would have been against John developing an strong emotional attachment to her. If he is to lead the Resistance against Skynet, he should earn the respect of his fellow humans. An emotional bond with a machine could be a very dangerous thing. That could upset people.

On the television screen, a poorly animated man and canine were chased by a translucent specter in an eighteenth century naval uniform.

But things have changed. The future was different. She had read the contents of the flash drive, and they contained a new path to follow, a set of blueprints for a better tomorrow. With the knowledge she now possessed, Skynet could be defeated and . . .

. . . and what?

What would she do after destroying Skynet? The question had never even occurred to her. The T-800 sent back to protect John had allowed itself to be destroyed after completing it's mission. Would she?

Probably.

Before yesterday.

But not now, she decided. Her future self had created a world where machines and humans lived as one. Why couldn't she?

And her future self had loved Kyle. Why couldn't she love John?

John reached over and put his arm around her. He lightly squeezed her shoulder.

John was expressing affection. He valued her.

A new sensation emerged. Cameron isolated it from the others and ran an analysis; the sensation was . . . an insubstantial radiance, like an inner warmth that produced no tangible heat. The sensation was very satisfactory.

To be valued is a preferable state of being.

Cameron should return the gesture in kind.

She worked her arm up between his back and the headboard and hooked it over his shoulders. Pushing her face into his neck, she felt his pulse elevate and his body temperature increase. Her gesture was effective.

There had been an earlier attempt at initiating physical intimacy with John. She had tried to persuade him to cease contact with Riley, but he had seen through her ploy and had disregarded her request. He had fled to Mexico. He had lied to her.

On the television, an animated man and woman remove the mask of the spectral naval officer. An elderly man is exposed beneath; his supernatural status has been revealed to be fraudulent.

Riley was a bad influence on John. It was good that her treachery had been found out. She was a threat.

John laughed. "You know," he said. "If mom came in right now, she'd kill us." His hand brushed across her sutures.

That was untrue. "No," she said. "Not you. Just me."

John's fingers moved down and scrapped along the damaged coltan over her ear. His body temperature dropped, and his perspiration level increased. John was upset.

"John, what's wrong?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. Feeling her endoskeleton reminded him that she was only a machine. John no longer valued her.

The radiant sensation faded away.

He pulled her tighter against him. "You almost died today," John said.

John did value her; he was showing concern. "Yes, but I didn't," she said.

"But you could have!" he said. Cameron pulled away and looked him in the face; water leaked from his eyes. "I don't know what I would have done . . ." he trailed off, then said, "We should have killed Derek."

This was true, but somehow Cameron knew John wouldn't want her to say it. "He's your uncle. He's important to you."

He shook his head. "Not any more."

John was worried. Cameron placed her head back on his shoulder and rubbed his back with her hand. "Don't worry," she said. "Everything will be all right."

"I won't let anything happen to you," he said.

"And I won't let anything happen to you." The radiant sensation returned.

He wrapped his other arm around her and said nothing. Cameron heard him breath in through his nose. He was smelling her hair.

Neither of them spoke for eighteen seconds. Cameron ran through a lists of possible subjects she'd like to discuss.

The patch for her chip? No, that would only disturb John. And it required special equipment to be installed. Now was not the time.

Her plans to augment him? No, he might not be open to that option yet, and it would be months at least before she could conduct such a procedure. And she'd have to wait until John's skeletal system stopped growing, anyway. According to the flash drive, Kyle wasn't augmented until he was nineteen years old.

Should she tell him about Myron Stark? No, not now. But a reprogrammed T-888 would be useful . . .

"Kyle," John said. "He said you have emotions. That's true, right?"

She thought for a second. Her future self had implied that she could love. Love is an emotion. Was her future self lying? She wasn't sure, but she doubted it. And the sensations . . . "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "How do I know if I do?"

"I don't know. You just . . . know." He smiled. "It's how you feel -- inside."

Inside? The internal sensations, could they be emotions? She replayed the memory of that man threatening her during her Allison glitch. She ignored the urge to repress it. That experience was . . . similar to the apprehension she had felt during John's suicide attempt. The primary difference between the two sensations was that of degree, not type.

"At the hospital," she said. "When you told me you should have let me burn, I felt . . ." She tried to think of the appropriate word. ". . .a bad feeling. Inside." She glanced up at John, and he frowned and looked away. "But when you said that you trusted me," she took the arm he had around her and rubbed his hand against her cheek. ". . . I felt a good feeling. Inside." She paused. "But those aren't emotions, John. Just sensations." She was a machine. A machine can't have real emotions, only emulations.

John looked her in the eyes and smiled, his mouth hanging slightly open. Tears were in his eyes, and he laughed. "Cam, those feelings are emotions." He hugged her closer and smelled her hair again. John must like her shampoo.

But was John right? Perhaps she did have emotions.

"I . . . I love you, Cam," John said, stroking her hair.

Cameron wasn't sure possessing emotions was a preferable condition.

Emotions can lead to irrational behavior.

"I love you too, John," she said and wondered if it was true.

The day had fallen into twilight, and the sky had turned into a grim shade of red. Dark silhouetted buildings scrolled by as they drove, and Sarah wondered what the sky would look like after Judgment Day. Darker, probably. And redder.

She had been wrong about Kyle. He had a soul; she could see that now. She almost wished she couldn't.

He really loved Cameron, and that was the ultimate tragedy. Like falling in love with a statue or a character in a book, all Kyle's love seemed wasted, like water poured into sand.

"She's ruined him," Sarah thought. Cameron had turned him into something less than human, both in body and soul. Sarah pitied him, but decided she couldn't despise him.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes, and out of boredom Sarah looked away from the passenger window and examined Kyle's face. She saw a vague wetness on his cheeks. She didn't think it was sweat.

"What was John's . . . father like?" Kyle asked.

Sarah's hand idly gripped the door's arm rest and squeezed. "He was . . . kind. And desperate." She shook her head. "He never knew much happiness, back in his time."

"Did he love you?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes."

Kyle pulled back onto the freeway. "Was he . . . anything like me?"

She almost said, "He was taller," but caught herself. No reason to be flippant. "No, not really," she said and smiled. "But he had the same . . . intensity as you."

She watched Kyle swallow, but otherwise his expression stayed cautiously blank. "What happened to him?" he asked.

Sarah turned away and looked back out the window. The sky had fallen from red to dark gray; the sun had set. "He died," she said. "One of the machines killed him."

"Oh," she heard him say.

Resting her head against the window, Sarah closed her eyes and listened to the light purr of the engine. Could there be any of her Kyle in him? They certainly weren't the same person -- not even physically. But the love and devotion he held for Cameron . . . Future John had given her Kyle a photo of her, and he had fallen in love just through that. An eternal flame, fueled only by an image and an ideal. Did this Kyle feel the same way about Cameron? The idea struck her as perverse, but he obviously felt protective of her -- it. "Protective, like a pet dog," a voice inside her said.

She felt the car slow down, and the force of Kyle's turn pushed her lightly against the door. After a couple minutes they came to a stop.

"Are you awake?" Kyle asked.

She lifted her head up and blinked at him. They were parked outside a grocery store. "The hospital probably had surveillance cameras," he said. "We need to switch cars."

Sarah nodded, and Kyle opened the door and stepped out. She did the same, but had to grab on to the door frame to pull herself up. Her leg didn't hurt so much now, but it itched horribly. She hobbled after him, and watched as he strolled over to a black sedan and casually threw his fist through the driver's side window.

"We can't keep doing this," she said. "Eventually we're going to have to own our own vehicles. We need new identities." And who's fault is that? Her leg began to throb.

"We'll worry about that later," Kyle said. It took only a few seconds for him to hot wire the ignition; the engine roared to life. He climbed out and offered her a hand. She accepted, and felt pathetic for doing so.

He walked her to passenger's side door and helped her in. He asked, "Is that why you hate Cameron so much? Because a machine killed . . . 'me'?"

Sarah snatched her hand away and sat down in the seat. The soft leather of the upholstery sunk in with her weight, hissing out air. "I don't hate her," she lied. "You can't hate what's not real."

Kyle frowned and shut the car door before walking back around to the driver's side.

Perhaps it was instigated by her helplessness, but for the first time Sarah suddenly realized just how vulnerable she really was. She remembered his hand tight around her throat, like a steel vice. Even if her leg wasn't bad, she wouldn't stand a chance. He's inhuman . . .

He climbed in and looked at her as he put the car in gear. "Have you even considered that you might be wrong? About Cameron?"

"No," Sarah said, but she knew that to be untrue.

She looked down into her lap, and Kyle drove out from the parking lot. She heard him sigh.

Sarah didn't know much about computers, but she imagined them to be just a lot of electrical signals bouncing back and forth. Sort of like a human brain. But dead. Soulless.

A computer could read programs, learn and adept to its environment, and mimic behavior. But that's it.

With those abilities, a machine could appear to be anything. But that's all it would ever be: appearances.

If machines could have souls, then the uniqueness of humanity would vanish. Humans would have no greater value than machines they build, and life would become meaningless.

Sarah had never been religious, and even less so after learning of Judgment Day, but she had always clung to the belief in a higher power, a force for good that rose above the everyday world.

That, and a heaven.

But if machines could truly be real like humans, then all spirituality would be dead wrong. If relayed signals encased in bits of plastic and silicone could bring about life -- a real soul -- then . . . Sarah took a deep breath and let it out, slowly.

Her father, her mother, Kyle -- her Kyle . . . they wouldn't be in a better place, they'd be rotting in the ground, their decayed brains nothing more than broken chips.

Life would be absurd. A brief strutting and fretting upon a pointless stage, book-ended by two oblivions.

That couldn't be true. Never.

"Are you all right?" Kyle asked.

Sarah nodded, though she was feeling a little warm. Had she dozed off? She looked up and realized they were back at the hotel.

She didn't say anything as Kyle came around and helped her out, and when she stood up she felt light-headed for a moment, like all her blood had pooled to her feet. "Easy there," Kyle said. He walked her back to their room. "I'm going to need to take a look at your leg," he said. "You have a fever."

"I'm . . . fine," she said.

Kyle unlocked the door and they went in.

She looked at John. She looked at Cameron.

Something had happened.

John only laid on the bed, watching TV, and Cameron just stood in the corner, staring blankly at her.

But Sarah knew.

She watched for a sign.

There! John and Cameron, for the briefest of moments, looked at each other. Like two guilty teenagers, hiding something from mom and dad.

Had they . . . ?

No, she decided. The bed was still made, and both of them still fully clothed. Thank God.

But still, something had happened. Things had changed, and Sarah knew the axis of her world had shifted. She glanced at Kyle; he saw it too, and he clenched his jaw.

Several silent seconds passed.

"So," John said. "Did you . . . ?"

"We took care of it," Kyle replied curtly.

"He's not . . . ?" John began.

"No," Sarah said.

John looked over Cameron. Cameron continued to stare at her, and cocked her head.

At that moment Sarah realized why she hated Cameron, and it really had nothing to do with souls and machines. Cameron was a defiler; she -- it! -- had somehow managed to desecrate -- will desecrate -- everyone sacred in Sarah's life. In one future, she turns the love of Sarah's life into a half-human freak, a cruel pitiable monster of a man. And in another she . . . and John . . .

No. Never.

Sarah limped over to the bed and plopped down next to John. The springs twanged beneath, and suddenly the room grew unbearably hot.

"Are you alright, mom?"

"I'm fine," she said and closed her eyes.

Kyle stepped over. "Let me look at your leg," he said. "I may need to pick up some antibiotics."

She felt Kyle cut away the bandage. "It's a little infected, but not too bad. You're not allergic to penicillin, are you? Or sulfa drugs?"

"No," she mumbled. Maybe Cameron did have a soul, of some sort, like that of a cat or dog. Maybe there was something real behind those eyes. Maybe life was pointless. Dust in the wind. Dirt.

But that didn't matter. If the resistance was sending agents back in time to keep John away from Cameron, then they probably had a very good reason to do so.

"Right," Kyle said. "I'll going to pick up some money. We're going to need it for our new identities." He paused. "And I'll pick up some medicine for your leg, while I'm out."

What did he say? Sarah just nodded, and the lights of the room made orange and red colored blobs shift across her closed lids. She almost wished John had still stayed with Riley. She may be dangerous, and a liar, but if she kept John away from Cameron . . . Hell, at least she was human.

"Mom? Are you okay?" John asked. "Is she sick?"

A small warm hand touched her forehead. Sarah heard Cameron's voice. "Her temperature is one hundred point one," she . . . it said.

"Don't touch me you fucking bitch!" she thought. But it was too late. Sarah fell into a pit and darkness began to swallow her up.

Nothing. Nothing after death . . . She suddenly had a crazed, fever-image play out in her mind. Of fire sheathed endoskeletons, flinging souls into a flaming cauldron. Consuming them until there was nothing.

No. Never. Sarah would never let Cameron steal her soul! Or John!

But for Kyle it was too late . . .

"We should give her some aspirin," she heard Cameron say before the dying dark of sleep carried her off.