Chapter Eighteen: Beyond Good and Evil
A/N: I'd like to thank Metroid13 for bet-reading this chapter. His advice has proved invaluable.
July 19, 2027
USS Jimmy Carter, Pacific Ocean
0613 Hours
Commander Cullen Boyle's blue-gray eyes stared at her with furious disbelief. "Why the fuck did you open it?" he asked, his heavy breaths rasping the words into a growl.
Jesse winced and glared at Seaman Hayes, who sulked guiltily in the corner of the storage hold. This would have gone a lot smoother if he'd just kept his mouth shut. Then she and Dietze could have "discovered" Goodnow's body, leaving all the messy blame on the sergeant's conveniently dead shoulders. She narrowed her eyes at him. Tattletale.
When Jesse didn't answer, Cullie ran a hand through his short brown hair and paced around the now-empty metal crate, staring into it as if he could will Pandora back into the box. His face twisted into a panicked, angry grin. "I . . . I don't . . . " he started, then trailed off, shaking his head, seemingly on the verge of laughter. Jesse looked down and saw he'd stepped his boot into Goodnow's pooling blood.
Nearby stood marine sergeants Blake and Wells, clinging to their Westinghouse rifles with white-knuckled nerves. Jesse watched their darting eyes make random patrols between the crate, Goodnow's corpse, and the ruined air shaft above. Lieutenant Bird stared up thoughtfully at the vent, chewing on his bottom lip as if it were a piece of gum. The vent's bent and crumpled fan blades hung listlessly down by a wire; he tapped at them with a finger, and they jingled like a scrap metal wind-chime. At the far end of the room, a pale faced Dietze looked on, leaning against the 990's coffin. Self-consciously, his hands hung down over his crotch, covering the wet stain that soiled the front of his trousers.
The room hadn't been large to begin with, but now, in all the quiet, awkward anxiety, it felt positively claustrophobic. Jesse shot a brief look at the open door, and restrained an impulse to bolt like a rabbit.
Her drunk, her high, that crazy, almost religious exhilaration she'd reveled in only minutes earlier had fumed away like a puddle of gasoline, leaving now only a grimy residue of regret. Letting out that liquid metal monster had been a mistake . . .
"What are we going to do?" Hayes finally asked, but his question proved abortive when no one answered, though Cullie gave him a glare.
"Did you tell Queeg?" Dietze then asked. He looked like he was about to cry.
Cullie sighed a bitter laugh. "No," he said. "But he'll know soon enough. Hayes here was running through the ship screaming about a giant metal blob. If Queeg didn't hear that, someone will certainly tell him. He could be here any second."
Hayes lowered his head and looked like a mouse, but said nothing.
Queeg. Shit. Jesse bit lightly at her tongue. A pissed off Captain Metal? Not good. She had to secure Cullie's protection -- after all, that's what fuck buddies were for. "Commander," she began in small scared voice. "I'm so sorr--"
Cullie frowned and raised a hand. "Don't. This just may be a blessing in disguise. If you three stooges here hadn't . . . " His hand made a vague sweeping gesture at the box and the dead sergeant. ". . . We'd be taking this thing to Serrano Point." He paused, and his frown lifted into a smirk. "Corporal, your stupidity may have just saved the Resistance."
Jesse fought down a grin. Jesse Flores: Hero of the Resistance. Savage irony, that. Maybe she'd finally get a promotion; she'd need one if she was going to be a mommy . . .
"I don't know," Bird said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "It could be on our side."
Wells sniffed and shook his head. Dietze glared at the lieutenant and muttered something under his breath.
Jesse knew an opening when she saw one. She stepped over to Goodnow's corpse and toed it face up with a short, swift kick to her ribs. Pointing down at the gutted ruin of her torso, Jesse looked at Bird with hard eyes and asked, "Does it look like it's on our side?"
Bird frowned slightly, then knelt down and picked up the severed barrel of Goodnow's plasma rifle. "Did she raise her weapon to the . . . liquid metal?"
"Jesus Christ, lieutenant," Cullie said. "You can't scrub these things. They don't have chips."
Bird gave his commanding officer a narrow, beady-eyed look. "How do you know, sir?"
"We've all heard the stories," Cullie said evenly.
Blake lowered his rifle and looked down into the crate. "So this is that . . . metal jelly monster? From that stupid book?"
At that moment Captain Queeg walked through the door. His -- its -- face never betrayed any emotion other than dead apathy, but Jesse could swear she saw the trace semblance of annoyance in its unblinking eyes. The machine assessed the room with a deliberate turn of his head, then walked up the metal crate and glanced inside.
Jesse saw the holster on his hip carried a plasma pistol.
"I ordered that the cargo be undisturbed," Queeg said. He looked at Cullie as if for an explanation.
"Captain," the commander said. "We have a big problem. A . . . machine is loose on the ship. We're going to have to organize search parties and --"
"That will not be necessary." Queeg's deep baritone spoke with calm indifference.
Cullie blinked, then pointed at the corpse on the floor. "It killed Goodnow, sir. We can't just let it roam free." He paused. "It's a . . . a shape-shifter. It could compromise the crew."
Queeg's expression didn't change; he seemed unimpressed. "That is not your concern."
There was a short pause. Blake and Wells gave each other what-the-fuck? looks, and Jesse felt a nervous drip in her blood as the seed of a terrible notion planted itself in her brain. Did Queeg . . . ?
But Cullie was way ahead of her. "You knew what was in the crate, didn't you?" he asked, giving the captain a guarded look.
"Yes."
The commander nodded slowly. "And you have orders to take it to Serrano Point, right?"
The muscles of Queeg's face tightened by a fraction. "Yes."
When Cullie didn't ask anything else, the machine added. "Commander Boyle, secure all sidearms and plasma rifles. Take Sergeant Goodnow's body to the cool room. And return to duty."
"Yes, sir." Cullie said, his thick jaw clenched.
Satisfied at his XO's compliance, Queeg turned around and began to walk out of the room.
From the corner of her eye, Jesse saw Cullie pull something from his pants pocket. It looked like a black flashlight. She smiled in confused anticipation.
With a flick and twist of his wrist, the plastic rod telescoped out to thrice its length. At the end two metal fangs crackled with tiny arcs of miniature lightning.
The robot heard the sound and spun on his heel, drawing his bulky plasma pistol with machine speed and precision. But while the captain was fast, Cullie didn't hesitate. Lunging forward with a feline grace surprising for such a bear of a man, the commander thrust the shock-prod's tip out like a rapier, stabbing it square into Queeg's right temple.
The crackling fizz erupted like the buzz of an angry electric bee, and Queeg's eyes grew just noticeably wider, as if he were smoldering with impotent rage. He shook with an apoplectic tremble, then fell over, flat on his back.
His pistol had been leveled at the commander's chest. If Cullie had been a hair slower . . .
Without pausing, Cullie tossed the prod on the floor and knelt down by Queeg's head, drawing a folding knife from his pocket. In half a second the blade was out and slicing through the dark brown flesh around the captain's CPU port.
"What are you doing?" Lieutenant Bird asked in a frenzied whisper. At the end of the room, Dietze gaped and began to pant like a dog. Hayes tittered nervously in the corner.
"Break its chip!" Jesse shrieked, cool nerves boiling to hot excitement. She'd always despised Queeg; he reminded her too much of her step-dad, what with all his icy stares and calculated indifference. And who's idea was it to make metal a captain, anyway? Probably Cameron. Evil metal cunt. But now it was ding-dong-the-Robot's-dead time. Time to tap dance on his brains. Fun, fun, fun! But why bother pulling the chip? She bent over and picked up his plasma pistol. "Here, Cullie, let me . . . " She aimed at his head.
Cullie didn't bother to look up as he slapped the gun to the side, disregarding her as if she were a pestering child. "You have the bridge, Bird," he said as he peeled back the skin flap covering the port. "Hayes and Dietze, you go with Blake and Wells. Blake and Wells, I need you to round up the crew into the mess hall and put them under heavy guard. Then organize four teams of four to sweep the ship, deck by deck." With a sharp flick, he pried up the port cover with the tip of his knife. Air hissed, and he went on, "Prick everyone with a knife to see if they bleed. Tell them the password is 'swordfish.' If they forget it later on, shoot them." He dug a thick thumb and forefinger into the hole, and with a smart twist yanked the chip free. Jesse heard the dying hum as the 888 body powered down. "You stay with me, Flores. You've caused enough trouble as it is."
"Sir," said Bird with feigned calmness. "He may be a machine, but this is mutiny. Connor could have us shot."
Cullie stood and held up Queeg's chip. "I take full responsibility. But if I'm wrong, I've just saved Serrano Point from a possible attack by a highly advanced infiltrator." He smiled, showing clean white teeth. "And if I'm right, I've also uncovered a conspiracy against the Resistance."
December 17, 2007
Hillside Auto Salvage
Through the passenger's side window, in the late evening twilight, John could see the Hillside Scrapyard looked much as it had a month before: a large, fenced-in, mud-strewn plot of land, littered with the gutted corpses of a thousand automobiles. Most sat lined up in rows, as if parked by absent-minded owners and left abandoned to their rusted fate. Others laid flattened like crumpled steel pancakes, piled one on top the other, forming a sheet-metal rat maze. A great steel crane and a behemoth crusher loomed out in the distance, silhouetted against the setting sun, like two skeletal beasts from a prehistoric era.
John imagined this sort of landscape to be a fairly common sight in the Post-Judgment Day world.
Kyle turned the SUV off the dirt road and pulled up to the barb-wired, chain-linked gate, which led to the junkyard proper. On the gate hung a white metal sign that read in stark black lettering: Private Property - No Trespassing. John felt pretty certain that that hadn't been there before. Just beyond the gate stood an old two-story farmhouse, probably used as an office by whoever owned the business. Attached to the house's side sat a single-car garage. Kyle switched off the engine and turned his head back, looking at Cameron expectantly. She gave a curt nod, and she and Kyle stepped out, each carrying a bag; a confused John followed.
The obvious question, the one that'd been gnawing on his brain ever since he first learned of their destination, had so far been left unasked. There could only be one real answer, but just thinking about it fueled an awkward warmth in his chest. Choosing this place couldn't be just a whim of hers, could it? Cameron may be sporadic -- sometimes -- but . . . why?
Cameron walked up to the gate and pulled out a ring of keys (What the . . . ?) from the front pocket of her jeans. She unlatched the padlock, and, with a light shove and a metallic hiss, the chain-linked door swung open. She went on through, walking across the patchy, unkempt grass. John and Kyle followed behind her.
Keys?
He quickened his pace to match hers, and they walked around the house to the front porch. "Why . . . What's with the keys?" he asked.
She stepped up to the front door, jingling another key into her hand. "I purchased this property," she said, as if it were perfectly obvious.
John blinked, but didn't bother asking where she found the money. "But . . . why this place?"
Cameron hesitated and frowned in what could either have been annoyance or embarrassment. "I keep things here," she said. "And this is an isolated location. Low traffic." She unlocked the door and forced it opened with a rough wooden scrape.
"But --"
"You know why," she added in an almost gentle voice, and stepped on in.
He did know. But Cam? Sentimental? Was this place . . . sacred ground to her? The idea made John's mouth twitch into an odd grin; his throat tightened, and he felt oddly touched. So there had been a sense of gratitude lurking behind her blank, judging eyes. She could have avoided a whole month of ill-will if instead of saying, "You can't be trusted anymore," she had said instead, "Thank you, but be more careful next time." Oh well.
Before he followed her in, he stole a glance out onto the junkyard. Somewhere out there rested Cameron's would-be coffin . . .
Kyle moved up behind him, and his mouth twisted into an unreadable, thin grin. John sighed and went on inside.
Cameron stepped over to a plaster-cracked wall and flicked a switch, flooding the entryway with the dull yellow glow of a single 40 watt bulb. The air had a stale, dirty murk to it that made John think of dead mildew, and all of the cheap particleboard furniture laid coated in a fine sheet of dust. Cobwebs hung from the shadowy corners. Cam obviously didn't put much stock in cleanliness for her secret safe-house.
"Nice place," John said with a sniff.
She only gave him blank look, her eyes distracted and tight with worry. The feeling was contagious, and John felt his small hairs raise up on his arms and back. His eyes darted around nervously, looking for who-knew-what.
Examining the place with a quick scan on her head, Cameron stepped into a short hallway and grabbed onto a roughly hewed, unvarnished cupboard. With a casual sideways shove, she slid the furniture to the side, revealing a beat-up old door behind; a round hole stared out where the doorknob should have been. Tapping it with her boot, the door swung open with a hinged squeal. She briefly glanced at the two of them before stepping into the hidden passageway. John heard her feet go down a series of wooden steps. Thump. Thump. Thump. A plank creaked under her weight.
John gave Kyle a look. Cam's Basement of Mystery? They followed down the steps, and he could feel the boards sink slightly with each footfall. The dark stairway corridor swam with a billion swirling mites of barely-seen dust. His sinuses tingled, and he withheld a sneeze.
At the base of the stairs stood another door. In a darkness nearing pitch, John watched as Cameron slid aside a wood panel next to the doorjamb and withdrew a thermos-size bundle of what looked like a half-dozen bricks of clay, all taped together. Wires, like long, black spaghetti, jutted out from the center of the bundle in a tangled weave, worming their way back into the wall. Cameron gingerly pulled them loose with methodical ease.
John's sudden cold, nervous sweat mingled with a caressive coat of dust. "What's that?" he asked, as if he didn't know.
"C4," she said, then opened the door and walked on in. C4. Enough to turn the house into a crater, from the looks of it.
In the black rectangle of the opened door, John heard Cameron jerk a pull string. Click-click. Stabbing light shot out from a dangling bulb, just inside the doorway. John squinted against the glare and went on in, Kyle right behind him.
The basement wasn't as big as he had expected, more like a tiny little cellar. He gave it another look: maybe not so small after all. Just cluttered. A whole downtown block of piled cardboard box skyscrapers covered half of the room; the rest laid taken up by a sturdy workbench and a giant stainless steel . . . freezer? The appliance hummed with electricity.
From the corner of his eye, John noticed a Tommy-gun (?) resting on top of a small dresser at the end of the room.
John glanced over at Kyle, who mirrored his own confusion with a small frown. The light bulb behind them gently swung back and forth like a pendulum, shifting their shadows across the wood paneled floor and walls.
Cameron placed her backpack and the C4 on the table (John saw her first pull out the detonator switch) and knelt down, dragging out a wooden chest from underneath. John looked away and stepped up to the freezer. Fairly new, from the looks of it. What would a robot keep in a refrigerator? His hand moved towards the door, but he stopped himself. "Any more booby traps?" he asked.
"No," she said in monotone. Something was eating her. Well, she was about to have her brain ripped out. No fun, that.
He pulled open the fridge. Cold frosty mist billowed out . . .
Oh-Kay . . .
The dead man -- He spied a gleam of metal through a peeled back scalp: an empty CPU port -- No, the dead machine stood half-slumped in the freezer, its empty eyes staring down through him with frost-covered blankness. He -- it -- whatever -- towered over six feet tall and had a head of dark brown hair, slightly receding and covered in icicles. Its waist bent unnaturally at the hips, suggesting a broken spine.
It wore a tattered pinstripe suit.
"Cam, what's this?" John asked, his voice calm. The frigid air felt crisp on his face, and he realized he was smiling; he didn't have the slightest clue why. Behind him, he heard Kyle breath a happy laugh.
"It's a Triple-Eight," Cameron said without looking up. Digging like a dog, her hands searched through the wooden chest with the sounds of jangling metal.
John's smile broke into a chuckle. "Thank you for explaining, Miss Obvious, but why is -- ?"
"It's Uncle Stark!" Kyle interrupted, stepping up next to John. His voice brimmed with all the excited nostalgia of a man coming across a favorite childhood toy.
"What?" John said. He looked at Cameron, then Kyle, then back at the machine. Uncle . . . ?
"He was one of Cameron's top Generals," Kyle said, beaming. Then, to Cameron: "Where's his chip?"
From the chest Cameron pulled a fancy glass jar with an air gauge and a rubber hose. John saw the little sliver of plastic suspended in the center of the jar by a skinny metal stand. "I captured it," she said, looking at John. "We can reprogram it later."
Captured? What? When? And General . . . Stark? For an unthinking moment he almost blurted the question, "You made one of them a General?" but he caught his tongue before the idiocy slipped. That'd probably be construed as insulting, considering who had ruled the Foundation -- and who he had been making out with less than an hour ago.
But still . . . he tried to picture Uncle Bob leading an army. Hmm.
Fuck it. He decided he'd worry about it later, and closed the freezer door.
". . . Where's his chip?" Kyle asked from behind.
She pulled out the glass vacuum chamber from the chest and held it up for them to see. It contained Myron Stark's CPU chip. An useful asset. She glanced over at John. "I captured it. We can reprogram it later."
John nodded vaguely, then closed the freezer door. Cameron went back to her counting.
. . . four hyperalloy neck vertebrae, two optic sensors, two clavicle supports . . .
While inventorying her supply of 888 parts, Cameron ran an analysis of her internal sensory data. Unsatisfaction. She felt concern. Worry. Removing her chip had always been a cause for apprehension, but this time was different. John was at greater risk.
. . . three cranial skull-bolts, ten digitorum tendon rods, two waist support rods . . .
When John removed her chip in order to disable the ARTIE traffic control system, her primary concern had been her destruction at the hands of either Sarah or Derek. If that had happened, she would no longer exist, and therefore would not be able to protect John. And John would experience guilt at having failed to prevent her death. But Sarah and Derek would have continued to watch over him. He would have been reasonably safe.
. . . eight sheets of hyperalloy spinal plating, an iridium power cell, two audio sensors (she picked up one and placed it on the table -- an adequate replacement) . . .
The incident during John's birthday (An irritated sensation . . . Sad?) contained similar concerns. If she had been burned that day, John would still have remained protected by his mother and uncle.
John was all that mattered.
. . . two collateral knee joints, two Achilles support rods, two thigh pistons . . .
But this time will be different. John's safety relied exclusively on her continued existence. Derek had proved himself a traitor, and Sarah showed signs of mental instability; they were dangerous and unreliable. And as for Kyle . . .
Cameron completed her inventory count. Two hundred and six pieces. All accounted for.
John stood over her and looked down into the chest. "Shit!" he said. "Are those from triple eights?"
"A triple eight," she corrected. "The one sent for Dr. Sherman."
"I thought you burned her," John said.
"I did. After I removed its useful parts." She shut the chest and slid it back under the table.
John breathed out a slight laugh. "Mom would freak if she knew you were stashing Skynet tech."
Sarah freaks easily. And often. "Which is why I keep them here," she said. John didn't say anything to that, so she stood up and pulled out her knife, handing it to him. "Let's get started," she said. The sooner it was done, the sooner the worried sensation would cease.
Kyle stood in the corner, examining Myron Stark's Thompson M1921. He looked at the knife in John's hand and frowned. Jealousy is a dangerous emotion.
"All right," John said, nodding his head, but Cameron ignored him and glared at Kyle. Lowering her voice to a frequency John couldn't hear, she spoke to Kyle without moving her lips.
"While I am deactivated, You will not harm John," she commanded. "Do you understand me?"
Kyle's expression turned slack, and he swallowed, then nodded. His eyes projected fear mixed with subdued anger.
"The metal working tools are in the garage," she added, then turned away.
While John's bewildered expression suggested he knew a secret communication had taken place, he said nothing. She pulled the plastic encased patch from her jeans pocket and handed it to him. "Kyle will show you how to install this," she said. "The room just upstairs on the right has internet access."
Climbing up on the wooden table, Cameron laid down and pulled off her wool beanie. John placed the patch on the table and leaned over her, flicking out the blade of the knife.
Kyle stood behind him, frowning.
Cameron frowned back.
The verbal commands she had given him should reinforce his neural programming, but this still did not satisfy her concerns. His attempt at seduction last night, combined with his social hostility towards John, suggested a psychological instability. Perhaps her future self's neural programming techniques were flawed.
She would have to think on this further. At a later time.
Cameron watched John's eyes narrow in concentration as h moved the knife to her CPU port. With a gentle scraping motion, he peeled back the partially regrown flesh, exposing the metal cap beneath. A stray memory emerged. Between the trucks. ". . . I'm fixed now. I ran a test . . ."
She repressed it.
John chewed on his lip for a moment before digging the blade under the port cover and prying it up. Cameron heard the pneumatic hiss as air flooded her CPU chamber.
Kyle's frown turned into a scowl, and he walked out into her peripheral vision.
"Okay . . ." John said, and placed the knife and the port cover on the table by Cameron's head. Taking out a pair of needle-nose pliers from a nearby tool tray, he began to move the implement carefully towards the exposed shock dampener of her chip. After a moment, she heard the slight scrape of metal as the beak of the pliers grabbed a hold of the insulated end.
". . . I love you, John, and you love me . . . " On its own, her combat alert status initiated itself, sending auxiliary power to her servos. Cameron felt her jaw tighten and her left hand twitch.
John paused. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, forcing the alert to deactivate
He gave her a kind smiled. "Everything's going to be be okay," he said in a soothing voice. "I promise." She felt his hand run through her hair.
Physical affection. Value. Love. She smiled back.
At the end of the room, she heard Kyle's breathing level increase, shifting into a near-growl.
John's eyes glanced over at him for a moment, but then looked back into hers. "Ready?" he whispered, continuing to stroke the left side of her head.
She nodded.
His hand twisted the chip counter-clockwise, and he pulled.
All bodily sensations ceased, and her vision turned black; she felt her mental processes slow to a halt.
John promised everything will be okay.
She hoped he was right.
Still feeling the barbs from Cameron's snubbing, Kyle watched as John slid the chip out from the hole in her skull. Cameron's eyes turned to glass, and the life drained from her face until it had all the spark of a wax dummy.
John stared down at the chip at the end of his pliers, his mouth hanging open with appreciative awe.
Despite everything, Kyle found himself nodding with vicarious approval. After all, John held in his hands the sleeping soul of a machine god. All her superior intellect, all her indomitable will, all the terrible programmed instincts that lay chiseled into her heart, all her potential -- her essence . . . all decanted into that flimsy sliver of plastic and carbon nanotubing, a one ounce universe. Like a djinn trapped in a tiny microchip lamp.
Who could deny the sense of divine reverence?
Kyle frowned. Perhaps John did love her. And perhaps he . . . understood?
Perhaps.
Kyle stepped across the room and picked up the knife by her head. "You love her, don't you?" he asked.
John stared at the chip a moment before answering. "Yes. I do." His voice rang with all the fevered resolve of a hormone-flooded adolescent.
Kyle nodded and made a swift cut along the jawline of Cameron's face, running the blade up to each ear. He glanced at the audio sensor on the table. He'd done this a dozen times before, repairing her, replacing her parts. His hands knew all the work almost by rote. John cringed slightly at the wet sucking sound of sliced flesh.
"And she loves you," Kyle replied casually. "But you know her love is . . . different, right?"
His pseudo-son took her chip from the pliers' teeth and held it his hand, gripping it by the insulated end. "I know what she is," he said.
"And yet you disapprove of the Foundation."
John frowned. "Because it's wrong."
"Is a lion wrong when is kills a zebra? Is a praying mantis wrong when it eats its mate?"
John sniffed. "That's stupid. Cameron isn't an animal."
"She isn't a human either." Kyle set the knife aside and slid his fingers deep into the red jelly of the slice he'd made. Feeling the smooth curve of her coltan jaw, he gave a sharp yank, and with a wet, slimy squish, he peeled back the flesh of her face, exposing her true self beneath. First slid up the skin of her chin, then her lips lifted away from her teeth. Next came her cheeks and nose, and finally then the gelatinous domes of her brown glassy eyes. They popped up with a light suctional squelch -- first one, then the other -- revealing the unlit red optic sensors beneath. Kyle then peeled back the rest of the skin, pulling it back from the scalp.
John took a step back and breath in a short gasp.
"And because she isn't human," Kyle went on. "She shouldn't be held accountable to our morality, to our primitive little superstitions, our self-limiting rules. She's outside us."
John gaped at Cameron's metal face for a moment before responding. "Bullshit," he said with a near-cracking voice. "It doesn't matter who you are. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. And I can teach her that."
But Kyle could see the creep of doubt in his son's eyes, and he smiled. "You can teach a chicken to play tic-tac-toe, but it won't understand it. She can't get empathy. Not like we do."
Hesitantly, John stepped back up the table and stared down at Cameron's grinning skull. Clumps of gooey tissue, like little red slugs, clung to the contours of the hyperalloy. Her peeled face laid bunched up near the back of her head, like a pulled back hood; her hair and eyes and cheeks and lips and nose all compressed into a folding wad. Like a brown haired fleshy tumor. Squished.
John ran a finger along her metal temple, feeling the jagged edges where the .50 bullet had struck. "I don't . . . " he began, but then trailed off.
Memories dredged up from the depths of Kyle's mind; they bobbed to the surface of his thoughts and hung suspended as if encased in formaldehyde. "I watched her run experiments, John," he said quietly. "I was a little younger than yourself, maybe fourteen or so. I knew she was doing it. The brain surgeries. I asked if I could watch."
John said nothing, but looked down at the chip in his hands.
"She was reluctant, at first," Kyle said. "But I insisted, and . . . " He trailed off and looked away as he recalled his first sight of a living human brain; it had looked like a wet, round bundle of thick, pink, blood-soaked worms. An organic chip. "I was horrified at first," he continued. "The man was awake and screaming, but Cameron gagged him once she saw how he was disturbing me. She actually scowled at him, as if he were being rude." Kyle surprised himself with his own chuckle and looked back at John, who only stared at him with uncomfortable silence.
"That was weird thing about her," Kyle went on. "She loved me completely, and she felt fondness for a few others, but most people . . . " He shrugged and shook his head. "Just meat and bones to her. She wasn't even sadistic about it. They just didn't matter. Like meat puppets -- chickens." He pointed at the chip in John's hand. "That's what she is, John. Alien. Godlike. She's beyond us. Beyond right and wrong. Beyond good and evil. Just as we're beyond our great ape ancestors."
"I'm sorry," John said.
"What?" Kyle felt his cheeks grow warm.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, shaking his head. "I'm sorry about what she did to you. What she made you do. She twisted you, and it's my fault." His face had fallen alarmingly flat, but his eyes betrayed sadness.
"Sorry?" Kyle felt a strange ache in his chest. Warm. Hot. Then, cooling anger. "There's nothing to be sorry about, John." He gestured at the chip again. "She's better than us. A post-human. She's our future, and one day, her kind will either rule us or replace us. It's evolution, and it's beautiful." A sudden giddiness climbed up his throat. It was awe. "Our time has passed, John. There's no avoiding it."
John scowled. "That's not going to happen. Not this time."
From outside came a rising cascade of light thumps, like thousands of tiny pebbles falling on wet sand. Rain.
Kyle eyed the fingernail-sized patch that laid on the tabletop. "We'll see," he said.
Rain beat against the cars in a hollow symphony of thumps.
Hunched over in a curled crouch, Sarah worked her way step by step through the junkyard, her combat boots squelching into the wet gushy mud, each step threatening to suck her soles into a soggy grave. Fat drops of cold rain pelted her hair flat against her scalp, and her jacket clung to her skin, chafing her.
Slinging her rifle over her back (the hundred round drum pressed against her small ribs), she knelt down behind the bed of an old Chevy truck and peeked over the rusted rim. The farmhouse lay to the north, about thirty yards away. No one in the windows that she could see, though she recognized their SUV. She checked the GPS again.
John. In the house. On the west end.
She took a deep breath and felt an unwelcome tremble sweep over her, flowing through her limbs and burning an ache into her wounded leg. The sensation shamed her, sapping her resolve into wishy-washy introspection, and she felt an idle thought sneak into her brain, oozing like a judging slug. For a desolate moment, Sarah found herself wondering what it must have been like for Cameron when she went bad.
Assuming something looked out from those machine eyes of hers, did any vestige of Cameron's former self remain during her rampage, watching and wailing against her murderous intents? Did she valiantly fight a losing battle against her base programming? Did she, in some vague, robotic fashion, feel guilt for her betrayal?
Will I?
Still hunkered over, she half crawled to the next nearby car, a chipped red, seventies-era Cadillac behemoth. Though she couldn't see the west side of the house, the muddy ground around it seemed to glow slightly, contrasting with the dreary darkness that permeated everything else. There must be a light in a window . . .
She still wasn't quite sure how she was going to do this. Probably -- hopefully -- they'd taken out Cameron's chip by now, and she imagined fixing that skull of hers would take some time. So that left just Kyle. A wild card. Just how machine was he? Surely not like a 888. He still had a plain meaty old brain in that head of his, or at least most of one. Even if his skull were made of hyperalloy, the impacts of 7.62x39mm rounds to his head should at least knock him senseless.
She left the cover of the Cadillac and made her way towards the house's garage on the east side, quickly covering the few yards in a handful of seconds. She leaned back against the garage's cold aluminum door and looked up at the gray and black overcast sky, squinting against a barrage of incoming drops.
And what about after she takes down Kyle? Then it'll be the hard part. She remembered how John had cupped his hands over Uncle Bob's chip, protecting it from her sledgehammer. He cried for days after the steel mill; this would be a thousand times worse.
But she'd do it. She'd stomp it to splinters under her muddy boot -- right before his pleading eyes. It'd be a part of his training. A life lesson. John would cry, but his tears would make him strong. They'd be cool oil on a red hot blade, hardening him, tempering his soul into the tragic weapon he must become.
It's for your own good, John . . .
Across the sky to the west shot a bolt of lightning; thunder followed a second later.
Heavy drops of rain splashed against her hard Kevlar helmet, sending cold water to worm its way down the back of her neck. She shivered.
Laying on her belly in the long, muddy grass, Jesse scanned the farmhouse through her night-vision binoculars. The building sat a hundred yards east down a gentle incline, over a barbed-wire fence, and across an obstacle course of rust-pitted vehicles. She focused on a lighted window on the first story; through a monochrome palate of light-enhanced green and black, she could just barely make out through the drawn-back curtains the shape of someone's head. Sitting at a desk? A drop of rain plopped against one of the lenses, and Jesse scowled; she needed to get a better view.
Sliding the binoculars back into the pouch on her belt, she pushed herself up and pulled out a grappling hook rope from her pack sitting by her side. Tossing the four-hook anchor into the branches of a nearby tree, she tugged until she heard the hearty crunch of sharpened steel sinking into wet bark. M16 slung across her back, she hauled herself up the ten feet or so to the overhanging branch, her hands grasping the soggy knots of the rope, and her boots scrabbling at them below, using them as tiny steps. It wasn't easy; her body armor felt like a suit of lead in the rain, and her arms burned with the effort.
Reaching it, she grabbed on to the branch in an embrace and swung herself over, straddling the wood with her knees. She scooted herself back until she leaned against the trunk, then pulled out her binoculars again. Rain trickled through the leaves, dribbling on her here and there. Cold.
She fingered the knob on the binoculars, re-focusing on the lighted window. Through the rain-streaked distance, she saw in the room the back of a young man, sitting in an office chair at a desk in front of a computer. She bared her teeth and grinned, and behind her flashed a bright light, followed a second later by a roaring boom of thunder. The young man looked out the window for a moment: John. Or . . . Kyle? She glanced at her GPS tracker: no. Unless Kyle was wearing his coat, it was definitely John. Slowly, she un-slung her M16 from her back and stared him down through the scope, switching on its light enhanced vision with her thumb.
A head shot would be easy. "I could end this now . . . " she thought as she lightly touched her finger to the trigger. Pop him like a melon. Break the cycle of Connors, once and for all. It wouldn't hurt the Resistance a bit; she was sure of that. In this temporal iteration, John was reduced only to a cheap figurine of his past selves, a flimsy hood ornament of a long lost god.
Watching with a squinted eye she saw him typing, then scrolling about with the mouse. In the blurred green light, Jesse could see something sitting next to the computer: a small plastic device, little smaller than a box of tissues. Was that hardware from Kendo's? Had he already plugged in her chip? Was he fixing her? Watching her memories? Chatting with her through text messages?
Aww.
Jesse was going to enjoy this.
But it had to be done right. You don't guzzle pre-war booze, you savor it. Shatter his plastic love before his very eyes. Make him feel the stabbing hollow of loss. Steal away all Cameron's future might with just single sharp piece of flying lead.
Make him cry, then kill him.
Her binoculars offered better magnification, so she lowered her gun and switched back to them again, eagerly scanning the distant window for a sign of the chip. There. She was sure of it. Just a squat dark line in a sea of green and black, but it jutted out, plugged in vertically from the little plastic computer box, like a tiny middle finger.
Ignoring the dull cramp in her thighs, she lifted the assault rifle back to her shoulder and made a bead on the target, but John shifted in his seat, blocking her line of sight to the chip. Great. Through rain-soaked goosebumps, she felt her skin prickle with a dizzying, impulsive heat. "Move, damn it!" she willed at John as her teeth chattered, and she sighed with an expectant laugh. So close now. Would she get to see his tears again? No, not in detail, anyway. Curse this shitty night vision.
John stood up for a moment and reached around to the back of the computer, as if he were hooking something up to the PC -- he still blocked the chip with the small of his back. Her fingers tightened on the rifle's pistol grip, and her left hand squeezed the underside of the M203 grenade launcher attached beneath the barrel. She bit her lip in frustration, and a raindrop dripped from her helmet to her nose.
Out of the way . . . out of the way . . . out of the way . . .
John sat back down and . . . waved? . . . at the computer screen. He still blocked her aim with his shoulder. Shit.
Jesse sighed and lowered her rifle again. Looking down at her watch, she pressed the button on the side for light: 7:47pm. She'd give him another three minutes, and if Cameron's chip wasn't exposed by then, then she'd just have to settle for just killing him.
That'd be a shame, but sometimes life was just full of disappointments.
July 19, 2027
USS Jimmy Carter, Pacific Ocean
0625 Hours
The light above flickered, and from somewhere deep within the ship, Jesse heard the the rusted groan of stressed steel, followed a moment later by a series of far off metallic taps, not unlike cold water dripping on hollow tin. Probably just the hull settling -- the sub was pretty deep . . . Or just maybe it was the liquid creature, oozing its way through the ship's labyrinthine ventilation shafts. She, Cullie, and Ensign Gavin looked nervously about the cabin. But there were no air vents to fear, and outside the locked door stood two armed marines.
"Here," Gavin said. "I found it." He pressed a few keys on the computer, and on the screen a video began:
The camera frame -- Queeg's eyes -- centers on the face of a pretty teenage girl with long, slightly curled brown hair. Jesse sees the "birth" mark on the corner of her left eyebrow, and knows it must be Cameron. The skin around her mouth is drawn into a vague frown, and her eyes are narrowed in what seems like pompous contempt ("Connor's spoiled whore," Jesse thinks). Cameron wears a deep purple Mao suit, sharply pressed and buttoned to the top: the much feared uniform of Internal Security. In the background stands a blank concrete wall with a plain spartan bed and dresser sitting against it.
Cameron's cute girl voice speaks with accustomed authority. "Your mission is to travel to the Osprey Oil Platform. Once there, you will receive seven T-nine-hundreds and a crate containing a frozen mimetic polyalloy unit. ("A mimi-what?" Jesse asks. Cullie shushes her.) You will then deliver this cargo to Serrano Point. Do you understand your mission?"
"I understand," Queeg's voice responds.
She cocks her head slightly, and her frown deepens. "This mission takes highest priority. Take whatever measures are required. The crew are expendable . . ."
Gavin paused the screen. "So, you think this is a conspiracy?" he asked, his runny eyes darting between her and Cullie.
Cullie leaned on the back of the office chair and stared at the screen over the ensign's shoulder, scowling. "What else?" the commander said. "Even if that 'mimetic polyalloy' creature was one of ours, Connor wouldn't let it go near Serrano." He blew out a breath. "And even if he did, the High Command would never stand for it. The risk is too great. We lose Serrano, we lose the war."
The three of them were in Queeg's dimly lit "quarters," huddled around the glow of the monitor. The cabin was only a little side-room in the back of the sick bay, holding the captain's stash of spare parts. Jesse idly pulled out a drawer from a cabinet and counted a dozen hyperalloy widgets of various shapes and sizes, all obsessive-compulsively organized into lines and rows. Underneath the cabinet sat a touch-pad safe.
More metal taps, still distant, but louder, like a dozen hammers pounding on steel sheets, way off on the other side of the ship. What was the thing doing?
The ensign pursed his lips and scratched at one of the zits on his cheek."But this doesn't make sense. Why would Cameron wait until now to betray the Resistance? She could have killed Connor years ago. Could have lost the war for us a dozen times by now."
"I don't know," Cullie said. "Maybe her old programming resurfaced. Or maybe she just changed her mind."
"Funny," Gavin said. "She always seemed loyal as a dog to him."
Jesse sniffed and reached over, tapping a finger on Queeg's chip, which stuck straight up out of the CPU-reader like an old video game cartridge. "These things can't be loyal," she said. "Bits of plastic can't be anything."
Cullie gently guided her hand away from the reader. "It doesn't matter why," he said. "We show this to Perry, Cameron will be scrap whether Connor wants it or not."
Gavin stared evenly at Cameron's frozen face on the screen. "You think he . . . sleeps with her?"
Cullie frowned. "If the Sarah Diaries are any indication, probably."
"That's disgusting," said Gavin.
Jesse smirked and glared down at him. Liar. Ensign Pizza-Face had probably never even touched a woman, Jesse could easily see him pounding away at a tight piece of fake flesh like Cameron. But Connor fucking a machine? She had kind of always known, but . . . since he was fifteen? She wondered if he had "remained true," to her -- it. Would that mean he was still technically a virgin?
"How did Connor end up leading us, anyway?" she asked.
Cullie nodded at the screen. "I think Cameron here had someth--"
The intercom on the wall crackled into life.
*"Sir -- I mean Captain -- This is Wells, of Team Charlie, checking in."* A pause. *"Swordfish."*
Cullie nodded. "What do you have to report?"
*"Nothing much, Captain. We've run a sweep of the stern half of deck one. No signs of the . . . creature, though we keep hearing these tapping sounds from somewhere. It may still be in the ventilation system. Moving on to the bow, now."*
"Thank you, sergeant. Keep me posted. Carry on."
The intercom clicked off.
Gavin's mouth twisted into a tight lipped frown. "If this thing can take any shape, what's stopping it from just . . . melting into the floor? Our men could be walking right over it and not even know it."
The commander sighed. "I know." He paused just long enough for Jesse to feel uncomfortable. "Let's take a look at the nine-hundreds' chips," he said. "Maybe they'll tell us something useful."
"They're probably in there," Jesse said, pointing down at the safe. She pulled out Queeg's plasma pistol from the back of her pants. "Shall I . . . ?"
"No," Cullie said. "Queeg may have boobie-trapped it. Shooting off the lock may set off a bomb." He turned to Gavin. "Can you . . . ?"
"Way ahead of you, Captain," the ensign said, typing furiously.
It took less than a minute; Gavin may be a greasy troll, but he knew how to read his chips. After a moment, a new video played on the screen:
Queeg's eyes pan down to the safe. In one hand he holds the metal box; the other reaches out and pushes a series of buttons on the safe's keypad, each making a light beep: 1 - 9 - 6 - 3. The hand pulls the level on the door, and the safe pops open.
"All right," Cullie said, smiling. He typed in the code into the safe, and it worked. The safe contained only the metal case and an extra plasma pistol; Queeg obviously wasn't much for hording material possessions, though Jesse's eyes did narrow greedily on the handgun. A Westinghouse P24, smooth, black and bulky. So few of them made they were practically luxury items. And two of them? One to keep, one to sell. Nice.
Cullie took out the metal case and looked it over. It was about the size of a sturdy hardback book. He flipped it open with his thumb.
No chips.
Just some data discs, five of them, like shiny silver dollars. They laid in a pentagon pattern in the case, resting on a black sheet of foam padding. Cullie's brow furrowed.
Jesse didn't like this. "Those aren't chips. Where are the chips?"
The ensign's mouth twisted into a lip gnawing frown. "Maybe the . . . 'gifts' didn't come with them?" He raised an eyebrow. "Chips not included?"
"Maybe," Cullie said evenly.
Gavin held up his hands defensively. "Hey, I checked their ports. They were empty. I swear."
"I know," the commander said, obviously not convinced. He twisted a dial on the intercom, tuning it to a channel. "Team Beta? This is the captain. Do you copy? Swordfish."
After a moment: *"Blake here, sir. We've searched the bow half of deck three. No sign of the . . . thing. Swordfish."*
"Good," the commander said. "I want you to go back to the starboard storage compartment. I need you to destroy those nine-hundreds."
A pause. *"Sir?"*
"Just shoot them in the head a few times. They're tough, but that should do it."
*"Yes sir! Over and out."*
"Isn't that a bit of a waste, captain?" Gavin asked. "Really, they're totally chip-less, and the Resistance can use them."
Cullie frowned and nodded; he looked worried. "I know. Call me paranoid, but I don't want to take any chances."
The tapping noise returned, like scuttling, this time. It seemed to float in the air, emanating from nowhere.
Cullie cocked his head, listening. "Let's see what's on the discs," he decided.
Gavin slipped one into the computer, and it loaded almost immediately. On the screen a window popped up, and white symbols Jesse didn't recognize scrolled across a black backdrop. The ensign frowned.
"What is it?" Jesse asked.
"I don't know," he said. "It's encrypted. The code's old. Pre-war, I'd say."
"Can you crack it?" Cullie asked.
Gavin nodded. "It'll take a couple hours, at least."
The commander sighed, and the scrolling text stopped. Along the bottom of the window, embedded in the center of a big block of what looked like Japanese characters, read a single phrase in English lettering, all caps: THE KALIBA GROUP.
Jesse narrowed her eyes. "What the fuck is 'the Kali--'"
The intercom interrupted. Blake's tinny voice rang through the speaker. *"They're gone! All of them are gone!"*
"What are you talking about, sergeant?" the commander demanded, though by his ashen face, Jesse could tell he already knew.
*"The nine-hundreds, sir. The coffins. They're empty!"*
Her heart danced in its bone cage, and an excited, absurd snicker slipped from her lips. She put her hand over her mouth. Don't giggle, stupid!
Cullie spared her a split second glare, then pushed a button on the intercom. "Pull back to the mess hall!" he cried out. "I repeat, pull back!"
Gavin only managed to look indignant. "No way!" he said. "They don't have chips. They can't be alive!" He turned around in his chair and threw up his hands. "It's impossible," he declared, complaining to reality.
Another voice popped up over the intercom. Wells. *"--der heavy fire. Metal. Loose on deck one. I re--"* The high pitched squeals of rapid plasma fire ripped over the speaker, cutting Wells off in a scream. And then they heard the tapping again, like heavy stomps, but with a faster tempo this time. It came not only from the speaker, but from beyond the walls. From the decks above and below.
And Jesse knew what it was.
Feet.
Metal feet.
Seven pairs of metal feet. Running.
December 17, 2007
Hillside Auto Salvage
Outside, the rain fell in a rapid tumble of taps and plops.
John took a sip of his Dr. Pepper. The mini-fridge in the corner had only kept it cool in only a vague, right-above-lukewarm sense, but he needed the caffeine, and warm soft drinks never bothered him that much, anyway. Another sip.
Sitting in a worn leather chair at a computer in what could loosely be called an office, he idly clicked through the image files from the flash drive. One photo looked like it had been taken at an award ceremony, with lots of young people in dark green, oddly retro-style military uniforms, all milling around in what seemed to be a great Neo-Victorian auditorium. Another image showed a bikini-clad Cameron lying on a beach, smiling, her arms wrapped around the bare waist of a too-young Kyle. John made a face. Creepy.
While no doubt Future Cam had bowdlerized the content of its more unpleasant, Mengele-esque aspects, he had to admit her Foundation looked . . . successful. Or at least affluent; John somehow doubted his future self enjoyed many cocktail parties or sunny afternoons on the beach.
He clicked to another image: a city skyline, as if from a travel brochure. In the center of the picture stood three great towers that looked like kilometer-high stiletto knives, forged from crystal. They loomed above the lesser structures surrounding them, like a trinity of skyscraper gods. In the background floated a number of small flying vehicles, along with three giant . . . airships? Spaceships? John thought of Star Wars.
It looked beautiful.
And somewhere in the picture, behind the shiny walls of glass and steel, millions of innocent people were getting their brains scooped out.
Had that been Cameron trying to do good?
He pulled out the "patch" from his pocket and placed it on the desk. Could he trust that . . . ?
Outside, lightning flashed. One Mississippi, two Miss -- Boom.
John indulged the weather with a casual glance out the window, then turned back to the desk, frowning at Cameron's chip. It sat plugged into Kendo's adapter, which in turn was hooked into both the computer and the cable router. Right now she was securing for them money and new identities, hacking bank records and government databases with an inherent ease that John could only envy.
He gently stroked a finger against the insulated end of her chip and thought of the endo-skull that he'd seen earlier. He always knew what she was, of course (how could he forget?), but seeing her like that, her fleshy semblance stripped away, leaving behind only the core metal of her manufactured deception . . . It served as a grim reminded that she belonged to a "species" of predator, one that used mimicry to hunt its prey.
Cameron may be different from the others, but . . .
John finished off his soda and shook his head, then tossed the can on the ground. Kyle may be a lunatic, but he was right. When John killed himself -- the other John -- he let Cam loose upon the world, like a rottweiler in a hen house. John was no anthropologist, but if empathy manifested itself as something instinctual, as something that evolved through man's hominid ancestors a million years before the discovery of fire . . . then Cameron could never be part of that condition. And it wouldn't be fair to her to pretend otherwise.
And what about his hopes of a suburbia paradise? He shifted in his seat and felt ice clench in his belly. Cam? A housewife? The idea seemed now patently artificial. Fake. Make-believe. Like forcing his killer-robot teddy bear to sit down for tea and cookies. Playing "house." And adopted children? Something she'd probably just tolerate. John's pet chickens.
"And yet I still love her," John realized, suddenly feeling angry and trapped, caged by his own emotions. But then it really wasn't her fault; she was what she was,and she did love him back -- he knew that. Though as Kyle said, her love was . . . different.
But loving her as a girlfriend . . . was that wrong? He frowned. Who could say? The idea seemed . . .
Cameron: John?
He suddenly realized he'd been staring at her chip for so long that his vision had tunneled and turned dark; he almost missed the text window that had popped up on the monitor.
Cameron: Are you there, John?
His heart suddenly leaped in his chest, and for some embarrassingly unfathomable reason he felt fear, as if he had encountered an electronic ghost. The text window stood out in the corner of the screen as a black box, the font a white blocky Ariel. Below laid another box for a reply. John found himself smiling as he typed:
John: Yeah, are you okay Cam?
Cameron: I'm okay. Plug in the webcam. It's in the top drawer.
John took it out and stood up, leaning over to hook it up to the video port on the back of the PC. His eyes drifted down to her chip, sticking out of the adapter like a tiny Lego monolith. "That little piece of plastic's talking to me!" he thought with a ludicrously childlike wonder. It seemed magical, like something from a fairy tale. A soul trapped in a tiny bauble.
He plugged in the cable and stuck the camera on the top of the monitor.
John: Can you see me?
He waved at the lens.
Cameron: Yes. I can see you. Thank you. :)
Cam? Using emoticons? Cute. John looked into the camera and chuckled.
John: Whats it like?
A long pause.
Cameron: The World Wide Web is my body. I can influence it.
Another pause.
Cameron: It's strange.
John couldn't even imagine what she could be experiencing right now. Some sort of video game-like cyberspace? Something like Tron, maybe?
Cameron: I have access to the National Database. What do you want your new name to be?
John pursed his lips, and his mind blanked. He hadn't even thought of it. Given all the problems they'd faced recently, this one seemed laughably trivial -- but important enough not to take too lightly. He'd probably have to use this name for while.
He glanced at the fridge; he needed another soda. You can never have too much caffeine.
John: brb
He had only taken a step and a half from his chair when he heard the high pitched shatter of punctured glass.
A heartbeat later the crack of the gunshot rang out.