Author's Notes: First of all, really, really sorry this chapter took me so long; I've been swamped at work and other things, and this chapter's been bugging me for a while; had a bit of writer's block. Although it might sometimes take me a few weeks to update, I have not and will not quit writing this fic. Unlike some others *cough*FOX*cough* I won't give up, hehe.
So with much apologies for a very late update, please do enjoy.
Cameron stared in silence in the passenger seat of the Humvee, staring out the windscreen into the darkness as the light armoured car drove slowly through the ruins of Nevada. To the casual observer it would appear that Cameron was daydreaming, miles away, in her own little world, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Cameron was scanning the surrounding environment for threats with her infrared night vision. The closer they got to Nellis the more patrols they'd encounter. So far they'd only encountered a single air patrol, a Reaper UCAV, but Cameron had heard it before it had come into range and they'd shut the engine off and hidden, still as statues, in the surrounding rubble.
Being a cyborg, the task of scanning for threats took up very little of her processing power. The two soldiers in the Humvee – one in the driving seat next to her and one manning the .50 cal heavy machine gun mounted on the roof – hadn't spoken a word to her since they'd set off, and she'd made no attempts to make conversation, and she found her thoughts turning once again to John.
Simply thinking of John and what he would be suffering in the camp hurt Cameron; she felt as if a vital part of her was missing, despite her diagnostic program assuring her otherwise she couldn't rid herself of that feeling. But at the same time, she couldn't – and didn't want to – stop thinking about John, as though her thoughts and memories of him were a lifeline she clung to, and to stop thinking of him would sever that line and he'd be lost to her. He was the centre of her existence and his absence made her uncomfortable, made her hurt; she didn't know if he was safe, if he was hurt or not, and because she understood he felt the same about her; he would have seen her damaged by the Hunter-Killer missile attack and likely wouldn't know her condition, the same as her. She'd been severely damaged and it would be reasonable for him to assume she was dead.
Dead, she'd never considered her own termination as death before. Humans died, machines were deactivated or destroyed; they weren't alive so they couldn't die, but she found 'dead' more fitting. Cameron instantly squelched that line of thought; it hurt her to think of 'John' and 'dead' at the same time, and she wouldn't accept it unless she saw it with her own eyes. And if he was, she didn't know what would happen to her; whether she would continue to remain online – or alive, as John would have put it – completely alone and no mission or purpose, or would she simply shut down?
Once again she had to consciously stop that line of thought – another thing that was happening more frequently – and she focused on how to help John. She'd brought food, water, and a medical kit with her in case he was injured. She didn't know what the conditions of Skynet work camps in this time were like, but she thought it likely they'd be comparable to those of 2027, and didn't want John to have to endure it for any length of time.
As they drove towards the Skynet stronghold that was Nellis air force base, Cameron noticed all of her systems running faster than normal; her thought processes had sped up exponentially and gave her the sensation that time had slowed down. She knew that wasn't possible, but it was still irritating for her – it meant it would feel even longer before she saw John again, and with very little to occupy her mind, all she could do was keep scanning outside and try to suppress that feeling – something that was becoming more difficult as time went by.
She was simultaneously thinking of John and searching for threats – one of the advantages of being a cyborg was that she could multitask like no human ever could and keep her mind actively engaged in several tasks at once. Her audio sensors – much more sensitive than human ears, detected a faint whining sound in the air and it took a hundredth of a second for her to match it to a sound profile in her files and recognise what it was; HK.
"Stop," Cameron commanded the driver, who slammed on the brakes and brought the Humvee to a standstill. "Turn the engine off," she said quietly, turning to the nervous looking soldier behind the wheel.
"What is it?" he asked; the fear in his eyes apparent, and for once not because of her.
"HK, two miles east," Cameron replied. "Drive up to that ridge," Cameron pointed to a rocky outcrop sticking out of the desert floor, fifty metres away, that would provide partial cover from being seen. The soldier started up the car again and slowly drove forward, pulling up alongside the rocks that jutted out at an angle, keeping them hidden from anything watching above.
"Where is it?" The second soldier in the Humvee asked from his position manning the .50 cal machine gun on the roof. He had night vision goggles on but still couldn't see anything. Cameron held on to her plasma cannon, tucked in the foot well between her legs and sticking out up to her chest, but she didn't turn it on.
"I got it," the gunner said as the HK emerged from the low clouds above and descended to a few hundred feet, flying in a search pattern.
"Don't fire," Cameron said flatly. Even if he shot the machine down it would alert Skynet to their presence. She could destroy it with a single shot from her plasma cannon but the loss of contact with the UCAV would compel Skynet to send more units to investigate. Unless it discovered them she would let it pass over and wait until it was out of range before they carried on.
"I can nail it right now, tin can," the gunner whispered harshly.
"More would come," Cameron replied. "And we'll be discovered."
"Just wait, Gus," the driver said, unexpectedly agreeing with Cameron. The two men and one cyborg waited in silence for several tense minutes that seemed to drag on forever as the UCAV flew overhead – straight over them – and carried on, flying west.
"You can drive now," Cameron said to the driver, satisfied that the HK had flown out of range to detect them.
"I don't think so," the driver chuckled humourlessly. "End of the line, tin can. You're walking the rest of the way."
"We're seven miles from Nellis air base," Cameron replied. She could walk the seven miles to the base but even with the repairs to her knee, she still limped on it and it would take longer to get there.
"We're safe here but there's nothing between us and Nellis but open desert; another of your buddies flies over and we're humped."
Cameron ignored the comment and looked blankly at the soldier. She thought about forcing him to drive her closer, but he did have a point, she knew. She would take longer on foot to reach the base, but she could evade detection easier on her own and without the noisy, bulky Humvee. She held the plasma cannon by the carrying handle she'd attached and picked up a pack full of food, water, medical supplies, and ammunition and grenades for an M4A1/203 rifle that was also strapped to the back of the back – in case the plasma cannon malfunctioned.
She opened the door and stepped out, slinging the pack over her shoulders and hefting the plasma cannon with ease.
"Once you've found Connor and taken out the base defences, get out of there and meet us here; we'll pick you up in twenty four hours," the driver said, pulling the door closed and pulling off, turning around and driving back across the desert towards Area 51.
Cameron was alone once more, though this time she preferred it that way. Humans tended to be unreliable; they were slower, weaker, and were prone to throwing away logic – or common sense, as John called it – and acting on emotion. They did stupid things; even John was guilty of that, she knew. She herself had started to act on emotion, she knew. She'd felt angry when fighting Cromartie – more than anger, she'd felt rage; she'd been unable to control it during her fight and it had gotten the better of her. She couldn't allow it to happen again; it nearly cost John his life then and might be worse next time, yet she couldn't go back to feeling nothing.
Cameron marched for two hours across the open desert towards the Skynet owned former air force base. There was little to no cover and on four separate occasions Cameron had to hit the ground and lie still as HKs and Predators flew overhead in what she assumed to be combat air patrols, sweeping the area surrounding the base for any threats. She knew she was close when the last two aircraft flew overhead within ten minutes of each other.
Eventually the perimeter wire of the base came into sight and Cameron saw the sprawling base within. She kept far away from the fence and crept around slowly, moving from cover to cover and taking care to move silently, still searching for any sign she'd been detected. The base was huge; the size of a large town at least, and it took Cameron a while before she found what she was looking for; a dark, empty corner of the base perimeter with no machines nearby. She knelt down and hid behind an abandoned car on the dirt road winding around the back of the base, a hundred and fifty feet from the perimeter fence, and remained still as a statue, waiting, watching the perimeter from under the car.
She heard it before she saw it; the crunch of heavy tracks rolling over the rocky desert floor just outside the perimeter as the behemoth form of a T-2 rolled forwards, parallel to the fence, its upper body turning out to the left, facing away out away from the base, swivelling its massive 30mm auto-cannons in her direction. Cameron remained still and low to the ground, knowing if she moved even an inch she'd be blasted apart in an instant. Designed to punch through tank armour, its heavy armour piercing rounds would shatter her endoskeleton; she wouldn't survive even a single hit.
Cameron watched the massive armoured tank killer roll past her, unaware of her presence, and remained still even after it had gone. She waited, still kneeling in place until she heard the rumbling sound of another T-2 drone, exactly two and a half minutes after the first. Again, she watched it go past her position, oblivious to her hidden behind the car. She waited until a third machine rolled past, a hundred and sixty seconds later. She calculated the T-2 patrols were staggered approximately every two and a half minutes – that was her window to get into the base.
Cameron ran up to the fence – still limping slightly on her damaged knee - and knelt down just outside the wire, still listening intently for any approaching machines. She put her plasma cannon down on the rocky ground beside her and gripped the crisscrossing wire mesh and pulled, tearing a hole through the fence. To Cameron, the sound of the wire snapping was as loud as the crack of a bullet. She would have heard it from a hundred yards away, but the entire base was active; aircraft taking off and landing, service drones rolling along on fat rubber wheels to refuel, rearm, and repair the unmanned bombers, the distant whining of various machines and the rolling of armoured tracks as machines patrolled the perimeter.
Cameron quickly pulled the flap of fence away, pushing the plasma cannon and her pack through first, then crawling under and pulling the flap back into place, leaving hardly a trace of her presence. Two minutes and ten seconds had elapsed, she noted. She could already hear another T-2 approaching as she stood up inside the fence, moved towards the cover of the nearest building, and slipped inside, unseen.
The building, which she instantly identified as having been living quarters for the base's enlisted personnel, was in complete darkness. Skynet had no need for human accommodation once its machines had killed all the personnel, and had rerouted the power elsewhere. Cameron could easily see in the dark, however, and walked along the silent, deserted corridors, and up several flights of stairs to the fourth – and top - floor.
Cameron felt something she'd never experienced before; her urge to immediately search for John conflicted with the more logical reasoning that she should try to familiarise herself with her surroundings rather than searching blindly and risk being discovered. Logic won out – barely – and Cameron remained inside. She left her pack and plasma cannon in the main corridor that linked all the barrack rooms together; the weapon was too bulky to carry from room to room, and instead carried her M4 carbine in case she came across anything hostile.
Quickly and methodically, Cameron searched from room to room, making sure they were clear and also looking out each room's window, taking in the view outside. Major Scott hadn't been able to give her any useful information regarding the layout of the base; only that it was 'a fortress' according to him. It took a long time – there were eighty four rooms on the top floor and she had to clear them all – but eventually she managed to paint a picture of the base's layout.
She saw, from searching every room and getting a 360 degree view from the windows, that the eastern side of the base – where she was, held all the living quarters and mess halls. Completely disused now that the base was fully unmanned; Skynet would likely tear the buildings down or repurpose them when it needed the space as it's machine army grew. At the centre of the base held two runways running east to west, and fourteen large hangars beside them on their right, spaced apart in two rows of seven; each looked as if it could house up to thirty aircraft. Beyond that was the control tower and radar equipment – all fully automated and controlled by a central Skynet computer. If she destroyed that, it would cripple the whole base and the machines would have no command or control. Though she filed that away for later consideration; rescuing John was her top priority.
She couldn't see anything resembling a work camp, but her view of the base was fairly limited, and she'd need to take a closer look around the base to find him.
One thing she took note of was some of the rooms looked like they'd recently been lived in, and not by the soldiers who'd formerly occupied the rooms; she saw empty packets of food scattered around several rooms, plus empty and half full ammunition boxes, hexamine cookers, a pack of playing cards sprawled out on the ground, a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels and three ceramic mugs, a pair of smoked cigarettes, stubbed out onto a desk, and an AK47 leaning against a wall. Cameron was curious; had either major Scott or lieutenant colonel Ryan sent men to the base? It was unlikely; all the men From North Las Vegas seemed afraid of Nellis air base and had done their best to avoid it, and she knew from her time in Cheyenne Mountain that most professional soldiers kept their quarters neat and tidy; though most of the men under Ryan's command had been army reservists, not as well trained as John's soldiers. It was possible another group of humans managed to infiltrate the base.
Suppressing her curiosity, Cameron decided that she'd have to recon the base to find out where John was; she'd found out all she could from looking out of windows and would have to explore the base herself to find him. She strapped the carbine to her pack and slung it over her back, then picked up the plasma cannon and headed back down the stairs and out the same door she entered, leaving no more trace of her presence than if the barracks had been visited by a ghost.
Cameron silently darted from one barrack room to another; hiding in the shadows and moving quickly but awkwardly, limping on her right leg. It was uncomfortable, but less so than before and it only slowed her pace slightly. She gradually made her way away from the living quarters and towards the hangar complex. This was the most dangerous part, Cameron knew; the space between the living quarters and the hangars was flat open ground with very little cover, and she saw several T-1s and T-70s rolling and marching throughout the base, patrolling and searching for any humans that might have slipped past the perimeter patrols. Or humans who might try to escape, Cameron thought.
Slowly but surely, Cameron made her way towards the hangars, the thrum of generators and heavy machinery became louder as she got closer, mixed in with an electric buzzing and the loud, high pitched whining of jet engines close by. Cameron walked along the outside of the nearest hangar, keeping close to the wall for cover, and peeked inside.
Inside the hangar were three huge machines, spanning from floor to ceiling and running the length of the hangar – which itself was the size of a football field. Cameron entered the hangar; her plasma cannon shouldered and held at the ready as she moved inside to take a closer look. She walked around the inside of the hangar, scanning for any signs of humans. The active machinery made it more difficult; numerous robotic arms, conveyor belts, and other moving parts interfered with her tracking. She took her time and searched carefully among the giant machines, finding no trace of anyone being there.
She looked at the machines and instantly recognised their designs: HK production units; they were cruder and smaller than they'd been in 2027, but they performed the same function. The whole hangar was an HK factory, and the other hangars likely performed similar functions. On top of each machine was the fuselage of a partially constructed HK drone, being tended to by robotic arms that attached and secured parts onto the airframes. Cameron watched as the nearest construction unit started to attach a pair of barrel shaped vectored thrust engines onto the short, stubby wings on the side of the machine.
Cameron put down her plasma cannon and opened up her pack, taking out a block of C4 and sticking it underneath the middle unit. If she found John it would be best to have a distraction to aid their escape from the base.
She searched all the other hangars and found three more factories; two more creating HK aircraft, and another assembling T-2s, and T-70s. The remaining hangars contained both unmanned and conventional aircraft; the skeletal remains of numerous F/A-22 Raptors, stripped down and torn apart for materials and parts for the HKs that Skynet seemed to favour over other human designed UCAVs.
Cameron planted more C4 charges in the factories; not enough to destroy all of them, but enough to halt Skynet's machine production in Nellis and provide cover for her to escape if she needed it. What Cameron didn't find, after an extensive search of all hangars, was any sign of human prisoners or slaves. There was no sign that any humans had set foot on the base since Judgement Day, barring the equipment left in the living quarters, which was clearly not from men who were prisoners of Skynet. Something was very wrong, she realised; no one was there at all, either Major Scott was wrong, or he'd been lying, or Skynet had disposed of its human prisoners, in which case...
Cameron whirled around, sensing movement behind her, and peered out the hangar entrance, scanning left and right. She saw a flicker of grey and a trailing shadow disappear inside the hangar in front and to her right. She played back what she'd seen, zooming in and enhancing the image in her mind's eye; the back and legs of a grey figure disappearing into the hangar's back entrance. Cameron stared at the empty spot where the figure had been; confused that the grey she'd seen wasn't the dull gunmetal grey of a machine, but a light, greenish grey material; combat trousers tucked into gleaming, polished black boots.
T-70s didn't wear clothes, and the figure was far too small to be a combat unit, which meant the figure was either a human or a T-888. If it was a Terminator, she'd have to destroy it; if human, he or she was likely one of those who'd been living in the quarters she'd been in, and she should know what they were up to, and if they knew anything about where John might be. Cameron quickly crossed the unlit space between hangars and walked over to the back entrance, intent on finding out who this human was and what they were doing.
A burst of fire struck Cameron in the side of the head like a heavyweight's punch would do to a human. She felt the impact before she heard the shots as the rounds shredded her right cheek and temple, bouncing off her hard coltan skull. Cameron snapped her head to the side and saw the lumbering, mechanical frame of a T-70, thirty feet to her right.
She didn't know why she'd not spotted it, or why she'd not cleared the area before she followed her new target; she'd followed it with single minded purpose, not even thinking about clearing the way first. It didn't matter now, she realised, her threat warning alarm flashing in her head and identifying the machine as a 'moderate threat'. Cameron pushed herself to her feet in an instant and brought the plasma rifle to bear and fired as the T-70 lined up its gun arm for another shot.
A brilliant, piercing blue-white beam tore from the cannon and struck its chest, boiling through the armoured chassis and causing the armoured chest plates around the impact to melt and run like treacle. The plasma bolt pierced all the way through the machine and shattered the primitive, heavily armoured power pack, exploding in a brilliant flash that blew the machine apart from the waist up; the legs fell backwards and clattered on the ground. Cameron's threat warning alarm still flared; the immediate threat of the T-70 gone, but she knew she'd been discovered.
Within seconds HK aircraft took to the air, shining their search lights on the ground and searching for her as ground units rolled forward to defend the base. Cameron ran as fast as she could away from the scene, but she'd already been spotted; a T-2 rolled around the corner and swivelled its heavy cannons at her, intent on obliterating her. She fired her weapon first; the high heat plasma beam blew the top of the machine apart and its guns fell still, but more machines were behind it and approaching fast. Cameron fired a volley of shots at the machines – shattering their frames with the powerful plasma weapon -and ran as fast as she could towards cover. There was no way she could sneak out of here now; she'd have to fight her way out.
Cameron fought a running battle out from the hangar complex and alongside the runway, firing shot after shot at HKs ascending into the air, burning them down to the ground in blinding blue plasma fire before they could get airborne to engage. She sprinted back towards the old living quarters, dodging and weaving to throw off incoming fire as she made her way back towards where she'd cut the wire fence to get in. She needed to get out of the base; if she stayed in the base she'd be forced to back into a corner and defend her position, and she'd inevitably be overrun and destroyed.
As Cameron ran forward, another T-2 rolled round from a building in front of her and turned its guns towards her. She skidded to the floor, narrowly avoiding its opening salvo of antitank rounds that shattered the wall next to her and pelted her with bricks, and fired another brilliant plasma beam, burning her opponent down as if it were nothing. The T-2s were the most heavily armoured and toughest of all Skynet's current machines; designed to destroy main battle tanks and built to withstand multiple hits from RPGs and most modern antitank weapons, but the plasma cannon cut through its thick armour like a red hot knife through butter.
Cameron had the advantage of superior firepower but she was alone and outnumbered, and as she ran past the flaming, half melted wreck of the T-2 she'd just destroyed, she ran into a pair of T-70s, and to their left was another approaching T-2, and another closing in behind that one. She turned back and tried to find another way, but quickly realised she was being boxed in; T-2s were approaching from nearly every angle and rapidly blowing away her cover with their huge cannons, trying to pin her down while the smaller units – T-1s and T-70s – closed in to finish her off.
Cameron looked over all the approaching units and scanned for a hole in their defences. She spotted an alleyway, eighty metres away between the commissary and what she guessed was a recreation building, defended by only a pair of T-70s. She accessed her memories of the base from when she'd looked out every window in the top floor of the enlisted quarters and saw that alleyway ended only forty metres from another section of the perimeter fence. That was her best chance. She felt no fear for herself – she'd learned that self preservation was entirely a human instinct – but she'd prefer to remain online, and without her, John would remain alone and lost.
She ran forward at a pace that would put an Olympic sprinter to shame, dodging and weaving to throw off the machines' targeting systems, and ignored the hundreds of near misses – and the few smaller calibre rounds that hit her - as the surrounding machines opened up with a murderous amount of fire. Fifty metres left. Cameron fired the cannon from the hip as she ran, blasting apart the T-70s between her and the alleyway with twin shots. Forty metres...
Cameron heard – rather than saw – the HK in the air behind her, hovering high behind her, and felt an unpleasant chill through her at the memory of the last HK that had attacked her. She dug her heels into the ground and stopped running as a missile erupted from under the HK's stubby wing and streaked towards her, exploding where Cameron would have been if she'd kept moving; another near miss, but the concussion from the blast slammed into her and threw her backwards into the air. Cameron felt weightless and disoriented as she hurtled through the air; brief images, memories of the day before, flashed unconsciously before her eyes.
"Stay here," Cameron pushed John low to the ground, pulled him into a quick kiss and moved to the edge of cover, waiting for the drone to approach. The machine had sensed their heat and was closing in to investigate, emerged from the edge of their cover and swivelled its guns to track them. Cameron leapt on top of the machine and kicked the left gun with all she had, bending the barrel in the middle.
The right cannon turned to fire on John as Cameron wrapped her hands on the barrel and heaved upwards with everything she had, wrenching the cannon away from John as it fired into the air, unleashing a volley of 30mm shells that would have torn John apart. Simply the thought of John dying caused her pain all over. She could hear more machines approaching as she struggled to disable the T2.
"Run," Cameron pleaded as she punched and kicked at the machine, glad that for once John actually ran when told to. She'd hit something critical on the machine, and the gun kept firing in a single continuous burst, apparently unable to stop. She had to hold the chain gun pointing upwards to keep it from targeting John, but at the same time, more machines were approaching, and she couldn't hold the T-2 drone off and defend John from the others at the same time; she was struck with indecision, not knowing whether to let go or hold on, which was the bigger threat to John.
The HK that buzzed overhead hovered in the air like a giant silver wasp and fired at her and the T-2. Cameron saw the missile's rocket motor ignite before launch and threw herself from the UGV. Despite her quick machine reflexes she could never outrun a missile. She tried to escape it anyway and watched as the rocket blasted towards her; she was in midair when the armour piercing rocket struck the T-2, erupting in a brilliant flash of roiling flame that consumed her...
Cameron lay dazed on the ground as she tried to reorient herself. Pain and damage reports flooded her consciousness and she realised she couldn't move. She ran a diagnostic check and realised her damaged aortic conduit had been torn further out of place by either the explosion or the impact with the ground. To Cameron, the cause of the damage was immaterial, only the consequences mattered; she was paralysed. Cameron started to consciously command her power cell to further increase output, when she saw more machines approaching; T-2s and T-70s approached from all angles and several HK's hovered nearby, their weapons all trained on her prone, immobile form; she was trapped, no way out. Any move Cameron made now would result in her termination. Cameron could do nothing but watch as they circled her, preparing to finish her off. I'm sorry John, I failed.
Cameron watched as the machines kept their weapons levelled at her but held fire. She didn't understand; she was damaged, unable to move any part of her, and completely vulnerable, but they remained still. It took a moment for her to understand; Terminators didn't exist yet – barring herself and any others sent back from the future – and the machines thought she was human. She wasn't moving and didn't show any signs of life, so they didn't fire. She still gave off a heat signature from her power cell and her organic covering: Cameron decided to try and trick them; if they thought she was dead they'd lose interest; dead humans were no threat to Skynet – usually. She once again thought of John, and Sarah; officially dead since 1999, but they'd fought Skynet every single day since they'd jumped forward. She refocused her thoughts to the present and stopped trying to reroute further power from her fuel cell and instead reduced its output, then she stopped the flow of artificial blood through the capillaries in her skin, and thought of John as she powered down into standby mode.
Awareness came back to Cameron as she reawakened from standby, and as her CPU ran a full diagnostic, Cameron checked around her, slowly moving her head from left to right, making sure there were no machines nearby. Nothing, she was alone. Not only that, she realised, but she could move again; her power cell had compensated for the further damage to her aortic conduit and automatically boosted its power output when she'd rebooted from standby.
It was lighter outside, she realised; it had been the middle of the night and the sky had been pitch black when she'd searched the hangars and been discovered, and now the sky was twilight; the sun either slowly rising or setting; it was more difficult to tell with the sun mostly blocked out by the dust thrown into the atmosphere from Judgement Day. She checked her internal clock to see how long she'd been out for. August 7th, 2011, 21:44:13; she'd been out for almost a whole day, likely a result of the damage to her power systems. She'd have to avoid engaging standby mode again, she realised; there was a chance that next time she'd fail to reboot at all.
Cameron sat up – sensing no machines in proximity – and immediately realised where all the base personnel had gone; she was sat upon a pile of uniformed, bullet riddled, half rotten corpses; hundreds of them, all slaughtered on Judgement Day so that Skynet could control the airbase unchallenged and use it to dominate much of Nevada. A human would have been disgusted, would have been ill, at the sight and smell of so much death and decay, but it meant nothing to Cameron; just bones and meat.
John had taught Cameron much about the value of human life over the years; she knew humans were afraid of death and tried to preserve their own lives as much as possible, and people tended to mourn for the dead, even if they didn't know them. She remembered John being upset at the death of Jordan Cowen on their first day of high school. She understood the grief humans felt towards the dead, but she didn't share it. Unless they meant something to her, it didn't matter. If John died she didn't know what would happen to her, whether she'd simply shut down, or become catatonic and remain in place, reliving her perfect memories of her time with John until her power cell failed or she was destroyed; or whether she would simply carry on, hollow and empty, without purpose, until her power ran out and she faded away.
Others; like Derek, James Ellison, Charlie Dixon, and Lieutenant Davenport; she'd be saddened slightly at their deaths, but would sacrifice any or all of them without hesitation to protect John. Most of the humans she'd met, she would remain indifferent at their deaths; she didn't know them, she felt no emotional bond with them like she did John, so they meant nothing to her.
Cameron climbed down the small hill of decaying bodies and quickly located the plasma cannon, unceremoniously dumped along with the bodies, along with the weapons the human soldiers had died using. She didn't need to inspect it to see the cannon was useless; the barrel was bent out of shape and long crack ran down one side of the weapon's casing, a mess of broken wires protruding from within. Cameron didn't dwell on how it had happened, instead she inspected the pack – still slung to her back, and found the carbine intact, plus the C4 detonator, spare ammunition, radio, and food and water she'd packed for John. She held out the detonator and her finger hovered over the button, but something stopped her. She didn't know what, but she thought it best to not detonate the explosives, and put it back into her pack.
Skynet logically saw no risk in the dead escaping from the base and had dumped the bodies in a corner of the camp, next to the perimeter wire. With no machines standing guard in the area, Cameron tore down another section of wire and stepped outside the base, unchallenged. Careful of machines patrolling the perimeter, Cameron quickly, carefully, and silently made her way from the camp and towards the rendezvous point.
Cameron made the RV point - beneath the rocky outcrop they'd sheltered from the HK's view before – with over an hour to spare. She spent the hour carefully patrolling the area and making sure no machines were either lying in wait or had followed her from Nellis.
Hours passed and Cameron remained alone. The rendezvous time came and went, and Cameron saw no trace of anyone waiting to pick her up. She pulled out the radio Major Scott had given her and switched it on, the radio was already set to the prearranged frequency so all she had to do was power it on and press to talk.
"Area 51, this is Cameron, come in," Cameron listened for a reply but heard nothing, similar to when she tried to contact North Las Vegas the day before, and she briefly wondered if Skynet had attacked the desert base while she was in standby. More likely, she thought, the Humvee had been intercepted by a Skynet patrol on the way to the rendezvous.
Cameron realised that no pickup was coming, that she'd have to make her own way back; shouldering her rifle and keeping hyper-vigilant, she started the long walk back to Area 51.
It took Cameron two days to walk the distance from Nellis air base to Area 51; two days of limping through the desert, only stopping to find cover when she heard the drone of aircraft engines overhead. Two days with only her thoughts for company. Cameron had felt lonely often; even before her emotions started to evolve, there'd always been a slight spark of something there. She'd always preferred to be around people, even if they hated her, or wanted to destroy her. No interaction with people meant less sensory and cognitive input, and she became bored.
Terminators set to learning mode needed regular interaction in order to function at optimum levels. Cameron was the first and only machine Skynet built that had no read-only mode; she was designed from the ground up to learn – part of Skynet's plan to create the perfect infiltrator. As such, she felt a sensation, a longing for company that she could only describe as loneliness. To try and relieve the feeling, she played back her flawless memory of times she and John spent together; her favourite choice being the memories of her built day; the time she and John had spent walking together, alone on the mountain, eating the cake he'd baked for her; and afterwards, the hours spent in their quarters making love to each other. She'd played back those memories over and over, perfectly recounting everything she'd felt, physically and emotionally, as she walked, although it served as a painful reminder of what she might never have again if she didn't find John.
After two days of walking and sifting through precious memories, Area 51 came into view, and her concerns that the base had been attacked were instantly alleviated; the base appeared to be fully functional and people were going about their business tending to aircraft, constructing the defences John had ordered, and various other activities. Cameron walked up to the gate and was stopped by a pair of guards in DPMs and brandishing rifles.
"No entry, tin can," one of them sneered. "Turn around and walk away."
"I need to see Major Scott," Cameron replied.
"Well you're shit out of luck," the other guard said. "Major Scott's busy and he ordered not to be disturbed, so turn around and piss off."
Realisation hit Cameron like a bullet as everything started to make sense; there was no prisoner camp, there'd never been one. She'd been lied to. Anger flared inside her and her fists clenched involuntarily, crushing the grip and barrel of the M4 in her hands. Major Scott had used her need to find John against her, used her to neutralise Nellis' defences for him. Cameron was angry that she'd been lied to, used, because she was a machine. She could have used the past three days to search for John properly, could have found him by now. Those three days were enough for John to have gone – or been taken – the other side of the country by now. She'd force Major Scott to help her search for John; as Derek Reese found out in a basement in 2027, she could be very persuasive.
She dropped the broken rifle to the ground and grabbed both the men by the neck, raising them up into the air.
"I need to see Major Scott, now." Cameron said flatly, noting their fear with a sense of satisfaction. "Where is he?" One of the men pointed a shaking finger towards a low building with scorch marks near the entrance.
"His... his office is in there," the same man said, clearly scared by Cameron's strength and aggression. She cracked their heads together and dropped them to the floor, unconscious, and stepped over them towards the building they'd indicated. She didn't have to knock them out, but she was angry, and she didn't want Scott to know she was coming.
She marched through the gates and across the open space and into the building – which appeared to be another lab complex - noting several people who weren't in combat fatigues or DPMs; people in civilian clothes, who didn't look like soldiers – several were much older and had thinning hair and pot bellies - who stopped and looked at her with a mix of surprise and revulsion, and some with a look of fascination. Cameron, still angry – pissed, as Derek would have said – took out her frustration on one unfortunate civilian, a tall, thin, young looking man with a mop of black hair and a dark, Hispanic complexion, most likely one of the physicists or engineers John had ordered transported to Area 51 to work on the machines Skynet had sent back. She grabbed him by his shirt and pinned him up against the wall, watching him cower as he took in her strength and the shining metal beneath the gashes on her face, leaving no doubt she wasn't human.
"Where is Major Scott," Cameron said, her eyes – normally vacant and expressionless – glaring in anger.
"He's... he's in his office," he replied, shaking even more than the soldiers at the gate.
"Where?" Cameron slammed him against the wall again, feeling an inexplicable urge to rip his head from his shoulders, even though he'd done nothing to her.
"There," he pointed at a door on the far end of the corridor. Cameron dropped him like trash and moved on as if he'd never existed, marching quickly towards the dark wooden door. She kicked the door and it shattered as it flew open, revealing Major Scott sat at a heavy oak desk, writing something down on a sheet of paper. His head snapped up as Cameron entered the room and his face turned from a look of shock to a smirk.
"I didn't expect to see you again," he said, smiling. Cameron slammed her fist into the middle of the desk, breaking it in half and throwing papers, pens, and a laptop computer into the air and crashing to the floor in a mess. Scott tried to grab for a pistol on his hip but Cameron was too fast; she caught his arm at the wrist and flung him against the wall. She was on him in a second, pinning him to the wall with her petite hand wrapped around his neck, fingernails digging in behind his windpipe.
"You used me," Cameron said, accusation clear in her tone. She struggled to keep control of her emotions; Major Scott had managed to manipulate and use her before, and she knew he'd try again if he thought she could feel anything. "Why?"
"Why?" Scott smiled, amused. "Do you even have to ask?"
"Yes, I have to ask," Cameron punched him in the gut; the grin was wiped from his face as the air burst up from his lungs and out his mouth. She let go of his neck and swiftly kneed him in the crotch, grinning as his face contorted in agony and he fell to his knees, still unable to breathe. She couldn't care less about hiding her emotions; she'd let him see she was enjoying hurting him. She wasn't cruel but she felt extremely satisfied from taking her anger out on Scott.
Cameron threw him to the other side of the room and watched him drop like a stone to the floor, all the strength gone from his body.
"Tell me, why?" Cameron stood over him, ready to dole out more punishment if necessary.
"Why'd you think?" Scott coughed out, grimacing in pain and looked up at her in contempt as he struggled to his feet and glared at her in contempt. "Nellis is a fucking fortress! Skynet's got us in its sights and we needed somebody who could get in there and crack that place wide open. You did take it down, didn't you?"
Cameron thought of the detonator in her pack, how she'd put it away without using it and leaving the base intact.
"Yes, the Skynet computers have been neutralised," Cameron lied.
"Good," the smug, satisfied look returned to Scott's face once again. "Then we're done here. Piss off or I'll have you melted down, I don't care which."
"We had a deal," Cameron insisted.
"I don't make deals with tin cans," Scott snapped, poking at an exposed patch of coltan on her forehead. "You're a machine, an expendable tool, and I used you to get a job done; that's what tools are for..."
Cameron slammed him back against the wall and grabbed his crotch with her free hand, twisting and squeezing his testicles like a vice.
"We had a deal," she repeated coldly. "You'll help me find John." She squeezed harder and pulled down, watching him try to bear the pain, then squirm in agony seconds later, tears forming in his eyes. She felt a wet patch form under her hand, and he nodded in concession.
"Okay," he coughed out in agony, terrified she was going to rip his balls off. "I'll help you find John." Cameron let go of his crotch and backed away, pleased now that Scott was going to cooperate, but still not trusting him. Her anger started to subside. After a minute, Major Scott got his breath back and stood up straighter, but still clutching his sore crotch. Cameron knew it would hurt him for days; if she'd have squeezed any harder they would have burst, and he'd have slowly died. She didn't know if she would have gone that far if he'd refused; it would have served no purpose but Cameron had felt so angry at being manipulated that she didn't know what she'd have done. She wondered if she'd ever learn to control her emotions; that was the one thing she didn't like about feeling; she had no control over what she felt and a lot of the time she didn't understand what she was feeling or why.
"I'll get a squad to help you out," Scott said, finally letting go of his crotch. Secretly, he was very impressed with the machine; it had managed to infiltrate Nellis, get past its legion of machines, take out the base's defences, make it back to Area 51 in one piece, and still demand help from him. He decided, reluctantly, to honour his deal and help it out; he wasn't going to underestimate the machine again. And he had to admit, Connor had pulled off a miracle in taking Area 51 from Skynet. They were safe in Nellis for now but they were still isolated; he'd tried talking to other resistance units but none of them were interested; they wanted to talk to Connor.
"No," Cameron replied. "Everyone."
"Wait a second, tin can. I'm not deploying the whole damn base to search for Connor." Cameron took a step forward, glaring icily at him again, and Scott instinctively moved back against the wall, not wanting to go through that pain again. Before either of them could make a move something exploded outside, rocking the building and shattering the glass of Scott's office window.
"Major, we're under attack," Scott's radio crackled as another explosion erupted outside and the building shook once more. "HKs and UCAVs everywhere; we've got UGVs and T-70s approaching west, a lot of them."
"Get the birds in the air," Scott answered urgently. "Mobilize all armoured units to intercept the UGVs, order as many ground troops as you can to ditch their rifles and arm themselves with heavy weapons; Stingers, Javelins, and grenade launchers, and head for the firing pits. I'll be out there in one minute to take command." Scott grabbed his assault rifle from the corner of the room and loaded a full magazine as he turned to Cameron.
"You lied to me," he said evenly. "You said you took out Nellis."
"You lied first," Cameron replied, copying his tone of voice perfectly. "You said John was there."
Scott bowed his head in concession and grinned slyly as she referred to him as 'John', wondering if something had been going on between Connor and the machine; it had hung around him twenty-four hours a day; it clearly had more than lights and clockworks behind those eyes, and he'd caught on that the machine was attached to the young general.
"I guess we both underestimated each other," Scott said as he opened the door and walked down the corridor and outside, Cameron following in tow. "I don't suppose I can interest you in helping out here?"
"I need to find John," Cameron replied, realising that the soldiers of Area 51 would soon be in no position to help her.
"There's nothing more to say then, is there," Scott said, cocking his rifle. "Good luck finding Connor," he nodded, a sign of grudging respect for the machine he'd tried to manipulate and been bested by.
Cameron nodded in return and walked quickly out the main entrance and away the base, breaking into a run as she heard the supersonic roar of the F-16 jets taking off from the runway to defend the base from Skynet's army. She reached the top of the hill from where John had started his assault to capture the base – just over three miles from the perimeter - and turned back to look back one last time at Area 51. She increased magnification and zoomed in to get a better picture of the battle, and she saw what a battle it was.
In the air, the human fighters were locked in mortal combat against Skynet's unmanned drones; she watched as they flew circles around HKs and downed one after another with apparent ease, but they were outnumbered and Cameron knew deadlier aircraft would be approaching; the F-16s and their human pilots would have little chance against an Aurora or Pegasus. The Apaches buzzed over the base and rained fire down on the approaching ground units, providing air support for the soldiers on the ground; dozens were consumed in fire but more kept rolling forwards, undeterred by the destruction reaped on their fellow machines.
T-2s and Abrams tanks rolled towards each other, firing as they moved. Men and machines surged into battle, exchanging fire at a murderous rate. Hundreds, thousands of rounds fired, and men and machines fell all over, the machines kept advancing inexorably forward, however, and the defending soldiers started to fall, cut down by the intense fire the machines laid down.
Cameron could hear the gunfire and explosions raging throughout the base and saw the first machines breach the perimeter and slaughter the soldiers as they tried to fall back. At the same time an F-16 crashed into the ground, a flaming ruin, as the Pegasus UCAV that shot it down soared over and unleashed a pair of missiles into defending tank formations. Cameron had calculated slim odds that the base would survive, and with the loss of that jet those odds decreased to near zero. Cameron felt a great sadness for the men and women defending the base as she watched; she wanted them to win, to beat Skynet's forces, although the people meant nothing to her. She'd never before, present or future, witnessed people fighting as hard as they were in Area 51. It was a last stand and both she and the humans in the base knew it.
Cameron turned away from the battle and walked back across the desert, ignoring the screams, gunshots, and explosions that boomed behind her. She had no idea where to search for John, and no help. Cameron felt helpless and lower than she ever had done before; she'd needed the help of Major Scott and Area 51, and knew it was her fault the base had fallen because she'd not detonated the C4 she'd planted in Nellis. She'd never managed to get close to the control tower – the control centre of the base; detonating the C4 wouldn't have crippled the base, but it would have reduced the number of machines at Skynet's disposal and possibly reduced the forces attacking Area 51 right now, increasing their odds of survival, and providing her with assistance to search for John. What if I killed John? She wondered. It was probable that her decision to not destroy the factories and aircraft hangars would hinder her search and cost John his life. She'd never stop looking for him, but she felt afraid; afraid that her actions could have indirectly lost John forever.
Once again, she was on her own, without a single ally to help her search for John. Never before had Cameron felt so completely and utterly alone.
A/N: Time to clear up some acronyms, sorry, I know my fics tend to be full of them but I'll explain them now.
DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material - camoflague coloured combat clothing.
UCAV: Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle - including HKs, X-47 Pegasus (real aircraft) and Predators, and the like.
UGV: Unmanned Ground Vehicle - T-1s and T-2s, namely.
Hope you all enjoyed it, and thanks to everyone who reads and lets me know what they think. I'll try to be quicker in updating Chapter 5.