Two figures infiltrated the outskirts of the dead city from the surrounding desert. Both were slight, slender females: one a green-eyed, wary blonde who seemed uncomfortable being out in the open; the other a brunette with large chocolate orbs, seemingly devoid of feeling and betraying nothing of the constant torment she felt at being separated from her lost love.
Both were armed, though to anyone watching the duo it was clear that only the brunette was used to handling firearms; she held her weapon tightly in both hands, finger poised over the trigger and ready to fire at a moment's notice. Normal military safety protocols were redundant in her case, as she was incapable of accidentally firing her rifle. In contrast, her blonde companion's own weapon was slung over her shoulder, hanging off her back and tapping gently on her buttocks with each stride she took as they made their way through the ghostly silent ruins and towards the city centre.
The pair had marched through the arid, dusty, featureless desert landscape for seemingly endless days and dark, bitterly cold nights. They marched silently through the war-torn suburban outskirts, shown no mercy in the machines' unstoppable path of destruction. Hundreds of bloodied, bullet riddled corpses lined the roads for block after block throughout the residential areas of Carson City; people who'd tried to run from their homes had been coldly gunned down by overwhelming and merciless firepower as they fled.
Courtney screwed up her face in disgust at the vile stench and the grotesque sight of rancid, grey and mottled piles of flesh that had once been human beings. She kept her eyes forward and instinctively darting around, searching for any signs of movement. She kept her eyes away from them as much as possible; looking only as much as she needed to avoid tripping over them – they were that many – but she couldn't block out the smell of rotting flesh or the sound of flies buzzing as they happily feasted on the putrid remains of Skynet's many victims.
The sight and smell of the dead didn't bother Cameron in the slightest; they were simply obstacles to be avoided – little more than trip hazards. They bothered Courtney greatly, however, and Cameron was concerned for Courtney's emotional and mental state at being exposed to so many corpses. They'd remind her of her father. Courtney had said very little during their long trek from Cactus Springs; she'd been completely silent for the first five days – only grunting in compliance when Cameron told her where to go or what to do. She'd been grieving. John had gone through the same when he'd lost Sarah, so Cameron had some experience to relate to.
"Are you okay?" Cameron asked, both out of concern for her companion's wellbeing, as well as to make conversation and distract Courtney from the bodies that were making her uncomfortable.
"I've... I've never seen anything like this before," Courtney said quietly. The whole place looked like a mass grave to her. It wasn't right; innocent people slaughtered in their hundreds and just left out in the open. It reminded her of leaving her dad behind and not burying him, or doing something at least, though she'd accepted now that Cameron was right and they'd have died there if they'd tried. And she knew her dad wouldn't want that for her. It still filled her with guilt, though.
"I have," Cameron replied. She didn't say that this was a common sight in the future; bleached skulls littering the open ground and piles of bones scattered across the concrete jungles of Los Angeles in 2027. It would be commonplace in 2011, too; in every village, town, and city not destroyed in the nuclear fires of Judgment Day. They'd all eventually fall to the machines.
"You sure this is the right place?" Courtney asked doubtfully, taking in the obliterated ruins before her. She'd never seen such destruction before; her own township having fallen victim to nerve gas attacks before the machines had moved in and wiped out the survivors. Much of Cactus Springs was still intact, and the majority of it – of no use to Skynet - would be left to eventually rot away and crumble into dust.
"This is it," Cameron replied. Carson City, where the message said John was. Her eyes scanned over the ruined city as well, searching for movement – either human or machine; anything to give a clue as to where John might be.
"There's not much here," Courtney said, a little disappointed. "From what you told me about John, I thought there'd be soldiers here, or... something, anyway."
They marched on towards the centre of the city, following the signposts that were actually in one piece and still legible. As the residential area thinned out and gave way to the city centre, the destruction became more absolute.
The centre of Carson City was nothing less than an obliterated, bombed-out wasteland; worse than Baghdad during the height of the Iraq War, worse than war-torn Bosnia during the 1990s, and worse even than France during the Allies' invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe in 1944. Gone was the thriving urban city centre that had once been Nevada's capital city, replaced by a devastated landscape of rubble and ruin.
In the centre of the city, not a single structure stood unscathed. Office buildings stood scorched and punctured by missiles, bombs, and artillery fire; several wobbled slightly in the wind and teetered, threatening to topple over completely. Retail and department stores had been shattered in explosions of glass, concrete, and metal; their roofs and walls caved in from the overwhelming explosive force of hundreds of bombs dropped from on high, sweeping away the city in a rain of fire and brimstone that had consumed all and spared none.
Cameron scanned the area and saw that the residents of Carson City had not gone down without a fight. Tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and Skynet machines laid in pieces and littered the city centre. The blasted wrecks of T-70s lay mere feet from a hastily erected barricade, telling of a last stand by the human defenders who lay on the other side of the sandbags. The entire scene told of a fierce battle; one that did not go well for the humans defending the city. Cameron briefly scanned over each and every corpse in sight, needing to make sure none were John. Whatever had happened here had happened a long time before John may or may not have arrived upon Carson City, she knew; long before her and John had been separated at Las Vegas. There was nobody left; the battle had been fought weeks, if not months, ago.
The only signs of life they could see were the carrion birds that picked the last strips of flesh off of the dead. They'd be bleached skulls and bones soon enough.
"I don't know about you," Courtney said, picking her way through the rubble and trying to avoid the dead bodies that were scattered around as she made her way to what had once been a small convenience store. The glass windows had been shattered and the walls were riddled with gunfire, but it was one of the few buildings around that looked structurally sound. "But I kinda hope John's not here."
Cameron stared at her with narrowed eyes and found her fist clenching slightly at Courtney's words; why wouldn't she want John to be here? They'd crossed over two hundred miles of desert to find John; their sole purpose was to find him, she wouldn't ever give up until she found him. He was everything to her; she couldn't live without John and wouldn't rest until she could make him safe and be with him again. Why would Courtney not want him to be here?
"I'm just saying," Courtney caught Cameron's glare and hastily explained. "This place is a wreck; I can't see how anyone could live here. The radio broadcast was a recording; so if John was here when this happened," she swept her hand out at the obliterated landscape all around them. "I can't see how he'd have survived."
"John wasn't here when this happened," Cameron said. "This happened months ago." She guessed two to three months. Her face fell slightly as she spoke; exactly three months ago they'd celebrated her built day together. It had been one of the first times she could have described herself as happy. She'd spent the day with John; no fighting, no war, no mission; just them together. Now it was all gone. She wanted him back.
Courtney watched the hint of sadness creep into Cameron's face. First of all, she'd never been able to read Cameron's expressions; her face was so blank. She'd commented once during their trek that Cameron would make a good poker player. But after walking alongside her constantly for days and days, spending every waking moment together, she'd started to see slight hints of something; her face conveyed almost nothing but it was her eyes that gave away the slightest spark of sadness.
"I'm sure he's fine," Courtney smiled and tried to sound positive, hoping to cheer Cameron up. "We should check in here," she pointed to the store she'd approached. "We're out of food."
"We find John first," Cameron said forcefully. She didn't want to waste time with food when John could be anywhere in the city.
"We've not eaten properly in two days, almost," Courtney replied. "And even if we find him right now we'll need food to get to wherever we're going. Not like we're gonna stay here, are we?" She hoped not.
"No," Cameron agreed. She had a point; John would need food, as would Courtney. It was a long journey from Carson City to Cheyenne Mountain; even if they managed to find an intact vehicle somewhere along the way, it would take days to get back to Colorado, to the safety of Cheyenne Mountain.
Cameron nodded once in agreement with Courtney and followed her lead. She watched Courtney pick her way through the piles of debris and the cracked, broken ground with surprising agility. She'd also been surprised during their long trek from Cactus Springs to Carson City that Courtney had kept up almost the whole time; only stopping when her body needed sleep or she needed to relieve herself. She'd not once complained during their journey, to Cameron's surprise. She'd hardly said a word for five and a half days, grieving over her father. She'd just walked where Cameron did, her eyes wary and alert despite her grief as they'd trekked in almost complete silence. It had taken five days for Courtney to say even a single word.
Cameron followed her into the store and kept her rifle pointed forward, ready to deal with any threats as they walked the length of the store. Whilst she kept her eyes peeled with the rifle Courtney opened up her pack and stuffed various tins of food inside. Their supplies had run low, despite Cameron eating like an anorexic half the time and sharing what little food she did eat; Courtney didn't know how her stoic companion managed to keep on going. She never seemed tired and was never bothered about eating. She drank plenty of water, though. Once on their journey, Courtney had watched Cameron guzzle down a bottle of water faster than her Dad's Army buddies had downed pitchers of beer.
"Hey, let's check down here," Courtney pointed down one promising looking aisle. Cameron looked at the aisle in question and saw it was lined with chocolate bars and packets of sugar coated sweets and candy.
"That's the confectionary aisle," Cameron said doubtfully. She didn't see anything there that would point them towards John.
"But... how can we be sure unless we investigate?" Courtney looked back at her, a crooked grin and a look of mock pleading on her face. Cameron suddenly caught on to what she meant; she'd observed Courtney's sweet tooth over the last fortnight; she didn't eat much but she'd displayed a large preference for chocolate. John had once told her all girls do. She wasn't like other girls, she'd replied, to which John smiled and had answered 'I know.' She didn't understand why, but he loved her because she was different; not like people.
"You should eat better," Cameron replied nodding her assent to Courtney before, pretending to sigh and turning away to search the rest of the store. She'd heard that chocolate was comfort food, and she knew from experience, when John lost Sarah, that after losing her dad Courtney would need comfort. Courtney's face lit up in glee as she stuffed chocolate bars and candy into her pack, filling it to the brim. She tore open the wrapping on a bar of dark chocolate, munching and humming cheerfully as she shovelled more sugar-rich snacks into her pack and pockets, offering Cameron a bag of Skittles. Cameron shook her head no and left her to it, knowing Courtney wouldn't go far. She stalked her way down the empty store to search for any clues. She knew what foods John liked, and if he was around then there'd be gaps in the shelves.
There were several gaps on the shelves; someone had been inside and taken food after the battle outside. There were no gaps in the crunchy Cheetos or pancake mixes, however, and Cameron hadn't seen anything to suggest John had been here. Courtney's idea was logical; if John was in Carson City, as the radio broadcast had said, then he'd need to eat something, and field rations from any unit he'd joined with – possibly survivors from the battle that had raged outside and destroyed the city – wouldn't last long and they'd have to scavenge for more supplies.
"CAMERON!" She took off running as soon as she heard Courtney's voice – somewhere between a scream and a shriek – coming from the other end of the store. She tore through the aisles, her gun raised and ready to fire as she prepared to find Courtney at the mercy of a machine.
Instead she saw Courtney stood statue-still, hands over her mouth and shaking all over in shock and fear, in front of the body of a thin, brown haired man in dirty, torn shirt and ragged, stained trousers. He'd been nailed to the wall by his hands and his throat cut. Blood ran down his shirt and trousers and pooled down at his feet in a large crimson puddle. He was slumped forwards, the dead weight of his body dragging him towards the floor, but held up be the nails penetrating from his hands and buried into the wall. His face – pale and clammy – was contorted in an agonised, fearful grimace that had permanently set with rigor mortis. Cameron could tell from the bruises on his face and neck that he'd been beaten severely before he'd been killed. She regarded the body with curiosity, rather than Courtney's abject fear and disgust.
"Machines did this?" She asked, terrified of the answer. The image of her dad's body crept into her mind and she wanted to run away and curl up into a ball and cry, but she was rooted to the spot.
"Machines don't torture people," Cameron lied. The machines of this timeline didn't torture people, yet. Machines weren't deliberately cruel; they did torture people for information – something she herself was guilty of, once. But Skynet had not taught them how to inflict pain to extract information; it had been the human traitors – Greys – who'd allied with Skynet and taught the machines how to torture so effectively. In terms of cruelty; Skynet didn't hold a candle to mankind.
She looked up above the body at the crudely constructed, handwritten sign that read a single word: 'Thief'. "He stole food. He was punished for it." It happened a lot in the future. Future John punished criminals severely. Traitors, rapists, and murderers were routinely executed; thieves were usually exiled from the tunnels and banished to the surface. She understood why he did it; to keep order in the Resistance and to deter anyone from acting in any way that could harm the war effort. Other groups, unaffiliated with the Resistance, often effected far worse punishments.
The thought that people had done this rather than machines didn't make Courtney feel any better in the slightest; she'd always thought people were basically good, that they'd help each other. The machines were killing people, so why would they do the machines' jobs for them and kill each other over scraps of food? There was plenty in the store; why couldn't people just share? She knew she was naive – she'd been raised by her dad in a tiny little town where everyone knew each other. After the bombs had gone off elsewhere, people in Cactus Springs had organised and helped each other out. Her dad had kept the store open and given away food for free – rationing it so everyone got their fair share. It seemed like mob rule, here; whoever had done that were a bunch of animals. She had a vision of her and Cameron being nailed to the wall and their own throats cut, and it made her want to run for her life as fast as her legs could take her.
"We have to go," Cameron insisted. Whoever had killed the man in front of them was no threat to her, but they could still harm Courtney, and they could impede her search for John.
"No arguments from me," Courtney replied quietly, slinging her pack over her back – over the carbine – and walking quickly behind Cameron as the pair of them hastily marched down the main aisle of the store and out of the exit. Cameron led the way, her SCAR rifle aimed forward as she blazed a trail through the piles of broken concrete and glass and metal, her eyes continuously scanning for any threats or any clues as to where John was.
They quickly put distance between themselves and the store; to both their relief. Cameron, because she could search elsewhere; and Courtney, because seeing the beaten and murdered man had scared her more than anything she'd ever seen before.
They marched across the cracked, potholed street and past more stores and offices, each looking almost the same as the last and seeming to stretch on forever. Each held the promise of revealing something to them regarding John's location, but each block, each building, and each street, yielded nothing but more bodies and a sense of deep dissatisfaction and anxiety in Cameron. She'd search forever to find John, but she didn't want it to take that long. She wanted to find him now.
Something clattered off to the left and Cameron instantly snapped her head and rifle towards the sound. In the same instant, Courtney also hit the ground and turned towards the source of the noise, instinctively diving behind the cover of half a Buick Century whilst Cameron stood her ground.
A lone man wandered through piles of crushed and shattered concrete, ambling his way along; his movements sluggish and shambolic. His clothes were just as torn and ragged as the man in the store, his face covered in cuts and his hair dirty and unkempt. He had several weeks' hair growth on his staunch, hollow face, and he looked emaciated. Cameron took aim and kept her finger on the trigger in case he was a threat. The man spotted them and shambled along towards them, muttering to himself as he approached.
"Where's John?" Cameron asked.
"Get out. Leave this place," the stranger said, half delirious from exhaustion, hunger, and fatigue. He tried to make it all the way to Cameron but instead collapsed against the remains of a wall and slumped down to the ground. Courtney got up from behind the wrecked car and approached alongside Cameron.
"Who are you?" Courtney asked.
"Where's John?" Cameron repeated, nudging the man with her foot to rouse him as he closed his eyes and his head slumped, chin resting on his chest. He looked to Cameron like he was in shock; she needed to find out if he knew anything about John, before he became catatonic.
"Easy, Cameron," Courtney pushed in front of her and knelt down beside the man. She took her water bottle and unscrewed the cap, lifting the bottleneck to his lips. "It's just water," she said, tilting it slightly so the clear liquid ran into his parched mouth. He gulped loudly and greedily, as if he'd not drank in days, then pushed the bottle away rested his head back against the wall, rambling to himself once again. He tilted his head away from Courtney; his hair fell aside to reveal one of his ears had been cut off, leaving a bloodied, scabby stump.
"He's been tortured," she looked back at Cameron as she screwed the cap back on her bottle and shoved it into her pack once more. "Probably the same guys from the store." She felt a chill rush down her spine at the thought they weren't alone out here, and she couldn't help but look around, half expecting to be attacked at any moment.
Cameron knelt down beside Courtney and placed the palm of her hand over his neck and collar, scanning him briefly. He was in shock, as she thought. His heart rate was rapid and irregular, he was breathing shallowly and his pupils were dilated. Looking at his crimson-stained clothes, she could see he'd lost a lot of blood, and his body showed signs of hypothermia – he'd likely been unable to find shelter or warmer clothes in the frigid air that grew harsher at night - which only added to his delirium. If they were in Cheyenne Mountain or another well equipped base with a sickbay and medical staff, he might survive. In what remained of Carson City, he had no chance.
"He's dying," Cameron said, and then turned her attention back to the man. "Tell us where John Connor is," Cameron urged, not at all fazed by the stranger's suffering.
"No, no, no! John Connor... run, stay away."
Cameron, in a first ever for a machine, was losing patience. This man knew who John Connor was; he'd know where John was. She pulled him upright to his feet, holding him up by his shirt bunched up in one fist, while she drew back her other arm and slapped him in the face, hoping to bring him to his senses.
"Cameron!" Courtney gasped in shock. "What're you doing?"
"He knows where John is."
"But you can't beat him. Look at what he's been through."
"Don't go with Connor," he finally breathed out with a supreme force of will. "Get out, go!"
Shots erupted out of nowhere and the top of the wall behind them exploded, showering Cameron and Courtney in brick dust. Courtney squealed in fear and ducked down while Cameron instantly brought her rifle to bear, scanning for who'd fired the shots.
"Drop your weapons, now!" Cameron snapped her attention to her half-right and pointed her rifle at the voice; fifty yards away stood a man half-crouched behind an upturned car, M4 carbine pointed straight at her.
"You're surrounded; drop 'em!" Another voice yelled from her left. In a flash, Cameron let go of the SCAR barrel stock with her left hand and whipped out her pistol, pointing it at the second man. Courtney was on her knees on the ground, fumbling to get her pack off and reach her own weapon. Her hands trembled and shook with fear as she cursed and tried to untangle the carbine's strap from those of her pack, twisting it into even worse knots than before.
Cameron scanned the area and saw five armed men pointing weapons at her and Courtney. All of the men were behind cover and all had clear lines of sight on them. One wielded an M-249 SAW, whilst the others brandished the more common M4A1 carbines; one of which had a grenade launcher fitted under the barrel. That was a serious threat to her; she couldn't survive even a single hit to the chest or head, and even if the 40mm explosive struck her in the legs or the stomach she'd be blown in half. She couldn't take them all at once, and even if she neutralised the grenade launcher first the others could still kill Courtney.
"Don't move," Cameron quietly said to Courtney, who'd just gotten her rifle strap untangled from her pack. "They'll shoot if you move." Courtney looked out at the weapons pointed at them and dropped her gun; she didn't know how to use the thing properly, anyway. She hoped Cameron knew what she was doing; five against two wasn't good odds, even if Cameron had two guns pointed at them. Cameron was good, but she was still human, Courtney thought. Only one of the machines would be able to take on five men and walk away.
"Drop it or we will fire!"
"We don't want any trouble," Courtney called out nervously. She slowly stood up, keeping her hands in the air even as Cameron had her weapons trained on two of the men. "We'll just go." These men weren't soldiers, she noticed. Even though her dad had left the Army when she was a baby, he'd still carried himself like one all the time she was growing up. She remembered several of his old Army buddies visiting her dad regularly during her childhood; they'd still been in the Army and she'd learned to recognise how soldiers were. These guys weren't soldiers; she knew that much.
Cameron had reached the same conclusion - albeit from different criteria. They didn't look or act like soldiers; they didn't move as a unit as they approached. They weren't dressed in uniform, no cap badge and no insignia. They weren't soldiers but they were clearly a form of militia, Cameron thought. Another thought crossed her mind, overtaking her mental threat assessment as a priority: Perhaps they knew John.
"We're looking for John Connor," Cameron called out.
"You've come to the right place, then," one of them shouted back as the five of them strolled towards them, weapons still raised. The leader of the group – a bearded black man wearing a baseball cap and holding the rifle with the grenade launcher - lowered his weapon and marched up closer to them. "Name's Bates; and you are?"
"Cameron," she curtly replied, still keeping her weapon pointed at him. "She's Courtney. We're looking for John." Bates looked the pair up and down as if inspecting them, and smiled, sending a shiver up Courtney's spine. She didn't like the way he leered at them, not one bit. She shrank away as he stood only a few feet away, unconsciously moving behind Cameron for protection.
"Cameron... Connor will be happy to see you," Bates grinned once more. "Come with us."
"Where is he?" Cameron lowered her weapon and walked towards him, feeling a sense of relief take over as she found herself closer to finding John. She'd find him soon and they could be together and go back to Cheyenne Mountain where she could keep him safe once more.
"I don't like this," Courtney whispered. "Something's not right." She wanted to get away from these guys; every instinct in her body told her to run. This wasn't what she'd expected. Cameron said John was a general; she'd imagined big army camp with tanks and helicopters, and actual soldiers. Not five dirty-looking guys with guns, who stared at them like they were pieces of meat. She'd had a teacher at school that looked at her like that once; it had scared her then and it did now.
"Everything's fine," Cameron replied, preoccupied with the prospect of seeing John again. All her cognitive and mental functions were running faster in anticipation of seeing him again; she was excited. "Where's John?" She asked Bates.
"We'll take you to him; it's a little while from here." Bates nodded to his men and they lowered their guns. "You know this guy?" He gestured down towards the unconscious stranger on the ground.
"No," Cameron replied simply.
Bates pointed his rifle at the man's head and fired twice, the rounds punched through his skull and exploded out the other side in a splatter of blood, bone, and brain matter. He slumped over to one side and lay unmoving as blood pooled out the gaping hole in the side of his head, split open like a cantaloupe.
"What the hell?" Courtney cried out in shock, jumping in surprise at the rifle's barking report.
"He stole food from us," Bates shrugged. "Anyone who steals from the Resistance is a traitor." Courtney's mind went to her pack in front of her and prayed they didn't look inside it; she didn't want to end up being shot or tortured. There was no doubt in her mind that these were the same guys who nailed the guy in the store to the wall and slit his throat, though she didn't dare mention it. If John Connor was in charge, and he was as good a man as Cameron said, then why was he allowing this?
"Come on," Bates growled, putting one of his men on point as they started off through the demolished streets once more. Cameron fell into line behind Bates, and Courtney reluctantly followed suit; her gut told her this was all wrong, but she figured she was safer if she stuck with Cameron.
"Where're we going?" she asked as they started marching at a fast pace.
"We've got a couple of cars a mile or so from here, we'll drive to base from here; Connor will want to see you."
"Did Connor tell you to kill innocent people, too?" Courtney asked, looking back at the body of the man they'd shot. He'd warned them to stay away from John Connor. Why? And why wasn't Cameron asking these questions? She was pretty switched on.
"He wasn't innocent," Bates shot back. "He stole from us; we had to punish him."
"Connor says we can't tolerate anyone who harms the Resistance; we gotta make an example," one of the men behind Courtney said as casually as if they were talking about a fine for littering.
Cameron looked back at the dead body one last time and suddenly her excitement and sense of relief disappeared: she wanted more than anything to find John but she also didn't want him to become like his future self, yet that was what seemed to be happening. Did losing her make John change? If John thought she was dead then he could have stopped caring about anything else. She wanted to see him more than ever, to preserve the way John was; she loved her John, not Future John. Would she love him still if he became as cold and unfeeling as his future self, if he wasn't her John? She didn't know.