John bowed his head down, kept his shoulders shrugged and shivered all over from the frigid air as he pushed his heavy, corpse-laden cart towards the furnaces. Winter was setting in and temperatures had dropped considerably; the normally tolerable California weather was growing harsher due to the untold tonnes of dust and rock particulates spread out in the atmosphere and blocking out much of the sunlight. Since the bombs had gone off there'd been no real warmth to speak of but it hadn't become a half-frozen wasteland like people had thought but it was on its way with the onset of winter; the days grew shorter and the nights colder. John never thought he'd have felt so cold in California.
It wasn't freezing, yet, but he was still uncomfortably cold. All he had on under his DPM jacket was a thin cotton T-shirt; he'd not expected to stay out for long when he and Cameron had waited in ambush for Cromartie, and he'd certainly not expected to be captured by Skynet and thrown into hell.
John almost sighed in relief as he drew up his cart alongside the towering furnaces and bathed in the raging heat radiating out from the fires within. He pulled a body from the top of the cart and patted it down, running his hands over the torso, arms, and legs; searching for anything of value. He'd learned how to quickly check the bodies before casting them into the furnaces, ensuring the machines didn't notice either what he was doing or that he didn't take too long; if he did the machines would kill him simply for being too slow even if they didn't know he was doing.
It was also very tempting to take his time loading the bodies into the incinerators, simply because the furnaces were the warmest part of the camp. As John pushed the corpses into the fire he felt sensation started to return to his fingers, which helped massively with searching the other bodies; numb fingers could easily cause him to miss something small inside pockets. Alas, he couldn't spend all day by the furnaces; if he took longer than two or three minutes to empty his cart the machines' attentions would surely be attracted. He had to make do with the slight warmth and resolve to load up his cart at the gas chambers as fast as he could to get back to the warmth of the furnaces.
Beep-beep... beep-beep...beep-beep... John quickly switched off the alarm on his watch, silencing it as its shrill beep filled the air. Like clockwork, the camp lights switched off and immersed the entire camp into darkness, the raging fires of the furnaces simply winked out, abruptly cutting off the much appreciated heat.
This is ridiculous, he thought to himself as he saw the others behind him abandon their own loads and start to meander back up towards their living area. They couldn't keep going if the temperature kept dropping; it was just into November and they still had to cope with the winter months ahead while they worked.
John turned away to head back up towards their slightly-less-cold quarters when a sudden thought struck him. He turned back towards the bodies, just able to see them in the inky darkness of the night, and pulled one of them out onto the floor. The body was an elderly man, slightly larger than John, and wearing a dirty, worn woollen sweater. John tugged at the sleeves and pulled them off of the arms, barely even registering anymore that he was stripping what had once been a person. He'd pushed the revulsion and the guilt over Skynet's organised butchery in the camp and his own grave robbing of Skynet's innocent victims so far into the back of his mind that he simply saw them as potential treasure troves rather than people who'd once had lives and families, hopes, fears, and dreams.
After a minute of tricky manoeuvring he managed to pull the sweater off the corpse and unzipped his own jacket, pulling the thick sweater over his head before putting his jacket back on over it, already starting to feel the benefit. His head poked through the collar just in time to see the hulking form of a T-70 approaching him. Shit, John cursed himself. The machine had just caught him stealing the sweater. All thoughts of the cold left him to be replaced by dread. He'd been caught: he was dead. There was nothing he could do and nowhere to run or hide. He decided to try something he'd never considered before, something that had simply never occurred to him. He was dead anyway; what did he have to lose?
"It's freezing," he said to it, crossing his arms over his chest and shivering exaggeratedly for emphasis, not knowing if it could understand him or not. Cameron had never mentioned if they could understand speech; they seemed too simple to do anything other than kill but they'd surprised him by so far.
The machine made no move against him; the gun arm still pointed at the ground and the T-70 gave no reaction at all. It simply stood before him, its eight-foot height towering over him like a malicious sentinel, then pointed its hand towards the others retreating back to their shabby accommodation. He realised that it simply wanted him to return to the living area, so he took his cue and left, not wanting to do anything the machine would see as a form of resistance.
John and the other prisoners slowly walked back up towards their living area, when a trio of hulking T-70s blocked their path.
"What's going on?" someone spoke out among the murmurs that started. The machines had never stopped them from rest before. John realised the camp lights were still on after midnight; an unprecedented occurrence in the camp. The machines ran the camp like clockwork; hustling them out of bed at six a.m. sharp to begin work, and shutting the lights off at exactly midnight. A schedule was a schedule to the machines, and John couldn't work out for the life of him what was going on.
"John, look," Byrne tapped John on the shoulder and pointed back down towards the furnaces. Another pair of the bulky, blocky machines stomped across the camp grounds and escorted six weary, bedraggled prisoners, shuffling along in single file. John recognised the four men and two women from the nights in their building. They'd grown weaker and weaker over the last few days, slowing down the disposal process.
John watched silently with a grim look on his face, not showing any sign of acknowledging Byrne, as he stared at the macabre procession before him. The two machines stopped the six prisoners a few metres away from the furnaces, in full view of the other workers crowded in front of the three T-70s. The six prisoners stood in a row as the machines slowly plodded several metres back and slowly raised their weapons at them, an high-pitched mechanical whine started to emanate from within the machines as the mini-guns' electric motors activated.
One of the machines stepped forward and the others halted, holding their fire whilst the first one plodded forward and grabbed one of the prisoners – the largest man in the group – its massive three-fingered claw-hand clamped around his shoulder and armpit and pulled him away. John saw the look of sheer relief on his face at being taken out of the firing line, but then he saw the machine drag him towards the hospital entrance, and heard the prisoner's confused cries en route, begging to know where they were taking him. The two machines stood guard at the main entrance stood aside and allowed the prisoner and guard through and they disappeared from sight.
The remaining five prisoners huddled together, already forgetting their missing colleague. Some whimpered and others just bowed their heads in submissive acceptance; one woman shook her head in denial and silently mouthed something John couldn't make out at a distance but it looked like she was praying.
The silence of the night was shattered as the machines opened fire on the five prisoners; scores of rounds tore through their victims, so fast that the deafening reports blurred into one solid buzz, like an electric saw. None of the prisoners stood a chance as they were hosed with enough gunfire to shoot down a helicopter. The rounds pierced their bodies, tore through flesh, shattered bones, ripped organs apart and exploded out their backs in miniature fountains of gore; shredding them into little more than diced meat before they even hit the floor, red puddles pooled out from their bodies and started to soak into the soft mud beneath them.
John didn't even blink as one man's skull exploded in a shower of red, pink, and grey as several rounds split his head open like a watermelon. They might have screamed but any noise they made was drowned out by the low pitched growl of the rapid gunfire. Some in the crowd responded in horror, cries and screams emanated from those who'd not long arrived in the camp; murmurs from most of the workers, including Byrne and Slater as they whispered to each other.
Only John made no sound, no visible response at all to the execution. His mind was far from the firing squad before him; he was focused solely on the prisoner who'd been dragged into the hospital, remembering the bloodied, gore-covered skeletons that had rained down on him before. He couldn't help but think the other five who'd been gunned down were the lucky ones; whatever happened in there, it wasn't the end he'd wish for.
The machines behind them turned away and marched off; an audible thump accompanied each step as their heavy feet stamped onto the muddy ground outside the hospital. The remaining workforce sombrely ambled back to their quarters without much word passing between any of them.
The morale in the camp was always low; there wasn't much for them to smile about when they spent all day cremating the helpless victims of Skynet's systematic slaughter; mass murder on an almost industrial scale, and knowing they could be next if they didn't keep up the pace. John could see the normally sober mood plummeting further, and the looks on many of their faces were a mirror reflection of how he'd felt when he'd tried to kill himself weeks back.
Inside their living area the daily routine of their mealtime was repeated. John shovelled his broth into his mouth whilst watching the miserable faces of several who'd given up hope. The machines' public execution of those who'd been too tired to work had hit home to them all that there was no hope; that that was the fate they'd all eventually face. This was no way to carry on, he realised; helpless, hopeless, no purpose, and simply toiling every day, wondering if it would be your last. That was no way to live. They needed something; a reason, a purpose.
He slurped down the rest of the greasy, thin liquid, not even bothering to chew the small chunks of unknown meat that floated in the bowl and flowed down his throat, and marched straight out, quickly making his way to the generator room. Inside he saw Byrne and Slater tending to their stockpile, adding whatever items they'd managed to scavenge and making a mental list of what they had and what they needed. John fished into his pocket and pulled out a handful of 9mm rounds he'd found earlier in the day.
"Right, that makes... fifty-eight five-five-sixes, thirty-one nine-mils, nine shotgun shells, and seven of the .50 rounds for the Desert Eagle," Byrne said, counting up the rounds and adding them to their armoury. They only had the one gun, though; the Desert Eagle, but Byrne had told John they didn't need a gun for what he had planned.
"Where the hell did you get that?" Slater asked, pointing at John's newly acquired sweater. "You look like someone's Grandpa."
"It's cold," John shrugged. "One of the machines caught me taking it."
"Jaysus!" Byrne growled. "Why didn't the bastard shoot ye?"
"I don't think it cared," John replied, thinking back on it. As long as we don't stop working, try to fight them, or escape, they don't really care what we do."
"Ye sure about that?" Byrne asked. It made sense but he didn't want to be the one to test it out with his life.
"I think so," John said uncertainly. The T-70s were simple machines; little more than a gun with arms and legs attached, but there was a difference between being caught taking a sweater and being caught with ammunition, and John didn't much fancy being the one to find out if the machines would make that distinction.
He pulled out the bottle of Jack Daniels, the cigarettes that Slater had taken, several chocolate bars and MRE ration packs, and placed them into one of several empty boxes they'd found -mostly containing maintenance-related paperwork. Several captured soldiers had still had rations on them, which they'd swiftly liberated prior to loading the bodies into the furnace. Several times he, Byrne, and Slater had forgone their meat broth and instead treated themselves to beef stew, chicken and noodles, and John's new personal favourite; chicken fajita. Slater had called them 'Meals Rejected by Ethiopians', but to John, after a lifetime of his mom's cooking and three months of eating greasy meat broths, they were nothing less than a delicacy.
They'd slept in the generator room those nights, something they'd done more and more as they worked on plans and thought through the logistics for each idea. It was John's plan as a whole but they were the practical experts.
"Where are you taking those?" Slater asked, watching as John put all their scavenged MREs, chocolate, candy, cigarettes, and the Jack Daniels bottle into a small box and carried it out to the door.
"They need us," John gestured to the other prisoners in the hut outside. "They need... something to keep them going."
"So yer gonna blow our whole op just to give them a boost?" Byrne said. Yeah, the other prisoners needed something; they all did. But he didn't see why they should risk everything they've worked for just to make their lives a little better in the short term.
"No," John shook his head. "We need them, too."
"How'd you mean?" Slater asked. He, like Byrne, didn't see how they needed the others; most of them had already given up and were simply ambling along, waiting for that bullet –or thirty – with their name on it to take them when they faltered. Many of them, like those in the other half of the camp, had already resigned themselves to little more than dead men walking.
"It's not enough," John replied, pointing at the stash of rounds Byrne had counted up. "A couple dozen bullets, some shotgun shells, lighters... it's not enough. We can't do this alone."
"You want to let them in on it," Slater said, realising what John meant. "You sure about that, can we trust them?" All it'd take was one of them to get the idea their lives might be made easier if they exposed their operation to the machines, and they'd be screwed.
"How many people die every day in the gas chambers?" John asked.
Both Byrne and Slater knew roughly how many; they didn't need to do the math to work it out. Hundreds died every day, to be replaced by hundreds more flown in on the unmanned Ospreys that flew in and dropped off prisoners to meet the same fate as those that came before them. All three of them had wondered how long the streaming intake of people would last, and how bad the state of the outside world must be if the machines were winning so much that they were taking prisoners en masse like this.
Were they the only prisoner camp, Slater wondered, or were there more out there doing the same thing? He'd thought that that John Connor on the airwaves must have been overrated, for the machines to be clearly winning so easily that they were running out of room for the prisoners; the condemned section of the camp had long been filled to the brim, the machines cramming more and more victims into the gas chambers to compensate for the growing numbers they took in every day.
"And how many of those do we actually search?" John said.
"I get ye," Byrne replied. "Yer thinking that the more of us scavenging, the more stuff we'll get." They'd managed to acquire a fair amount of useful items so far, but chances were they'd missed a hell of a lot more stuff because it was only the three of them searching.
John said nothing but simply nodded in reply and carried the box to the door, pausing to take two of their lighters and a stack of papers from a shelf on the wall. Slater opened it for him, switched the light off, and went out first. He swivelled his head left and right, checking for any machines nearby; they often patrolled the perimeter fence and he didn't want the tin cans to catch them sneaking around carrying a box they might deem as a threat.
He stepped outside and made a sweep to clear the area, and froze in his tracks as he looked out to his right, facing the fence.
"Back!" he hissed. "Wait." One of the machines stood at the perimeter fence, the bodies of the six men and women they'd executed piled in a heap at its feet. The T-70 stepped on the chest of a woman and pinned it to the ground, then reached down with its hand and grabbed her by the head, and twisted and pulled. Slater stared at the obscene spectacle with morbid fascination and grimaced at the ensuing wet snap and the tearing of flesh, bone, and tendon as the woman's head was wrenched from the body.
"Machine," he whispered softly. "It just tore a woman's head off." He stared on as John and Byrne peeked out and checked it out for themselves; the T-70 left the body on the ground like discarded trash and turned to face the fence, reached up and stuck the head on top of a metal strut; another head to add to the collection of morbid and obscene ornaments that decorated the camp perimeter to deter would-be escapists or insurrectionists. It did nothing, however, to deter John, Byrne, and Slater.
Slater waited until the machine was busy decapitating the second body before he signalled John and Byrne to follow him. John followed quickly and silently, carrying the box, whilst Byrne paused to make sure the door didn't make a sound as it closed, holding the handle down and pulling the door into the frame before releasing it quietly and dashing across the compound.
They reached the miserable shed that was the living area without attracting any attention from the machines, and slid inside quietly into the darkened room where everyone else was laid out and trying to sleep.
John could see the same problems still plagued the prisoners' quarters; too many people and not enough blankets, pillows, or mattresses; most were still awake, shaking with cold and gazing at nothing with blank, dead, hopeless eyes. He saw Simon and Guy both had a mattress, pillow, and blanket each, unsurprisingly. They'd not tried to push into the queue for second helpings of broth since John had put Simon in his place, but they were always at the front of the line, so whilst everyone else was getting theirs they'd make sure they got their own bedding. Under Byrne's advice John hadn't interfered again; they didn't want to make any enemies for themselves in the camp; they worried enough about the machines, let alone watching their backs for someone to stick a spanner into their works.
John marched up to the now-empty broth barrel and placed the papers inside. He snapped one of the disposable lighters in half and sprinkled the fluid inside over the papers, then lit the second one and held it into the barrel until the stack caught alight and started to burn. Within minutes the fire grew and the glow from the top of the barrel started to warm the air inside their pitiful accommodation, causing several slumbering bodies to stir.
"What're you doing?" one prisoner asked as he uncurled himself from his foetal-like position in the corner of the room.
"Getting comfy," John answered as Byrne and Slater came and sat by him on the floor. John pulled a chocolate bar from the box and tossed it to the prisoner, who looked at it suspiciously for a moment before taking it.
"What's this for?" he asked. "I don't have to... you know... do I?" he pushed the bar away from him, afraid to open it for fear of what John might want in return for it.
"You've seen too many prison movies," Slater replied. "He might ask you to pick up the soap sometime," he nodded at Byrne, "but we're alright."
"Piss off," Byrne growled, pulling a packet of hard candy out of John's box and opening it, shaking a few pieces into his own hand before tapping another rousing figure next to him on the shoulder and handing the packet to him. "Pass it around," he told him after he'd taken a few pieces.
Gradually, most of the prisoners started to wake up, roused by the growing heat of the fire in the barrel and intrigued by what was going on. John started to hand out several of the MRE rations, telling them to share it out.
Simon and Guy finally awoke and took an interest in what was going on around them. Guy sauntered over towards John and knelt down to take a pair of MRE packs out, but paused as John shot out a hand and grabbed his wrist.
"Share it," John said sternly, taking the second one from him and gesturing for him to go back with Simon. Byrne and Slater looked at Guy with a glance that spelt out they'd get stuck in if he tried anything again. Guy glared at John and grumbled something he couldn't make out, and took the packet back to his mattress next to Simon's, and the pair of them tore the meal open and started to dig in with their spoons without speaking to anyone.
"What's the catch?" Someone asked.
"No catch," John said as he took a few spoonfuls of cold macaroni cheese from his sachet and passed it onto someone else. "Just making things more comfortable." To emphasize his point he pulled out the Jack Daniels bottle, unscrewed it, and handed it to the man next to him who'd first awoken when he'd lit the fire. He took a mouthful of the strong alcohol and sighed contentedly.
"Liquid gold!" he remarked, then took John's cue and handed it over to the next person.
"That's all there is, so share it around," John told them all. "What's your name?" he asked the guy next to him.
"Jim," he replied.
For the next several minutes the wretched workers of Century Work Camp forgot their miserable existences, ate, drank, and talked. Several lit up the cigarettes John had brought and Slater passed around, lighting one up for himself and savouring the taste of the smoke. The smell wasn't to John's taste but at least it helped to cover the odour of so many unwashed bodies crammed into one place. For many, this was the first real conversation they'd had since arriving; working too long and hard during the day to talk and being too tired, hungry, cold and miserable at night to bother.
John got several names and stories from the people they spoke to: Jim had been a schoolteacher from Van Nuys , a woman called Natalie had managed a clothing store in San Diego before Judgement Day, had hidden in the ruins of the city and been captured a month or so after John had arrived. They started to all talk, and see each other as people, rather than fellow lambs to the slaughter.
"What're you after, John?" Simon pointed at him demandingly, silencing the myriad conversations taking place through the room and dampening the mood. "You and your boys spend half the nights out there, you haven't said a word to anyone, and now you just show up here with a box of goodies and start playing nice? Nothing's for free; what're you after?"
"Where'd you get it all from, anyway?" Natalie asked; the seeds of doubt already sown in her mind by Simon's comment.
"From the bodies we've been cremating," John replied, ignoring the resulting murmurs and hushed voices as they all took in what he said.
"Byrne, and Slater, and I have been taking anything useful we find of the bodies we're pushing around. That's where this all came from." John looked around and took a nervous breath. He'd convinced Byrne and Slater fairly quickly; they were soldiers and they could overlook the distastefulness of their actions and see it as nothing more than a means of escape.
"Simon's right; we do want something in return."
"Surprise surprise," Simon rolled his eyes and sneered. He didn't know what the kid was up to, but it was clear he was trying to buy people's loyalty with a few snacks. He and Guy would eat his food alright, but whatever John was up to, he could count them out. The kid would get them all killed.
"We want yer help," Byrne said.
"The three of us have been doing this for weeks and we've got all this and more, but it's not enough," Slater added.
"Why?" The prisoner who'd introduced herself earlier as Amy asked. "Not enough for what?"
"Not enough to escape," John answered.
"Bullshit!" someone laughed bitterly. "There's no escape from here; you're dreaming."
"Everyone who's tried didn't make it very far," Jim agreed. Attempted escapes were a common occurrence; almost all of them were from those who'd just arrived, and every single one of them resulted in the would-be escaper being gunned down by the machines and their decapitated heads stuck on top of the fence. John didn't know how the machines knew it would be a deterrent, but they knew somehow. It deterred those already in the camp from trying, just as much as watching the fates of those who tried.
"They were stupid," John said seriously, all mirth and warmth gone from the conversation. "My first day here, someone tried to run; he got three feet up the fence before he was killed. Those fences are ten feet high and topped with another two feet of razor wire; we can't go over them and there's no entrance in or out of the camp." That was one of their first concerns when he, Byrne, and Slater had started planning. There was no gate, no way in or out; the prisoners were all flown in via Ospreys that landed in the hospital grounds.
"We can't just make a run for it; we need to be smarter than that."
"What, then?" someone asked.
"You gonna tunnel out of here with spoons, maybe?"
"We scavenge," John said. "Bullets, lighters, knives, anything else that looks useful, and any food we find."
"What use are bullets with no guns?" Guy asked.
"Ye ever heard of the Gunpowder Plot?" Byrne asked. "Fella named Guy Fawkes in 1605 tried to blow up British Parliament with barrels of gunpowder. Nearly worked, too; we don't need guns, just the gunpowder in the bullets and anything else we can find that goes bang; we get enough of it we can blast our way out of here and blow these metal fuckers to kingdom come."
Part of John winced at the word 'metal,' even though he never thought of Cameron as such – she was a machine, yes, but she was so much more than that; she'd grown so much and become more than Skynet had ever intended. Would they – Byrne, Slater, and those that came with them - to accept Cameron if he could find her and bring her back? Or would they forever despise her like Perry and so many others? What would they think if they saw him break down and cry over her remains, should she truly be dead?
He shook his head; he couldn't think like that now; he'd have to cross that bridge when he came to it. For now he had to worry about getting out in the first place. And for that, he needed their help; he needed to win their hearts and minds or they'd never escape.
Cameron had told him before he'd been at Century from 2015 to 2021; no way was he going to spend six years slaving away; they could all be dead by then. He didn't know what the camp was like in the future, but in this one he couldn't imagine surviving for one year, let alone six. They needed help.
"They use infrared to target us," John added, remembering Cameron's lectures on the machines. "They lock on to our heat signatures; if we can set off enough bombs, start enough fires, they won't be able to track us.
"That's it," John said simply. "We steal anything worth taking, hide it away, and make bombs. Byrne's an explosives expert; he can make a bomb out of almost anything. We'll," John indicated at himself, Byrne, and Slater, "make the bombs; we need everyone else to search every body they can for anything useful." He looked around the room at their faces; a mixture of incredulity, disbelief, cynicism – mostly from Guy and Simon and a handful of others – and also a few glimmers of hope. "Who's in?"
Several nodded their assent almost instantly. Others started hushed conversations with each other, debating whether or not to join John's plan. John didn't see the argument; they either carried on the way they were and slaved away until they became too weak to work, or they actually did something to get themselves out. He guessed some preferred the devil they knew, not wanting to tempt an even worse fate than they already had.
"What if the machines catch us?" Jim asked.
"Then you're fuc-"
"They don't care," John answered reassuringly, cutting off Guy before he could put them off "One of them caught me putting this on," he pulled at his sweater for emphasis. "It didn't care in the least. Be quick and careful, and you'll be alright."
"So who's in?" Slater asked. "I want to see hands."
Eventually, forty out of the sixty or so prisoners held their hands up; not everyone, like John had hoped, but still a lot more than just the three of them. It'd do, he supposed. He couldn't help but notice that Simon and Guy were among those who'd chosen not to take part. They didn't want any part in his plan and he wondered if they had their own in the works; he couldn't see them simply allowing themselves to be worked to death; they were too strong-willed for that. It was a shame, he thought, that they'd refused.
John took a few minutes to show them how to search a body; Byrne laid out on the ground whilst John displayed how to quickly but discreetly check for anything useful, emphasising any and all pockets, the backs of jeans – in case of another rare case of someone carrying a gun, and if they found any soldiers, to take their belt kit and vests and strap it on themselves instead of carrying it. He had Jim pat down Byrne, showing him how to quickly but thoroughly search a body. He patted down his breast pockets, checked the shoulders, armpits, stomach, thighs and buttocks.
"Ye could at least buy me dinner, first," Byrne said when Jim's hand brushed over his crotch, eliciting a few chuckles from the audience.
"What do we do with all the stuff when we get it?" Someone asked.
"Keep it on you until night, then we'll take it," John replied. "We should all get some sleep now or we'll be too tired in the morning." Everyone knew how that felt; it was bad enough being worked half to death every day, but missing out on the little sleep they did get made it all the worse; given how short their rest periods were it was damn near impossible to recover from a sleepless night in the camp. John had had a few since arriving, and he'd never felt so drained in a long, long time.
John awoke with a jolt as his bedroom door slammed open with an almighty crack. He threw his covers off of him and leapt behind the bed, waiting for the inevitable crack of gunfire overhead. Shit! He thought; Cromartie must have found them, and he had nothing to defend himself with. Not that it'd matter; the only thing they had to fight him off with was Cameron. He couldn't escape out the window; he was dead.
After a few seconds hidden behind his bed he realised he wasn't being attacked; there was no gunfire and Cromartie or any other machine wouldn't have waited to move in and snap his neck like a twig.
John sheepishly got up from behind the bed and saw Cameron stood in the doorway; wearing a small T-shirt and tiny shorts that left little to the imagination, running shoes, and a faint expression of bemusement on her face.
"Jeez, Cameron!" John groaned. "I thought you were gonna kill me."
"I'd never hurt you John," Cameron replied. John's lack of trust concerned her; she wanted him to trust her. She wanted to be his friend, which meant she wanted him to trust her.
"No! Not you, you," he hurriedly corrected himself. "I thought you were Cromartie for a second."
"The bed's not a good place to hide; if I were Cromartie, you'd be dead."
"What's going on?" John asked, unable to stop himself staring at her in her revealing attire; her yellow T-shirt was tiny, showed off her perfect curves and stopped halfway down her navel. Her shorts were more like hot pants; his boxers covered more than those. He found himself imagining her underneath those skimpy garments; his imagination started to run wild and he found himself stirring below.
He suddenly realised in horror that he'd gone to bed naked that night, and Cameron could see his reaction to her now.
"Jesus, Cameron!" He snapped, turning red in the face with embarrassment and angry at himself for allowing those kind of thoughts into his head; he knew she was more than just a machine but still, that kind of thinking was futile. It'd be impossible, and would only be a huge mess in the long run. "You not heard of privacy?" He asked as he grabbed a pillow and held in protectively in front of his crotch, trying futilely to hide his reaction to the sight of her dressed like that.
"I've seen you naked before. Many times," Cameron replied simply, stepping closer and staring at his body intently, making John feel more uncomfortable than he'd ever been in his life; especially when she stared at him like a hawk watching a particularly tasty mouse.
She crossed the room and reached out with one hand, gently running a finger across his chest and making him grimace as all the blood in his body rushed south towards his groin. What did she want? She wasn't going to try and seduce him again, was she? He had to admit - wearing what she was - he'd be lying if he said he wouldn't be tempted.
"No scars," she said simply. In the future he had many scars from numerous combat injuries; some he'd never spoken of. She gently poked where Future John had had an entry wound on his stomach; the exit wound was higher up and the size of a silver dollar. He had burns on his chest, neck, and the left side of his face, and several scars from shrapnel wounds. She'd always been curious about his scars and how he'd gotten them. Would this John carry the same scars one day?
She knew he was aroused by her, too; she didn't need to scan him to know that. Why he hadn't accepted her in the shower before, she didn't know. John was complicated.
"You saw me like this in the future?" John asked.
"Naked... yes." She'd seen Future John naked many times when she'd treated his wounds. He also washed and bathed in front of her, not caring about privacy and knowing that machines were not bothered by nudity the same way that humans were.
What the hell did that mean? John thought. Did her and Future-Him... No! Couldn't be; Future Him was smarter than that, surely. Still, for some reason he hated the idea of his future self being with her, touching her... He shook his head to try and clear those ideas out of his head once more; he'd learned long ago that it wasn't a healthy train of thought.
"What do you want?" He asked more harshly than he'd intended.
"You're weak," Cameron replied.
"What?" John asked, confused and a little annoyed by her comment. What the hell did she mean?
"You need training; you're weak. I'm going to train you." Cameron turned around and marched out, leaving the door open and John stood naked in his room, holding a pillow to cover himself and feeling more embarrassed than he could describe.
He quickly pulled on some clothes; a pair of shorts and a baggy T-shirt, and went downstairs to find Cameron waiting for him outside at the front of the house. He couldn't help but grin a little at the sight of her still; if he was going to have to work out, at least his training partner would be nice to look at; he shouldn't think like that, he knew, but it would be a welcome distraction, at least. Maybe it wouldn't be all that bad.
"What're we doing, then?" John asked.
"Run. Five miles," Cameron answered.
"Five miles?" John coughed. He couldn't do that; he'd not done any real running since Presidio Alto over a year and a half ago. They'd never had money to join a gym and his mom had always said running outside made him a target.
"Future-You could run ten miles," she replied. "We'll go slow," she smiled sweetly at him and then broke into a quick run down the path towards the road. John set off after her and quickly caught up, though Cameron accelerated even further until John was forced into a flat out run to keep up with her. They ran out together, keeping to minor roads until they moved onto a series of fields and started to go cross-country.
The going got tougher as they ran through fields of unkempt long grass and uneven ground, John huffing and panting as he struggled to keep up with Cameron. He'd gotten lazy with training lately and now he was paying the price for it. His legs ached and his feet were on fire; his body wanted to give up but his brain refused to; she'd called him weak, had compared him to his future self and found him lacking. He wasn't going to quit; he'd keep going until he fell apart if he had to.
Cameron suddenly stopped at the edge of a copse of trees and turned around to face John as he slowed to a halt.
"That's five miles," she said.
"How... how'd I do?" John asked, panting and breathing heavily, his mouth dry and acrid like a desert. He wished he'd brought a bottle of water along now, too.
"Badly," Cameron replied. Future John could run much faster than he did, despite the age difference. John would need considerable training to improve. She considered pretending to go bad to motivate him to run faster but decided against it; John might lose trust in her, and Cameron didn't want John to act like he'd done before; he'd improved since Riley had died and they'd moved away from their old house. She didn't want him to regress.
"Let me guess; future-me's better, right?" John rolled his eyes. One thing he hated was being compared to his future self; who was so much smarter, so much better than he was. He never made a mistake, he never cried, or complained, of course. He always knew what to do and always just got the job done. Future-John was everything he wasn't.
"Its five miles back home," Cameron said.
"I thought you weren't built to be cruel," John gasped as he turned around and grudgingly started back the way they'd came, his feet burning and his legs aching beneath him. She was enjoying this, he thought; doing it on purpose as some kind of punishment for how he'd treated her these past few weeks. Would she really do that? He wondered; he'd upset her, he knew. Was this some kind of revenge for how he'd acted towards her? Would she really stoop to petty revenge? He thought. And why did she keep comparing him to Future-him? From the way she'd stared at him naked earlier and then commented on his future self, he couldn't help but wonder what his relationship with her in the future was. She seemed to view his future self in a much higher regard than him; the way she spoke about him sometimes it was like she admired him. Or more, even. Was that possible? He wondered.
They got back to the house faster than he'd imagined; his ponderings about Cameron had overshadowed everything else, even the burning sensation in his legs and the urge to stop and throw up. All John wanted to do now was crash out on the sofa for the rest of the day; he'd never been so exhausted before in his life. Even his mom hadn't pushed him that hard before.
"We'll run again tomorrow," Cameron said. "You need improvement, John. In the future, you-"
"Don't compare me to Future-Me," John snapped. "I hate it when you and Derek do that."
Cameron sat down on the sofa, grabbed the remote, and switched the TV on to the news, checking for anything relevant that might affect them. John hadn't understood; he didn't know what she was trying to do. John was insecure, she realised. She'd have to be careful what she said to him in future. She'd been truthful when she'd written in the note, that she liked having John as a friend; she didn't want him to push her away again.
"If you don't train you won't live to become Future-You," she said simply.
Had he upset her? He wondered. Cameron's words rang clear as a bell in his mind and John realised exactly why she'd pushed him so hard; it wasn't out of some petty revenge or anything like that. He should have known better; she was still a Terminator at her core and she wouldn't understand nor care about petty revenge. No; she'd pushed him hard for his benefit, to help him. Everything she did was for him, and he was just starting to realise that. She compared him to his future self so he'd have something to work towards, maybe even exceed; and if she didn't, then as she said, he might not live to become what he was supposed to be. He realised he still knew so little about her, and that he had a long way to go before he was ready to be 'John Connor'.
"Cameron..." he flopped down beside her on the sofa and put his feet up on the table. Strangely, it didn't feel weird; it actually felt nice, comfortable, sitting so close to her. He felt none of the awkwardness that he'd felt earlier in his room. He placed his hand over hers and squeezed gently, turning to face her. "Thank you," he said sincerely, leaning back and relaxing for the first time in a long time. "I mean it."
Cameron turned towards John and smiled. The expression was conscious and deliberate but the sentiment behind it was still genuine; nobody had ever said 'thank you' to her before; it was... nice.
John couldn't help but grin back at the slight smile she gave in response, the way her eyes lit up ever so slightly. She wasn't faking it; she didn't have to pretend around him and she knew that. To John Connor it was another sign that she was more than just a machine, and it was worth more than gold.
Sorry about the long gap between the last chapter and this one; I've been working on streamlining my plans for the fic as a whole. It's nearly halfway through now - next chapter should be the halfway point. It'll be around 36 chapters in all. Down from previous estimates when I edited my plans.
Anyway, hope you all liked it; do give me your thoughts and any feedback.