A/N: Sorry for the long delay in updating. This chapter ended up being a bit of a nightmare to write and it took me a while. Once again I'd like to thank Kaotic2 for beta-reading, and for bouncing ideas back and forth. On another note, I've been considering creating a Youtube trailer for the previous fic Judgement's Dawn, though I haven't the foggiest how to do it, so if any readers out there are good with making movies and vids, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how to do it.
And I know the chapter name is kinda dumb, but it's late and I've stressed over this chapter for 3 weeks and then realised I'd not thought up a name.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough now, so I hope you enjoy. Do let me know what you think.
The small road ran straight as an arrow through the vast, barren expanse of the Mojave Desert, devoid of any signs of life. The tiny desert road had barely seen any traffic even before the end of the world; now it was as isolated, desolate, and undisturbed as the surface of the moon.
A single vehicle rolled along the road and disturbed the almost lunar silence of the lifeless desert landscape; driving faster than the speed limits set before Judgement Day allowed, but not so much that it would be considered recklessly so. The large, powerful 4x4 had once been a shiny black in colour but the dust and dirt from the desert had accumulated throughout the vehicle's journey and clung to almost every surface.
Cameron sat in the passenger seat, stared out of the windscreen and scanned the horizon for any signs of movement, constantly searching for any threat to them, whilst Courtney drove.
Courtney had remained very quiet for the first two days since they'd left the mine in Virginia City, and hadn't wanted to talk about what had happened. Cameron knew that humans often didn't like to talk about traumatic events, even though the psychological texts she'd studied online concluded that talking helped. John discussed his problems with her often, as had Future-John. Without her she was certain that her John would eventually become like his future self.
After they'd driven into California, Cameron had observed several more Osprey aircraft flying west towards the coast. Cameron was still confused as to why Skynet would take prisoners so early in the war; Skynet's forces had grown much faster than in Future-John's time; machines such as the T-70 hadn't existed then. Something had accelerated the machines' development as well as their vastly increased numbers. The most likely cause was the Kaliba Group; still very much unknown to her, John, or Derek; apart from their key members – also unknown to them – were likely Greys sent from the future, and had likely been involved in creating Skynet.
It was a secondary concern for Cameron. John took priority, always.
Cameron glared up wards as a small grey shape slowly soared through the sky; it was another Osprey transport aircraft. She'd taken note of the flight paths from several of the Ospreys she and Courtney had seen during the journey. Its trajectory matched only two future prison camps in her files: the USS Nimitz, moored in San Diego Bay; and Century Sector Work Camp.
"Stop," Cameron turned to Courtney, who slammed on the brakes and was thrown forward – stopped by her seatbelt – as the Topkick screeched to a halt.
"What is it?" Courtney asked nervously, her head swivelling around and trying to see any approaching machines.
"I know where John is."
"What? How? You just thought of it, now?"
"Yes," Cameron nodded her head, smiling slightly at her conclusion. "Century City; there's a prison camp there."
"How'd you know John's there?" Courtney asked. How the heck Cameron had just suddenly thought of this now, she had no clue. She'd never mentioned a prison camp before, didn't even know the machines took prisoners; as far as she knew all the machines did was kill people. Why would it take prisoners?
Cameron didn't know, not a hundred percent. Future-John had been imprisoned in Century. It was the closer of the two, but even if it weren't she'd search Century City first.
"A hunch," Cameron said finally. Future-John's incarceration and the Ospreys' flight paths didn't mean John was in either location. The factors pointing to John's being in Century were circumstantial; she had no evidence but she'd generated every possibility she could think of hundreds of times over, and every time she reached the same conclusion: Century.
"Turn south," Cameron instructed her. Courtney shrugged her shoulders and turned them around, the Topkick's tyres crunched audibly over the loose stone of the desert floor beneath them as the heavy beast swung a tight arc and turned south. Cameron hadn't once struck her as a 'hunch' kind of person; she'd never done anything unless she was certain, and she always seemed to know what to do, but now she was turning them around on a guess. She wondered if Cameron was getting desperate. It was hard to tell with her; Courtney had picked up a couple of Cameron's minute tells but she was still a tough person to read.
"We're running out of gas," Courtney tapped on the fuel gauge on the dashboard. That'd be a problem; in the middle of the desert there would be few places to get gas from. Living in a tiny little desert town, she knew just how remote everything was out here. If they'd stuck to the highways they'd have a better chance of finding a gas station, but Cameron had insisted that they stay off the main roads, wary of HK patrols.
Cameron had already formed an alternate plan: if they ran out of gas then they'd abandon the Topkick and walk across the desert to the highway, eleven miles away. If there were no abandoned cars on the highway then they'd walk alongside it and wait for a vehicle to come, gain their attention and hijack it. They were armed and even in her still-damaged state she could engage a group of armed humans.
She'd stopped a number of times en route and taught Courtney how to shoot, how to properly aim and fire, and basic lessons on how to keep her M4 working. She'd taught her about the grenade launcher under the barrel but told her not to use it unless she said so. Courtney was still nervous with the gun and Cameron didn't want her to endanger either of them with it.
Courtney kept driving and watched for any signs of a gas station or any other traces of life; unaware Cameron was doing the same far more effectively with artificial eyes.
"What're you gonna do when you find John?" She asked. She'd been thinking about this a lot; she was nervous about meeting the man who Cameron held in such high regard.
"Return to Cheyenne Mountain," Cameron replied. "Keep him safe."
"I was wondering; when we find him... can I come with you guys?" She turned her head to the side as she spoke and nervously watched Cameron for any response. She had no family, no friends left. She had nowhere to go. She liked Cameron; she was the strangest person she'd ever met in her life, but she was a good friend. She could have abandoned her down in the mine but she didn't; she'd saved her from... she still couldn't even bring herself to think of it, and immediately pushed the thought from her mind.
"Yes," Cameron said. She hadn't considered what Courtney would do when they found John; her first and only priority was to make sure he was safe. But Courtney was the first person she'd met since Judgement Day who didn't try to use her like a machine, lie to her, or try to kill her; and the first person she'd associated with who had no obvious use to her. Cameron's search for John might have been easier if she'd not taken Courtney along with her, or left her in the mine, but her first concern after incapacitating Chris McGinty had been for Courtney. She should have left her there but she didn't. She couldn't.
"Thanks," Courtney smiled at her. "You think John will like me?" Cameron stared at her through narrowed with an intense gaze, unmoving except for a slight twitch in her left hand, causing Courtney to shift uncomfortably in her seat as she drove. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked.
Cameron glared at her a moment longer, analysing Courtney's words as she started sensing an unknown threat: 'do you think John will like me?' John was popular with women, both present and in the future. Riley Dawson and Jessica Morgan had tried to seduce John, and Future-John had many willing potential partners: before she'd left for 1999, Cameron had been curious why he'd never once copulated with any of them. Women liked John Connor. She didn't want Courtney to attempt seduce him. John was hers: she wouldn't allow anyone else to take her place at his side.
"What's wrong?" Courtney asked. "If John doesn't like me, we'll still be friends, right?" Courtney saw how devoted Cameron was to John, and just hoped that Cameron wouldn't forget all about her when she found John.
Cameron's face relaxed and she broke into a slight smile. The invisible threat disappeared from her senses. Courtney was no threat: she was concerned about their friendship. John had told her before she had no reason to ever be jealous but she couldn't help it. Humans weren't the only ones who had trouble controlling their emotions.
"How'd you meet John, anyway?" Courtney asked, curious. Cameron hadn't told her much about John; just that she wanted to find him, and made it clear without words that she cared for him more than anyone.
"High school," Cameron replied.
Courtney couldn't help but smile. High school sweethearts; it was sweet, but it didn't make sense: if John Connor was a general, then... "How old is John?"
"Twenty."
"How the heck is he a general, then?" Courtney had pictured John Connor as a much older guy that Cameron. He couldn't be a real general then, could he?
"It's complicated," Cameron answered abruptly. John's life, his past, and the future, were all a secret shared by only a few of them.
"You've been together a while, then?" Courtney changed the subject back to their relationship, sensing that Cameron didn't want to talk about John's rank.
"We were friends. We fell out and John met someone else. She was a liar; it didn't last long and we became close again. Then his mother died and he blamed me."
"Wow; you weren't kidding when you said it was complicated." Courtney looked down at the dashboard and saw the fuel gauge resting right on empty. They needed to find somewhere to get gas soon or they'd be walking to LA. She didn't need to tell Cameron; she seemed to know pretty much everything. "When did you actually get together, then?"
"Judgement Day."
"Wartime romance, eh?" Courtney smiled again; Cameron came across as cold and hard, but she could see a something else in her. She wouldn't quite call it a softer side, but she was devoted to John, intensely loyal, and seemed like she'd do anything for him. She guessed it was probably what John saw in her, too.
"Did you have anyone?" Cameron asked, stunning Courtney with the question. Cameron hadn't asked her much of anything about herself or her life. She really wasn't much of a talker.
"Me? Heck, no," Courtney laughed and sighed at once. "I always helped my dad out on the weekends, never had the time and... I was kinda shy. Most I had was getting drunk and making out with my prom date."
Cameron spotted something in the distance; far-off shapes in the endless, undulating desert. Cameron didn't need to point towards them; Courtney saw them too.
As they approached they saw it was a tiny settlement of some kind: a few trailers hooked up to 4x4s and SUVs, some battered cars and pickups, a small store and a gas station, and a tiny whitewashed chapel with a dilapidated steeple pointing into the sky, topped with a white cross, peeling paint and exposing the metal beneath. The trailers looked as worn as the chapel; their steel walls turning reddish-brown with rust and the windows obscured by dirt and dust from the desert floor.
The gas station looked as worn down as the rest of the tiny settlement and both Cameron and Courtney were unsure if they'd even have any gas left. Courtney wondered if they'd had any since the Fifties. She pulled into the station forecourt and stopped; the Topkick's brakes kicked up even more dust from the dirt road and sent it swirling into the air as Cameron opened her door and stepped outside, pulling her SCAR-H from its resting place in the passenger-side foot-well and handing the M4 to Courtney.
"We sure we wanna stop here?" Courtney asked as she reluctantly undid her seatbelt and opened her door. She really didn't want to stop here, even though she knew they didn't have any other choice; this was the only place for miles that might have gas. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. Who the hell even lives here? "I thought I came from a hick town, but this... you ever see that movie: The Hills Have Eyes?"
"No," Cameron replied as she marched towards the back of the station to check the area. Hers and John's lives had never allowed for much time watching movies.
"Well, this kinda reminds me of that," Courtney said, looking around warily and watching for any sign of movement as she tightly clutched her rifle, hoping and praying she wouldn't have to use it.
"Got good gas prices, at least," Courtney rolled her eyes and pointed to a faded and weather-beaten sign that had once proudly announced their gas was only $1.88 per gallon, and was the last gas for fifty-five miles. Courtney wondered what decade the sign had been applicable and whether the place had been abandoned around that time or if the owner simply kept the sign up to lure desperate drivers over, low on fuel, and then hit them with double the advertised cost. Anyone low on gas out here wouldn't have had a choice but to pay whatever the hell they asked for.
Cameron kept her rifle raised and veered off towards the back of the station to check the area for threats or anything else they should be aware of. Finding nothing, she walked up to one of the pumps and pulled out the nozzle, turning back to the Topkick as Courtney frowned. "What're you doing?" she asked.
"We need gas," Cameron replied simply, undoing the cap on the fuel tank and placing it atop the large 4x4.
"Yeah but... we can't just steal it." Courtney remembered vividly the image of the man they'd found executed in the store in Carson City. People tended to hoard what they had and she'd come to see they didn't tend to share. Nothing came for free.
Cameron slotted the nozzle into the gas tank and held down the trigger, causing a dull thrum from the pumps as the gas surged through the line and into the Topkick. Courtney's head swivelled around and her eyes darted nervously in every direction, convinced they were going to be caught any second. In her minds eye she saw a brief, horrible flash; her and Cameron hanging limp from the wall of the station, their bodies sagging down under their own weight and held up only by the nails that penetrated their hands, wrists, and feet. Their eyes peeled wide open and staring blankly out into the desert, their throats slashed from ear to ear, windpipes open to the world, dark crimson blood oozed down their bodies and pooling at their feet and soaking into the desert floor beneath them...
"Cameron!" Courtney hissed, petrified at the horrific mental image now stuck in her mind and wouldn't go away. "Just stop it, okay?"
"We're alone," Cameron said. "We're armed. We're safe."
"We were armed in Carson City," Courtney snapped, backing away from the pumps and trembling slightly, still scanning for any sign they were being watched.
Cameron looked at her blonde opposite and saw the fear on her face: she was trembling and her eyes constantly scanned the area around them, much like John had shortly after his sixteenth birthday. She recognised several of the same symptoms John had displayed: common signs of post-traumatic stress. Cameron had no qualms stealing gas from the station, but she hadn't considered Courtney's emotional state.
Cameron slotted the gas pump back into its cradle and picked up her rifle. "We'll check inside," she said, deciding for Courtney's sake to do as she asked: it was less efficient and took more time, but if it made Courtney more comfortable then she was willing to concede. The pair of them approached the station entrance. Cameron held her rifle and covered Courtney as she made her way to the door. She tapped the barrel of her weapon audibly against the stock of the M4 slung over Courtney's back. The blonde nodded but didn't look back at Cameron as she took her carbine into one hand and held the other on the door handle.
She peered through the dirty, unwashed glass of the door and saw nothing inside. No movement or sign of life that she could see. She could make out some shelves stacked with tins of food, but what exactly, she couldn't tell. She pushed open the peeling wood and glass door and stuck her head inside. It smelt old and stale, and Courtney guessed any air conditioning was as ancient and decrepit as the rest of the place.
"Hello?" A yellow blur instantly flew into her from behind an aisle and knocked her off her feet, sending her sprawling onto the ground and landing on her back. Stunned by the speed of the attack, all she could do was helplessly screw her eyes shut and raise her hands up above her to shield her face. She felt something warm and wet roll over her face, soft hair between her fingers.
She opened her eyes and her vision was instantly filled with the wide-open-mouthed face of a golden retriever enthusiastically licking and nuzzling her, apparently starved for attention.
"Hey!" her face broke into a wide, beaming, relieved smile and she cooed over the dog as it bathed her with its tongue. She sat up and scratched behind its ears, stroking it hard as it sat there, closed its eyes, and leaned into Courtney's chest, panting loudly and revelling in her affection. Courtney heard Cameron's footsteps a few yards behind her and the dog snapped away from Courtney and growled at the brunette, snarling and spitting before it broke into rabid and uncontrolled barking, spraying Courtney with its saliva.
Courtney got up to her feet and stroked the dog's head once more. She looked back at Cameron, who simply stared back at the dog as her own attempts to calm the animal did nothing. The dog lunged towards Cameron but Courtney held its collar firmly and pulled with everything she had.
"What is it with you and dogs?" she asked, struggling to hold the Retriever back. The dogs back in Carson City had been exactly the same around her; they'd gone ballistic around her, would have torn her apart if she'd not scared them off with gunfire.
"Cat person," Cameron said nonchalantly. She wasn't concerned with the dog; it was no threat to her. The dog lunged forwards and broke free from Courtney's grip, bounding towards Cameron with its jaws wide open and teeth bared in single minded intent to rip Cameron limb from limb.
Cameron watched it run towards her with an almost curious expression as she calculated its precise speed and angle of attack. As it reached striking distance Cameron shot out her hand and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, lifting the dog clean into the air and surprising both the canine and Courtney, who gasped in shock at Cameron's speed and strength, and she wondered once more how the hell Cameron could do the things she did. "Cameron, what're you doing?" she asked, watching Cameron stare impassively at the dog as it snapped and growled at her, flailing its limbs powerlessly in her grasp.
Cameron watched the dog as she held it in front of her face. For several seconds the Retriever struggled in her grip, viciously snapping its jaws at her and wriggling to get free. Cameron glared unblinkingly at it, her eyes locked with the dog's. After a long moment its aggressive posture dissolved completely and was replaced by a pathetic look of fear and resignation, whining slightly as Cameron maintained her unrelenting, penetrating gaze.
"Good boy," Cameron said, lowering the dog gently to the ground and releasing it. The dog looked at her for a moment and then lowered its head and bolted past Courtney and back into the store with its tail between its legs, letting out a high-pitched whine as it fled.
"How'd you do that?" Courtney asked, incredulous to what she'd just seen. Cameron didn't answer but followed the dog inside the station. Courtney marched up behind her, wondering why dogs were so afraid of her.
"Inside," Cameron said, pushing the door open and stepping inside the station. "You were right."
"I was?" Courtney asked, confused.
"There's people here," Cameron explained in a low voice as Courtney followed her inside, her rifle raised, as Cameron had taught her. "Dogs mean people." The dog wasn't wild, wasn't part of a pack, and didn't look hungry: it was someone's pet. The owner was still here, hiding.
The shelves inside were nearly bare and looked like they'd been so for a long time. Chillers lined along the back wall were completely empty save for a few small bottles of water. Larger bottles were stacked on the floor in packs of four next to the empty refrigerators. Courtney wanted to grab one and gulp it down – even if it was warm – but the grizzly image of her and Cameron nailed to the wall wouldn't go away. And she'd scorned Cameron for trying to steal gas, so she could hardly go and do the same, now.
Cameron scanned the inside of the station for movement: nothing. The dog was also gone. She saw a single door behind the counter, open a slight fraction. That was the only place the dog could have gone. She saw Courtney also staring at it; the two having reached the same conclusion. Cameron looked at her and then down at her M4, hanging from its strap at her side. She could tell Courtney was still uncomfortable with the weapon; she'd been nervous whilst firing it, afraid she'd hurt one of them. Cameron didn't know if Courtney would fight if they encountered a threat; she was more likely to run and hide. It was what she was used to.
Cameron marched to the wooden door behind the cash register and sensed Courtney behind her. She heard movement on the other side and loudly kicked the door open, surging through the open entrance and coming face to face with an armed man, weapon pointed directly at her chest. Behind them, two young girls clung to an older woman, huddled together in the corner of the room behind a couch; all of them dirty and visibly scared. The dog that had tried to attack her and jumped Courtney lay beside them, staring at Cameron with wide, unblinking eyes.
She scanned the three armed men and their weapons: a middle-aged, stout, balding man with a shotgun, and two taller, younger men, in their thirties, Cameron estimated; one wielded a hunting rifle and the other an old-style M16: no threat to her. The older man – the one in the middle, held his shotgun tight to his shoulder and Cameron saw the perspiration on his face, the fear in his eyes in the split second it had taken her to kick the door open and aim her SCAR-H between his eyes.
"Jesus Christ, girl!" the man sighed deeply and lowered his weapon, prompting the other two armed men to follow his example. "Cameron paused for a second before lowering her own weapon, keeping it pointed in their direction so she could easily fire the first shot if she needed to. She sensed Courtney relaxing her own hold on her M4, behind her. "I nearly blew your Goddamn tits off!"
"What in Christ's balls are you two doing out alone in the desert?" The M16 wielding man asked them.
"We need gas," Cameron said bluntly. She didn't have time to make conversation; she'd wasted enough time trying to find John and she wanted to reach Century City as fast as possible.
"Find it someplace else," the third man replied, tightening his grip on the weapon.
"There isn't anywhere else," Courtney said, keeping slightly behind Cameron, nervous at all the weapons pointed at them.
"Tough luck for you," the bald man said. "Get out. Go somewhere else."
"Just give them gas, Roy," the woman in the back of the room said. "We don't need it."
"We just need some gas," Courtney said, slowly stepping out from behind Cameron, her hands raised in front of her chest, rifle hanging at her side from its strap. She pushed Cameron's rifle barrel down towards the ground, trying to diffuse the situation and not seem like a threat. "Then we're gone."
"'Gone' where?"
"Century City," Courtney answered. "We're looking for someone. Please, we need the gas."
The man called Roy chewed his bottom lip in thought for a moment, then stared at the two girls, his gaze lingering over them, seeing something very attractive to him; something he could do with.
"Okay, we can trade."
"'Trade?'" Courtney asked, sensing Roy's gaze and swallowing nervously. She instinctively stepping back, her shaking hand unconsciously reaching for her rifle. She couldn't help but think back to the mine; to Bates and his idea of 'fair trade.' She wasn't going through that again, no way; she'd rather be shot.
"Yeah, 'trade.' Those guns will do nicely," Roy replied.
"No," Cameron said firmly. She wasn't going to trade their weapons for gas: she was still wasn't a hundred percent, and the once densely populated LA County would be dangerous even for her. Three months of searching Nevada, and the following weeks making their way to Carson City, had drained her power cell significantly; her fuel cell currently read at less than thirty percent and at her current rate of energy expenditure it would be depleted in twenty-eight days. One month to find John: she couldn't afford to waste time or lose their weapons.
Roy and the other two men raised their weapons once more. "Your guns for gas," he said simply. "You need gas and we need to protect ourselves. Machines ain't the only things out there to worry about; people on the radio say there's gangs going around, taking what they want and killing anyone in their way. Vultures. For all we know, you could be with 'em. Or you could have led the machines here; if they followed you here, and we can't protect ourselves, you'll have killed us."
No targets sighted
Running Combat Diagnostic...
...
CPU Integrity: 100%
Targeting Systems: 100%
Structural Integrity: 100%
Power Cell Capacity: 68% Recharge Power Cell Within 38 Hours
Ammunition Capacity: Right M230: 250 Rounds. Left M230: 230 Rounds.
...
Overall Combat Effectiveness: 97.2%
The giant made its way across the desert floor towards its destination without any conscious thought. It was large, it was powerful, but it possessed less intelligence than an ant. It could receive and process information, it could identify and prioritise targets but it was unable to truly think for itself. It cared nothing for Skynet, nothing for the humans it was programmed to destroy: they were simply targets.
The machine was a masterpiece of military engineering: the deadliest tracked vehicle ever conceived – in this timeline, anyway. Despite its power, the fact that the machine ruled supreme in its assigned patrol area, it felt no ego; no pride for its unmatched might in the desert.
Massive treads crunched over the uneven, rocky terrain as the machine received new instructions from its master. A set of GPS coordinates: 35° 45′ 54.65″N, 117° 22′ 58.09″W. The coordinates were eleven-point-four miles from its present location. The machine immediately abandoned its previously assigned patrol, turned west and increased speed to its maximum speed of twenty-eight miles per hour, and calculated its estimated time of arrival. ETA to target: 24min: 25sec. It felt no fear, no nervousness, no eagerness or anticipation of battle. It knew nothing of the location or what was there; it only knew that targets had been located.
Cameron stared at Roy and the others: their fingers were all tensed on their triggers and she knew for certain they'd open fire if threatened. If she were alone she'd have taken the gas and driven away. If threatened she'd have shot them and continued. She wasn't alone, though; Courtney was with her, and she was human. In the confined space of the small room in the back of the station there was a high chance of Courtney being injured or killed. Cameron wasn't willing to take the risk.
"Let's just go," Courtney said, turning to leave the room. They could probably make it to the highway on fumes; they'd find an abandoned car there they could take gas from.
She felt Cameron's hand pull her back as Fire blossomed into the station proper and the wall exploded, blasting debris across the room and shattering the cash register. The entire building shook from the explosion, rapidly followed by a second and third blast. Courtney dropped to the floor, lay flat and didn't move; she'd survived the machines well enough to know to stay down. Moving or trying to run would get her killed.
Through the gaping, flaming hole in the wall she saw one of the trailers on the far side of the road explode in a roiling ball of fire. People leapt out of the other trailers and scattered. She heard a deep, faraway chatter of heavy machine guns and the ground exploded in several places, bursting outwards in eruptions of dirt and debris. She watched as some people tried to run out into the desert and more large rounds struck nearby, the impacts sending them flying through the air and landing in pieces on the ground. One woman took a direct hit and Courtney saw nothing but a cascade of brown and red blossom outwards and splatter onto the ground. Someone made it to their car and tried to drive off, but another hail of gunfire slammed into the vehicle and flipped it end over end, landing on its back in a wreck of twisted burning metal and shattered glass.
Courtney crawled forward on her belly and peeked through the hole as some outside ran towards the cause of the destruction, firing shotguns and rifles; even she knew it'd be useless. She peered out and saw a massive, hulking machine in the distance. It rolled forwards on tracks probably taller than she was, and fired bursts from massive cannons, its fire obliterating anything it hit. She'd only seen the machines once before; when some had rolled through her town and slaughtered the survivors.
"Cameron!" she called out, figuring that with all the firing and explosions going on outside, the machine wouldn't hear them. "It's one of the big ones." Cameron peered outside and saw the behemoth machine approaching; a little over two-thousand metres away and approaching.
"It's a T-2," Cameron explained to Courtney. It was likely that an aircraft – a Predator – had spotted them and sent the T-2 to follow them.
"See! You goddamn led them right to us." Roy grabbed Cameron, spun her round and snarled in her face, shaking her by the shoulders, his eyes in a wild panic as the other two men looked around in fear. "You fucking killed us!"
Cameron swiftly brought her knee up to his crotch, smashing his testicles with the hyper-alloy beneath her skin. She watched for a split second as he doubled over and squirmed in agony, unable to suppress a tiny smile of satisfaction, then shoved him over onto his back, looking down at him. The other men raised their weapons but Cameron made no move against them.
"If we destroy it, we take your gas," Cameron said. It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes," Roy coughed, still clutching protectively to his aching crotch. Cameron peered out of the hole again and grabbed Courtney by the wrist, running out of the hole and pulling the blonde behind her.
She sprinted and jumped for a deep ditch on the side of the road, watching the machine as it rolled closer. It hadn't fired at them, focused instead on the people shooting back. Courtney roughly hit the ground a moment behind her, grunting as her weapon poked into her. She leaned against the side of the ditch and pulled it off her shoulder with trembling hands and mentally recited Cameron's lessons to her as she cocked the charging handle and chambered a round, flicked the safety off, and switched the weapon to single shot mode, as Cameron had told her to do unless she ordered otherwise.
The T-2 rumbled towards them, firing more heavy rounds and shredding another trailer. Cameron kept low to the ground and in the ditch, knowing the machine would target them if they left the cover of their impromptu trench.
"You said if we kill it, we get gas, right?"
Cameron nodded in reply.
"Can we kill it?"
"Probably not," Cameron said. Between them they had six grenades between them for their launchers, and their assault rifle rounds would be ineffective. Cameron recalled a mental list of all their supplies, among them was a single block of C4 and a detonator. She pulled her pack off her back and set it on the ground, pulling the zips open and pulling out the small block of explosives and detonator, and handed it to Courtney.
"What do I do with this?" Courtney peered over the top of the ditch and saw the T-2 was much closer now; only a few hundred yards off.
"Throw it in front of the T-2," she pointed at the detonate button. "Press that when it runs over the C4." Roy and his two men ran out of the station and spread out. Roy took cover behind the corner of the building, while the two younger men spread out and lay flat on the desert floor, firing their weapons uselessly at the gargantuan machine.
The sight of the flames gave Cameron an idea, similar to John's plan when he'd first engaged a T-2 in Fort Carson. The T2s could see everything with optical sensors and cameras, but they used infrared sensors for targeting. Even in the future, Skynet's patrol machines used infrared to lock onto their targets. In her damaged state her overtaxed power cell generated a substantial heat signature. In amongst the flaming trailers it would blend in with the fires, rendering her invisible to the machine.
"Grenade," Cameron instructed Courtney, shouldered her SCAR-H as an example, and triggered her launcher; the 40mm grenade impacted a fraction of a second later just below the machine's head; the flaring eruption of the high explosive round was dulled somewhat by the roaring chatter of the T-2s mighty chain guns as the armour piercing antitank rounds obliterated everything they touched.
As Courtney started to copy Cameron's action and brought her rifle to bear, taking time to carefully line up her sights, Cameron stood up and ran away from her, sprinting still with her slight limp across the road to 4x4s and trailers parked up opposite, ignoring Courtney's cry of surprise and the rounds that hammered across her path and struck several said trailers, tearing through their thin metal walls as if they were no more than wet tissue paper. She kicked open the door to one of the trailers, deliberately selecting one on fire. A series of gaping holes – wide enough to fit Cameron's head - had been punched through the wall by the explosive 30mm shells and the curtains, carpet, and the TV in the living area of the trailer had caught fire, quickly spreading throughout the confined space and casting an orange glow throughout the trailer, dulled somewhat by the thick black smoke that filled the air and spewed out of every shattered window and impact hole.
Ignoring the smoke as little more than a mild hindrance to her vision, Cameron calmly but quickly made her way towards the other rooms inside the trailer, looking for a skylight in the roof. She needed to work as fast as possible: Courtney wouldn't survive long on her own, but Cameron needed the machine's attention away from her until she was in position. Courtney could die, but if Cameron didn't destroy the T-2 it would kill them both.
She found what she was looking for in the trailer's bathroom. Cameron stepped onto the toilet bowl and unlatched the locks on the skylight, then punched it with enough force to tear it from its hinges and she pulled herself onto the roof. She crawled forward, ignoring the searing heat of the thin sheet metal beneath her, heating up like a frying pan on a hot hob and singeing her clothes. She felt her skin start to burn through the thin cotton material of her jacket but she ignored it. Pain for Cameron was little more than a way to make her aware she was damaged; she didn't possess human reactions to pain, nor the same level of discomfort. She disregarded the blistering of her elbows and knees as she crawled forward into position.
"Where're you going?" Courtney shouted as Cameron ran across the road and towards the trailers. What the hell's she doing? Cameron was gonna get herself killed and leave her alone against the metal monster. As hardcore as Cameron was, the girl had a screw loose: she liked Cameron but didn't get why she seemed to have a death wish sometimes; she didn't seem to care about her own wellbeing at all. Courtney's every instinct begged her to get down on the ground and hide until the machine had passed by and went on its way. She was in cover and could lie still and silent; and the machine wouldn't even know she was there.
The T-2 swivelled its top half and pointed its massive cannons towards the trailers, towards Cameron, and she did her best to ignore that urge to hide, to ignore that very basic sense of self preservation. She tried to push her fear down, tried to ignore it like Cameron, who never seemed to be afraid of anything. She knelt up on one knee and shouldered her M4, aiming the weapon at the metal monster before her, now only two-hundred yards away.
"Hey!" she screamed, not knowing if the machine could even hear or understand her, as she repeatedly pulled the trigger, remembering to lean forward into the butt of the weapon like Cameron had told her. She didn't know if she'd hit it or not; the bullets had no effect. The machine fired on the trailers, tearing them to shreds of torn metal, plastic, and glass. A gas cylinder beneath one of them ignited and exploded in a brilliant flash, obliterating the front half of the trailer above in a giant, roiling fireball.
"Cameron!" Courtney's heart skipped a beat as she saw the trailer erupt. It had been the one nearest Cameron and she saw no sign of her companion. Dread welled up inside her but Courtney refused to believe Cameron was gone: nothing could kill Cameron; she was too tough. She was like a female Chuck Norris. She'd nearly ripped Bates' head off back in the mine, she'd taken out half the machines in her old high school field back in Cactus Springs; she couldn't have bought the farm just like that.
"Fire the goddamn launcher!" Roy shouted at her from behind the cover of his corner. He held his shotgun but didn't fire, having seen how useless buckshot was against an armoured killing machine.
Courtney fumbled with the grenade launcher and made sure it was loaded, then took aim once more and fired with a dull, hollow crump. The projectile soared through the air and smashed into the T-2 in a blaze of fire, to no effect. The machine kept rolling. It had noticed Courtney, however, and it swivelled one of its guns towards her. Courtney ducked back into the ditch and lay flat into the dirt as 30mm armour piercing rounds shot over her head, hammering into the side of the station and picking it apart. The roof of the building groaned loudly in protest as the stricken wall crumbled beneath it; slate tiles fell to the ground and shattered. How the pumps hadn't been hit yet, she didn't know. At this rate there'd be nothing left of the place and they'd still have no fuel.
"It didn't do anything!" Courtney shouted as Roy ran from the shattered wall and jumped into the ditch beside her. Up close she could smell his body odour and guessed he hadn't washed in a while. Not that she smelled like a rose garden, either.
"Fire again!" he growled. Courtney struggled with the gun, everything Cameron had told her starting to jumble up under pressure, and she fumbled with the grenade launcher, her hands shook slightly and she recited all Cameron's instructions as she worked the launcher.
"Slide the barrel forward... load grenade... close breech..." She cocked the weapon and peered up over the lip of the ditch as another shot whipped past her; she shrieked in fear and dropped flat to the ground, shaking like a leaf. I'm gonna die... I'm gonna die...
The machine came closer to them, now on the road and only fifty metres away, and Courtney lay frozen on the ground, stricken with terror and indecision. Fight and die, stay down and die; either way she was dead. Damn it, Cameron; why'd you have to run off like that? She groaned inwardly as the machine's tracks rumbled closer still. She couldn't fight it: she wasn't a soldier.
"Give me that," Roy snatched the M4 from her hands and flicked the safety off. "Goddamn kids shouldn't be playing with guns. He shouldered the weapon and stood up, aimed at the machine's head and pulled the trigger. The grenade flew straight and scored a direct hit on the head, blasting small chunks out of the armour but not penetrating through.
At the same time the T-2 swung a gun around and loosed a burst in their direction, at thirty metres it was too close to miss: Roy never even had time to scream as his head and chest exploded like an overripe melon, spraying Courtney with a mist of bright crimson. The legs stood upright for a long moment, as if unaware the brain and body had gone, then dropped backwards to the ground. Courtney screwed her face up and tried to block out the horrible odour of burnt pork and singed, coppery blood. The M4 clattered to the ground next to what was left of Roy; in one piece as far as Courtney could tell, but she daren't move to retrieve it.
Another series of gunshots cracked through the air and struck the T-2 uselessly; the unstoppable machine was close enough for Courtney to hear the rounds ricocheting off the armoured chassis, and the faint whine of servos as the machine targeted the offending humans and launched a pair of sustained volleys with its guns, the booming rapid-fire reports drowned out the comparatively pitiful-sounding rifle fire before the human weapons were silenced completely. Then the machine turned its attention back to Courtney's position.
Another dull bang impacted the T-2 and Courtney rose up slightly, just enough to see another flare from a grenade impact; a direct hit on the machine's face. Cameron! It had to be her; she couldn't hear anymore screaming or shooting from anyone else, and the shot had come from the trailers on the other side of the road. The T-2 turned away from Courtney and slowly rolled towards what was left of the burning trailers. It's gonna kill her, she thought. Cameron had taken the heat off her and was going to die because of it. She gripped the C4 tighter and pulled her arm back over her shoulder. The machine was only ten metres away, within spitting distance.
With a grunt she threw the small block of explosives as hard as she could. She stayed low as she watched it arc through the air, her aim was wide and it flew straight past the T-2 and landed on the ground a few feet beside it. Crap, she cursed herself. She'd never had a good arm; at school she'd sucked at every sport that involved throwing a ball. The machine rolled closer to the trailer, turning towards the C4, and the guns opened up another roaring burst.
"That'll have to do," she muttered as she pressed the button on the detonator and ducked back down, curling into a ball and covering her ears with her hands. The ground trembled beneath her and a tremendous boom tore through the air. She heard several pieces of metal clatter onto the ground slowly stood back up to see the damage.
The machine's lower half was a complete wreck: the tracks nearest Courtney had been torn apart and mangled by the blast; the links blown to pieces, torn and twisted almost beyond recognition, and moving parts whirled around and grated on each other, creating small showers of sparks that cascaded onto the road. The T-2 would never move under its own power again. One of the M230 chain guns hung loosely from its pintle mount; the barrel sagged down and pointed at the floor, and pieces of armour along the lower half of the chassis were torn and broken.
The upper half, however, was still in one piece. The top half of the machine tried to swivel towards her but came to a grating, grinding halt after a quarter-turn. The remaining gun turned towards Courtney and bore on her position. Target locked.
Cameron assessed the T-2's damage as the explosion died down. She was surprised: she'd calculated a forty-two percent chance Courtney would have frozen, but she'd trusted her and ignored the odds in a way she knew was antithetical to her design. The machine was severely damaged but not destroyed: it still had one chain gun intact, and that weapon was lining up to shoot Courtney.
Cameron acted in an instant: the urge to protect Courtney's life as urgent as if the machine were aiming at John. She fired another grenade at the T-2's head, striking the machine in the exact same spot she'd hit before and tearing through the armour in the face, cracking the sensor nodes and cameras the machine had in lieu of eyes. She was up on her feet and ran on the roasting, uneven, tattered rood of the trailer, and gained speed enough to leap off the edge, landing on the T-2's gun mounts – the machine's 'shoulders'.
The machine could do nothing to her in such close proximity, and she pressed her advantage further. She spotted a section of armour plating on the head – thinner than that that protected the machine's torso – and gripped it with her fingers, pulling it back towards her with everything she had. The metal bent and groaned until it came free in her hands, exposing the thinner metal underneath; the only thing between her and the neural and sensory circuitry beneath. She jammed the barrel of her rifle into the gap and held down the trigger, loosing a long, chattering staccato burst of fire that ricocheted inside the head, ripped through wires and delicate, intricate circuitry, and tore the machine's brain to pieces.
Cameron dropped down to the ground from the now-still T-2's gun mounts and landed as gracefully and silently as a cat. She marched towards Courtney as she assessed the damage the T-2 had done to the area: the trailers and cars attached to them had all been damaged or destroyed beyond use. They were still on fire and any occupants still inside would already be dead. The gas station's roof had caved in and one of the walls had collapsed beneath it: Cameron could tell it was the section where Roy's men and the woman and children had hidden in. She saw movement inside. Some had survived but she didn't care; they weren't important.
"Are you hurt?" Cameron asked Courtney. She looked pale and she was shaking. She clapped a hand on Courtney's shoulder and smiled, scanning her at the same time. Courtney's pulse was rapid – a hundred-and-seventy-three beats a minute, her breathing was shallow and despite the chill air she was sweating. She fell to her knees and retched on the ground, still shaking and holding her stomach as she emptied her gets onto the desert floor. Cameron had seen the same reactions in John after combat: the adrenaline was leaving her system and her body was slowly returning to normal. She'd seen John's emotional reaction after his first fights and knew Courtney would be distressed.
"Did we... did we get it?" Courtney asked, wiping the remnants of vomit and bile from her lips onto the back of her hand, and then onto the ground.
"It's dead."
"Can we get out of here, now?"
Cameron looked back at the gas pumps, miraculously still standing, somehow; as was their Topkick, which had been on the far side of the gas station from the T-2 and partially in cover behind the far wall. She nodded to Courtney and they walked over to the car. Courtney felt overcome with exhaustion and collapsed into the passenger seat of the Topkick as Cameron filled up the gas tank. She also took a can from the back of the vehicle and filled that up with gas. Then she entered what was left of the store and picked up several bottles of water, pausing to drink some to cool down her power cell. As she turned to leave she spotted some chocolate on a confectionary stand, stopped, and picked up a single bar.
Within minutes they were back on the road, quickly leaving the devastated scene behind them. They drove in silence for several minutes. Courtney unscrewed the cap from one of the water bottles Cameron had taken and swilled the contents around her mouth before spitting it out of the open window, trying to get the taste of sick out of her mouth. She'd stopped shaking, at least, but she still felt like crap, and her head was pounding, like a brass band was marching inside her skull.
"Here," Cameron let go of the wheel with one hand and passed her the chocolate she'd taken, hoping it'd help. Courtney tore it open and bit a large chunk out of it, chewing thoughtfully before swallowing. She broke off a piece and handed it to Cameron. She ate it, still not understanding the fuss made about chocolate. She wondered: if she could taste it like humans could, would she like it?
"Sorry I was so useless back there," Courtney said finally. "I... I just froze."
"You did well," Cameron replied, smiling. She'd performed better than Cameron expected. It was possible that she'd have not survived if Courtney hadn't thrown the C4.
"Did you puke after your first time, too?"
"No," Cameron answered. "I'm a freak. John cried."
"He's not some tough-as-nails Chuck Norris-type, then?" She'd figured that any guy tough enough to keep up with Cameron had to be some kind of action hero.
"No. John cries, he's sad, he's afraid." It was what made him human, Cameron knew. Future-John had never shown fear, or sadness, and he'd never once cried, apart from a single tear that she'd spotted on his face, moments before he'd sent her to 1999. In the months she'd spent with Future-John; talking with him, listening to his stories about his life during and before the war; the single tear when she'd stepped into the TDE chamber was the only time she'd seen him display any real emotion. She was glad her John cried, was afraid, and was sad. It meant he was still him, and not Future John.
"Aren't you ever afraid?" Courtney turned around in her seat to face Cameron.
"Yes," Cameron said, a hint of sadness creeping into her eyes. "Afraid of losing John. Afraid of hurting him."
"You'd never hurt him," Courtney raised her eyebrow, confused. She loved John, why would she hurt him?
"I'm broken," Cameron tapped her finger twice on her temple. "Not right." It was true: She still worried about going bad. Not as much as she had done, before. But it was still there; she'd had to learn to live with it, as John had said.
Cameron sat at the dining room table cleaning the disassembled Glock 9mm that lay spread out neatly on a cloth covering the wood. She'd already cleaned John's Sig Sauer pistol and placed it on the middle of the table. She smiled as she looked at John's weapon; he'd improved and learned a lot recently: his muscle mass had increased seven percent; his endurance and speed had improved considerably over the three months he'd trained with her.
Today she'd woken him up at six am precisely and he'd done three sets of fifty press ups, then ran five miles to the halfway point of their assigned circuit – an isolated field – and he'd fired on a range she'd created the night before, shooting targets with much greater accuracy than several weeks ago. He was learning fast and had already developed most of the necessary soldiering skills. Derek had said John needed to stay away from her and he'd learn better; something Cameron sometimes considered could be right.
When she held a weapon in proximity to John, she worried the terminate order might return: it hadn't done so since John had brought her back on his birthday, but it was still buried deep within the billions of lines of code that comprised the entity that was Cameron. It could come back. She didn't want that; she'd learned that she could and did want things: she wanted to protect John, she wanted to be his friend, she wanted to terminate Cromartie, and prevent Judgement Day, but she didn't want to go bad and hurt John.
"Cameron," John approached the opposite end of the table and sat down. His skin was pink and his hair wet from his shower. She'd told him that during the war he'd have to get used to cold showers, and even no showers, but he'd replied that he'd already given up any hope of a normal life, and he'd cling on to the few things he could still have for as long as he possible. Cameron saw no reason to deprive him.
"I wanna talk to you," John said, pulling his chair closer to her. "About this," he pulled out the pocket watch she'd given him and placed it onto the table. Cameron stared at it curious as to why he brought it out now, glad he had it on him, but she didn't want him to use it now. She'd rather remain online to protect him, than not exist and leave him. Was he angry with her? On numerous occasions he'd fingered the pocket watch when he was angry or upset with her.
"The pocket watch," Cameron said, deliberately leaving the statement open. She didn't understand what John wanted.
"Destroy it," John said. "I don't want it."
"You need it," Cameron said. "I might go bad again." She wanted John to understand she couldn't control it; if the terminate order reinstated itself he'd have no warning; the watch could be his only means to survive.
"You won't," John said. She detected the confidence in his voice; he was sure of it. But he didn't understand how she worked, not as well as he needed to.
"I'm built to kill humans. The order to kill you is still there. I can't erase it." She wanted to. She'd tried to erase it, but Skynet had built her with the sole purpose of killing John; the terminate command was part of her basic operating systems. As much a part of her as any part of John's body was to him.
"fine, I'll do it," John grabbed the Glock by the barrel and hoisted it up. Cameron realised he was going to smash the pocket watch with it and she instantly knew it was a threat to her.
"Don't," she said. "You could set it off."
"Then take the bomb out of your skull," John said firmly.
"No," Cameron replied forcefully, more so than she'd ever been before. She didn't understand why he wasn't listening. He knew she was a machine. He knew she could go bad; Derek still didn't trust her completely. But John didn't appear to care. She did. "I could still go bad," she said softly, changing tact to try another way of reaching him.
"I could die in my sleep. I could have a heart attack, Cameron. Healthy people just drop dead. You can't worry about it all the time, you'll go crazy. You have to learn to live with it." Cameron opened her mouth, about to tell John she can't go crazy, but she could go bad, when John interrupted.
"I trust you, Cameron. Trust me." He placed his hand over one of hers and his eyes never broke contact; green locked with brown. Cameron was unsure of how to proceed. She wanted to trust John but sometimes he did stupid things. But he often displayed insight that only Future-John possessed. He was learning faster than she'd thought. She recognised the same look of determination on his face as Future John. She'd been right when she'd told him that he was as stubborn as his future self: he wouldn't concede to her, he'd never destroy her, even if the pocket watch was in his hands and she was choking him to death.
John was very intelligent. He could be right; it was possible she'd never go bad again. She'd been unwilling to risk his life, but John was placing his trust in her. She'd return the favour.
Cameron nodded once and handed John her flick-knife. Without a word John moved behind her and brushed her hair to the side. She ignored the pain signals as John slowly cut a semicircle through her scalp, and then felt him remove the protective cap that covered her CPU. Warnings flared into her consciousness that her chip was exposed, and she felt her systems slowly shut down as John removed her chip; first sight, then sound, and all tactile sensations. She felt afraid in her last moments of consciousness, that she could go bad when she rebooted and he'd never be able to stop her. But she'd trust John. She'd learn to live with it.