Two figures strolled through the shattered, devastated landscape of the city. The sun was starting to set behind the thick cloud of fallout high in the atmosphere; what little light penetrated through the trillions of particulates was quickly fading, grey darkening slowly into black. The two figures; one brunette, one blonde, held weapons to the ready and kept careful eyes peeled for any signs of movement, marching in amongst the skeletal ruins of the once tall, proud structures. Cameron walked point and Courtney remained behind her. She sometimes wondered why Cameron always insisted on being in front; Courtney figured it was because Cameron was the soldier and she wasn't; the only training she'd had was from Cameron, and other than accidentally shooting a T-70 she'd only been in the one fire fight, in which she didn't think she'd made much account of herself.
Courtney took in the destruction apparent in the city; it was a twisted jungle of torn jagged metal, rubble, and strewn litter. Glass fragments lined the ground like a carpet, each threatening to cut any poor soul unfortunate enough to fall on them to ribbons. They'd left the Topkick in a hidden spot – the garage of an abandoned house on the outskirts of the city – and walked the rest of the way. Cameron had told her driving through the city would quickly attract the machines, and they'd be safer on foot. Courtney didn't feel the least bit safe walking in the middle of what Cameron had described to her as the highest concentration of machines in the United States, and possibly even the world.
"Are we safe?" Courtney asked.
"No," Cameron answered honestly. She saw no point lying to Courtney, and the girl needed to remain alert if they were to successfully find John and rescue him.
"Are we okay, then?" Courtney replied, seeing she needed to be more specific. She knew they weren't safe, but there was taking risks, and then there was recklessly getting themselves killed. Even without the machines patrolling, there were so many other hazards present in the city that she'd picked up on. "What about, you know... fallout, radiation?"
"We're safe," Cameron nodded her head as she picked her way through the remnants of a tall building. Courtney breathed a small sigh of relief, both at Cameron's words and at being inside once more; out in the open seemed infinitely more dangerous. "Most of the fallout's settled. We're safe if we don't stay here long."
"What's 'long?' Courtney asked.
"Weeks, months," Cameron replied. "Don't eat or drink anything from here."
"Wait," Courtney said, a burning question suddenly entering her brain. "If John's been here all this time, he must have been eating and drinking... won't he be contaminated?"
Cameron had spent so much time concerning herself with how she would find him, and actually searching for him, that the issue of fallout hadn't occurred to her. "I hadn't thought of that," she admitted. There was nothing to be done about it now; finding and rescuing John was her main priority. Future-John had survived six years in the work camp, so her John should be even less affected by any fallout than his future self, but that meant little to Cameron. The fallout could cause cancer; even if it were forty years from now, and the war long won, it would still be untreatable in the post-Judgement Day conditions.
Courtney's words made Cameron want to abandon stealth and sprint through the city – even though she knew after months spent around the fallout, minutes or hours were irrelevant. She wanted him back. Now.
"I'm sure he's fine," Courtney said quickly, taking Cameron's silence as a bad thing, and wanting to reassure her.
The pair marched in silence as Cameron continued to lead the way. She'd never been to Century Work Camp in the future but she had detailed files on Skynet's installations in the area, and knew exactly where it was as if she'd been there a thousand times. They passed shattered building after ruined building, block after block, crossing through the ruins of the former commercial district of the city, marching through the vast maze of destruction.
Courtney recognised one building from TV – one of the most notable skyscrapers in the LA Skyline: FOX Plaza. "Score one for machines," she muttered, smirking slightly as she took in the obliterated tower. The masses of shined glass that had once reflected sunlight were gone, revealing a blackened, twisted skeletal frame within. The top of the building had been sheared off completely and lay in thousands of pieces of jagged metal and concrete at the base of the tower.
Cameron turned around to look at her, confused at Courtney's statement. "I don't understand," she said. Why was Courtney pleased at the destruction of the FOX building?
"They cancelled all my favourite shows," Courtney answered. "Guess Skynet did one thing right." Cameron said nothing and simply nodded in understanding. John had complained similarly when FOX had cancelled The Simpsons shortly before Judgement Day.
Cameron heard a noise behind them as they marched; a faint sound of crunching, like something heavy running over gravel, or debris, followed by a low rumbling. Without conscious effort she compared it to her files and instantly recognised the sound: a T-2.
"Inside," Cameron pointed to the FOX building and ran over the littered debris on the ground, quickly making her way inside the ruins of the tower, Courtney a scant few feet behind her – her skill at hiding uncanny. The pair of them ducked into the building's lobby and hid behind the bullet riddled reception desk. They both immediately realised people must have hidden inside sometime after Judgement Day and been discovered. The walls were pockmarked with scores of bullet holes and had large chunks of plaster gouged out of them. Dark crimson patches of dried blood stained floor and walls in multiple places. All that remained of the bodies were blood, some bone fragments, and shreds of clothing.
The pair of them remained low and still behind the reception desk as the rumbling got louder, and Cameron estimated it was directly in front of the entrance to the FOX Plaza; in line of sight to them, with only the mahogany desk between themselves and the T-2 outside. The rumbling stopped right in front of them, but Cameron knew it wasn't gone. It had stopped right outside. If the machine had spotted them there was little she could do against it; she had three full magazines for her SCAR-H but only a single grenade left for the weapon's launcher. Courtney was similarly armed. If they engaged the T-2 with their current armaments their chances were negligible.
Several long moments of tense silence reigned, in which Cameron assessed her options if the machine discovered them; they amounted to very little; there was nowhere to run for cover if the T-2 fired on them, little chance of fighting back, and even if they did, the fight would attract more machines' attention and their situation would deteriorate.
After several long seconds the rumbling started again and Cameron peeked over the top of the desk to see the rear of the T2 as it rolled out of sight. She ducked back down and nodded at Courtney, who breathed out a low sigh of relief as she too realised the machine was leaving.
They knelt behind the reception desk and waited in terse silence for several minutes, making sure the machine was out of range and there were no follow-up patrols behind it, before they finally moved out, marching away from their hiding spot and back outside, keeping close to the ruined structures to use as cover, should they encounter another machine patrol. They dashed from block to block, crossing the litter and debris strewn roads, ignoring the blasted remains of humans caught out by the machines: ranging from bleached skulls, picked clean by scavengers, to bodies that had fallen more recently.
Cameron noticed all her processes had increased and sped up in anticipation as they neared their destination. She had already planned their next moves: she'd visually confirm the camp then find a hidden position where she and Courtney would observe, confirm John was there, assess the camp's defences, and then infiltrate and rescue him. She was looking forward to having John back. Once she had him she was never going to leave his side again.
Cameron paused just before the corner of their current block, remaining next to the remains of a store on her left, keeping out of the camp's line of sight. Courtney saw her stop and stood still behind her. "What's going on?" She asked. Was it another patrol? She'd noticed that Cameron's sight and hearing seemed to be much better than hers; either that or she had some kind of sixth sense when it came to machines.
"Century," Cameron spoke in a low, soft voice, and tilted her head sharply to the left. Courtney got the message: it was around the corner.
Cameron stayed rooted to the spot, perplexed. She couldn't hear anything: there were no sounds of machinery, or heavy, laboured breathing, moaning, or crying. No stamping of machine feet as sentry units patrolled both inside and outside the perimeter; nothing to indicate the presence of a work camp. The camp wasn't directly around the corner: the files Cameron possessed indicated it was four blocks down; eight hundred-and-forty-two metres away. From that distance she should have been able to detect background noise from the camp.
Cameron stuck her head out and peeked round the corner, scanning the area before her intently. There was no sign of Century Work Camp. Even at half a mile, she should be able to see it. She could see the ruins of the Square Valley Mall; the site of the camp, but there was nothing; the mall had been flattened by the shockwave and only a pile of steel and concrete rubble remained.
"Where is it?" Courtney asked, following Cameron's example and peeking round the corner to have a look.
"Not here," Cameron said, her voice giving no hint of the irritation she was experiencing. "John's not here." She'd been wrong. Century Work Camp wasn't here. John wasn't here. She'd hoped – something she'd never thought she'd be capable of – that John was here. She'd known, despite all the evidence she'd used to conclude being circumstantial, that he was here. But she was wrong. Her search for John would have to continue. She had twenty-four days and eighteen hours of power remaining in her fuel cell to find him. Her only other lead was the prison ship in San Diego: the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. If that was absent like Century Work Camp she'd have exhausted all her leads. She realised she faced the extremely high probability that she would never see John again.
"You mean it's another dead end?" Courtney kicked a chunk of concrete across the road in frustration, overtly showing the dismay that Cameron inwardly felt, but didn't know how to express.
Cameron whirled round to face Courtney, her eyes glaring down into her companion's green irises. "I need you to do something for me," Cameron said.
"What is it?" Courtney asked nervously. From the way Cameron was staring at her ominously, she knew it couldn't be good.
"If I die, find John." Cameron cared little about her own existence; if she shut down, or died, as John would say, it didn't matter as long as John was safe.
"What?" Courtney couldn't believe what she was hearing. What the hell did she mean, 'if she died?' What wasn't she telling her? Cameron was the toughest person she'd ever known, even tougher than her dad, she had to admit. Nothing was going to kill her; she took out a T-2 pretty much on her own back at the gas station. "Cameron... what's wrong?"
"Promise me," Cameron said. The chances of her surviving to find John were decreasing all the time. She'd continue searching for John until her power cell depleted and she ran offline, but she wanted Courtney to continue the search if that happened. Courtney wasn't a soldier but she was learning. And she was the only person Cameron trusted. She wasn't programmed for faith, but she had faith in John, and she did in Courtney, too.
Courtney nodded solemnly. "I promise." She didn't know what was going on but Cameron was her friend, and she owed her life to her several times over. She couldn't think of anyone worse for the job, but she'd give it her best shot.
Cameron's stare softened and she smiled at Courtney, grateful. If she died, she trusted Courtney to find John. She shouldered her rifle and started back the way they'd come, Courtney turned around and followed behind. They'd march back to the Topkick and drive towards San Diego, and start the search again.
Whirring rotors buzzed up in the sky and both Cameron and Courtney looked up. A drab grey Osprey flew over the tops of the skyscrapers, heading southwest. Not towards San Diego, Cameron realised. She stared upwards at the aircraft as it flew towards the darkening sky in the west, and calculated its flight path.
Target: Automated V22 Osprey
Speed: 120 Miles/Hour
Altitude: 220.4 Metres.
Bearing: Southwest. 225°
"There," Cameron said, pointing at the aircraft as it headed into the distance and started to recede from view. The machine flew out of sight and out of even Cameron's range of hearing, but she'd calculated its trajectory, and as long as they followed it, and the Osprey didn't change course, she'd find where it was going.
"We're close," Cameron told Courtney.
"How do we follow it?" Courtney asked, catching on. Cameron had told her about the Ospreys, said they had to hold people because machines were too big. They were on the right track, at least.
"Head southwest," Cameron said. "We'll find it."
Cameron started marching once again, and Courtney fell in behind. She felt another surge of hope – such an unfamiliar feeling – within her. Another possible lead to John; she had to follow it.
Night had fallen on Century Work Camp; at the stroke of midnight the furnaces had shut down and the workers left their daily toils to head back to their pitiful accommodation. The aura of the camp was entirely different on this particular night. The human slave-workers did not trudge across the camp, there was no sign of hopelessness, or weariness. Rather, the workers marched towards their living space with purpose, several with a spring in their step.
Sergeant Major Declan Byrne was the first to reach the accommodation building, and waited there for the other prisoners to arrive. Within two minutes all the working population of Century Work Camp, bar two, were crowded inside the living space and awaiting their daily intake of sloppy broth; what they hoped would be their last ever portion of the disgusting, nausea-inducing mystery-meat soup.
The air was charged with energy and excitement. Hushed but animated conversations were held throughout the room, and Byrne was the only one who remained silent. He looked left and right at the group assembled in the room, and ran a hand through his thick black hair, grown long from so many months in captivity. He'd decided one of the first things he wanted to do when they were clear of the camp was find a pair of scissors and cut the bastard mop of scraggly hair down to size.
"Shut it!" Byrne instantly brought their conversations to a halt. When all eyes were on Byrne, he spoke again. "Connor and Slater are in the generator room, making last minute preparations. The bombs are all set and we're planning to blow them at oh-oh-forty-five hours; gives us just over half an hour to eat and get ready to go."
"Why not go now?" Someone asked.
"Because we're overworked, underpaid, and underfed," Byrne replied. "If ye wanna make a run for it, tired and hungry, go ahead. This could be yer last meal in a while, so get it down yer necks."
Byrne knelt down on his knees, pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and placed it down on the ground for all to see. The prisoners crowded around and looked down at it. Sketched on the paper was a crudely drawn diagram of the layout of the camp, bisected with a thick line down the middle, indicating the dividing fence between the two halves of the prisoner camp. Straddling the line was a small square labelled 'gas chambers'.
The hospital building dominating the bottom right-hand corner of the camp, the furnaces and gas chambers to the left of them, all labelled in John's scruffy writing. Just left of the dividing fence was the worker's accommodation block that they were currently sitting in, and to the right of that was the generator room, slightly beyond that was the designated latrine.
"We've planted bombs here, here, and all around the perimeter fence up top," Byrne pointed to the generator room, the furnace, and several points in the fence at the top of the diagram, respectively; one where the bisecting fence met the perimeter wire, and one off to the right of the first, with the generator room between the bomb and the hospital. "Secondary bombs run under the fence between the two halves of the camp, and spread out through the camp between here and the generator room." These secondary charges, much smaller than the main bombs, would provide extra distractions and burn up the gasoline bladders to create heat signatures to interfere with the T-70's infrared based targeting systems.
Byrne, John, and Slater had all agreed to use the fleeing prisoners on the other side of the camp as a distraction: they were dead anyway and at least this gave them a chance at freedom; and better to die trying, from a bullet, than be gassed to death. The idea was that the condemned prisoners would all try to make a run for it through the hole blown at the top of the camp, where the two halves met; and whilst the machines were busy trying to contain them, the workers would all escape through the other holes in the fence. The machines couldn't chase all of them, even with the HK.
Byrne ran them through the rest of the plan, how they were to split up and make a run for the ruined buildings surrounding the camp, then they'd make their way north. Byrne didn't know how many would follow them once they got out of the camp; some would try to make a break for it on their own but that couldn't be helped.
Minutes later the two-handed T-70 arrived with the barrel of broth, as predictable as clockwork, and plodded into the living area. Instead of reacting with fear, or at least nervousness, like before, people started jeering it, sticking their fingers out and hurling insults at the machine, which made no reaction to their taunts. Byrne stood there and watched everyone hurl insults and verbal abuse at the tin can, but stood there and made no move to join in. He was just glad that nobody got carried away and tried to attack the machine or throw anything at it: insults, the machine ignored, and kind of physical attack would get messy very quickly. Whilst the machine wasn't armed it could easily tear one of them in half or punch straight through them.
When the machine turned away everyone grabbed their bowls and spoons and started to dig in. Byrne took his own portion and slowly ate, nervous about their upcoming escape, as he was before any mission. He just wanted to crack on; it was the waiting that was unbearable.
"Hey!" One of the prisoners called out, pointing out the door. "What's going on?"
Byrne took his bowl over to the entrance and saw what the prisoner was pointing at: a trio of T-70s were marching through the camp, plodding quickly and methodically across the trodden, muddy ground, the sludgy soil squelched with each metal foot that stamped down and pulled back up. It was where they were headed that caught Byrne's attention: they'd broken off from their normal patrol pattern and were making a beeline straight for the generator room. "Shit," Byrne muttered. This couldn't be good.
"Go through it once more," John said to Slater. It was better to be safe than sorry, and once they'd broken out nobody was going to come back to get anything they'd left behind. They had to take everything in one go.
Slater spread out all the items in their inventory onto the ground, and pointed to each one as he recited the list. "Seven MREs plus accessories, one combat knife, three lighters, one cell-phone – half battery charge, four Molotov cocktails, one Desert Eagle, seven round magazine loaded."
"Byrne gets the phone," John said. Byrne had preset the phones so he could blow them in sequence, and he knew better than all of them which ones to set off first. They were better off with the detonator in Byrne's hands than anyone else's. "I'll take the gun."
Three of them – one being Slater – would take a Molotov and a lighter each, John decided, and a fourth would take the final bomb and have to stick close to someone with a lighter.
John couldn't even describe how he felt, so close to their escape, less than an hour away, and they had pretty much everything planned, all squared away, but he still didn't feel ready. He felt buzzed, excited at the prospect of escape, nervous at what could go wrong... he felt a hundred different things at once, but they'd planned this for months now; there was nothing more they could do and he was worried the machines would catch on to them if they waited much longer. He wondered if he'd felt like that in the future, when he'd escaped after six years of hell in Century. Maybe it didn't matter whether he'd planned it for six years or six months; he might feel the same either way. There was only one thing to do and that was to get on with it; no point delaying it any more. As soon as Byrne had briefed the others and they were ready, they'd blow the bombs and go.
"Who gets the MREs?" Slater asked.
"We'll split them up," John replied. At least that way, someone who escaped would have food. People would have to share – four or five people to a single meal, if everyone got out okay. He knew they wouldn't all make it, though.
The door slammed open with an almighty bang and cracked against the concrete wall. John and Slater whirled around and saw a lumbering T-70 in the doorway. Shit! John cursed. They'd been found out. How? The machine burst through the doorway, taking several bricks with it as it forced its way through the too-small entrance, followed by a second machine. John saw a third behind it, waiting outside.
John froze, staring wide-eyed at the machines, unsure what his next move was. He'd been found out, caught; they were dead.
"Fuck you!" Slater grabbed the Desert Eagle and pointed it at the nearest machine. The pistol barked loudly inside the small room as he pulled the trigger again and again. Three .50AE rounds tore through the machine's faceplate and gouged holes in its head, shattering one of its optic sensors. The gun clicked as Slater pulled the trigger a fourth time. Fucking jam, he screamed inwardly and threw the weapon in frustration at the half-blasted face of the machine. It bounced harmlessly off the steel armour and clattered to the ground as first machine swept its hand out and backhanded Slater in the side of the face. The SEAL's head bounced against the wall and he landed in a sprawled heap on the ground; unconscious or dead, John didn't know. The other machine stepped forward and raised its gun arm at John's chest.
John stood and stared at the machines, and sighed in acceptance. He knew it was over; he was dead, and the last – the only thing he could do now was to stand his ground and die with some dignity. He breathed out slowly and braced himself for the hot lead that would pierce his body at any moment and shred him to pieces. He hoped it'd be quick, at least.
The machine suddenly lowered its mini-gun and pointed its other arm at John, instead. Oh, crap, John knew from experience what was about to happen and flinched in anticipation as a net exploded out of a square device on the machine's arm and enveloped him. A split second later John screamed out in agonised pain, writhed and twitched spasmodically as electricity coursed through his veins and set every nerve in his body alight. Finally, John could take no more and he fell to the ground, his body conceding to the pain and shut down as the pain disappeared and the world became dark and silent.
Byrne watched from the doorway with an unwavering gaze, his face grim as the machines burst inside the generator room. Others watched and gasped, moaned, and murmured around him, but Byrne remained silent, ever watchful, looking out for every detail. He heard the distinct barks of gunfire – single shots – and waited for the buzzing reports from the machines' own weapons, but it never came. Seconds later the machines emerged from the generator room, dragging the inert forms of John and Slater out in a net each. He hoped they were alive, maybe feigning unconsciousness; and one of them would suddenly blow the bombs and they'd make their escape. If one of them had the cell phone on them still it was possible. It was wishful thinking and he knew it.
All three of the machines plodded several steps away from the generator room, then turned around and raised their gun arms at the building. They fired on the building, the high pitched buzzsaw drone of their weapons shrieked through the otherwise silent night air as they fired long bursts into the generator room.
Even from where he was, Byrne could hear bullets pinging as they ricocheted off the generator itself, then a splash as the rounds penetrated and gasoline spilt from the fuel tank. The machines kept firing, sweeping their weapons up and down, left and right, as they hosed down the building with fire, tearing hundreds of chunks and holes in all four walls and turning them into Swiss cheese in a matter of seconds. The fuel caught alight and set the whole structure ablaze; Byrne saw the licking flames inside through the many holes blasted into the wall.
Byrne shook his head in dismay. All those months of hard work, of suffering, and of endless preparation had all gone down the drain. He clenched his jaw and his eyes narrowed in anger, but he held himself back, knowing there was nothing to be done about it.
The machines marched past the accommodation block, dragging John and Slater behind them as they headed straight for the hospital. The two machines standing sentry at the entrance each took a step to the side and allowed the two machines holding John and Slater inside the hospital as the third turned away and resumed its patrols.
Byrne remembered what John had told them about him being forced to haul a cart of bloodied, desecrated skeletons from the hospital to the furnaces; that they'd come from inside the building itself and that it was likely happening to those who were taken into the hospital. And now it had happened to John and Slater. He'd just wished a minute ago they were still alive, and now he took it all back. He hoped to whatever gods were out there that John and Slater were already dead, because he had a feeling John was right, that whatever was going on in there was worse than death.
"Not the end I'd want," he muttered as he went back inside, resigned to bitter defeat.
Cameron stared intently down at the scene before her, using her advanced night vision capabilities to see as easily though the pitch black night sky as if it were broad daylight. She and Courtney had followed the Osprey's flight path, dashing from building to building and crisscrossing through the obliterated ruins of the city blocks, the distance they covered on the ground was more than twice the straight line the Osprey had flown, and it had taken two hours to reach the spot and find a laying up point. Now, both she and Courtney were watching the work camp from an elevated spot on the third floor of a ruined building, five hundred metres from the perimeter wire.
Cameron was surprised when she'd found the camp. It was in the wrong place, and it was much smaller than the Century Work Camp from the future. The Valley Square Mall camp was five times the size, processing thousands of humans daily.
"Kind of ironic, isn't it?" Courtney said next to her, staring down the scope of her M4 at the camp below, now bathed in darkness and completely silent, apparently shut down for the night. Cameron turned her head and raised one eyebrow in confusion. She didn't understand irony. "I mean; Skynet using a hospital to kill people like this."
"Yes," Cameron replied. She thought she understood; hospitals were supposed to heal people, not kill them. She was momentarily pleased with herself for deciphering another strange human complexity.
Cameron had spent the last hour observing the camp and assessing its layout and defences. She'd counted ten T-70s patrolling or standing stationary within the camp, and eight more outside the camp's perimeter; protecting the installation from any intruders or rescue attempts. She'd seen no aircraft besides the Osprey prisoner transports, and only one of those hand landed, deposited its human cargo, and taken off, since night had fallen.
This, again, was unlike Century: in the future, HKs patrolled the skies and Centaur tanks protected the work camp against incursion or escapists who made it outside the perimeter wires. If this were an earlier version of the camp it should have been larger, on the Square Valley Mall, and be protected by current model HKs and T-1 or T-2 drones. This was different, and she wanted to know why.
Cameron's superior vision allowed her to see further into the camp, although it was an extreme range for her to be able to detect details at such a distance. She'd spotted someone walking through the camp who bore some resemblance to John, but she'd not seen his full facial profile yet – only having seen part of his face. She'd witnessed how the other prisoners responded to him: she couldn't hear what they said but he appeared to be a leader among the prisoners. He was roughly John's height – it was difficult to be precise at such a distance – wore a dirty, brown-stained DPM jacket, and he was thin. He also had a dark beard that concealed the lower portion of his face. Cameron had advanced facial recognition software, which compared this person to John: he bore a seventy-nine percent match to John, but that wasn't enough for Cameron. She needed to be certain he was here, and his exact location in the camp before she attempted to rescue him.
"Cameron, do you see him?" Courtney asked, looking through her rifle scope down at the camp; she could see inside but she couldn't make out as much detail as Cameron, who kept her own weapon shouldered and pretended to look through her sights.
"I don't know," she answered. Her vision was magnified to its maximum levels and she couldn't yet tell. She needed to see his face.
"Look," Courtney said, pointing down at a tiny little brick hut in the middle of the workers' half of the camp. "That little building, there." Cameron looked to the left and saw what Courtney meant: three T-70s marched towards the small structure and smashed open the door, then forced their way inside. She heard the faint pops of gunshots and saw three brief flashes from inside. She identified it as a high calibre pistol.
Seconds later the machines dragged two bodies out of the small structure – each held in a net and not moving. Cameron stared at the man, able to see his whole face now; her face-recognition software automatically ran and she recognised him instantly. John. He'd lost weight and his facial hair had grown into a concealing beard, but it was him.
Cameron watched as the machines each fired a sustained burst of fire from their arm-mounted weapons, obliterating the small structure, and then dragged John and the other human towards the hospital in the corner of the camp.
"He's down there," Cameron said, already standing up and shouldering her rifle. She'd found John. He was in trouble. She had to save him.
"How can you tell?" Courtney asked. She couldn't make out faces down there.
"Better scope," Cameron lied and pointed to the sights on her SCAR-H. "We have to get him." Cameron took off and descended the bare staircase as fast as she could, jumping the last few steps in each flight as Courtney rushed to keep up. The pair of them left the building and started through the ruins, towards the camp.
"Cameron, slow down!" Courtney hissed from behind. Why was it that whenever she thought she was close to John she abandoned all other thought, even for her own safety? This really wasn't healthy; if this John Connor was brainwashing Cameron or abusing her, then she was going to give him a piece of her mind. She hoped for his sake that John Connor was actually someone worth her single minded devotion.
Deciding she was safer close to Cameron, and not seeing or hearing any machines nearby, Courtney started to run out across the open stretch of land that her companion was dashing through.
Shots rang out and the ground burst next to Cameron. Courtney dived for cover and peeked out to see what was going on. More bursts of fire peppered the ground all around them and she saw Cameron kneeling on the ground, returning fire. "What's going on?" she yelled out to Cameron.
Cameron shot back at the origin of the first rounds of fire that had nearly hit her, and scanned the area, switching her visual array to infrared when she saw no machines. She scanned from left to right and identified nine heat signatures at one hundred metres, hidden in cover among the ruins. She fired three short bursts in their direction, saw one of the heat signatures fall to the ground as her shots hit, and switched her vision back to default. She saw the snarling faces of one of the soldiers as he barked orders at the rest, and identified him.
"It's McGinty," Cameron shouted back to Courtney, who'd already shouldered her rifle and started to fire single shots in their direction. Explosions rocked the ground before them and Cameron identified the offending weapon as an M-32 grenade launcher on one of the soldiers. She raised her rifle and aimed at the soldier wielding it.
"Watch out!" Courtney screamed, ducking to the ground. Cameron saw another soldier with a shouldered Javelin to the right and threw herself behind the cover of an upturned car as the rocket shot out of the tube and obliterated the spot she'd just been standing in. They were armed with heavier weapons than last time: Cameron assessed their weapons and listed five M4 carbines – two were equipped with 40mm underslung grenade launchers, two machine guns, the M-32 and the Javelin. They were an extreme threat to her. Cameron laid flat on the ground and rolled twice to her left; she took careful aim with her rifle and fired two single shots at the soldier with the Javelin, dropping him to the floor.
More grenades struck close to Cameron's position, pelting her with shrapnel that tore into her face, neck, and chest; the force of the blasts sent her toppling backwards.
"Cameron!" Courtney saw the explosions and saw her friend fall, caught in the blasts. She was scared half to death, still, but Cameron was in trouble. She pressed the butt of her own rifle tight against her shoulder, glared hard through her sight and took careful aim at a man in a window holding a grenade launcher, as she mentally recited more of Cameron's teachings to her. Line up target... breathe out slowly... squeeze the trigger. She triggered her grenade launcher and shot the projectile into the window, it struck on target with an explosion of brick fragments and dust.
Courtney fired more shots at the muzzle flashes she saw, not knowing if she'd hit them or not, then ran to Cameron's last position. She saw Cameron laid prone on her back on the ground, not moving; her clothes were burnt and torn, her face covered in cuts, her eyes wide open and vacant. "Cam... you okay?" she shook Cameron's shoulders, hoping to get a response. "No... come on, Cameron!"
Cameron sat bolt upright and stared at Courtney. "I'm okay," she said calmly as if being shot at with a grenade launcher was a daily occurrence. She picked up her SCAR-H again and assessed the battlefield; three soldiers were down. Courtney had neutralised the one with the M-32: the threat to herself was now greatly reduced.
"Stay down," Cameron told Courtney, then got back to her feet and ran into the open, firing controlled bursts at the enemy positions. She ignored the rifle fire that struck her face and chest as she advanced; each hit hurt but she could ignore it – she considered them the equivalent of what a human feel with a bee sting. She fired again and struck her one of the M4 gunners with a grenade launcher, swung her rifle out and downed the second one. Pain and damage reports filled her awareness, as well as a smouldering anger that McGinty was again stopping her from rescuing John. She wouldn't spare him again; he had to be terminated.
"Keep firing, keep firing!" she heard McGinty's voice screaming. "They're almost finished!"
Courtney looked on in complete shock as Cameron ran out and fired. She watched as bullets struck Cameron and pinged off her. Her body, her head twitched with each hit; small puffs of blood erupted with each round that struck her, yet she barely even seemed to notice. What the hell was going on?
Cameron withstood the fire that tore through her skin and bounced harmlessly off of her endoskeleton. All Courtney saw was her friend in trouble, being hurt, and she reacted: Courtney shouldered her rifle and fired shot after shot, grinning when she downed her second target. They weren't people to her; they'd tried to rape her, they'd kept people prisoner in the mine, and they were massacring Cameron. They were scum.
She took aim again but paused as she heard the all too familiar whine of jet engines behind them. She looked back and saw an HK soaring towards them from the camp. "Cameron!" Courtney yelled, too late.
The HK fired a salvo of missiles towards the battlefield and rained fire and explosions down on them. Rockets struck the buildings and the ground like meteors, fireballs erupted where they struck and spewed shrapnel and debris in all directions. Courtney saw one rocket strike close to Cameron and consume her in a mighty explosion. She felt a flash of immense heat flare up at her side, and for what seemed like a long time she was flying through the air, her stomach in her throat as she soared, then blackness overcame her as she struck the ground.
Cameron snapped her eyes open as her reboot cycle completed. The last thing she saw was a rocket streaking towards her, then nothing. She couldn't feel her leg. Damage reports and pain flooded her consciousness and she knew before she looked what had happened. Her left leg was gone, blown off at the knee. Her right knee was shattered and the whole leg almost completely immobile. She'd suffered internal damage; the power conduits were more severely ruptured, and the repairs she'd made to her armoured breastplate were ruined, her inner workings visible to anyone who looked.
Cameron rolled onto her front and crawled forward, pulling herself forward with her hands, scraping her chest and stomach against the rough, jagged ground. Her severed leg sparked and crackled when the power conduits touched the floor. She spotted Courtney laid prone and crawled towards her.
Cameron didn't usually care for people other than John, or people who were of no use to her. What happened to them never affected Cameron. This was different. Courtney lay on her back, gasping and struggling for air. Her hands clutched at a metal strut that protruded straight out of her chest. Dark arterial blood pooled behind her from her back, and seeped across her chest, soaking her clothes.
Courtney tilted her head forward and saw Cameron, and smiled despite the intense pain she was in. Then she realised Cameron was crawling, and saw the damage she'd suffered. "C... Cameron... your legs!" Cameron crawled up close to her placed a hand on Courtney's shoulder, scanning her. Her pulse was rapid, breathing shallow, and she'd lost a lot of blood. She glanced at the strut sticking out from her chest and saw it had ruptured an artery. Her expiry was imminent.
"I'm dying, right," Courtney said. It was a statement rather than a question.
"Yes," Cameron answered honestly. She didn't need to scan anymore but she kept her hand on Courtney's shoulder, close to her neck, ignoring the rapid but fading pulse.
"I don't wanna die," she cried, tears streaming from her eyes as she started shaking; she was in the worst pain she'd ever know, and she was completely, utterly terrified.
"I don't want you to," Cameron admitted. Courtney was her friend; she wanted Courtney to live almost as much as she wanted John to live. She felt the urge to protect Courtney, but she'd failed.
"Cameron..." Courtney coughed to clear the blood in her mouth and gasped for more air before she spoke again. "What's that metal in your face?" She thought at first she was delirious, but then she remembered how Cameron had taken all those shots without falling down. Now there was metal showing from a dozen holes in her face, and a big chunk of her scalp had gone above her right eye and ear, leaving a bloodied mess of tissue and hair over what was clearly metal; her clothes torn open and exposing moving parts and wires where blood and organs should have been; revealing what Cameron really was. "You... you're a machine, right?"
"Cameron nodded in reply and simply said "yes." She expected Courtney to recoil in horror, to try and pull away or so spit and curse at her. Instead she chuckled between violent, bloody coughs.
Courtney couldn't help but laugh, even though it felt like someone was twisting a knife in her chest. Cameron had been there for her, saved her life a dozen times over, saved her from being raped, and had shown her a lot, made her stronger. She wasn't one of Skynet's machines; as far as she was concerned, Cameron was her friend. Still, in hindsight, given Cameron's general oddness, it wasn't all that surprising.
"I guess that explains a couple things," Courtney smiled, not wanting to upset Cameron, knowing she could be upset. She laid her head back and felt herself giving in to the urge to just go to sleep. She locked eyes with her friend as everything faded to black and went dark.
Cameron felt her pulse disappear. She'd lost too much blood and her heart had stopped. Courtney was gone. Cameron gently closed the lids over Courtney's bright green eyes, the sparkle already gone and turning dull. She then swept bricks and debris over the body, concealing it from view. To Cameron, bodies were just bones and meat. Courtney was different. She didn't know why, but it was. Scavengers would quickly find Courtney if she was left out in the open, that was unacceptable to Cameron. She felt an urge to protect the body, even though Courtney was dead. It was irrational and she didn't understand it.
Cameron couldn't identify what she felt. Courtney was her friend and now she was dead. She was sad, she knew that. But it was more. She'd never lost a friend before – never had a friend, apart from John. She'd told people before she was sorry for their loss. Now it was her loss. Added to that, she realised, she was too badly damaged to rescue John. She'd fail and be destroyed. She'd lost Courtney and John.
Only one course of action remained. She was severely damaged, she needed repairs: she had to return to Cheyenne Mountain.
After several minutes of crawling and searching, Cameron found what was left of her severed leg. It had been blown off at the knee; the joint was destroyed but the leg itself could be repaired. Cameron slipped off her pack and placed the leg inside, then zipped it up to keep it from falling out; jagged metal edges and wires protruded from the top of the pack. She shouldered her rifle and let it hang beside her as she crawled forwards.
Chris McGinty pinned to the ground, a large slab of concrete pinning his lower half to the floor, blood pooling out beneath him. He reached out for a pistol with his right hand; the left arm visibly broken and jutting out at an angle. Jagged bone stuck out through the skin and he barely managed to keep himself from screaming as his movement jarred the injury. His legs were pinned under a large slab of building, and they felt broken, too. He stretched out for the gun and fell just short. He grunted and stretched as far as he could, his body burning and screaming as he tried again and failed.
He looked to his left and saw Corey, half his head missing and the Javelin still cradled in his arms. He knew now he'd been wrong to go after the androids like that: they were too dangerous. He should have fallen back, recruited more men; gone after them with an army instead of a measly squad. That was his mistake, and it had cost him and his men everything.
He was dying and he knew it. But it wasn't going to be quick, or painless. His legs and arm were broken, he couldn't move, and Century City was full of scavengers. There was blood all around and packs of dogs would be driven to the scent like a shark. They'd rip him apart and eat him alive; he'd seen it before in Carson City. He wasn't going to go out like that. He made one last attempt to reach out for the weapon, and gave it everything he had, but his fingertips didn't even graze the gun.
He saw movement among the rubble and his heart soared. Maybe it was one of his men; maybe they'd survived. As it came closer he saw it was one of the damn androids, crawling on its front, missing a leg. The brunette one; the one he'd tried to fuck. That's it, he thought. She'd kill him in a heartbeat: it's what she did.
"Android!" he shouted out at it, feeling some small sense of satisfaction that it was so severely damaged; he hoped he or his men had done that, and not the HK.
Cameron turned her head and saw McGinty laid trapped beneath a chunk of concrete. He was the only one of his men left alive, as far as she could tell. The only other signs of life nearby were three dogs – two Doberman Pinschers and a German Shepherd – hiding among the ruins, snarling and salivating, their eyes darted from her to McGinty and back again. They were likely shying away from her, afraid. She knew they were targeting McGinty; they would wait until she was gone before they attacked.
"Kill me," McGinty called out, desperation in his voice as he heard the dogs, too. "Come on, do me, tin can. It's what you do, isn't it? Please!"
Cameron turned away and resumed crawling. She ignored his pleas for death; he was mortally injured, he wouldn't survive. And he wasn't a threat anymore.
Cameron slowly crawled through the ruins of Century on her stomach, pulling herself along with her hands and elbows, and dragging the dead weight of her legs behind her, slowly inching her way forward. She had to reach the Topkick and drive it back to Cheyenne Mountain so she could repair herself and return. She ignored the faint screams, shouting, the sounds of meat and cloth tearing and canine snarls in the distance behind her. She could move her remaining ankle but her knee movement was restricted to a range of four degrees. Loss, grief, and pain overwhelmed Cameron as she inched forwards. She'd lost Courtney and her chances of saving John were marginally above zero. She would do everything possible, but she knew her fuel cell would expire and she would die trying.
A/N: Do let me know your thoughts on the chapter; been nervous about writing this one, so I hope it's to your liking. Though I'm expecting some abuse, lol. I know it seems bad right now, but stick with it.