"Cameron?" John stepped back in utter disbelief. How could Cameron be here? She was in pieces the last time he saw her; blasted apart and laid out deactivated in the rubble of Las Vegas. He didn't think he'd ever get to see her alive again: at best he'd hoped to salvage her chip in the hopes of one day being able to bring her back, years into the future. He was just... overwhelmed. He launched himself at her and threw his arms around her, pulling her tightly into his embrace. "What're you doing here?"
Cameron let John pull her into him, enjoying a short moment of close contact with him and also scanning his vital signs. She was disturbed why what she found; his heart rate was rapid and erratic, his temperature was high and he was sweating. She pushed him back, away from her, and looked him up and down. His face and neck were swollen, covered in burns and his skin was red-raw, blistered and peeling. He'd lost weight, too. She couldn't weigh him without picking him up, but his muscle mass had decreased significantly. She was happy she'd found him and he was still alive but also saddened that he was in such bad condition. She didn't understand the confliction; she didn't know how she could be happy and sad at the same time, it was confusing.
"John, we have to go; now."
John nodded at her; they had to get out first and then they could have their happy reunion. He held his hands up in front of him to Cameron, the blood-spattered safety rail dangling from the cuff on his left hand. "Cameron could you..." She slipped her fingers under the cuffs and pulled them apart with ease. The handcuffs and the rail clattered to the floor and Cameron pulled the AA-12 off her shoulder and handed it to John. "Are you ready?" she asked him.
"Yeah," he took the shotgun and flicked off the safety. The weapon felt too heavy in his hands and his arms trembled slightly under the weight of it. He knew he'd lost weight since he'd been in Century; the muscles he'd built up before Judgement Day had all but wasted away, now. He didn't care how heavy it was or how badly he hurt, he'd walk barefoot over hot coals to get the hell out of the camp.
Cameron heard no sounds from outside the room so she stepped out into the corridor, rifle pointed forwards. She took John's hand and pulled him out behind her. They made their way quickly down the corridor, following the route John had taken before he'd hidden inside the room. Part of him noted with satisfaction that he'd been going the right way. "The elevator's at the end of the next corridor on the left," Cameron told him as they quickly but quietly marched down the hallway. John heard his footsteps echoing through the corridor and wondered how the hell nobody could hear them. Cameron, on the other hand, barely seemed to make a sound.
They turned round the corner and followed the corridor Cameron indicated and John saw the elevator doors at the end. He wanted to run towards it but Cameron kept a step ahead of him, not willing to let him ahead. They stopped at the elevator and Cameron pressed the button on the panel at the side. The LED above the door showed the car ascending slowly from the ground floor as they waited. It seemed to take forever to John and he looked over his shoulder, worried someone was going to come up behind them.
The LED finally lit up for the second floor and the elevator doors opened to reveal Emily. "Connor!" How did he get out? She'd expected to find him chained up to the bed and the back of his skull spattered against the wall, not freely walking around with the TOK; how did the machine even get inside? The blonde infiltrator snarled, eyes glaring and filled with hate as she sprung out the door and leapt out at John, assault rifle in hand. Cameron stepped in front of John as Emily opened fire with a loud automatic burst, twitched slightly with each bullet impact but still advanced on the blonde. Emily launched herself at Cameron and smashed her against the wall with enough force to crack the brickwork underneath the plaster. Before Cameron reacted Emily slammed her head into the wall again with everything she had, causing the cyborg to sag down to the floor.
"Cameron!" John aimed the AA-12 at Emily as she straddled Cameron and punched her over and over again in the face. John could pull the trigger and blast Emily apart but he knew Cameron – she'd have loaded the shotgun with armour piercing explosive Frag-12 rounds; they were dangerous to her, too. They'd blow Emily apart and pass through into Cameron. "Get her off, I don't have a shot!" He let the shotgun go, pulled out Daniel's Glock from his waistband and fired three rounds into Emily's side. She growled in pain and slammed Cameron's head into the floor, shattering the tiles underneath.
Emily rolled off Cameron and snatched up her assault rifle from the floor, bringing it up to bear before John could line up his sights on her again. Cameron reacted on a hair trigger and swept out her foot, tripping Emily and throwing her aim off. Half a dozen rounds smashed harmlessly into the ceiling, raining chunks of plaster down onto John. "Stay back!" she told him as John came to try and help. She didn't want him anywhere near the fight.
Emily threw at Cameron as she jumped up to her feet; she simply bowed her head and took the hit on the forehead rather than the face, slammed her own fist into Emily's mouth, shattering all of her front teeth, then grabbed the infiltrator's wrist and pushed hard against the back of her elbow with an audible snap. Emily screamed out in pain as her elbow shattered and bent forwards. Jagged bone stabbed through her skin and spurted blood over her, Cameron, and the wall. After the initial snap of bone she suppressed the pain signals flaring up from her broken elbow but the arm was limp and useless. She couldn't hope to beat the machine now. Emily, knowing she was beaten, pulled out a combat knife from a sheath on her belt and made a last, desperate lunge for John.
Cameron was on her in an instant, gripped her in a headlock before she even got close to John and twisted her head to the side with a sickening crack. Emily stopped moving and fell limp as Cameron dropped her lifeless body to the floor.
"Let's go," Cameron told him. The gunshots would have been heard; they had to leave as soon as possible.
"What are these guys?" John asked, stunned at the just-terminated form of Emily. They were impossibly strong, impossibly fast; she'd hardly even slowed down when he'd shot her, even as Cameron broke her arm she'd made a grab for him. At least Cameron was more than a match for her, he thought. He'd been afraid for her when Emily had knocked her to the ground but now he realised Cameron had had it completely under control; Emily never had a chance. As they stepped into the elevator neither of them saw Emily's lifeless, blank eyes blink and refocus on John's retreating form. She stared at him until the doors closed.
"Infiltrators," Cameron replied as they started their descent to the ground floor. "Human-machine hybrids."
Explains why they're so strong, John thought. He'd assumed that George and Emily and the others were just Greys. Explained why he'd managed to beat Daniel, too; he must have been human. He wondered how many of the people in the hospital were human and how many were these Infiltrators.
"You knew about them?"
"No, Derek told me, there's nothing in my files."
The elevator doors started to open as they reached the ground floor and Cameron again stood in front of John to shield him from anyone or anything on the other side. As they opened Cameron stepped outside and saw no threats. "Stay close," she told him as they made their way down more corridors. John let Cameron lead; not so she could deal with anyone that tried to stop them but because he didn't know the way out. He'd been unconscious when they'd dragged him into the hospital and he'd woken up in the ward.
Eventually they reached the hospital's main entrance and Cameron pushed the doors open, leading John outside into the camp proper. "Cameron, there's no way out," John said. "There's no exits."
"Wrong," Cameron replied as she pointed her SCAR-H at the nearest section of fence and triggered the grenade launcher. The round exploded and tore a five metre section of fence to shreds, throwing mud and wire into the air. Several machines turned towards the explosion and then towards them. "Run!" Cameron shouted to John, grabbing his hand and dashing forward as fast as he could manage. One of the machines raised its gun arm at them as Cameron held out her arm to the side to return fire. Her accuracy one handed and on the move was lower and she didn't know if she'd hit it before it fired at them.
The gun started to spin and the T-70's head exploded in a shower of metal, wires, and microchips, followed a split second by a dulled report. "Who's that?" John asked as the pair of them ran for the fence. Another shot ran out and tore the face off another machine. By this time the sound had roused the slave population of Century Work Camp, and they stumbled outside, half asleep, to see what the commotion was about.
"Escape!" one of them shouted as he saw the gaping hole in the fence Cameron's grenade had created. Several of them ran for the fence, seeing their way out of the camp, but the machines turned their attention from Cameron and John towards the would-be escapists and pointed their weapons in their direction. The workers stopped in their tracks and froze, none daring to try and push past their robot slave-masters. More shots rang out and another machine dropped to the ground. The others ignored John and Cameron entirely and looked around, scanning for the unseen sniper attacking them. It was a greater threat than escaping prisoners.
"Who the hell's out there?" John asked, panting and out of breath. He pushed himself harder, closing in on the fence.
"Martin Bedell," Cameron answered. They reached the hole in the fence and she pushed John through first, following a moment later. "There," Cameron saw another muzzle flash and pointed towards Bedell. He'd moved from his original position and was laying prone on the roof of a semi-truck a hundred and fifty metres left of where Cameron had seen him last. Cameron saw another T-70 approaching them, and also tracked a hand grenade arcing through the air, originating from the other half of the camp. It bounced once on the floor and exploded at the machine's knees, knocking it backwards onto the ground. Cameron heard a faint Irish accent shouting from the grenade's origin, almost completely drowned out by the noise and gunfire.
"Fucking leg it, John!"
"Hurry up," Bedell's voice rang out in Cameron's earpiece. "I can't pick them off all day."
Together, Cameron and John ran away from the camp and towards the cover of parked cars on the road, keeping behind the vehicles to block them from sight. John felt his heart pounding and aching inside his chest; he wasn't in any condition to run but he had to. He pushed himself as hard as he could; ignoring the pain as they threatened to explode inside him. He was free! Months ago he would've been happy to have just died outside of Century, but now he had Cameron back he felt a surge of hope inside him. He'd forget the pain as he ran; he'd been through so much agony lately that a little more was nothing to him.
They got clear of the camp and kept on running towards Bedell's position, getting closer and closer to what John hoped would be safety. They stayed low to avoid the gunfire that tore through the air at heat height as Cameron reloaded her grenade launcher on the move, just behind John. A high-pitched whining of jet engines in the air behind them filled both John and Cameron with apprehension. Cameron's advanced auditory senses had already matched the sound and she kept pushing John forward, but he couldn't help but look back to confirm what he already knew was behind him: The HK.
The aircraft lifted up from the helipad on the hospital roof and shot forward, quickly accelerating towards them. Cameron shoved John as hard as she could and dived after him, covering his body with hers as a rocket streaked out from underneath the HK's fuselage and struck the ground where they'd been a moment ago, blasting a large crater and throwing up asphalt and concrete in all directions and pelting her back with debris, shredding the back of her combat vest and lacerating her skin in numerous places. She was glad she'd removed her purple jacket. Cameron pulled John up and pushed him forward again, crossing another road and sprinting as fast as John could go towards cover. As they got closer John could see Bedell on the roof.
Bedell got up from his prone position and left the Barrett where it was. The T-70s weren't the threat anymore; that HK was. "Get your asses over here!" Bedell yelled into his radio as he hefted the Stinger launcher onto his shoulder and peered through the scope. He held the targeting reticle over the image of the HK as it lowered its nose in an attack profile, got a lock, and fired. The missile streaked out of the launcher towards the aircraft and struck head on, but nothing happened. "Shit!" he cursed loudly as he dropped the launcher and hurriedly started to load a second missile. The HK sensed a threat and pulled up to a safer height as Bedell swore and griped about the weapon. It should have exploded; it could only be a faulty missile. "Two-hundred-and-eighty billion dollars a year on defence and this is the crap they give us," he muttered.
John and Cameron made it to Bedell's position and John waved at him to come down as Cameron kept pushing him on.
"You don't know how glad I am to see you, Connor," Bedell grinned down from the roof of the trailer. "It's all gone to hell since you went missing."
"Thanks," John panted, struggling to catch his breath.
"It's coming back," Cameron pointed up in the air at the HK; bright white searchlights beamed onto the ground as the machine looped around and flew towards them again.
"Go!" Bedell snapped as he loaded a second missile into the Stinger. "I'll cover you."
"Come on," John urged him, remembering what Derek told him about the future. He didn't want anyone else dying for him, not now.
"Five seconds and I've got it!" Bedell shot back as he once more shouldered the launcher and targeted the HK. Cameron pushed John forwards, away from the trailer and towards the cover of a nearby house as Bedell aimed again the aircraft and hoped this second missile would be better than the last. He got another lock and fired; the missile blasted through the air with a brilliant flare from its contrail as it rocketed towards the HK. This time the missile's impact fuse detonated as it struck and the missile exploded in a flash, shattering the HK's sensors and flight control systems at the front of the fuselage. The drone plummeted like a rock and dived downwards, straight towards Bedell.
"Run!" John screamed at him. Bedell dropped from the top of the trailer without a moment's hesitation and sprinted with everything he had towards John and Cameron, pushing himself as hard and as fast as he could as the HK came down like a meteor, chasing him in the biggest race of his life. The HK clipped the roof of the trailer, struck the ground just beyond it and exploded; the aircraft's fuel and weapons detonated and added to the eruption, creating a massive, roiling fireball that expanded and consumed everything it touched. Years of cross country running, both for Presidio Alto and for the Navy had honed Lieutenant Martin Bedell into a fearsomely fast athlete. It wasn't enough; as fast as he was, Bedell couldn't outrun the explosion.
"Bedell!" John turned and tried to run back as he saw the explosion engulf Bedell. He struggled against Cameron's grip but to no avail. She wouldn't let him risk himself.
"He's gone," she told him. "We have to go: the machines will send out patrols."
"We can't leave him," John snapped. "He might be-"
"He's gone, John." Cameron stared at him.
John shook his head and dropped to his knees as he felt the shame and guilt come flooding back once more. Bedell had died for him, just like in the future. He wasn't worth it, not at all. Why does everyone have to die for me? He wondered if anyone he knew would even be left alive by the time the war was over.
"It's not your fault," Cameron knew what he was thinking. She didn't understand how humans thought, but she knew what John was thinking: he blamed himself for Martin Bedell's death, for the second time. Bedell had known how dangerous the rescue would be; but at the same time she knew John wouldn't want to hear her say it. She'd held Bedell at gunpoint but he'd volunteered to come to John's aid when he knew that's what she was doing, he'd insisted on helping her rescue John when his piloting skills had been all she'd required.
She kneeled down and pressed her lips softly, briefly against his, careful not to touch any other part of his face, to avoid making his burn injuries worse. His lips were chapped and dry, indicative that he'd not been able to drink for some time. John leaned into her and kissed her harder, cupping her face in his hands. Cameron knew their affections should wait until they were safer, but allowed him to continue and she deepened the kiss between them, enjoying it as much as John did. She'd missed this.
John broke the kiss and leaned into her, pulling her into a tight embrace, unwilling to be separated again even by a matter of inches. Cameron felt his chest rise and fall against her as he struggled to get his breath back; heard his ragged inhalations, and knew he was in bad condition. She felt him clutch onto her tightly. Seconds later his grip faded away and John collapsed against her. Cameron could feel his pulse slow down as she held him and knew he'd lost consciousness. She wasn't surprised, given the injuries he'd sustained. She slung his AA-12 over her shoulder, picked John up and lifted him over her shoulder – holding her SCAR-H rifle out in her free hand, and marched away from the scene, searching for better cover. John needed to rest and recover, and she had something else unrelated to John that she needed to do.
John opened his eyes and groaned as he came to. The first thing he noticed was he couldn't see out of one eye. He tried to reach his face but realised he was wrapped up snugly in a sleeping bag. He wriggled inside it as he tried to work his hands free, and then brought them up to his face. His fingertips touched soft white cotton taped securely to one half of his face: the outside of a field dressing, he realised. He sat up and felt the same material on his chest as it rustled against the sleeping bag. He moved his head and realised the dressing covered his neck and chest, covering the burns he'd suffered from George's bleach napalming. He didn't hurt as much as he had before; the burning was now down to a more irritable itching in his skin, and his aching chest and head weren't so bad. He looked down and saw a syringe on the ground next to him; Cameron had given him a shot of morphine while he was out.
John looked around and saw they weren't where he'd passed out before. There was no sign of the semi truck or the burning ruins of the HK, and it was light out. How long was I out for? He wondered.
He saw Cameron standing several metres away. Her combat vest was gone and replaced by her favourite purple jacket. She had a shovel in hand and steadily dug into the ground. A body was laid out on the ground behind her; a blonde girl. John slowly struggled to his feet with another groan; the morphine took the edge off but he still felt like he was at least a hundred years old. He wondered how bad a shape he was really in.
"Who's that?" John asked, pointing to the dead blonde girl. Cameron stopped digging and looked at him, sadness evident in her face; the way her eyes were lower than normal, she was even more stoic than usual. He could just tell something wasn't right about her, and he wondered what she'd gone through before she'd found him.
"Courtney," Cameron replied, looking down at the body and John recognised the clear, blatant look of hurt in his cyborg lover, multiplied by a thousand times.
"Who is she?" John walked up to her, not sure if he really wanted to know the answer. And why was she digging a hole? It was for this Courtney, obviously, but why?
"She was my friend?"
"You... made a friend?" John said, more than a little shocked. Cameron hadn't managed to hit it off with anyone they'd known before: Davenport, Ellison and Charley were the most supportive towards her, but none of them would have exactly hung out with her by choice. "What happened?"
Cameron looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, confused. She thought it was obvious what had happened to Courtney; she was dead. "Dumb question," John quickly amended himself. "Tell me about her."
Cameron told him everything, starting with how she'd rebooted with severe damage in Las Vegas, how it and Area 51 had been destroyed by the machines, and her search for him that took her through Nevada and into Courtney's hometown. She described how Courtney had taken her into her own house and saved her from another HK patrol, to how they'd searched for her father in the high school and found him dead; killed by men she now suspected – after her fight with Emily – to have been infiltrators, and their escape from the town and their trek to Carson City, finding a man impersonating him.
She admitted to John that she'd killed a man as he'd tried to rape Courtney, and noted that John didn't seem the least bit angry with what she'd done. Oppositely, she saw, he vindicated her for it. She told John how they'd continued their search into California, how they'd eliminated a T-2 with only a handful of 40mm grenades, and how Courtney had attempted to save her when she was pinned down. Lastly, she told John of how they'd arrived in Century City, how Cameron had gone as far as entrusting Courtney to continue the search for John if she didn't survive, and how they'd found the work camp, spotted him, then come under attack from Chris McGinty's forces, and the HK that had launched from the hospital roof – drawn by the firefight – and killed Courtney.
John listened intently through all of it, not saying a word of interruption and not breaking eye contact with Cameron for a moment as she described how Courtney realised that Cameron was a cyborg in her final moments, but had still been her friend. He couldn't help feeling guilty that Cameron's friend had died for him.
"I'm sorry, Cameron," John pulled her into a hug, reversing their previous role and him now being the one to comfort her. "Here," he pulled back away from her and grabbed the shovel. John started to dig the hole Cameron had made. She'd been most of the way there, digging it precisely to Courtney's measurements, but John wanted to help. If Courtney was even half of how Cameron described her then she deserved a proper burial.
"You should rest," Cameron didn't want John to make his injuries any worse than they already were. He needed to rest and recover, not exert himself. If he pushed himself the dressings she'd applied could come off and his burns would be vulnerable to infection. She tried to take the shovel away but John held it firm, and she relented, knowing how stubborn he could be. He wasn't going to listen to her.
John kept digging up earth, continuing what Cameron had started, until he was completely exhausted – only three minutes later. Cameron then snatched the shovel from his hands with a deft swipe and made John sit down, giving him a bottle of water to drink while she finished it off. Again, John didn't listen, and insisted on helping her. She considered injecting him with more morphine to sedate him so he wouldn't strain himself, but decided against it. She laid Courtney's body out and carefully lowered her into the ground. Cameron knew that billions of people died and weren't buried on Judgement Day, billions more would be killed and their bodies abandoned. The same would happen here. But they didn't matter. Courtney did. She was her friend and Cameron wanted to bury her. That's what people did to those they cared about.
John stepped towards the edge of the grave with Cameron and looked down at the lifeless body. She looked serene, he thought; peaceful, despite the bloodied hole in her chest.
"Do you want to say anything?" John asked Cameron as he reached for her hand and slid his fingers between hers. She squeezed his hand gently and turned to him.
"I wrote a note," Cameron pulled the notebook from her jacket pocket. It was what she knew; John had told her to write a note when she was sad. She'd written a note for Courtney while John was unconscious. Cameron tore out the page and held it out. "Do you want to read it?" she asked.
"No," John shook his head slowly. He didn't want to intrude on what he felt was something private, even if Cameron still had no concept of privacy and likely never would. He took the page without looking at it and folded it in half, and folded it again. He placed it down on top of Courtney's chest, then stepped back and stood over her again. "Thank you," he said quietly. Thank you for giving Cameron a friend.
Both Cameron and John pushed the earth back down onto Courtney, filling in the grave and very gradually concealing her beneath the ground. And then she was gone.
John looked at Cameron and saw only an immeasurable sadness inside her. A loss he knew she'd never experienced before. Apart from him she'd never been attached to anyone else before; Courtney was the first and only other person she'd ever really cared about and it was obvious to John that she did. Cameron wouldn't have buried anyone just for the sake of it. This must be just as hard for her, he reasoned, as it was for him when his mom died.
"How long was I out for?" John asked; partly to try and distract Cameron but also genuinely curious; it had been night when they'd ran from the camp and now it was the typical dark-grey overcast of daytime; though what time it actually was it was hard to say. When he'd woken up in the ward after being shocked by the machine his watch had been removed.
"Seventeen hours," Cameron replied.
"You said you and Courtney saw me getting dragged into the hospital. How long was it until you saw me again?"
"Three days, sixteen hours," Cameron answered. Not quite the eternity it had seemed, he thought. As long and as bad as his ordeal had been – both toiling in the camp and through his torture – he knew Cameron had suffered just as much as she'd searched for him. He admired her as she'd told him everything she'd done. She was far stronger than he was: she'd never given up hope, never quit for a moment no matter how slim the odds of her finding him had been – barely slowing down even when she'd lost a leg. He knew that was how she worked; futility was something completely alien to her, and he wished he it was to him, too. He hadn't told her yet that he'd tried to shoot himself after only a few weeks in the camp: he knew she'd never judge him for it but at the same time he felt ashamed of himself after hearing she'd fought tooth and nail and carried on for him, even after being blown up twice.
"We should move out," Cameron told him. "The USS Nimitz is waiting at the coast for your soldiers. We need to arrive before they sail out of range." The Seahawk was low on fuel after their long flight from Cheyenne Mountain and had a limited range. Bedell had landed it in a field three miles away and between moving tactically and John's injuries slowing them down it would take them approximately two and a half hours to reach it. If Perry and the others reached the carrier the ship's captain would want to sail out to sea. Derek and Davenport would try to stop him but they'd likely fail.
"No," John shook his head. "We're not leaving."
"It's not safe," Cameron said to him. They were clear of Century Work Camp but LA County was extremely dangerous. If the machines didn't find them the environment would still be a threat to John: he needed to rest somewhere clean, with medical facilities and away from danger.
"Nowhere will be if we don't go back," John stood up and picked up the AA-12. "A Navy SEAL called Slater was taken in with me to the hospital. They gutted him like a fish." He saw Cameron's head tilt and her lips part and he knew she was about to ask why, but never gave her the chance. "They're building terminators, Cameron. Terminators with human organs; something we've never seen before. Terminator Series TOK-888: ever heard of those?"
Cameron didn't need to check her files to know no such machine existed. She was the only TOK model created; a prototype as far as she was aware. After she'd been reprogrammed no other TOK unit had ever been encountered; Future-John had assumed Skynet had discontinued her model afterwards, much like the T-1000 series that had never been mass produced because of cost of resources and their instability.
"Some kind of hybrid," John thought aloud. "I saw files on them; Triple-Eights with chips as advanced as yours, designed to act as human as you can. They've got human organs to blend in completely. We'd never see them coming."
"Air strike," Cameron suggested, thinking of the carrier's jets. She didn't want to risk losing John again. She was hurt at Courtney's death; without John she had no reason for being. It would be worse than losing Courtney. She'd have nothing.
"Not with all those people trapped there," John thought of Byrne and the others, all still stuck in the camp; toiling themselves to death or awaiting execution by poison gas. He'd promised them he was going to lead them out of there, and he was determined to stand by that promise. Cameron saw it in his eyes, too. She saw the look of iron will that he shared with Future-John; the stubbornness that was an integral part of John Connor. She knew John wouldn't leave people behind in the camp. She didn't care about those other people but she could see John did, and Courtney would have too. She was surprised at the imprint Courtney had had on her; she'd asked Martin Bedell to help her, she'd hidden from the machines –waited in ambush instead of a head-on assault that she'd have normally used. Copying Courtney's habit of hiding had enabled her to infiltrate the camp with minimal resistance and to rescue John alive.
"I'll go," Cameron finally offered, picking up the SCAR-H and stuffing magazines into the thigh pockets on her black cargo trousers. John nodded in reply and gave a grin as he moved forwards to join her. "Stay here," she said firmly to John as she saw he misunderstood her. "I'll go alone. I won't risk you."
John looked at her in shock as she strapped weapons to herself, not liking the sound of the solo mission she was proposing one bit. "Cameron, what're you gonna do?"
"I'm going to kill them all," Cameron picked up the Javelin rocket launcher and slipped the strap over her back. "I'll come back when it's done." She closed the gap between them and tilted her head up, leaned in and pressed her lips to his gently. "I love you, John." She turned around and started to march away, towards Century Work Camp.
John watched her in horror as he imagined hundreds upon hundreds of rounds fired from twenty-odd T-70 miniguns shredding through her skin, ripping her face and chest apart to expose the bare endoskeleton beneath, her glowing blue machine eyes exposed as the brown orbs were blown away; the sheer weight of fire pinning her down, picking away at her hyperalloy armour and cracking joints, pistons and servos until she fell. And what George and his guys would do to her when they got their hands on her, damaged, and helpless. They'd take her apart, body and mind; pick her chip for information and then erase it, wipe her brain clean and use it for another of their TOK-888s.
"Wait!" John called out to her and sprinted to catch up. He stepped in front of her and blocked her path, panting as if he'd just run a marathon. She'd only walked twenty feet but it was still enough to leave John breathless and he realised now she was right. "Okay, we'll do it your way."
"Thank you," Cameron smiled slightly and flicked on her rifle's safety catch.
John thought he caught a slight flicker in her eye as she smiled, and frowned in thought. "Were you bluffing?" he asked. Had she just tugged on his heartstrings, knowing how he'd feel about her facing down an army of minigun-wielding machines, to get him to cooperate? Cameron simply stared neutrally at him for a moment and walked away without giving an answer. Very clever, John thought to himself. He could normally read her but if she didn't want him to then she could make sure he was in the dark as anyone else. He guessed he'd never know if she was bluffing, and decided he never really wanted to find out for sure.
"You should eat something," Cameron said, pulling an MRE ration from her pack and tossing it to John. She didn't know how long he'd gone without food but she could tell he was suffering from malnutrition, to add to his problems. John tore open the pack without even looking at the label and the smell wafted up to his nostrils and made his stomach rumble painfully. He'd not eaten anything in four days, he reckoned. He'd not felt hungry once during his torture; he was too worried with not saying anything and trying to disconnect himself from the pain than he was about his stomach. But now they were relatively safe he realised he was famished. He tilted his head back and held the foil pack above his face, tipped the food down into his mouth and chewed for a long time, savouring the tasted of it. Never had cold, congealed bacon and beans tasted so good before.
"This is much better than what we ate in the camp," John said to her.
Cameron knew what the prisoners in Century Work Camp were forced to eat, but she let John tell her, anyway. "They...they took people into the hospital, farmed their blood to use on the machines somehow.
"I woke up on a ward with Slater and maybe twenty others; they were all hooked up to IVs, draining their blood. After he gutted Slater he sent what was left of him to the kitchen, to feed the prisoners... they're probably eating him now." It made him sick to think that his friend had been diced into meat, literally. How many people had he unwittingly eaten in the last six months? He decided against trying to guess.
Cameron anticipated John's train of thought and decided to distract him. He'd spilled bacon and beans over the dressings on his face and needed to be kept clean. She leaned in and slowly peeled off the stained dressings, taking care to cause John as little pain as possible, though she still heard him wince and hiss as the adhesive edges pulled on the blistered skin. It took her a minute to take off all the dressings and expose his face underneath; a mess of red blistered and peeling flesh under the layers of skin that had burnt and peeled away, tangled in with filthy, matted locks of head and facial hair.
"What did they burn you with?" She asked. It looked like a chemical attack.
"Boiling bleach and sugar," John said. He couldn't even read her face or her eyes; she was expressionless, even to him. That could only be bad, as far as he was concerned. "How bad is it?" He had to ask, even though he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like the answer.
It was harder for Cameron to tell with the matted beard in the way; it had taken some of the boiling bleach and possibly shielded him from some of the attack – evidenced by the white patches dotted around the dark hair of his hair and beard. "Second-degree burns, permanent scarring," Cameron started. The right side of his face was the worst burnt; from just above his eyebrow down to the side of his mouth would become a mess of scar tissue that would encompass half his face. She checked his eyes, too. They were bloodshot but they'd be okay. John was fortunate; he would have instinctively closed his eyes and the quick reflexes of the human eye had saved his sight. If it had hit his eyes he would have been blinded, possibly permanently.
"Great," John muttered. He couldn't see his face and at the moment he was glad of it. Not that it really mattered much, but he didn't really want a reminder of what he'd been through, stuck on his face to see every time he looked into a mirror. "It's bad, then?"
Cameron took swabs from the medical pack and cleaned the burns, then covered them in an antiseptic cream, lightly rubbing her fingertips over the exposed dermis of his face. John screwed his eyes shut and flinched slightly as she touched him, expecting more pain, but he was surprised when instead he felt it cooling his skin. Cameron's delicate touch helped, too; he could tell she knew exactly how much pressure to apply to make sure it rubbed in properly, but not so much as to cause him pain.
John sat patiently as Cameron rubbed the cream over all his burns and then placed fresh dressings to cover them up. He felt a sharp, stabbing pain in the crook of his elbow and almost shot into the air with shock – they'd injected him with drugs that enhanced his pain and clouded his mind in the hospital – but Cameron placed a hand gently but firmly on his shoulder and held him in place as she stuck the syringe expertly into his arm. "Antibiotics," she told him. "To prevent infection."
"Thank you, nurse," John teased as Cameron pulled the needle out. "What's the plan, now?"
"You're in charge, John." She wasn't going to tell him what to do, as long as he didn't try to attack the camp.
"When's it dark?"
Cameron's internal clock read 13:54. "Three hours," she said.
"We'll head out to the helicopter then and fly out to the carrier. We are coming back, Cameron. We're not leaving them all to die in there." John pointed to where he thought the work camp was. Cameron saw the grim determination he'd shown earlier; the same one that he always displayed when he'd set his mind to something, and the same one Future-John often showed. He wasn't Future-John; he never would be, she'd make sure of that. But he was now ready to lead again. And she'd be by his side when he did.
George stood in the morgue, clenching his fists in anger as he looked down on the bodies of Emily and Daniel laid out on tables before him. He didn't care about Daniel's death; the Grey was worth less than nothing to George, beyond his pre-Judgement Day background in medical science. The TOK-888s were almost ready now; they didn't need him anymore. "Stupid bastard," he muttered. All the Grey had to do was shoot Connor; the kid was starved and tortured half to death, he shouldn't have gotten the upper hand. As far as he was concerned Daniel got what he deserved.
Emily, on the other hand, was another matter. Her lifeless body laid in front of him, her elbow bent the wrong way, bones protruding from the flesh, and her head angled at an unnatural angle. Her eyes were still open and they moved from side to side, following his every action. There was no sign of recognition in her eyes, though, no trace of any emotion, or life, or even the slightest glimmer of intelligence.
All the Infiltrators saw each other as brothers and sisters; they were very close, and he and Emily had been closer still. Growing up in the crèches, raised by Greys and machines, they'd formed a bond even stronger than the ones they'd shared with the others.
"Spinal cord's completely severed," Michael said to George. He'd found her body on the second floor and had alerted the other Infiltrators to Connor's escape. "Her neural implant reanimated her but she's paralysed from the neck down," he pointed to her eyes as they tracked the pair of Infiltrators. There was no life in them, not a single trace of Emily was there; just the dead, soulless gaze of a zombie. "How the hell did Connor do this?"
"Connor didn't," George shouldered his assault rifle and pointed the barrel at Emily's head. He tapped the trigger twice and two shots rang out; the rounds shattered her skull and pulped the brain inside, obliterating her neural implant and putting her to rest. He stared down at Emily's injuries, his brow furrowed deeply as he barely contained the rage building up inside him. He wanted Connor's head put on display in the camp as a symbol of Skynet's dominance. "The TOK killed Emily. Even at full health Connor wouldn't have stood a chance against her; only a terminator could do that kind of damage."
"What do you want to do now?" Michael asked. Now Emily was gone he was the next in line after George. He'd taken on the role of maintaining security in the camp after they'd arrived, and he thought it best to shut everything down; kill the prisoners they had and transport the new machines to another location, somewhere isolated where they could work without being disturbed. "Connor's gone, he knows where we are. He's a threat now."
"He's always been a threat," George replied. "If we relocate it'll take weeks to get back on track. The first batch will be ready for deployment in less than a week." Once the TOK-888s were all deployed then they could concentrate on the work camp itself, and help expedite the eradication of the human race.
"The TOK eliminated ten T-70s and a HK, George. If she returns with backup we won't be able to defend the camp. Everything we know about Connor suggests he'll come back to free the others."
"Exactly," George locked eyes with Michael. "And we'll be waiting. Take one of the Ospreys, find machines out there and use your neural implants to recruit some reinforcements."
"If we take anymore machines it'll leave gaps in LA County; the humans in the city could regroup. Skynet can't afford any letups here."
"What does it matter if Connor's dead?" George retorted. Nobody else would be able to stand in Skynet's way once the kid was gone. And that's all he was now; a kid. He was young, reckless, and would make many more mistakes than his future counterpart. He also knew that Connor was badly hurt and the TOK protecting him wouldn't allow him to do anything until he'd recovered. That gave them some time to prepare for his attack. When John Connor returned to Century Work Camp he was in for a big surprise.