A/N: As you may have read in the first chapter, I'm making this my only story for the time being. I'm not really to happy with how I started off with Terminator: The Apocalypse, so I'll use this to lead into a all new T:TA, after probably 15 chapters or so with this. So enjoy this please, and review with your opinions on this chapter.
May 13th , 2008, Selkirk New York
06:53
I warily looked around before jumping out of the boxcar I had been in. It had been six days since I had arrived in the year 2008. After arriving in the quaint little town of Greenville, in northern Maine, I had hitched a ride on a train, jumping onto other trains where necessary, until I had reached the town of Selkirk, where a huge railroad yard was situated. Leaving my rifles behind, I stuck the Desert Eagle I had found in some Massachusetts town into my waistband, and slipped my hunting knife into my pocket.
Keeping a eye out for railroad workers, I quickly made my way through the yard, jumping through lines of railroad cars when needed. In about five minutes, I had reached a road. Looking around yet again, I started walking down the road, keeping a eye out for any police, who would probably question me due to my rather unkempt appearance.
08:34
Ari's Guns And Ammo. I smiled, and then walked over the the hotel across the street. Using some of the money I had taken from a house along the way, I booked a room for the night. Once inside the room, I took a shower, savoring the hot water. Finally turning off the water, I toweled myself dry, and checked the time. 09:22. Crap, I had been in the shower for nearly a hour. I dressed, and checked myself in the mirror. Satisfied I looked okay, I walked down to the lobby.
"Um, hello?" The receptionist looked up from her magazine, looking rather uninterested.
"Yes?" She set down the magazine she had been reading, and looked up at me.
"Are there any stores near here that sell duffel bags? And clothes?" She raised a eyebrow at my strange question, but answered anyway.
"Yeah, there is a Wal-Mart about a quarter mile south. Just keep following Route 9, and you'll see it, no problem." She resumed her reading of the magazine.
"Thanks." She grunted, but otherwise ignored me.
I looked at the Wal-Mart in awe. There was a steady flow of people entering and leaving the automatic doors, most of them looking at my dirty clothes with a disgusted look. I stepped inside, still slightly awestruck by the huge store. "Welcome to Wal-Mart." I looked around. A large, bearded man, with a halo of white hair greeted me.
"Uh... thanks." He nodded, moving to greet several other people who entered. Snap out of it Raven, you have things you need to do. I looked around, looking for a part of the store that might have duffel bags. I wandered by some clothes, and studied them. What a waste of clothing, I thought to myself, examining the jeans with large portions of the legs torn out.
"Can I help you?" I whirled around. A slender young blond woman was standing behind me, chewing on something. Her name tag read Cindy.
"Uh yeah, I'm looking for some shirts, and some jeans to wear. And some underwear. And shoes." I added on, remembering that I didn't have any at all. She looked at me, bemused by the very large and dirty clothes I had on right now.
"Well okay, this is the jean section is right here, as you can see. These ones right here," She motioned at the ones with huge holes in them, "these ones are really popular right now."
"Why? Who wants to walk around with huge holes in their jeans?" She looked taken aback, furiously chewing whatever was in her mouth.
"So, I'm assuming you want ones without holes." I rolled my eyes. "Right. This way." She led me around the aisle. "What size are you?" She asked. I shrugged. She rolled her eyes, and then grabbed several pairs of black jeans off the rack, and held them up to me. Ignoring my discomfort, I allowed her to compare them to me. "All right, these ones should fit just right." She held them out for me. "There is a changing room right there." She pointed. "Try them on."
I walked into the changing room, and looked around. What was I supposed to do? I figured she meant I should hold them up like she had done, and compare them to myself. "Do they fit?" I heard her call through the door. Oh. I was supposed to wear them. I let the other jeans drop to the floor, and pulled the new ones on. Huh. They fit just right. I opened the door. Cindy was standing there, looking at me with a bemused look. "So they fit then." I nodded, and made to walk off. "Hey, hang on. Your going to have to take them off. You need to buy them first." Of course. Mentally sighing, I went back into the changing room, and put on the other crappy pair of jeans. "What's your name?" She called through the door.
"Raven."
"Thats a nice name. It matches you, I think." Rolling my eyes, I opened the door.
"Can I get like three or four more of these?" I asked Cindy. She gave me a amused look, but nodded, going off to get them. Waiting, I looked around. People were just wandering around, plucking various things off shelves, and placing them in carts they towed around with them. Absently, I wondered how many of them would actually live through Judgement Day. Footsteps alerted me to Cindy's presence as she walked back over. She had four pairs of jeans identical to the ones I was holding in my hands. She grabbed a empty cart that was nearby, and dropped them into it.
"What else did you need?" She looked around, eager to help.
"Shirts, underwear, socks, shoes, and three or four duffel bags." She giggled at my strange shopping list, but grabbed my arm, and tugged me over to the shirts sections.
"Here, try this one on. I think it'd look really cute on you." She handed me a black shirt, with the words The Devil Wears Prada emblazoned on it in red. She looked around again, and handed me several other shirts. "Try these on, they should fit you." She beamed at me, so shrugging, I made my way back over to the changing room, and tried them on. Again, they all fit just right. She helped me pick out some bras, and panties, then helped me get a pair of boots, failing horribly at persuading me that sneakers would be better.
I made my way to the sports section, where Cindy said there would be duffel bags. I grabbed four of the largest size, and threw them into the shopping cart, then made my way to the checkouts. Sighing, I impatiently waited for about ten minutes for a old lady in front of me to check out all of her products she had bought for herself. Finally, after fifteen minutes, I had checked out all my things, and was ready to leave.
"Hey, Raven." I looked back over my shoulder. Cindy was hurrying up to me.
"Yeah?"
"Uh... I was wondering, umm... would you maybe want to go out later?" Her face was a bright shade of red by the time she finished.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want to go out, like on a... a date?" What the hell was a date? I noticed again how red her face was, then it clicked. Oh...
"Um..." Suddenly my face was as red as hers. "Sorry, but I'm not uh... I'm not like that." Despite myself, I felt bad for her, watching her hopeful smile fade. "If you want... we can go out, as friends?"
Smiling again, she nodded. "Can you go out tonight?" I noticed her hopeful look was back.
"I was planning on leaving by tonight actually. I need to go to Los Angeles. So I don't know..." I let my sentence trail off, hoping she'd get the hint. Her face fell, so I knew she got it.
"Maybe I'll see you again sometime?"
"Maybe." Both of us knew it was unlikely, but hey, it'd make her happy. I smiled, and walked out of the parking lot, looking back over my shoulder. She was watching me, talking on her phone.
14:39, Selkirk Hotel.
I was standing at the window, carefully watching the automobiles drive through on Route 9 below. I had spent about three hours teaching myself how to drive, mostly by observing how others drove, then doing the rest myself, then I had taken a short nap. Taking one last look at the road, I figured I'd take another short nap, for about a hour, then I'd commence with my plan.
15:37, outside Ari's Guns and Ammo.
Peering inside, I watched as the customer inside left, leaving the store empty, bar the owner. Now or never Raven. I sighed, and walked up to the door, opening it, hearing a small chime alert the owner someone was here. I blinked in surprise as he walked out from a back room. He was a rather handsome man in his mid twenties, clean shaven, and fairly tanned, with dark hair, and dark eyes. He smiled at me, displaying even white teeth. "What can I do for you, young lady?" Young lady? I was nearly twenty. Looking around, I studied the guns on display, smiling to myself. Perfect. Walking back to the door, I flipped the open sign to closed. "Hey, what the hell are you-" He froze as I pulled my Desert Eagle on him.
"Sorry man, but your gonna have to give me all of your guns." He raised his eyebrow in surprise, then reached under the counter. I quickly leaped over the counter, tackling him into the wall, sending the contents of a shelf crashing down on us. He quickly rolled over, and grabbed me by the throat.
"No one robs me." he snarled, pushing down. Gasping for breath, I gripped his wrist tightly and squeezed. His eyes widened. "What the fuck?" He exclaimed, clearly not expecting me to be so strong.
"Let go, or I break your wrist." I gasped out. My vision was starting to go fuzzy around the edges. I squeezed harder, to emphasize my point, He let go of me, but quickly punched me in the jaw. Snarling, I shoved him off of me, and went on the offensive, grabbing his wrist as he swung at me, and punching him in the stomach with my other hand, causing his breathe to whoosh out. He quickly sucked in a breath, and chopped at my neck, his eyes widening as my right arm shot up to block it. He punched me in the jaw again. This time I saw stars before I told myself to snap out of it. Damn, he was strong. He quickly shoved me back, and reached for a shotgun under the counter. I jumped forward, tackling his legs, sending him crashing to the floor again. I made to grab for his throat, but he brushed me off, and jabbed me in the kidney. He scrambled up to his feet, grabbing me by my shirt, and pushing me back into a display. Glass shattered underneath me, scratching me. He walked over, standing over me with the shotgun in his hands. I grabbed the barrel, and shoved it away from me, then grabbed him with my other hand, and lifted him off the ground, holding him by his neck.
"What the hell?" he gasped out, flailing around. I squeezed slightly harder, and then dropped him to the ground, where he lay, unconscious. I staggered over to the main counter, gasping for breath. Damn this guy. He knew how put up a fight. I looked over at him. He was out cold. Walking into the back room, I found a roll of duct tape, and bound his arms and legs together, before applying a strip across his mouth, so he couldn't talk. I limped back out to the truck I had stolen, and grabbed the duffel bags. I walked back inside, and started loading up guns.
I carried the duffle bags back out to the truck, throwing them into the back, then I drove the truck around the back, and parked it. I opened the back door, and flipped the light switch on. Jackpot. Looking around, there were crates of weapons. I opened one of the crates. Inside, it was filled with Desert Eagles. Opening another, I saw it was filled with Ak-47's. Another had M4's. Smiling to myself, I heaved a crate up, and slowly staggered to my truck, and heavily dropped it in. I looked back into the room. Crap. I was going to need a bigger truck.
19:43, Highway 90 Rest Stop.
I pulled my eighteen wheeler over in the rest stop, ignoring the furious honking of a man I cut off. I looked back into the bed behind the seats. The gun shop owner was still out cold in the bed. I sighed to myself, and climbed out of the cab. I had 19,054 dollars, most of it from the gun shop. I had needed a bigger truck, so I had drove around until I found a semi-truck, and had taken it instead, since the trailer would fulfill my needs much better. I had loaded all the crates from the back room into trailer, about half of them guns, and the rest being ammunition, and still had plenty of room for the other guns, about forty feet of trailer left.
I walked into the McDonald's, looking around. People had formed a line in front of the counter, and were looking up at a large sign above the counter. Following their gaze, I read the sign. On it were the available food options. Stepping into line, I patiently awaited my turn, as the couple in front of me decided what to buy. Finally it was my turn.
"What can I get you?" A acne covered adolescent stared at me from behind the cash register, his eyes wandering across my breasts. He leered at me, pushing back his greasy hair.
I gave him a flat glare. "Can I get four double cheeseburgers, two large fries, and two large cokes?"
He grinned. "Is that all I can do for you?" Ignoring his stares, I looked back up at the menu.
"Can I get four apple pies?" He nodded.
"All right, that'll be 11.78." He smiled in a attempt to flatter me, revealing his yellow stained teeth. Slightly disgusted, I counted out twelve dollars from the huge roll of money in my pocket, and handed it to him. His eyes were huge as he saw me put the money roll into my pocket again.
Climbing back into the truck, I saw that the gun shop owner had awakened. Ignoring him for the time being, I set the bag of food onto the passenger, and pulled out of the rest stop. I sped up, passing several cars before settling at about seventy mph's. I could feel the mans eyes on the back of my head. Checking in front of me to make sure I wasn't going to crash into anyone, I quickly reached back, and ripped the tape off the mans mouth.
"What the hell do you want from me?" He asked. I studied him in the rearview mirror. He seemed fairly calm, despite me having kidnapped him.
"I want your cooperation." I told him. He frowned.
"Why should I cooperate with you? You kidnapped me. And you still haven't answered me." I shrugged. He scowled at me. I passed another car, aware of him examining me. "Aren't you a little young to be kidnapping people?" I merely shrugged again. "Not very talkative, are you?"
"No, not really." His english was flawless, but I could detect a slight accent to it. "Where are you from? And what is your name?"
"My name is Ari Corum." I shook my head. He sighed. "What's your name? Who are you?"
"...Raven. Sargent, from the 132nd S.O.C; Tech-Com. Under Connor."
"Where are you taking me, Raven? And what the hell division is that?"
"Probably out west. As for the division, I just told you." I looked back at him in the mirror. "Do you have family?" He shook his head. "Good. That means I don't have to worry too much about someone looking for you." His eyes widened slightly.
"You're going to kill me?"
"I hope not. At least, if you do what I ask you, and don't fight me, then I have no reason to kill you."
"So what do you want then?"
I frowned at him for a minute. "The guns in your store. The ones in the back room. Where did you get them?"
"Why?"
"Because I want to know."
"Does it matter? You already stole all of them, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did take them all." I looked back at him. "But I need more. Where did you get them from?"
"I bought them."
"Ak-47's and M4's are illegal to own without special permits, which I highly doubt you have, not with them amount that you have. Had. Even I know that. So you didn't just buy them. Someone provided them to you, someone who probably stole them. I want to know who that person is." Ari looked at me, his eyebrows cocked skeptically. "Fine. If you don't want to talk, I'll just keep driving." Ari studied me some more.
"Where did you get that tattoo?" He asked, referring to my Skynet barcode. I rubbed it, thinking about how to answer him. The easiest way for him to cooperate would be to tell him my story, but he probably wouldn't believe me. Oh well, fuck it, I decided.
"A machine."
He laughed, thinking I was joking. He stopped as he realized I was being serious. "Really, you expect me to believe a machine gave you a tattoo?"
"Yes. And it's not a tattoo. It's burned on into my arm. It's a branding."
"Why the hell would I believe that?" He chuckled again.
"Do you believe in the apocalypse?" I asked him, closely watching his reaction. He seemed taken aback by question, but answered anyway.
"Yeah, I believe it will happen sometime in the future, but not for a while."
"What if I told you it will happen in about three years? Would you believe me?" He laughed.
"Three years. Are you joking? Even if it would happen in three years, how the hell would you know?" He chuckled again, before getting it. "You expect me to believe your from the future? Ha, good one."
"I'm not joking." I told him calmly. "In about three years, on April 21st, 2011, a computer system called Skynet becomes self aware, and declares war. It launches nuclear missiles at its enemies."
He looked at me skeptically. "Enemies? Who were its enemies then?"
"Us." I answered him quietly.
"What?"
"Humans, mankind, we are its enemies." He was quiet for a moment, before bursting out laughing.
"Why would it attack humans? We supposedly built this computer, right?" He coughed, trying to stop laughing.
"Yes, we did build it. Skynet was self aware however."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he laughed again.
"It means it could think for itself. It saw us, humans, as a threat to its existence. That's why it launched nukes as us."
He continued to laugh. "Nice story little girl. So you think stealing guns will help you prevent this supposed computer from supposedly killing all humans? What a joke."
"Why would I joke about three billion humans being killed?" I watched as his eyes widened. He realized I was telling the truth. Or at least to him, he realized I wasn't joking about what I thought was the truth. "The reason I need these weapons is for after this, after Judgement Day."
"Judgement Day?"
"That's what survivors of this war call it."
"So why do you need the guns then?" Ignoring him, I pulled off the highway, slowing down. I drove down a small road, and pulled into a dirt road. Neither of us made a noise as we jostled down the dirt road, before coming out at a clearing, with railroad tracks bisecting it. I pulled the truck around, and parked it so I could easily drive out again. I turned around to face him.
"Judgement Day is only the beginning. After Judgement Day, Skynet uses machines, to hunt down, and kill any humans." I held out my arm, showing him my barcode clearly. "This is where this came from. Some of us were kept alive, to work for it. We worked in concentration camps, loading bodies, day in, and day out. All the time. That's where I grew up. Loading bodies and throwing them into a furnace."
"You still haven't explained what you need guns for."
"Eventually, one man led us back, taught us how to fight, how to storm the camps, and destroy the machines. To smash those metal motherfuckers to hell. His name is John Connor." I withdrew my arm, satisfied he had seen it clearly, and opened the bag of food, taking out a burger, and started to eat it.
"You still haven't explained-"
"Hang on, I'm getting to it." I said, through a mouthful of burger. I swallowed, and continued. "We broke out of the work camps, and joined the resistance against machines. Led by Connor. To combat the resistance, Skynet makes machines. Machines that look like a human skeleton, made completely from metal. This is what the guns are for."
"You expect me to believe that skeleton machines hunt down humans? Why would you need these guns then? These guns are for close combat. Couldn't you just steal missiles, and kill them from far way?"
"You'd think." I told him cryptically, crumpling the wrapper, and tossing it in the passenger seat. He frowned.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
I looked out the window. "You're not going to believe me. No one from the past will truly believe this until they see it for themselves."
"What are you talking about little girl?"
I glared at him. "Stop calling me little girl. I'm nineteen. Besides, your not much older yourself. How old are you?"
"Twenty-five. But anyway, what are you talking about, little girl." He leered at me.
I sighed. "Machines. Covered in human skin."
He looked at me incredulously before bursting out laughing. "Little girl, you are full of shit-" He stopped, his eyes wide as I grabbed him by the throat, and pinned him against the back of the cab.
"I told you not to call me little girl. And I am not full of shit. Machines, covered in human skin, grown just for them, to infiltrate our bases, and kill as many of us as possible, or, the priority target." I released him, watching as he gasped for breath.
"Let me guess, the priority target is your leader, John Connor?" He asked, sneering. "Yeah fucking right."
"Yes, Connor is the priority target. Now I am going to ask you one more time, who sold you your fucking guns!" I finished, snarling at him. He raised his brow, amused.
"You think you can intimidate me? I was part of the CIA. I won't break that easily."
"Good for you. What's to stop me from throwing you in the tracks, and letting a train run you over?" His eyes widened. "You know that I believe what is going to happen, so I suggest you don't fuck with me. I honestly could care about you, throwing you in front of a train isn't going to mean a fucking thing to me."
"Fine little girl. I don't care about your little supposed future war anyway. I just want to go home. The man who sold them to me, his name is Ivan Sokolov. I knew him from my CIA days."
"A Russian? Great. Where can I find him?"
"Somewhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And how do you know about Russians?"
"They were our allies in the future. They had their own supercomputer, MIR, which was giving them problems." Ari's eyes widened at the mention of MIR. "You know about MIR?"
"Yeah, Sokolov mentioned something about a supercomputer, codenamed MIR. The CIA was interested in it. That's how I met Sokolov, he exchanged information about this computer in return for not getting arrested for arms dealing." He frowned, thinking. He was probably disappointed that part of my story had some possible credibility.
"I take it the Motherland is less than fond of this man, this Sokolov." I instinctively turned my head as a train roared by.
"He was a big shot KGB agent back in the late eighties, then the Soviet Union fell apart, and all of his previous classified jobs and stuff came to light, including assassinations and stuff like that. So he fled the Motherland, and was hanging out in Brazil for a while, before coming to the States. So are you going to let me go now?"
"No."
"But you said-"
"I didn't say I would let you go." Ari snarled. "You hungry?" I reached back, and unbound his hands, before throwing the bag of food into the bed area. "Eat up. You have fifteen minutes, then the tape's going back on." I held my Desert Eagle up at him, stopping him from lunging at me. "Eat up. I'm not going to stop for food for awhile." He glared at me, before unwrapping a burger, and slowly eating it.
"Are you going to let me go at all?"
I shrugged.
May 17th, 2008, St. Louis, Missouri
16:08
I awoke from my nap. Ari was still sitting in the bad, alternating from looking at me, to staring at the trains moving around in the railroad yard twenty meters away. Checking my watch I saw that I had been asleep for about nine hours. Looking back, I saw that Ari hadn't attempted to undo his bindings at all. Strange. If I were in his shoes, I would definitely have tried to escape. "You hungry?" I asked him. He shrugged, not caring to answer. "Okay then, I guess I'll keep driving." Another shrug. I wonder what's up with him? One moment he's all about trying to get me to him go, and then now he doesn't seem to care what I'm doing.
I had been driving for about three more hours before he spoke up. "Raven, in the future, how do you tell these terminators apart from from regular humans, if they're covered in human skin?"
I was surprised by his question, but hid it. "We used dogs. They could tell the difference somehow."
"So... you said you came back from the future. What year?"
"2027."
"That would make you, what, three when Judgement Day happened?"
"Two. I was born on July 8th. Well, created, on July 8th."
"What do you mean, created?"
"I'm not a regular human. I was created, as a experiment."
"And let me guess. You were genetically modified. That's how you are so strong." He rolled his eyes when I nodded. "Right. How do I know your not one of these machines then?"
"I ate, didn't I?" He blinked, then nodded.
"Yeah, you did. Damn. I guess your telling the truth then." He said, rolling his eyes. "Do you take steroids?"
"What are steroids?"
"Drugs that make your muscles huge." I rolled my eyes, then with my free hand, pushed my shirt sleeve up to my shoulder, revealing my slender arm.
"Does it look like my muscle is huge?"
"No, but then how are you stronger than me? Males are normally stronger than females." He leaned forward, studying my arm as if there was a secret contained in it somewhere. Although, to be fair, there probably was.
"No shit. And I don't know. I'm not a scientist, I don't know what they did to me. All I know is that I'm freakishly strong. And I'm immune to most diseases. My immune system is very efficient. I don't even get colds." I added, grinning. He rolled his eyes.
"How else are you freakishly different than a normal human." He smirked as I glared at him.
"I have better hearing, smell, eyesight, and I'm faster, and quicker on my feet. Stuff like that. Satisfied?"
"Sure. When are you going to let me go?"
"I don't know."
"Can you at least unbind me? I won't try and run." I rolled my eyes. "I promise." He added.
"Yeah, right. Good one."
"I'm interested in hearing about your stories. They'd make a good book, or movie, or even a TV series. I can imagine it now. The Terminator. A movie about a humanoid machine sent back into the past to ensure the creation of- Ow, what the hell was that for?" He asked, blood dripping from his nose after I punched him.
"Shut the hell up. You're so goddamn annoying. You need to learn to shut the fuck up." I rubbed my head. He was starting to give me a headache.
"You should watch you language, little girl." I groaned loudly. "Besides, you should just untie me, otherwise I'll just wait for you to stop looking, and do it myself. Like I said, I was part of the CIA, I know how to do things like that."
"If you were part of some badass government agency with all kinds of special training, then how the hell did I manage to get you tied up anyway?"
"You're a lot stronger than I am." I smirked at him.
"Damn right. Now shut the hell up!" I yelled at him. He smirked, and started fiddling with his bindings. A moment later, he climbed into the passenger seat, smiling as I pulled over in the breakdown lane, and pulled my gun on him. "Get in the back, now." I ordered him, in a low voice.
"Make me." He smirked. Shrugging, I shot it a inch from his face. His eyes widened as he recoiled back. "You're a crazy little girl, you know that?"
"I'm a lot of things, but I don't think I'm crazy. Now get in the back seat." I pointed the gun at his face. He grinned.
"Chill out, damn. Besides, I'm not going anywhere. I could have ran off already. And you couldn't do anything about it, since this is a rather public place."
"Fine, you can sit up here. But please, for Christ's sake, shut the fuck up." I pulled back into the highway, ignoring his triumphant look.
May 21st, 2008, Albuquerque, New Mexico
09:23
I jolted awake as the truck door slammed shut. Looking over, I saw Ari settling into the seat. "Coffee?" he offered, shoving a cup towards me. "Don't freak out on me. All I did was get some coffee. You were asleep, and I needed something to drink."
Grinding my jaw yet again for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last couple days, I took the coffee from him. "Where did you get the money?"
"I took it from your pocket."
"You were searching me. What. The. Fuck?" I quickly pet my pockets down, making sure I still had my Desert Eagle.
"Relax, it's not like I felt you up or anything like that. All I did was take some money so I could by some coffee, and I got myself some donuts. Here, you can even have the change back. And I didn't touch your Desert Eagle."
"You touch me again, I'll bust your face open." Taking a sip of the coffee, I recoiled slightly from the sweet drink.
"What's the matter, you don't like it?" He asked.
"No, it's just that I'm used to black coffee. Like, 100 percent coffee, nothing else at all."
"Sounds nasty."
"You get used to it. It was the only type of coffee made in the future. Besides, it's not like we had any sugar anyway."
"What other foods did you have? After Judgement day?" Ari took a large gulp of the hot coffee, and winced as it burned his mouth.
"Why do you keep asking me questions about the future? You don't believe me, you told me yourself."
"I don't know, its just, the more I think about it, the more I believe your telling the truth. I can't explain it. It just that you're so sincere about all this." He winced again as he took another large gulp of coffee. I rolled my eyes, and sipped my coffee. "So anyway, little girl, what's your plan? Your just going to talk to Sokolov, and hope he gives you hundreds of guns, no questions asked?"
"I'm going to scout out his place, and his operations first, then I'll find something to use against him, and get guns that way.
"You're going to blackmail a arms dealer? Good luck with that."
"Are you going to help?" He spat out his coffee in surprise.
"What?"
"I asked if your going to help. Besides, you have previous dealings with this guy, you should know something I can use against him."
"All I know is that I asked him for some guns, for a large amount of money, he agreed, I gave him the money, and he gave me the guns."
"That reminds me. What the hell were you going to do with those guns?"
"Sell them for profit." He shrugged like it should be obvious.
"For a former CIA agent, you're pretty unscrupulous."
"I'm making use of the talents I have." He stared out the window. "Well I suppose, if we're going to find something on this guy, we should do some surveillance on his offices."
"So your actually going to help me?"
"Sure, why the hell not. You stole all my guns, then dragged me 2500 miles across the US. It's not like I have anything better to be doing at the moment. And it's better than sitting around selling guns all day."
"Fine, drive us to his office buildings. I'm getting tired of driving." I climbed into the bed behind us, and stretched my legs out, warily watching him get into the drivers seat. He started the truck up, then ground the gears. I sighed.
"Don't you know how to drive?" I taunted him.
"I don't normally drive tractor trailers little girl." Ignoring his jibe, I responded back.
"I am from the future, I didn't even know how to drive until about a week ago, and yet, somehow, I can drive a tractor trailer."
"Right. Relax, I'm just a bit rusty with driving standards. I'll get it under control in a minute or two." He ground the gears again as he pulled out, but still managed to get us going. "That reminds me. What are you planning on doing with this truck? It's just a little suspicious if your sitting out front of a skyscraper in a semi. You need to get a car that blends in better."
Conceding to his point, I nodded. "What the hell is a skyscraper? And where do you think I should leave this truck?"
"Skyscraper is a really tall building. And how much money do you have left from my store?" he glared at me.
"Like 19,000 dollars. Why?"
"Rent a storage unit to store the guns and stuff in, then we can get a more ubiquitous vehicle, and do our reconnaissance, then come back, and you can take this back with us."
"Fine. Find a place to store this crap." I handed him several hundred dollars. "I'm taking a nap."
"Hey, Raven, wake up." I jolted awake as someone shook my shoulder. Blinking rapidly, I saw Ari leaning around the seat. "We're outside a storage unit." I looked out the window. Next to the truck was a low building, mostly white in color, and trimmed in blue, with blue doors. I climbed into the passenger seat, and got out of the truck, and walked to the back of it. Ari was unlocking the door. I walked over, stepping forward as he rolled it up. "Is this big enough?" He looked around.
"Yeah. This is about what, twenty by twenty?" I walked around inside, looking around.
"Yep. All right then, let's start unloading boxes." He climbed up into the back of the trailer. I took notice of the gun in his waistband.
"When did you take a gun?" I asked him, instinctively feeling my pockets to confirm I still had mine. I did. I checked the clip, making sure he hadn't taken out the bullets while I was still asleep. It was still loaded.
"A little while ago. I hope you don't mind. I figured if we were doing reconnaissance, I should have a gun as well." I sighed. It seemed like he was going out of his way to try and annoy me now.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." I climbed into the back of the truck with him. He confidently walked to a crate, and tried to lift it. I smirked, amused by his attempts to show off. He heaved again, still not succeeding at lifting the heavy crate. "Here, use this." I showed him the dolly mounted by the door. "Bring them by the doorway, and I'll carry them into the storage unit." He narrowed his eyes, but nodded. Men don't like being shown up by women. I laughed aloud, taking note of this. Despite myself, I was finding being around Ari amusing. I jumped out of the trailer, and turned, grabbing a crate he had wheeled over.
I stood watch as Ari forced the lock open on a pickup truck. He hit the automatic locks, unlocking the truck. I walked around, and climbed into the passenger seat. He climbed in, and reached down, fiddling with the starter wires. "Hey, Raven. How did know how to hot-wire a car, if you're from the future?"
"Connor explained how to before he sent me back." I forced Ari's head down as a police cruiser drove by, lowering my head down as well. Staring into his eyes just mere inches away from mine, I continued. "Connor does the best he can to prepare soldiers being sent back for almost any possible situation that could occur. That being said, there is no way he can prepare us for anything that happens. That's why he sends humans back, instead of machines. At least to do missions like mine. Humans can adapt their missions a lot easier."
"I thought you said Skynet built these machines to kill humans. Why would the savior of man kind have machines working for him?"
"Some of the are scrubbed. Reprogrammed." I explained, seeing his confused look. "Others... joined us."
"What do you mean?"
"Terminator chips are learning computers. Skynet presets the switch to read only though, before sending them on a mission, so they can't learn from what they experience."
"It doesn't want them making their own decisions in other words. Right?"
"Yeah. But some of them require missions that they need to have the switch set to learning mode. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to integrate with humans if they acted like machines."
"So... they learn how to act human?"
"Somewhat. Some of these machines, they spend so much time among humans, that they learn the value of life, why they shouldn't just kill every living thing in sight. They become self-aware, capable of making their own decisions."
"And Skynet doesn't like that?"
"No. If it can't control them, then they're it's enemies. That's why they join us. When they become self aware, self preservation is their greatest, strongest instinct. They do anything to survive. Even if it means joining their former enemies."
"Are they more dangerous than reprogrammed ones?"
"Actually, they're safer. Reprogrammed ones go bad sometimes, and revert back to their original mission, the one hardwired into them by Skynet. The self aware ones aren't bound by their programming. And according the Connor, some of them want peace with humans." I shrugged. It didn't really matter to much me for the time being. As long as Cameron didn't go bad, and kill the young Connor.
"Weird." Ari started the truck, sitting up again.
"Yeah, tell me about it. Killer robots that want peace." I rolled my eyes. "All right, let's go to this Sokolov's place. Which reminds me, what kinds of weapons can he get me?"
"Probably anything if you have enough money, or he has the right incentive."
Ari had parked the truck across the street from Sokolov's offices, and we were just sitting now, staring at the fairly steady flow of people going through the doors at the base of the building. "So what exactly are we looking for?" Ari asked me, for the third time. For the third time, I shrugged.
"I don't know." I looked away, down the street.
"Damn." I heard Ari's sharp intake of breath. "That guy is huge. He has to be muscle. Maybe we can follow him, and get him to spill his guts?" Following Ari's gaze, I studied the man in question.
"Ari..." I felt my insides go cold. "That man, he isn't a man."
"What do you mean?" Ari frowned, then his eyes widened as he recognized what I was getting at.
"It's a terminator."
A/N: This seems like a good place to leave off for this chapter, so i'll pick it up from here with the next chapter. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter.
Oh, and i didn't realize that Ivan Sokolov was a grandmaster. I just read the surname Sokolov in a book, and added Ivan too it, to make a full name.