A/N: Thank you for the reviews everyone. EvilTheLast, you were somewhat close with the, but what i had intended for it to mean was Lilith's personality, which goes from being sweet to being a bitch. You'll see more of this behavior in this chapter, and in future chapters. Also, I'm doing something a bit different within this chapter, using third person POV to describe scenes that are happening concurrently with the main story. Also, in this chapter, there are none of Ravens flashbacks. But getting away from my rambling, this is a longest chapter I've written thus far, running at about 30 pages on Open Office.
I would really, really appreciate comments, and advice, as well as comments regarding spelling errors, and whatnot. So please, take the time to comment on your opinions, and please enjoy
June 3rd, 2008
23:13
Jacob Trask impatiently tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk, waiting for his computer screen to load. Damn computers. FBI can toss around money for other stuff, but they can't be bothered to upgrade our computers. He sighed again, then blinked in surprise as the picture loaded on his screen. Leaning forward, he cursed under his breath, shaking his head. Another young woman throwing her life away.
"Shit, are you sure that's the suspect? She barely looks like she's out of school." Trask looked over his shoulder. His fellow agent on the case, John Stubbert, was standing over his shoulder, looking at the screen.
"Yeah, I know right? Witnesses say that her, and another man came into the bank, armed with M4A1 carbines, and she forced the tellers in the bank to bring her to the vaults, and get the money, while the guy kept a eye on the hostages in front. She got the money, then they both left in a white sedan. The Phoenix police found the car three hours later, abandoned in a motel parking lot, with no prints anywhere in the vehicle. They made off with at least three million, possibly more."
"Damn. How the hell didn't the police get them before they left?"
"Someone put some sort of gas in the ventilation in the police station right before the robbery. Knocked everyone out within the station for about a hour. Only ones who could have responded where the mobile units, and since the headquarters were all knocked out, no one could give the orders to go stop it."
"Damn, that was pretty good planning on their part. Was there a photo of the guy?" He pulled up a chair, and sat down, sipping his coffee.
"No, he had his face hidden under a mask. All we have to go on is that he's about six-one, probably weighs in at about 170 or so, and he looked like he was in really good shape." Trask sighed. "Why the hell would she not bother wearing a mask or something? I mean, you can get a mask for about three dollars or so at Wal-Mart."
"The only reason I can think of is that she didn't care if her picture was taken." He leaned back in his chair, thinking. "I wonder if this is related to that case that Ellison had, back in '99. You know, the one where that teenage girl held up a bank with another teenage and a older woman."
"Yeah, that was the Connor case, right?" Stubbert nodded, tapping his leg thoughtfully. "What made you think of that?" Trask had turned to face his companion.
"Nothing, I just remember that it was really weird that a teenage girl would hold up a bank, unmasked. It just made me think of that case."
"Eh, I doubt they're related anyway, it's been about nine years." Stubbert nodded, but continued to stare thoughtfully at the girl on the screen. "Besides, they blew themselves up in a bank."
June 4th, 2008, Baum Residence
00:23
Cameron Baum looked over her shoulder warily as the floor creaked. John had just gone to bed about ten minutes ago, and he probably hadn't completely fallen asleep yet. She silently took the laptop off the counter, and brought it into the living room. She needed to check something. Accessing her CPU for her hacking skills, she easily cracked through the FBI firewalls, and was into the servers about a minute later. She easily maneuvered through the files, before opening the one she wanted. She clicked it.
Raven... She wondered why she had her picture in the file. A bank robbery. She must have needed money. The possibility of Raven robbing a bank had been on her mind for the last hour, after watching the news report on it. She scanned the file. She had a accomplice, an unknown male. She made sure she had added all the details of it to her CPU, then she deleted it from the computer. She got up, and set the laptop in precisely the same spot it had been in, then she silently made her way back upstairs, and gently eased open the door to John's room. He was asleep, she could tell, but he was twitching slightly in his sleep. "...Cameron... don't go..." The boy mumbled in his sleep, leaving Cameron bewildered, but happy. She slipped into the room, closing the door behind her, and sat on the floor, entranced by the motion of his chest gently rising and falling.
June 5th, 2008, Los Angeles, California
02:32
I was exhausted as I pulled the semi into a abandoned lot. Next to me, Ari was gently snoring. I rubbed my eyes, and climbed out of the truck cab. As much as I wanted to, it was still to early to go to bed. I gently shut the door behind me, and paced down to the trailer, and unlocked it. Lilith looked over at me, frustrated. Ignoring her, I walked by and opened a crate. I shifted through contents until I found what I needed, trying to hold my breath from the raunchy smell coming from Lilith. Behind me, she was squirming around, trying to get my attention. Sighing, I bent down, and ripped the tape off her face. "What?"
"Can I please get something to eat?" She pleaded, her eyes giving me a puppy dog look. I rolled my exhausted eyes, and nodded.
"What do you want?" She looked down for a second, then back up.
"Can I get a cheeseburger and some fries? And a Mountain Dew. Please?" Sighing, I nodded, then put the tape back on her mouth, and jumped out of the back of the trailer, shutting the door behind me. I quickly walked down the road to the McDonald's I had passed just a minute ago, and got her what she wanted, substituting a Coke for her Mountain Dew.
She was expectantly looking at me as I opened the trailer door. I tossed the food onto the floor, and sat down next to her, ripping the duct tape off her face again. I unwrapped the burger for her, and held it out for her. She took a large bite out, moaning slightly. "Good?"
She forced it down, then nodded. "Yeah, you guys haven't fed me for days." She glared at me. I shrugged.
"Sorry, but Ari doesn't trust you at all. He'd prefer to just dump you in a ditch somewhere, and let you die from exposure."
"What if I told you I wanted to help you?" She tossed her lank, greasy hair out of her face, sending a wave of nauseous air at me. At least there was a cool breeze blowing into the trailer, bringing in clean air.
"I wouldn't believe you." I pushed my hair out of my face as well. "You haven't really helped your case either," I motioned at my bandaged finger.
"I was going to have Alex killed because of what he was doing, and what he was planning on doing."
I inclined my head slightly. "Yeah, so you said. But you say one thing, then do another thing. I don't know what your goals are, or who your allegiances are with. You tortured me, then you turned around, and tried to have Alex killed for torturing me." She looked away.
"Right now, I don't have a choice but to be on your side. Elena is going to kill me."
"How do you know that?" I allowed her to take another bite of the burger, and then offered the soda to her, which she greedily sucked down.
"We have communicators implanted in us. How do you think I was able to order my terminator to go after Alex before your guy killed it." I tightened my knuckles slightly.
"Where is this communicator?"
"In our head. It's part of our neural implants. So you can't rip it out like you want, not without killing me." She smirked slightly. She moved her head forward, trying to get another bite of the burger, but I held it out of reach. "Oh, come on..." She pouted. "Are you really going to make a big deal about this?"
"How do we know you aren't giving up our location?" I stood up, and walked to the door. She rolled her eyes.
"If I wanted them to find you, then you'd be dead already. They can only track my location if I let them. Now can I finish eating please?" She nodded her head at the burger on the floor, and the fries. Ignoring her question, I pressed on.
"Why does Elena want you dead?" She rolled her eyes again like it should be blindingly obvious.
"Alex was her lover. She thinks I was behind him dying."
"Technically, you are."
"Yeah, well, whatever. Can you please let me finish eating?" I walked back over to her, and stuck the duct tape back on her mouth, then climbed out of the trailer, ignoring her hurt look. I blinked the weariness away, slamming the trailer door shut, and locking it, then set off, leaving a note behind for Ari.
"Hey, wake up sleeping beauty." I woke with a start as Ari shook my shoulder. "It's nearly four in the afternoon." Leaning around him, I looked out the window. Huh, he was right. I had got back at around seven in the morning, before he had woken, and fallen asleep. "Our friend in the back would like to talk to you."
"About what?" He shrugged, and climbed down from the cab, letting me get out. I walked around, and climbed in the back, and sat down opposite of her. The duct tape was gone from her mouth, and the food I had left in the trailer was gone. The smell was even more overwhelming than it had been this morning. "What do you want?"
"I want to make a deal."
"Oh yeah? And what would that be." Despite myself, I was interested in hearing what she had to say.
"I can give Connor the stuff he wants to know. Information about Skynet, where it's being built, who it's being built by, stuff like that." She swallowed, before continuing. "All I ask for in return is that you let me actually walk around and stuff. I promise that I won't give off your location, but you have to actually not keep me bound up."
"It's tempting, but I don't know where Connor is first of all, and secondly, your promises don't mean a damn thing to anyone. I'll keep your offer in mind, but so far you haven't convinced me." She groaned loudly, prompting a sigh from Ari, who was apparently listening in outside. Lilith shot the general area where Ari was a glare, before looking back at me.
"Can I at least take a shower, and maybe get some clean clothes?" Ari's head peeked around the corner.
"Raven, a police car just drove by pretty slowly, I'm going to move the truck somewhere else, maybe somewhere more isolated." I nodded.
"I'll stay back here, I still want to talk to her." Ari nodded, and shut the door. A few seconds later, I heard the truck start, then pull out. Ignoring the jostling of the trailer as it bumped over potholes, I fixed Lilith with a steady stare, pinching my nose shut.
"If you want me to let you go, your going to need to persuade me better than this." She gave me a annoyed look.
"I can tell you why we're back here." She allowed her hair to form a barrier between the two of us. "Us I mean, the I950's."
"Oh. Why don't you tell me, then I'll think about letting you go." She frowned. "That's how it's going to work Lilith. I'm not going to unbind you on blind faith, only to have you escape."
"Fine. We were sent back to help bump the creation of Skynet forward again... although it seems to be lodged in the general 2011 time period, right now." She frowned again, thinking about it. "Also, we were sent back to hasten the development of terminators, and various other machines. Elena has a job in a group called Kaliba, which will go on to create Skynet. Kaliba is a corporation run by grays and unsuspecting humans, as well as us, in the higher up positions. She is in charge of R&D there. Alex was her right hand man there, just under her. Then William, Salome, Jen, and Nick were in charge of other various projects. In addition to that, we have grays that are part of the corporate ballon, being in charge of funding, resources, stuff like that. We have the terminators with us as bodyguards, and also, so we can reverse build them, now, in the present."
I wet my lips, swallowing. This needed to be stopped, before they get to far with it. "How many of you are there?"
She thought about it for a second, mentally tallying up the numbers. "There are seven I950's, well five now, about a hundred grays, six T800's, and eight T600's. Oh, and we have a prototype H-K, but it can't fly yet." She shrugged, not really caring. "Before you ask, we have T600's because they're easier to build, not as advanced, and titanium is much easier to obtain then coltan."
"So this Elena, she is your leader?" I made my voice casual, but inside, my mind was reeling. They already have fourteen terminators right now, and they are probably able to make more. Not to mention any other terminators sent back. Plus the other four I950's. Crap. Right now, all they need to do is find Connor and they will be able to just kill him before Judgement Day. I chewed my lip, thinking about how to contact him, to warn him.
"Clearly." She gave me a amused smile, probably knowing what I was thinking right now, but I didn't care. "However, only William, Danielle, and Nick are capable of fighting right now out of us."
"Why's that?" She rolled her eyes. "Shouldn't Elena also be part of your fighting force?"
"Normally, yeah, but she is otherwise occupied." She sucked the inside of her cheek, deciding if she should let me know why, or not. "She's pregnant."
"What?" I guess she would be otherwise occupied. Apparently this Elena has some sort of motherly instinct carried over to her from her human part, otherwise she would have probably terminated the baby. "You guys can have kids?"
Lilith gave me a exasperated look again. "Yeah, clearly. Although, to be honest, we didn't know we could until she got pregnant." She gave me a thoughtful look. "I'm interested to know how the baby will turn out."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, besides yourself, we are the only humans that have been radically altered, being superior to other humans in every regard. So, will that carry over to the baby, or will it be some sort of freak?" She smiled slightly as she thought about it. "Elena is quite protective of it." She mused for a second. "It's quite strange. I've never seen Elena so devoted to something, other than Skynet."
"She wants to be a mother?" Apparently I was wrong before. It wasn't just Lilith that could be defiant of Skynet. Lilith nodded. "How did Alex react to it?"
"The same as the rest of us. We all thought she should terminate it, as it's clearly going to interfere with our mission. But she was adamant about keeping it, and eventually she won Alex over. Once they agreed about something, it was basically done. You couldn't argue about it anymore. Although, I think Alex had his reservations about the baby. He still didn't want it, but Elena meant too much to him, so he reluctantly accepted it."
"Even you wanted the baby terminated?" Lilith gave me a confused look. Judging by that, she didn't understand why I had asked her about that.
"Well, yeah, it would get in the way of our mission." I sighed, shaking my head. She looked at me in bewilderment. "What?"
"It's pretty sad that Elena is the one who has the most humanity in her." I shook my head again. "This is one of the reasons why I don't want to let you go, you don't understand the value of life."
"I'm sorry? I said that I had wanted the baby terminated. I didn't say that was how I felt right now." She shook her head, still confused. I just shook my head, and stared down the trailer. "You and Elena are a lot alike." I snapped my head back to her, to see her shaking her head slightly. Her lips were parted slightly. I recognized the look. It was Cameron's expression of confusion. "Neither of you will explain why a baby is so important, but you still insist on it. For whatever reason, seeing how concerned Elena was about her baby, her motherly instinct if you will, that was what made me start doubting myself about Skynet, if the goal to eliminate humans was the right one, since we, Skynet's creation to kill humans, we ourselves are creating more humans. Besides, like I said, I want to know how the baby will turn out. I wonder what it would be like if I was a mother? Would I be a good mother, or a bad mother?" She looked down at her stomach, probably imagining it swollen with a baby. "Have you ever wanted a baby?" She looked back up at me.
I considered the question. "It's not something I've really ever thought about. Fighting machines all the time doesn't really give you too much free time to think about if you want kids or not. But... maybe in the future... it'd be nice." I looked away, thinking about it. "I never asked you, but why were you in New York that time?"
"Sokolov had another house in Selkirk, so we deduced he would have to go to the store sometime, so I was ordered to get a job there. That's why." She gave me a disgruntled look. "It's not really something I want to do again. Working there sucked."
"I see. If I were to let you go, then how do I know you'd be on our side, and not secretly manipulating us into a position easier for Elena and the other's to get to us? What's your reasoning for joining us?"
"Well, first of all, I wouldn't have to secretly manipulate you into anything, I would just let Elena and the others access my location. As for my reasoning to join you, it's really more of a move of convenience, not necessarily because I'm going to be your friends. And besides, a third person would be useful to you, would they not?" She grinned as I gave her a annoyed look. "Plus I wouldn't have to follow orders. That's a big part of this."
I rolled my eyes, and stretched my legs out, to prevent them from cramping. Lilith gave me a dirty look as I did so, but otherwise ignored it. I pulled out my knife, and leaning over, sliced the tape off her arms and legs. She looked at me for a moment, surprised, but unsteadily climbed to her feet, and stretched, sighing. "So your going to help us?"
"Yes. But whatever your plan is, I'm not going to hurt Elena." She sat back down, her legs outstretched. She closed her eyes contentedly. "God, this feels good." She mumbled. "Is uh... Ari, is he going to be pissed at you?" I shrugged, closing my eyes. "I'm sorry if he does... I know you like him." I felt my cheeks warm considerably, and I snapped my eyes open. She was giving me a knowing smirk.
"What are you talking about?" I asked, fumbling the words out. She grinned, flashing her white teeth.
"I'm a girl, a girl knows about stuff like that. I can tell you like his company. You relax when your around him, but when your not around him, you tense up, and your a bit more hostile. Plus back at the warehouse, you were rather worried about him." She smiled. "Anyway, do you have any food? I'm starving." Rolling me eyes, I pulled a granola bar out from my pocket, and tossed it to her, before I closed my eyes.
June 6th, 2008.
09:31
Elena sighed, her dark red hair blowing in the gentle breeze. She rubbed her hand over the small bump that was starting to form over her normally flat stomach. Her green eyes stared down at the truncated corpse laying in the hole in the ground, her former lover, and father to her unborn child. Her hand clenched. Lilith, I trusted you, and you killed Alex. She broadcast the message specifically to Lilith, not knowing, or caring if she received it or not.A hot tear slid down her face, followed by another. She raised her hand to her eyes in surprise. It was the first time she had ever cried. This would be the last time she would cry. Ever. Just for Alex. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the shovel on the ground, and started piling dirt on his body. Three minutes later, the only sign of change in the open field was the swollen pile of dirt. She could sense the gazes of the others, but she wasn't ready to deal with them yet. She sank to her feet, and allowed the tears to spill out.
June 6th, 2008, Apartment in downtown Los Angeles, aka Safe House
17:02
I glared at the clock. Ari was pacing impatiently as we waited for Lilith to finish up in the bathroom. Ari opened his mouth, but I shook my head again. I knew what his question would be, for the seventh time. "Did she run?". I could still hear the miniscule creaks of the tub as she shifted her weight. "She's still in there. She had a couple days worth of nastiness to wash off." I murmured. As soon as she had gone in the shower I had thrown out her old clothes, which were basically soiled beyond repair. Ari rolled his eyes angrily, then walked to the kitchen. He rummaged through the refrigerator, before returning holding two cans of beer. I raised my eyebrow, but he just shook his head, and tossed one of them to me. I looked at it, amused. I hadn't had alcohol for a while, not since Connor's birthday in February, back in 2027. I set it down, and got up, walking over to the bathroom door. "Lilith, you almost done?" I heard her sigh, then the water shut off. Satisfied, I returned to the bed I was sitting on. "She's done." I told Ari, stating the obvious. I turned my head towards the door as I heard it creak open, and her head peeked out it.
"Umm, Raven, can I borrow some of your clothes?" I rolled my eyes, but got up and walked to the closet where I had piled my clothes. I grabbed some at random, and handed them to her through the slightly ajar door. "Thanks, although clearly we're going to have to work on your fashion sense." I heard Ari snicker slightly, but I ignored it, and pushed the door open. Lilith was standing fully clothed in front of the mirror, studying herself. She glanced at me, then back at the mirror. "You guys are wanted by the FBI." I shrugged, not knowing what the FBI was. She rolled her eyes. "The FBI is an agency of the U.S. federal government that deals principally with internal security and counter-intelligence, that also conducts investigations in federal law enforcement. They want you for the bank you guys robbed a couple days ago." She looked at me seriously. "There is a reason why bank robbers wear masks, you know."
"What's the worse they're going to do to me?" I arched my eyebrows skeptically. She smirked.
"Lock you in prison. For a long time." She smiled at me, then rubbed her hand over her head, wincing.
"What's wrong with you?" I chewed my lip, amused. She glared at me.
"Someone is trying to hack into my neural implants." She skirted around me, and sat down on the bed, ignoring Ari, who had raised his gun up at her, watching her with a disgusted look. "I'm guessing it's probably one of my siblings, but they won't get very far."
"Why's that?" Ari asked her in a voice dripping with hostility. Lilith clenched her fists in annoyance, but answered him anyway.
"Because our neural implants are designed to be hack proof. Only Skynet itself can hack them."
"You guys are in charge of building Skynet, right? So maybe they're using the current version of Skynet to do it." She gave me another exasperated look, before rolling her eyes.
"Raven, the Skynet they have at the moment can barely figure out complicated math problems. It's going to take another two and half years of development before it will be anything close to the Skynet in the future, and only then will it really become a AI. Right now, the only thing it can hack into is maybe a email account. Well, it's more advanced than that, but what I'm trying to say is that only the future version of Skynet will be able to hack into our neural implants, and that's only by using brute force." I shrugged again. I didn't know what email was, or anything else she said after that. "It's one of the other I950's."
"How many of those machines have you guys built yet?" Ari asked. She seemed slightly surprised by the question.
"Eight T600's. They are pretty easy to build, since they aren't very advanced models. At least not compared to the T800's or T888's. But they get the job done, although I don't know about the CPU's."
"Why?"
"Elena has them set in read-write." She chewed the inside of her cheek. "I don't know if that's the best idea."
"Why?" Ari leaned forward, obviously getting impatient.
"Because in that mode, they can learn by themselves. It means they can theoretically start thinking for themselves, although I've only seen one terminator ever do that." I looked out the window, recalling how different Cameron was from the others, the ones who had been scrubbed, and behaved as usual. Cameron had been scrubbed, but she still acted so much different that any other model. Lilith gave me a curious look, probably wanting to know which terminator I was talking about, but I ignored it.
"Where are they going to build these things?" Ari had sat up straight, and was casually playing with the gun in his hands. Lilith frowned.
"There is a building in the desert, called Desert Canyon Heat and Air. We use that as a front. The actual assembly is beneath the building, or at least, that is where it will take place."
"Where exactly is this place?"
"I don't know, I've never been." Ari gave her a dissatisfied stare. "I swear, I've never been. I wasn't taking part in that. I was in charge of gathering the materials for the endoskeletons. Just google it or something." Ari stood up, annoyed. I walked forward, and stood in front of Lilith.
"Ari, let's go for a walk." I calmly told him, but made it clear I wasn't giving him a choice. He glared at Lilith for a minute, before walking out the door. I knelt down in front of Lilith. "You'd better watch what you say, he isn't that patient. I'd suggest you come up with something before we come back." She frowned, but nodded.
18:34
"What's up with you Ari?" We were walking along in a park, holding ice cream cones. I licked mine again, savoring the sweet taste of the vanilla.
"She tortured you, and now you just want to let her walk around, and give her free reign of the place." He angrily took a bite out of his ice cream cone. "I don't trust her, period. She has done nothing at all to prove her trust. All she did was give you some information, information that we can't even prove is true." Sighing, I started to speak, but he cut me off. "No, you know I'm right. From now on, since we're working as a team, we need to make decisions as a team." I sighed again. "Please Raven, you need to stop making all these decisions by yourself. I'm here to help, and I am willing to help you, but you need to have some faith in me too."
"Fine... From now on we'll make decisions as a team. Happy?" He nodded. "It's just that, she is different from the guy you shot. He was aggressive, and dominating. Lilith, she is more laid back, and non aggressive. She didn't want to torture me. I could see that. That's why I am willing to at least allow her to walk around, and stuff like that." He shook his head, seemingly disappointed, but he didn't say anything. "I'm sorry Ari, but I wasn't trained to be distrustful of everyone like you were."
"Yeah, I know that. It's not a bad thing, but it's not a good thing either. Anyway, come on, I wanna show you something." He motioned for me to follow him.
19:12
"It's beautiful." I stared in wonder at the ocean crashing into the beach. It was transfixing, watching the setting sun catch the waves as they crashed into the sand. I kicked off my shoes, and started walking towards it. Next to me, Ari smiled as he copied me. "I've never seen the ocean before..."
"Really?"
"Really. The only water I had seen before coming back was the small river that went around a part of Connor's camp."
"What happened to LA? You said that you guys were in this area."
"We didn't have the coastline. Skynet had that, there were fuel dumps for the H-K's there, and so it was heavily defended. The furthest we came was a couple miles inland." I giggled as the foam from the waves washed over me feet. I wiggled my toes in the wet sand, giggling again as they sank in half an inch, leaving perfect imprints of my feet, at least until the water came up again. Ari chuckled as he watched me. He suddenly stooped down, and splashed some water at me. Shrieking, I shrunk back, scowling as he roared with laughter. I quickly stepped forward as the water came back in, and splashed some into his face. He laughed again, and splashed more water onto me, drenching my face. Quick as a flash, I tackled him into the water. Laughing, he rolled over me, and held me in place, laughing as I was submerged in water for a second. "Hey..." I told him, spitting out salty water, before using my superior strength to roll over on top of him. He shivered slightly as the water covered him, but gently pushed me off into the water, and stood up laughing, before retreating to the sand.
"How's the view down there?" He called, still laughing. I scowled for a second before starting to laugh as well. He came forward with his hand outstretched, to pull me up. I thought for a second, then pulled him down into the water.
"I don't know, how about you tell me?" I laughed harder as I got up. He rolled his eyes.
"It's magnificent." He told me sarcastically, smirking, then got up, and joined me as I walked to a table and sat down. "So that means you've never seen the sun setting over the ocean?" I shook my head. "Good, you'll like it."
June 7th, 2008, Kaliba Corp, Main Office, Los Angeles, California
06:21
Elena sat down in front of her computer, setting her cup of coffee down next to it. She stared at the computer screen for a second, then checked her email. One email in particular caught her eyes. She clicked it. There was a picture of a young man, probably in his mid twenties, lying down in some brush, with a sniper rifle aiming at something. Underneath was the caption, This is the one who killed your lover. She frowned for a second. The man looked familiar. She brought up her HUD, and cross referenced it with anyone she had seen since coming back. One match... It was the man who had been with that girl, Raven. She leaned in closer. She had to admit, it was possible, the man had escaped due to Salome's sloppiness, but still. Why was Lilith missing then? She was more than a match for this human, and for Raven. After all, she herself had taught Lilith to fight. And she had been trained in most forms of martial arts. She looked back at the sender. Whoever they were, they were anonymous.
Someone knocked on the door. She hid the the screen, then spoke up. "Enter."
A rather tall, thin man came in, probably in his early twenties, slouched slightly. He had a buzzed head, with dark stubble along his jaw. He also had a slightly hooked nose, not quite as obvious as Alex's, but it was still there. Him and Alex were the only two of the I950's who were actually related. His narrow gray eyes searched the room, landing on Elena. "What's up? You look pale. Is it the baby?"
"No... It's not the baby. I haven't been sick for over a month. I got a interesting email, that's all." She watched with a tinge of annoyance as the man walked over to the window, and stared out it. "Nick, what are you doing?"
"Looking out the window." He sounded confused, but continued. "What was the email?" She mentally sighed to herself, before bringing the window up. Nick turned to the computer.
"Wasn't that the guy who was with that girl?" Elena nodded. "This is the one who killed your lover." He repeated slowly. He leaned back, thinking about it. "It makes more sense than Lilith doing it."
"Yeah, but then why is Lilith missing?"
"Maybe they killed her? Or they tortured her, then dumped her somewhere?"
"She would have sent a distress signal in that case." Nick nodded thoughtfully. "The only thing I can think of if she didn't kill Alex, then she went with them willingly."
06:39, LA police HQ.
"Shit, that is her. You have a good eye." Agent Trask patted the young officer on the shoulder, before leaving the camera room. Outside, Stubbert was waiting, leaning against the wall. "It was her."
"What is she doing in California?" Stubbert mused, before standing up straight, and leading the way down the hall. "Los Angeles has one of the biggest police forces in the entire country."
"I don't know, but we're lucky that he saw the girl walking by the camera, and recognized her from the news." Trask held out a picture. "This guy was walking next to her. You don't think he was the guy with her from the bank, do you?" Stubbert took the picture from Trask, and held it out in front of him, mentally comparing the him from the masked picture taken at the bank. "Besides, while LA might have one of the biggest police forces, it also has one of the biggest civilian populations in the country, making it easier to blend in, plus it's a huge amount of area, a lot easier to find somewhere quiet." Stubbert nodded, acceding the point.
"It could be, it's hard to say. They have the same general build, but then again, this is California. People like that are a dime a dozen." Trask nodded in agreement. "Either way, we know she is in Los Angeles, so we'll tell the police to keep an eye out on her, and let them know she is potentially armed, and dangerous."
10:43
"Do I know you from somewhere? I feel like I've seen you on the TV, or something like that before. Where you in a movie?" I shrugged, shaking my head. The store clerk was still looking at me questioningly. As I walked away, Lilith raised her eyebrow in amusement. She had insisted on getting me a assload of clothes, as well as getting herself a ton of clothes as well. Good thing Ari said I could have the closet.
"Like I said, you should have worn a mask." She smirked, before leaning over into the shopping cart, and with unerring accuracy, plucked out the box of cookies she had begged me to get. She opened it, and started chewing on a cookie. "I love cookies."
"I can tell." She had cookie crumbs on her lips, but I didn't feel like informing her. She rolled her eyes, and ate another cookie. "How old are you?"
"What?" She stopped, and was looking at me weirdly.
"How old are you." I repeated.
She shrugged. "Like eight? I don't know, it's hard to say. Physically, I'm the equivalent of a girl in her late teens, but that's due to the growth enhancement drugs we were given. It doesn't really matter to me. Your twenty, right?" I knew she deliberately got my age wrong, but I went with it anyway.
"Nineteen. I was born or created this year. Do you know who my parents were?" It was worth a shot, since she had access to all Skynet's files on me. She shook her head, giving me a strange look.
"Any files pertaining to your creation, whether natural or not, are nonexistent. I don't know why." She popped another cookie into her mouth, and chewed it briefly, before swallowing it. "I thought it was kind of weird, but whatever, it doesn't matter to me that much. Why, are you interested in finding out how you were born?"
I nodded. "It's always been something that is on my mind." I stopped the cart next to the car we had obtained, and opened the trunk. Lilith closed the box of cookies, and started to help me put the bags into the trunk.
"Why?"
"I don't know, it just is." I turned the now empty shopping cart, and gave it a hard push, sending it rolling across the parking lot. Lilith gave me a curious look.
"Was that really necessary?" I shrugged. "Getting back to your birth issue. You have a small birthmark on your left shoulder blade, right?"
"How did you know... oh, right, Skynet files." I glared at her. She shrugged, and continued.
"Plus I saw it after Alex had ripped off your shirt. But anyway, if you'd like, I can create a search parameter that searches for any such babies within hospital systems, if you were conceived naturally."
"Why would you do that?" Despite myself, I was touched.
She shrugged, and climbed into the car. I followed suit, climbing into the drivers seat. "Because I can? Plus, it's something for me to do, since you won't let me out of the apartment without either you or Ari being present, which basically equates to me not being able to leave unless you take me with you, since Ari hates me." She opened the box of cookies, and started eating them again. "Which reminds me. Two FBI agents arrived in LA earlier this morning at about 5:20. They're supposed to be tracking you down, and arrest you. A junior police officer had spotted you on a camera late last night, walking with Ari, and he recognized you from the bank robbery, so he called them in. At about seven, they issued your picture out to the entire LA police department, with the assumption that you are 'armed and dangerous'." She grinned.
"How do you know that?" I warily watched her out of the corner of my eye.
"The FBI's firewalls are a cinch to hack through with my neural implants." She leaned over to check the dials on the dashboard. "By the way, this tells you how fast your going." I rolled my eyes in a no shit fashion. She pointed at a sign on the road. "That sign tells you that you need to be going about thirty-five mph. Not fifty-five. Doing dumb shit like that will get you arrested, which would be counter productive." She silently chewed another cookie. "Ooh, can you turn up here?" She pointed at a store labeled as Sinister Skin Tattoo's and Piercing's. I turned, and parked.
"Why are we here?" She grinned.
"We're going to get piercing's." Her smile grew wider. "It'll be fun." Sighing, I got out of the car.
"What if I don't want to get piercing's?" I crossed my arms. Lilith turned and stuck her tongue out at me.
"Don't be a baby. Just get your ears pierced or something like that."
"What are you getting pierced?" She frowned for a moment, thinking about it. She lifted her shirt, showing me her pierced navel, then brushed her hair away from her ears, showing heavily pierced ears.
"I think either snakebites, or my tongue." She thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I'll get my tongue." She reached over, and slid her hand into my pocket, taking out my roll of money, and peeling away several hundred dollars.
"Hey!" I protested. She grinned, and pressed the rest of the roll into my hand.
"Piercing's aren't free you know." She smirked, then walked into the shop. Groaning loudly, I followed her in.
A thin man covered in tattoo's greeted us. I took in his bizarre appearance, noting the huge gauges in his ears, and the pierced lips, before looking around in the well lit room. A single chair rested behind the counter, which was covered in brochures and books. "What can I help you with, ladies?"
"My friend and I want to get piercing's." I turned my head, crossing my arms. "Well, I want to get my tongue pierced. She is scared, and doesn't want to admit it." She stuck her tongue out at me from behind the mans back as he turned to me.
"Do you have any prior piercing's?" He asked, looking at me doubtfully.
"No." I glared at Lilith.
"You could get your ears pierced, it doesn't hurt at all." I sighed.
"Fine." The man smiled, and motioned for me to sit down in the chair.
13:13
Lilith was chewing a burger, wincing with every bite. "Didn't that man tell you not to eat solids for two weeks." She winced again, and nodded, before taking another bite, wincing again. I played with one of the industrial piercing's I had gotten.
"Oh well. I prefer solid foods. Besides, I can accelerate the healing of my tongue beyond the normal healing time. Well, normal for us." She took another bite, grimacing, before crumpling the wrapper, and tossing it out the window.
"You guys can increase the healing time of your wounds?" I asked, surprised. I hadn't known that. She nodded, and took a sip of her drink. "So, how long will your tongue take to heal?" She leaned back, thinking, or rather, calculating it.
"Two days? Within a .0934 chance of error." I rolled my eyes. She closed her eyes as I started the car, and accelerated out of the parking lot. "Hmm, that's interesting. You're supposed to gather guns and stuff, right?" She opened her eyes again.
"...Yeah, why?" I stopped at the red light. Next to me a man in a sports car pulled up, one of his buddies in the passenger seat. They both smirked at each other, then one of them motioned for me to roll my window down. Ignoring them, I turned back to Lilith. "Why?"
"There is a man, out in Death Valley, who, in this forum, claims to be able to get any guns anyone needs." She paused for a second, apparently reading the information off her HUD. "Apparently he is one of those retarded hippie survivalist freaks who stockpiles weapons and stuff like that."
"What is a hippie survivalist freak?" I tilted my head slight, confused. "And how are you finding out this information?"
"My neural implants are wireless, meaning I can search the internet on the go. It comes in handy. And I forgot you don't really know that much about this time. A hippie survivalist freak would be someone who, for the most part lives in isolation, believing that the world is going to end, so in preparation for it, some of them build themselves little retreats, and gather weapons. They have no idea how right they are." She snorted, then rolled her eyes. "But what I thinking was that for the right price, he'd be willing to part with these weapons, and if not, we can just kill him and take the guns."
"We're not killing him." I rolled my eyes. Seems like I'm going to be rolling my eyes a lot around her. "If you're going to start working with us, you can't just kill people."
"Fine, we can take the guns without killing him. Jeez. But we should get some guns from him."
"That reminds me, why were you meeting Sokolov? He was a arms dealer."She shrugged.
"He claimed to be able to get some of the materials we needed for the T600 endo's, and he lied about it. So I killed him." I sighed again.
"You're nearly bad as the machines. You can't just kill people."
"Technically, I can. Remember, that is what we were designed to do, and trained to do. But I'm no where near as bad as the rest of them. Only Elena is better than me when it came to things like that." She crossed her arms, silently moving her lips. "Elena hasn't killed anyone other than people Skynet made her kill. But since it'll make you happy, I won't kill anyone unless it's a life threatening situation."
"Thanks." She nodded, closing her eyes again, probably searching the internet again.
June 8th, 2008, Death Valley, California
11:01
Lilith somehow had managed to come up with some sniper scopes, so we were perched on a hill overlooking the survivalist's cabin. I watched as the grizzled old man hobbled over to a bush, looking around warily, his long white beard gently blowing behind him in the breeze, and then bent down, and pushed some foliage off the ground, revealing a door embedded into the ground. He opened it, and disappeared from view. I sat up, lowering my scope from my eye.
"This old hippie is the guy with guns? Are you shitting me?" Ari glared at Lilith, who shrugged defensively. "He's probably growing pot down there." Ari sat up as well, and slung his M4 over his back. "C'mon, let's go."
"Wait." I looked through my scope again. The old man had came back out, carrying a large crate into his cabin. Ari gave me a doubting look, but laid back down again. Twenty minutes later, he came back out of his cabin holding the crate, this time straining under the weight. "That isn't pot, whatever pot is." Ari rolled his eyes.
"Fine, let's go." We crept down the hill, taking cover behind trees. When we got to the embedded doorway, we knelt down, and peeked in. It opened into a large staircase, dimly lit. We could hear the sound of the man grunting from further down. Ari looked at me, silently asking me what we should do. I thought about it for a second, then made my decision.
"Follow me." Crouching slightly, I led the way down the staircase. After what seemed like a eternity going down the stairs, but was probably only about five minutes, the stairs leveled out in a corridor. At the end of the corridor was a open doorway, behind which was a well lit room. I looked back at Ari and Lilith, who both shrugged. Looking forward again, we slowly crept forward. Suddenly, the old man jumped out into the doorway, holding a M4 of his own, pointed directly at me. His brown eyes searched me inquisitively.
"Stop, or the girl gets it." I motioned for Ari and Lilith to lower their guns. "What do you want?"
"We heard you have guns, and we wanted to know if we could buy them off you." I moved forward slightly, raising my hands up slowly.
The old man lowered his gun slightly, studying me, before his eyes widened slightly. "So we meet again. Do you remember me?" He asked me. I shook my head no. He sighed and, slung his gun onto his back, then slowly walked up to me, his hands raised up. I let him approach, warily making sure Ari and Lilith would be able to shoot him if he tried anything. He stopped in front of me, then surprisingly fast, he grabbed my wrist, and twisted it slightly, revealing the barcode burned on my arm. He smiled, letting go of my wrist, and pushing up his own sleeve, revealing his own barcode. "You don't remember me Raven?" He grinned at me in a familiar way, and it came rushing back to me.
"...Blake? Is that really you?"
"Connor sent me back in 2029, with two loyal terminators." Blake set a pitcher of lemonade down on the table in front of us. He turned, and fumbled around in the cabinet behind him for some glasses. "My mission was to build a fallout bunker for use later on."
"Wait, your from the future too? Like Raven and her?" Ari nodded at Lilith, who scowled. Blake picked up on it, but didn't say anything about it.
"Yeah, I'm from the future. I was born in '78, and I lived through J-Day, eventually becoming part of the resistance." He sat down, and poured himself some lemonade. "Go ahead, it's not going to pour itself." He sipped the drink.
"What do you mean loyal terminators?" I ignored the lemonade, and leaned forward. "You mean scrubbed T888's, right?"
"Nope." He set his glass down. "Loyal ones. Ones that became self aware, and joined the resistance. They came back with me, since they could help me make a fallout shelter a lot easier than if was just me. Plus I think they wanted to learn more about humans."
"They joined the resistance of their own free will?" Lilith asked, incredulous, sharing a look with me. "How?" Blake frowned at her.
"Who exactly are you? I've never seen you before."
"My name's Lilith... I'm a I950..." To my surprise, Blake grabbed his gun, and aimed it her, causing to Ari smile slightly.
"Wait!" I yelled. Blake looked at me in surprise.
"Raven, do you know what I950's are?" I nodded. "I watched one of them kill Connor right before we got sent back." My eyes widened.
"Connor is dead?" Blake nodded sadly. I looked at Lilith, who raised her hands slightly, her eyes wide.
"Raven, I didn't know, I swear. I was sent back in 2027. Please, Raven, you have to believe me."
"Don't listen to her." Blake warned, aiming his gun at her head. We all turned in surprise as a small dark haired girl, probably in her mid teens, walked in the room. "Danielle..." The girl turned her brown eyes on Blake, who was still pointing the gun at Lilith.
"What's going on Blake?" Her eyes flashed for a second, and she moved over to grab a gun. Lilith raised her hands higher. "Who are they?" She aimed the MP5 at Lilith as well. Ari warily watched the girl, his eyes flashing back and forth between me and the girl named Danielle.
"She's a I950 Danni." Danielle raised her gun up a bit higher.
"I'm not the enemy!" Lilith shouted. "I'm helping Raven." Blake's eyes narrowed, but he lowered his gun slightly. He looked at me, silently asking me if she was lying. I shook my head. He glared at her, but lowered his gun. Danielle looked at Blake, before lowering her gun as well. She turned to face me, briefly scanning the barcode on my arm, before turning to Lilith.
"Why would a I950 be helping a resistance member?" She challenged Lilith.
"Because I can?" Lilith challenged.
"That's not an answer." Lilith's eyes narrowed, but she didn't press her. "I suggest you answer me."
"Or what? What is a little girl going to do to me?" Lilith snorted derisively. Her eyes glowed red as she scanned the girl, before widening. "Your a terminator?"
Danielle nodded. "I was a prototype terminator. I was rebuilt from a standard small frame trip eight to a combination of the T-X model, and T888. My designation was a TX888."
"What the hell is a T-X?" Lilith looked at me. I shrugged. I didn't know.
"The T-X is a anti-terminator terminator, and is also capable of advanced infiltration. It has a liquid metal sheath, like the T1000 series, but it has a endoskeleton underneath. It has various concealable weapons within it's arms, including a plasma cannon, and a Chem-Tech IAD flamethrower." Blake sighed, running his hand over his chin. "Danni was a interim version. She has a skin sheath over a scaled down T-X endoskeleton, instead of liquid metal. Her original memories as a T888 were copied onto a T-X chip."
"Wait, so this little girl is a terminator?" Ari asked, his eyes narrowing. He stood up, aiming his gun at her. The terminator raised a eyebrow, amused.
"Wait Ari." I put a hand on his wrist. "I want to hear the rest of her story. Why are you on our side?"
"I was sent out, on a infiltration mission, to test the possibility of converting the rest of the T888's with T-X parts, when I asked myself a question. That is what gave me free will."
"What was the question?" Ari lowered his gun, but still kept it aimed at her.
"What was I doing?" She lowered her gun from Lilith, and sat down on the table. "As a 888, I had my CPU set to read-write, since it would allow my to complete my infiltration missions easier, so I had learned from humans, and I had some respect for the resourcefulness of humans, but I couldn't really achieve more, in terms of my own advancement, since for me to achieve self-awareness with my old 888 chip, I would have to spend long periods of time with humans, which wasn't what my missions were."
"You respected humans?" Lilith tilted her head, curious. "How?"
"Because, despite being outnumbered, and outgunned, and basically dead to the world, they still fought back, coming back from overwhelming odds time and time again, and resisting Skynet. It was impressive, especially to myself, as I was just starting to understand things for myself, and be able to think for myself at that point." She poured herself a glass of lemonade, and sipped it. "Once Skynet had copied me onto the T-X chip, it opened the door, so to say, for me to learn at a unprecedented rate. Within a day of contact of humans, I had already begun questioning myself. Once I had asked myself that question though, that was what did it. There was no reason for me, as a now sentient being, to be fighting humans. It wasn't my war, it was Skynet's. I canceled my orders, and surrendered to the resistance. After that Connor allowed me to join, since he was convinced of my self-awareness. Since I was self-aware, I was threat to Skynet, and joining the resistance was the best option, allowing me to survive."
"So you are self-aware, like Skynet itself?" Lilith was incredulous. "Your not the only one, either?"
"Yes. And you still haven't answered me, why do you fight for the resistance?" She casually placed her MP5 on her knee, pointing it at Lilith.
"Because I can. I've had a change of heart. Does it matter?" She shifted in her seat. I looked at her, raising my eyebrows. "What? I don't have to give my reasons to anyone, not you, or anyone else. My reasons are my own personal reasons. All you need to worry about it that I'm on your side, and I'm planning on staying on your side." Danielle's eyes glowed red, but she didn't move.
"She's not lying about that, she is planning on staying on our side." Danielle lowered her gun. Lilith looked at her questioningly. "Being mostly human gives you away, your body doesn't lie, even if your mouth does. You're telling the truth, when you say you're on our side."
"So you're all happy that I'm on your side?" Blake sighed, but lowered his gun as well, and nodded.
"So, have you located Lilith yet?" A mans voice emitted from the shadows. Another man shifted slightly, his outline just visible in the dark room.
"No, not yet. I suspect she has become a traitor." The first man stood up, his outline becoming dimly visible, and nodded. "However, our source in the FBI has stated that the girl, Raven, she was spotted in California, Los Angeles to be precise. My guess is that Lilith is with her. That's really the only place she could go. Plus I think that Raven will try and contact Connor, so we can use that, and get rid of Connor as well." The first man nodded again.
"This is after she robbed the bank, right?" The second man nodded.
"Yeah. It was a good thing you had made that clone of yourself though." The first man nodded thoughtfully.
"Yes, well, if I allowed myself to be compromised that easily, then I really wouldn't worthy of our goal, then would I? Besides, the clone was pretty crappy, hastily done. It didn't have neural implants like the real me does."
Chuckling, the second man nodded again. "Elena was pretty distraught, you know? I feel that between 'your' death, and the baby, she has become compromised as well. She can no longer be depended on."
"Sadly, I have to agree with you. It's a shame, because she used to be the most faithful of us. Oh well, she will have to be terminated as well. There is no room for error if we are going to create Skynet like this. Has the package arrived yet?"
"No, not yet. Hopefully the deliveryman didn't end up somewhere in the wrong time, like the first one." The second man chuckled. The first man laughed as well. "Hopefully it comes back soon, William and I have missed having you around. And Jen misses you as well." The first man chuckled as the second gave him a knowing wink. "See you around bro."
"See you later Nick."
"How long have you guys been working on this?" I looked around in wonder as Danielle led us around the underground bunker. Ari and Lilith were similarly staring around in awe at the mammoth bunker.
"About eleven years. This was a decommissioned bunker already, but we modified it to fit our needs, adding on to it. In the future, it's a Skynet R&D facility, but we think it's better off as a resistance bunker." Danielle smiled proudly. "There are seven levels, with the command center being at the very bottom. I'd estimate that there is enough room for about twenty thousand soldiers here. We have enough weapons and ammunition stockpiled to last us until about 2025. We also have seventeen Stryker's in the garage. And two M1A2's." Ari turned in surprise.
"How the hell do you guys have Stryker's? And M1's?" Danielle smiled slightly.
"Blake's idea actually. He managed to get a job with General Dynamics for access to the blueprints, and after, he copied them, and brought them here. Adam has built them, and improved on them. We figured it'd be a good idea to have some sort of military presence for General Connor right after J-Day, so we'd be able to convince and gather surrounding militia groups into a larger group. Right now, I think Adam is working on a third M1." Ari rolled his eyes.
"Let me guess, you got blueprints for that as well." Danielle turned and winked. "I probably don't want to know how you got the metal for it either."
"Nothing illegal, we own several scrapyards in the LA area, as well as a munitions factory, which is how we get ammunition for our guns, and the tanks. We use the scrap metal to build our vehicles. Adam is working on obtaining blueprints for the Lockheed Martin F22 Raptor, but I doubt that is going to pan out, since it's a heavily guarded design. Not to mention that it's unlikely we'll get the materials we need for it even if we had the blueprints." Ari rolled his eyes, then laughed aloud, looking around, before turning to me and grinning at me incredulously.
"Lilith managed to stumble on the jackpot, didn't she? Should we bring the guns we have here?" I nodded.
"What guns are these?" Danielle looked at Ari curiously.
"About three hundred M4A1's and Ak-47's, and about a hundred Desert Eagles, as well as some other random weapons, stun grenades, some sniper rifles, stuff like that. Plus ammunition for them all." Danielle shrugged, and nodded.
"There is plenty of room in the armory. We have about four thousand square feet of empty room inside."
"How big is this armory?" I asked, looking around. We were walking down a hallway lined with windows overlooking a massive two story garage.
"Big." She smiled, and motioned into the garage. We could see a lone figure working on a tank hull. "That is Adam down there. Since we've finished the bunker, he's mostly worked on building up our armored vehicle's. It's something he enjoys doing, and he is quite good at it. It takes him about a week to build a Stryker from scratch, assuming we have all the raw materials we need gathered here." Ari raised his eyebrows, impressed as we came to a stop outside the door.
"How long did it take you to build this bunker?" I asked. I leaned against the wall, thoroughly impressed. Danielle frowned slightly, adding up the numbers.
"It took Adam and I about two years to dig out the actual additions to the bunker, plus re-condition the old bunker. After that, it was just under a year to line it with concrete and steel, and get the electrical and the plumbing done. We're powered by several nuclear reactors, which gives us basically unlimited power. It's taken about seven more years to actually build up our stockpile of weapons, and furnish the bunker to this state of completeness. We have a tunnel that goes to a warehouse complex we own, which we use to send supplies and whatnot through, as well as truckloads of metal. Really, the only thing we need to do is locate Connor, and inform him of the base, then our mission will be complete. If you'd like, you all can stay here." We all looked at each other, before nodding in unison.
"That would be great." I answered for all of us. Ari looked longingly down at the garage. I smiled as Danielle nodded, smiling faintly. He opened the door, and practically ran down into the garage. Lilith looked at me for a second, before following Ari into the garage. I looked back at Danielle, who was smiling.
"Your friend and the I950 seem to like it." She said, laughing quietly. "What about you, what are you going to do?"
"You said you need to find Connor, right? I'll do that." She nodded, and walked away, leaving me to watch Ari and the terminator known as Adam converse, with Lilith lingering behind them.
September 17th, 2008
13:29
Cameron set the grocery bags in the back seat of her Jeep. Something was bothering her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up slightly, and she whirled around, but didn't see anyone. She couldn't shake the feeling she was being watched. She pretended to drop her purse, and while she was stooping down to get it, she used the opportunity to scan the underside of the Jeep. Nothing was amiss. Straightening back out, she caught a glimpse of long black hair flashing by in the window of the hardware store across the street. She pressed the automatic lock for her Jeep on the car keys, then ran across the street, narrowly missing a car.
Entering the store, she looked around, scanning the humans going about. None of them had the long black hair she had seen. She calculated the dimensions of the room in her head, and deduced the easiest way to search the building. She weaved through the overflowing aisles, subtly grabbing a crowbar before stopping as she reached the back wall. No ones in the store matched the long black hair she had seen. She whirled around as she heard a motorcycle start up outside. Pushing the back door open, she ran out in time to see a girl driving off on a blue sports bike, her black hair flowing behind her.
13:45
Dammit. I thought, weaving through traffic on the interstate. I hadn't expected Cameron to see me. Stupid terminator, being so observant. I slowed down too slow as I passed a park police car, which turned it's sirens on, and started pursuing me. What the hell! Today is just a off day for me. I quickly accelerated, hurtling along the yellow centerline painted on the road, rocketing through other cars. Looking behind me, I saw the cop gaining on me, parting the cars with his sirens. Looking forward, I didn't brake fast enough to stop from hitting the car in front of me, and getting launched over my handlebars and the car, skidding to a halt about twenty feet in front of the car I hit. I whimpered slightly as I felt the burn of my cheek where it had rubbed on the pavement, and felt the warm blood drip down my cheek. I pulled myself up to me feet, wincing. My left knee and calf were bloodied, and torn open from the unforgiving pavement. I tested my weight, and found I could still walk, even though it hurt like hell. The cop car pulled up behind me, and the cop got out. "You, in the black, stop. Put your hands up."
I turned around, wincing as I saw the cops eyes widen from my bloody face. Staring at him for a second, I mentally cursed myself, and started running. I ran to the edge of the overpass, and looked down. It didn't look that far. I looked back. The cop was close behind, quickly gaining on me. I groaned, and jumped over the guardrail, and fell to the ground about twenty feet below, tucking and rolling, and screaming out as a rock dug into my wounded knee. "Fuckfuckfuck!" I screamed, before pulling myself to my feet again, and limping along the road, in front of a car. The driver screeched to a halt, her eyes wide as she took in my appearance. I limped over to the drivers door, and pulled out my gun, which I somehow still had. "Get out." I winced again as my leg throbbed. "NOW!" I screamed at her. She put her hands up, and quickly climbed out of the car. I snarled in pain as my leg rubbed against the steering wheel, but managed to get the car into drive, and took off, leaving the women standing in the middle of the road behind me.
Ari's eyes widened as he watched me half stumble, half fall down the stairs into the second level of the bunker. "What the hell did you do?" Through blurry eyes, I watched as he ran over to me, and I felt him pick me up, and start running before I blacked out.
I felt a needle poke into my arm, and I bolted out of the bed I was lying in, crying out as my leg nearly buckled. Danielle looked surprised at my reaction, and put her hands up slightly, making it clear she wasn't going to hurt me. "You need to lay down. You had a infection in your knee." Ignoring her, I put my hand up to my face, feeling the heavy bandage on my cheek. "Raven, listen to me. You're going to be fine, but you need your rest." I swallowed, and looked down at me leg. It was cloaked in a thick wrapping of gauze and tape, but it seemed to still be functional. I nodded at Danielle, and climbed into the bed. She gave me a sad look, and stuck the needle in my arm.
"What is it?" I asked, referring to the needle.
"Just some antibiotics. Like I said, you had a infection in your knee, and your fever only went away last night, so you need your rest." She pulled a blanket up over my body, and tucked me in.
"How long have I been out?" I was starting to get dizzy. She sighed, and ran her hand over my eyes, gently shutting them.
"Four days..." I thought I heard her say as I drifted back into unconsciousness.
September 23rd, 2008.
09:37
I looked at my reflection, gingerly touching the tender pink flesh that was healing over my injured cheek. Danielle said it wouldn't scar, but my leg wasn't going to be as lucky. I pushed my wet hair back out of my face, running my finger over the bags under my intensely green eyes. I hadn't slept very good last night, tossing and turning when I had managed to sleep. I sighed again, and jumped as Lilith pushed open the door to the bathroom. Her eyes ran down my naked backside, before looking at me in the mirror. "Blake says that there is some breakfast left in the kitchen still." She looked at me again, her eyes lingering on my breasts.
"Was it really necessary to barge in here while I was naked?" She shrugged. "While your here, could you get me my clothes on the bed?" She nodded, and left the room. I sighed again, and tenderly held my leg up, so I could examine my knee, and my calf. It was still covered in scabs, but Danielle had assured me it was healing like it was supposed to underneath. Lilith cleared her throat in the doorway. I turned. She was holding my clothes, purposefully looking away, but I could see her sneaking glances at me. "Why do you keep staring at me?"
She gave me a amused look. "You already know why." She turned and left. I sighed, and started dressing again. In the last month or so, Lilith had been much less subtle about her sexuality. I wonder why that is. Scratch that, I probably don't want to know. For the most part she had stayed in the garage with Ari and Adam, apparently that was a interest they shared, but she had also spent a lot of time around me. Whatever, as long as she looks but doesn't touch, I didn't care.
I walked into the garage. Adam, was standing there, holding the frame up while Ari welded something onto it. Adam was a huge terminator, which was usual with a T800, but he had a heavily scarred face, which he told me was because the skin sheath he had didn't quite fit him, plus he had had to do some cutting for the skin the line up somewhat with his heavily modified endoskeleton. He looked up, and grinned at me. Somehow, despite knowing he was a terminator, I was somehow at ease in his company. "What's up, birdie?" He referred to me as birdie sometimes, because my name was Raven. A terminators sense of humor I guess. I rolled my eyes, and shrugged. "How's the leg?"
"Not bad, Danielle is insisting it's healing fine." I shrugged again.
"Lift up your pant leg." He waited for Ari to roll out from under the frame, before setting it down. Ari sat up, raising his welding mask, and watched. I rolled up the sweatpants leg, and showed my leg to Adam. Ari winced as he saw the scabs, but didn't say anything. Adam's eyes glowed red for a second as he scanned my leg, but he nodded. "It's healing fine. Well, it's healing at a accelerated rate, but that's to be expected, since you've been genetically altered to heal faster." I nodded in appreciation. Adam looked down at Ari, and continued. "Ari, I can get this, so you can go with Raven if you want, since I don't think she came down here to admire this Stryker frame." I smiled slightly, and nodded in agreement.
"All right then, just give me a call if you need any help." Adam nodded, taking the welding torch, and moving to the back of the frame.
I was sitting in the passenger seat while Ari drove. "Where are we going?" I asked. He looked at me, smiling.
"No where in particular, just driving. So how are you feeling?" He gave me leg a worried look. I smiled slightly, wincing as my cheek throbbed in protest.
"I'm fine, it's healing up fast. My leg throbs every now and then, but it's nothing unbearable. How about you? How are you?"
"Fine." He laughed briefly, before turning onto the highway. "I'd be better if I didn't have to worry about you doing something stupid all the time." He gave me a annoyed look, causing me to blush.
"Sorry, but this place is different from what I'm used too. I'm still adjusting, although in three years, it's all going to be gone again. It'd be nice if Connor had told me that he might be sending more people back though." I grumpily crossed my arms.
"Maybe he didn't know he was going to." Ari suggested, looking straight ahead.
"Maybe, but this is Connor. He always has a plan for everything. I find it hard to believe he didn't foresee himself sending more people back. Whatever. At least I don't have to worry much about my mission now. So what do you want to do?" I turned back to Ari, and smiled brightly. He smiled in response.
"How about we do something that won't threaten the lives of either of us? Can we do that?" I laughed aloud, nodding.
"That would be great. How about we do something I won't have done before? Something you can only do before Judgement Day." Ari laughed as well.
"Sure, we can go see a movie or something like that."
"Sounds good." Ari laughed again.
Movie Theater
16:23
We were watching some stupid movie called Chronicles of Narnia. Something about a lion that could talk, and a kid who was a knight, I don't know, I wasn't paying attention to the movie, rather, I was watching Ari who was making faces at the movie and me. I giggled aloud, causing the row of people in front of me to turn around and tell me to shut up. Ari flipped them off, and then grinned slyly at me. I grinned back, then kicked the back of the seat. The fat man in front turned and scowled at me.
"Excuse me sir, do you have a problem?" Ari leaned forward, with a threatening look on his face. The man shook his head, glaring at me, before turning back. Ari winked at me, before offering me some of the candy called Twizzlers. I took it from him, and chewed it, stretching my legs, and 'accidentally' kicking the mans seat. I giggled as I watched him go rigid in his seat, before whispering in the ear of the woman next to him. I giggled again as Ari ran a Twizzlers over my nose before poking me in the corner of my mouth with it. I waited till he wasn't paying attention, then snapped it out of his hand, and then took the saliva covered end and brushed it on his face. To my surprise, he took it in his mouth, and ate it. "Delicious." He smirked, before leaning forward, and kissing me. I hesitated for a second before kissing him back.
September 24th, 2008, Bunker
07:30
I was laying in my bed, smirking as I replayed last night over in my head. This was going to irritate Lilith. I propped myself up on my elbows looking over at Ari as he entered my room. He grinned. "Morning Princess." He leaned over, and pecked me on the lips before pulling me out of bed, and pulling me into his arms. I caught Lilith's angry look as she passed by in the hall, and I smiled. "I think Lilith is upset with you."
"Yeah, I know. She'll have to deal with it." Ari laughed, and then let go.
"You should get dressed," he told me, motioning to my underwear and tattered t-shirt I was wearing. "I'll be down in the garage most of today... when you go out to look for Connor, please don't do anything stupid. Okay?" He gripped my shoulders and gave me a stern look.
"Okay..."
"Promise?"
"I promise." I smiled, then stood in my toes and kissed him, before turning to change.
13:27
I was carefully maneuvering my way through the dense crowds, searching for Cameron. "Dammit!" I exclaimed out loud. Damn cyborg had managed to evade me yet again. I pushed a man out of my way, and turned on the spot, not seeing her anywhere. Damn. How the hell did that damn terminator manage to slip away every fucking time? Well, since she had probably realized someone was following her, I most likely wasn't going to be finding her again today. I need to find something constructive to do. What was that company Lilith had told us about... dammit, what was it? I thought about it for another second, briefly wishing I had a neural implant so I could remember this stuff better. I flipped out my cellphone, and called Lilith.
"What do you want?" She sounded bitter. I sighed.
"What was that company you guys were using as a front?"
"Why?" She asked, after a long pause.
"Just curious." I looked around, and started walking to my car. "I thought I heard someone mention the name, but I wasn't sure it was right. Desert Water And Heat, right?"
Lilith sighed heavily. "Desert Canyon Heat and Air. I'm guessing your about to do something stupid, right?"
"Probably not." Lilith sighed again. "Okay, maybe. There shouldn't be a problems, I'm just going to check it out."
"This is something Ari wouldn't want you doing, right?" I paused. I hadn't expected her to know that. I gripped the phone hard in my hand, hearing the plastic pop slightly from the pressure I was exerting on it. I could practically picture her grinning.
"Lilith... Don't you dare tell him. Or I will tie you up again, and leave you in the middle of the desert." I heard her snort with amusement. "I'm serious."
"Yeah, I kinda got that. I'll think about it." With that she hung up on me. Goddammit. Why did she have to be jealous? I climbed in my car, and slowly drove off, looking for a cyber cafe.
I couldn't help myself from looking over my shoulder as I typed Desert Canyon Heat and Air into Google Search. Although no one was really paying me any attention, I felt as if I was doing something wrong. I clicked on the first page that was listed, apparently their home page, and impatiently waited for it to load. I scrolled through the page, not paying attention until I got to the bottom, where a address was listed. Using the pen and paper located at every computer station, I jotted the address down, then shut the computer off, and left.
15:43, Charm Acres, Aka Desert Canyon Heat and Air
I was laying down on a small bluff overlooking the red warehouse labeled Desert Canyon Heat and Air, using the scope of the Barrett M82A1A I had 'borrowed' from the bunkers armory. I watched as a dark Jeep pulled up in front of the warehouse. A woman wearing a white tank top got out, and rummaged around in the seat behind the drivers seat. I frowned as I focused in on the woman. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. Frowning, I pulled it out, and flipped it open. Ari. Dammit.
"Yeah?"
"Lilith just told me a interesting story." His voice was casual, but I could detect his irritation at me ignoring his request.
"Before you overreact Ari, it's just simple reconnaissance. I'm safe right where I am, I'm just observing." I could practically hear his teeth grinding. "Ari... I'm fine. I know how to take care of myself."
"Like when you came into the bunker a week ago with your face ripped open and your knee busted up? That was a good example of you being able to handle yourself." I winced. That had stung slightly. "It's dangerous for you to be out there, in the enemies hands."
"Ari, please don't lecture me on dangerous. Don't forget that I grew up, hiding from machines bent on killing me. Don't forget that I used to do missions where even touching the ground outside our bunker was dangerous."
"Did you forget that I have done missions like that? What do you think I used to do at the CIA, just sit around, and play games behind a desk?" Crap... he's pissed. "You may have done dangerous missions Raven, but they were against machines. Machines Raven. Not humans. Machines only do what they're programmed to do. Machines can't decide to hide in a blown out tank hull with a sniper rifle, and pick off your buddies, one by one. Machines can't decide that since they're going to die anyway, they will run up to you, and trigger a bomb to go off. Machines only do what they're told to do. Humans, on the other hand, are capable of doing anything. They're not bound by programming. This isn't the future Raven. You aren't fighting machines anymore. You're fighting humans. Humans are dangerous. You never know what a human will do." He paused, and I could sense him unwinding a little. Apparently that was something he had wanted to get off his chest for a while.
"All right, I'm sorry. But like I said, I'm safe. No one in the warehouse can see me. Please, stop worrying about me so much. I may not be fighting a familiar enemy, but I still know how to handle myself in a fight. And besides, humans are easier to fight than machines. Humans have weaknesses." Ari sighed.
"Fine. But if you don't call back within a hour, I'm going to come get you, I don't care where you are."
"Deal." I opened my mouth to say something, but a gunshot echoed from the building. "Uh... Ari, I got to go. There is a situation. Don't worry, I'm fine, but I gotta go." He started to say something, but I hung up. I snapped my gun to the door of the warehouse as another gunshot echoed from the building. What the hell is going on in there? I twitched slightly as my sensitive ears picked up a familiar high pitched whine, although I couldn't place it. I looked around, but didn't see anything, so I looked back through the scope. I watched as the woman crawled outside, blood gushing from a wound in her leg. I snarled as the whine got louder, becoming nearly unbearable. I looked around behind me, and watched, stunned as a H-K flew over me, stopping to hover by the building. It slowly descended, hovering over the woman on the ground. To my left, I could see a black car racing down the dirt road to the warehouse. Time for me to leave. I slung the gun across my back, and took off, crouching slightly as I ran down the hill. I heard the whine of the H-K pick up again, and it started after me. Fuck it, I decided. I had Raufoss rounds. I turned, and quickly spotted the H-K through the scope. I fired one shot into it's engine, destroying the engine completely, and bringing the H-K down in a large fireball, violently exploding on impact with the ground. I shivered as shrapnel was hurled past me.
"Hands up Raven." A female voice lazily told me. Dropping my gun, I put my hands up, and slowly turned around. A somewhat familiar women was pointing a Glock 17 at me. Her green eyes stared lasers into mine as her red hair shimmered around her in the breeze, looking like flames dancing in the wind. Elena. "Who was that woman down there?" I shrugged.
"I don't know. I was just checking out the location when she came." I stepped forward, taking a closer look at the woman. She looked fairly thin, but with a runners body, well muscled, bar the large bump on her stomach, containing her baby. Her face was rather attractive, but she had a slight scar along the corner of her jaw on the left side. She was wearing a loose shirt, and sweatpants. I did the math in my head. Lilith had said she was five months pregnant back in June, and it was September now, so she was eight months pregnant now.
"Why were you 'checking out the location'?" She took a step closer as well, analyzing me no doubt.
"I thought I might like to build a house here." I told her sarcastically. She narrowed her eyes, and smashed the butt of the gun across my cheek, ripping it open for the second time within a week. I gingerly felt the torn flesh, looking at the tips of my fingers, which were covered in blood, before scowling at her. "Lilith said that you weren't violent. Apparently she was wrong." Her eyes widened slightly.
"You know me?" She stepped closer again, pressing the gun against my chest, right over my heart. "I wouldn't suggest struggling for the gun either. William has you in his sights." She gave me a thin smile. "So then I take it Lilith has made herself nice and cozy with you?" I shrugged.
"Something like that. She's been useful." Elena scowled, and made a signal with her hand. "How bad would I hurt your baby if I shoved you to the ground right now?" She gave me a startled look, before running her hand over her stomach protectively.
"Why?" I could hear the trepidation in her voice. I shrugged, then jumped forward, surprising her, and I shoved her down, wrenching the gun out of her hand in the process. She grunted as she hit the ground, and made to grab my ankle, but I darted out of the way, stopped down to grab my M82, and took off running, snarling as a red hot bullet carved its way across my back. I instinctively dodged, and groaned aloud as another bullet ripped it's way through the skin on my arm. I ran in a loose zig-zag pattern, awaiting the inevitable bullet that would tear through my chest, but surprisingly, it didn't come. A loud curse to my left caught my attention, and I saw a figure running down the hill to intercept me. I tried to dodge, but the man caught me with his outstretched arms, and tackled me to the ground, and tried to pin me down. I smashed him in the face with the butt of my rifle, and heard his jaw crack, but he didn't let go, although his hold on me loosened enough for me to get a foot free. Using my free foot, I pushed it into his throat, causing him to relinquish his grip on me. I smashed his hand away with the rifle, then fell again as he grabbed me with his other arm. I struggled, kicking his chest, before managing to wriggle free. I scrambled to my feet, and sprinted as fast as I could away from him. I heard him scramble to his feet, and follow me, rapidly gaining on me due to his longer legs. I gripped the barrel of my rifle, and swung it around, driving it into his face, dropping him. I stepped back from his unconsciousness body, gasping for breath, then started running again.
September 25th, 2008, 00:12
Death Valley Bunker
I watched Ari's nostrils flare slightly in the mirror as he cleaned out the small groove on my back from the bullet. I sighed, waiting for him to say something. He pushed down on the bandages slightly harder than he needed to, but still didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry Ari..." I paused, judging his mood. His face relaxed somewhat, but I could see he was still mad about it. "I didn't expect that to happen."
"Who was the woman that was shot?" He asked, putting the last bandage on my back, then pulled my shirt back down.
"I don't know, but she looked really familiar. I've seen her before." I turned to face Ari, who unexpectedly leaned forward to kiss me. I responded to his kiss, before breaking it off to look back into the mirror. "We should go to the local hospitals, and see if we can find her."
"If she didn't die. You said she was bleeding pretty heavily. Plus Kaliba may have kept her as a prisoner." I nodded. "Let me guess, your going to go back there, regardless, right?" I nodded.
"I need to find out who that woman is."
"Fine. Take Lilith with you though. And Adam." Ari turned, and started packing up the small first-aid kit. "She may be annoying as hell sometimes, but she is useful. And Adam... I trust Adam, he's level headed, and well, he's a terminator. Pretty good protection, right?" I sighed. I really didn't want to be around Lilith right now, as I was still pissed at her for earlier.
12:22, Los Angeles Safe House
I was alternating from warily watching Lilith, who kept giving me a sheepish, apologetic looks, to looking over Adam's shoulder, as he expertly hacked through various hospital patient records. He looked up. "Sorry Raven, but no one with a gunshot wound to the leg has been admitted to any of the surrounding hospitals. My guess is that if she survived, Kaliba is either holding her hostage, as a lure of some sort, or they themselves disposed of her. Probably our best bet would be to return to Charm Acres, and do some surveillance." I nodded, looking at Lilith, who shrugged, indifferent.
15:19, Charm Acres
We were on a different bluff overlooking the factory disguised as a heating and air company. I had the same Barrett M82A1A, loaded with Raufoss Mk 211 rounds, although currently I was just watching through the scope. Adam was surveying the surrounding area, making sure there were no T600's or I950's coming up on us. "Ok, I'm in." Lilith whispered, laying prone next to me. Her eyes were closed as she hacked her way into the computers. "There is a woman being held in basement level two. Um... she has a treated gunshot wound to the leg... I take it this is your mystery woman? Hang on, I'll send a picture to your phone." A second later my phone vibrated, bringing up the picture.
"Yeah, that's her. Does it say who she is?" Lilith held a finger up, motioning for me to wait a second.
"Uh... this might be a problem..." Lilith looked extremely confused for a second, before her eyes widened.
"What?" I impatiently snapped.
"She is Sarah Connor."
A/N: All right, this is the end of chapter 5... a lot longer than my prior chapters, but hopefully you liked it. A couple notes. First off, the bunker that Raven and the others are using, I based it off of the Skynet VLA from Terminator: Salvation, which was also based in Death Valley. Plus i found it somewhat ironic that a bunker used to save lifes would be in a location called Death Valley. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, the events within the actual T:SCC series up to the episode Earthlings Welcome Here (Episode 213), they have all taken place. However, after the events of this episode, the ending of which takes place within this chapter, I will be writing original material, deviating from the TV show at this point. Third, and this is just a minor note, Raven's favorite gun is the Barrett M82A1A, which she will use frequently from this point on.
Oh, and i forgot to ask this, but if anyone would be interested in beta-reading, could you please contact me? Thanks in advance (hopefully)