The Rise of the TOK family
Epp 1
NOTE : I am not calling this a TSSC season three. First there are many of those already out there. Second, the focus is not on Sarah Connor, but on John and Cameron and yes – their kids. This is a Jameron fic, but it does start at the end of TSSC, and goes into the unknown future beyond that series.
LAST SEASON of TSSC
A flash of light and a translucent globe appeared in a basement, bolts of electricity danced between the globe and the walls, crackling with energy. Inside the globe two figures appeared. The globe disappeared, the electric arcs stopped. In the smooth concave surface of the floor left by the energy, John Connor and Catherine Weaver knelt, naked.
Reeling from the experience of time travel, John stood up and frantically looked around him. "Where is Cameron? Where's her body?"
"It doesn't go through," Catherine Weaver stated. She formed a coat and clothes of a resistance fighter around herself.
Small fires and a few bare bulbs lit up the wreck of what looked like a basement they had ended up in. It looked like people had slept here at one time.
Hearing voices coming and the bark of dogs, John saw a coat on a cot and snapped it up to put it on. The voices and dogs got nearer. Crouching down, he looked through a hole in the wall to a hallway to see armed men with dogs pass by in the hallway. Once they went by, he peeking out of the room. John figured it was best to go the other way. He walked out of the room and into another room in this underground maze to look for a way out.
In front of him, a man appeared from around the corner. Seeing John, he lifted his rifle and announced, "Got one, I got one!"
John stopped and threw his hands up in surrender. "One what?" he asked, afraid the man was going to shoot him. He looked back to Weaver for support. She was gone.
Turning back, John quickly said, "I'm not metal."
"Don't move! Don't move!"
Stuttering, John pleaded, "Please, I .. I don't have anything! I'm human!"
"I will blast you!"
Another figure appeared behind the solider. "Stand down," the figure ordered.
Walking forward, the second man came closer. It was Derek. Derek walked up to John, looking him in the eye. He glanced back at the soldier and said, "Look in his eyes, he's got about as much metal in him as you do."
John smiled upon seeing his uncle alive. "Derek," John said, relieved.
"Yeah?" Derek asked blankly.
John's smile faded as he saw Derek didn't recognize him. "John, John Connor." John prodded.
Derek eyed John, there was no recognition in his eyes at all. With a shake of his head, he said, "I know a lot of people kid, I don't know you." Turning to the soldiers gathering behind him, Derek asked, "Anyone heard the name 'John Connor'?" Heads shook.
John stared at them. Derek didn't know him. His mind spun, how could Derek not know him?
Turning back to John, Derek said in a huff. "Well, you know what? I think you're gonna be famous. My brother's back and you're wearing his coat."
Hearing footsteps behind him, John turned around. The man coming back up the hall eyed John as John gaped at him. Derek's brother. His father, Kyle. His father walked up eying him with the same suspicious gaze Derek had. As John's mind reeled from seeing him, John saw another very familiar face. Cameron, dressed in the same type of militia clothing came up behind Kyle, holding a dog on a leash.
John's eyes riveted on her. He watched intently as she squatted down and pet the German Shepard's head. A smile began to grow on his face. He'd found her! His smile faded as she cast her blank gaze on him. Again, there was no recognition in the stare she returned.
What the hell was going on?
Staring at the TOK series terminator he knew as Cameron, John's mind began to work. He'd come forward in time. He hadn't gathered survivors after judgment day, he never led the resistance. Here, in this time, he didn't exist.
"Who's this?" Kyle asked as John stared at Cameron.
"Says his name's John Connor," Derek replied. He glanced at John and added, "And he seems to be taken with Allison."
John snapped his head back to Derek. "Allison?" he asked weakly.
"Who'd you think she was?" Derek asked.
Kyle studied John. "John Connor, huh?" he said with a grunt. "Where did you come from, John Connor, and why are you wearing nothing but my coat?"
John snapped his head to look at Kyle. "I... was looking for someone," he said weakly. John had always wanted to see his father just once. Now, Kyle was standing right in front of him, and the man had no idea who he was.
"You found someone," Kyle told him evenly. "How'd you get in here?"
John glanced at Allison – not Cameron- again. "I'm not sure ..."
"You look confused," Kyle noted, then yelled to another soldier, "Bill, check back down around my bunk room, see if we have a cave-in. By the look of this guy, he just might have fallen in here."
"Right," a soldier said, and waved for another man to follow him.
"Find anything?" Derek asked Kyle, nodding towards the way Kyle had come from.
"We're clear, it was just the one metal that got in," Kyle said, then looked at John. "You had better find something else to wear. I expect my coat won't be dirty when you bring it back to where you found it," he added in a harder tone.
Derek slapped John on the shoulder, which caused John to snap his head back to Derek. "Come with me, I'll show you where to get some clothes," Derek said.
John took one last look at Allison, then followed Derek. He stepped carefully, there was a lot of debris on the floor, and his feet were bare. He remembered when Cameron had spaced out and thought her name was Allison. Was this Allison the one Cameron was patterned after?
Kyle watched them leave. Allison stood up, and leaning closer to Kyle and asked, "You know that guy?"
"No," Kyle replied frowning at John and Derek leaving, "But I'm going to find out about him."
.
Leading John to a tunnel that bore bodies scattered around and blood everywhere, Derek pointed and said, "Here ya go, kid. One of these people have to be your size." Eyeing John, he added, "And if you find a weapon, don't pick it up. Just tell me. I know you're not metal, but I haven't ruled out you might be a Gray."
"A Gray?" John asked.
Derek cast John one of his intent looks. "A Gray would say that. Grays are humans who work for Sky Net. They are traitors to their own kind. They infiltrate, work in Sky Net factories, do anything to have decent food and not be hunted down like we are." Nodding at the bodies, he said, "Get some clothes."
John stared at the bodies lying about. Many were men, a few were women, some were children. They all had holes in them and were lying in their own blood. "You're kidding," he asked, revolted at the sight before him. "You want me to strip dead people?"
"They don't need clothes any more. Be lucky they are fresh. After a couple days, you can't get the smell out." Derek stated. Indicating a soldier who was missing half his head, Derek said, "He looks about your size. Start with him. I'll take the coat, you don't want to get blood on my brother's coat."
Feeling dizzy, John slid the coat off and handed it to Derek. His stomach churned in revulsion as he stepped bare foot into a pool of blood. The red goo was cool and sticky. The man Derek had pointed out to him stared at the ceiling with one eye, the man's brains had partially fallen out of his half-missing head. Bile rose in John's throat. He fell to his knees and vomited.
"The longer you take, the worse it will be," Derek called to him.
Arms wrapped around himself, John shook from cold and disgust as he snapped his head to glare back at Derek, tears in his eyes. "Fuck YOU! This is... barbaric ...it's inhuman! How can you be so callous, these people have just DIED! Don't you have ANY respect for the dead?" John cried.
Studying John, Derek said in a dead calm tone, "Yeah, but this is our life, kid. That man you're about to strip? That's Greg Chandler. Damn good solider and he was my friend. He gave his life trying to stop the metal that was killing these people around you. He was one of the best people I know. But you know what? He is dead now. We don't have the luxury to mourn over the dead or build them fancy coffins. Their funeral, once we've stripped everything off the bodies we can use, is being dragged outside and piled up, then covered with whatever we can find to keep Sky Net from discovering them. Now get moving, he's going to be stripped anyway."
.
Stripping the clothes off a dead man was the most gruesome thing John had ever done in his life. He cried, he vomited again, then dry heaved as he got then man's clothes off. Of course, the clothes were covered in blood by the time he was done. The man had no underwear and when he died, his bowels had released.
John stood up and faced Derek in this nightmare he had time traveled into. Holding the bloody, stinking clothes in front of him, John trembled in cold and disgust as he stared at Derek who was calmly watching him. "Is there a place I can clean these?" he asked in a hollow tone.
Derek motioned for John to follow him, and walked back down the tunnel. Derek led him down another tunnel, this one rough hewn. As with the other places in this hell-hole, bare bulbs were strung out at intervals for light. Descending down a ramp, John had become numb. He walked along blank faced, feeling nothing.
Coming to a large pool of water at the end of the tunnel, Derek said, "Wash up here. When you're done, come back up. Someone will be waiting for you." Derek turned and walked back up the tunnel.
The water was cold. John barely felt the chill as he mechanically washed himself, then the clothes, trying to scrub off the blood and filth. As he worked, he made a decision. When he found John Henry, he was going to destroy him and take Cameron's chip back. Fuck whatever his future self's, or Weaver's plans were.
.
Kyle was looking around the bunk room when Derek returned with his coat. He watched Derek toss his coat on his cot. Derek eyed his brother and said, "I don't know what that kid is. He was clean and looked well fed, so he could be a Gray. On the other hand, he doesn't act like one."
"He's a mystery," Kyle agreed. Motioning to the disk like depression in the floor, he said, "Look at this. That depression wasn't here before the kid showed up. We searched all the walls and the ceiling. No holes, no cave-in. He didn't go past anyone before we found him here. There is no way he could have gotten in here. Who in the hell is he?"
Derek walked over and squatted down, studying the depression. "This looks like it was formed. It wasn't dug out, it's too damn smooth. Any ideas?"
"Where's John Connor now?"
"Washing up some clothes in the pit. I put Allison at the tunnel entrance to wait for him. I'll go get some people together to get rid of the bodies." He looked at Kyle and said, "We're going to have to move again."
Kyle nodded and scrubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I already sent out patrols to look for a place. Maybe this time if we leave the bodies, Sky Net will think they got us all, and not send any other machines."
"We destroyed that terminator, Sky Net will know someone survived," Derek told him.
With a sad shake of his head, Kyle said, "We're loosing too many people. Sky Net always finds us, no matter where we go. To knock out a single metal, we loose at least fifteen of our own." As an after thought, he said, "When that Connor kid comes back up, I want to talk to him."
"Will do," Derek said.
.
In the dim light of a single bulb up the tunnel, John wrung out the mostly- washed out clothes, squeezing them for every last drop of water he could get out of them. Thankfully, the socks and boots had been spared. They were not exactly clean, but dry. He got dressed in the damp clothes and went back up the tunnel.
At the entrance, he saw Allison sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, the German Shepard laid next to her, his head on her lap. As John approached, the dog's head came up, ears perked. Allison petted the dog, seeming to ignore him. John slowed and said, "Easy boy, I'm human."
"What are you doing here?" Allison asked. She then lifted her head to stare at him, blank faced.
John stopped. The flat tone she spoke in made him think this was Cameron. An unhappy Cameron. "I was looking for someone. Someone who looks very much like you," he told her.
Allison tipped her head slightly to the side in a very Cameron like way. "You are not resistance, you look too healthy. You also arrived naked. What are you doing here?"
"Cameron, is that you?" John asked quietly as he studied her.
She got up. The dog got up with her. "My name is Allison," she stated. "Come, Kyle wants to talk to you. He will ask you the same question. You better have an answer for him."
John followed Allison and her dog back through the wreck of what used to be basements connected by dug out tunnels, now holding the remains of humanity. They passed a group of soldiers going the other way, then passed a room of people huddled together. Allison took him back to the place he'd arrived at.
On the way, John wondered what had happened to Weaver. She'd been right behind him, then disappeared. He also watched Allison's gait, wondering how closely Cameron had been patterned after her. Allison did walk stiffly like Cameron did, but then again, her walk could have been copied as well as the way she spoke. From what he'd seen so far, there wasn't much joy in this place. It was downright dismal. He'd just arrived and he'd already had his emotions brutally beaten down. He could easily see having to live like this all the time would make anyone act like a robot.
Walking into the place John had arrived in, Allison announced, "Kyle, I brought John Connor to see you."
Kyle looked up from where he was sitting leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, deep in thought. "Thank you, Allison. We need another guard on the surface, the bodies are being brought out soon."
Allison nodded, turned and left. John watched her go.
"Connor!" Kyle barked to get his attention. Nodding to a box in front of him, Kyle said, "Get your mind off her ass and have a seat."
John sat down. He opened his mouth to say he wasn't just watching her ass, but thought better of it.
Kyle cast him a hard look and asked, "How'd you get in here, Connor?"
John swallowed. "I don't think you'll believe me," he replied.
"If I have to ask again, it won't be very nice. How did you get in here?" Kyle said in a harder tone.
John noted the TDE depression. He pointed to it. "See that depression? That's the mark left when someone time travels. The electrical discharge can also set off small fires, like were burning here."
"Really," Kyle said skeptically. "Where'd you come from, and why were you naked?"
"I came from the past. I was following someone. I was naked because non organic items do not go through the TDE ..."
"What is a TDE?" Kyle asked in a challenge.
"Time Displacement Event. I came forward in time to track someone down," John stated.
"Who?"
John looked Kyle in the eye and said, "His name is John Henry. He has something of mine, and I want it back."
"We don't have a John Henry here. Never heard of him," Kyle said, watching John closely.
John shrugged. "From what I know, TDE's are not an exact science. He could have landed someplace miles away, or a couple years into the future, or the past. I just need to find him," he stated.
Kyle nodded slowly. "All right, let's say you are a time traveler. Who's this John Henry, and what does he have that you need back so badly?"
John clenched his jaw. Giving Kyle the same hard gaze, he said, "He's a triple eight. Metal. He stole a computer chip. A very important computer chip that I need to get back to stop Sky Net."
"You just said non organic material can't go through a TDE," Kyle countered.
Frustrated, John clenched a fist and explained. "If a terminator is covered with living skin, it can go through. Any damage that exposes the metal underneath will stop it from going through. John Henry is completely covered in flesh. He looks just like anyone else, but his … mannerisms should give him away."
Shaking his head in disbelief, Kyle asked, "So, you're chasing a terminator who stole a computer chip from you, and you planned to face him naked with no weapon?"
"I couldn't bring one," John stated. "As far as how I can kill him, terminators are vulnerable to electric shock. It makes their system shut down. I've got 120 seconds to get my chip back and make sure he never gets back up," John said, stressing 'never'.
Kyle raised an eyebrow and asked, "How much of a shock are we talking about here?"
"Common house voltage, a tazer, anything to put some amps through them to make them shut down."
Kyle was silent for a moment, just watching John. He then asked, "Can you prove that?"
"Give me some live wires and point me to a terminator, and I will prove it," John said confidently.
.
Sarah Connor and Mr. Ellison stared at the place where Weaver and John had been standing. Cameron's body jerked involuntarily from a stray electrical charge that discharged from her into the computer rack behind her.
"What was that? Where did they go?" Mr. Ellison asked vacantly.
Stiffening herself, Sarah said in a rough tone, "That was a TDE, Time Displacement Event. John and that metal bitch just traveled into the future!" Walking around to the limp form of Cameron, she said, "We have to burn this body and get the hell out of here."
"Not here, there's a fire suppression system," Mr. Ellison said as he tried to wrap his mind around what he'd seen. "Ah, Sarah, we'll hide the body in a storage room, then we have to get out of here. We'll come back for it later. I'm sure police and fire department are on their way."
Sarah grabbed Cameron's legs. Mr. Ellison got Cameron's torso in a bear hug and lifted, grunting under her weight. Even though Cameron looked like a slim teenager, she weighed a ton. They took Cameron back into a small store room.
"Put her down, clear that shelf" Mr. Ellison said. He and Sarah then pulled everything off the bottom shelf. They rolled Cameron in, then stacked the boxes and wrapped computer parts in front of her to hide the body. Mr. Ellison locked the door on his way out, explaining, "Only three people have the keys to this room. Myself, Mr. Murch, and Catherine Weaver, who is no longer here. Unless this basement catches fire, no one should be coming down here. My car's in the parking garage. This way."
Fleeing out past the computer rack, they didn't stop to see the words on the monitor.
I'm Sorry John
I'm Sorry John
I'm Sorry John
I'm Sorry John
I love you John
.
Mr. Ellison walked quickly out to his car and opened the trunk. "Get in," he told Sarah.
Sarah eyed him warily.
Mr. Ellison frowned at her and said, "It will be easier getting past the guards and police if I do not have a convicted felon riding in the seat beside me. Get in."
Sarah climbed in, eyeing Mr. Ellison. She curled up, not quite sure she could trust him.
"It's not your first time riding in the trunk," he reminded her, and shut her in.
Getting in himself, Mr. Ellison drove up to the gate, where the guard was looking up at the smoke pouring out of the seventh floor windows. He rolled down his window and called, "Bert! is everyone out of the building?"
The guard jerked in surprise, just noticing him. "Ahh, I don't know, sir."
"Well find out, NOW! And open the gate, note what emergency vehicles come in, but don't try to stop them. If you can, get names, if not make sure the same number of people leave as go in."
"Yes, Mr. Ellison." Bert said, and opened the gate.
Mr. Ellison drove out to see the fire trucks and traffic control police were already here and setting up. People were still coming out to gather across the street. If he just left, he's arouse suspicion. He found a parking place on the street. "Hold tight, and stay quiet," he called to Sarah, then got out and walked over to the growing chaos.
.
Doing his job, Mr. Ellison collared the front desk security officer and verified everyone who had been working in the building got out, except for Mrs. Weaver. He then found the Fire Marshal and the Policeman in charge. He told them his story. He was heading for the security office when he heard a loud noise that sounded like it came from the floors above, and the fire alarms went off. He took the stairs and did his best to make sure everyone was on their way out, all the way down to the basement. Coming outside, he verified with his men that everyone was out except for Mrs. Weaver. He couldn't find her. No, he had no idea what happened, he was concerned with getting people clear of the building. Once he'd given his statements, He then excused himself to go pick up Savannah from her dance class.