I do not own Terminator: Rise of the Machines.
Surprise. This is the end of the story. For now. :)
Not A Church Youth Group Sleepover
The Waiting Place
" . . . nuclear winter . . . nuclear twilight . . . all vegetation dying out . . . temperatures just above freezing . . ."
"Just like the dinosaurs."
"Except we have bunkers."
"And they didn't have to deal with terminators."
"So there's that."
"Yeah."
More survivors have come.
Less than a handful.
Ragtag stragglers.
A man.
An old woman.
And a . . .
"Please, I know we can't but-"
"No, that's good, dogs are good."
"John, we have to conserve our resources, you said so yourself-"
"Dogs are good, Russell. They can sniff out terminators."
"Sniff out terminators?"
"Look, I don't know how it works. I'm not a dog. I just know they can sense them."
"A fucking Pomeranian can sniff out a killer machine? We haven't even seen any of those yet."
"Just trust me, okay?"
And the guy walks away grumbling to himself.
"Goddamn, couldn't've had like a fucking German Shepard, a pitbull, some Cujo thing, no had to get a micro-mop fucking Pomeranian, Jesus Christ -"
The dog stays.
And the dog plays.
". . . get it, boy-"
"She's a girl, actually. Her name is Porcelina."
The little boy, George nee Louie, stares at the disheveled old woman that he doesn't know used to be dripping with diamonds and furs and money and everything she could have ever wanted in the world.
And still couldn't avoid the machine apocalypse of humanity.
"Porcelina?"
The old woman, whose lawyer husband died in the rubble of the hotel he had visited with his escorts in more than he lived with their spacious house with her, nods.
The boy stares.
The dog, the fucking Pomeranian, brings back the little red ball she's so skillfully caught when it bopped against the rockwall of the V.I.P fallout shelter buried deep in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and rolled back to her.
She boops the boy's hand gently, tail wagging, the dog's, not the boy's, and he turns back to the furry little fluffball.
The dog yips, not an I spy with my little eye a Terminator yip, but a throw the little red ballie please, oh please, oh pretty please yip.
John Conner watches the boy pick up the ball, throw it, and . . .
"Hello? Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me, over?"
. . . smile.
Then he goes off . . .
"This is John Conner, Crystal Peak."
. . . to do the job he was born to do.
And Kate had been right.
Just because humanity was on the brink of destruction, did not mean every person was going to be a good one.
As it turns out, it isn't just terminators dogs don't like.
Yipyipyipyip-
It's also people.
Yipyipyipyip-
Not all people.
Yipyipyipyip-
Just some people.
Yipyipyipyip-
Some particular people.
Yipyipyipyip-
"- that fucking dog up?!"
"I'm sorry, dear, I guess he just doesn't like you."
"Your father said the first terminators had rubber skin, John, that they'll be easy to spot. But eventually, the machines will improve their design and make them look human, the 101s-"
And John Conner decides to stay calm.
"Well, just keep it the fuck away from me, lady."
And just keep an eye out.
"I'm doing my best, dear. It is a fallout shelter and you do have big fucking feet."
Damn. Go, Grandma.
I mean, ma'am.
Back when he was a kid, everyone not a true believer (hey, Mom) in the forthcoming machine apocalypse was afraid of the . . .
". . . Russians, man."
"The what?"
"Yeah, this guy, this military guy, I wrote his name down somewhere here, he said they'd heard from the Russians, man!"
And John Conner has to think on this.
Shit.
Mom didn't tell me what to do with the Russians.
We only ever got as far as Mexico and Nicaragua.
Still . . .
Human survival trumps borders and politics.
"Well, what'd they say?"
Todd used to try to make me watch The Hunt for Red October all the time.
"They don't have any submarines left, do they?"
Eventually it's back to the boy.
The little lost boy with the little lost monkey name.
The kid who's been quiet and still so often, who plays with the dog and cries in his sleep and never complains that there's no Oreos left in the machine apocalypse.
One day, John will have to put a gun in his hand, or in the hand of one like him.
One day he'll have to learn to fight and run and not die.
But for now, he's here safe, buried in the earth.
"Hey, uh, Ava, can I borrow him for a while? I could use some help."
He sees her hesitate, he probably said it wrong and creepy but . . .
"Sure. If that's okay with him. George, do you want to go with John?"
. . . he is John Fucking Conner.
And the little kid . . .
"Okay."
. . . nods momentarily.
"Okay. See you in a little while."
And goes with him.
"So, George, uh, I was wondering if you would help me make some pipe bombs to blow up the machines when we get surface level."
John has him in the open, right out where everyone can see them, at a low table where they can sit on the floor and work.
"You have to be very careful, can you be very careful?"
The kid nods, blue eyes wide and round.
"Okay."
And they get to work.
John's gathered the basics, he knows them by heart, could assemble them in his . . .
". . . said he grew up making them."
. . . sleep.
Mothballs, corn syrup, ammonia.
Pipes. Caps.
They go slow, he's very patient and careful, Kate's good with first aid but there's no way in hell he wants to chance the kid blowing off his fingers, he's a sweet kid and Kate and Ava will kill him for sure-
". . . very gently . . ."
"How do you know how to do this?"
John smiles, arms around the kid.
"My mom taught me. Said my dad taught her."
Guiding his fingers, protecting them with his own.
"Wow. All my mom ever taught me was how to take out the garbage."
John muses.
"Well, that's important too. And dangerous."
The kid looks at him in confusion.
John shrugs as much as he dares.
"What? You never had a soda explode on you? Or an old egg salad sandwich?"
The kid grins.
John grins back.
Then, as they set down the completed bomb, John grows solemn.
"So, I wanted to ask you a very important question, George. Is that okay?"
The kid seems to prepare himself.
"Who's your favorite Power Ranger?"
"You have to stay alive. You have to take care of each other. You have no idea how important you are. This is John Conner . . ."
Sometimes he wonders about them.
The people out there in the world.
The ones who can hear him, yes.
But also, the ones who can't.
The ones who are so far away, at the farthest corners of the globe, they may not know anything has even happened.
The scientists in Antarctica, the ones cut completely off from the world, save for the boats that come every month to replenish their supplies.
Long overdue now, those boats, but the scientists have backup, have survival rations.
They may be safe from the nuclear fallout, the machines.
Who cares about Antarctica anyway, right?
Yet, in a mere eighteen months, those handful of hardy thinkers and tinkerers and studiers will be slowly starving to death when no replenishment supplies arrives from the world that is no more.
And no way to escape their ice-encrusted bottom-of-the-world continent.
Maybe there's some tribesmen and women and children in the remotest seculsions of the Amazon rainforest who don't know, who see strange lights in the sky, smell strange tinges on the wind, develop strange illnesses and think the gods have become angry or restless and make sacrifices for their finicky appeasement.
They may never be found, never be crushed under metal.
May live out their lives in the same blissful freedom as their ancestors did for a millennia before them.
Maybe.
"My uncle had this conspiracy theory."
Ah yes, Tyler Russell's conspiracy-loving uncle.
John's heard more than one story.
And he's about to hear another.
". . . doomsday device."
"What?"
"My uncle believed the 'civilized' nations of the world had these megaton nuclear warheads controlled by satellites.
"What?"
"That if someone pushed the button and launched them all at once, it would start a chain reaction that would be so powerful, it would throw the earth off its axis, melt the polar ice caps, and flood the earth like Noah and the ark, killing all life on earth. Taking everything back to the oceans, square one."
And John just stares.
"I keep wondering, what if someone, some Mad Max nut, finds the launch codes, you know, they're out there somewhere."
And can't think of a single thing . . .
Fuck, man.
. . . to say.
But it still . . .
"Hey, uh, everything okay?"
. . . isn't over.
He's not a big guy.
But he's looming over her, over the teenage Noa, the new guy is.
The new guy.
The one the dog hates.
He's looming and Noa's backed away, almost into a corner, and all by herself.
Nothing's hapoening, not yet, the guy's just talking but . . .
"Hey, Noa, Kate needs another set of hands in the infirmary."
. . . John doesn't like it.
"Can you help her out?"
Innocence all over John's face.
Relief all over the girl's.
"Yeah. sure. no problem."
Irritation all over the guy's.
"Thanks. I really appreciate it."
And they go.
"Hey, Kate, I brought Noa to help you in the infirmary. Didn't you say you could use another set of hands in here?"
She turns and their gazes lock.
Come on, Kate.
For the briefest of seconds.
Go with me on this.
And Kate, boy, he loves her, . . .
"Yeah, yes. Absolutely. Thanks."
. . . does for once.
The guy is livid, beyond angry.
Stomping after John as they leave the infirmary and move out into the hall.
"What the fuck, man. You did that on purpose."
John takes another several steps to get them further away from the women they just left.
And whips around, glares at the guy, wishes he had a gun, knows that's the last thing they need wandering around in here, dreads the day they all have to start packing against the machines, against each other.
And the guy sneers.
"What, she's just some fucking chick-"
John Conner digs down deep to bring out all his tough guy attitude from when he was a scrawny little pipsqueak telling Uncle Bob to take care of the jock douchebag.
"She's not some chick, she's a person. And if she doesn't want you, then back the hell off-"
And the guy snarls right back.
"What? Or you'll shoot me? Don't we need all the humans we can get to restart civilization, beat the machines?"
Man, that is not the right way to human pair bond.
"If you're gonna force yourself on a woman, you're not human. And yeah, I will."
That's gonna to be a problem in the machine apocalypse.
Martial law.
It may have to be a thing.
The guy glares at him, full of manly bravado and self-righteous spite.
"So, what, you're the only one who gets to have a woman? Just because you were here first?"
And John worries he really will have to consider serious force.
Maybe with the help of the big guy Barnes brothers.
But instead, he just stands his ground.
"I don't 'get to have' her. We chose each other. That's how it works. That there? You were the only one choosing."
And then he takes a step back.
Gives one final command.
"Stop thinking with your dick. Or I'll blow it off."
He doesn't really know if he would or how law and order should work here in the apocalypse.
But he knows . . .
"You wouldn't."
. . . that he'll do whatever it takes.
"Try it and find out."
For humanity.
"What do you think?"
He doesn't have to wait long.
"Well, I suggest you blow his dick off."
John Conner smiles wanly. Katherine Brewster does not.
"John, a person like that will only behave as long as they have to. Until they figure out a way to get what they want. You know that."
He stares at his hands.
Kate stares at him.
"Sooner or later, he's going to cause trouble."
John nods.
"Yeah, I know. And I don't know what to do about him yet. I mean . . . can you, like, I don't know, teach her how to kick him in the balls or something? Fake him out with a paintball gun or something?"
And the joke goes unappreciated.
Fuck, man.
By both of them.
"Both the New Mexico Civil Defense and Colorado Civil Defense have reported machines doing sweeps, killing and rounding up people, and moving on, heading east."
Barnes studies him carefully, Kate too.
That's all he's ready to talk to for now.
"So . . . what does that mean?"
And John Conner both does and does not want to say it.
"I think it means we can search for survivors."
But he does.
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
And so it . . .
"Okay."
. . . begins.
So, Gentle Readers, I've got to go back to work and everything's going to get very busy for me for the foreseeable future so I'm going to shut this story down at this point. If I have another plot bunny, I'll open it back up or start new story.
This was always about human survival whilst buried underground and not fighting for their lives on the surface anyway.
I hope you enjoyed and happy reading of whatever you like.
Be safe, Gentle Readers!
And thank you, MadMikeE, it's been fun! :D