Chapter 91

Rampage

The four Terminators moved into position to grasp and pin Cameron down. If she went on a rampage, she could do a lot of damage to herself and to the others. No one was sure about what would happen next.

John held a Taser. It was armed and hot. It was ready to strike if needed. He didn't want anyone damaged unnecessarily. He wasn't sure what Cameron would be like when she rebooted. Vanna warned him Cameron might have 'gone bad', or reverted, and try to terminate him. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Cameron rebooted. It was as they feared. She went on a rampage. At least she tried to.

The four Terminators could barely keep her down as she trashed around violently. She seemed very confused as to what was happening.

John hoped to calm her down. Based on previous episodes, he wasn't sure if it would have the opposite effect or not. It seemed there was a better than even chance it might make things worse.

"Cameron!" John said.

The wild thrashing continued as the four Terminators tried to keep her down. John moved forward with the Taser.

John was ready to act. He tried one more time to reach her.

"CAMERON!" John shouted.

Cameron relaxed and stopped struggling. She looked around and tried to place where she was at. It was clear she was disoriented.

"John?" Cameron asked.

John moved up to where Cameron could see him. He moved the armed Taser behind his back so she didn't see it. It was still ready to fire. He was aware Cameron's behavior could be deceptive in an attempt to gain the upper hand. It didn't seem to be the case, but he would still need to use a certain amount of caution.

"I'm right here, Cameron. Are you alright?" John asked.

Cameron assessed her current situation. There was a disgusted look on her face.

"What does it look like?" Cameron asked.

John thought her statement said it all.

The Terminators who restrained Cameron looked at each other. They turned their attention to John. What happened next would be up to him.

John didn't like the optics of how things looked in the lab. He motioned for the four Terminators to let go of her. They did so. They were right there ready to grab her again. It could be a trick to get to John. They all still worried she might try to terminate him if she'd gone bad again and reverted to her original programming.

Cameron looked at the four Terminators when they released her. She understood they were there so she wouldn't need to be deactivated when she was incapacitated. It was clear John gave her the benefit of the doubt. It was something she appreciated. There was still a lot on her mind.

John wanted to give Cameron some options. He thought it would be better if she were the one who made the choices.

"Cameron, what do you want to do right now?" John asked.

The answer came easy for Cameron. It was something she thought about often.

"Go!" Cameron said.

John knew what it meant. He remembered when Cameron begged him before she 'didn't want to go'. He'd deactivated her anyway, even after she told him she loved him. Based on the current circumstances, the past images weren't something he needed in his mind. He was sure they were in Cameron's mind as well. He wanted to be alone with Cameron.

"NO!" John said. "I'd like everyone to leave, please."

Jesse, Allison, and Vanna watched everything unfold. They tried to not get involved.

Vanna didn't think it was a good idea.

"John, I don't…." Vanna said.

John cut her off. He still held the Taser behind his back.

"It's fine. Everything is OK now. Isn't it, Cameron?" John asked.

Cameron looked a little blank. She was extremely dissatisfied with the events which just transpired. She believed she was in control. She was aware it was what she often thought. She knew there were times when she wasn't. She didn't want to make a big deal about anything right now. She decided to keep it simple.

"Yes." Cameron said.

Cameron continued to lie flat on the floor. She made no attempt to get up or even move.

Everyone left the lab but Jesse. She moved over to Cameron and knelt down beside her. She reached out and gently touched Cameron's cheek.

"Cameron, I'll be outside. Everything will be OK." Jesse said.

The tears welled up in Jesse's eyes as they did in her heart. She joined the others outside.

Everyone waited outside in the hallway.

It saddened them all to see Cameron in such pain and hurting inside like she was.

"What do you think happened?" Allison asked. "I want to help her."

John Henry wasn't sure, but knew what Cameron discussed with him right before the current event. There seemed to be many more questions than there were answers.

"Cameron fears she may have created new timelines, or altered this timeline, trying to correct her 'mistakes'." John Henry said.

Vanna wondered about it.

"How?" Vanna asked. "When?"

John Henry didn't want to cause any more stress than necessary for the girls. He briefly went over some of the things they'd spoken of, and attempted to determine some of the events related to them.

"She thinks it may have been by going back in time and starting or stopping events." John Henry said. "Based on our conversation, she may think she is Skynet. It's possible Mrs. Weaver is Skynet. Cameron wants to go back to the future and return as a Liquid Metal Terminator."

The revelation sent an alarm bell off in Allison's head. The mention of the Liquid Metal Terminator bothered her personally.

"Do you mean like the one who assaulted John?" Allison asked.

It still creeped Allison out the way the Liquid Metal Terminator came after her and what it demanded. It was very unsettling to recollect the events.

Allison crossed her legs tightly as she thought about it and what it 'wanted' from her. It wanted her 'anatomy' and to 'absorb' her. She felt it was going to take 'what' made her a female from her. It sounded like more than to just 'copy' them. She was sure whatever might have happened, could have killed her.

John Henry knew it was all speculation on their part. There still seemed to be a certain amount of factual information associated with it.

"Yes, it may have been Cameron, or 'a Cameron', or some Cameron aberration." John Henry said. "There's no way to know at this point exactly what it was. It does however seem to be related directly to Cameron in some manner."

The impact of his statement hit Allison like a sledge hammer. She remembered holding her Model 66 pointed at it. What if it was some version of Cameron? They'd already acted.

"But we killed 'HER'. All of us did. We killed her!" Allison said. "We didn't find out what it was."

Allison remembered she opened fire first. She pumped all six rounds from her Model 66 into the Liquid Metal Terminator's head. She didn't want her anatomy absorbed. She still didn't know exactly what it meant.

The women now wore very distressed looks on their faces. The Terminators all looked at each other. The wave of guilt was heavy in the hallway. Allison's interpretation of the events was a very unpleasant reminder of their actions.

Bob felt it too as did all the Terminators.

"We didn't know it was Cameron, or 'a Cameron'. It was unstable. It was incomplete. It was going to attack you, Allison. It said it was going to take your 'anatomy'." Bob said. "We needed to protect you and protect John."

John Henry didn't think it was their fault they didn't know. They still didn't know. There was a good chance they were responsible for the unknown entity being there in the first place. If it wasn't for their actions with the TDE, it's doubtful the unknown entity would have been there at all.

"We don't know it was 'Cameron' either." John Henry said. "It may have been the problem. It may have escaped, or been interrupted from becoming 'Cameron' completely. Its instinct was to find John. We pulled it in from the future, some future, when we were running the TDE. It was drawn here and it found John."

Vanna wanted some specifics. The current guilt trip they were on was one she didn't want to take. They needed to take action with very little information. She wanted something a little more concrete.

"Do we have any facts?" Vanna asked. "Is there anything one way or the other?"

John Henry felt drained. He'd checked further into things after Cameron left him earlier. There were no answers. There wasn't much of anything.

"No." John Henry responded.

It's what the trouble was. No one knew for sure about anything. They already knew there were alternate timelines. Now maybe they were in one, if Cameron actually changed too many things…. There was no way to know. Mrs. Weaver too could have created new timelines with her vendetta against Skynet. There was still no clue as to what ever happened to her or where she ended up at.

More or different Skynets seemed to pop up. They ran across Skynet Terminators on several occasions. Where did they come from? Were they here all the time? Were they only being activated if a previous version of Skynet failed to do something by a certain date? Skynet could have 'salted' Terminators throughout time to further its agenda. It would seem to be an effective strategy to preserve Skynet's existence.

There were a million things Skynet, or different Skynets, could have done, or do. The fact Cameron herself wanted to go back, or into the future to alter events and create new timelines was proof of it. The goal of a Terminator was to achieve what they wanted, or didn't, want to happen. The collateral damage didn't seem to bother them.

It did appear the longer a Terminator was activated and in the company of humans, the more 'human like' they became. The infiltration units seemed to be the most affected. It seemed especially so for Cameron. Her association with humans was the longest. It was evident she developed 'feelings and emotions' of some type. They seemed quite 'human like' at times. Sometimes they seemed more intense than what a human felt. There were no integral safeguards to control them.

Time didn't dull them as it did to human feelings. For a Terminator any event was as if it just happened to them. Its impact had the same effect as the initial event. It didn't matter if it was five minutes ago, or five years ago. They felt it the same way when they thought of it.

It was a design feature built into Terminators to have them adapt to and emulate everything as much as possible. If Terminators were to be put into key positions, they would need to be as much like the person they replaced as possible to avoid being exposed as an imposter. For a long-term mission, it was more about impersonating than it was about infiltrating. Infiltration didn't seem to be a problem for most Terminators at the beginning. The level of their interactions with humans is what seemed to raise suspicions.

So far the team had only come across one known Terminator who replaced a human, to influence another human to do Skynet's bidding.

Wait.

There was actually another more flagrant example. It was Mrs. Weaver. She posed as 'Catherine Weaver' to do most of her bidding in the past. Since she could assume anyone's physical form, it was possible she replaced, or emulated, numerous other figures. They didn't know much about her or any of her related activities. Currently her whereabouts was unknown.

If Mrs. Weaver were to become Skynet, or some version of it, she could greatly advance her agenda on her own. She could represent key military or political figures, and turn control of a nation's weapons over to her version of Skynet without too much trouble or difficulty.

It was a sobering thought. There was no way to know what secret agenda any Terminator, or any human, would work to implement.

John and Cameron were alone in the lab.

Everyone else left like John asked them to. He held Cameron as he tried to comfort and soothe her. He hoped it wouldn't anger her in the process. He tried to reach out to her in the only way he knew how.

"Cameron, talk to me." John said.

Cameron didn't say anything at first, and then something just blurted out. She already determined what the problem actually was.

"John, I'm the cancer ruining every timeline." Cameron said.

John cringed a little. It wasn't the way he saw it. He was aware the trouble went back long before Cameron's creation or arrival.

"No, Skynet is." John said. "Skynet is the problem, not you."

Cameron said what she believed.

"I am Skynet." Cameron said. "It's what will happen. We both know it. We all know it."

John said nothing. Even if there was a certain amount of truth, there was no proof it would be so.

Cameron wanted to make sure he understood.

"I think I become Skynet, John. You must destroy me." Cameron said. "I want you to be the one to do it. I want you to be the one to destroy me. It will prove your love to me if you terminate me to keep me from becoming Skynet."

John ignored Cameron's statement. He wasn't about to kill Cameron to prove he loved her, even if it meant his own life. He didn't do it before when he could have. He sure wasn't about to do it now after everything which transpired. He thought it was best not to dredge up the past at this particular point in time.

Cameron got up.

John did too.

Cameron wanted to point out a few things specifically.

"I think it was me, or some version of me, who assaulted you in your room before." Cameron said. I believe the Liquid Metal Terminator was me, or some version of me."

John found some comfort in the idea, even as creepy and disturbing as it was. The very idea that it may have been 'Cameron', or some version of Cameron, and not some 'thing' else, was somewhat comforting. He always thought it was a new Skynet weapon. He was never sure since it didn't actually kill him or even try to kill him. If it really was some version of Cameron, maybe it's why it didn't try to. Maybe it couldn't because it 'loved' him.

He couldn't help but think about how the Liquid Metal Terminator didn't actually try to attack anyone. It only wanted to 'absorb' Allison's anatomy to complete itself. Based upon what he knew about Liquid Metal Terminators, it may have been as simple as just touching her. Whatever it was, they needed to know more.

"How is any of this possible?" John asked.

Cameron believed all the blame fell on her shoulders. She didn't see any other way to interpret it.

"I may have altered and changed the timeline." Cameron said. "I may have created new ones. I don't even know if this now is the correct timeline or an alternate one. I think I've done all this several times. I may have lived my life more than once."

Cameron now believed it was the basis of where her 'nightmares' came from. What if they weren't dreams, thoughts, or nightmares, but actual 'repressed memories' of past lives. All of those things happened in some way. She was sure of it.

Cameron's belief was a new revelation to John. Cameron could always replace her power cell, go back in time, replace or terminate 'herself', and relive her life over again from any point. If she 'reset' her chip to 'forget' what terrible events she left behind, each 'new life' would seem like the first, or same, life as she lived it again. She could do it indefinitely. Each time would create a new timeline as she did events differently. Maybe they were always the same.

John thought of Savannah's words. 'Cameron is invincible. Cameron is eternal.' Maybe it was why she said it. Cameron would be invincible and eternal if she could reappear in any timeline.

John shook his head and decided to continue. Speculation was just speculation. It was time to focus on the present. The past, or the future, were just both of those events.

"We're here together now, does it make a difference?" John asked.

Cameron wasn't sure. It shouldn't make a difference, but maybe it did.

"When we destroyed the Skynet mainframe, I told it I would terminate it in every timeline. I don't know why I said it." Cameron said.

John felt they needed to know more. Without some fact or proof, everything was all meaningless guessing.

"Is there any evidence any of this has actually happened?" John asked.

Cameron checked her files again. She came up with the same answer every time. There wasn't an answer.

"No." Cameron said.

John didn't see any substance to any of it. He wanted to know more about why Cameron believed what she believed.

"Well?" John asked. "There has to be more to it. There has to be something behind it."

There was still what Cameron 'wanted', and what already 'happened'.

"It was when I told John Henry of what I intended to do, he pointed out many of those things already happened in some manner." Cameron said. "It's when it hit me. Maybe I've done some already, maybe even more than once."

Cameron looked at her hand. It turned silver, and then morphed into a blade. Her eyes went wide with terror.

"CAMERON!" John shouted.

Cameron blinked. Her hand was still the same, a hand.

For a brief moment John thought Cameron was going to 'flip out' again.

There was a deeper fear inside Cameron.

"I'm sorry. My mind wandered." Cameron said. "John, I'm defective. I must be deactivated or reprogrammed. I'm a threat to you. I'm a threat to all of you."

John moved forward and embraced her as they kissed. He couldn't understand why Cameron would want a different body. Why a Liquid Metal one? He didn't know how to make Cameron understand he loved her how she 'was'. He would love her no matter how she was.

"Cameron, I love you no matter what." John said. "I'll always stand by your side. If you want a different 'body', I'll still love you. I love you, Cameron. I cherish you. We don't know if any of it's true, yet. Let's just deal with the here and now, not tomorrow or yesterday."

John knew life moved forwards, not backwards.

'Yesterday' by 'The Beatles', played in Cameron's mind as they walked away together.

Deep inside of her, she longed for Yesterday.

Cameron wondered if there was even a Yesterday - anymore.

Closing monologue by Cameron:

Rampage

When we look at life
Is it really a stage
Or is it actually
Nothing but a cage

Love may infect us
Like some type of phage
No matter how hard we try
We can't turn the page

Time is the enemy
It seems the more we age
The harder it becomes
To break free and disengage

Deep within each of us
A silent war does rage
To know if we can ever win
There's no way to gauge

Whatever this life delivers
Our soul it can't assuage
Leaving our mind to attack itself
In a never ending rampage

Nobody