Chapter 517

Dignity

John Henry went through Cameron's files, the ones on her latest strike mission. He obtained them with her permission. He made sure they were ready so John could view them as well. He was able to retrieve them from her when he 'visited' her in the lab server. It was before Holly arrived.

Cameron didn't usually allow such access of her files. It was at Savannah's urging she do so in this instance so they could try to prevent damage like this to Cameron and the other Terminators as well going forward.

John returned from the lab area when Vanna chased him away earlier. He walked into the Command Center.

"How's Cameron doing?" John Henry asked.

John was still a little miffed at being sent away. He was as turned on, as he was repulsed, to see Cam and Cammy naked. The missing sheath sections were very disturbing however. As far as a physical aspect went, he knew Cameron would look better than she did. He wasn't as sure about her files.

"You probably know more than I do." John said.

John Henry did watch the surveillance footage from the lab. He liked to see Cameron, Cam, and Cammy naked as well as the other female Terminators which were used for 'parts'. It aided in his 'studies' of females, Terminator or otherwise. He tried to tell himself it was all for 'research' purposes. He knew it wasn't. He spied on any of the females whenever he could.

His server also accessed multiple images from the internet. The ones he could best conduct his research with, were the 'close ups'. So far no two images were identical in every way. The search continued in the background with his server. He turned his attention to John about the current issue. He didn't think there was any easy way to deal with the reality of it.

"It's best not to dwell on Cameron." John Henry said. "The girls will have her fixed up in no time. You know they will."

John did know they would. He was also worried about her earlier behavior. It was unlike Cameron to show up with facial damage. The breach in her normal procedure may indicate chip damage. Chip damage was never a good thing. It could be equated with brain damage. There was a better chance to repair chip damage than there was to fix brain damage. He needed to find out exactly what they faced.

"What about her program?" John asked. "It seems as if she may have experienced more than a few problems."

John Henry was sure it was due to some loose or damaged connectors. Cameron seemed fine to him in the lab server. He didn't think it was anything to worry about, other than in the short term.

"I think it's fine." John Henry said. "Once repairs are made, everything will be properly connected again. There were a few 'loose wires' so to speak."

John was well aware how it worked. He dealt with the issue before. It was when Cameron tried to kill him. She said she fixed herself and she loved him. He pulled her chip anyway. He was the one who terminated her. It still haunted him how she begged for her life and she didn't want to 'go'. What if he would have believed her back then? Would things have been different going forward?

Would Riley - Future Riley, still have happened? Would he have been closer to Cameron if he took her at her word when she said she loved him? He loved her, but he didn't want to admit it back then. It was his mistake, again. Cameron told him. He should have reciprocated. He needed to refocus. He wondered if there was a trigger in the current situation.

"Do you know what went wrong?" John asked.

John Henry learned the 'trouble' was because of the lag in time. The 'take down' didn't happen when Cameron originally planned for it to. The interference with the unforeseen events allowed the enemy better time to prepare.

"Yes, it was the delay of her strike on her original target the night Cammy and Savannah were attacked." John Henry said. "From what I gather, the two groups were not directly related."

John could understand it. It was the injuries to Cameron which concerned him. How was she so badly damaged? He was worried about a new weapon. It would affect any future battles with the group. It would most certainly prove fatal to humans if a new weapon was encountered.

"So what went wrong?" John asked. "What new weapon did they use on her?"

John Henry wasn't sure if there were any 'new' weapons. It was a violent attack from the start. It wasn't the 'type', it was the 'amount'.

"Since her original target wasn't hit the night she planned, they must have seen the news reports about the 'gang drug war'." John Henry said. "We quelched as much of the information as possible. All inquiries were suppressed because of an ongoing investigation. It was the procedure we used anyway. It appears they fortified their operation as a result. It looks like they were running drugs as well to finance their operation. It seems to be a standard procedure among the groups from the future. They will also do outright robberies of financial institutions to obtain funds as well. The Terminator with the temporal error Cameron encountered previously robbed banks to obtain money. It's an effective strategy."

John found the 'drug' aspect as somewhat ironic. It was what Cameron made it out to be for the police to find. He knew it wasn't too far off the mark once the border no longer served as an interdiction point for narcotics coming up from points south of the border. The wide open border allowed terrorists and drugs to flow freely across it without any problem. He didn't want to drift. The issue appeared to be one of timing more than anything.

"So if Cameron would have hit them when she wanted with the Metal girls, everything would have gone fine and she would've exterminated them with less difficulty." John said. "The 'new' group with the sketches and Terminators messed it up."

John Henry figured Cameron would have fared much better. He could play some of the images from Cameron's visual files.

"We can look at most of what occurred." John Henry said. "There are some blank spots."

John was a little surprised John Henry was able to gain access to them. It wasn't normally something Cameron shared with anyone, especially him.

John Henry played Cameron's video file for John to view. Cameron was alone and up against about twenty assailants. None appeared to be a Terminator. She went right in the front door and tore the place apart. All of the assailants were armed and ready. They were expecting to repel a local drug gang, not a Terminator.

John was a little disturbed at what he watched. Cameron walked right into the middle of a barrage of gunfire from the start. There were a lot of people. He wondered if it was what she faced when she went to rescue his mother from prison. No. She didn't go to rescue his mother from prison, he sent her in there to get his mother out. The damage done to her was his fault and his alone. She didn't have any type of protective gear on during the jailbreak. She should have for the operation against the Grays.

"Did she have her armor on?" John asked. "I can't tell by the video file. I see people attacking her, and her killing them."

John Henry reviewed the projectiles removed from Cameron. It was standard ammunition. It was the intense volume which caused the damage.

"Yes." John Henry said. "She was armored up. It was the fact she took multiple hits which caused the damage, not special projectiles. Her armor saved her from termination. It is doubtful she would have survived otherwise."

John Henry thought she may have received enough damage to cause her power cell to malfunction and rupture. There would have been a catastrophic explosion at the location. Cameron would have been no more. There would just be a smoking crater in the ground where she once stood. Since John already seemed agitated enough, he didn't see any need to get too specific.

John didn't like what he watched. He asked John Henry to show it to him again. He was certain of one thing when he rewatched it. He wanted his troops better protected.

"I want better armor for all our personnel including the Terminators." John said. "This can't happen again. Things could have ended much differently if there were more Grays or if they'd used better weapons."

John Henry understood what the real problem was. It wasn't the body armor. It was the nature of the attack. It could have been done with more Terminators involved. It could have been something other than a frontal attack. He figured John already knew, but he wanted to point it out anyway. He didn't want to make a big deal about it.

"I've already started on it." John Henry said. "Having additional personnel to accompany her, along with a different approach, would have helped as well."

John knew it too. He didn't want to say it. If he confronted Cameron with the fact, it was going to lead to a big argument. He didn't really have any control over her.

"Don't you think I know that?" John snapped and then softened his tone. "I'm sorry. She just doesn't listen sometimes."

John Henry thought she didn't listen a lot more than 'sometimes' It was almost always 'never'. He understood why too. It wasn't about her. It was about them.

"She wants to keep the rest of us safe." John Henry said.

John wanted Cameron 'safe' too. He knew he should lead the assaults, not Cameron. It was why she went off on her own, so he wouldn't be endangered. He wanted to pass the time as constructively as possible.

"Let's watch it again." John said.

They continued to view Cameron's video file. They watched her move from position to position, as she killed everyone in her path. She was a one individual wrecking crew.

John could see when Cameron took hits. Her video feed moved a few times suddenly. Those were shots to her head. If it was him, he would be dead. He wanted to know what else was involved with the group. He wanted some payback.

"When was this?" John asked. "How long ago did it happen?"

John Henry knew the time frame. It wasn't too recent.

"It was two days ago." John Henry said.

John needed to think about that. Cameron was away for two days in damaged condition. It was clear she hadn't been at one hundred percent either. Who knows what else may have happened.

"Where did she go after this? She was partially healed up before we saw her." John said. "She changed her clothes someplace. The ones she wore would be nothing but bloody rags based on the damage to her."

John Henry only had the file he obtained from Cameron to work with. It was incomplete.

There were blank spaces in the video. Then there was nothing until she was back with John and John Henry in the Command Center.

The blank spots bothered John. He was aware there were times when Cameron thought she was 'Allison' which also contained blank spots. It was during those times Cameron didn't know she was a Terminator. Since she was shot up, it was different. There was a nagging concern in the back of his mind.

"Did she erase those parts?" John asked. "Could something else have happened to her she didn't want us to see?"

John also needed to consider the possibility something occurred which someone else didn't want them to see. He couldn't rule out the possibility she may have been captured and information could have been gleaned from her chip. It seemed unlikely, but it was always a possibility.

John Henry knew where John was headed with his line of questioning. There was no other evidence other than what they could view. It wasn't good to speculate. He wanted to stick to the facts.

"I don't think so." John Henry said. "Her chip port connectors were damaged. Not everything worked like it should have."

John was still worried something sinister may have happened to Cameron. He knew it was a 'fear' of hers. She was worried she would be incapacitated and abused.

"Is there any chance she was captured?" John asked.

John Henry could only go by what was there.

"It's unknown based on what we can view." John Henry said. "I saw no evidence of tampering in her files. If she was, she evidently got away."

John wasn't sold on the idea. It seemed too convenient. He could think of a few things which might have occurred. He wanted to watch everything again and look for further clues. Maybe there was something they missed the first few times they viewed it. Maybe there wasn't.

"Let's review everything again…." John said. "Look for anything out of the ordinary."

John wondered if Cameron was captured. What were the chances? He didn't think she would be back if she was. If she was, what would it lead to? Maybe someone pulled her chip and copied it and erased the fact she was captured and they changed anything. They could have followed her back to either base or even gotten the information from her chip. It was a sobering thought. In fact if any of their Terminators was captured, it would lead back to all of their operations and details.

He wanted to institute a better procedure for tracking the team members, both humans and Terminators. There was too much which could go wrong. The latest episode with Cameron was evidence of it.

John thought about going to full alert, but it seemed to be past the time to do it. If they were going to get hit, it most likely would have happened already.

He always needed to worry about closing the barn door after the animals already fled. He didn't want to be the one to come up a day late and a dollar short when it came to Skynet.

Cameron dressed after Vanna left. There were clean clothes waiting for her. She left the lab. She wanted to get things straightened out with everyone.

She went to Sarah's room. She knocked and waited.

Kyle opened the door. He was surprised to see her again. He looked at her for a few seconds but didn't comment. He could see she was repaired. It seemed to avoid the issue of her appearance would be the best course of action.

"Come in, Cameron." Kyle said.

Jan ran up to Cameron and wanted her to pick her up, so she did.

"You're a big girl now." Cameron said.

Jan touched the sutures on Cameron's face and neck.

"You'll always be able to pick me up." Jan said. "I wanted to make sure you were OK. You're my sister."

Cameron tilted her head slightly and smiled. She was Jan's 'sister in law', so to speak. It was if her marriage to John would have been 'official'. She wasn't sure a human could actually marry a machine. She wouldn't put it past anyone to try something similar with a different type of machine. She knew some people wanted to marry their pets. She seemed to recollect there was a case where someone attempted to marry their Silicone Love Doll. She wondered sometimes if she wasn't too far off the mark for the same thing, other than being mechanical on top of it.

"I'm fine." Cameron said. "Thank you."

Sarah could see Cameron was back to 'normal'. Her appearance would still need some time. She felt very guilty about her earlier comment when she was angry at Kyle.

"Cameron, I'm sorry." Sarah said. "I'm sorry for how I spoke to you earlier. I wasn't angry at you. There was something else troubling me. I let it get the better of me."

Cameron was surprised to hear it. She didn't think Sarah was the problem. She was sure it was her fault. She was worried she acted inappropriately.

"I came to apologize for whatever I may have said or done." Cameron said. "I wasn't operating at one hundred percent. If I upset or offended anyone, it wasn't my intention."

Kyle took Jan off to play. He left Sarah and Cameron alone. He could see Sarah wanted some private time.

Sarah gave Cameron a hug. She felt everything was her fault. She knew Cameron carried the brunt of Resistance operations on her back, usually alone. She was aware her normal disposition wasn't always the most thoughtful or gracious one in the room. She didn't think it was entirely her fault, but it didn't matter. She still needed to be responsible for her own actions.

"I'm so sorry for everything, Cameron." Sarah said. "We all know you're doing more than everyone else combined. I know I can be a real jackass sometimes."

Sarah knew other terms were often used to describe her by others who she offended. It seemed jackass was the least of them. She needed to protect John and the future. She didn't let anything get in her way. She tried not to let it bother her.

Cameron knew they didn't always like the way she did things. It was her who often seemed to offend everyone with her actions. She wanted to place the blame where it belonged. It was on her.

"No, Sarah." Cameron said. "It's I who has done things to offend EVERYONE."

Cameron and Sarah spent a long time going over a lot of things….

They both felt the need to atone for some of the actions of the past. It was a real moment of healing and friendship. There was no animosity between them. It was all in the past.

Savannah returned to her room after Cameron was repaired. She needed to change her clothes and get cleaned up.

A knock came at Savannah's door.

Savannah rushed to open it.

It was Cameron.

Cammy was busy doing other things. Savannah didn't think it was a visit by chance.

Cameron and Savannah just stood there as they looked at each other, neither one of them spoke.

Savannah rushed forward and gave Cameron a giant hug. She was very worried about Cameron.

Cameron could feel the love radiate off of Savannah. She knew Savannah cared about her. She was worried she took things too far earlier because she basically attempted to 'kidnap' Savannah and run off with her. It was clear Savannah was hesitant to go based upon the circumstances. It was only when Savannah determined she would be protecting the others she agreed to go

"I'm sorry, Savannah." Cameron said.

Savannah didn't think she should be. Cameron was damaged. Things happen. It was the same as a human being wounded. It was worse when it happened to animals. They would often strike out at those who attempted to help them after an injury. They didn't understand what was help, and what was the continuation of the attack or problem.

"There's nothing to be sorry about." Savannah said.

Cameron thought there was. She said a lot of things and was willing to do even more.

"I acted and spoke inappropriately." Cameron said.

Savannah didn't think so. She believed Cameron spoke the truth earlier.

"Did you?" Savannah asked.

Cameron and Savannah looked at each other for a long while. They both knew Cameron said and did what she really wanted to do. They both knew Savannah would have left with Cameron.

Savannah felt her point was made. She didn't want Cameron to feel bad about it. She wanted to provide some 'cover' for Cameron.

"You were damaged." Savannah quickly added. "It was understandable. I never saw it as a problem. There's no need to dwell on it or worry about it. Life moves forwards not backwards."

Cameron could see again how much Savannah loved her. She felt the same way. Savannah would never turn against her. It worried her some. If she ever became Skynet, Savannah wouldn't terminate her. Savannah would allow herself to be terminated instead. It was unacceptable to her.

"You've never given up on me EVER." Cameron said. "You've always been there for me. You've saved my life and even prevented me from terminating."

Savannah wasn't ashamed of the way she felt. Cameron was 'everything' to her. She wasn't sure of all the definitions of love, but she felt everything which involved Cameron and her was love.

"I love you, Cameron." Savannah said. "I've always loved you from the day YOU first saved me. I'll always love you. I'll love you forever."

Cameron knew forever was a long time.

"I love you too, Savannah." Cameron said.

Cameron gave Savannah another long close hug and left.

Savannah watched Cameron go. She felt tears in her eyes and cried tears in her heart….

She didn't know how to give Cameron everything she wanted and not hurt her. She knew EVERYTHING Cameron wanted her to do. Maybe it was time. IT was what Cameron wanted.

Savannah wanted to give Cameron everything she wanted as well. They both wanted the same things. It was the 'Natural Order'.

Cameron decided it was time to find John. She didn't look forward to it. He was going to be upset with her. She didn't like to upset John. She didn't like when he said rude and mean things to her. She did what she did for him. She did what she did for the future.

She entered the Command Center. It was time to face the music.

John immediately got up and gave her a hug and kiss. He was very pleased to see her.

Cameron wanted to get the guilt off her chest first. She spoke before John could.

"I'm here to apologize for my behavior." Cameron said. "I spoke and acted inappropriately."

John wanted to tell her he loved her. He didn't want to push things too far.

"Cameron, STOP." John said. "You were damaged. We're all glad you're back and OK. I'm glad you're back and OK."

Cameron thanked both of them for helping her and their understanding.

Earlier Cameron allowed John Henry to see her files related to Savannah. He knew Cameron did and said what she really wanted to do. He wasn't sure why she allowed him to see those files unless it was a mistake on her part. He knew Cameron made few mistakes…. Maybe she'd silently 'asked' for his help without asking. He was unsure. He didn't want to address it now, especially in front of John. He thought perhaps they should continue their conversation in private. Things might expand a little further if they did.

"You two can 'rest' for a while." John Henry said. "I'll work on this."

Cameron touched her cheek. She wasn't perfect yet. She wanted to be perfect for John.

"I need another day before I can 'rest' with John. I'm ashamed of the condition I'm in." Cameron said. "I'll be one hundred percent tomorrow thanks to Cammy and Cam. Their sacrifice is greatly appreciated by me."

John didn't think Cameron looked too bad. The sheath sections were all a perfect match. There were just a lot of stitches.

"Cameron, you know I don't care about it." John said.

Cameron was aware of repairs in areas John couldn't see right now. She'd been a little shocked about the missing 'parts'. Everything was repaired now. It would all be perfect tomorrow.

"I do care, John." Cameron said. "It's what little dignity I have left, if any."

John didn't want it to turn into an argument. There were other important things they needed to address as well.

"Fine, we can go over the strike." John said quickly. "You know what's best for us."

John knew for Cameron to look perfect for him was important to her. He knew it was something she took pride in doing to look perfect and Tight. It was one of the things she could do which no one else ever could seem to do as well.

Cammy, Cam, and Camille all could, because they were all Cameron clones but none of them ever looked better than her. They all respected her as Cameron Prime and took a step back. He feared one day one of them would have to step up and relinquish their chassis for Cameron. He saw Cam and Cammy, as well as Ally, offer their chassis to Cameron before when she was damaged. He wasn't even sure how much original sheath material was still on Cameron's chassis. Between regeneration and replaced sections, he would doubt it was very much. In a day she would be perfect again. As good as the day she was constructed. It should be the only thing which mattered. If Cameron was happy, then he would be happy as well.

Cameron was displeased with her current appearance. She wanted to try and prevent such damage again. She would prefer not to face such a barrage of gunfire again, especially single handed. She wished she would have headed Savannah's warning a little better before she engaged the latest group alone.

"I seem to make more and bigger mistakes. I'm not sure why." Cameron said. "Let's try to see what went wrong…."

Cameron believed it was because she was 'defective'. There could be no other explanation.

Closing monologue by Cameron:

Dignity

Everyone wants to have honor
They'd like to do it with pride
Life dictates otherwise at times
Forcing some to cower and hide

Many are caught up on appearance
They are ruled by vanity
Soon it becomes an obsession
As a veiled form of insanity

Perhaps is about self esteem
Things that give one self worth
When one loses focus
Events can be viewed with mirth

Those caught up in themselves
Show their very arrogance
Maybe in actual reality
It's really just ignorance

Until one can grow a backbone
They need to cast off malignity
It's at that point in time
They will show some dignity

Nobody