Significant Change

by NightOnion

Summary

Terminator 2 AU. Action takes place a few years after the events of the second movie.

Eddie Furlong is one and only biblicaly accurate John Connor (and T2 3D battle across the

time is the bible)

T-800 never terminated himself, John still needs his protection, strength and care.

It is in human nature to destroy each other, so the world around them starts to burn. A story

about Significant Change and love that had no right to happen.

John knows nothing about timelines, or strings, or Significant Changes.

Maybe somewhere in the universe there is a John who loses him five days after they meet, in

a bloody steel mill, and never knows the taste of his lips, but already knows that he loves him

and that he is so loved, there is a John who loses him in a raid in Mexico, there is a John who

loses him on the highway, as a result of gunfire. No John has any idea of

all the variables,

variants and possibilities. He loses him always and in a million ways. From the axis of the

universe disappears something as impossible as machine's love, and suffering after it's loss

tears membrane of space-time.

Chapter 1

I'll lose you. Then I'll get you back just for a moment...just to lose you forever.

Sometimes images of John will appear in his memory. Brief flashes, fleeting fragments that

he can't place in time or explain their origin. In those flashesh John stands over him, his hair

shaved close to his head, his face older and scarred from chin to temple and eyebrow. Behind

him a wall of devices, codes flowing across numerous monitors, the steady hum of fans and

the beeping of machinery. The T-800 feels the slightest shadow of a touch on the index finger

of his right limb. Tears flow down John's scarred cheeks, making their way in the bright,

smooth troughs of scars and hitting the tin table on which T-800 lies. The Terminator wants

to raise his hand to wipe them away, but the movement center does not respond.

One thought...

Why are you crying?

Chapter 2

2002

John wakes up from restless nap on T.'s shoulder as they pull into a parking lot somewhere in

the middle of Texas's 68th. Spot of his saliva shines on T.'s leather jacket, just by the collar,

where his mouth touched it, he knows T. isn't disgusted by it, but he he wipes it quickly with

the sleeve of his green blouse. Black leather is relatively new (compared to the previous one

he'd had for four years), he'd stolen it for him from a Mexican biker shop for Christmass. It's

very similar to all the previous ones and generally fits the type of clothes T. likes.

-You okay? - T. turns his head slightly in his direction, but he is still focused on the road,

carefully maneuvering among the numerous cars in the parking lot. John is hot and at the

same time somehow cold, he is hungry, sweaty, everything itches, and he wants to complain,

but he is not 14 anymore, so he does not.

-Yes - he sighs, and squeezes T.'s waist thighter, pushes his nose into the place where hair

touches the collar of black jacket. It has always soothing effect on him.

-Find out if they have any rooms available, I'll park somewhere. John scratches his forehead

under his dark green headband and mumbles something in confirmation. Seriously, a bed,

shower, and dinner sound like a dream right now.

The motorcycle slows down and T. stops in front of the motel door. John gets off and watches

as for a sec as he moves away from the range of lamps, neon and reflectors. His legs are

numb, his butt hurts terribly, his spine screams for a horizontal position, he walks with

difficulty, angry at himself for allowing himself to doze off on the road. It never ends well.

The motel doesn't look too good from the outside and as it turns out, it's even worse inside.

The hallway is covered in dirty carpeting and the plaster on the walls is peeling off in places.

John looks around the room, but the thick cigarette smoke makes it hard to see anything. The

atmosphere is heavy and oppressive, and he's almost certain that they're running an illegal

brothel here. He doesn't worry about his IDs, he has three fake IDs with different names and

two fake school IDs. All of it says he's sixteen, nineteen and twenty-two. Depending on what

you need. But he doesn't like showing any IDs. Not even fake ones. IDs leave a trace. John

doesn't like leaving traces.

-What can I do for you sweetheart ?

John's vision finally adjusts to the dim light and smoke and he sees an outline in the corner of

the room and behind it a busty receptionist. He approaches with his most wicked smile and it

must work because the receptionist looks him up and down and takes a flirtatious drag on her

cigarette. She's in her forties, wearing a red sweater with a low neckline that reveals more

than John would like to see, a short leather skirt in brown imitation leather, her hair is teased

in an absurdly idiotic way, and when she smiles, there are traces of red lipstick on her teeth.

-Room for two.

-We're basically full but I'll make an exception. Are you alone, honey? Need some company?

-I'm with my uncle.

-Maybe your uncle needs it.

-I doubt it but I'll ask.

T. decides this is a great time to enter, because the bell above the door is ringing and he is

filling the space with its dominating presence. If the woman was interested in John, she is

now absolutely fascinated as she watches T. slowly approach them both, looking around the

room. John knows he has already counted the fire exits.

-Hello-he says in a dispassionate voice.

-Well hello big guy, so you are uncle- a wink- this sweetheart told me about. As I said we are

full, potato festive, you know, big deal in this area, but I think I'll find something for you.

She turns to the display case and John states that not only is the skirt too short, but it's also a

size too tight and the zipper is about to explode.

The blonde reaches for the key and comes out from behind the counter, grabbing T. by the

bicep and pulling him towards the door. John starts to feel irritated, teally really irritated

because seriously, it would have been enough to give the room number, thank you very much,

and secondly T. icompletely unlike him, not only does not shake her hand off his shoulder,

but he also lets himself be led.

-I don't believe it... -John mutters under his breath. but he shuts up. He really needs that

shower, dinner, and bed.

The room looks exactly as he expected: two old beds, nightstands - one has no legs, old TV, a

large stain of unknown origin in the middle of the carpet. Someone had put some effort into

cleaning it, but only a little.

The blonde, on the other hand, talks sweet and takes every opportunity to brush T's arm,

touch his chest, brush against him, or catch his eye,she winds around him, shows him around

the room as if she were the host of the Sheraton. John is not angry. John is not angry at all.

-Come here, honey- she is clearly addresing T., since he appeared in the doorway John does

not exist for her.

She steps into the narrow closet and pulls T behind her, transfers the cigarette to her other

hand, and presses her breasts against his broad chest.

-We're having power surges, if you turn on the fridge and the TV at the same time the fuses

might trip, but you look like someone who knows what you are doing. Well...she seems put

off by the total lack of interest, because she's not smiling so broadly and enthusiastically

anymore.

-Are you here for the potato festival?

-No-T replies

-Yes-John replies at the same time, but she doesn't pay much attention to it

-If you need anything, you know where to find me. Debbie will be serving you in the

morning. Have nice time !

The blonde leaves and John throws his backpack on the nearest bed, T. goes to the windows

and draws the dirty curtains, looking at the parking lot.

-Nice show-John mutters under his breath, taking off his sneakers-Old pipe.

T. doesn't comment and John is not surprised. He wants to say something more, something

spiteful, because he is tired and irritated, and that blonde was iritating, but seriously he

doesn't want to come across as a spoiled brat, and secondly T. won't recognize the reason for

his mood anyway. So he just takes sandwiches out of his backpack, goes to the TV, trying to

set any channel. The box creaks and snows, but after a few seconds of struggling with the

wires of the old antenna John manages to set the program.

Some idiotic game show is on that John doesn't know, he has no idea about the rules, but he

stares blankly at the screen while chewing his sandwich.

They don't have anything to put in the fridge, so neither of them even turn it on. The fuses

won't trip, the whole tits show wasted.

John shoves the last bite of his sandwich in and goes to the bathroom.

The bathroom is dark and small, with only one dim light bulb, the tiles are a horrible shade of

sickly green, the fittings are covered with limescale, mirror is scratched and cracked in

several places, but there are no cockroaches or bedbugs and it's relatively clean.

The shower stall is so small that John wonders if T. will even fit in there, let alone both of

them at once. But he's too tired anyway.

He takes a quick shower. The pressure is poor, the "Sheraton" doesn't have anything but the

cheapest bar of soap, the towels are yellowed and torn, but their very presence is a luxury in

such a place.

When he comes out, the room is empty. On his bed is a loaded shotgun and a brief note

saying "shopping." John slept most of the way there and has no idea if there are any stores in

the area, especially ones open at this hour, but T. has clearly spotted one close enough to

leave John alone in an unfamiliar place.

Ever since they left the safe place in Mexico, T. has been extraordinarily cautious. Almost as

paranoid (if you can call it paranoid when it comes to cyborgs) as he was in the early days of

their acquaintance, when they had the T-1000 on their tail. Now there's only a small risk of

being recognized by the police. Which would mean life in prison for John and, well, being

sliced

up in some underground, secret lab for T.

John isn't so worried about being recognized anymore.

He's no longer a chubby kid who comes up to T's waist. He's grown a lot in the past five

years, of course, although he's still annoyingly short. There's no hope of being as tall as T.,

because Terminator is just hudge, but a few inches more would be nice.

Oh well...

He looks at himself in the cracked mirror, he's rather thin, although he doesn't complain about

lack of muscles. In his rare moments of peace he exercises, with the approval and help of T.

He still shaves rather rarely, but quite regularly.

John reaches for a towel and wipes the wet strands of hair. He kept his hairdo, despite T.'s

insistence on changing it. He likes it this way. His hair are cool.

His muscles are still sore and he knows he should at least stretch, but he doesn't have the

strength to worry about it.

Tomorrow morning he'll exercise with T.

The Terminator has detailed information on human anatomy and is invaluable help.

Somewhere between that foundry and escaping Mexico, John decided that he didn't want to

be just a burden, a stupid kid needing protection, but that he had to protect T. The mere fact

that his technology should not fall into the wrong hands was a separate matter, but mere

thought of everything they could do to him, sent shivers down his spine and brought tears to

his eyes.

So John trained. He also trained in hand-to-hand combat, something that started as a playful

shoving match with T. turned into regular lessons. T. doesn't know any martial arts, he doesn't

have to, he could break the Titanic if he wanted to, so karate is a joke. He just annihilates

everything in his sight. But he reads and memorizes moves from textbooks, analyzes John's

moves, makes pointed remarks, and well, so far John has landed on his back more times than

he would like, but oh well... losing to a T-800 is no shame.

T. is also an endless encyclopedia of knowledge about weapons and military machines. John

is certain that he can fly practically any helicopter that has ever come out of a factory in the

world and start any tank.

Sarah Connor raised John from a young age to be a great leader. John's so-called

homeschooling consisted mainly of military equipment, tactics, analysis of great battles,

biographies of leaders. Sarah somehow put little emphasis on fractions, frog anatomy and the

place of arthropods in taxonomy. John thought that all kids learned to fly helicopters and

shoot bazookas. But none of his mother's subsequent buddies or herself could compare to the

compendium of information that was T. Although in other areas his knowledge was very

limited and superficial.

John, wandering around suspicious places sice he was a toddler, he knew veterans, smugglers

and arms dealers from a young age, had years of comparison.

At the age of 8, John tragically collided with reality. His mother was sent to a psychiatric

hospital, he to a residential care facility and then to a foster family, and everything he

believed in and knew about himself and the world, turned out to be a sick vision of his crazy

mother.

"Sorry kid, your mom is a psycho,"

John had to go to public school, where he did quite well, considering the circumstances.

Although he was one of those children who were called "difficult and maladjusted," the

teachers didn't like him. He was loudmouthed, rebellious and undisciplined. The fact that he

was at odds with the law, had a record for petty theft and showed no signs of rehabilitation

didn't help.

And then the T-1000 appeared, turning his life upside down once again.

Now there was no school, no probation officer to supervise John's presence in the classroom.

He taught himself, Sarah taught him before they decided to split up and confuse the pursuit.

T. taught him everything he knew, and the information he had was mainly about equipment,

types of weapons, ways of defending himself.

One day, lying on the cracked, dry desert earth, holding his ribs and groaning "why so hard,

asshole?" (T. didn't apologize. It wasn't that hard at all) he thought about the future.

Nuclear winter, omnipresent sand, dust, barren land, radiation, lack of food.

-What's it like there?" he asked-In the future?

T. didn't answer for a long time, but John could see that he wasn't ignoring him, he was just

thinking.

-I don't know- he finally answered and John looked on in disbelief.

-You don't know ?

-I have only the necessary files with information that I was supposed to give you and those

concerning the current reality

The files from earlier were deleted, including information about how I ended up in the

resistance and older version of you

The files were deleted John thought - along with the files from the time when T. marched in

the robot army, murdering people, ripping them apart.

,Don't think about it Connor, don't think about it..., he repeated to himself,he's gone, gone

forever and will never come back, there's T, only my T...,

T. who covers him with a blanket at night, sits next to him when he has nightmares, T. who

fixes clogged pipes and peels carrots with his mother on the wooden porch. T. Pulls him in

with his arm and hugs him to his muscular side, laughing at his unfunny jokes. T., who

occasionally runs a finger across his forehead, pushing back sweaty hairs.

T., who is learning how to be human and is doing quite well at it, because John loves him

with all his heart in so many strange ways that he loses himself in it. John knows that T. loves

him too. Even though he hasn't said it yet. He sees it in small gestures, the frown on his

forehead when John is sick, the way he looks at him.

John couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when the adoration for his guardian began to shift

into something else, but when, during puberty and a storm of hormones, you're with someone

so perfectly ideal, so deeply devoted, so different from the rest of the world, when your

existence depends on that one being for whom you are the center of the universe, who would

burned down whole world to keep you safe, then mixed emotions are not surprising.

He realizes that he is in love with T. one September evening in Mexico. He sits in the open

doorway of a truck, parked outside their cottage somewhere on the border with the States,

secretly smoking a cigarette. T. is talking to his mother, in his hand he has a small radio that

they use to eavesdrop on police frequencies. It's broken, T is just taking the cover off.

From this distance he can't hear what they are talking about, but it must be something about

politics, because his mother is gesturing lively and with emotion. T., as usual, answers calmly

and matter-of-factly. He has a screwdriver in his mouth, he nods from time to time, seems

fully focused on the small mechanism of the radio, but sometimes looks up, expressing

interest in what Sarah has to say. John watches him from afar as if hypnotized, the delicate

movement of his fingers on the precise mechanism, the play of muscles beneath his dark

green T-shirt, the look of concentration on his handsome face, the occasional small smile.

Bon Jovi howls in his headphones that he will love someone always, and John feels it like a

punch in the gut.

He loves him. But not just loves him, but loves loves. He's in love. He's head over heels in

love with that machine and holly shit, he wants to cry and scream in this goddamn truck

because he has no fucking idea what the hell he's supposed to do about it.

And it wasn't about him being male. John had long ago discovered that he liked girls, but

some boys too. And somehow it fit his personality, because hey, fuck the rules. But he was

the Terminator. A bloody nearly two-meter-tall cyborg, with superhuman strength. So what if

he was just as superhumanly handsome and and built like a greek god

Holy shit.

Congratulations Connor, seriously, you can't be normal.

Since then, he had been absolutely devastated, completely and undeniably certain that this

was the end of his happy life, and he would sink into the deepest depths of despair and

sadness, because what the hell was his happy ending supposed to look like ? But life decided

to spare him suffering this time and T. always surprised him anyway.

Well...

Surprises, surprises.

He is torn from his reverie by the slamming of the door and T. comes in with a small

shopping bag. He hands it to him and takes off his heavy combat boots. He kicks them under

the bed.

John opens the bag, inside there are some bacon, salami, a cucumber, a travel pack of butter,

four cans of beer and three magazines. Fishing, aviation history and a glossy magazine about

bands for John.

-Oh cool! Thanks.

A nod and T. heads towards the bathroom. John opens a beer and sits on the bed with the

magazine. After a while he decides to have another sandwich. He is hungry again. He is

hungry all the time these days. And horny.

God, it's torture to be seventeen.

The sound of water and the crackling of pipes stop and T. emerges from the bathroom in all

his water-soaked glory, wearing only the Batman boxers John had given him. John found this

extremely amusing, for T. they were good as any. Now John couldn't take his eyes off him as

the water dripped from his closely cropped hair, trimmed on one side, flowed down the

perfect abdominal muscles.

It took John about two weeks to convince T. that for the new haircut and that an asymetrical

shave on one side of his head was something he absolutely needed. T. was obviously

skeptical about any changes, but finally agreed with a quiet, "if you like them that way."

John happily grabbed the razor and if T. looked like a bad ass before, he looked absolutely

killer now. John swore to himself that one day he would convince him to get an earring.

T. crossed the distance between the door and the bed in two long strides, he sits on the

creaking bed, reach for the fishing magazine, lean against the headboard, and gently pull John

onto his bare chest.

John leans against him with a quiet sigh and wipes his buttered hand on the not-so-clean

bedspread. He'll probably have to leave the paper at the motel- they don't have the space to

collect stuff like that, but there's something fundamentally wrong with smearing Joe Perry's

face with butter.

John didn't go to school, he was never very good at biology, but T. explained to him how the

human brain learns. Neurotransmitters, synapses, and shit. How T. learned was a mystery to

both of them. They had no idea where certain needs came from, where they were born and

accumulated. But they were there, and every time T. bought something for himself, some

unspeakable warmth was inside John chest and he felt moisture in his eyes.

Because T. likes certain things. And it's not just touch, showing affection, talking or laughing.

T. likes... things. He has his own things. Things like magazines, books, the history of

aviation, sometimes magazines about growing plants. He likes different smells, like apples

and lemons.

Unfortunately, he is completely uninterested in music and despite John's repeated attempts to

introduce him to Guns n' Roses, Aerosmith, Nine Inch Nails or Rage Against the Machines,

he does not share his enthusiasm. But he still buys him glossy magazines, with loud singers

and posters inside. If John had his own room, he would cover its walls from ceiling to floor

with it. T. also looks like poster man. John could imagine it: black background, T. in his black

leather jacket, flash of naked, muscular torso from under it, a gun next to his face, dark

glasses, a red from his left eye . Big metal letters: TERMINATOR. Fuck. People would go

crazy.

On the legless cabinet lies a leaflet, small, colorful, and already a little crumpled. Big yellow

letters: "Potato Festival," a cartoon potato in every corner, photos from last year's

celebrations: carousels, smiling faces of children, stands with beer and hot dogs, an on the

second side picture of the highlight of the evening- rock band

- The Razzorzz - John reads aloud and T. puts down the fishing magazine, looking over his

shoulder. Five guys, long hair, bandanas, studded jackets, familiar poses. John doesn't

recognize them, but they look cool.

John wants to go to the potato festival.

John is absolutely certain that T. will not agree to go to the potato festival.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Timecop1983 -Static

Because basicaly it's their song.

2002

The room faces east, and even though they've drawn heavy burgundy curtains in the evening,

the heat and sunlight are already pouring in through the gaps, turning the small room into a

sauna.

John waits for his breathing to calm down and even out. He wipes the sweat from his

forehead, because the room has no air conditioning, and the Texas summer this year is

serving them absurdly high temperatures. It's six in the morning, it must be a thousand

degrees outside, and it's only just the beginning of the day. He waits for T. to slide off him

and lie down next to him on the narrow bed. As usual, unfazed by the temperature.

Asshole.

John feels that he's still shaking a little, but he crawls onto T.'s chest. He's all sweaty and

sticky, he should go for a bath, but he doesn't care. It's not like it bothers them. T. reaches for

an old napkin lying on the nightstand and wipes the mess John has made on his stomach. Boy

looks at him reproachfully, but says nothing. On his way out, he will throw the napkin into

the sink and wipes it with soap. The receptionist could be annoying, but even he has his

limits.

There's a red circle on T.'s shoulder, right next to his collarbone, a small, toothy little red

marks. Shit. He bit him harder than he thought, but he didn't want to scream, and he had to

scream, so the alternative was muffled sounds and teeth in the skin of the Terminator's arm.

John was not fucking prudish, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself.

-I'm sorry- he says quietly, tracing the mark with his finger. A kiss on the forehead and an

amused

-It's okay.

People are shooting at him, Connor. Do you really think you'll hurt him with your pathetic

human teeth? Whatever, he didn't want to add more pain to his existence.

And he has more of a problem now. He bites his thumbnail absently, a stupid habit from

childhood, stopping when he notices it.

He knows that he has to present the problem objectively, approach it in a logical and calm,

unemotional way. He has to act wisely and tell T. about the necessity of their presence at the

potato festival and especially at the main event, the concert of "The Razzorzz"

-Why not!- he yells a moment later when T. refuses to go to the Potato Festival.

-Too dangerous, we're too close to Dallas, we can't be seen in the area. Crowds, cameras,

local newspapers.

John wants to rip off the sweaty, thin duvet and head to the bathroom to demonstrate how

much he disagrees with T.'s and how angry he is with him, but he's not wearing any

underwear, and he'd feel stupid probably and the effect would be completely unachieved.

He tries to backs away from him, but bed is too small and he's about to fall, this effect will be

even sillier.

-This could be the last concert of my life. The only concert of my life ! -okay Connor, let's try

that way. -I've never been on one. Maybe I'll die on this highway and you'll live with

knowledge that you've denied me the only thing that's fun !

-If we're going to admit the possibility of your death on the highway, we should cancel the

mission. -wrong way Connor, totaly wrong.

-This could disrupt the parameters of our mission.

Mission. John is no longer sure if anything they do makes sense. They threw that damn hand

and processor into burning metal, Miles Dyson and all his know-how exploded with the

whole Cyberdyne, but apparently it wasn't enough.

After all the events fwe year ago they escaped to Mexico, found a small abandoned house and

intended to stay in this remote area as long as possible. They had a semblance of home, a

small garden, their own well and something that could be called life. However, one day the

area began to swarm with police, searching every house, farm and shed looking for remnants

of the drug cartel. They had a short time to pack and say a quick goodbye. Sarah went in the

opposite direction, with enough data to allow her to load their faces onto the hard drives of

cameras in places they had never been.

John and T., assuming that it is best to hide in plain sight, headed to the States.

But the anxiety and the premonition of the inevitable end of their peaceful days came long

before their escape and separation.

His mother never gave up her weapon, she never stopped being vigilant and paranoid. She

listened obsessively to police frequencies, gathered news from the States and the world,

sometimes she sat for hours in front of the radio and TV. And the news were increasingly

disturbing.

The country was gripped by an economic crisis that appeared suddenly and coincided with

the election of new authorities. Large factories were laying off workers en masse, and plans

were being made to close down more factories and corporations. Riots broke out in the

streets, brutally suppressed by the police and the military. All of this meant that somewhere in

the back of their heads, somewhere deep in their subconscious, they knew that they had not

destroyed this evil. They had not prevented anything, they had only forced it to change its

actions, hide, and sneak.

Every day they heard about new riots, burning poorest areas, attacks on racial and minority

grounds. Because in every crisis the poor become even poorer and the discriminated against

even more trampled. John watched his mother and knew that absent expression on her face,

knew that when she looked ahead she never saw a dusty, dry Mexican landscape but a nuclear

cloud and the charred skeletons of children.

This certainty that all the evil that is happening to the world, every conflict that has ever been

resolved and is now burning anew somewhere on the globe, is conected to them.

John thinks his mother had been planning something long before the area around their cottage

was swarming with anti-terterrorists. The look of determination on her face, the lack of

answers to his questions about what she would eat, whether they would go to town, whether

she wanted new shoes.

Planing something that didn't involve John or T-800, that he was sure. And he was so scared.

And then there was T.-his stoic, steady presence, his usual extraordinariness as he told John

to bring the basket of potatoes, to hand him tools over when repairing an old pump or holding

a garden hose lower when watering beans, while Sarah had been sitting infront of TV for

hours looking at Chicksaw Nation pacification report.

He always listened, whether John was blabbing about the new guitarist, the limited edition

Aerosmith magazine on the cover, how much he wanted to go to their concert, or random,

completely irrelevant stuff. He listened when John sadly admitted that he'd left his mom

mashed potatoes and steak next to the radio, but she hadn't eaten it and it had all gotten cold,

he listened when John said he was scared and he always answered right things. Things that

made it better.

Or he simply was there. Standing next to him, with him. An unwavering wall between all that

was scary, evil, hurtful, unjust and unfair. Even if it was just a silent mother. John was loosing

her. Again. And he knew it.

So as soon as the night lit up with blue sirens, they said goodbye, Sarah said a quick, "Take

care of him," and John knew she is embarking on her own crusade. So they got on their old

motorcycle and headed for the border. They rode through small towns, wastelands,

backroads, stopping wherever John could get Internet, digging, searching to see how deep the

rabbit hole would take him. He didn't find much, but enough to know that something was

very wrong with the world, and most of it had something to do with CyberCorp. A company

with capital and personal ties to Cyberdyne, he also found confirmation of political party

funding and something he didn't understand - huge transfers to several hospitals in Texas and

Arizona. He looked through company and hospital employee emails, reports, and had

concerns that knowledge of the deadly technology hadn't died along with Dyson, and the

deadly entity from the future wasn't just the T-1000. Too many copies, too many people

involved, too many connections. He came across news about object P. which immediately

reminded him of work on the processor and artificial intelligence. The transport of object P.

was to take place from the hospital in Dallas to Oklahoma City in five days. He was future

great military leader, he has Terminator, kidnaping one small medical truck shouldnt be that

hard. Drive the van on the highway, get rid of the driver, see what they did, what they have.

Piece of cake.

But John now has new mission parameters: go to a potato festival, eat potato goodness, hot

dogs, sausages, drink beer- a lot of beer, dance, and fall asleep on T.'s chest completely

drunk. Maybe some sex. Optional.

But no amount of sulking or cutesy faces would change T.'s mind. "I order you to ..,

somehow stopped working long time ago. T. is not following his orders anymore, although

John's needs had always been and always will be number one on his list of priorities, he had

his own set of values

that didn't necessarily fit into John's whims.

-It will be dark already and folks will be drunk anyway. Please!

A large, strong hand begins to massage his scalp.

-Just the concert. And we hit the road.

Jesus, thank you thank you thank you...John snuggles back into the broad chest and really

should get up and pee, but he feels so good and peaceful and sleep taking over him again.

He's almost asleep when a large dog barks in a throaty voice outside, right outside the

windows. They both jump out of bed, sure they'll see police cars and guns pointed at

windows of their room, they will hear a determined voice from a megaphone ordering them

to come out with their hands raised. But nothing happens. It's just a regular guy smoking a

cigarette in a parking lot, holding a labrador on a leash.

John takes a deep breath, closes the curtain, and pulls T. toward the bed by his index finger.

They lie back down, but the dog is still barking, and the sudden adrenaline rush has chased

away the sleep

-I used to have a dog. A German Shepherd. His name was Max, remember ?

-Yes.

-He was always in a kennel, he wasn't dangerous or anything, Janelle was just afraid of him

and never let him out. I wonder what happened to him. Maybe he got other owners and was

better life... with someone who took care of him, let him run around. Not kept him in a cage

all the time.

It's quiet now and John doesn't want to look T. in the face because he knows that sympathetic

grimace. They both know that Max didn't have a better life, didn't get better owners, didn't

get a loving home, didn't run around the park chasing sticks and barking at pigeons, but died

that day with Todd and Janelle a few minutes after T. hung up the phone on the roadside

payphone.

He couldn't keep the dog, he couldn't keep his mother, his home, garden, nor red motocross

bike. He couldn't keep anything he loved or that was important to him.

He was losing everything, it is being taken from him with methodical precision.

He squeezed the muscular chest he was lying on tighter. This time it will be different.

No one has the power to separate them, they will follow each other to hell and back.

It's past noon and they should have left the room by now, but John is still drying shirts,

underwear, and socks. They don't have much opportunities to do laundry, and their entire

luggage is only two changes of clothes, but the summer is so hot that clothes start to stink

after a few hours. So he throws both his and T's clothes fairly regularly into motels sinks, and

wash them at least with soap.

T. wipes the shotgun with another old napkin.

John had been thinking all morning about what to wear, his choice of three faded T-shirts,

finally settling on a black one with "Metallica" written across the chest. He had traded it for a

switchblade with some guy at the arcade. It wasn't very fresh, he had forgotten to throw it

into the sink with the rest of the laundry. At least people would stay away.

-We stay away from the crowd. We don't talk to anyone. And less beer John. Carrying you to

bed will be noticed.

He highly doubts it. During a potato festival somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Texas,

carrying people to bed will be a common occurrence.

-But you like carrying me to bed - a sly smile, a seductive tone, a few words and he'll do

whatever you want. Yeah. Right.

They still have a few minutes until the concert, it's not completely dark yet. John pushes his

hands under his black cotton T-shirt, touches the tense muscles, stands on his toes and

searches for the Terminator's mouth with his lips. But T. grabs him by the wrists and pulls

him away gently.

- No. Carrying you to the concert will definitely not go unnoticed.

They pull up to the venue and John can smell the unmistakable smell of crowds celebrating

some event. Beer, the mingled smells of sweet and salty snacks and urine from toilets.

Coloured lights flash, a tearful country ballad (not his cup of tea, but he likes it anyway)

plays from the speakers, children run among tipsy adults. An alley full of small stands lit with

garish neon signs offers all the festival goodies. John buys a potato spring, a small cone of

caramel popcorn, a large beer (he gets a free idiotic straw cowboy hat. He loves it) and stuffs

a bag of potato ice cream sundaes into T's hand,

With a mouth full of caramel popcorn he pushes his way towards the stage.

The stage is bigger than he would have expected, judging by the size of the host town.

Now some kids from a nearby elementary school are jumping around it, doing an unspecified

and poorly coordinated dance, but the musicians from The Razzorzz are preparing for their

performance in the corners of the stage.

The beer starts to buzz in his head and he climbs onto T.'s heavy combat boots to get a better

look at what's happening on stage.

He's read that the little-known and up-and-coming band mainly plays covers of popular rock

bands, and few of their own songs. That's fine by him.

The lights go out and a guy dressed as a potato rushes onto the stage, excitedly announcing

the main stars of the evening, threatening the audience that he'll burst their eardrums, wipe

them off the face of the earth, and no one will be the same after their performance.

John excitedly squizes the hand of T. standing behind him.

The lights come on and a guy who looks like an Axl Rose look-alike bursts onto the stage to

the deafening roar of drums and guitars and John screams along with the long-haired guy

standing to his right and the pink-haired girl standing to his left.

I'm a cold heartbreaker

Fit to burn and I'll rip your heart in two

And I'll leave you lyin' on the bed

I'll be out the door before you wake

It's nothin' new to you

'Cause I think we've seen that movie too, oh

'Cause you could be mine

But you're way out of line

With your bitch slap rappin'

And your cocaine tongue

You get nothin' done

I said you could be mine, oh

John knows the lyrics by heart, he tortured his mother and T. in every possible situation, in

the shower, in the car, while digging potatoes or while cleaning. He raises his hands with the

crowd, jumps next to sweaty teenagers, feels a solid shape behind him, strong hands on his

hips

The euphoria of the crowd carries him away along with the music. Life is good.

The concert is coming to an end, the crowd is singing some ballad by The Razzorzz that John

doesn't know but it's catchy and he doesn't really care because he's in this romantic-tender

mood as he smiles goofily and melts into the warm shape behind him. People raise lit lighters

and sway to the rhythm of the song and he puts his hands on the strong forearms that are

wrapped around his waist.

He's so happy. He's so in love.

He could die like this. He could live forever like this.

And he knows it will be so. T. is practically indestructible, He will always be with him, he

will never leave him, he will never stop, he will never stop loving him. John will live his life

with him (if they let him live that long), he will grow old next to him and he will die holding

that strong hand.

He is certain of that.

John didn't have many people to love. He didn't have many people to love him back, and

when his mother was locked up in Pescadero, he had no one.

An unwanted kid with a criminal past, causing problems, a short temper and too wide a

mouth. No one cared.

Now he is loved. So loved and cherieshed. He would rather die than let it go.

On the way back, some girl bumps into T., spills a whole cup of beer on him, and,

accompanied by the whistles of her friends and her own laughter, tries to wipe it off. T. lets

her. John isn't even particularly angry.

John is angry now. Few miles from town and they are forced pull into the nearest gas station-

the front tire of their bike leaking air. They aren't sure if they'd hit something or if someone

had punctured their tire at the festival as a joke. But right now John is melting like butter in

the concrete parking lot of a gas station while T. is trying to pull a piece of sheet metal out of

the tire. The heat is pouring down and the only solace is a can of cold soda. John is sleep-

deprived and has a terrible hangover. Next time T. said, "less beer," John would definitely

drink less beer.

The sheet metal is stuck deep and they'll only get to the nearest tire shop. John bought some

black tape, but it won't last long, especially in this temperature. They have to replace it,

although they should probably be looking for a new bike. Faster, more agile.

John's moods these days rarely puzzle him. He usually knows why he's happy, angry,

irritated. He knows when that teasing-irritated mood is coming. When they've been driving

too long without stopping, when John is hungry or sleep-deprived.

He knows that when John sulks, starts being mean, and looks for a fight, he needs to give him

food, let him sleep, or well... just fuck him.

From the very beginning, the Terminator was programmed not only to follow orders (except

those that threatened John's life) but also to take care of basic needs, such as providing food,

sleep, and shelter.

Somewhere along the way, his code also engraved giving John sense of security, a sense of

being important, a sense of being loved.

Although the T-800 was certain, the word "love" did not apply to machines like him.

Machines in general.

Where did these messages come from, this strong imperative to bring a smile to the boy's

face, to his satisfaction, happiness?

It was a question his processor would not throw out an answer to. Something that had begun

right after they met, had rolled through his systems in the ironworks, when the kid, clinging

to his jacket, begged him not to leave.

"Now i know why you cry, and that was no lie.

He didn't know if that data was the exact definition of the feeling, but it had to be sadness.

He didn't want to leave. Even though the word "want" still escaped his perception. Even

though the basic survival instinct of Terminators was mostly limited to minimizing damage in

order to maintain the highest efficiency, he himself had no objections to ceasing to exist.

But there was something very wrong about it. Something that shouldn't be happening,

because John Connor - his mission, his reason for being and the center of the universe was

sobbing and it wasn't right.

What does one do with sadness and grief?

The software didn't include that, and the impulses came from within him, their origins

completely unknown.

So he stayed.

He transported Sarah and John to Mexico, they found a safe place. They wanted to survive.

John always touched him. His small body pressed against him on the motorcycle as they fled

from the T-1000, teasing nudges, pats or pushes when he was irritated. Usually tactile stimuli,

which nevertheless sent positive information to the processor that his mission was close, that

it was alive and safe. That the T-800 was fulfilling its task.

Unexpectedly, the touch became a tingling, gentle electromagnetic pulses in his systems, and

the T-800 discovered that he is waiting for it. That it is something positive and expected.

Again, he had no answers to question ,how and why, even the usually active computing

center did not send any numbers to his vision. Interestingly, Sarah touched him repeatedly,

and he felt it only as a stimulus, a press, a fact. So many Newtons per square centimeter of

skin tissue.

John sent sparks into the integrated circuits.

The boy was always clingy and gave his touch very generously. Hugs, kisses on the cheek,

caressing pats.

As soon as the Terminator was sure that they were not in danger of any attack at night, he

would give in to John's persuasions and lie down on his bed. The boy would happily settle

down on his chest and fall asleep.

The T-800 had learned that his touch calmed John. If he was angry, irritated, bristling and

screaming, all he had to do was reach out, pull him closer and run his fingers through his hair

and everything would stop.

Humans didn't have a deactivation button, the T-800 was certain of that, but he seemed to

have found a deactivation button of John Connor.

John grew, matured, but he was always just as vital, omnipresent, demanding.

When he tried to get up early in the morning, when John was sleepy, grumpy and wouldn't let

go of him, he wondered if they hadn't uploaded the wrong anatomy files. Because how many

hands, for the love of a hard drive, could one boy have.

John also said he loved him. Hugging him with his small arms, laughing and kissing him on

the cheek. The T-800 smiled and John didn't wait for the same answer at all.

The Terminator waited until he fully understood what love was. Because it was love, that

burning need to make this kid happy, to smile on his lips acknowledging that he was happy,

healthy and felt safe. He watched people, read, watched movies, watched Sarah and John. If

that wasn't love, he didn't know what was.

When John was about fifteen, the T-800 noticed a change in his behavior. He could recognize

sadness and stress. But John sometimes avoided his touch and sometimes clung to him as if

he would run away and jump into a vat of molten iron.

John rarely got sick, and when he did, it was usually small infections with a slight fever. But

one time he was really sick, something with his lungs, a lot of antibiotics, and Sarah sitting

by his bed every night.

The T-800 sat with her. Again, data he couldn't identify. Something bad, something

scratching at the back of his tin skull, an unwelcome conclusion: he had pulled him from the

T-1000's clutches, protected and cared for him, and there was a real possibility that John

would die from the microbes that had settled in his lungs.

John will die in the night and he will be gone.

Fundamental catastrophe of the existing universe.

Fear, that was the feeling. T-800 was afraid.

"We have to go to the hospital tomorrow" Sarah Connor rarely cried, sometimes at night, but

never like that anyone would notice. Now she was crying openly.

The medical services could probably help John and in the final calculation between

identification and death the T-800 decided that she was right.

Sarah got up to change the cold compress on the boy's forehead, but she staggered and would

have fallen on the nightstand if he hadn't caught her.

"You have to sleep, I'll stay with him."

She nodded and he led her to her bed.

John woke up a moment later, smiling, his eyes were moist, sweat on his cheeks.

"Will you come?"

He held out his hand and the Terminator lay down next to him. He still had a fever three and

a half degrees above normal human body temperature, chills, so T-800 pressed him closer to

itself.

John fell asleep. After three hours, the fever had subsided, his body damp with sweat but

noticeably relaxed.

Then John began to moan.

He had been moaning all the time for the past week, the muscle aches from his illness

bothering him even after the meds. But John moaned differently, more drawn out. He

squirmed in his arms and rubbed his hips desperately against his thigh. He pressed his lips to

his ear and gasped:

-T...yes...please..

The Terminator had no idea what he was asking, so he wiped his forehead with a small towel.

When he finished, he noticed that John was awake, his eyes were open, covered with fever

and tears. He looked at him from under half-closed eyelids, his hips still quivering and

pressed against the Terminator's thigh.

And then he pressed his chapped lips to his mouth.

The T-800 knew what kisses were and why people did it. He saw it often in movies, on the

streets. He got kisses on the cheek several times a day. Sometimes even from Sarah.

But it was not an ordinary kiss on the cheek.

Because John pressed his lips to his, forced his lips to part and explored the interior with his

tongue. Something between a moan and a sob escaped from his throat.

Then, when the T-800 thought he understood John Connor, all his moods, joys, feelings,

passions, he didn't know what to do again.

"Please..." he moaned into his mouth and the Terminator started kissing him too with slow,

deliberate movements. He felt the wetness and heat of his breath, his tongue sliding over his

own, tears rubbing against his cheeks. Small impulses from his mouth sending sparks to some

unidentified place inside him.

The friction of his hips was now faster, jerky, almost spasmodic. John squeezed his shirt in

his fingers, a violent shiver shook his body and he fell limply onto the pillow, pressing his

forehead into the crook of his neck.

"I love you," he whispered.

And the T-800 knew that somehow it was bigger, scarier, heavier than all the little "I love

you"s from a child's mouth.

He wanted an explanation, but John had already fallen asleep, his hand still entangled in his

shirt.

A few days later, the antibiotics had worked, John was getting out of bed and even tearing

himself away to ride his motorcycle in the nearby hills. Sarah categorically refused such

activity and took his keys away, but T. knew John, he knew that hiding the keys wouldn't be

enough, so he unscrewed the front wheel.

"Asshole," John stated when he entered the shed and found his dismantled motorbike.

The boy showed no signs of remembering anything from that night. Although sometimes he

would look at his face searchingly, as if he himself was unsure whether it was a memory or a

dream.

For the T-800, love for John was simple. The boy was the center of his universe, the driving

force, the center of existence, the meaning of existence. His memory was filled with images

of his face, every grimace, tone of voice, reflex, mannerisms, small habits. Smiling John,

crying John, angry, cheerful, sneaky, irritated, capricious, dreamy.

...older, in a black uniform, hair shaved to the scalp, face and skull covered with scars. Tears

flowing down scarred cheeks. The Terminator feels the touch on the index finger of his right

hand...

The T-800 will give John everything he needs, but not because those are the mission

parameters, but because he wants to. And wanting is something he is only beginning to

understand. So if John wants to love the T-800 with love that includes kisses, touch, intimacy,

then he will be everything John wants. Because basically he doesn't see the difference.

He doesn't have a chance to ask or explain their relationship, because the next day the area

starts to swarm with police,.They pack in a hurry, they have a moment for a short goodbye.

And they are on their way.

They sleep in dirty warehouses, cheap motels, sometimes in the open air.

John's hands often roam the Terminator's chest, and his big green eyes look asking for

permission. His lips brush his ear and the place where the hairline ends at the base of his

skull.

One evening, when they are sitting alone in the corner of someone's garage, the T-800 makes

a decision and kisses him. In the same deep, wet, prolonged way. And when they break away

from each other, John has a blurred, half-conscious expression on his face. He laughs, hugs

him and showers his face with kisses.

"I love you, I love you.. I love you..."

He repeats endlessly, and the T-800 can almost feel the happiness radiating from him.

The Terminator was created in the image of a human. A ruse. A machine with almost all the

vital functions, blending into the crowd, infiltrating and bursting the resistance movement

from within. Amost all vital functions.

The T-800 has files with information about sex, very general information about the act itself

and its purpose, so the small sounds, rapid breathing, and John's need are a mystery to him.

Until now, he had associated these behaviors with fatigue or suffering. Now there is some

intense desperation in him, bringing tears to his eyes, making him sweat and shake when T-

800 touches him, and the T-800 has to figure out what to do about it.

One day, the computing center sends a solution.

The grocery store at one of the stations is exceptionally well-stocked, the T-800 throws a few

essential foods into the basket, three packets of M , a packet of chewing gum, John's

favorite gummies. He pours strong black coffee into a cardboard cup and pours in three

packets of sugar. John is sleeping in a room at a roadside motel, even though it is long after

noon. But when he wakes up, he'll want coffee, even if it's already cold. They've been driving

all night, he's exhausted, the T-800 will let him sleep now.

He walks up to the checkout. A young man about John's age, with a colorful baseball cap, a

sweatshirt with some cartoon character on it, and a toothpick that he moves around in his

mouth with his tongue, counts up the purchases without even looking at him. Behind him is a

display case with VHS tapes.

"A sex-Video."

Now the boy raises his head and looks at him in surprise.

"A movie about sex." The Terminator repeats and points to the display case.

-A. Okay.-The boy turns around and opens the cabinet.

-What do you like buddy? Brunettes, blondes, Asian BDSM...

-No women.

--A...ok.-the boy takes out a toothpick and judging by the look in his head some calculation is

going on-I don't have much of that kind of stuff... but this one is the newest.

He puts a colorful box on the counter. T-800 looks at the pictures. The men's musculature is

more similar to the design of his model, although there is abnormally amount black hair on

their bodies, but he will probably find what he is looking for.

-I'll take these...

-Sure. Return tomorrow by 11:00, the tape has to be rewound.

-No problem.

When he returnes to the room, John is still dozing on his stomach, hugging a thin pillow with

his arms. T-800 puts the purchases away and inserts the tape into the old VCR, lowers the

volume to minimum so as not to wake the boy, presses the "play" button.

The tape's content is exactly what he expected, although some of the things the men on

screen do, must be painful (the T-800 rejects them out of hand) and others would certainly be

considered funny by John. But the Terminator has a detailed view of what the action should

look like and what the appropriate reactions are. It turns out that screaming, groaning and

groaning mean something positive. Interesting.

The next day he gives the tape back,

He says:

Very informative-to the clerk and leaves the store, ignoring the shocked look.

Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

My love - Sia

2019

John makes his way through the battlefield towards a small area devoid of human and

machine corpses, where Sponge will be able to seat a helicopter. He practically does not hear

the Apache rotor and only notices it when it is right above him. He has significant hearing

loss in his left ear-quite normal when something explodes every now and then next to your

skull for several years. Recently the roar of the machines, the screams of people, his own

throat screaming orders made him probably completely deaf.

But they did it. The battle lasted five days, the losses on both sides were huge, but they won,

slowly, methodically, they manage to wrest this planet from the machines, piece by piece they

recover fragments of the contaminated, poisoned globe.

John Connor and his troops push forward, he does not retreat, does not give up even half a

meter of the battlefield, ruthlessly, effectively moves towards the heart of the machine city.

Driven by the desire for revenge, driven by pain, longing, determination and hatred.

Sponge sits the machine on the ground with his usual gentleness, throwing up the dust, John

covers his mouth with his sleeve, wipes his watery eyes. Willson has no sense at all. The

helicopter almost falls apart by the impact. Now John will definitely also go blind too now.

Sponge stops the Apache's rotor, jumps out of the cabin and runs towards him. He stops and

raises his hand to salute, but John pulls him into a hug. Sponge is alive, John hasn't lost all

loved ones yet, besides, there are few left on the battlefield to be surprised by the general's

sudden effusiveness.

His friend moves away from him and John can see from his face that something has

happened, something that has terrified him and Sponge doesn't know how to tell him. The

camp...

-We've got him, Johnny-he finally chokes out-We've got him. It's him, Tinker says it's

definitely him. Holy shit this is happening...

Unless the battle had not squeezed the last air out of his lungs, now he feels like he can't

breathe.

He's waited for this for so many years, feared this moment for so many years, dreamed of it,

thought about it every peacefull hour, imagined this day.

It's Saturday...he found Him on Saturday, what a stupid, detached thought.

Sponge looks at him worriedly, hand still on his shoulder.

-Johnny... Are you okay, man? You need to sit down ?

A light shake brings him back to earth. A mission. He has to fulfill the mission. He has to

reprogram him, he has to teach him to protect him, he has to send him back to his bratty

lonely desperate self, self who will tame him, love him and teach him how to love, to his

bratty self who will lose him.

Sponge shakes his arm, he speaks something and drags him towards the helicopter and to

reality. He throws him into the cabin. Action familiar to Sponge, he has his procedures, his

ways in situation when John falls into this stupo numbness and apathy. Fifteen years ago it

was Sponge, who dragged his semi-conscious ass to the shelter, when nuclear missiles flew

between continents, and it didn't matter to John at that time whether he lived or died, because

everything had already been taken from him. Sponge forced him to eat, to wash, to drink

when John's whole world was falling apart.

He is no longer a naive nineteen-year-old who believes he can overcome everything life

throws at him. He had years to get used to the idea and come to terms with the loss. Years to

notice that everything happens on its own way and everything is more or less set in stone,

regardless of what he, T., his mother, Etna or Wolfpack have done.

He knew he would find Him, he has to, there is no other option, it is his to be or not to be,

otherwise he would die in that shopping mall.

He was an idiot to think it would hurt less this time.

Sponge picks the helicopter up and now is truly afraid for his friend. There were few things

in the world that could break John Connor. The Iron General, the Terror of the Machines, the

Hope of Humanity.

He thought John had pulled himself together, that so many years had passed and he is past

that grief, but he feels that John is falling back into this spiral of silence and despair and

Sponge has no idea what to do, because if they lose him now to darkness that always lurks in

his soul- they will lose.

He lands on the roof of the tin shelter. John hasn't said a word for two hours, occasionally

biting his thumbnail. A childish habit that Sponge hasn't seen in him in fiftheen years.

Willson is terrified because they are on the brink of victory and he needs John, his sober

mind, his courage, his judgment and he is so afraid that everything will come back. That John

will disappear again, he will sink into himself for months and Sponge will watch helplessly

as he dissociates with each passing day.

People need him. Sponge needs him.

He can't do this to them now.

Connor wasn't tall, Willson had always been almost a head taller, but John somehow always

seemed bigger, taking up the space, filling it with his dominant personality.

But now he seems to shrunk into himself, to the size of skinny teenager, mourning the loss of

someone who was supposed to be indestructible.

The roof of the bunker is crowded, helicopters and drones are landing and taking off all the

time. The soldiers' moods are high, it's loud, you can hear laughter and shouting, in this battle

they wiped out the machines from the face of the earth.

New hope, light at the end of the tunnel.

John opens the Apache's door and the skinny teenager disappears. General Connor steps out

onto the landing pad, invincible, unyielding. They head toward the elevator, from which a

man in white coat jumps out. Crooked glasses, sparse, haphazardly cut hair-Vogel is the

definition of a nutcase scientist. Something about this man makes one absolutely certain that

his ethical and moral compass is very distorted and the boundaries between what is good and

what is evil are very fluid and moving. But he has some marginal IQ, especially when it

comes to robotics and programming. John values

him, so Sponge tolerates him too.

Vogel reaches them and Sponge smells the unmistakable cloud of scent that defines the

scientist: vodka, grease, and garlic.

-General, Sir. - His hand wanders to his temple, idiot - civilian, never knows how to greet

military. He leans over John and starts scientific gibberish, of which Sponge doesn't

understand a word, but Johnny clearly knows what Vogel is talking about, because he nods as

all three march towards the elevator. The automatic doors close and Sponge loves this

silence. No wind kicking up dust that gets in your eyes, no roar of engines and screaming

soldiers. For a dozen or so seconds, as they descend twenty floors down, there is silence.

Well, maybe interrupted by Vogel's chatter, still talking in John's ear about parameters,

outputs, possibilities, options and threats. Today it's really a nice change.

They advance through the levels and, given the gravity of the situation, someone should bring

John a clean uniform, but no one has the mind to do, so they face it in dirty, stinking combat

uniforms covered in blood and sweat.

They reach the laboratory.

From behind the glass door Sponge sees Tinker. Tablet in her hands, concentrated expression

on her face. He wonders if she's scared too.

They are surrounded by a guard of soldiers, a dozen scientists.

And he's there. He's lying on the table, still, just as Sponge remembered him. Big, well-built,

always calm no matter the situation.

Now unconscious, deactivated, paralyzed. Sponge had no idea what they had done to him to

keep him still. It was kinda shock to him, he couldn't imagine what John feels. It was so easy

to forget that he was a machine and not a human, that only yesterday he had been tearing

people apart. Fifteen years ago he gave Bernard lemon water for a hangover, disinfected his

calf wound and cut pieces of the ugliest birthday cake that ever existed in the history of

birthday cakes. It was madness.

And John turns towards him, for a moment, for a split second, a grimace of fear crosses his

face, which Bernard knows all to well.

-Jesus, Sponge...- quiet whisper.

-I have to ask everyone to leave now, and General Connor and Doctor Petrichkov to stay. The

matter is delicate, we can't provide too many stimuli. Programming must be done as quickly

as possible. -Vogel looks at them expectantly. John nods and they are ordered to march off.

Sponge wants to protest, but one look at a friend's face is enough to know that he should go.

John should be left alone with him anyway. This time he will have a chance to say goodbye...

He leaves him alone in the lab. He knows he shouldn't, something tells him he should stay

and be the wall against which his best friend's grief will crash. But he can't do it anymore.

John has always been stronger and this momemtary imbalance knocks the ground out from

under him. He drives onto the roof of the shelter and pulls out a joint.

It's not the right stuff, but there's no good stuff anywhere on Earth anymore, because all non-

food crops are banned and uncontaminated soil is rationed.

This mixture is grown by one of his privates and Sponge turns a blind eye, on condition that

he gets his share. So now he hides behind pallets of explosives and smokes a joint of

unknown composition.

He finds it hard to believe what's happening. That out of hundreds of thousands, millions of

T-800s, they've managed to capture Him. What the fuck are the odds of that happening?

Fucking none. Unless you have fate on your side.

Tinker knows more about this, she spent her whole life searching for her fucking Significant

Change, but none of the things they knew changed. Ever. Everything came at its own pace.

Fucking disaster after fucking disaster.

He saw Him for a moment in that lab.He was too scared to come closer, too unsure of John's

moods. Lying on a tin table of Vogel and Tinker lab, unconscious with a shitload of wires

going in and out of his head.

Someone Sponge knew and liked someone who had pulled his teenage, crazy ass out of

trouble more times than Sponge could count.

Someone in whose presence he got drunk, cried, laughed, celebrated every small victory.

Someone whose slow death he had watched in the front row of a fucked up movie spectacle

called "The love of your friend's life is dying before your eyes and you can't do a thing about

it because you're an fucking idiot."

Tinker finds him faster than he would like to.

-Hi moron- she greets him, peeking behind one of the pallets loaded with weapons. Still

wearing her lab coat, she holds a tin thermos in her hand, and Spinge knows that it doesn't

contain tea, only nearly ninety-proof moonshine that she brews in her secret lab.

-How is it going?- she takes the joint out of his mouth and inhales deeply

-Are you holding on?

- Me? I'm holding on.- he looks at her hands and they're shaking terribly.

-Think about Johnny. I mean how does he feel ? Someone you love dies and then you have

them for three hours and then you lose them forever...I'm worried about him Tinker. Do you

think he'll be okay?

-The kid's stronger than you think. He'll be fine.

-I don't know. Basically, it's a fucked up situation. I know... it supposed to be like this...But

are you sure Tink? Fuck, are you sure that it's the same guy with whome you spent hours

talking shit about your ex?

-Yeah, it's him, I don't know how it works but it can't be anyone else.

There is silence between them.

-Why did you leave Johnny there all alone? - he asks reproachfully

-He has two hours. Then reset and we'll set the generators to jump. You better wash up, there

won't be any hot water for a week

He looks at her in disbelief, she was always like that, reacting stupidly to something bad that

happened around them. Downplaying and pretending that nothing was happening. Sponge

hated that.

-Fuck Tink. Seriously, fuck hot water.

Sponge doesn't doubt in John. He knows the guy is made of some ridiculously hard material.

He's his childhood hero, his best friend, his brother from another mother. But now it's a bit

too much...

Sponge first heard of John Connor when he was a rebellious teenager. He was munching on a

lousy breakfast of stale cornflakes when he saw his picture in the newspaper: a kid a little

over a year older than him, skinny, short, with crooked bangs. Next to him some woman and

a big guy who looked like a German bodybuilder.

But the caption under Connor's picture didn't say ,missing child, ,under treatment, please

help, or ,kiddnapped, it clearly screamed: ,Armed and Dangerous!, And fuck him, how

cool was that !

He read that the boy took part in blowing up some IT company, together with his mother and

a big guy, they destroyed a dozen or so police cars, then fled and are wanted on terrorism

charges. Awesome.

Fucking cool.

He didn't know what the IT company had done to Connor and the other two, but it was

possible that they had been laid off in a mass layoff, like Sponge's dad, and were now seeking

revenge. Bernie could relate.

Sponge had been collecting all the newspaper clippings about them, the speculations in the

rags, the reports of their possible whereabouts and where they were going to strike next. As

he fell asleep, he imagined himself, John, and the big guy bursting into the flip-flops factory

and shooting off Mr. Wright-CEO of his father's company-the instigator of the mass layoffs.

Maybe then Sponge's dad would stop drinking every night and beating him up for no reason.

They say: never meet your heroes. It can be painful, sad, full of disappointments. An

unpleasant clash of imagination and reality.

But in the case of John Connor, this saying did not apply.

Because when Bernard met John, it turned out that Connor was absolutely, incredibly,

fucking awesome.

At the age of seventeen, John Connor could disassemble and reassemble practically every

rifle they had in their magazine. He was quite good in hand-to-hand combat, shot like a

sniper, and was fucking brave. On top of that, he was also crazy as sack of cats, acting first

and thinking later, throwing himself into the thick of the fight only to fight his way out.

Generally, he had more luck than brains, which was usually met with a slap in the back of the

head from T.'s hand.

He usually made the right tactical decisions, was a great planner, and there was something

about him that made everyone follow him through fire, even though Sas was the supposed

leader of their group. When John and Sponge met, they hit it off right away, they were about

the same age, had similar temperaments, the same taste in music, and the same style. Sponge

knew he had a bit of hero worship, but he wouldn't admit it to himself.

He remembered the joy, the euphoria, the incredible feeling of freedom as they drove back

through the plains of the Texas wastelands from another successful operation to burn down

another bastion of predatory globalists, drinking cheap whiskey, lighting flares, screaming

and singing like maniacs. Him, Tinker, Nancy and the rest of the group in the back of an old

pickup, John and T. on their motorcycle driving next to them. Life was good.

John had never flaunted his relationship with T. There had been no kisses, no cuddles, no pet

names, but the Wolfpack's prime directive was to ask no questions, so no one asked them, but

everyone knew there was only one mattress in Connor's room, John had wrapped himself

around T. on his motorcycle often enough, to making it clear what is between them- dirty

sneakers a little too tightly woven around combat boots. They had their jokes, their secret

language of gestures that only they understood. At first, when Sponge notticed (and he

noticed it kinda late because he is so damn slow) he felt uneasy. And yes, it was about his

best friend liking guys, especially big guys, and he sleeps with someone whome he obviously

knows since his childhood. But over time, Sponge had gotten used to this situation and came

to terms with it dosen't change anything betwen Sponge and John, and and it doesn't really

matter in fact.

There also came a time when they had to came to terms with who T. really was, and if you

ask Bernie, at some point in his life he said that this relationship was royaly fucked up. But

just like before, John and his charisma made everything much easier to accept.

Sponge was in love. At the age of thirty-three he fell in love for the first time. He hadn't had a

chance before, he was eighteen when everything went to hell, they lost a lot of people,

nuclear missiles fell on their heads and he was very busy trying keep John Connor alive,

because the guy didn't particularly care anymore.

And then the war broke out, a resistance movement was born from the remnants of Etna, and

when Johny shook off the mourning and numbness, he became someone completely different.

But Sponge was fighting for her now, for their future, for his beautiful Una, brave, wise and

good. He believed that one day they would have a home and that something more than just

crappy marijuana would sprout on the barren land. He wanted someone for John. Maybe this

was the exact moment, maybe he'll send him back to the past, say his goodbies and finally let

go. Maybe he will fell in love, start living, maybe for a change it would be a human being...

He was left alone with him. Tinker and the rest of the scientists were setting up the

generators, and he was sure it was her initiative to get everyone to the engines so he could

have a few minutes to say goodbye.

Fuck, he missed him so much.

He wanted to sever the cables, take him and run away to the end of the world, to stay with

him, to hide.

T. would love him again, he will know him and love him like he used to.

What would happen? Would he disappear? Would he cease to exist? Would he get shot in the

heart at the back of the shopping center as a kid because there would be no one to cover him

with their own body? How many people he had saved would be dead? He had no idea and

knew that there was no point in thinking about it, because it wouldn't change anything and

they couldn't risk his own life. But the fact that He was here, that Sponge's troops had

unknowingly captured him.

No fate. No fate my ass.

Tears flow down John's scarred cheeks, making their way in the bright, smooth troughs of

scars and hitting the tin table on which T-800 lies.

He knows he shouldn't do it. Nothing should interfere programming, but he can't help it. He

gently touches the index finger of Terminator's right hand.

-Hello my love...

Chapter 5

Chapter Summary

Billy Idol-Shock to the system.

Every action fiction needs a highway chase.

2002

They're lucky, their next stop on the way to Dallas is a town that has not only a tire shop, but

also a well-equipped car and motorcycle dealership. The large area is lined with choppers,

Harley-Davidsons and all sorts of japanese racers bikes.

The owner is over the moon, John thinks that in such a backwater, every customer is worth

their weight in gold. Of course, he's talking mostly to T., completely ignoring the kid who's

with him. Good. John has a moment to look at each model in detail.

He's interested in Japanese motorcycles, something that doesn't really suit T.'s taste and his

thing is mainly motocross, but there's something about those black, rounded shapes or candy-

colored sports models that grabs his heart. He stops by a black Honda CBR, it looks like

something that would be good for a highway chase.

-So, kid? Anything catch your eye? - the fat, sweaty owner of the dealership walks towards

him, T. marching right behind him.

-Kid is eager to get into motoring? Dear Lord, now that's a treasure, today's youth are all

about games and computers, in my day I could only dream of such a machine. A gift for a

sweet sixteen?

-Something like that - John smiles half-heartedly and looks at T.

-Can you tell me something about this model?

-Kid has a sharp eye, God bless him. Honda CBR 400RR, year 1994, a gem practically

unavailable outside Japan, painted to order, they don't normally make them in black, not the

newest but I advise against most newer models. Excellent Japanese work. Holds the road

well, this one is of course accident-free. Thanks to changed valve timing, larger carburetors,

higher compression ratio and new exhaust system, the power of engine one hundret thirty

nine horsepower, good balance and impeccable suspension work result in a versatile utility

motorcycle, yet with a sporty character. The only thing that can be complained about is the

rather poor protection of the driver from the effects of weather conditions and wind.

John gets on the bike, checks the condition of the frame, and all welds,does a lap around the

parking lot, the engine purrs evenly and steadily, quieter than their old Harley, more like the

growl of a cheetah than the roar of a lion. John finally decides that he likes it.

-We take this one.

-Determined boy, isn't he ? He took after his father-the salesman nudges T. in the elbow and

John has a huge urge to thrust himself into T.'s lips after the purchase, demonstrating a whole

kaleidoscope of tongue twisters, just to shock the fat man, but this time reason prevails and

he takes out of his backpack rolls of banknots stolen from nearby ATMs. They sign the

contract under a false name, they leave an old motorcycle as part of the payment, and wave

goodbye.

Sponge is sweating like a pig in a workman's uniform. He's scared as hell and would smoke a

joint or at least a sip of whiskey would do the trick. He would relax and stop thinking about

the fact that he'll probably fucking die on this fucking highway and they will write on his

grave: "Here lies Bernard Wilson, died at the age of sixteen because he was a complete idiot

and couldn't do anything right."

All they had to do was get the roadworkers residential container, overpower five of them

before they will wake up and reached the overpass, change the speed limit from sixty miles

per hour to twenty, and set up stop signs.

The first part went smoothly. Road workers were asleep and would sleep until afternoon.

Nancy and Sponge changed into their clothes, got into their vans, and headed for the

highway.

There wasn't much traffic at that hour. He dropped Nancy off at the end of the construction

sign, and drove to the beginning. All he had to do was pin an orange neon arrow that

indicated the direction to bypass the roadworks half of mile. They needed a longer stretch to

get up to speed, or to chase them down, to block them if necessery and wait for the rest. The

exit was single-lane and had high barriers. If the van manages to get in, they won't make it.

So Sponge was struggling with the damn hook of the big road sign, trying to attach it to the

roadworks vehicle. But without success so far. He has not much time before the transporter

would show up, but the damn thing doesn't cooperate and the fucking sign is too heavy that it

won't budge when Sponge tries to move it manually.

-Fuck- he is rubbing his face with his hand-Nans?- he barks into the walkie-talkie stolen from

the roadworks.

-What ?- Nancy wasn't far, but there is a curve and he can't see her,

-I can't move it.

-What you can't move you idiot?

-This fucking sign, I can't hook it up to the car. It's too heavy.

The silence in the black box means nothing good, although Nancy probably is trying to come

up with a backup plan.

She can't up with anything. The transporter will stop in the wrong place, they won't have time

to overpower the guards, they won't have enough way to get off the highway, Sas and the rest

won't make it. They all are going to die.

-Fuck ! Shit !-he shouts and kiks the metal trailer. The hook jumps into place-Oh fuck !

Thank you, thank you, thank you...

-Nans, I made it! I'm driving !- he shouts into the microphone of the radio.

-Fucking awesome you moron. Calm down, you're starting to frick out.

Sponge runs to the cabin and starts the engine. He has a chance to make it, maybe he won't

fuck everything up with his stupidity this time.

They arrive on schedule, early in the morning, they pass the roadwork, some guy is

struggling with equipment and John is surprised that they are starting work so early. But it

doesn't matter because they will stop far enough from them.

T. slows down and stops on the hard shoulder, turns off the engine, and uses his legs to steady

them. John squirms in the passenger seat. The Honda is great, but the passenger seat is

uncomfortable and mounted at stupid angle.

Apart of that the bike is fucking awesome and he's really sorry that they can't keep it. Almost

one hundred and forty horsepower, dual injection, pitch black plastics. The machine is a

motherfucker, holy shit, and they have to abandon it in a ditch after the mission. What a

waste.

John sitt sideways and lean against T.'s backsits. They didn't ride long, but his ass hurts,

stupid seat design. He hasn't eaten breakfast, he has to eat something now or he will die.

-Sorry-John says wearily and openes a big bag of nachos and he hopes to be able to eat large

turkey sandwich hidden in his backpack. The van will be here soon, according to the

information passed between CyberCorp employees. But he has some time.

-What for ?

-That I wasn't nice lately. I was tired and hungover. I know I'm nitpicking and you probably

don't care, but I wanted to apologize. Are you angry?

Of course T. is not angry. He never gets angry. Not at John. But he asks anyway, because he

has a guilty conscience and sometimes he really does things he doesn't understand.

-No. I'm not angry.- he keeps his hands on handlebar. Alert and ready.

-That's good.- John reaches into his backpack and pulls out a sandwich. He kisses the base of

T. skull. He snuggles up to his back

-Because I thought you'd be angry. I know you don't care about such crap, but I'm sorry I was

rude- he bites the sandwich-If we make it, we're going to the movies, or to amusement park,

or some awesome restaurant or party. You're going to take me on a date. A dateeeee!

He grins and presses his nose again to T. collar.

-A date?

-You know-John swallows a bite of sandwich. -Something normal couples do. Spend time

together and stuff.

-We are together all the time John.

-But this is different. Something you don't usually do, like a celebration. I'll buy you some

nice clothes!

-Aren't these nice?

-They are, but I'll pick you something extra.We'll go to California, rent the most expensive

hotel, one with a jacuzzi and champagne included. We'll eat something fucking expensive, i

mean I will eat, in a fucking fancy restaurant and then you'll fuck me to the moon and back.

-Why California?

-I don't know. It's warm, nice and you fit in there.

-How I fit in there?

-As governor maybe. Jesus, I don't know, you look like the California dream and all that shit.

He jumps on the seat because some idiot in a green Cadillac thinks it's a great idea to use a

horn. Well, they probably shouldn't stop thirty meters after a no-stop sign.

-Fuck off!- he shouts, but the car has already disappeared around the bend- Idiot.

Anyway...We'll go somewhere, I'll buy you a suit. You'd look awesome in a suit.

T. smiles, adjusts the gun on his lap. John has also an UZI they took from Mexico.

Spong's work uniform is already soaking wet. He could have at least packed one of the small

bottles of moonshine hidden in the communal kitchen cabinet, a sip and it would be better.

He puts his hands in the pockets of his work trousers and Jesus, Mary, Joseph and All Saints,

bless the road workers, because Sponge pulls out a ziplock bag with two pills. They don't

look like aspirin, his hands are shaking so nervously and Sponge will take anything.

-Hello little one!-he shakes the bag in front of his eyes. He puts a pill in his mouth, it's hard to

swallow without water and for his taste it's ecstasy, but he could be wrong. After some

thought he puts the second one in.

He touches the gun behind his belt, its coldness and weight so comforting. He has a second

gas pistol in his pocket. He just has to... He just has to...

Sponge can't remember what he has to do. The asphalt in front of him bends at strange angles

and something seems to be driving towards him. A hospital transport, he thinks, but Sponge

isn't sure because he starts seeing very strange things.

He starts waving at the approaching truck with a red stop sign, or it's a big shiny dildo. He

doesn't know anymore. The truck slows down. It stops in front of him, two guys with bored

faces, where's Tinker?

-Where's Tinker, fuckers? - he asks, because he is here for for Em, the bad guys took Em and

Sponge will save her. A gun appears in his hand and before they reach for theirs and Sponge

blindly shoots at everything inside tha cabin.

- Oh fuck! - there's blood everywhere, but the guards must be alive, because they're moving,

although Sponge must have fired the entire magazine.

- Oh fuck... - he grabs the walkie-talkie, it falls out of his hands and rolls along the road,

Sponge catches it and comes back, tries to open the back of the truck, but it's locked, the

handle is tied with a chain.

-Tink, are you there?! Tinker, can you hear me?! Fuck...

He runs to the cabin again. He pushes the guards out, gets in and starts the engine.

-Nancy! Nancy! I messed up! They're probably dead!

-Who's dead?!

-The guards!

-And Tinker?

-I don't know! It's locked! I'm coming for you.

Nancy runs toward him with a cutter and a black bag filled with weapons.

-What are you doing?! You killed them?! You took their radios?!

- I don't know. I don't know, Nans. Should I go back?

-No. You idiot.

Nancy runs to the back of the van and Sponge hears a crash.

He feels himself sweating, his hands are shaking, he looks around and decides that the cab is

funny, absolutely ridiculously funny. A little man is jumping on the steering wheel, some

kind of leprechaun or something, pink lights are flashing everywhere. It strikes him that they

are doing the right thing destroying this system. Because it is completely ridiculous.

He remembers that he was supposed to do something, but he can't remember what. Maybe if

he starts pressing all those colored lights he'll remember.

Nance is yelling something in the back of the truck, but Sponge can't hear anything through

the tin wall. But she got in. Good.

He hits the buttons at random and suddnely Billy Idol's hoarse voice starts booming from the

speakers in the cabin:

Whoa yeah

It was a night, L.A., burning bright

Oh what a night

Say yeah, come on

It makes my world stand still...

Then Sponge remembers what he was supposed to do. Sponge was supposed to drive.

So he howls like a wolf from the WolfPack he belongs , straightens his hands on the steering

wheel and presses the gas pedal. The wheels spin for a moment, the tires burn, and the van

lunges back. Something hits the wall of the cabin and under Billy's wild scream in the whole

flow of words from the back he catches only:

-...idiot!

Nancy breaks the driver's cab window with the butt of her gun and starts screaming at him.

Red and furious.

-What the fuck are you doing, moron! Forward !

Oh yeah. Sponge should go forward.

A shift of the lever and the van lurches forward. Again he hears the thud from the back of the

truck.

Some spaceship appears on his path, Sponge has to avoid it, he turns the steering wheel

sharply, Nans disappears sharply from the window and Sponge hears another crash.

Unknown Flying Object is bypassed and Sponge straightens his wheels, cackling. He roars

along with Billy, the lights in the cabin flicker. Tinker's grinning face appears in the window.

Well, that's good. Because they were supposed to save her and they probably did, considering

she's here. Sponge is racing, he's a knight in shining armour, a fucking avenger, a warrior, the

hand of justice.

Their speed is crazy. One of those buttons must be one of those buttons must have been FTL.

- Hello Bernard - Tinker's face appears in the window again. She waves to him and they both

laugh. Bill Idol continues to scream. Sponge screams with him. He looks in the mirror, and

Tinker sings too, with him and Billy.

Sponge was happy but now he's angry, even though Tinker is smiling at him and singing with

him and Billiy, her lip is busted and there's a big blue bruise on her forehead.

-What did they do to you pumpkin? - he twists his lips in sadness, but a pink moose appears

in his lane and he has to turn the steering wheel to avoid it.

-They knocked my tooth out - she laughs.

-I'll kill those sons of bitches! For God's sake, Tinker, I will!

-Fuck, Sponge, what are you doing! Holy shit, she's completely stoned - Nancy's face in the

window again. He preferred Tinker's face. Nancy yells at him. Sponge loves Nancy, but she's

scary

-You missed the exit, you idiot. Sas and Peter are waiting there. Fuck, Sponge, do you hear

me? What are you doing?!

Sponge can't hear. The van speeds away. Suddnely something hits the car's sheet metal. Billy

sings. Sponge sings along with him.

Ah riot, rape, race and revolution, ah yeah Here come the fire, and my world burns still You

say yeah Well, you can rock this land baby you Like a shock to the system I feel good, well

alright Like a shock to the system Say yeah, ain't it irie It was a night Hell of a night, L.A., it

really was Oh what a riot I said yeah, come on It makes my life feel real Fear police and civil

corruption oh yeah Is there a man who would be king And the world stood still Ah yeah loud

Yes revolution! Foot on the gas, the world speeds past him. The entire solar system is rushing

through the galaxy. Sponge and his semi-truck is rushing along with it.

Something hit the transporter again and Sponge probably saw police sirens. He sees a police

car on his left. He would wave to the policemen because he is nice, but the policemen are a

part of the system and they install pink lights in their police cars.

At the taxpayer's expense. Ridiculous.

-Fuck the system!-he yells and presses the gas pedal.

The policemen shoot. How rude of them.

-Sponge, you have to pull over- Nancy appears in the window again, wearing a shiny gold

crown and Berne thinks it looks really nice on her.

Besides, it's a good thing they're driving an armored vehicle because someone keeps shooting

at them.

-Here. Unlock, don't look down the barrel, you idiot!- Nancy yells again, this time at Tinker.

Not good, because the pawns of the system were beating Tinker. Nancy should have known

better.

There's a bang behind him, and Sponge sees in his mirror that one of police cars is on fire.

I said yeah, come on baby Shock to the system Feel good, well alright Like a shock, shock to

the system I say yeah, I say yeah, I say yeah Come on baby Yeah, well you can rock this land

baby Like a shock to the system I feel good, well alright Like a shock to the system I say

yeah Ain't it irie

Sponge really needs learn how to fly this shit, he will be a pilot one day, but now starting to

worry that they might not make it. There should be Sas, Peter, Clint and their launcher

somewhere here, but he has a vague feeling that he fucked something up terribly and that's

why they're not here.

The truck is speeding away, Billy is singing.

That must have been heavy shit, Spinge thinks, because fuck unicorns and spaceships, but a

black Honda pulls up to the cabin with a big guy with dark glasses and leather jacket holding

a handle bar and a second smaller guy with long flowing hair is hiding underneath him, his

head on the tank, his legs wrapped around big guy waist, shooting an Uzi at a police car next

to them.

-Oh fuck. I'm not taking drugs anymore- Sponge says. And now he's really scared

Sponge will die here, the van will crash, with Nancy and Tinker in the back. He was

supposed to save them, but probably he didn't manage it. He shouldn't have take those drugs.

And it's probably a good thing that the guy from Honda is no longer holding the handlebar of

the bike but is entering the transporter's cabin.

-Fuck, dude, thats a good stuff...-says Sponge, there is a fist in a black glove in his sight and

everything turns dark.

They are checking the weapons. John doesn't expect to use them, because according to his

information, this is supposed to be a regular transport of hospital equipment. No guards, no

police.

John counted the exits, found out if there are any roadworks in the area, chose the right place

so that the truck would pass the existing ones.

The transport was supposed to leave at dawn and according to their estimates, reach them

around six the morning. An added bonus was the almost complete lack of traffic. Except for

the pricks in the green Cadillacs.

-Some guys can't keep it to themselves. Jesus, I really don't like...

The word dies on his lips and John never finishes what he doesn't like, because a transporter

with a processor passes them, fifteen minutes too early than expected, its back door open, and

a woman in an orange suit is hanging out of it.Behind them they hear police sirens. Van

disappears around the bend.

- What the fuck... - John says, a piece of onion hanging from his mouth. They look at each

other and John throws the sandwich behind him, tightly wrapping his hands around T.'s waist,

because he's already starting the engine and they're going after the chase. The engine roars, T.

jumps into the left lane, John sticks to it like an octopus, because the speed is fucked up.

Because seriously, who are they ? The truck is swinging between the lanes, completely

pointless. A woman in a road service uniform appears in the doorway with two rifles, one

falls from her hands when the transporter turns sharply to the right lane. She loses her

balance and falls inside.

Honda engine roars, John sticks himself in T's back. Because one of the police cars explodes

and T. almost puts the bike on the road trying to trying to avoid collision.

T. straightens the bike and they overtake another car, The police shoot at the van, but the

semi-truck veers off one edge of the road to another in a completely unpredictable way, John

doesn't understand how it hasn't overturned yet.

John feels an iron grip on the material of the jacket on his back. He knows T. will try to take

him out of the line of fire. He yanks him and throws him into the space between his body and

the tank of the bike, John wraps legs around his waist to catch his balance and tries shoots at

the tires of the nearest police car.

Two women appear in the van doorway, one crouches and waves, the other yanks her into the

car and shoots at the same police car, then she notices them and starts aiming at them, but T.

presses the gas knob and they level with the driver's cabin.

-What the...

-Drive-T. orders and John unclasps his legs from around his waist, turns around to face the

road, grabs the handlebar and drives up to the van's cabin so T. can grab the door, rip it open

and get inside.

Now he has the motorcycle to himself. The sound of police sirens fades away. John overtakes

the van, now driven by T.

He can almost hear T's warning tone in his head: "Don't you dare."

But he jerks the motorcycle up on one wheel anyway. He feels the wind in his hair,

onehundret thirty nine horses between his legs, the sweetness of triumph.

Probably they will talk later. And it will hurt. A bit. Whatever.

A shotgun blast hits the footbridge of the nearest emergency gate. John slows down, letting

the van go first. They pull off the highway onto a dirt emergency road. The Honda is not a

motocross bike, he can feel it in his arms, on his ass and legs.

They stop a dozen or so miles from the highway in some bush.

T. rips the shattered door of the transporter off its hinges and they both look in disbelief.

Because there's nothing inside except two women huddled on the floor by the driver's cabin.

One is wearing an hospital gown, her blond hair matted with blood, the other, blond in a road

service uniform, embraces her in a defensive gesture, and aims a rifle at them.

-Who the fuck are you?

-Don't worry, we won't hurt you..

John raises his hands in a placating manner.

-But we will hurt you! Who are you?

A black Chevrolet Monte Carlo pulls out with the crunch of gravel and three armed men

jump out. John feels T. yank him and push him behind him.

-Don't shoot!- he manages to shout.

The men stop at the sight of the shotgun in T. hands. and John senses another shitshow, these

people are seriously crazy. John steps out from behind T. with his hands raised (he'll get hit

for this when they're alone, he's sure of it)

-Hi. Maybe we should stop aiming at each other, because for some time now someone is

aiming at me and I'm slowly getting tired of it.I don't know what the fuck happened here, but

you clearly care about what's inside. Just like us. Maybe for similar reasons.We can talk. No

one will get hurt.

-Shut up. Who are you? - A tall guy is standing closest to John. Almost as tall as T. but thin.

He takes off his balaclava- dark hair with colorful braids spills over his shoulders. Dark

complexion, high cheekbones - Native

The other two don't take off their balaclavas. They're hanging on to the back. A sudden noise

and a boy, no older than John, jumps out of the driver's cab onto the grass. He has dark hair

cut close to his head, big blue eyes, build as a football player, face of a class idiot.

-Sas... my man.- He laughs. Holding on to the back of van, he walks towards them and John

has to move away because if he touches him, T. will break his arm. But nothing like that

happens, boy falls over, sits down on the side of the road and starts laughing.

-Put down your weapons or you'll die.-T.always makes criminal threats in the same

dispassionate tone.

-Stop it.-John whispers.

-Let them get out.-Native nods at the women in the van.

John and T. move away, and the blonde in work clothers pulls the one in the hospital gown

towards the exit. She grabs her under the arm and pulls her towards the Chevy. Girl laughs

and stops next to them:

-Hello cupcake ! - she raises her hand towards his head, but the other one catches it in mid-

motion and presses it hard against her body. And that's good because if she reached him, T.

would probably rip it off.

She holds her around the middle and continues to struggle because the girl laughs when she

notices the guy sitting on the side of the road.

-Hey, Bernie!

-Hey, Tinker!

-Thanks for the ride! It was awesome! I almost fell out!

-Cool, babe, we meet every Thursday.

John doesn't have much experience with drugs, but he can see, they're both probably

completely stoned.

-What do you need Tinker for?

-Where's the processor?

John and Native ask at the same time.

-You look for prosessor ? They don't transport it that way.

And then John realizes that he made a mistake, a really bad and idiotic mistake.

-Subject P., we were chasing subject P., - John puts his hand to his face - Fuck me T., ... I

fucked up.

T. looks again at back of the truck, but apart from metal benches and a bag of weapons there

is nothing there.

The girl in hospital gown does everything to avoid getting into the black Chevrolet, including

trying to kiss the blonde.

-Someone help me. Fuck Tinker, get in.

She reaches out her hand to them, but the blonde in uniform finaly pushes her into the car.

The guy from the cab walks up to the Chevrolet, now John can see he has a black eye, he

probably knows the origin of the bruise, but boy doesn't seem to hold a grudge, because he

points out at them with laughter.

-Fuck sake! Man! Sas! I know who they are! This is John Connor and this Russian guy! They

blew up Cyberdine's first branch! Few years ago, Either it's them or I'm more stoned than

usual.

The Native, named Sas watches them and must recognize them, although John has no idea

where or how he might know them from.

In the distance they hear police sirens, the truck must have a tracker. Of course it has a

tracker.

-We get the fuck out-states the Indian as he throws the bald guy into the passenger seat.- I

advise you to do the same. And if you want to know more about transports and processors,

we're waiting here-He throws in front of them a piece of paper he took from his pocket.-

Someone will be waiting for you for next two Thursdays.

The roll of paper looked like a receipt or a piece of chewing gum, but it turned out to be

coordinates to some unspecified location near Phoenix. They haven't decided whether they'll

contact these people or not, but they're somehow driving towards Phoenix, although they

haven't had time to stop and talk about further plan.

They're driving fast, as far away from the highway, as far away from the police stations, as

far away from population centers as possible.

They don't know how long it will take to throw their faces into the police databases and how

quickly they'll link them to events from years ago and get every fucking police car in five

states on alert.

They take a risk and stop at a nearby gas station. Honda is a gas guzzler, and John buys a

pack of cigarettes, a few packages of bandages, an emergency sewing kitand cooling spray

T. got hit a few times.

Of course he got hit, he shielded him with his own body...as usual.

Now John doesn't look at it with the curious cruelty of a child, now every wound is a scratch

on his soul, every bullet is a worry.

Data could be called pain, yeah right, now, for John its just ordinary, common pain.

Pain of someone you love.

There's no motel for miles, not even the worst, so they break into someone's storage room.

John moves his headband higher to keep hair out of his eyes when he takes bullets out of T.'s

back, sticks wounds, plasters it, sprays with cooling spray every time before he gets to work.

-You know that this is completely unnecessary? The pain is rather minor.

-Be quiet. Small, big, great, what's the difference, pain is pain. I don't want you to feel it.

Once T. would have asked why, would have wondered why John is suffering from wounds

that aren't his, but today he knows. He just smiles, tugs affectionately on his ear as John leans

over the gunshot wound in his chest.

-Hey! What was that for?!

-You know what for. You know very well.

-Completely unnecessary bravado - they say in chorus. John in a bored and discouraged tone,

T. serious and knowing no objection.

- Okay. I'm done. Now I will kiss it better. - he leans over T. and kisses him lingeringly, then

he moves the headband back to it's place so that at the top it only lightly touches the hairline,

takes out a pack of cigarettes and lights one. He didn't smoke, but now he sought the

comforting tickle in his lungs and the relaxing effects of nicotine.

- What do you think of them? Do you think it's a trap?

- Highly unlikely, the degree of disorganization of this undertaking does not indicate any

deliberate action.

- So in a word, this clown show was too stupid to be planned. I agree with you. That would

mean that there really is some organization fighting like us? Why we never heard about them

?

- The characteristic feature of secret organizations is that they are secret, John.

- Dirty deals are usually secret too and somehow I managed to track down the transport.

Now T. looks at him with a look full sceptism.

-Okay. Maybe not everything went according to my plan, but at least we know they're doing

something shady, that chick didn't look good. That Indian knew about the work on the

processors. We know someone fights like us. The question is whether we want to join these

people. They don't look very bright. But we have a better chance than alone, we don't even

know what we're up against.

-Decide John. It's time for your decision.

-Gosh, thanks a lot. Man, you got a problem when I wanna rock a bit on a bike, now it's:

,decide John.., Nothing like being consistent right ?

This time it's T. who grabs his chin and pulls him in for a kiss.

They are going towards the coordinates. They are trying not to stop and make it to the first

Thursday at the indicated point. John would really suggest the Japanese to consider the

comfort of the passenger while designing of seats, of course he knows that this is not a

motorcycle for expeditions, but even the legs are at an uncomfortable angle.

The point turns out to be a few wooden buildings in the middle of a small bush of low, dry

trees and bushes, souranded by hills. Sas didn't give them any specific time, so when they get

there before noon and find no one, they decide to just wait.

T. walks around the area checking each shed, climbs a hill. John smokes. He wasn't supposed

to do that, he always associated the smell of cigarettes with his mother's nervous moods.

Every time he smelled smoke, he knew he would see her staring into the empty space with an

absent gaze. He hated it most at night, when he woke up at midnight or early morning, light

from another room seeping through the door of his room, and Sarah at the table lighting one

cigarette after another. He knew that sometimes she mourned her father and sometimes she

was afraid of pictures in her mind, back then, when he stopped believing her, before T. came

along and proved she wasn't crazy, John hated her for it.

Although cigarette smoke never meant anything good to him, he started stealing cigarette

butts from his mother when he was fourteen, she never caught him or smelled the stench

from his clothes or hair. And while she was obsessively listening to the news and probably

formulating her own plan in her head, she couldn't see much more anyway, so John was able

to give himself over to the addiction completely, especially since it coincided with the time

he realized that his feelings for T. went far beyond friendship or family, and the acrid smoke

in his lungs and the nicotine temporarily silenced the screaming emotions inside him.

Then he got sick with lungs, almost kicked the bucket and when he got better, cigarette

smoke started to repel him. But now he smoked because he wanted to and that's it, he'll stop

when he wants to. Of course T. doesn't smoke, but he don't mind John's smokes or his

nicotine breath.

T. heard the vehicle before they saw anything, as always pushing him behind him, one arm

around his waist. The movement was so familiar that John doesn't even notice it anymore. A

small truck rolled onto the dusty road.

-Lower the shotgun.

A tall, lanky blond dressed in black, with bleached hair that looked like a brush, got out of

the driver's side, John hadn't seen him before, but he could have been one of the guys in

balaclavas. The guy from the chase on the motorway got out of the passenger side, now he is

wearing a regular blue hoodie and jeans, he doesn't look much better, but he is definitely

sober now, there is still a bruise above his left eye, a mark from T.'s fist.

-Why did you hit him so hard?-he whisper, but he doesn't get any answer.

The bleached blond approaches them first, somewhere in the meantime the group must have

classified them as moderately trustworthy, because none of the men has a weapon in sight, let

alone aimed at them.

- Peter - the blond extend his hand to T.

- John - he emerges from behind T.'s back and extends his hand to the blond- And this is T.

- Just T.? Like in James Bond? - the blond snortes and John notices that there is something

strange in his movements, some nervousness, trembling...schizophrenia or cocaine.

The other boy is hanging back, looking embarrassed, he pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt

over his wrists as if he wanted to be smaller than he really is. He approached slowly, smiling

stupidly.

- Hello. Sponge. I mean Bernard Willson or Bernie, but everyone call me Sponge.

- John Connor.

- I know - now his face lit up, something John totally doesn't understand.

-We smoke and go - the blond makes many unnecessary, barely noticeable movements,

reaches into his leather jacket for a pack of cigarettes and lights one.

-You smoke? - he holds the pack out towards him and T. John wouldn't take anything from

him for the world.

-Thanks, I have mine. -he just finished one but he lits next.

-Where are we going? - T. approaches the truck, looks into the cabin, but doesn't seem to find

anything suspicious.

-I can't tell you that, dear princesses. Thats the point of this whole combination. I can put you

in the back and take you somewhere and than you can talk to Sas, Carter and the rest, and

decide what to do next. There will be no second chances, if you change your mind, I'll take

you back here and we forget about each other forever.

John takes a drag and looks at the small hole in the clay he made with the toe of his sneaker,

raises his gaze to T., but knows he won't get any confirmation or denial. It's his decision.

That's why they came here, why they took the risk on the highway, to change something, to

save, although now they have no idea who or what they're fighting or how to do it. Maybe

those people know.

-Let's go- he throws his cigarette butt and stomps on it with his shoe. -Oh, that's awesome-the

blond crushes the cigarette in his fingers and throws it into the bushes. Both men unlock the

heavy latches on the back of the truck, the tailgate falls to the ground with a bang

-Then pack your machine here, just T.- blond points to the interior-We've got a long way to

go, it's not even economy class, sorry, but you don't look soft.

T. starts the Honda and drives up the ramp into the truck, John climbs in after him. Peter and

Sponge lift the hatch, there's a crack of truck lids and it goes dark.

-Can you see anything?

-I can see everything.-he didn't have to ask, he knows the answer, he just had to hear it.

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

Warning: 18 sex in this chapter and mentions of rape.

Timecop1983- It was only a dream-best soundtrack for human/cyborg sexytime.

2002

A change in pressure and a sudden drop in temperature, they probably going underground.

The truck stops, truck's tailgate falls with a noisr and the bright light of fluorescent tubes

pours into the interior of the trailer. They get out, leaving the motorcycle in the truck.

An underground garage or warehouse, large, only part of it is lit, but the movement of air and

the reverberation indicate a large space. Low ceiling, concrete supports entwined with a

network of pipes and wires, wooden crates with unknown contents placed between columns,

a large puddle of condensed water, a bus and an old military jeep parked next to the loads.

Peter he gestures for them to come over.

They enter a small room, probably intended as a staff break room or a guardhouse. Inside,

Sas and some other people already waiting for them.

The blonde from Van, no longer wearing her work uniform but a black combat trosers, T-shirt

and heavy boots. Her hair is tied in a sloppy ponytail, her bangs are cut too short and

crooked, she has silver nose ring and several other rings in each ear.

Next to her stands short man in his thirties, in a plaid shirt tucked into beige trousers, a bit of

a belly, he doesn't fit in with the surroundings at all.

There are also three others that John hasn't met before, in black uniforms, like from

paramilitary organisation, weapons resting on their hips, secured, their postures relaxed.

Good.

The silence is broken by the Sas, he approaches T. first, with his hand outstretched, even

though John stands closer. John has to admit that he is extraordinarily handsome. Classic

Native American type of beauty.

- How was your trip?

- Shity. You need to invest in reclining seats, especially if you want to drive people around

Phoenix for hours-he says in a defiant tone, seriously he's a bit fed up with everyone paying

attention to T. first.

The blonde snorts, and Peter and Sponge standing next to her have grim expressions. Sas

quickly recovers from this remark.

- Usually it's loaded with goods, the bar and champagne take up space. Okay. So, you wanted

to know who we are. Because we already know who you are. You've been fighting

Cyberdyne and all this shit for a long time, Clint made some digging. It basically overlaps

with what we do, although CyberCorp is only a small piece of the puzzle. We are a group of

people, part of a network, a small cog in Etna - people trying to find a logical explanation for

what is happening in the world, who and why some stirs the pot igniting every conflict,

bringing people to the streets.

We track their movements, we don't know who we're dealing with, or how deep their network

goes. We have certain names, political groups, companies and we know that they reach much

further and deeper than just the US or South America. There are traces in Russia, China or

Germany.

We try to counteract what is happening in the world, to get to the source, to prevent the slow

takeover of all the structures that we have managed to build so far, with better or worse

results. We know that you are acting on your own, we know that you started before anything

started to stink. We are looking for people like you. If you want, we can put you in a truck

and take you to the point, or you can stay and work for the Etna and WolfPack.

John made his decision back when they were at the wooden sheds.

-Are all your missions so precisely prepared?

Everyone now looks at Willson, who hunches his shoulders and tries to shrink his roughly

six-foot height to a smaller size.

-We usually manage, although sometimes there's an idiot who fucks everything up.

-So you need someone with a brain, I think. We could be useful.

The blonde snorts with laughter.

-Fuck. He's good.-she admits with amusement.

If Sas is pissed off, he's very good at hiding it.

- That's fucking rich coming from someone who has no idea what they're chasing.

Okay. He's got the point.

-Well. Shit happens as you said. We stay.

Sas looks at them for a moment, takes a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it with a jet

lighter.

-This is Nancy-the blonde raises her hand slightly-Propaganda and light actions, Clint our

cover and computer guy, you know Peter and Songe already, all kinds of tasks. There is also

Tinker-Emilia, when something gets screwed up she fix it, and she is kinda good at

navigating the net and Rita our health service with limited possibilities.

-This is Carter- guy in a black uniform with a machine gun lying on his lap nods at them. He

is almost as tall as T., broad in the shoulders and has a similar type of barbaric handsomeness,

spreadding around himself an aura of calmness forced by authority.

-Carter and his people are for harder tasks. Strike team. They have their own structures, we're

just support. The factory facility is mainly theirs, we cooperate but we don't get in each

other's way.

If you want to work with us, there is plenty of space here, block B, it is available for use. A

lot of rooms, suitable for living, most of us occupy rooms there. Block C is not allowed

without authorization from Carter, block A is a warehouse and scrapyard, we do not need the

rest, but there are no restrictions on movement. Of course we try not to attract attention. In

the evening small lamps, preferably candles, we leave the facility only in cars marked as

property of the Receiver. If you want to go to the city Clint works in a nearby accounting

firm, he is officially authorized to settle the bankruptcy estate of companies, you can ride

with him. No wandering back and forth on a motorcycle. Sponge and Nans will show you the

block.

When they leave the garage by the wide driveway, it turns out that it is still light outside.

They pass under networks of pipes, huge dead chimneys, factory buildings with missing

windows, the few lawns around are overgrown. Block B turns out to be an old titanium white

production plant. The ground floor is still covered in milky white dust.

-Don't touch anything here. This shit sticks to clothes, it's hard to wipe it off, unless you want

to walk around with your face white.

They don't want to. They don't touch anything.

The ground floor is probably a large production hall. The elevator is on the side of the

building right by the entrance, it stops with a bang and is the size of their living room in

Mexico. Nansy presses the button marked two, the doors close and they go. The elevator is

macabrely slow and the girl is chewing gum, popping balloons, which gets on John's nerves.

They get off on the floor that could have been an office space or a laboratory. Opposite the

elevator is a large open space filled completely with seemingly random objects, old couches,

some tables, a few desks, large speakers against the wall and two arcade machines. On the

left side are a few monitors placed next to each other on juxtaposed desks, on the floor a

tangle of cables. The light of the setting sun pours in through the large windows, the smell of

damp and ammonia is everywhere.

-This is the playroom and our command center, when we have a meeting it is here. On the left

is the kitchen, on the right are the toilets.

Nancy is absolutely bored.

-The fourth and third floors are free, so you can take them, Sponge will give you some

mattresses. On the fourth there are also showers, surprisingly they work, there is hot water. I

highly recommend it because you stink like fucking Woodstock festival.

John discreetly sniffs himself, but thinks the chick just wants to be rude. Sure, they wash

when they have the chance, and sometimes they don't, but he doesn't think he stinks terribly,

and T. smells like usual: sweat, leather, gunpowder, diesel, and home.

-Okay. I'm done. Sponge give them some bed. Mi casa es su casa and shit. Bye.

She steps into the elevator, doors close with the pop of another balloon. If Willson was

feeling awkward before, now he's beet red, he grabs the sleeves of his sweatshirt again and

pulls them over his wrists, it looks ridiculous his taking account his build.

-Listen-John begins-we're sorry about your eye. Aren't we, T.?

-Yes, we're very sorry.

-No, it's okay. Actually, I deserved it. We probably would have crashed if it wasn't you. I was

high as hell. The girls were in the back, we all would have died. So i shoud say thanks.

Thanks. Thank you.

They pass by devastated rooms, in one of them there is something like a warehouse, crates of

water, crates of beer, some textiles stuffed in the corners, there are no cabinets or shelves,

everything is just lying on the ground.

In the corner, mattresses are lying one on top of the other, they look like they were stolen

from the gym.

-There are mattresses here and there are blankets and pillows in bags. Tinker washes them, so

don't worry, there are no bugs or anything. They even smell nice. If you want furniture, there

are some cabinets in the empty rooms, you can take them. It's a commune.-he laughs

nervously and rubs his hands on his hips-The showers on the fourth level are really cool, girls

keep shampoos and other stuff there. If something is not labeled, you can use it.I'll leave you

for now. If you need anything, well... actually, there's no one here to help you now, because

we have work to do. Sas trusts that you won't rob us or screw up our computers. So, that's it

for now.

He smiles nervously one last time and leaves the warehouse.

-Okay. Weird.- John states, looking pointedly at T., who just shrugs. They decide to choose a

room first before they start bringing things.

John checks most of the rooms on the floor and they all seem to be in a similar state of

disrepair and smell of damp. So he chooses the one that stinks the least, and from the large

windows reaching the ceiling you can see the motorway, the nearby hills and one of the lower

factory chimneys standing closest. Apart from an old desk and a few files lined up against the

wall, the room is completely empty. A terrible dump, but it has potential.

-Maybe here?- the question was rhetorical, because T. doesn't really have a preference, or

maybe he'll assess the room in terms of a possible evacuation, but this must have turned out

no worse than the others because he nods and goes inside. The sun hasn't set yet, its orange

glow pours into the room through the dirty panes of the windows. John looks at the vast dry

landscape below him, T.'s silhouette against the play of light, something squeezes and tugs at

his heart and he feels a sudden need to embrace T. and bury his face in that broad chest.

Beautiful, isn't it?-says and T. hugs him back, putting his hand on his head and scratching his

scalp with his fingers in a way that makes John weak in his knees.

-Yes. Beautiful...

-These showers. It would be nice to wash up.

The chemical plant workers were probably not very prudish, because the shower room was a

large room, without doors, curtains or partitions, equipped with twelve showers hanging from

the ceiling.

The huge windows from the high ceiling to the floor also had no way of covering them, and

the lack of any traces of guides indicated that there had never been any curtains. It was not

dark, although the sun had already set, painting the sky and the entire room pink.

T. looks around the room, he closed the metal door and blocked it with the shotgun, he also

had no particular requirements for privacy, but the prospect of being attacked when they are

naked and soapy was not encouraging. John went to the metal cabinets and began searching

for the towels and soaps He opened the rickety doors one by one and found the cosmetics and

a few towels only on the fifth try. He took out one of the bottles - a glass one, a black label

with gold lettering, it looked idiotically luxurious in a place like this.

-Sandalwood and jasmine- John reads aloud-Fuck me! I'm gonna have a Terminator smelling

like sandalwood and jasmine!

He looks at T. rakishly from under his uneven fringe. T. has already managed to get rid of his

shoes, jacket and shirt, now working on the leather straps of his trousers, he grabs the nearest

valve and warm water flows down onto John, still in his clothes.

-Hey! What do you think you are doing, dick?!

Initial shock turns into laughter, he walks up to T., all wet, and hits him in the chest with his

open palm. He might as well be hitting a wall. T. still has that smug smile that John loves so

much. And again. A jolt in his chest, painful but so wonderfully familiar and delightful,

warm... he stands on his toes and whispers into his mouth before kissing him.

-I love you so much...

He loosens the last straps of his pants and slides them off along with his underwear, kicks

them to the corner of the room, a moment later John's soaked clothes join the pile.

Sandalwood and jasmine really do smell amazing, amber drops of liquid gleam in the pink

glow of the sky, and on T.'s dark skin. John traces the shape of broad shoulders with his hand,

foam forms under his palms, the water falls on their heads washing away the sweat and dust

from the road.

John takes in the sight before him and is so happy, so in love. He feels T. hands on his back,

they move slightly up and down, gradually sliding lower and lower, to his loins, caressing his

butt. Strong fingers on his entrance, stubbornly reaching for their goal.

One hand changes direction and travels up to the base of his skull, massaging his scalp

soothingly as fingers of other one overcome the resistance of the muscles.

John rests his forehead against T. chest, spreads his legs more to give him better access,

wraps his arms around his waist so that he could stand.

It's never easy, but T. never rushes and has never hurt him, he always knows, he feels, what

and how John needs him, and after, there's just the unspoken pleasure of something so

wonderful, so good that he had never imagined before it was possible to feel something like

this and not die of pleasure.

T. kisses him deeply as he slowly withdraws his fingers, water runs down their faces, forcing

them to break apart more often so John can catch his breath.

T. grabs his butt and lifts him up as if he weighed nothing, John wraps his legs around his

waist. T. could lift a tank, John's weight means nothing to him. He enters him slow with

shallow movements, the way he loves most, and John squeezes his neck, kisses everywhere

he can reach, his temple, nibbles on his earlobe, runs his fingers through his rough hair, he

can't control himself and he makes all these little sighs.

Strong hands on his butt-he can break concrete with them, he can break him in half, but he

loves him with gentle movements of his hips, hitting that wonderful spot and delivering the

perfect mix of pleasure and pain.

Showerroom is filled with the sound of water, the sound of their bodies rubbing against each

other, wet kisses and silent moans.

John comes with muffed cry with his mouth pressed against T.'s neck.

It's dark already when T. puts him down on the slippery tiles, still holding him with arm

around his waist because otherwise he's sure he'll fall over.

-I love you, John Connor- he whispers as they press their foreheads together.Their silhouettes

illuminated by the pale moonlight.- I love you so much.

The mattress stinks terribly, John doesn't want to think what its been through in it's long life,

but probably a lot. He takes more blankets from the warehouse than he needs, and these

actually smell nice.

After taking a shower, he planned to poke around the rooms for something useful, like a desk

lamp, or candle at least, but it turned out he had trouble walking. Then they moved the

mattress and pillows and John fell into them and didn't intend to get up for the next forty-

eight hours. The shower sex had drained all the tension and adrenaline that had been coursing

through his veins for days. He was exhausted, sleepy, sated.

The mattress was large, had thick foam and was comfortable, but John was lying on it alone.

T. as usual, in each new place stands at the window with a shotgun resting on his shoulder, he

will stand like this everynight until he decide that the place is safe, it could take a day, it

could take a few weeks.

The room is completely bright, the moon shines directly into the large windows, but it doesn't

bother him, he's accustomed to falling asleep in any conditions and sometimes surviving

many days just on naps.

He would like to fall asleep already, but he is fighting against sleep, the sight of T. only in his

black boxers, with a shotgun on his shoulder, illuminated by the pale moonlight, standing

against the dark shape of the hills on the horizon, is so wonderful that he cannot take his eyes

off him. -

-Are you coming to bed?

-No.

-And what if I say I'm cold?

-I'll tell you to put on a sweater.

John snorts, but his eyelids are slowly closing, he wants to grumble, just because, even

though he knows it won't do any good. He smiles and falls asleep.

The moon shines directly into the windows, it is bright outside. A small hill covered with

forest is a good point of approach, it is about ten miles to a busy expressway, but there is a

narrrow dirt road nearby.

T-800 hears the rustle of pillows behind him, John's breathing has gone from long and calm

to short and quiet. He is awake. The slap of bare feet on the floor and hands around his waist,

the touch of fringe between his shoulder blades.

-The mattress is really comfortable.

-I suspect so, that's why we chose it.

-Come on, it will be more comfortable with you.

-Go to sleep John.

The boy is standing behind him, but T-800 is sure he rolls his eyes now.

Movement next to the cold chimney- two armed men smoking cigarettes. Both approximately

six feet tall, average muscle build. Armed with M16 rifle.

Without taking his hands off his body, John moves to his front. He stands on his tiptoes to

kiss him. The T-800 has to angle it just right so that the boy's bangs don't block his vision.

The men laugh, the T-800 judging their stance as non-aggressive. One of them pulls out a

bottle from behind a garbage can. Probably ethanol at a concentration of forty percent.

John's kisses move down to his neck, then to the place where he rests the shotgun, and back

out in the opposite direction. The moisture left in their path sends a signal of coolness.

The men drink the liquid straight from the bottle and jostle each other. Rifles slung loosely

over their shoulders.

John's mouth on his chest, tingling on the surface of his skin tissue, vision impaired,

computing center responding weakly and with delay.

Movement at the edge of the stand of trees, close-up and analysis of shape and movement

pattern -the processor sends a message- deer. Level of danger -0.

John's lips slide down his chest, leaving cold trails of saliva, he is lower and lower, his

fingers on the edge of his boxers. Discharges on the fingertips of his feet and hands.

-Can I?

-Yes.

Boxers at his ankles, he lifts his foot so John can take them off. Blood running to where

John's lips touch him.The wetness and warmth of his mouth, the pressure on his member and

the light suction. T-800 lifts his hand to feel the slippery hair under his fingers. He presses

John's head lightly. A series of shocks in his lower back and along his spine.

Blue lights at the distance. Probably a police patrol, stopped at a bend in the expressway. T-

800 tries to zoom in, but the operations center is filled with a thousand pieces of chaotic

information, instead of the image of the expressway, it sends images of John's face. When he

laughs, when he moans with pleasure, when he looks thoughtfully ahead and the wind moves

his hair on his forehead.

T-800 closes his eyes, opens them again and tries to focus on the highway. Police patrol,

stops a black pick-up, policeman checks the driver's documents.

John tears his mouth away from him and rises to his feet. T-800 continues to watch action on

motorway.

John is behind him again.

-Can I ? -a whisper

-Yes.

The men below are walking towards the gate. Close-up of the gate, in the guardhouse the T-

800 notices movement. He recognizes a man named Sas. Their attitudes towards each other

are friendly and open.

John enters him, with quick movements, and T-800 knows he is close. There is no vision

now, only John and his body, their bodies, his pleasure pouring over the vibrations of T-800's

systems, his pressure, his weight, his spasmodic breaths and arms squeezing his waist, his

moans and teeth grazing his shoulder blades. There is no vision, only connection. T-800,

reaches back and wraps his hand around him, pressing him closer. John's peak rolls through

their bodies like a storm, like an earthquake.

His heat pouring into the T-800's body. Now there's nothing but them. Only them.

They both need a moment to calm down. John to catch his breath, T-800 to get the computing

center work in normal mode. John has pulled out of him and is leaning forward, transferring

almost his entire body weight on him. He rubs his forehead against the space between his

shoulder blades, he kiss it.

-I love you John. Go to sleep.

-I love you too. You won't come?

-I won't.

One last kiss and John resignedly lies down on the mattress.

John wakes up before noon T. is still standing in the same position by the window, he hasn't

bothered to fold his boxers. It's a good thing there are no buildings on the other side and no

one would think of climbing up the chimney.

- Does not wearing underpants increase the effectiveness of the guard?

- Underpants have no influence on the effectiveness of anything John.

- I disagree, taking off your underpants has a huge influence on the effectiveness of some

activities.

- The guarding is not one of them.

He really wants to get up and slap that ass, but he knows T. will hit him back and John will

spend the next six months in a cast.

-Probably we should go downstairs. See whats up.

-Probably.

The large industrial elevator rumbles into motion, and considering that it only goes down two

floors, they spend a disproportionate amount of time in it, finally stopping on the second

floor. There is silence, broken only by the steady hum of computer fans. A stocky man sits in

the corner at the monitors, Clint, John still thinks the guy looks lost. His sparse hair combed

back into a ponytail, his thick-rimmed glasses, his flannel shirt tucked into his flannel pants

give him the look of a struggling real estate agent with no persuasiveness, or a small-time

accountant rather than a revolutionary. On a torn couch is sleeping blonde girl from van, now

she's wearing pink fluffy pajamas with a hood and a mustard stain on the cleavage, short

pants revealing bruised legs, in her hand she's holding a cup with a straw filled with milky

white liquid, John notices that her hand is limp and the cup will land on the floor in a

moment. The creaking of the elevator must have woken her up because she slowly sits down

on the couch and rubs her eyes, her hair tied on top of her head is in total disarray, she has a

big bruise on her forehead and a busted lip.

- Hey - Clint is the first to notice them. He comes over and shakes their hands.

- It's great that you're here. We really need people. Most of our team are gone now, they went

to the city. Sas probably said already that we only travel together and usually in the company

car.- John nods.

-This is our command center, but you probably know about it already, a bit of a mess here,

sorry - Clint rubs his hands nervously on his pants - it's more of a room for hanging out, but if

we plan something, it's here. If we drink, it's here too - he laughs and leads them to the

computers set on tables put together. Now John can see that the tangle of cables could

probably be better organized, but he doesn't comment. They walk over to the computers and

John recognizes basic coding language on one and a bunch of completely incomprehensible

horizontal lines on the other two. T. looks at it for a moment, but loses interest, focusing more

on Clint himself.

- What's this? - John asks, pointing at the unfamiliar symbols.

-Oh, this is my baby. I've been working on it for a while, like ten years by now. It was

supposed to be something for the railroad, you know, a program to eliminate the human

factor and its fallibility, less accidents, catastrophies and so on.

John wants to snort, because this would be real catastrophie.

-I'm currently developing an algorithm, something that will catch events in time, news, small,

seemingly insignificant events in the world that may be related to the factions we're interested

in. So far, with average success, but I'm not the only one working on it at Etna. But I admit

I'd like to be the first. Well...Anyone showed you kitchen and stuff ?

-A bit.

-Ok. Give me a sec and I will show everything, its used to be titanium white laboratory, so we

have a former employee break room, there are fridges, a stove, a microwave. You can make

yourself something to eat and...

-Cupcake! - the girl finally notices them, interrupting the accountant's flow of words.

It'second time she's called him a ,cupcake,. Jesus he hopes the nickname won't stick. Girl

waves to them and stands up, supporting herself with the backrest, walks towards them. She

sways on her feet and limps.

-Hi, Tinker, right? I mean Emily?

-Emilia. Nice of you to come.

-John, and this is T.

The girl takes T.'s outstretched hand and shakes it caricaturally hard, but instead of shaking

John's hand, she pats him on the head with her open hand and ruffles his hair, her move is

unexpected for both of them, but T. doesn't react. She's two inches taller and probably older.

Her smile lacks an upper premolar.

She starts laughing and John says she's still not completely clean yet.

-If you're hungry, there's soup over there- she points to a steaming pot on a small table and

hobbles towards the couch.

-What's wrong with you?- T. dispassionately points to her legs. John elbows him in the

stomach, but seriously doesn't believe he'll ever teach him tact. Ever.

-I think they fucked me pretty hard, but I can't say for sure, I wasn't on board most of the

time.

She lies down on the couch, takes a sip of milky liquid from a cup with a straw and closes her

eyes.

The statement nails him to the floor, the lightness and carelessness of what she said raises the

hairs on the back of his neck. The room falls silent, the steady clicking of the mouse stops,

the creaking of the chair's wheels is heard and Clint stands up. He walks over to the couch.

- Come on Tink. You'll lie down on your place- he grabs her hand and pulls her up, but she

has no intention of getting up.

-I'm fine here.

-You'll be more comfortable in your bed.

-I don't want to be alone, i want to be here

-You won't be alone..I'll stay with you.

-You have a lot of work, you said.

-I'll take a break.- they don't hear what he whispers to her, but she gets up and they both walk

towards the exit.

-Give me a few minutes. She should fall asleep quickly.

This time they don't look at them. John doesn't know what to think about it.

-Did I say something wrong? - now you've got some inspiration, man. John rubs the bridge of

his nose because, really, he has no idea how to explain this to him, how to explain that

sometimes concern for someone's health shouldn't be expressed verbaly, specially to someone

who's been blody beaten and probably raped. Plus, he's absolutely certain that the question

was entirely in the context of potential threats to John.

-No...yes. Actually, the question itself isn't bad. Only if you see that someone got hit hard,

just don't ask, because it's obvious why it looks like that. And talking about it is difficult.

-Her external injuries would not indicate such extensive difficulty in moving. I would prefer

to avoid factors that could expose you to this type of injury.

-Fuck, I'd rather avoid that too. Trust me. But it's nothing that could happen to her here.

Nothing that could happen to me. Okay ?

He would have to explain it to him later. In more detail, especially in the context of girls,

women. He knew that being around people would be complicated, but they would manage.

They would keep their distance.

A good fifteen minutes pass before Clint reappears, calling them towards the social rooms.

John shuffles after him uncertainly, the atmosphere still awkward.

The refrigerators are old and make almost as much noise as a petrol generator, there is an

electric stove and two old washing machines in the corner.

-I'll go to the store this afternoon, if you need anything I can take you.

John needs something.

Concrete on the floor in their room, is mostly broken but John is sure he has seen old carpet

somewhere, all he needs to do is rip it off and put it just in the middle of the hole and it would

be much better.

T. brings in a large tin cabinet that they found on the lower floors, there is also an old wooden

desk and a metal desk lamp.

John wipes the shelves of it with a paper towel and arranges their few belongings on them, a

few pairs of socks, underwear, T-shirts and one pair of pants each. The left side of the cabinet

belongs to him, the right to T., it all looks quite pathetic and John plans to go shopping soon.

He will fill this cabinet with black T-shirts for T. And buy himself the coolest shirts with band

names. The open shelves will be great for them to keep their magazines there, and the high

space on the left will be good for fishing rods. Because John will buy T. fishing rods. then

he'll take him to Lake Pleasant, they'll take a boat and T. can catch as many fish as he likes.

He looks at the room critically and decides that for such limited possibilities he has fantastic

arranging skills.

He throws his arm over T.'s shoulder and shifts his body weight onto him.

-What do you think?

-It looks like shit.

-I agree. It's fucking awesome.

Clint drops him off at a small discount store on the outskirts of town and tells him that he'll

probably find everything he needs there and he has two hours to do so, before Clint comes to

pick him up at the same place.

A discount store is simply a big tent filled with goods, from food to clothing, footwear and

various household items.

He had a thousand ideas of what to buy but now he doesn't like anything. Finally he throws

two six-packs of plain white boxers in his size and for T. into the basket, he was hoping for

some funny underwear with superheroes or a silly slogan, but the discount store doesn't have

anything like that. There's a stand with fishing rods and John has no idea which one to get so

he grabs the two most expensive ones, hoping that T. will know what to do with them, a set

of floats, a line and three fishing magazines for September, for himself he packs Teen Beat,

an archive issue and the latest one, Metal Hammer and Rip, a big plastic package of Red

Vines, an idiotic Chinese cat waving its paw - he sees it on the shelf above the magazines and

a vanilla scented candle - a girly thing, but he wants it in their new place.

Their new place.

John got used to not getting used to anything. Nothing, neither places nor people, everything

came and went and cherishing it only caused unnecessary suffering after the loss. When he

was a child he never had anything like a stable family, according to his mother his father

wasn't even born yet and she was obsessed with finding him a mentor, a teacher, someone

who would be able to teach him how to be a great leader, therefore her life choices most often

fell on soldiers, policemen with military passions, former commandos. Maybe something

would come of it, but every time she couldn't stop herself from babbling about the inevitable

end of the world, about how her child was supposed to be a messiah and a great millitaty

leader and even the toughest guy would give in after a few months, not to mention that none

of them were enthusiastic about spending time with a brat who wasn't theirs.

In Todd and Janelle's house he had his own room, but he never felt at home there, so the

room was alien to him, and the Voights were nothing more to him than a pair of annoying

jailers who took him only for money, not out of the goodness of their hearts or infatuation

with his personality. In hindsight, however, he decided that they did not deserve all contempt

that he showed them, and certainly not a cruel death at the hands of a cyborg from the future.

In Mexico he had a corner of a wooden cabin, it was so small that the three of them sat on

each other most of the time and John spent as much time outside as possible.

But this was different. John didn't know how long they would stay at the chemical plant, but

there was something incredibly warm and tender inside him when he thought that this was

their place now. Their. A place where they would live together, which John would arrange so

that it would be common and nice for both of them, that there would be John's things and T's

things. That T. would have his things, his newspapers, fishing rods, magazines, clothes,

fragrances, shaving cosmetics and everything that normal couples have in their homes. He

would be happy and he would know that John cared about him and loved him.

And then inspiration hit him, suddenly, as it usually did. Across the street was a small

drugstore. John would buy him perfume, he would have nice, pretty things, his own, pretty

perfume with a hint of lemon.

They had their own place now.

When they return to the plant, John has his first opportunity to take a closer look at the

factory, the size of the huge and vast buildings, the tall, thin chimneys reaching into the sky,

the shorter ones but wide and bulging, the network of pipes entwining each building, the

kilometers of conveyor belts. Everything is quiet and dead.

Clint explained to him on the way that the plant had gone bankrupt some time ago, no one

wanted to buy such a huge facility until Etna, under the pseudonym of the trustee, took over

the bankruptcy estate. The plant was a good cover, Clint said, but for what purpose,

specifically and precisely, he did not want to say.

John wonders what funds and influence Etna has that they were able to take over such a huge

complex.

From the elevator John can tell that T. was on the ground floor, white footprints of large boots

leading to their room. He thinks he would make a great detective, because T. is kneeling on

the floor in front of a pile of parts and what looks like an engine, with more white, gooey dust

around it.

-What do you need that for?

-Lots of useful parts. One of the washing machines is broken.

John shrugs, because that's probably all T. had to say about it.

John places the silly chinese cat on the shelves, a vanilla scented candle next to it, and on the

shelf below he carefully places, so as not to bend the corners, fishing magazines and his

music magazines.

-I bought you magazines and this-he hands him a small black box. T.'s hands are covered

with a thin layer of titanium white, so when he takes the foil-wrapped box, he leaves white

fingerprints on it. He tears the foil and takes out a small bottle made of dark, frosted glass.

-What is it ?

-Spray it-John is as happy as a small child who has just given his mother a handmade heart.

-And ?You like it?

He is so unsure, because he doesn't know anything about these things, but he smelled all the

bottles one by one until he couldn't smell anything. But this one probably smelled the most

like lemon, a little bit of leather and something else, but he liked it. He hoped T. would like it

too.

T. sprays into the air.

-Hey. Not here!- he laughs, takes the bottle from his hand and sprays it on his neck.

-What's that for?

John's enthusiasm drops a bit.

-Well, to smell nice...

-Is it about what that woman said. Nancy?

John needs a few seconds to process it.

-What? No! Jesus, no! - he feels like running away and banging his head against the wall.

-You just like certain scents and I thought you could have it. You'd like to have it, that you'd

like it...-his voice seems to have dropped completely.

T. looks at him searchingly for a moment and probably wonders if he did or said something

wrong, because from enthusiastic and cheerful John has gone quiet and subdued.

-I like it. It's a very nice smell.

John beams again and kisses him hard, smearing white powder across their faces. The sweet

silence is broken by the growling of his stomach.

-John, you should go and eat something.

John takes the elevator down to the second floor, he bought himself some macaroni and

cheese, he hopes to heat it up in one of the ovens. He decides that the most convenient way

would be to find a microwave somewhere and have it at their place.

When he is already at the playroom level he sees Willson, nervously tapping his fingers on

the buttons of the old cartridge console controller and jumping on the seat of the dirty couch,

mumbling something under his breath, probably curses.

At first he doesn't notice him, but when John comes closer, his face he beams with a wide

smile. He's wearing only gray shorts and a few silver chains hanging from his neck, he moves

on the couch to make room for John.

-Hi- he pats the spot next to him- sit down.

-Hi- John replies, still quite embarrassed by the fact that the guy is looking at him like the sun

was shining out of his butt. Okay, it was nice and everythi, but he doesn't know how to deal

with such baseless, of that he's sure, adoration.

-Are you playing? You can turn on a second player.

-Sure, what game is this?

John takes the second controller connected to the console with a long cable.

-Mario, old as the hills, but still good shit. Playable, I have others too.

He reaches behind the back of the couch and pulls out a shoebox filled with cartridges, most

of them yellow, but there are also limited editions.

- Browse around. We can play something else if you want. There's a bunch of old computers

in block A, most of them don't work, but if you want and you have the know-how you can

put something together, there's a lot of equipment there, even boomboxes, radios, they were

supposed to be scrapped, but when Etna took over the building, they left it for morons like us,

I think. If you want I can take you there later.

John wants, really wants, really really wants to have his own computer, not only to play

games but to do his part of the work for Etna. From what he noticed, Clint is in charge of the

network, he's usually sitting at a few monitors placed next to each other, looking through

some maps, marking them with red dots, staring at the code moving across the glass screens.

- Your friend Emily, is she better now?

- Better. She got hit hard, but no one here makes fuss of themselfes ya know. We're Wolfpack,

the fist of Etna, or something like that. You fit in here.

-How do you know I fit in?

-Man, you're John Connor, that John Connor, as a kid I used to cut out articles with your face

from the newspapers and paste them into my album.

John looks at him in surprise and seriously has no idea what to say, because hey, this is weird.

-What articles?

-Well, from the newspapers, the news, you were a kid like me wanted for terrorism, I thought

it was awesome. I still do think it's awesome.

John knew that his face, his mom's and T.'s were the main fodder for the press after the

Cyberdyne explosion and the police were looking for them like crazy all over the country, but

he didn't think that his hero cult had developed anywhere.

-Man, the cops were running around like crazy, I thought they'd be tearing up the asphalt.

Then they must have started covering something up because every now and then someone

associated with Cyberdyne committed suicide or was fatally hit by a car. At first, few people

connected it with what started happening in the country and later in the world. You know,

those who saw more were called nutcases, and then the authorities took everyone by the

throat and few people questioned that something was wrong here.

I always wanted to know why you did it... Since I've found Etna or Etna found me, I've

started to suspect. Did you know back then that they were up to something?

John had been expecting this question and had thought up a million scenarios and lies that

would be credible and that wouldn't say much about the nature of T. He mainly wanted to

protect him and besides, having learned from experience, watching his own mother, he came

to the conclusion that spreading the word that the end of the world was approaching and that

we were being attacked by killer machines from the future never works well for credibility

and reputation.

-More or less. Actually, my mother knew more, she planned everything. You know, I was a

kid, I opened what they told me to and tried not to die.

-And still fucking awesome Dude ! And this big guy ? He's not very talkative is he? The fact

that he's not your father is what I figured myself. Have you known each other long?

John had no idea which question to answer first, and Bernard also had the delicacy and tact of

a herd of buffalo.

- No, he is not. We know eachother few years. And actually, we met during that mission and

so on.

-Oh cool. Is it true that he's from Russia?

Now John is losing his voice because it's probably one of the stupidest things he's ever heard.

- From which Russia?- oh, that was brilliant Connor.

-Well, there's only one Russia, isn't there? In Europe... Asia... I don't really know...-and

suddenly he seems to realize that he's being pushy, because he turns red again and bows his

shaved head-Okay. Forget it, sorry. Your business. We play? You can take Mario if you want

too.

-No Luigi is ok.

-Cool.

John thinks that he likes him, he is nice and funny. Maybe they can be friends.

Chapter 7

Chapter Summary

Timecop1983-Cruise

John was no longer used to living with people. The last few years had been just them and

Sarah, their strange, twisted little family or the constant change of places and a kaleidoscope

of faces. The presence of people, even on other floors, the clatter of pipes, the sound of radios

or TVs echoing through the hallways, background conversations or laughter made him feel

uneasy.

He didn't really have many chances to talk to them and tried to stay on the sidelines. He knew

they were still watching them and didn't trust them completely, the feeling was mutual.

Sponge asked an awful lot of questions, for a member of a group whose most important

directive was not to ask questions. He was simply curious and John was used to lying and

twisting since his early years, first to get something for himself in his complicated life and

later to simply survive, it also taught him that it was easy to get lost in your own lies, get

tangled and cause trouble and sometimes it was better to keep quiet than to invent your own

version of reality.

Now he wasn't afraid for himself. T. had learned a lot in the last few years, he blended in well

with the crowd, but he still had behaviors that could be perceived as strange. Idea that he

came from Russia or Chechnya was good, probably, none of the WolfPack or Carters group

knew any Russians, so his origin and cultural barrier were good excuse for odd accent and

stuff.He decided that they would just work on their floor, be there whenever Etna needed

them, do the tasks that Sas or Carter gave them and mind their own business.

Sponge promised to take him to the warehouse, the junkyard, the place where they keep junk,

and he kept his word. So one day he came to pick him up around noon with a pack of

Pringles, a four-pack of beer, and a big grin plastered on his face. He found John reading

Metal Hammer and T. cranking up a large, industrial engine that he had set up in the middle

of the room.

-Hi, I thought we could have a look in the warehouse, I wanted to find some speakers and

maybe you'll find something cool for yourself.

They go down to the ground floor and head towards block A. Above them hang wires, cables,

pipe insulation, factory buildings are rising.

-We have to walk a bit.-Sponge begins- They used to have electric carts here, even a bus from

one end to the other every now and then. Now everything is falling apart. What a shame, isn't

it? So many people have lost their jobs. When I was a kid, my father was also fired from the

flip-flop factory. He started drinking, he would beat me up for no reason. At that time I

thought it would be a great idea if you showed up and we blew up the factory together.

-Sorry, I've been out of the country for a while, if I had known I would have dropped by, and

we would have sorted things out.

Sponge laughs and opens two bottles of beer with his lighter.

-You were gone, man and in the meantime, a terrible mess has happened. Everywhere.

Nobody even knew when. Riots, a few people got hit in the head, people got angry, it started

with a ban on gatherings without a report, in all states, you know, if you want to have a party

of more than twenty people, you have to report it to the office. Fucked up. They started with

the Natives, dispossession, delegalization of organizations, taxation of tribes for use of land.

Then came the ghettos, the poorest districts. Man, it looks like someone wanted every person

on this planet to stand against the other, why ?

John had an idea why. Why launch missiles, why waste energy sending more terminators,

trying to kill one person... Mutual destruction is in your nature... He had never heard truer

words... people only need a little more or less pigment in their skin to start killing each other.

Just push a few dominoes.

The small rusty door in the huge gate of block A opens with a bang, the hall is practically

empty, the ceiling is high enough to accommodate several-meter-long cranes, rails run

through the middle of the floor leading to another large gate on the opposite side of the

building. Willson leads him through the nearest door into a maze of corridors with smaller

rooms. In each of them there are binders with documents, some tools or equipment. They

enter by metal stairs, there is a floor directly above the hall, it is just as big, but the ceiling is

several times lower, probably like a standard room. The room is filled with various types of

equipment from spectrophotometers, through centrifuges, autoclaves, chromatographs,

equipment from the production hall, fragments of conveyor belts. A large part of the room is

occupied by a graveyard of computers and RTV equipment.

-Fucking awesome.

John could sit here all day.

-You have to work a bit, but you can always find something, and the guys are also bringing

equipment from the other buildings, it's worth checking in here from time to time a lot goes

to block C, to Carter, but we can take what's left.

John quickly finds an old radio with a bent antenna, no plug anywhere to check if it works, so

he puts it aside, on a pile of things to take, a dusty computer column, but no monitor, small

TV with a built-in dual antenna on top. Janelle had one in the kitchen, whenever John came

into she watched argentinian soap operas.

Janelle...

He doesn't think about them often, sometimes, something will remind him of them, a woman

with curly hair, baseball cards on the store stand- Todd gave him several of them when he

thought he could somehow win him over, and establish some kind of understanding. He

doesn't miss them, doesn't cry, has never felt anything for them except a vague resentment,

only sometimes he wonders if they suffered, if they died quickly, how many more people lost

their lives because they brushed against his cursed person.

How many more people will die, and if no Terminator is currently hot on his heels, are those

people safe?

And was it worth it.

Was John worth it, because he never chose to be the chosen one, the savior of humanity as his

mother claimed, although he personally thought that even in the future the nickname was a

bit of an exaggeration.

Regardless of whether his future has changed or not, whether he is still destined to be a leader

in this or that war, or just a guy trying to survive, he did not choose that, and if the adult John

Connor chose that for him, then this John doesn't give a damn about him. This John wants to

be happy, as long as he can. This John wants to befriend Bernard Willson, drink beer with

him and play Mario Kart on the old Nintendo, he wants to get to know Clint better and help

him with his algorithm, he wants to gain Sas's trust and for Nansy to stop thinking he stinks.

This John wants to be loved and to be in love, to fall asleep and wake up in T.'s arms and hear

what he doesn't have to say about the big old industrial engine in the middle of their room.

He wants to eat a fish he catches in the middle of the lake in the fall. This John is almost

eighteen and in those eighteen years he's been very rarely happy. Now he is, in a ruined

chemical plant, surrounded by people he doesn't even know, with a machine by his side. He's

happy. And so fucking scared that it will go away.

-You got anything?-Sponge's voice is heard from behind a vague pile of cables.

-Yeah. Radio and TV.

Sponge comes out from behind the pile and looks critically at his findings.

-Look for an antenna, a bigger one, not much comes through here. Some interference and

other shit, probably because of what they're up to at Carter's.

-What are they up to at Carter's?

Sponge turns red again and looks like he's said too much.

-I'm not sure-he laughs nervously and pulls his sleeves over his wrists again. John has noticed

that he often does this when he's nervous and it really looks funny with his muscles and

height-Some shit. It's messing up the airwaves. Are we going or do you want anything else?

John wants to know what exactly they're up to at Carter's.

They return to block B. John is carrying an old TV, a radio, and a roll of cables that he could,

with a bit of luck, make an antenna out of, if the two short wires on top of the receiver really

aren't enough.

-Tinker has a soldering iron if you need one, she fixes everything with it. She walks around

the block and would solder anything - he laughs sadly, they walk in silence for a while- Have

you ever killed anyone, John?

The question surprises him and John stops in his tracks.

-No, I don't think so. At least not that I know of.

Sponge bites his lip and if his hands weren't full of electronic junk, I'd be hiding them in the

sleeves of his sweatshirt.

-Because I think I killed those guards. I panicked and shot blindly. They were moving, but I

don't know if they survived until the ambulance arrived.

John remembers Tinker's bruised legs, he remembers how she could barely walk, her dazed

gaze.

-They weren't good people, Sponge. They deserved everything they got.

Bernard looks at him and smiles uncertainly, he probably needed to hear that. But John really

thinks they deserve every pain they got, how can you do something like that to someone. We

don't have to be afraid of machines from the future, he thinks, we make our own hell. At least

machines don't feel pleasure when they hurt someone.

-Why was she there? Why were they taking her?

The question that had been on his mind since the van door opened.

-She was doing something for Etna, they took her in the middle of the town. In front of all

people. They threw her in a van and drove away. They had her in their sights already, she

used to work for CyberCorp, an internship for talented students, paid, I wouldn't even know, I

barely moved from class to class in school.

John snorts with amusement.

-Chill. I also have a doctorate in shotgun reloading and explosives.

-They had her in their sights, before she came to us, she was stealing company secrets, you

know, she took them out for money with her boyfriend, they sold it to someone. CyberCorp

began to suspect that they had a mole. Once, she spilled the beans next to some CEO, ya

know, something she shouldn't have known as a trainee, a normal company would have fired

her for disciplinary reasons and filed a lawsuit. But they started threatening her. The guy ran

away, Tinker came to us through buyers. And when they had her...no more conversation.

Clint tracked the shipment, I got high, you showed up. You know the rest.

He knows, he thought they were transporting a processor, and they were transporting a

battered girl. Sons of a bitches.

They don't need a soldering iron, they stripped the insulation off the cables, connected

everything with adhesive tape, the cables hung on a metal shelf and the TV works. The

picture is hopeless and snowy but John is more than happy. He puts it on a wooden stool and

moves it in front of the mattress. Next time, hopefully, he'll find a VCR, there were some

movies in the discount store.

A fishing show. John would rather watch the snow melt or the paint dry on the wall, but T...

T. seems interested in the fascinating process of impaling a worm on a hook, so he decided t

be a considerate partner and show that he cares about his interests. He pulls himself a bag of

corn chips that he brought from the kitchen from a plastic basket marked "take it." He has no

idea who bought them, but judging by the increased protein and all sorts of vitamins, it was

Nancy. She is the one who usually brings food that qualifies as communal, or makes meals

for everyone. She stocks the fridge with general supplies, although everyone has their own

shelf. Except for Clint, who has his own fridge in his room, and to keep up appearances, he

lives mostly in a rented room in the city and Peter, who has the three largest shelves filled

with beer with a note saying "touch this and I'll chop your arms off,"

John wants to be a supportive, so he forces himself to watch as a middle-aged man in a funny

hat sits on the bank of the river, staring at a float for the past fifteen minutes. Then it occurs

to him that this torture probably won't be appreciated anyway, because for T. it doesn't matter

at all whether John shares his hobby or not. His system of values

and important things in their

relationship is completely different than the human one, so John fidgets on the mattress, then

gets up and says he's going downstairs.

At the end of the month, John is immensely grateful to the gods of titanium white, because in

the tangle of corridors he discovers a metal fire escape. The elevator has the speed of sliding

glacier, and in the time it takes to climb one floor, John can run up the stairs from the ground

floor to the top and back twice.

Before he reaches the kitchen, he hears female voices and laughter from afar. The woman

closest to the door is someone John hasn't met yet, because if he did, he would remember her.

She smiles at him and John feels himself blush and probably forget how to speak, because

she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen face to face, poster-like, spread-like,

model-like. She has cat-like blue eyes, straight black hair reaching her waist and perfectly

shaped lips, she is short and petite.

-Hi-she dazzles him with a smile as perfect as the rest of her -John, isn't it ? Trevor told me

you are here, Rita.

John shakes her small hand. Behind her on a kitchen stool sits Tinker. She smiles at him.

-Hi. Tinker or Emilia, nice to meet you.

-We already...-he wants to start but stops. She probably doesn't remember, it's a good thing

she doesn't remember.

-I'd shake your hand, but if I move, that mean hottie will start yelling at me.

-Damn right.

Rita takes another bandage out of the plastic box and sticks it on Tinker's bruised wrists. The

right wrist is already wrapped in bandages.

-There's goulash on the stove- without stopping working, she points to a battered brown pot -

Nans made it this morning, it's amazing- she extends her hand towards Tink - a finger.

-Jesus. Why the finger?

-Where can I get your blood from? Give me your finger.

The blonde reluctantly gives her hand. John notices that the bruise on her face has almost

disappeared and that her combed, clean, blond hair reminds him of his mother's hairstyle.

He realizes that he's staring at them when Rita pierces her finger, puts a thin tube to the small

wound and drips blood into a vial and place it on the counter.

He turns around and searches the drawers for a spoon or something to put the goulash on.

He pours himself some and wonders if he would be very rude to go to his room with the

bowl, he decides that yes it would be rude, so he sits down at the kitchen table.

Nansy enters the room dressed in her usual black, although today her jacket has lots of

patches on it. John thinks it's cool.

Instinctively sniffs his armpit a little, but he had a bath last night and wonders if that will be

enough.

-Hi, is it good?

-Yeah. Delicious.

He states with his mouth full and he can't possibly make a fool of himself in front of her any

more.

But she doesn't pay much attention to him anymore, she goes to the counter and grabs a large

cup with a straw. She shakes it and the result is probably not satisfactory.

-You didn't drink.

-This is disgusting.

-It's not supposed to taste good, it's supposed to help you.

-You come home and think that the torture is over, but it's not over.

The sentence may have been meant as a joke, but no one laughs.

-Drink - Nansy says, still very serious and leaves the room. Rita packs the rest of the

bandages and a small vial of blood into a plastic box with a handle.

-See you tomorrow, Em. Don't be late.- she leans down to kiss her on the cheek. She waves

him off and they are left alone in the kitchen.

Tinker goes to the pot and pours the soup, or at least tries to, because the bandages on her

forearms and wrists restrict her movements, he wonders whether to get up and help her, but in

the end decides to just not stare.

-Trevor says we were lucky you showed up, because Sponge would have probably smashed

us into some barrier and we would either be dead or we would all have ended up back where

I ran from.

-It didn't look good-He shrugs, because he seriously has no idea what to say.

-You thought there was something kind of processor in this van ? They are working on

something like that, I can tell. But generally they experiment on people.

John puts down the spoon, he's surprised.

-What experiments? On whom?

-On prisoners, mainly political ones, on people they get from riots - public enemies, they

have people in the government, big money transfers goes to it. Trevor can tell you more, Etna

rescued him from a hospital in Dallas along with a transport of others taken from the protests.

John leans back in his chair. Transfers to hospital accounts...

-Who's Trevor?-he's heard that name for the second time in a few minutes.

-Sas. His name is Trevor, when Peter met him he started to call him Sasquach, because he's

stupid and it stuck. His real name is Nashoba in Chicksaw- wolf, but no one uses it. In my

opinion, it's much nicer. - John notices that she's blushing. -Anyway, he knows first-hand

what is going on there, but it certainly cannot be called treatment.

Tinker babbled. She talked all the time, in fact, and was the type of person who talked so

much that people eventually started ignoring her. That chattering had indirectly led her to

CyberCorp's underground labs, and had resulted in a busted lip and a missing upper bicuspid.

Emilia came with her parents and older brother from the Czech Republic when she was a

child. Her father was a physics professor. American dream: a house in the suburbs, a big car,

renowned schools. A privileged girl from Europe with blond hair and dreams of a doctorate.

Certificates with distinction, math Olympiads, a school robotics club. Internships in one of

the companies associated with CyberCorp.

When she was nineteen, she fell in love with friend of her brother's, whom she met at a party.

Chris was six years older, tall, handsome, he listened to Nirvana, had a tattoo of Che Guevara

on his chest and was a declared communist.

Tinker could listen for hours as he spoke beautifully about equality, peace, fair distribution of

wealth, revolution and eating the rich.

She would do anything for Chris. So when he suggested that she steal company secrets and

give them to him on diskettes, she didn't mind. Tinker, with a sense of lofty mission,

gracefully ignoring the fact that they were getting from mysterious Tom from fifty to one

hundred dollars per diskette (depending on the importance of the information).

The rest was exactly as Bernie had presented it to him. Pumping shitload of drugs and

beating her, was intended to extract information about how much she knew, how much she

had taken out, and to whom. Tinker was certain she hadn't uttered a word, but she didn't

remember their previous two meetings, so it was hard to tell how much she told them. She

certainly hadn't given them the location of the facilities, by now they would have been

swarming with counter-terrorists.

Sas was a soldier, he often volunteered for missions, usually in the Middle East. The army

paid a lot of money, he could help his parents renovate their house, he bought his father a

decent pickup truck, he paid for therapy for his brother, who was born with cerebral palsy.

Sas was on a mission when his village was set on fire.

Electrical short circuit - that was the official police report.

Electrical short circuit of his ass.

That day, an electrical short circuit occurred at night in a dozen or so places in the Chicksaw

Nation reserve, strangely enough where the most visible activists protesting the taking away

of their land lived.

Four people died then, including Sas's fourteen-year-old brother.

After returning, Sas drank himself almost unconscious and the next day went to the nearest

police station with a Molotov cocktail.

He got a good beating but he ran away. He was also charged with terrorism and had to

disappear. Disappearing didn't work for him very well, because he was angry. He was furious,

like many people around him, so destroying the city's infrastructure seemed like a good idea

at the time.

During the riots, he met Peter. A skinny activist with bleached hair, gelled like a brush. Peter

walked in the front row, banging his baseball bat on the windows of parked cars and yelling

at the wall of policemen.

He pulled Sas into the nearest alley when he was hit in the head by a cobblestone that

bounced off a police shield, and the frenzied crowd wanted to trample him in a violent retreat

when it turned out that the police were shooting at the protesters with live ammunition. And

they sticked together.

Peter was thin, tall, wiry and a bit crazy. He kept going on about an evil organization that

wanted to take over the world, about corrupt politicians, IT companies listening in on

conversations, about a global conspiracy against freedom.

Sas decided that it sounded less and less like the ramblings of a madman.

Peter was also a hacker, a really good hacker.

Someone who was very useful to Etna.

They went to protests together, wrote on walls, hacked into government websites. For many

months, they were lucky, they protected each other's asses.

Their luck ran out during the riots in Dallas, the police used water cannons, live ammunition

and stun guns. Those who didn't manage to escape were packed into prison transporters, but

only some ended up in jails. Those who got hit hard were taken to a hospital in Dallas,

initially to a ward, then to a place that wasn't on the building's evacuation plans.

Sas got hit hard. On the ward, he met Rita, who was his nurse. He regained consciousness

rarely and for a short time, but long enough to fall in love with the dark-haired beauty. The

feeling was mutual.

Rita was beautiful, gentle and wise. Rita saw that patients were disappearing, medical records

were being falsified and some information was being completely deleted.

When the patient she had fallen in love with disappeared, Rita decided to contact people who

offered a lot of money for any information from the hospital, and whose offers she had

rejected.

Peter had been in contact with Etna for a long time, although he did not yet know who the

people were who from time to time left encrypted messages on internet forums and in his e-

mail box.

When Etna organized the rescue of people being transported to Oklahoma City, Rita and

Peter went with them.

They landed in a disused chemical plant, giving rise to what Peter called the Wolfpack. They

were not suitable for Carter's group. Peter was more a computer guy, not a soldier, Rita an

ordinary nurse, and after the experiments in Dallas, Sas unfortunately did not run faster, did

not lift cars, did not throw a shield flawlessly, but had drug-resistant epilepsy and severe

allergic reactions to the metal implanted in his thighs and chest.

So they joined Clint- IT specjalist and accountant whom Etna found, won over to her side

and hired as a cover and link between Etna and the outside world. Soon after, they were

joined by Emilia Petrichkov, Bernard Willson and Nansy Miller.

WolfPack, despite proudly calling themselves a gang, a strike force, was just a group of

outcasts, outlaws, and useful to Etna. A few kids, a former soldier, a nurse, a compromised

would-be spy, a hacker, all had run-ins with the law, all were more or less wanted.

Tinker was chattering. John had learned more in half an hour of eating stew in the kitchen

than he had in months of digging around the net.

In the evening, lying on T.'s chest and staring blankly at the news that were probably already

censored, he told him everything he had learned from the girl.

T. was silent, he did not know this pattern of events.

John had studied enough military literature, the history of wars and regimes with his mother

that he knew this pattern perfectly.

He only did not know the source. Although they were both convinced that the source had

roots in the near future, it had simply changed tactics, adapted, eliminated the possibility of

changing history with a single small event like killing scientist and blowing up some

company.

John falls asleep on his chest. TV is still showing some low-budget movie, but its cool,

flickering light doesn't seem to bother the boy. He hasn't fallen asleep deep enough for T. to

want to move him to the pillow and turn off the box, so he watches an old romance. Movies

are a good source of information, although John has warned him not to take everything

literally, sometimes the behavior of actors is the director's nonsense idea and has little to do

with average human feelings.

T-800 doesn't sleep. He doesn't even have a function close to that state. But the boy's hands,

knowing no opposition, always pulled him to bed. So he would lie down. Once he would

simply lie next to the boy, watching over his peaceful sleep, while paying attention to

anything that could be a danger. Now something has changed, the T-800 feels that something

inside him is constantly changing. So, when he decides it's safe, he allows himself to feel the

phenomenon that is John Connor.

He memorizes the curve of his hips, angular shoulders, slippery hair spread on the pillow,

sometimes damp with sweat, high cheekbones, full lips, narrow chin.

John sometimes talks in his sleep, repeats his name, fidgets and searches for his body with his

hands. He nestles into his chest, wraps his legs around him, and when he's too hot, he runs

away to the other end of the bed.

Sometimes he dreams of something bad, but T-800 doesn't wake him up until it's really bad,

usually a light touch, a brush of fingers, an arm around him, and the boy calms down.

Sometimes he dreams of sex, and then he usually wakes up on his own, sometimes not even

completely, always hot and demanding. So they make love until he's sated and limp in T-800

arms.

John doesn't have very vivid dreams, he never had. He usually wakes up in the morning and

doesn't remember them, he doesn't try, figures, faces, random people he meets, usually T. or

well, just sex, which also includes the aforementioned.

When he was younger, when they were in Mexico, he had a recurring nightmare: no air, pain

in his chest, a police uniform in front of his eyes and hand turned into a blade in his heart. He

always woke up screaming and covered in sweat.

Later on, he started having other dreams from time to time, more vivid, so intense that the

feelings would rage in him longer than in any nightmare.

He was standing in the desert, it wasn't Mexico, nor Arizona or Texas wastelands. All around

him was yellow-white sand, all the way to the horizon touching the blue sky. John was sure

he had never been in this place. The sun was shining, the sky was cloudless but he was cold.

A bloody cold wind was kicking up dust particles, John knew he shouldn't breathe it in, but

he didn't care. In this dream he was angry, furious, desperately, desperately furious. He felt

like he could set the whole world on fire, destroy everything with his anger and sadness,

grind it into dust and it still wouldn't be enough to tame this despair.

When he wakes up he's still angry, he wants to get up and smash something, hit it so hard that

it shatters into atoms. A strong hand on his chest usually brings him back to the pillow and

reality.

There's another dream. A good one. One that John doesn't want to wake up from. Like the

place in your head where you run away to when everything becomes unbearable.

He's never seen this place either, he's sure he's never been there, not even as a child. He feels

warm wind on his face, he hears a gentle rustle. There is a lot of red around him, but not from

blood, liquid iron or fire. It is the setting sun reflecting off the lake, autumn leaves are

swirling above his head.

John is sitting at the very edge of the lake, on a bench he thinks, leaning to the side of large,

warm shape, playing with the tip of T.'s index finger, in the other hand he is holding

something strange, something small, wet, slippery, towards which he burns with an

indefinable aversion.

-Eat John- whisper quiet as the rustle of falling leaves.

It is an apple, in his left hand he holds an apple-quarter peeled with perfect strokes of a knife

with a precisely hollowed-out seed nest. John wants to lift the apple to his mouth, but he has

trouble with it - his hand is shaking and it is all wrinkled like tissue paper, spotted with liver

spots, old.

T. takes a quarter from his hand and puts it in his mouth. John takes a bite, the tart taste

spreading in his mouth, but he knows there's no point in arguing, because T. won't relent until

he's eaten the whole thing.

He closes his eyes, feels the warmth of the sun on his face, the solid shape next to him. He is

happy.

Chapter 8

Chapter Summary

Metallica -Sad byt true

IO Echo-Stalmate

Prodigy-Firestarter

Korn-Comming Undone

Cypress Hill -Insane in the brain

House of pain- Jump around

Michael Jackson-Dirty diana

2002

If saving the world involves this type of activity, then John is handing in his notice. He, T.

and Sponge have already unloaded three trucks of crates of unknown origin. They have

placed them on wooden pallets and secured them with straps, Davis from Carter loads them

onto a pallet truck and drives them deep into the corridor of block C, which none of them

have access to.

Before they get to work, John discreetly reminds T. of the average lifting capacity of a guy

with his bodybuild, so that it doesn't occur to him to increase the pace of work and grab an

absurd amount of goods.

T. just looked at him, kinda offended, and John felt stupid, but better safe than sorry.

They have no idea what they are unloading, the crates are well secured, wrapped in stretch

foil. They have not received any information not to throw or shake the goods, so definitely

it's not explosives. It could be a weapon, it could be ammunition, it could be a pasta.

When they finish unloading, another one pulls up and John feels like his back is about to

burst. Sponge sits against the wall and breathes heavily, T. of course shows no signs of

fatigue. Halfway through unloading, Peter joins them.

-Hello Pussies-he laughs and gets into the driver's cabin the sound of a cassette being inserted

into a tape recorder and the garage is filled with the hoarse voice of James Hetfield.

John gives T. a warning look, he is sure he will not like being called a pussy, or calling John a

pussy, but a quick non-verbal exchange of messages through a look: "don't react", "I know",

and John is calm. After all these years they are like one organism, one look, a grimace, one

gesture and one reads the other without using a single word.

James Hetfield quite aggressively convinces them that he is their life, their only friend, their

pain and eyes when they have to steal and from then on there is more smoking, drinking beer,

dirty jokes than work.

Peter is a weird. The kind of guy with the wandering eyes, the nervous hands, who's always

fingering something, chewing something, and rushing to fight for no reason. Bernard

obviously likes him, although Bernard probably likes everyone.

John hadn't quite decided whether he liked Pete or not. Unpredictable people always got on

his nerves, and Pete was a hothead and very unpredictable. At first, John thought Pete was on

drugs, but on the other hand, out of the two of them, John was the one who fucked the cyborg

from the future, so he probably wasn't in a particularly good position to judge what was weird

and what wasn't.

-Nans birthday is the day after tomorrow - Peter says during another cigarette break - I mean,

it's in a month, but right now there will be a few people from Carter, they're being transferred

in a week and Miller is hanging around with this one guy and she wanted him to be there, so

she says we'll drink the day after tomorrow.

John enters the garage and from the very entrance he is hit by deafening techno music. He

prefers metal, but at this stage he doesn't care, because he wants to drink and laugh.

Hey, he's eighteen, he should party every Friday.

The birthday party is prepared with the utmost care and commitment Pete, Sponge and Nancy

are sitting on old chairs brought from the storage, bottles of vodka are standing directly on

the crates that Davis didn't have time to carry further, the only thing that wasn't in the garage

before are two large speakers from the playroom and a fluorescent light, set to flash in time

with the music, the result was an impression of industrial psychedelia. John doubted that was

the intention, he knew that if they wanted to play the music loudly, they had to do it in a

garage with good soundproofing and besides Nancy and colorful balloons somehow didn't go

together. The flashing fluorescent lights and the choice of music were probably Pete's idea,

because it fit his aesthetic perfectly.

Sponge notices him and waves, shouts something but Firestarter shouts louder and John only

sees his lips move. Nancy moves over and makes room for him next to her, she is already

cheerful and John suspects that this is not their first bottle. Around on crates and chairs

dragged from various places sit a few guys from Carter, John knows them by sight, usually

they are on guard under block B or by the gate. Nancy waves to another group pushing in

through the garage gate, one of the guys approaches her and quite ruthlessly presses his lips

to hers, which makes John wonder where T. is.

T. functions among people, talks to them although his answers are usually laconic and

perfunctory, but do not arouse suspicion. T. does not feel the need to communicate, does not

understand the idea of chit-chat and conversations about nothing. His messages to people

concern specific things that need to be verbalized.

But Carter is exactly the same, and John is certain he is one hundred percent human.

None of them have ever confirmed or denied that T. is from somewhere in Eastern Europe or

Russia, but most people assumed he was not from States, in fact, in the time period he comes

from, there are no States anymore, so it's not really a lie in fact, and it was convenient, so

they didn't correct them. John had previously asked anxiously what T. knew about Russia,

Kazakhstan, or Chechnya, and it turned out that he had basic information about the

population, geographical location, and largest cities. Surely that information should be

enough if someone asked him. Besides, T. spoke several modern languages, including

Russian.

It's funny watching them unload, repair or just stand there together. While Peter, Sponge and

John fill the rooms with laughter, shoutin jokes and scuffles, T. and Carter work in absolute

silence, broken only by comments about work.

T. is strong, everyone knows he is strong, he looks strong and Carter has unerringly assessed

him as useful to the group, so T. helps.

He makes things, moves things, disassembles large industrial engines, loads them onto

electric carts, carries out bags of cement. John has no idea what all this work is for, but

suspects simply the construction of some defense systems. Old electronic equipment they

disassemble in the playroom, gently pulling out wires that later go to block C, tons of scrap

iron, pipes, generators. John wonders if Clint and Trevor know more about what is in block C

and where exactly the trucks with boxes are going.

T. talks to John, shares his thoughts and conclusions with him, asks questions, jokes, however

trivial it may sound he feels special because of that. John has an irresistible impression that

he is the most important person in the world, that T. appreciates the presence of people he

knows, but only John is real and true, that only John makes him want to communicate not

only when necessary. It makes him feel so important and at the same time it scares him with

everything this thought does to him. Some small part of his brain, the one that he stubbornly

pushes into the subconscious, tells him that this is even more than love this is co-dependency.

It fascinates him as much as it scares him.

-Johnny, seriously, you haven't heard of us? - Bernard is already quite tipsy. He still speaks

coherently and makes sense, but his eyes are a bit foggy and his blink lasts a fraction of a

second longer than normal. His voice is reproachful and disappointing.

-Really, seriously ? Hacking cnn transmitter ? We had a whole twenty seconds of airtime!

Don't tell me you didn't see it.

John didn't see it.

-One hundred and twenty thousand dollars from CyberCorp's account, thats us ...

Sponge has an increasingly disappointed expression on his face. John is sorry, but he didn't

hear.

-The Central Patient Registry hacked-also us...

-Who ,us, you moron ?! - Peter shouts from the other end of the room - All you can do is

loosing a shoe in action you idiot!

-Shut up Peter! Sure, you asshole, you're the only one doing here anything. Rest of us is

useless. A fucking one-man army.

Sponge shouts back and takes a cigarette from John's pack.

-Nope. Only you !

-Doushebag.

Sponge takes a drag on his cigarette.

-Seriously, you must have been living under a rock, we were trying to make our presence

known.

John shrugs and laughs

-You see Bernie and I wasn't even trying.

Sponge asked a lot of questions but was reluctant to talk about himself. He claimed that there

was nothing to talk about, a story like thousands since the beginning of the crisis.

Willson came from an averagely wealthy family from the suburbs, his father was a foreman

in a nearby flip-flop factory, his mother was a kindergarten teacher. They were not rich, but

they lived well. He had no siblings and his father had placed great hopes in him. He wanted

Bernard to be someone who he was not exactly he didn't clarified, but definetly someone who

doesn't do physical work in a flip-flop factory. So he told him to study, a lot and hard. But

Sponge didn't really have a head for studying, no matter how hard he tried he always got a

weak ,E,. Even though the teachers liked him, he was never chosen for performances,

recitations or award presentations. He always stood in the back with the sleeves of his

SpongeBob sweatshirt pulled up around his wrists.

Bernard Willson Senior, never had a light hand for his son, but when he lost his job it only

got worse. He spent most of the day over a bottle of whiskey, bought with the money his wife

earned, and evenings on brawls and beating up his son, usually because of insufficient results

in school, although he had no idea about Sponge's results because he neither went to parent-

teacher meetings nor talked to him about school. He simply assumed that Sponge had written

test bad, was doing poorly on the football team, and was generally a disgrace to the family.

One time Sponge couldn't take it anymore and hit him back, he didn't mean to do it so hard,

but he was already taller than his father and much stronger, so Bernard Willson Sr. ended up

on the bookshelf and Sponge ran away. He wandered around the city all night, and the next

morning he packed a few things, wrote his mother a letter, and ran away.

He never came back home, he was fifteen, he ended up in some squat, he was a drug dealer,

that's how he met Peter. Peter bought weed from him, and when he found out that Sponge

was living on the street, he took him with him.

But now Sponge was with them, he occupied a small room next to the playroom, and he

thought he was doing something important and useful, and at least he got punched less often

than at home.

John has no idea what the point of hiding in the garage is, since people are constantly coming

and going, and the deafening music can probably be heard for miles. Well, they must have

assumed that the liquidation workers also like to have fun. But it's cool, although sometimes

he glances anxiously at T. standing under one of the garage pillars with Carter and Clint, with

a bottle of beer that someone pushed into his hand, listening with moderate interest to what

Clint is explaining to him.

John didn't think Clint would show up, but he did, and for this occasion he put on probably

the ugliest of his ugly shirts, a flannel in a color somewhere between yellow and green, which

generally looked like snot. Combined with woolen brown pants, he looked terrible, but Clint

was a great guy, so his choice of clothes was secondary.

Clint brought Tinker, which was met with great enthusiasm by the tipsy Nancy, who threw

herself at her.

There was probably no other place on earth he would rather be right now than this dirty

garage in the company of people with suspicious pasts, hackers, deserters and terrorists.

Somewhere in the meantime Trevor and Rita appeared but most of the time they kissed in

some corner.

John laughs and drinks even though he's momentarily lost the thread, T. talks to Carter again,

probably about work, both have concentrated expressions on their faces and this is probably

the longest statement Carter has said since he's known him. Sponge is laughing and lies down

on John sideways, almost pushing him off the box.

The laughter is interrupted by the scuffle, raised voices are heard, someone turns down the

music. Everyone looks at Clint, Tinker, and Pete standing at the barrier leading down the

corridor. Clint holds Peter's forearm in his chubby hand.

-I said leave her alone.

John has never heard Clint be rude to anyone, let alone aggressive, but now he's standing in

front of a tall, wiry guy who looks like he's about to punch him.

Peter clenches his fist, but in his last conscious thought he looks around at the people present

and meets the eyes of at least a dozen big and muscle men... and Nancy, who he should

probably be afraid the most. He yanks his hand away and starts laughing histericaly.

-Relax dude, I was joking, isn't it Tink ? Em knows I was joking. Tell him Tinker.

Emilia isn't afraid of him, there's no fear or contempt in her eyes. There's disappointment.

-Leave him Clint, he's an idiot.

She speaks calmly and walks away from them both, walking over to the boxes where Sponge,

John, Nacy, and the guys from Carter are sitting.

John doesn't take his eyes off T., he'd like to drill into his head: "it's not about me, nothing

will happen to me, everything's fine, it'll be over soon," but T. is calm, he's just vigilant,

calmly observing the situation.

Clint pulls away but still looks at Peter, ready to intervene. Footsteps are heard and this time

it's Sas who grabs his bare, sweaty shoulders.

-Go for a walk Pete.

They stare at each other but Peter relents.

-Sure, whatever-and he leaves.

The music is pounding, John's head is spinning quite a bit and he feels Bern and Nancy push

him into the middle of the garage. A few people from the strike team are doing some vague

jumps that could be called dancing if they were more rhythmic, Rita and Sas are completely

absorbed in each other and and Clint again has a lot to say to T.

Peter came back after an hour, he calmed down, but they still don't look at each other.

So John dances, pulled under Sponge's arm, he jumps together with Nancy and Tinker,

spilling around the vodka with a minimal amount of juice that was poured into his plastic

cup.

He shouts that he came to get down, he came to get down. So get out your seat and jump

around Jump around Jump around Jump around Jump up, jump up, and get down.

The sound of a bouncing ball and bass comes from the speakers. He really wishes Pete would

move away and stop shouting in his ear.

-Man, nothing new, nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, Members of Mayday, awesome year

for music, most of the trance and rave classics were born, I was on crack most of the time,

realy bad trips, I don't remember it well, but clips, fucking awsome.

-They were supposed to drop the nukes and they dropped this, lesser evil...

-What ?

-Nothing.

The air in the garage should be labeled highly toxic, it consists mainly of cigarette smoke,

weed, and alcohol fumes. John needs to go outside, he's at the point where he wants to fuck

all the rules, walk up to T., sit astride his lap, and suck his lips and other bodyparts.

He's already sweaty as hell and now he definitely stinks, and what's worse, not only from his

own sweat, because every now and then someone hangs themselves around his neck or he

hangs himself around someone else's neck.

Sponge doesn't look too good, John decides to take him outside.

So they go outside the building and sit on the windowsill of a large window made of broken,

reinforced glass bricks.

Sponge puts his head between his knees. John lights a cigarette and absentmindedly cracks

the colored glass between the thin steel wires with his lighter.

-Gonna puke?

-No-Sponge shakes his head-Give me a minute.

-What was that? This thing with Pete ?

-Man, fuck if I know. Clint has a soft spot for Tinker, maybe because he has a sister her age,

or he's got a crush on her, I don't know. And Pete...Pete is like that sometimes, he's not bad or

anything. It's just that sometimes I feel like there's two of them in one body and they swap the

controls quite unexpectedly. And Pete and Emilia, they're weird too. They're not together or

anything, they don't even like each other that much, but sometimes you know...they fuck

espetialy after parties. I can tell, i have room next to Peter's. But since CyberCorp, Em's

changed her mind, maybe she doesn't like this arrangement anymore or something. Peter's

probably pissed off.

John wants to say something but has no idea what to say in this situation. He shouldn't know

why Tinker isn't interested in a casual sex anymore.

He'll just keep an eye on Pete too.

He stubs out his cigarette under his sneaker and tosses it onto a pile of rubble.

-Feel better?-Songe nods. He takes a deep breath and they go back inside.

Bernard takes off his shirt and John takes off his shirt too, Nancy doesn't take off her shirt

and all three of them pile into the trailer of a pickup truck parked next to the crates. They yell

with B-real that they are:

Insane in the membrane

Crazy insane, got no brain.

In retrospect John decides that it wasn't the best idea, because the stable, concrete floor of the

garage was already causing him problems, but the pickup truck rocking on the ground

bending under their weight was a disaster.

John feels quite dizzy, he feels the hard ground, his arm hurts, a jerk and someone pulls him

upright.

It's cool outside,T. is pulling him somewhere, he feels a light breeze on his face, T.'s biceps

under his hand, he hears the rhythmic playing of a guitar, a calm, low female voice.

Thick fingers round my neck are grasping in

Waiting for the moment to slide in

Have a drink and let this game begin

He pushes T. against the wall of the nearest building, he knows that T. lets him, he probably

wouldn't be able to move him from his place. He stands on his toes and presses his lips to his,

sinks his hands into his rough hair, pulls his head lower, T. embraces him, his hand slides

over his wet back cold with sweat.

Flash light Polaroid and one cheap glass of wine

think the moon is full I've come undone

Pieces fall this game has just begun

Oh play me the next move is you

Oh play me in my game you

He feels himself being rocked, to the rhythm of the song, to the rhythm of their kisses.

John wakes up and immediately regrets it, he doubts he's ever felt this bad in his lifetime.

Even pneumonia probably wasn't such a nightmare. His head is splitting, he feels sick and

will probably throw up, the daylight burns his eyes, the mosquito buzzing by the window is

like a jackhammer to his brain. He sits up slowly on the mattress and notices that someone,

probably T., has taken off his shoes and pants. He's also wearing a different shirt but the same

underwear. The change in position makes the room spin and John groans. His arm hurts, he

looks at it but there's nothing bigger than a purple bruise on his elbow.

-Jesus...

The contents of his stomach climbed up into his throat, but he managed to hold back the

vomiting. The door slides open with a bang which make a hole in his head and T. enters the

room with a bottle of water. Eternal savior.

-Hi-he mumbles, his voice hoarse-I'm going to die.

-Alcohol poisoning can be dangerous, but this isn't this stage yet.

He opens his eyes and sees that T. has that mocking smile on his face. Prick.

-Why did you let me drink that much?

-You looked like you were having fun.

He laughs at him. He realy laughs at him.

He hands him some water, John takes a sip, it turns out to be slightly salty and has a lemon

flavor.

He tries to remember anything from last night, but everything after he and Bernie took their

shirts off and danced in the back of a parked pickup truck was just a blur and fragmented

images.

-How did I get to my room?

Please tell me you didn't carry me, please tell me you didn't carry me...

-You came by yourelf, with some difficulties... -He is truly amused. John will punch him in

that handsome, satisfied face.

-Why does my hand hurt?

-You fell off the trailer.

Jesus.

-Did anyone see that?

-Everyone.

Jesus

-You changed my shirt...

-You threw up on the prievious one.

...

-Did anyone see that?

-Just me. You threw up behind the dumpster.

This is a nightmare.

-You could have told me to go back to our room...

-I told you several times, you told me to fuck off. In the end I rejected idea of taking you by

force, it would have caused unnecessary chaos.

John is grateful for that, he probably wouldn't feel like something had eaten him up and spat

him out, but at least he didn't humiliate himself in front of the rest. That much.

-Have I done something more embarrassing?

-You have to define what is embarrassing.

-I don't know, was I clinging to you in front of people?

-Only when we were alone, then in the room, but you fell asleep after I took your boxers off,

so I put them back on.

He doesn't have much experience with hard liquor, he usually drank beer and that was until

he was really tipsy, but he was never so completely, totally drunk that he couldn't remember

half the night.

After a few beers, his tongue would just get tangled and he knew he was getting horny and

clingy and he usually wanted sex, which they usually managed to start and end, but he never

blacked out at the stage of taking off his underwear. Pathetic.

-And Sponge?

-He wasn't in any better shape than you were when I dragged you to the room, he was

sleeping in the pickup.

John wasn't sure if that was comforting or not.

-Did I say something stupid?

-You were mostly singing, later those sounds you made were hard to classify as words. You

attempted to talk to Peter about submarine buoyancy, but both of you had your speech centers

largely disabled, so you probably didn't come to any specific conclusions.

A sudden flash of memory, slow music, a woman's drawn-out vocals coming from the

garage, wall of block C against which he pushes T., the taste of T's lips, a slight sway to the

music.

-I kissed you against the wall... I puked before or after.

-After.

Thank God Connor, because all you would have been left with would be honorable suicide.

His face lights up in a smile despite his terrible headache, he is grining like an idiot.

-Hey, we were dancing.

-That wasn't dance, John, I don't dance.

John punches him in the bicep.

-Fuck, our first dance in the history of the world and I don't remember half of it. I don't

remember almost anything. What a tragedy.

-It was not a dance.

-It was.

He rolled out of bed and shuffled toward the showers.

-Do you need help?

-Thanks, but no. I'll keep what's left of my dignity.

-You're holding on to the wall.

-I'm John fucking Connor. The wall's holding on to me.

The shower helped. Not much, but it helped. John struggled to get dressed and decided to

force himself to eat something, even if it meant throwing it up. He stood in their room, losing

his wet hair, it was too long, he had to cut it.

-Sponge. Did you check on him?

-Should I?

-Yeah, I guess so. I like him, he's important. I want you to like him too. You like him?

Another aspect of being around other people. John had no idea if T. could like someone, what

his relationship was with the rest of the world outside of him. John believed that he loved

him, truly, that it wasn't just submissiveness caused by programming. Although at first, when

their relationship changed, he had fears, but some things can't be faked, some things are so

naturally and wonderfully honest that John no longer doubted it. He also saw how he was

changing, he saw something being born in him that wasn't there before, only that

programming was the seed of it, but could he simply like other people?

-I like Carter- he could.

-Why Carter?

-Why Willson?

-Whatever. Let's find him, make him some water with lemon and this other...thing. It works

wonders.

He was stuck on this code, he really wanted to help, but it took him a long time to master

Clint's own programming language. He was really arrogant to think he could contribute

something new to this system. Clint was brilliant, really good at what he did. But he sits in

front of the monitor and tries to think of anything that would be useful. T. in the garage of

block C, he'll probably come back covered in grease and industrial grime.

-Is that you ?-Clint laughs and turns the monitor towards him-Coffee anyone? My blood

pressure is nonexistand today. - he grabs a cup and goes to the kitchen

A scan of old newspaper appears on the screen. Some kind of industrial camera shot. His

blurred silhouette on the back seat of a motorcycle. A scared look, a child's chubby face.

-Man, I've been collecting these articles.-Sponge says excitedly, pointing at the monitor.-I had

a whole notebook. Your pictures and speculations about where you can be. I wanted to find

you and go and take down my dad's old boss.-He starts laughing and patting John on the

back- Okay, I'm going to help Tink with leaflets, or she'll rip my head off.

He throws a denim jacket over his shoulders, hits him in the back once more with his open

hand - a little too hard and John turns to hit him back, but Sponge runs away.

Rita looks over his shoulder. She watches them for a moment in silence. Her beautiful face

has this enigmatic expression. One perfect eyebrow raises.

-You were awfully small.

-Hey, height isn't that important!- a sore spot. Relax Connor

-I mean, you were a child. A small one. He is much older.

A look of concern and worry on her face.

And then John begins to understand what she means. He must be red as a beetroot, because

he feels the skin of his face burning all the way to his hairline. He doesn't know what to say.

-Listen, it's not like that...

-That's your business.-Rita replies quickly, looking back at her monitor.

-I know. But I want you to know this. That he's not like that. He never... And he never did

anything, nothing. Not then. We...

He pauses and feels himself getting really hot, because this is the most he's ever told anyone

about what was between them.

In those days T. didn't know why you can't kill random people, why people cry and how and

when to smile, so the information why it would be wrong on so many levels probably

wouldn't have occurred to him.

But John matured late, he could tell, and most of the time he was busy trying to survive, and

the peak of his hormonal surge, when he was unable to cope on his own, occurred between

the ages of fifteen and sixteen. But at that time, their mother was with them. Sarah accepted

T.'s presence in their lives, she even liked him and was attached to him to some extent. She

respected him and cared for him too, although John knew that for her he would always be just

a machine, a perfect mimicry of a human being.

He could tell from her skeptical gaze as she watched their scuffle, smoking a cigarette on the

porch, that she was worried and suspicious as she watched her son grow unhealthily attached

to someone, something, like that. How he blurred the lines between guardian, family member,

protector, father figure, and something else entirely.

Or maybe she knew more than he did, mothers apparently can do that, but she couldn't do

anything about it, because every decision and initiative belonged to John, it was too fleeting

and intangible for any reaction.

A lonely, scared kid emotionally dependent on a big killing machine. She had to feel guilty.

T. was attractive, in that wild, brutal, barbaric way that attracted women and some men...

But with them it was different. John knew it wasn't just physical attractiveness that drew him

to T., and definitely not his attractiveness which made T. love him. He knows he is also

handsome, pretty, attractive, in cocky, rascally way, and he knows how to use it, he saw the

looks of women, girls, he didn't need a mirror, but he honestly doubted T. had any kind of a

catalog of what was and wasn't attractive in human beings, he loved John for being John

Connor. He belonged to him, and John belonged to T. End of story.

There was always this worry in his head that he would eventually have to tell his mother.

Now they exchanged messages every now and then, short encrypted comunicates on internet

forums that they were okay, safe. She was probably in Europe now.

That would be something he would have to do, explain to her, try to convince her, protect T.

from her anger. Because he was sure she would be furious, start blaming him, cry, try to get

rid of him, then start blaming herself. Maybe she would accept them. If not, John would

leave. There was no life for him without T.

"Hey mom, you know one of those machines, the ones that killed dad and tried to kill you

and me. That's right. Now he's fucking me and I'm fucking him, we love each other like crazy

and someday we'll buy a house on the prairie and two dogs. Are you happy?"

Jesus Christ.

They arrive at their destination in the evening. When they get there, the sky is this incredible

pink-orange color, small clouds that look like sheep's wool are golden in the glow of the

setting sun. The lights at the motorway junction haven't come on yet. They stop on a hill from

where they can see the entire warehouse and transshipment center perfectly. A dozen or so

trucks are parked at the ramps.

-Look at this fucking nice brand new warehouse- Peter moves his cigarette to the corner of

his mouth- it would be a real shame if someone set this on fire.

Peter and Sponge start laughing like crazy, John shakes his head in the back seat of black

Honda, but he's laughing too.

- Okay, you losers. Don't let anyone screw it up- Nancy rests her hands on the sides of the

pickup- You know where to stick this shit and how to arm it, right?

- Who the fuck told you, Miller, that you're in charge? -Peter crushes a cigarette in his fingers

and shoots it at her.

-If Trev's not here, someone has to watch over you. You're screwing things up quite regularly

lately.

John packs his two bombs that Nancy gives him and puts them into his backpack.

They have to sound the alarm first and order an evacuation, no casualties, they're the good

guys, they usually send a warning, an anonymous phone call, a message, an e-mail. He and T.

put on balaclavas.

-Okay, morons. Time to earn for that disgusting pasta served by Etna.

Chapter 9

2003

John is pretty sure Willson is retarded. If anyone can lock themselves in a cleaning supply

closet in a CyberCorp research sub-facility that is being robbed, it's him. John has no idea

what Sponge was doing in the closet, but after he, T., Tinker, and Peter loaded the truck with

all the equipment the facility had, they waited a good fifteen minutes for him before T. told

them to wait in the truck, and went back into the facility, bypassing two guards tied up on the

floor by the entrance. A moment later, he came back with Sponge and they all packed

themselfes in the cabin like sardines in a can. T. is driving, John practically sits on his lap.

Sponge looks at them with wide eyes.

-Dude...You ripped the door off along with the hinges...

-Shut up, Bern. - John is already irritated enough.

Carter catches them in Block A, where they're shuffling tons of scrap looking for something

useful. This time John's brought T. with him, they'll be able to take more, and T. sees

opportunities and useful things where John and Bern don't.

-Clint says you've got a good head on your shoulders. You could be useful.

He gestures for them to follow him.

They go down the corridor of block C, followed by Sponge with uncertain steps. They

crossed the barrier and, and now judging by the inclination, they are descend lower and

lower. A network of corridors and rooms appears before their eyes, water coolers, rows of

beds stretching farther into the room until they disappear into the darkness. John swallows.

-A shelter.

-You want peace, prepare for war-Carter mutters and leads them up the metal stairs back to

the surface.

-We've been unloading this whole time?

-Among other things. Beds, water, food with an extended shelf life.

-I knew it was fucking pasta-Bernard mutters.

-How big is this shelter? How many people...

-Practically under the entire surface of the factory. We didn't have to do much, the corridors

have existed since the Cold War. It can hold about a million people.

-The whole of Phoenix...Why?

-Are you blind, Connor? Can't you see what's happening?

John is not blind, the question is not if war will break out, but when.

-Are you expecting a missile attack?

-We have no idea what to expect. But something is going to happen. We are receiving

disturbing news from around the world, from Europe.These types of structures are going up

all over the states and also in different parts of the world. Etna is trying to save as many as it

can.

-Where will the attack come from?

-We'd like to know. Definitely not Russia. More likely New Mexico...Nevada.

-You think our own government would drop nuclear bombs on our heads?

-Are you sure it's our government Connor?

John isn't sure about anything anymore.

Carter leads them to the surface again. It turns out that the huge block C is not a solid

building, but four walls of rooms surrounds a large courtyard. In the middle of it stands a

large structure- a wire mesh resembling scaffolding.

-What the fuck is that? Johnny, have you ever seen anything like that?

Sponge walks closer to the huge wire structure.

Tinker sits strapped into one of the masts. She's got her legs wrapped around a pipe, a

screwdriver in her mouth, and she's waving at them with a hand in a thick work glove. A few

other guys are welding something at the base of the structure.

John knows what it is. John saw something like that.

-A woodpecker.

-A woodpecker?

-Duga. A Russian woodpecker. The eye of Moscow. It is a radar Bern. It detects

intercontinental missiles. We're building a radar and a fucking shelter under the factory all the

time.

-We don't have the space the Russians had at Chernobyl, but they didn't have our technology

either. We have a few engineers, Clint had a few good ideas. It's supposed to detect missiles,

attack attempts on our computers, send signals, generate a pulse. In the testing phase, any

suggestions are welcome.

John has no suggestions at the moment, he looks at the construction and realizes the

inevitability of this what is abbout to happen. There's no turning back. They can't stop it, they

can only arm themselves, dig in, fight, and hope that someday it will end.

T. is standing right behind them, John wants to grab his hand but knows it won't go

unnoticed. So he takes just a tiny step back, enough not to draw attention to himself, enough

to feel the large solid shape behind him and the heat radiating from him. T. must sense his

unease, under the pretext of moving him to get a better look at the structure, he grabs his

forearms and holds them for a moment. John loves him so much.

That evening John lies flat on their mattress, his head resting on big bicep, T.'s other hand

gripping his waist so that he's caged in metal and muscles.T.'s lips rest against his temple.

They are safe, for now.

-War huh? We can't avoid it, it's closer than I thought.

T. is silent, gently brushing his temple with his lips, it's supposed to soothe, it's not working

today.

-Not that I'm particularly surprised, you were right, it's in our nature.

-Other things are in your nature too.-a kiss and another on the cheek.

-Sure, there has to be a balance isn't it ? Something beautiful and something totally fucked

up.

John remembers a dream about the desert, when he was so damn cold, even though the sun

was high on the horizon. He is alone, totaly, utterly alone. There is too much space in the

space, too much air, and something is always missing. John waits for the moment when he

turn around and it will be there, but it is gone and stubbornly not present. He feels like this

endless space will swallow him whole and he will fall and fall forever. He tries to grab that

solid, strong shape with his hands but it is no longer there, John can't catch his breath because

its like all air from this planet is being forced into his lungs, all at once. There is only fear,

anger and despair.

-Promise me that we will survive. I mean Us. Me and you.-T. is silent and John knows why,

he never made an oath he couldn't keep.-Then promise me that you will always try to come

back to me, no matter what happens, no matter what gets in your way, you have to do

everything to come back to me. Swear it.

It's completely unnecessary. That oath has been burned into his head since he set foot in the

twentieth century. Despite everything, he presses his forehead against his temple and

whispers:

-I swear that no matter what happens, I will do everything to come back to you.

They work on the radar structure, dismantle the electronics, and together with Tink and Clint

carefully assemble all the pieces and bring them to Carter.

John is able to climb, squeeze into most of the nooks and crannies on the radar where the

bigger guys can't reach. So he climbs, welds, solders, repairs, sometimes he starts with

sunrise and ends when the moon is high on night skye.

They print leaflets, drop them in cities, hack into servers, send messages to peole, to the

nation.

They attack convoys linked to CyberCorp and other companies, burn warehouses, send

information about corrupt politicians. They fight. They do everything they can, but the enemy

is intangible, vague, privileged and fucking, fucking evil.

John likes their magazines, no matter how busy he is he always makes sure that T. has his

aviation and fishing magazines. Sometimes he buys them himself, sometimes he asks Clint.

Clint doesn't interfere, but one day he asks:

-Do you fish?

-No, this is for T. He likes to read mostly, because he doesn't really have the chance to try it

out in practice, but I'd like to... I mean he would like to try.

-I have a house on Great Lake, not a resort, and far away, i mean -Colorado, a small cabin in

the middle of the woods, there's a boat. I rarely go there, if you want you can break away and

I'll give you the keys.

John feels like Christmas came early this year (not that he was used to celebrating Christmas

in a special way). He wants to break away and go with T. to the house on the lake, he wants

to catch fish, have a fire and make love on the boat.

-That would be great.Thanks I don't know what to say. I'd like to say that it's not necessary,

because it's the right thing to say, but I seriously fucking want to go.

John has a plan, he usually does, but now he has a plan for a vacation, even if it's just for

three days. He looks at keys to the lakeside cabin that Clint gave him, and feels that he is

grinning like an idiot. He's stuffed a few of his clothes into a backpack, two changes for T.

He's thrown all the weapons out of the bag where they keep their rifles and loaded them with

fishing rods (on second thought he threw in a GSG 16 and a pack of ammo), worms he

bought the day before, two boxes of floats and spinnerbaits. He makes sure Carter and Sas

aren't planning anything for him or T., that no one needs anything from them.

Davis was one of Carter's men with whom John had good relation. Black guy from the New

York ghetto, by the twists of fate he ended up in Phoenix and the strike team. They

exchanged cigarettes and vodka and small favors, T. when asked what he thought of him

stated that he was one of the better trained men and that cooperation in the action was good

and effective.

John tried to suppress his feeling of jealousy both when it came to T. valuing other people for

their competence and the fact that Carter out of their entire group took only T. or sometimes

Trevor on actions, but due to his health, the latter also mainly as a driver or rear support. He

and Bernie were just kids to them and Peter was too unpredictable to act in close formation.

Now John gave him four packs of cigarettes and a playboy, which he bought at a discount

store especially for this occasion. Their Honda was standing in the garage and while it was

great for action and guerrilla warfare, it was completely unsuitable for trips, so John

exchanged cigarettes and newspaper for a three-day use of the BMW F800.

So he had a plan. A wonderful, wonderful plan to distract them from thinking about war,

from fighting, to distract them from digging shelters, constructing explosives, welding at

heights. He planned to burst into their room, grab T. by the hand, and pull him away from the

next subassembly he was working on in the light of an old office lamp.

Put him on a borrowed motorbike and take him away from all this mess, even if it's just for

three days. It was his birthday. For his eighteenth birthday, he wants a Terminator all to

himself.

So as soon as the sun illuminates their room in a cold, winter glow, John wakes up and

murmurs into T's mouth.

-I'm taking you away from here. For three days you'll be all mine.

-I'm all yours John, always.

-I know. We're getting out of here. Put your pants on.

He takes the bag he packed long ago and gives a damn about the restrictions on leaving the

factory. As the sun rises, they pass the exit barrier. T.'s hands on his hips, the road to the north

open before them.

John pulls over to the side of the road, steers his bike onto the nearest dirt road, drives a bit

and stops behind a wall of bushes. He swings his leg over, turns to face T. and presses his lips

against his. T. is surprised by this turn of events, but quickly finds his bearings and returns

the kisses, grabs him by the waist and pulls him closer.

-The fact that we've never fucked on a motorcycle is some kind of cosmic mistake.-he

breathes into his mouth before attacking him with aggressive kisses again.

And indeed, he's thought about it for a long time, these machines define their reality so much,

they're so much a part of their lives, that's how they met, that's how he saved him, they've

always been the most effective way to escape, to hide.

The stupid, sentimental thought of finding their old motorcycle and fucking on it until John

passed out had crossed his mind more than once. But now they were standing in the middle

of some clearing, on a borrowed BMW, John was kissing him like crazy, he didn't know

where to touch him anymore, he wanted to touch everything at once, he was tearing off his

leather jacket, absentmindedly fighting with his own, tugging on the leather belt of his pants,

he felt large hands on his back, sliding under his shirt.

T. always keeps up with him, even when John sets this crazy, frenetic pace.

They lose an hour of travel to their destination. It doesn't matter.

-Okay, first point on the list checked.-John laughs and pulls his pants up over his ass.

Before he gives Davis the bike, they will visit a car wash.

He presses the gas, the engine roars. John will always have fondnes for Harley-Davidson, but

the BMW is good. Despite crazy speed he is robbing his head against T's jaw. In response, he

receives kisses and a light bite on the ear. He laughs he feels so free. Hills, road signs, exits,

intersections, junctions, cities, cars pass by, cool wind in his hair, the purr of the engine,

warm arms.

Halfway there, a large military convoy passes them. John sees the military more and more

often since they left factory. A shiver runs down his spine. He is counting: ten armored

vehicles, twenty for tanks on truck trailers, a dozen or so military trucks with unknown load.

No one pays attention to them, but John stops the machine at one of the bridge pillars. He

knows that there is a split in the army, some of them work for Etna. He has no idea which

fraction they are passing. He prefers not to risk.

They reach their destination in the evening.

The pleasant coolness and smell of the forest, John is not familiar with such a landscape, he

spent most of his life in Los Angeles or in the dusty landscape of Mexico, but it is nice,

completely different.

Clint's cottage is right on the lake, it is yellowish, exactly the same as all his bland flannel

shirts, a small porch overlooking the lake and a boat crib.

Like everything else about Clint, the cottage is well-kept and clean. It is freezing cold inside,

because February in Colorado is not the same as February in Phoenix, but John has detailed

instructions on how to operate the cottage, so he turns on the three electric heaters mounted

under the windows.

A light smell of damp, wood and stale textiles, an open living room with a kitchen and a

small counter separating the rooms, two grey couches covered with horrible colourful

blankets made of braid, a dining table and a TV, above a mezzanine with a bed. Perfect.

He throws the bag on the couch. Nancy's not here, so no one will complain about the smell.

He doesn't give a damn about a bath.They've been driving for twelve hours, now John's going

to sleep.

-Listen -he puts his hands on T.'s chest-No one will look for us here, no one knows we're

here, so it's safe, you don't have to stand by the window for three nights in a row, you just

have to sleep with me, because it's my birthday and you have to sleep with me, okay?

-Understood.

So they climb the creaky stairs and lie down on a narrow bed set on a small mezzanine.

The smell of pancakes wakes him up. John hasn't eaten pancakes in a long time, he wants

whipped cream and fruit.

God, what debauchery.

T. knows how to prepare meals, he can cook, he does it for John. In Mexico they cooked

together, sometimes with Sarah, sometimes alone.

They rarely ate anything ready-made, they tried to live on what they had available in a small

shop in a nearby town or what they picked from their own garden.

Simple products from which they prepared meals.

There was a lot of hard work in their hut in mexico, there was always something to fix,

something to move, dig, but when T. wasn't struggling with the big pump from the well, the

rickety engine of the pickup truck, he was in the kitchen.

When he was younger, T. made him sandwiches, fry pancakes, and when contact with Sarah

was limited, only the two of them were left in the kitchen.

Now John lay staring at the dark, wooden ceiling of Clint's hut. T.'s place was still warm.

Could this be what his life would look like?Would the war ever end? Is there anything for

them? Is it even possible that they could be like this, living peacefully in some rabbit hole ?

Just the two of them. Or they were such blasphemy against nature that it will not let them to

be happy.

Don't think too much John, it's pointless, dreams, planning, you're walking on thin ice every

day, enjoy what you have today. And today is your birthday, you are eighteen and you are

going to spend it the best you can.

He puts on a not-so-fresh t-shirt and goes down the wooden stairs, they creak terribly but T.

probably knows that he doesn't sleep. He always knows.

T. stands by the electric stove and flips pancake, a steaming pile is already on a plate on the

table.

-Hello- words partially muffled by a yawn.

-Hello John- the gray t-shirt he bought him is too small. He looks wonderful, he'll only buy

him t-shirts that are too small from now on. There's no fruit or whipped cream, but there's

maple syrup on the table and John is more than happy.

John finishes his breakfast, licking his fingers, which are sticky with maple syrup.

-Have you eaten your fill?

-Yeah, thanks.

T. takes his plate and puts it in the sink, takes the remaining dishes, a vase and a colorful

napkin off the table.

John has no idea why he's doing this, but the explanation comes after a moment.

-Happy birthday John. Take off your underwear.

He swallows last bite of pancake and doesn't ask, he just does what he is told. He takes off his

boxers so quickly that he almost gets tangled in them and falls over. T. grabs him by the waist

and sits him on the table, he sits down in front of him, between his spread thighs on the same

chair John has been sitting minute ago and eating his breakfast. He takes him into his mouth

more brutally than usual and John screams in surprise, one hand digs into T.'s shoulder, the

other grabs the edge of the table. It's a good thing there are only moose and beavers around,

because the wooden hut has thin walls.

He's still lying on the table, his legs hanging limply on both sides of the chair, his shirt is

pulled up to his armpits-with the last of his strength he lowers it to his hips. He stares at the

ceiling again. This time, no depressing thoughts all he has in his head is cotton wool. T.

calmly winds the line onto the reel as if nothing had happened.

-Get up. We're going to spend time together.

-I can't. I'm dead, you killed me.

-Of course. I'm a terminator.

-After all these years, you finally decided to kill me and decided to do it by sucking me off? I

appreciate the gesture. A beautiful death.

The boat is big, big enough to handle both of their weights and not sink, and stable enough

not to tip over as John fidgets, moves between the benches, shifts rods, laughs, kisses T., and

generally interferes with all his activities.

T. is preparing his rods and John simply watches in fascination. The amazing thing about T. is

that before he starts doing something, he learns it thoroughly, deliberately and then works

with such certainty and precision as if he had done it a million times. And so it is now. John

is sure that he is holding a rod for the first time and he butties the knots, putting on the

weights, he is moving the float along the line with such precision as if it were his twenty-first

season of fishing.

The cold wind forces tears from John's eyes and makes him wipe his dripping nose with the

sleeve of his military jacket every now and then, he's glad he took the headband, now his ears

are warm.

-Catch me a fish-he whispers and T. has that concentrated look on his handsome face again,

furrowed brows, his gaze fixed on the float dangling in the water, but he smiles.

Watching T. catch fish is a million times more interesting than catching fish.

Fuck Connor, you're as pathetic as a first-grader in love.

The float starts to vibrate, T. stands on the boat and with a quick movement jerks the rod up,

a large sturgeon is wriggling on the hook.

- All right my man!

John shouts and jumps up, almost tipping the boat over, which T. quickly stabilizes with his

legs.

If you said A, you have to say B. John came up with the idea of taking a dip in the lake and

he would take a dip in the lake.

They pulled the boat onto the shore, T. took off the engine and put it on a stand by the shed.

Then John had the devilish idea of taking a dip. Even if T. thinks it's a stupid idea because

even though it's sunny, the water temperature is forty-eight degrees and the air is only slightly

higher, he doesn't show it. It doesn't bother him anyway, so he stands immersed in the lake up

to his waist, watching with amusment as the main originator of this idea shivers standing

knee-deep in water.

John is shaking, but he has a reputation to uphold. Even though he feels like he's ass is going

to fall off, he wades through the cold water towards T. He reaches him and wraps his arms

around him, T. is warm, wonderfully soothingly warm. He wraps his strong arms around him

and pulls him towards the center of the lake. It's easier for him to get used to the temperature

now, he's not cold at all. T.'s lips are hot against his.

The best moment of a cold bath is getting out of the cold bath. They lie on the couch in the

small living room, completely naked, covered by Clint's horrible colorful bedspread. T. is

lying on the couch, John is lying on him. In the basket tied to the jetty, are four small

sturgeon, which they have to kill, gut and John intends to eat, but now he rubs his frozen skin

against T.'s hot skin and kisses him with long, drawn-out strokes of his lips.

-Best birthday ever.-he mumbles between kisses.

-That's good news John.

They always celebrated his birthday in some way. Of course, at first T. did not understand the

concept, like many human habits he encountered for the first time. But he was a keen

observer and when Sarah came to John with a completely inedible, homemade cake, he knew

that it was something very important.

They have no idea when T.'s birthday is, when he was created, but John meets him on July

11th, he remembers that very well, and they celebrate that date because John wants T. to have

nice things, things like a birthday.

They spend three wonderful days in the middle of the forest, make love on every possible

surface (they even try in the water but John was so cold that nothing comes of it except

laughter and pushing), catch fish from a boat, from a small wooden pier. John learns how to

fry them so that they don't fall apart, resembling scrambled eggs.

But the end of this dream came sooner than he though, so they tidy up the little house, drain

the fuel from the engine, clean the nets, landing nets and put the boat in a little shed. John

puts a silver bait with a brown feather and three hooks in the pocket of his green army jacket.

They almost left it in boat.

Before they get on the motorcycle, John turns to look at Clint's cabin again, and again he

feels that horrible lump in his throat, moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes.

Stupid, stupid dreams.

He wants to remember this, every second, every kiss, every touch, every laugh.

Peace.

A handsome profile staring into the water. He wants to remember all of this. He still has the

sensation rotary sppiner in his pocket, he has to put it back in its place when they get home.

When he sits down on the seat and hugs T. around the waist, he feels as if someone had

punched him in the stomach.

That horrible feeling, this terrible thought that came out of nowhere, that one day those

memories will be all he has left.

Chapter 10

Chapter Summary

Mylesxiety-some peace after a long day

https//feefoo/773037394661441536?source=share

2004

T-800 Recovers Vision.

Some laboratory. Steady hum of computers, code scrolling across screens, fluorescent lights

flickering overhead-likely power surges. He is in an upright position, the pressure of the belts

is enough to support his weight, but not enough to prevent him from breaking them.

Information to the movement center about lifting the limb and breaking the belts: rejected.

Information to the movement center about increasing the volume of the chest to break the

belts: rejected.

Information to the movement center about lifting the lower limb to break the belts: rejected.

Movement center damaged. No response.

Computing center no response.

Emergency power no response.

Power deactivation and self-destruction sixty percent complete. Six hours twenty-three

minutes and forty seconds to flood the processor.

T-800 model 101 - surrender is not in his programming, abandoning the mission does not fit

into the parameters without using all possible ways of action. Abandoning his love is not

within the parameters of the mission. But there is nothing he can do. The systems have been

damaged, all self-repair mechanisms have been deactivated.

T-800 is dying.

No systems respond except the vision. The vision is the last thing he will lose.

John will be left alone. He promised not to leave, but he has to leave him, because he lost.

John will suffer. All data that flows through him can be considered as pain. John will suffer -

it hurts more than anything else.

Promise me...

..Promise me that you will always try to come back to me, no matter what happens, no matter

what gets in your way, you have to do everything to come back to me. Swear it ...

He tries. He does everything to get back to John. He is so strong, so powerful, he knows it.

Stronger than any human being, but now that means nothing. Now there is not an ounce of

strength in him.

His pain. The T-800 can almost feel his pain and despair.

Don't go. Please don't go.

I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do, I'm sorry my love.

The vision. He closes his eyes, reaches into memory. Images are the last thing he has left.

Images, lots of images, before his eyes.

A boy on a motorcycle. Target: one hundred percent compliance

Mission: protect.

Promise you will not kill anyone.

I order you not to go.

I love you.

John dances, he is sweaty, young, happy.

He stands on the edge of a hill, the wind blows his hair, he laughs and says something to him

but T-800 only sees his lips moving.

John eats a hot dog, sauce drips onto his shirt, he wipes it with a handkerchief with a grimace

of disgust.

John is furious with him, he shouts and beats his chest with his fists.

John is sad, he sits next to him on the bed and says something that T-800 doesn't understand

but he can see that the boy is trying not to cry because he blinks and turns his head.

John moves on him, his mouth is open, his eyelids half-closed, his hair matted with sweat, he

rocks back and forth.

John stands knee-deep in the lake, water dripping from his hair onto his shoulders, sunlight

sparkles in his eyes.

It's almost dark, he's leaning over him, his hair touching the T-800's nose, the warm breath on

his face, his scent, the softness of his skin, the sharp curve of his hips.

No data.

Why you cry ?

Because it's easier that way. Because when you cry it hurts less at the end.

It's something I could never do.

As John's images disappear, one by one... one by one, irrevocably erased and taken from

them both, it hurts the same all the time.

Chapter 11

2003

Another CyberCorp-affiliated facility burns, black smoke was rising on the horizon, Peter,

Sponge, Tinker and Nancy dance on the back of a speeding pickup truck, spilling cheap

whiskey. John and T. race past them on their motorcycle. John closes his eyes, feels the warm

wind on his face, smelling the sand, pickup truck exhaust, T.'s leather jacket, freedom and

happiness.

He squeezes his legs tighter around T.'s thighs and slides his hands under his jacket he

touches the warm hard abdominal muscles .

Bernard shouts something at him, trying to pass him a bottle over the side of the pickup, but

John can't hear anything over the roar of the engine and the deafening music from the

boombox. T. sees movement and drives closer, John stands up, holding on to his arms, and

grabs the bottle from Spong's hands. He take a big sip, liquid burns his esophagus, spreads

hotly throughout his body. He stands on passenger seat of Honda, spreads his arms, closes his

eyes. He is so free, so happy...

-Tinker, the washing machine is broken, Tinker the refrigerator is broken, this is broken, that

is broken. Tinker fix it. I was supposed to be getting a PhD and I'm fixing old stuff because

idiots can't empty their pockets before putting their dirty pants into the drum.

John was right. Petrichkov, chattered away the whole time. In fact, ever since she asked T-

800 for help with another broken washing machine, the last one in block B, she hadn't

stopped talking, and she hadn't really paid much attention to whether T-800 is listening or

not. T-800 is listenening, he had always been attentive to various human behaviors and

Emilia is an interesting object of observation. So T-800 pulled out a large industrial washing

machine from the corner of the kitchen, they removed the casing, unscrewed the drum and

both covered in stinking sludge from the pipes and dirt from inside the washing machine, are

currently trying to figure out what could have caused the fault. Interestingly, the girl's

constant stream of words did not interfere with her work.

In the meantime, John dressed in T-800 worn out green undershirt, in which he was

drowning, entered the kitchen, intending to prepare himself some food. He began to push

through them towards the refrigerator, smearing dirty water on the floor, which was met with

a scream and immediate throwing him out of the kitchen by Petrichkov.

-Do prdele.You ask him to wait, but he doesn't get it. He has to crawl in. Nic se k nim

nedostane. Sorry, but seriously he's so stubborn as a mule sometimes.

T-800 smiles, John is indeed stubborn and demanding.

-He won't starve for an hour.

-Bearings or brushes-summarizes T-800. He looks at the inside of the device, if the bearings,

he will probably find something matching, if the brushes, they have to rob an appliance store.

-I'm betting on the bearings, dismantle it and I'll clean this crap. There's so much dirt here it's

a wonder it worked this long. Jesus, it stinks.

T-800 unscrews the drum fasteners. Tinker cleans the pipes and wires. And talks.

-And then it turned out, imagine, that his lover was not only anarchy, but also a certain Cristal

Hudson and in addition to fucking capitalists, he also fucked her. You get it ?

-Yes.

-I did all this shit for him, I got a good beating and he had a side chick. I always had this

feeling. I knew we didn't fit together. Like you know, you're with someone but you know

perfectly well that he's not committed. That he's with you, spending time with you but it's like

he was somewhere else. And no matter what you do, nothing changes. You know it ?

-No.

-Lucky you.

She's silent for a moment and bits her lip.

John appeared in the doorway again.

-Can I come now? I'm really hungry.

-You won't fuck of, will ya ? What don't you understand about the phrase "in an hour" ?

-I'll be dead in an hour.

The T-800 knows it's a joke, he knows that John won't die, but John is hungry and this

knowledge stings him and constantly pinches him in the decision-making center.

Besides, he knows that John really won't give up, he'll be back in ten minutes and the girl

might get really angry with him and the T-800 will have to kill her.

He gets up and wipes his hands on his already damp pants, Tinker, follows him with her gaze.

He goes to the sink and washes his hands thoroughly, then takes out a packet of toast bread,

jam, a banana and a bottle of juice. He spreads jam on the slices, pours juice into a glass and

puts everything on a plate and pushes it into John's waiting hands.

-Jesus, thanks. God, you stink.

John disappears through the door, Tinker looks at the T-800 inquisitively, then goes back to

scrubbing the plastic pipes.

-Have you ever tried telling him, "no"? Just as an experiment? You know, say it and see what

happens.

The T-800 doesn't respond because it doesn't like the direction this conversation is taking. He

looks at her disapprovingly.

-Just saing...

T-800 feels her eyes on him, searching, assessing.

-I envy you, you know? What you have is special, apart from how annoying Connor is, but its

unusual, you know.

-No. I have no idea what you're talking about.

The girl rolls her eyes, a behavior T. often sees from John.

-You take care of him, protect him, it's obvious, and he loves you too. A lot, I can tell. This

kind of love doesn't happen to everyone. Almost no one, actually.

Now T. understands, he puts down the tools and the piece of pipe and looks at the girl, tears

are forming in her eyes, he doesn't know how to react, because he's absolutely sure that he

shouldn't touch her, let alone hug her, in fact her reaction doesn't trigger any need for action

in him. But the girl wipes her nose with the back of a dirty glove and goes back to cleaning

the pipes.

-Sorry, I talk too much, as usual. Do you think there's someone out there for me to, who will

shield my head from a flying packets of chips, will cover me and take me to sleep when I get

drunk, make me jam sandwiches ?

-I don't know. The future isn't set in stone, we shape it ourselves. Probably. Sometimes even

the most absurd combination works.

-If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have gone to that party and never met him. But you

know, I don't think it would do any good. Generally, I agree with you when it comes to

shaping the future, but you know, there's a theory that everything's already over the top. That

history has taken a direction and individual decisions only change minor things that are

irrelevant to the overall events. Details, small differences, but the entire impact is already

recorded, permanently etched into the particles of the universe. To change it, you need a

significant change. Something that will shake the universe, something that has no right to

happen but does.

They changed small things, but the specter of war and the threat to John still hung over their

heads. No matter what they did, they couldn't change anything drastically.

- How do you know what it is?

- You don't. It's like the butterfly effect. A flap of wings can cause huricane on the other side

of the globe. But you don't know at what moment to change something or what. And I think

that the mere fact that I wouldn't have gone to that party wouldn't have changed anything,

even though I wouldn't have met him then. I probably would have met him some other time,

in a different place at a different time, but the strings of our universes were crossed. If I

hadn't met him, I would never have ended up here.They wouldn't have transported me to

Oklahoma and you would also never have ended up here. Maybe our strings are so

intertwined that no matter what we do we will end up here... fixing a stinking washing

machine...You know, I don't believe in any supernatiral shit and stuff, but things like love,

life, existence must have a big impact on reality... that's what I think. I had to meet him and

end up here, because otherwise I wouldn't have done a thousand important things. So many

important things because I was a naive, in-love brat. Fucked up, isn't it ?

He loves being with T. when they have nothing to do, when they are alone in the room, when

John finishes work on the radar and comes back tired, when they come back from a mission

and he is so pumped up with adrenaline that he has no chance of sleeping. He loves

mindlessly staring at the TV, eating in bed, knowing that they don't have to run away

anywhere, change places, and the next day he can sleep until noon. He loves sitting on his lap

astride him and just kissing him for hours when he is too tired for anything else, he loves

when T. comes back from the missions that Carter sends him on, when he stands in the

doorway in his black uniform and John can jump into his arms and kiss him everywhere he

can reach.

But he also loves evenings with Bernard. When they drink beer, eat chips and play games.

John didn't have many friends, he had Tim at school, Tim was cool, just as loudmouthed,

undisciplined as John, but kind and loyal. Tim probably saved his life that time. And later

there was no school or friends anymore. There was only his mother and T. John loves him

with all his heart, because before he was anything else, he was his friend but he needs

someone his own age, someone with whom he could play, laugh and drink beer. At first he

felt guilty that he wanted to spend time with someone other than T., that sometimes he

wanted to leave the room and just talk to a friend.

He knows that T. is not jealous, that he does not know such a feeling, he automatically

accepts John's choices when it comes to their relationship, although John knows that when

they are not together for a long time, he feels separation and it is not a good feeling for him.

Longing. John explained to him with amusement, you miss me and that it is called longing.

So John wants to spend time with Bernard sometimes even with Peter when he's relatively

calm. With people.

Today John was the one choosing the game and he chose Mortal Combat. Bernard has been

quiet for a while now.

-And was it fun? At the lake with T.

John looks at him and can tell that Wilson is a little offended, there is barely suppressed

resentment in his voice.

-You disappeared, I thought you were on a secret mission or something.

John is already a bit tipsy and wants to smack him in the head.

-Did you do anything interesting?

Jesus. Sponge is offended that they went without him. Ridiculous.

-Yes, a secret mission to fuck on every possible surface.

Sponge starts laughing, but after a moment he realize that John is not joking and looks at him

in shock. John would like to look at himself in shock too, because shut your fucking mouth

Connor.

-You... You not joking ?

Well, time to drink the beer you brewed.

-Couples do that, you know.

-Couples?-Sponge widens his already big eyes at him.

-Jesus Bern, don't tell me you didn't know.

Sponge shakes his head slowly, still staring at him.

-We live in the same room.

-I thought you just knew...like friends...

-We have one mattress! Jesus, you've been there more than once.

-I didn't count the beds...

-There's nothing to count ! There's one!

-I thought you were joking, you know...

-No Bern. I'm not joking. We are together, we are close because we are together, we sleep

together.

Sponge tears his eyes away from him and looks at the empty space somewhere above the TV,

takes the bottle of whiskey from his hands and takes a big sip and gives the bottle back to

him.

-But man. You said that Rita is hot, that if she was single you would sleep with her, that Tink

has a nice ass.

John takes another sip of whiskey, he feels that the unpleasant state is slowly coming, when

he won't be able to speak very clearly and the room will start to spin, but for now his

movements are wonderfully slowed, his limbs are loose and he wants to burst out laughing.

-Yeah, so? I said that if being single was on the cards, I was talking about myself.

-So when we were talking about girls and you said that ours are nice you mean...But John,

boobs... Boobs!

Sponge looked like he was about to cry, he looks at him hoping that John will confirm that all

the comments he made earlier, usually tipsy, about the girls in the group, are irrefutable proof

of his heterosexuality.

-Yeah, right. One doesn't exclude the other.

-So how?! - Sponge's voice becomes shrill, on the edge of panic. John is too drunk to care

about this, or even the potential later impact on their friendship. Now he is relaxed, on the

edge of defensiveness towards T. He never intended to hide anything, or pretend (well,

maybe apart from the true nature of who he sleeps with), he decided that it was none of

anyone's business, but if Bernard wants to hear the truth, then let him hear it. John doesn't

care.

-I honestly don't know. Bern, there are people who like guys and girls. What's wrong with

that? I happen to be with a guy, girls are cool too.

Sponge looks at him as if he's grown a second head. He thinks for a long time until his face

finally shows obvious fear.

-He took advantage of you...

-What ? No ! Fuck Sponge ! You know him, how can you say things like that? Like he was

able to do this to anyone ...

-I don't know, he could break my leg with two fingers, so I guess...

Bernard closes his mouth immediately, John knows that he has that sinister look on his face

now, when he can't contain his rage and looks from under his hair falling into his eyes and he

knows that it's a psychopath stare, but he can't help it.

-No, man, I'm sorry. T. is fine. I think so. It's just your business. A bit of a shock, no. A bit.

John calms down and shrugs, he is completely convinced that the others know perfectly well

what is betwen them, or at least Nancy and Tink, no one makes a big deal out of it. Maybe it's

because Willson is younger than him, a bit naive and has an image of John that he had drilled

into his head as a child.

The conversation slowly becomes uncomfortable and a stupid childish thought flashes

through his mind that he would like to empty the bottle to the bottom and for T. to be here, to

pick him up and carry him to bed, John would hide in all those muscles and metal and would

never have to explain anything to anyone again. But T. has his own missions and his own

things now, he is not attached to you by thigh Connor, because he is a person. Your person

Connor, but a person.

-And Carter?

-Carter what?

-Do you fancy Carter? You know or Sas...or..

-Fuck no Sponge! No, I don't fancy Carter, nor you, nor Sas or Pete! I am not spying on you

in the shower! And I don't feel like sticking my hand down your pants! I simply fell in love

with him and that's it! And if you want to know, that was the best thing in my life! -he's

furious- Screw you ! Fuck !

John puts down the bottle with a bang and walks the length of the couch, almost stomping on

Sponge in the process. He jumps off the armrest and heads for the stairs.

He rushes into their room and slams the door shut. He doesn't want to get upset about things

like that, he promised himself that no matter what anyone says about them, he won't care. He

walks around the room for a while, biting his thumbnail. He wants to grab the soldering iron,

wires and go finish working on the woodpecker, but in this state of sobriety he'll probably fall

and kill himself. If T. comes back from the mission and finds him dead, John will be in big

trouble.

He throws himself on the mattress and seriously wishes the Terminator was with him. After a

few minutes, there's a knock on the metal door. Sponge slides it open slightly and sticks his

head into the room.

-The game is loaded. If you want, I'll give you the Raptor.

-No, Bern, I don't want the Raptor.

Jesus, he's so childish sometimes.

John continues to stare at the ceiling.

-I'm sorry, that was rude. What I said about T. and then about you. I know what you're like,

both of you.. And come on, I'll drink this whiskey myself, and tomorrow I won't get up to

unload and Carter will kick my ass and it'll be your fault...

John snorts and rises to his elbows. Bernard is good, he's his friend.

He rises from the mattress and they both walk towards the elevator.

Lower Manhattan was burning, the suburbs of Detroit and Los Angeles, three reservations in

Texas, and Wyoming were burning, Polish districts in Chicago, ghettos in Washington, and

mosques were burning. Every channel they could catch interrupted their programs to cover

the riots, and on some the Minister of National Defense, who they were convinced was in the

pockets of CyberCorp or one of its affiliated companies, spoke of the need for unity, a

decisive strike, and the imposition of martial law in the country. On other channels,

representatives of other countries mostly from Europe, expressed concern about the situation

in the States, even though their own relations with China and the Middle East teetered on the

brink of war.

-They're not idle, are they? What do they want?

-They want to take away our freedom, Nans, they want to kill those who are inconvenient -

Peter has that quivering, mad look on his face again - they want a new breed, they don't need

the old one.

John sits in a military truck smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke out the open window. His

foot on the dashboard twitches nervously. Tinker is in the driver's seat, chewing a chocolate.

As usual, they're just support during any operations with Carter's group. Except for T. and

Sas, because they're in the strike team. As ever. Shit.

-Do you want one? - she asks him.

-This sucks!

-No. Its kinda good.

-I mean, we have to be here. Whenever we're with them, we get some shitty assignments.

-Fine by me.

-We're WolfPack, we're fully combat capable. Why aren't they taking us?! At least not all of

us...

-We're a bunch of idiots, Connor.

-We've never failed, and they treat us like kids.

-Sponge recently lost his shoe during an operation. He got stuck in the mop cupboard.

-Still sucks.

Tinker looks at him curiously until she finally starts laughing.

-You're jealous, Johnny-boy...

-What? What are you talking about?!

-You're jealous of Carter, you're jealous, you're jealous. You're afraid they'll squeeze their big

muscles in the tight cab of the semi-truck, then touch their mini guns or maybe even load

their big bazookas.

Now she's laughing, leaning all the way on the steering wheel. John hates her. She calms

down, this time she's serious.

-Don't worry, Johnny-boy, his heart belongs to you.

-Are you drunk?

-Just a little.

-Shuldn't drive.

The ground shakes with an explosion and they are both splattered with pieces of windshield.

The force of the impact throws John onto the floor of the semi-truck, for a moment he hears

nothing but a steady squeaking in his ears. John picks himself up from the floor of the truck,

he has glass in his hair, small wounds on his hands and face. Tinker is lying on the steering

wheel, he grabs her by her blond hair, the girl starts coughing.

-I'm okay! I' m okay ! Johnny what was that?!

He has no idea what it was, but something blew up the half of the one-story building and

there was T. inside of it and John has to get to him. He has to find him. It's still squeaking in

his ears, but he opens the truck door and falls out. He grabs the M16 lying on the passenger

seat and staggers towards the facilitg. He has to find him. There should only be computer

equipment there, they didn't have explosives, Clint did some recon, they shouldn't have

nothing more. Something exploded and T. was in the middle of this hell.

He walks through the shattered glass doors, a few guys he knows by sight are lying on the

floor. Shards of white glass in their faces, uniforms torn, he drags them out but they are

conscious

-Tinker! Get them! Take them to the car!

He's not sure if Emilia hears him, she probably does, because the truck door creaks open and

he hears the steady clatter her boots on the asphalt.

He has to find him. The smoke is clouding his vision, biting his lungs, making him dizzy. He

sees a large silhouette, knocks over desks in his path, comes straight at him, Brown from

Carter's unit tries to shoot it, but the creature rips out his throat.

John knows this thing, he's seen it a million times in his nightmares, a monster. A Terminator.

It spotted John and it's comming straight at him. He has the face of a human, like every one

of them, motionless, devoid of emotion, with one goal: death.

Where's T.?

Tinker appears next to him.

John fires a burst of rifle fire at the Terminator, but the effect is the same as always. A

momentary slowdown in movement, nothing more. Petrichkov grabs the abandoned rifle and

shoots, the recoil of the rifle almost throwing her into one of the desks.

-Connor what is that?! What the fuck is that?!

-Terminator. Get the fuck out to the truck!

She doesn't listen to him. She never listens to anyone.

The Terminator comes at them in the midst of the bursts of rifle fire that they both send his

way.

-T.! Carter!

John screams and the wall of one of the glass offices collapses. T. comes out dragging Carter

with him with his head smashed, his blood is dripping everywhere. Davis and a few other

guys run after them. T. pushes Carter into Davis's arms and grabs the Terminator by the

shoulders, both disappearing down the corridor. Tinker pulls John and the others towards the

truck, he pulls himself out of her hands, he won't go anywhere without him. They have to

stick together.

More monsters emerge from the smoke, John sends a burst from his rifle in their direction, he

feels panic gathering in his heart because T. has disappeared into the corridor and he is not

coming back. Most people have already evacuated. But they are comming.

-John. What are you still doing here?!- steady voice next to his ear and he wants to punch

him from reliefe. He wants to punch him and kiss him at the same time. They run out to the

parking lot, one of Carter's men lies pinned down in a black sedan car. T. approaches and lifts

the car, John pulls the guy out from under the vehicle, they fall into the truck. T. has wounds

on his head, a serious one. Wounds from which metal and wires are visible. Wounds that give

away who he is. Trevor drives up in the second truck. They run.

On the way, one of Carter's men dies. The young man, only twenty-one, was hit in the

femoral artery, they tried to stop the bleeding, but it tore off half of his thigh.

When they get there and Tinker notices that she's holding a dead body on her lap, she rolls

out of the truck and throws up, holding on to the tarpaulin. John looks at T., everyone looks at

T. his skull shine in electric light. Carter took a good blow to the head, Davis presses

bandages to his head. They roll into block B.

They drag in the wounded Carter, Rita is already waiting with her med set.They fucked up.

That thing was waiting for them.

There is only a cacophony of screams and accusations, terror and rage of wounded people.

When everything calms down Trevor and Tinker look at them in disbelief. Playroom full of

people who stare at pieces of metal protruding from beneath the skin of his face and skull.

-What was that? You named it, fuck! You know what it was!

-You said Terminator. You called it a Terminator. What is that?! Why did you say that,

Connor? - Tinker leans against Spong's shoulder, she shakes sweat drips from her hair onto

her cleavage. Her gaze shifting from John to the holes in T's skin where the metal is sticking

out. Everyone in the room is staring at the metal in his skull.

-You're not a hybrid, are you? - her voice is trambling- I worked on these projects and they're

mostly unsuccessful. They have some shit that enhances vision and hearing, some successes

with endoprosthesis, but nothing shortens reaction time tenfold, doesn't let you lift a car, or

see and shoot in the dark, doesn't make you stand on your feet after two bullets to the head. I

know what they have and what they don't have I think. Hence my question, Cupcake, who or

what are you, or when are you from? How did you know all those years ago that it had to be

destroyed and finally - she points a finger at John, - who he is or will be, that after entering a

room full of people you target him in hundredths of a second, shield him from bullets with

your own body and even catch a stupid bag of crisps in flight before it hits him in the head. I

also had a possessive boyfriend...and believe me, that's not it. Why at the age of eighteen you

have practically full military training, you operate most weapons, you know the militady

procedures, and you fight like bloody Rambo. Why?

The playroom falls silent. If they are surprised by what they have seen or heard about the

action, what Tinker says shakes them up completely. It turns out that not only does she talk

too much, but also sees too much.

Trevor saw what T. is doing with his own eyes. He rarely addresses him by name.

-John answer the question.

One word is enough and everyone in this room could be dead in five seconds.

One order from him, they will get on their motorcycle and ride away before anyone from

Carter reacts.

One short command and those people, his friends will die. Can he sacrifice them to protect

him?

He will try to explain it to them, if he fails if there is any chance they will hurt him. John will

kill them himself. You are crazy Connor, he thinks hysterically.

So John tells them. He tells them everything he knows about Skynet, about the war with the

machines, how they tried to stop it but only probably delayed it, how they took the weapons

out of the machines' hands, only to let them quietly hollow out the power structures for years,

buy politicians, build their own structures in the infrastructure, spread their tentacles like a

tumor. A spreading, malignant tumor that can't be cut out with a single operation to remove

the computer factory.

He tells them about the Day of Judgment, which didn't come in 1997, but still hangs over

them like the sword of Democles. He tells them who T is.

So T reaches for the knife, but John takes it out of his hand. "There's no need," he says.

Because they believe, they just look at him in horror, because the regime they're fighting is

not a bunch of neo-fascists, but something that seeks to destroy the human race as such, in its

entirety.

John watches Carter as he speaks, Carter doesn't seem surprised. Carter knows. He knows

everything. That's why they're building a shelter, that's why they're unloading trucks with

weapons, that's why they're recruiting people. They're preparing for war, even though they

don't know which side the attack will come from. Someone told people like Carter

everything.

At first there is silence, Clint states that he will throw up, after a moment the room explodes

with raised voices, shouting, voices of disbelief and fear. John looks at Carter leaning against

the wall. He is pale, paler than usual, blood slowly seeps through the bandage on his

forehead. It does not stop him from smoking a cigar.

-You knew. You knew about the future and who he is? Why didn't you tell them?

-Only key members of Etna, unit chiefs, a few from the army know, but we don't know how

many of them we can trust. You're functioning properly here, you're a valuable strike force

and technical knowledge. The nature of your... friend is secondary to us. We have an army

and government infiltrated by Skynet hybrids. One tamed Terminator is no problem.

-How did you know?

-That, my dear boy, is classified information.

Sponge looks at him in shock, his big blue eyes glazed with tears. John looks away, I have

bigger problems than your disappointment Bern, he thinks.

-Okay, everyone shut up! -Carter pulls out a cigar and yells at the entire block B-No

information you've heard here is allowed to leave this room, not who we live with or what we

can expect in the near future! Is that fucking clear?!-silent grunt. Now it's Trevor's turn to

look at someone with disappointment.

It doesn't go unnoticed.

-Trevor. A word.-Carter puts the cigar in his mouth and limps toward the elevator.

When they get back to their floor John is wet, covered in cold sweat and on the verge of

panic. He looks around the room. He can pack in a few minutes, it's getting dark, they'll be

gone, they'll disappear again, they'll hide away somewhere, they'll look out for each other,

they'll manage, they don't need them.everything will be fine. Okay, John, calm down.

-We knew this could happen, right ? We knew the risks. These people aren't a threat to us and

Carter knew from the very beginning. How the fuck did he know?! Never mind... We knew, it

would be this way, we have a plan...-T. doesn't answer, stands watching John pace around the

room, then John notices the blood seeping from the wounds on his face. There are probably a

few bullets still stuck in his chest and torn tissue on his side.

He takes a few calming breaths, pulls a first aid kit out of the cabinet. He pushes T. onto a

chair.

-Sit down- he whispers. T. obediently does as he's told. John slides off his black uniform

jacket, cuts open his black T.shirt. He decides to start with the laceration on his side, it has to

hurt the most.

He'll bandage him up and then think about what to do next. Halfway through sewing, there's

a knock on the door, Trevor doesn't wait for "come in", he enters and automatically fixes his

gaze on the lacerated wound on T.'s side, pieces of skin of which John desperately tries to

grab with his fingers and sew up as evenly as possible. He looks for a moment at the metal

sticking out from under his skin, unconsciously touches his own side with his hand.

-Tomorrow at six forty, the transport arrives, you have to unload and install resistors on the

transformer. Carter says you have to be on time, T. can rest, he got hit the hardest next to

Davis. Has time off. If he wants to, of course.

With that he leaves, slamming the door shut. John exhales in a shuddering breath, rests his

forehead against T.'s shoulder, maybe it won't be so bad, maybe they won't have to run,

maybe they'll let them fight with them.

-Do you want to have the day off? I'll get you a movie from Clint, it'll be suspicious if you

come to work after something like that. Most of Carter doesn't know. Let's keep it that way.

-Something about aviation. A movie. It could be World War II.

-Sure. Done.

He smiles, kisses the muscular shoulder and goes back to sewing.

The next day he shows up at work on time, Sponge has already started unloading, stacking

crates on pallets. John wants to talk to him so much, but Bernard avoids his gaze, most of the

time he doesn't even look at him. John wants to be mad at him, but he knows how he feels.

Probably. He's been lying to him this whole time.

-Bern. Listen...

-Leave it Johnny.

-I just want to talk...

-What do you want to talk about? What are we supposed to talk about? I don't even know

who you are anymore...

-Listen, Sponge, this doesn't change anything!

-Like fuck John, it does change everything. This is a fucking cyborg from the future, I

fucking thought he was from Chechnya and he's from another time, this is fucking crazy

Johnny and these atomic bombs. You're telling me we're in for a nuclear war?!

-We don't know that Bern, listen...

-We're friends, why didn't you tell me the truth?! And you and him ? It's fucked up ! Royaly

fucked up ! You are fucked up ! I hope you know it !

-It shouldn't matter to you who I fuck, you know?!

-But it does! Because it's a motherfucking machine and you are insane if you think its okay !

John blinks to push the tears back into his eyelids. How much his love for the robot was so

insane was information he tried to ignore most of the time. He was an idiot to think anyone

would understand. What was he supposed to tell him, how fucked up his life was, how he

grew up with a paranoid mother and constantly changing stepfathers, foster families, and a

kaleidoscope of faces to whom he was a nuisance. How at the age of ten he became the target

of a murderous machine, a public enemy, how he spent most of his life in the wastelands of

Mexico. How he became emotionally dependent on the only being that was good to him, that

he ignored the origin of that goodness. How he poured absolutely every kind of love that

existed in the world into that being. Sponge got a slap from his father and ran away from

home. He has no idea what a hard life is.

He loves you Connor. You know he loves you and that this love is not just a figment of your

twisted mind. He cares for you because he loves you, and if you have that kind of things in

your mind it's a betrayal and you are not worthy of his love.

The next few days pass in silence and practically everyone avoiding them, John throws

himself into his tasks and in the evenings they return to the room to lie on the mattress in

silence. John doesn't even turn on the television, he just listens to the wind blowing against

the large windows, and artificial pulse pumping blood into the tissues of the T.'s body.

They pass them in the kitchen, in the playroom, next to woodpecker, no one even hides their

reluctance and fear.

Apart from Clint. Clint behaves as if nothing has changed, as if John and T. are still the same

people with whom they have been fighting side by side for months, with whom they sleep

under the same roof, laugh and dance. Clint still explains to him with a smile the errors in his

code, shares sandwiches, brings two cups of steaming coffee to their desks. John adores

Clint. The ordinary extraordinary slowly overcomes all barriers and with time Nancy joins

them, although she always examines T.'s face searchingly when he hangs around somewhere

nearby. Nancy works with him on components, talks to them, sometimes they joke. Things

are slowly getting back to normal with Nancy and Clint.

Trevor tries to wear a mask of professionalism, but he's probably afraid for Rita, who rarely

comes to B block now. Peter, quite predictably for him, locks himself in his room and spends

hours searching the net, his gaze even crazier than usual. Tinker probably feels guilty because

she avoids them, but she always has her head down and an apologetic smile, John can't stand

her.

And then there's Bernard. Bernard initially treated him like air, although he cooperated with

him every time they were assigned together, but ignored his funny remarks, teasing, jokes

and attempts to establish contact.

John told himself that he don't care, that it was the price for who he was, who he loved and

what his life was like. The price that will be paid without any buts, because it doesn't even

compare.

They weld together more radar sections as Carter calls them over.

- Taking over key Etna member. Pickup point, coordinates- you will get it, ID verification via

codes and panel - you will get it, you will take big truck. Miller and Petrichkov are coming as

backup. Questions?

- Three. Who are we expecting, are we supposed to drive him around Phoenix for a few hours

? and how exactly are Tinker and Nans supposed to be backup?

- I'll punch you in that dirty mouth sometime Connor. Woman about forty, five and a half feet

tall, slight build. After verification, you go straight back to base. And the backup will be

fucking spiritual. Spiritual Connor.

They leave with the panel, keys, and exact coordinates shoved into their hands.

-Jesus. This guy's got a stick up his ass and I swear he's worse than you.

T.smiles, John knows he knows exactly what he's talking about. He has an idea of

how his

personality is perceived and John often emphasizes how similar it is with Carter.

He is so happy that the girls are keeping their distance, that they wouldn't all fit in the cab of

the semi-truck, so they chose places in the trailor and now they are screaming and singing at

the top of their lungs, but only muffled sounds reach the cab. They receive coordinates and a

map from Carter, but T. doesn't need a map, the data is enough and he knows exactly where

they have to go. Now they don't even have to keep up the pretense that they are looking for

something on the map. He thinks everyone has slowly got used to the idea of

who T. is and

that if he hasn't done it by now, he probably won't rip their heads off in their sleep. They talk

to each other and the atmosphere slowly becomes so relaxed that they can spend time behind

each other. Only sometimes one of the girls lingers on T.'s face for too long than necessary.

John doesn't like it, watching him like a bug under a magnifying glass annoys him.

The destination turns out to be an abandoned school in a small town near Amarillo.

They park the truck in a small parking lot, a small building with a small mezzanine, all

covered in graffiti scribbles, with broken windows. There are no signs of any vehicle, the

doors are ajar. Tinker and Nans get out earlier and approach the object from the back, John

and T. with the M16 enter through the front door. In a small hallway, on blue plush armchairs

sits a woman. Petite, in army trousers, a black top and vest, on her head she has a military cap

with a peak, in her mouth she holds a cigarette, blond hair tied in a ponytail flowing down her

shoulders. John almost drops the rifle.

-Mom...?

John can't let go of her, now she's so small and so tiny in his arms, they both laugh and hug,

they can't tear themselves away from each other. He loves her so much.

-My little soldier, you've grown so much. Look at you, you're a man now.

She walks up to T. and squeezes his hand, there's so much gratitude and trust in her eyes that

for a moment John has the impression that it'll work out, that he'll tell her, because he has to

tell her, preferably now, before they get to Phoenix. That she finally sees him as a being

capable of love and sacrifice, not a programmed machine, that he will tell her now and they

would live happily ever after.

-Thank you.-Sarah gently touches T.'s cheek.-Thank you for taking care of him.

The walkie-talkie on his chest hisses a short question.

-Connor, report, because we sit here for fifteen minutes my ass hurts.

-Clear. You can go in.

It's cold in the abandoned school, so Nancy thinks something with alcohol would be a great

idea. They search the lockers in the teachers' room, most of the stuff was taken out after the

school was closed, but the esteemed teaching staff always has something to hide,

-Bingo- behind the dusty colorful cups stands half a liter of Polish vodka. In addition to the

bottle, they also found Diet Coke and a few cups of Sponge Bob. Connor with his mother and

T. took over one of the classrooms. They decided to give them some time and space for

family reunion and sat down in the blue armchairs standing in the small hall.

-Works or not. A. It works.-Nancy took out a small flashlight and placed it on the night table.

She took a sip from the colorful cup and immediately choked

-Tinker, do you know that vodka with cola should have cola in it, right?

-Stop whining, we have a small bottle that won't last long.

Nancy reaches for the bottle anyway and pours more into her cup.

-Conorr's mother. She is something, isn't she?

-Yeah, it's crazy. They are some commando family or something ?

-If you were wondering how the brat knows how to break arms in fourteen different ways,

now you know.

-I wonder how...

The word dies on her lips because there's a bang, a crash, and raised voices from upstairs.

Without a moment's hesitation, they abandon their glasses and run upstairs.

Sarah Connor stands red-faced by the classroom door, holding one of the small children's

chairs, so pretty with a blue backrest. She's breathing hard and struggling in her son's grip.

-Mom, stop it! - John shouts and tries to push her out of the classroom and yank the chair out

of her hand at the same time. But the woman pays no attention to him, focused on T. who is

standing on the other side of the room, holding the same blue chair in his hand.

-They're throwing chairs at each other - Nancy states in disbelief.

-You son of a bitch! I trusted you! I believed you! I let you under my roof! I should have

killed you when I could! I should have pushed you into that vat of iron - Sarah screams, her

bangs sticking to her wet forehead.

A swing and another chair flies across the width of the classroom. T. catches it in mid-air

right in front of his face, completely unfazed.

-Oh no, she's the one throwing chairs at him.

-Mom, please stop! Listen to me! It's not like that!

Sarah is already reaching for another chair and Nancy decides it's time to go help the boy

because enough is enough. Overpowering Sarah Connor is no easy task, so Nancy squeals

and grabs her face when it meets a hard fist of Sarah Connor. She grabs her nose and staggers

back

-Fuck! You bitch!

No one pays attention to her, because Tinker and John are running after Sarah, who is circling

the room, knocking over small tables with pictures of teddy bears and puppies, and is about

to throw herself at T. with her fists.

This time John pushes against her with greater force, but he still holds himself back so as not

to hurt her. He is taller than her and much stronger, he could easily overpower her, but it

seems that he is afraid of her and for her at the same time. With Tinker's help, he manages to

pull her to a safe distance. Sarah is panting, clearly exhausted, she lets go of him and takes a

step back.

-Mom, please calm down. We'll let you go now, okay. But promise me you'll calm down-He

lowers his hands, but is still ready to catch her if she reaches for another chair.

-Mom, listen...-he doesn't finish the sentence because she hits him in the face.

With an open hand. Hard. Hard enough, John staggers and falls into the table.

Then everything stops and the room goes quiet, very, very quiet. The silence is broken by the

clatter of the legs of a child's chair being put on the floor and the slow steps of heavy combat

boots on the blue linoleum.

-Oh fuck- Nansy whisper is additionally muffled by the palm pressed to her nose. Tinker

moves closer to her and they take two steps back towards the door, not taking his eyes off T.

who is walking towards them. But he doesn't even raise his hand, he just stands between her

and John.

-You should leave, Sarah- calm, matter-of-fact state.

-I'm sorry-she whispers, because she immediately realizes what she's done. She wants reach

him, but T. moves slightly to the side, blocking her way again.

-It killed your father-she throws before leaving the classroom, slamming the door, which

causes the blue plastic blind to fall.

-It wasn't him-John speaks quietly, his face invisible from under the curtain of hair.

Together with T. they bandage Nancy's nose, convincing her several times that it is not

broken. When he manages to stop the bleeding, he goes to look for his mother. He finds

Sarah on a small terrace.

Sarah cries, lights a cigarette from the previous one and smears tears across her face.

He sits down next to her, not wanting to fight, he is so tired of fighting.

She gets up and starts pacing around the terrace.

- I let the devil into my house, I let the devil into my child's bed.

-Mom, can you stop being hysterical?

-Johny it is not a human being. He can not love. It can not love, is not able to ! It may seem

that way to you, and I know it is my fault. My God, it is my fault that you think he loves you.

You were so lonely, you had no one but that machine. I was saving the world and I could not

save my own child...God.

-Mom, you do not have to save me. I am fine...

- The hell you are... John, understand, it may seem to you that it is love, that he loves you.

Hell, it may seem that way even to him !

- When will you understand that it is not his fault! That it is me! I wanted it that way.

- I know, John. But you have to understand that this is the difference. That a person, a human

being, would push you away, a person would know that it is wrong, a person would never

agree to this arrangement, explain it to you and wait for you to find someone right for you.

They sit in silence for a moment, John wondering if T. is listening to their conversation, if he

is sorry, if he feels anything.

-When did this start ? In Mexico right under my nose?

-Stop it...

-When John?!

-No. Not in Mexico, when we were already in the States.

-How old were you?

-Jesus mom.

-How old were you John?!

-Sixteen okay! Almost seventeen.

She doesn't look calm, her leg is still twitching nervously.

-You're having sex?

-Fuck, I can't believe it...Yes mom. When people love eachother, they have sex.

-People John, people...

-Aparently not only. And it's fucking awesome, it's a fucking earthquake every time, if you

have to know! Not that I have a scale of comparison. ...Mom listen...whatever you say won't

change anything.

He akes a cigarette from her pack and lights it with the lighter lying on the floor. Aparently

she wants to say something about smoking, but stays silent, probably realizing how stupid it

would be in this situation.

-I'm not asking for your consent- he says, quietly blowing smoke- or your opinion. I just

wanted to tell you because I don't want to pretend anything, and you would find out sooner or

later. And I'm asking you not to try to separate us, or hurt him, or ger rid of him, because I'll

leave. I'll take him and leave, and you'll never see me again."

The terror in her eyes breaks his heart, but he's already made up his mind, he's planned this

long ago.

A large plume of black smoke rose ahead of them, and T. pulled off the main road, adding a

few miles to their route but keeping a safe distance from the fires.

T-800 does not take orders from Sarah Connor, never has and never will, and there has never

been anything more between them than mutual respect and the common goal of protecting

one person. Later, over time, the common goal of loving one person. In Mexico, something

like a division of duties and support in caring for John.

Now Sarah hates him, he can tell, her rich facial expressions show nothing more than

boundless, endless hatred and contempt.

It is not that T-800 does not understand this, he has learned enough about human mating

customs to know that what is between him and John is not something acceptable. But John is

stubborn, he did not want to let go and T-800 does want be with him, all he wants is to have

him by his side. When John is near, when he is safe, when T-800 holds him in his arms

everything is on it's place.

But he knows, he is aware that for the rest of the world they are no good, they are mistake,

inconvinience, and for John's mother they are something horrible.

When they stop at a gas station, one of the few open, when John gets out to smoke a cigarette

and the girls to pee and buy something to eat, he and Sarah are left alone in the cab of the

truck. Sarah lights a cigarette and breaks the heavy silence between them, her voice is only a

low hiss.

-You are not human and you cannot love. Maybe you think that everything that is boiling in

your cables is love but it is not true. John will mature one day, understand his mistake and

truly fall in love. And then you will leave. You will leave him in peace.

-If it is his will, I will do it. But you are wrong. I will leave if he orders me to. Even if it will

hurt.

-Hurt ? - she snorts a bitter laugh, draws on her cigarette and approaches him on the seat,

smoke flying from her lips with every word- You can barely feel the forty-four caliber in your

back or a severed arm... you do not know what pain is. You do not eat, you do not sleep, you

do not get sick, you do not suffer, you will never give him what he really needs. And if they

will ever lay hands on you, all they'll have to do is stick a plug in your head and you'll forget

who he is, rip out his throat...and you won't feel a thing.

As they approach the chemical plant and John remembers that because of all this they forgot

to do the digital verification. He's not sure if Carter will be pissed off if it's his mother, but he

looks at the still unactivated token and worries a little.

But it turns out Carter doesn't give a damn about it. Sarah jumps out of the cabin, Carter hugs

her tightly and pats her on the back. How many things does he not know yet?

They all march to block C, Sarah, T., John, Carter, Davis and a few others. Carter explains to

his mother the progress on the Woodpecker, praises John and T.'s courage and knowledge,

brags about their achievements in actuon and construction. John once again has no idea how

high up in Etna's hierarchy his mother is, but everything makes sense. The shelter, the radar,

they knowledge about Judgment Day and the Terminators. How much she planned all this ?

For the first time in his life he sees the operations center of block C. Their computers in B

block are a joke compared to this. Carter's center is a real futuristic base of dozens of

monitors, huge server racks, thick coils of cables trailing across the floor like snakes.

Carter nods at them. They are to march off, the rest of the conversations do not include their

presence. He looks at his mother again. Sarah nods also, so he walks away, tugging T. by his

black shirt.

He's tired. So tired he doesn't feel like climbing the stairs. He summons an industrial elevator,

which slams to a stop on the ground floor. He steps inside, clutching T.'s jacket tightly, now

he has this stupid constant urge to keep checking if he is nearby all the time.

When they reach their room he is still affraid that his mother will drop in and start throwing

random things at them, but Sarah had enough time to calm down on the way, and after

reaching the place she put on a mask of cool professionalism when greeting Sas and Carter.

They hadn't had a moment to themselves to talk calmly, so that John could assure T. how

much her words were not important to him and that he was prepared for them in every way

and how much she was wrong and didn't know them. He knew that T. didn't perceive it like a

human either, that she had her own conclusions, thoughts completely detached from the

classic patterns of human behavior in such situations. The concepts of "sorry" or "offended"

probably didn't apply to him, rather "confused", "doubting" would be appropriate. John had

played out this scenario in his head a thousand times, what to say to him, how to explain it to

him, how to rationalize Sarah's behavior and assure her that no matter what she said or

shouted, they were not evil. He planned to kiss him for hours afterwards, they would make

love until morning, and on their next trip to town, he would buy him a new fishing rod.

Now that they're alone, he has no idea what to say or how to start a conversation, so he stares

at the broad back against the orange light of the setting sun. He had expected difficulties,

excuses, concern for his relationship with his mother, but not this:

-Your mother is right.

What the fuck? They were just words, and John felt them like a punch in the gut. He had

expected anything but this.

-No-denial comes quickly and automatically.

-You should be with a human being. Probably. It would be best for you. We... it was a

mistake John, I made a mistake in thinking this was okay. The consequences were unknown

to me. The implications for your future could be serious. Now I see it from a different

perspective. It would be better for you if we returned to the previous balance.

The previous balance...This isn't happening.

John can't believe what he's hearing. Over the past few years, T. has said many things that

have hurt him, most often unintentionally, but John has never felt like a knife has been

stabbed straight through his heart.

-Maybe you'll fucking let me decide what's best for me!

-I'm not human, I never will be, I'll never fully understand people, or you.

-I don't care!

-This isn't right.

-You know what's not right? What you're saying... You say you love me ! And now one

hysteria from my mother was enough and you're already starting to doubt everything we

have! What we've been through to be where we are!

-Because I think so. That I love you, but I can't be sure. I don't know if it's love, maybe it's

something completely different, I don't feel it the way you do. I don't know.

-So how do you know it's not ?! Maybe it's exactly the same. Don't you want me anymore?

Are you only with me because I want you to be? Because I ordered you to?

-You didn't order me to and what I want doesn't matter at all.

-It does to me!

-I will not leave John, ever, unless you want me to, but you should probably get involved

with someone else, for your own good. It won't be possible as long as we're together like this.

-Listen. What my mother says doesn't matter. I won't stop loving you if you go away. It

doesn't work that way, that you tell yourself you don't care and then you don't. Unless in your

case it does.

-Of course not.

-So what do you think I should do?! Start sleeping with Nance or Peter? See you every day

and pretend I don't feel anything for you? It might be a piece of cake for you, but I can't do it.

-I can leave. I can terminate...

-Fuck no! You won't leave and you will not kill yourself so I could fell in love in human !

Are you insane ?! You promissed !

This isn't really happening.

-If you don't want me, just say so!

-I am not able to not want you, John.

-Than why ?!

-I'll never give you what a human can give.

-What the hell won't you give me? You won't cheat on me? You won't get drunk and sleep

with someone random just to blame me later? Maybe you won't manipulate me to get what

you want. Or maybe you won't punch me in the face every time you're dissatisfied?! What

won't you give me as a non-human?! Maybe what those sons of bitches gave Tink when she

was half-conscious from drugs?! What am I missing out on because you're not a human.

Fuck!

He presses his hands to his eyes because he doesn't want to cry, but seriously, out of all the

possible scenarios in this situation, he never assumed that T. would even consider pulling

away from him, abandoning him.

-You're all I have - he whispers as his hands helplessly fall to his sides.

-That's the problem. John, it shouldn't be like this.

John doesn't give up easily, but now he feels defeated. T. never questioned what was between

them, everything with him was so natural and so smoothly right, and now all it took was one

pebble in the gears, Sarah's list of accusations, for everything to start creaking and shaking in

its foundations.

-Don't take this away from me. Please. It's the best thing in my life, you're the best thing

that's ever happened to me.. And I don't care what you are. You know that. My love is mine.

It can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with, and it will absolutely won't stop ever ! If

you don't want me anymore, if you're sick of me, then I understand and that's okay... but if

you want to pull away because you think it's wrong for me, then let me decide. You've never

hurt me, people have hurt me, but not you! And you never will, unless you leave. Please,

don't take yourself away from me... Please...

He doesn't know what to do, so he does what his instinct always tells him, he goes over and

hugs him around the waist, looks expectantly at that beloved, calm face.

Living tissue on a metal endoskeleton. Who the fuck cares.

He has a feeling of deja vu.

They're here again. The familiar fear, panic, desperation... but the warmth and orange light

come from the setting sun shining through the factory window, not from the hectoliters of

liquid, hot metal beneath them. His line of sight is higher and stops at his mouth, not his

chest, and the hand wiping away his tears, this time he doesn't have a black glove.

But they've been here before, he's already managed to convince him to come back to him

once.

-Please...-he whispers one last time.

He knows he's won this battle and this time when he feels a warm hand on his back and

another on the back of his skull.

-Promise me that if you have any doubts, if you ever feel bad or find someone else, you'll tell

me right away and without hesitation.

John lets out a shuddering breath.

-Sure. Deal. But forget that you'll live in anticipation of me finding someone else. It has to be

like before. That's an order.

And this time T. won't step on the chain, Sarah won't grab the crane controller and lower it

into a pool of molten metal. John will win. He'll win every time. He'll get it back every time.

Now he doesn't want to think about anything, about war, about the atomic bombs, about his

mother, nor about whole Wolfpack lookking at them like they were some freaks.

Nor about Bernard who hates him.

He wants to feel him in the most brutal way to the point of pain. He wants to know that he is

with him, that he has all of him regardless of what the world throws at them. So when T.

takes off his dirty combat clothes John tugs at the lapels of his jacket, clearly showing what

he wants. T. lies down on the mattress pulling him down by the hips. John kisses him, he

can't tear himself away from those lips, from his taste, musky, sweat, barely perceptible

metal. He loves him so much.

He wants to feel that taste in his mouth, to nestle into the warmth of his loins. He kisses his

belly, going lower and lower, he unbuttons the military belt of his trousers, unzips his fly, all

the time feeling the slow stroking in his hair, the concerned look, he bites his lower abdomen,

he drags his tongue along his length, although he can't take all of him in his mouth, he digs

his nails into his hips, he feels his fingers on the skin of his scalp.

You're mine. All mine.

No one has the strength to take you away from me.

He releases him from his mouth and pulls himself up onto his chesst, he kisses his lips again,

buries his fingers in his rough hair.

He guides him inside himself. It hurts, like it always does, but John wants it to hurt, he wants

it to hurt badly, he wants to feel him the hardest. So he pushes his hips and moans. T. grabs

him in strong grip and stops him, keeping him from moving.

-You'll hurt yourself- a whisper right next to his ear.

-I don't care. Love me.- something between a moan and a cry. So T. grabs his hips gently and

does what he does best. He loves John Connor with slow strockes of his hips.

Carter ordered mobilization. Everyone crowded into block A on the ground floor. Now John

sees the size of Carter's unit, the number of people it brings together, who have come to fight,

to oppose what is happening in the world. While they were usually scattered, rarely all at

once in the facility, now the huge production hall is filled with people. Carter stands on one

of the inactive production machines, his booming voice does not need a megaphone to shout

over about a three hundred people in the huge room.

-Mobilization in the Detroit unit, they are short of men, the bastards have broken up two

units, they need support, they are looking for volunteers, and Phoenix will respond. I hereby

register volunteers. List on the door, if you are not there, don't fucking ask me if you are

going, because you are not going. Equipment and weapons to be collected by unit

commanders along with lists of subordinates.

People start to disperse, gather around the cards hanging on the metal doors. The names are

listed alphabetically.

Some are disappointed that they are not going, others are disappointed that they are.

John wants to go, he's doing important things here, but there are people there who need their

help, civilians who are being shot at, soldiers who have been abandoned in some shithole.

He's on the list in Carter and Davis's unit, along with T.

Sponge stands next to him, reading his name and assignment over and over.

John can tell that Bernard is scared, because he turns his head and looks at him with wide

eyes.

Everything before was just child's play. Now real fight starts. John steps forward to comfort

him, he wants to pat him on the back, and tell him that it'll be okay, that they'll manage, that

nothing will happen to them, but Bernard turns around and disappears into the crowd.

John says goodbye to his mother in bloc C, Sarah is not happy but does not try to influence

Carter's decision.

Besides, John wouldn't agree to such an arrangement, he would go anyway. There is still a

distance between them. A distance that Sarah is trying to overcome, but John feels that she

has not accepted his decision, probably never will.

They set off before dawn, eight trucks, seventy men, John sitting in his black uniform on a

bench next to T., squeezed in with twenty other soldiers, Sponge, Nans, and Tinker.

They ride into battle.