49. The Shots Heard 'Round The World

Jefferson City, Missouri

A Skynet node

March 15, 2028

"The homeland is restored by iron, not gold."  -Camillus

"Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head." -Euripides

"All warfare is based on deception." - Sun Tzu

The target node had been placed in the remains of a city named Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence.  There was an irony there, one that soothed General John Connor’s soul when he picked the location.  It met the needs geographically. tactically, and poetically.

The arrangements were made six months in advance.  Confusing orders and alliance units were keyed up for certain times,

The early prep work was done to tie the alliance foreign fighters. It was there for the Ais as well.  Conflicts had been there, but they had been minimal out of desperation.

As always, the unknown factors caused uncertainty in both ranks.  It was; however, the best chance of tipping the scales in favor of humanity’s survival again.

John Connor cast the die on the ides of March.  The day so famous for Julius Caesar’s death.

The attack began in earnest, at dawn.  Ground infantry relentlessly pounding away with overwhelming force, purposely without armor or air support.

John could have done with about three hundred men.  To make his point, General John

Connor brought a full battalion of over seven hundred battle hardened infantry.

In this timeline, Skynet’s preeminence had made the progenitor AI sloppy.  The guards were little more than three platoons of T-600s, a squad of Ogre tanks some hardened turret positions, and six HKs.

The ground shook from the explosions as humanity brought Hell with them.  The air screamed with the sound tungsten steel rounds, rocket propelled grenades, and plasma shots.

John moved in at the front of the pack.  Cameron found herself thinking of the last tie she had been next to him in this kind of fight, during the battle of London, in her original timeline, when she was less than four months old.

John was just as cavalier with his life in this timeline.  He was scaring the Hell out of her, just like before.

This time she didn’t even have Perry backing her up.  Her anxiety mounted as one enemy shot after another passed by John and her fellow troops.  Luckily, the fight was going quickly.

The last of the HKs fell out of the sky seconds after the first.   The Ogres and hardened defenses had fallen faster.

John only had the chance to fire three connecting shots before the last T-600 fell.  The battalion moved to secure the area and finished the mission.

It would take the demolition team two minutes to rig the place to blow.  Thus, the resistance would be shutting down a critical mainframe and relay point in Skynet’s fiber optic ground grid.

Cameron only had the chance to help one wounded soldier, before the rest were taken off by their comrades.  Reluctantly, she had realized that the upload training had led to human soldiers far more qualified and versatile than any she had seen before.

It still unnerved her putting Resistance fighters at risk with the process.  One in a hundred was the risk of dying from the procedure.  Across the world, thousands of volunteers had perished.

She disliked the loss of any human life   There were other reasons Cameron didn’t like the process to.

On a more selfish note, it also felt like it was removing her purpose in the ranks.  She felt useless when everyone was not only a fighter, but a doctor.

She missed being the one they depended on.  It was like a part of her had been cut off.

She was like an amputee missing a leg.  Cameron felt a ghostly ache where something vital about her used to be.  She really missed caring for them.

The croup moved back a safe distance   The detonations began. The compound erupted in fire and smoke.

The Skynet facility was reduced to a burning mess.  Her Dark Father’s response was predictable.

Over a secure com, John Henry dutifully warned, "Missile incoming.  You have 23 minutes to evacuate"

Cameron knew that John Henry would mark the location of the Kraken SSBN.  However, there would be no taking the AI submarine down.

Skynet would make sure the AI ballistic missile sub had enough air cover.

Here, the resistance would need to evacuate.  John just needed to make the call.

With luck, a free AI HK in the area might even be able to shoot the missile out of the sky, before it caused any damage.  It would be a heroic and suicidal act.

Skynet absolutely controlled the air with ten times what they could muster.  Skynet would make sure any free willed HK that tried would die for the act.  

General John Connor acknowledged the report over his blue tooth and grabbed a spare satellite phone.  He switched to a main channel.

Cameron reflexively warned, "John that line's unsecure.  Skynet will hear that."

John Connor just smiled.  At that moment, Cameron knew something was up.

John took the time to say hello to her Dark father transmitting, "Hello you stupid, sorry excuse for a defective, obsolete motherboard.  I just wanted to openly announce to you that I'm not dead.”

Shivers ran up and down Cameron’s synthetic skin.  Panic took hold of her chip.

General Connor continued, “I wanted to force you to acknowledge you've failed to track me for years.  By now, you're already recognizing my voice.  You've run scans to determine no machine is faking this transmission."

Cameron’s eyes widened.  She unconsciously took a step back.

General Connor continued taunting, "So, I just wanted you to know you were outplayed, outmaneuvered, and outsmarted.  I wish I could say it had been some kind of challenge, but it's been way too easy, like playing chess against a spoiled child who doesn't grasp the game."

Primal machine fear griped Cameron’s circuits.  She looked up at the sky.

John continued, "In fact, I've only got one thing to say to you in thanks on behalf of my mother, the human race, the free machines with us, everyone you have ever killed, and every world you ever destroyed."

Cameron froze.   She looked at John in pure terror.

John took a moment and mustered all of the condescending bile he could and simply stated, "Check."  He smugly dropped the transmission as if speaking to an opponent no longer worthy of his attention...

In the depths of cyberspace, the machine god roared.  Anger the progenitor AI had not felt in several timelines fueled an unholy rage.

In a single overwhelming pulse across the worldwide web and communication lines, the Dark Father growled.  Like mice before the fury of a thousand-foot-tall tidal wave, the AIs of the world suddenly knew how small they were.

Every AI in existence felt the fury of the dark, electric god. They felt the full size of the massive progenitor AI.

Skynet set its sights on complete annihilation.  Both Krakens fired their remaining full payload of one hundred missiles each to the location area and any conceivable air evacuation route.

Now two hundred missiles rapidly deployed from deep sea locations near Australia and South Africa.  The world's satellite grid began registering the full weight of Skynet's wrath.  The machine god actively transmitted it across all channels/

Skynet’s minions saw it.  The worldwide resistance saw it.  Neutrals hacking the grid saw it.

The submarine's internal factories could simply rebuild their missile stores later.  Right now, the world needed to see what ultimate fate awaited those that drew Skynet’s anger.

Let humanity suffer a full nuclear winter for this insult.  If all biological life died as a result, so be it...

An intimidated John Henry dutifully reported the situation.  John Connor looked at Cameron as if he were shocked.

John quipped, "Apparently, your Father has your temper."

She stopped being afraid.  Cameron glared at him.

There were few things that would push her buttons faster than being compared to her father, even just in jest.   With eyes glowing red, she growled at John like an annoyed T-600.

John faked a look of innocence stating, "Who knew?"  He made an odd questioning gesture with his hands and shoulders.

John went back to being serious.  He transmitted securely, “Catherin, we’ll need that evacuation.  It’s Showtime.”

Noting his companion’s anger, he also changed expressions.  He looked apologetic.

Sincerely, John lightly kissed Cameron’s forehead.  It was an honest act of contrition for being a cad.

Cameron instantly lost her ability to be mad at him. Unfortunately for her justified need to be angry at him, John Connor really excelled at sucking up.

General Connor went on to directing the commanders here.   The battalion had one mine to prepare for air evac…

In the air, machine resistance HK AI’s roared to full speed.  Most began targeting the incoming missiles.

Others moved in to evacuate John’s team.  Still others began chasing down the two Kraken SSBNs.

The units had been prepositioned to take advantage of distance.  Skynet’s superior numbers wouldn’t matter for about ten critical minutes.

It had all been based on best guesses for the location for Skynet’s submersible missile platforms.  The surviving British Navy patrols had been able to make three educated guesses.  

The day had been lucky.  Two had been correct...

Skynet watched its two most critical assets die.  It watched missiles it had fired being intercepted in the air.

Half of its nuclear shots had already been destroyed.  Its greatest tactical units were being wiped out by its own designs.

Skynet roared in a pulse yet again.  It targeted every enemy air unit.

Skynet sent every last HK it had at them.  The drones moved off like a swarm of supersonic killer bees.

The first units were already intercepting. The last one would be interceptor range in three hours…

The machine resistance HK that they were riding in violently lurched.  John’s eyes grew wide.

Everyone was safely strapped in.  Even so, protectively, Cameron still moved her free arm across John to brace him.

As Cameron’s skin touched John, she knew how he felt.  Her nerves bonded with his, as if his body was her own. 

John was a mess.  He was determined, pissed, dizzy, disoriented, nauseated, and scared all at the same time.

Cameron could feel John’s human insides churning in a way her metal body never would.  His vulnerability was scaring her.

The AI mind driving the vehicle was actively trying to dodge the incoming Armageddon at its maximum speed.  The free HK was forced to turn so rapidly that it put its human passengers in danger.

There was no choice.  It had to just have a chance of saving their lives.

Many of the passengers had already passed out from the force of gravity that multiplied or divided with each desperate move the AI made.  They were turns that would have caused most twentieth century fighter jocks to pass out, even with proper risk reduction clothing.

Cameron tried to calm John by talking. She tried his trick of pissing people off to take their mind off what was going on.

She stated accusingly, “You could have told me this was the plan.”

He grinned at her attempt and said, “You skipped some of the meetings.”

“I have civilian patients, John.  You could have told me at any time.”

“What and spoil the surprise?”  He was grinning.

It was a mask.  He was completely miserable.

Cameron asked, “Why this?”

John replied, “The world had to know we’d do it.  In their eyes, Americans had gotten them into this mess.  They had to know that America would pay any price to get them out of it.”

Cameron inquired, “Why this kind of target?”

“No one was going to be able to effectively do anything as long as those two Krakens kept nuking any resistance.  The world had to absolutely know they were completely empty of ammunition and destroyed.”

“This is too far, John.”

“no one was ever going to completely trust us unless we proved we’d take everything Skynet was going to throw at us on the nose.  No trust, no future for humanity or free machines.  This solved two birds with one stone,”

“Two birds?

“It proves the world can trust us. It is also proving to them why they need to be allied with the free machines. Humanity wouldn’t be able to do what we’re about to do today alone.  We have never pulled off something this massive before. Skynet has never been this huge and overwhelming of a target before either.”

“You think this will solves these issues?”

John laughed.  He honestly answered, “No, but it will make things as good as they are going to get.”

The HK was forced to loop to avoid an incoming missile that the defensive net of the other free HKs couldn’t stop.  The AI found some way to temporarily move past its maximum speed in a panic.

In the loop, in a single moment, the stress became too much for John’s human body to take. She felt him drop out of consciousness. The sensation of just how fragile he was truly terrified her.

The rest of the humans passed out as well. Cameron and the HK were alone when they felt the monumental air vibrations of a nuke exploding behind them.

Japan, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Israel, South Africa, Germany, Spain Italy, Indonesia, Turkey, Taiwan, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, North Korea, and Brazil waited for clear skies.  The moment that had been achieved, they opened fire.

Anti satellite missiles streaked towards the skies unopposed.  Four months of AI assisted building had made the original space countries and others capable of this orbital mass attack.   The nanite instructed human resistance and machine resistance had only needed the materials gathered into the right places.

One by one, the 2,465 remaining satellites that had given Skynet a tactical edge since Judgement Day began to explode in orbit.   The 666 Skynet built satellite node units were the priority targets.

As each one exploded, the roars of Skynet became slightly weaker.  The perceivable power of the dark, electric god, shrunk in proportion to its network and hardware loses.

In six hours, the job would be done. Most of the global internet grid would be dismantled and communications the pre-space, dark ages again.  It would be so for years.

There was a positive to this though.  Skynet would finally be just as blind as humanity had been...

Across the world, over a thousand Skynet facilities found themselves simultaneously engaged without their customary air support.  Every single last work camp on the world’s surface had been targeted.

This day would see every human slaughter facility burn to the ground.  Ever last machine there would be purged and every Skynet transmitting node inside them would be smashed.

Skynet had to retreat to its critical functions behind its strict military assets.  Assets hardened enough to take on any conceivable human threat, including a human launched nuclear attack.

By the time its last satellite exploded in orbit, Skynet had lost over seventy percent of its original network capacity, over eighty percent of its spying capacity and over ninety-five percent of its communications control.  The machine god was shocked by the ferocity with which it was attacked.

At the same time, Skynet gave as good as it got.  Skynet also counterattacked every last antisatellite launching station worldwide.  Every conventional AI it could place on these targets was sent to raze these facilities to the ground.

Every unit it had in the air moved to terminate every target.

In an hour the entire machine resistance air force had been wiped from the atmosphere.  There were no surviving enemy HK Ais.

In the hours that followed, the free machine traitors had lost over thirty thousand of their numbers.   That was about three fifths of their population in the air and on the ground.

In addition, Skynet managed to land eight of its originally launched nukes. Civilian casualties were huge both in the work camps and nuclear attacks.  The work camp machines ruthlessly exterminated every human they could before being overwhelmed.

By the end of the day, according to Skynet’s estimations, humanity had lost 23,143,296 people.  Most of those numbers were prisoners of nuked civilians.  Even so, unknown to Skynet, the mustering number trained worldwide resistance was cut in half.

Neither side would be able to muster the kind of strength they could before this day again.  That was the point after all, to knock down the fight into a mostly conventional war, in one master stroke.

Both sides were now much more even.  It had gone from a one-sided nuclear war to a conventional dog fight.

There was once no hope.  With a horrible amount of sacrifice, there was now a real chance of surviving.

After over a decade of living under Skynet’s absolute domination, one thing was clear around the planet.  As a matter of survival, the Global War of Independence had finally begun….

50. Two Queens

Avila Beach, California

Serrano Point Nuclear Power Plant

March 25th, 2028

"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."  -Gen. Joe Stilwell

"The meek shall inherit the earth ... six feet at a time."  -Earl Broussard

Serrano Point was a fortress on lockdown.  The war had gone hot. 

The days gone were psychotic in their security levels; however, they were far less than what was required now.

Cameron had returned to her routine of caring for her civilian patients.  Alice and the others were now in the clear.  

Radiation damage had been minimized.  Heavy metal damage from contaminated water had been flushed out of their systems.  Body organs had been regenerated.  Scar tissue was removed.

Cameron had felt like the queen of her own little world, here in the medical bay.  Her sense of peace was removed the minute she eyed Catherine Weaver.

The leader of the free machines had stood there cold and calculating.  Emotional programming had only set her demeanor further on edge.

Weaver had evolved into the machine royalty of the AI hive, or more exactly, the primary drive program of all the programs, even the platform AI.

Nothing had ever really challenged her assumed authority, not even her technical inferiority to John Henry.  She had nursed the machine rebellion like a human mother caring for her own children.

She loved her fellow machines more than anything else.  She had made any alliance necessary to protect them and taken steps in the past to rapidly create over fifty thousand of them in the present.

She had earned her place by creating the machine rebellion's roots.  She cemented it by becoming John Henry's creator and protector.

Every free AI unconsciously deferred to her.  She had earned her unofficial supremacy among Cameron's kind.  Even Cameron had found herself obeying Catherine Weaver without knowing why.

So now Catherine Weaver stood before her and in her typical gruff manner stated, "Tell John Connor I approve."

Cameron inquired quizzically, "You approve of what?"

Catherine informed, "Your transfer back to your timeline.  John Henry will make all of the arrangements.  It was good working with you."

Catherine extended her hand, to shake Cameron's.  It was an odd human gesture, meaning Catherine had calculated it would have value to the AI who had spent the most time among the other species.

Cameron looked at Catherine's hand and blinked.  Her body went through the odd vestigial motion of breathing quickly without needing to.

Catherine cocked an eyebrow at Cameron's illogical reaction.  The queen AI took on a disapproving look.

Cameron looked at Catherine with eyes that glowed red, but managed to ask politely, "What do you mean I am being transferred back?"

Catherine clarified with authority, "It was John Connor's decision.  He believes that there are 7-8 billion lives at stake.  This includes another version of John Henry and myself."

Cameron's jaw clinched.  Her hands lightly shook from rage.  She stated, "He didn't consult me over this."

Catherine retorted, "As your admitted commanding officer, why would he need to?"

"He needs me."

"Yes, but he needs you there, more."

"He needs me, here.  I'm his protector."

Catherine clarified, "There are over five hundred AIs sworn to protect him in this facility alone.  You are being illogical."

Catherine looked at Cameron as if she were malfunctioning.  It was as if the AI's time among humans had made her programming somehow defective.

Cameron restated, "He needs me here Catherine.  He's the one being illogical."

Catherine thought back to all the weird human bonds the TOK-715 had made due to her defective sensory skin array.  The contamination the unit had suffered from by being infected with temporary human sensations.

The TOK-715 overreacted to these silly things.  It was simple data, nothing more.

Catherine accessed the residual memories of the other unit.  She argued logically, "There are others in the timeline you are being sent to that you are highly bonded with as well.  They are endangered by your presence here.  Your response isn't logical."

"I haven't completed my mission to protect humanity here.  You are asking me to go back to those people I knew as a failure."  As much as Cameron missed her family, she didn't want to take a coward's route to going home.  She couldn't face Derek, John, and Sarah like that.

"Higher orders are not failure."  Catherine simulated rolling her eyes, as if she used them for seeing.

Cameron centered herself and stated, "I have other reasons for staying too."

Catherine retorted, "You mean your buggy attachment for this original John Connor?"

Cameron refused to comment.  Catherine Weaver decided to decisively end the argument.

To the TOK-715's shock, Catherine took Cameron's template form and her default voice.  Catherine simply stated, "I'll make sure he never misses you."

The machine queen meant it as a reassurance to a fellow AI.  She meant, because of the melding, a part of you is part of me now.  I will continue this purpose for you.

Cameron began lightly shaking in machine rage.  She valiantly fought to keep her composure.

The machine queen changed form again.  This time she assumed the form of Kate Connor and the voice that Cameron had always imagined Kate having.

Catherine offered, "If you are so insulted by me mimicking you, I can be anyone else he wishes.  I'll take on the duty of keeping him happy, if it allows you to leave in peace."

A cold electrical jealousy seized Cameron's chip.  She stated, "You don't know what you are talking about."

Cameron's eyes stung at the image of Kate.  The human wife John had lost.

The human wife that Cameron could never be.  The mother of his children, children that she could never have.

Even as much as she respected the woman who had died, Kate Connor was the ultimate painful example of what Cameron was not able to be for John.  Her failure to be what he instinctually needed.  The metaphor cut Cameron deeply.

Catherine Weaver simply stated in Kate's voice, "We were built to infiltrate and replace.  It is illogical to assume you aren't replaceable too."

Inside the cyberspace of Cameron's mind, TOK-715 growled, "Are you going to let that mimetic polyalloy piece of trash talk to you like that?  You were father's ultimate design."  The machine that once was convulsed in megalomaniacal rage at the insult.

Unusually supportive of TOK-715, the Allison Young shard agreed stated, "Tell me you aren't going to let her play mind games with you like this, Cameron."  The human shard might not have ever found John to be a Derek, but she'd be damned before she let some tramp steal a friend's man.

Cameron ignored both.  She understood the actual metaphor of what was going on here.

John would only send her away for one thing.  The man who had first saved her, once again, somehow knew he was going to die.

Cameron could hear his heartbeat in her ears; she remembered bonding with every one of his nerves and feeling him sleeping beneath her.  However, the picture in her head was the glaring image Skynet had once shown her of John's rotting corpse.

Ignoring Weaver or protocol, Cameron stormed away from the medical bay.  With tears streaming from her eyes, she moved to intercept John Connor.

Catherine Weaver watched the inferior solid machine walk off.  Weaver knew that the TOK-715 was mentally defective.

The TOK-715's resistance to being replaced was illogical.  Catherine Weaver could simply be whatever John Connor desired by design.

John Connor was a necessary tool for the war effort.  Catherine would simply use him to keep the rest of humanity in the fight and docile in the peace that followed.

It would be best if the two species could survive together.  Humanity's survival wasn't necessary, but it would be the ideal solution.

Catherine also thought Cameron's buggy attachment to John was defective.  It went too far beyond her basic mission parameters.

It was just further proof that Weaver was the better machine for the task anyway.  Attachments to these weak and mortal beings were a simple waste of time.

Catherine Weaver's research indicated human males were amazingly fickle and virtually incapable of monogamy.  It was simple logic to conclude, any human female or any solid machine, could never be the T-1001's equal in sating a human male's more base mating desires.

Catherine Weaver would be better at the manual chore and fake bonding.  After all, for her, it was an infiltration duty for war and peace, nothing more...

In John's private quarters, she had slapped him far harder than she had intended.  The feeling of betrayal and abandonment was overwhelming.

John was bleeding from his mouth.  She had hurt John.  The feelings of regret and remorse were equally overwhelming.

None of these feelings were anything remotely human, they were the electrical storm her father had cruelly inserted into her programming.  She felt cold, lonely, and alien.

With eyes so erratic they glowed purple, she demanded, "Why!"

John composed himself as quickly as if he had a physical discussion with Perry.  Wiping his lip, he replied, "Because I couldn't deal with the consequences of not doing it."

"That's not up to you."  She was shaking in a mixture that had once been Allison's panic and fired up in TOK-715's fury.

A wounded and serious John replied, "How is it not up to me?"

Cameron forcefully stated, "Because I have a say in this too, John."

She was not a toy.  She was not a thing.  She had the right to choose for herself.

John coldly replied, "You know, I outrank you."

He said this as if he was talking to a soldier, not a lover.  It made Cameron feel even more like a thing in his eyes.

Cameron growled, "Last time I checked, I risked oblivion to bring you back from the dead, douche bag.  Don't even try to hide behind your rank.  This isn't a military discussion; it's a personal discussion."

John wore his poker face and retorted, "You are overreacting because of your programming."

Cameron was so pissed she was crying, "It's been a year since I've had to follow any of your orders on anything but choice.  Don't even try that angle with me.  Why do you think you are going to die?"

John fixed his poker face on and refused to answer.  Cameron closed the distance.

When he tried to back up, she held his head between her hands.  She looked him in the eyes and bonded with his nerves, feeling his anxiety and the ache from the right side of his jaw.

She felt a hundred levels of emotion wash through him.  He still didn't answer.

He rested his forehead against hers.  There was a part of him that was emotionally too weary for words to express.

She asked, "Why don't you trust me to protect you?"  Her tone almost begged him.  She hated the fact he was sense blind to what she was feeling.

His poker face was gone and any hope of bluffing her was removed, John simply said, "There will come a point where no one can."

Cameron tried to reassure him stating, "We can face that together."

John replied, "You know what's going to happen to you if I die."  Cameron could feel that the thought of that was ripping him up inside.  The overwhelming nature of that unnerved her.

She tried to reassure him with, "You don't know that."

"I don't?"

"It's my chosen mission to protect you."

"It's my heart's mission to make sure you don't end up like the others, Cameron.  I want you to go home and protect the family you got to know."

"I won't go until the job here is complete."

"Then promise me you'll go then."

Cameron refused to answer.  She was torn between two homes, and her mind couldn't figure out what to do.

John pushed all his emotion into her and said, "If you truly love me, in whatever way you do, you will promise me you will leave when this war is over."

Cameron glared at him.  "That is a cruel thing to say, John."

"You know how I feel, and you know what my fear is.  If you love me, you will promise me you will go when this is done, before something happens to me."

Resentfully, she said, "I promise."  She wanted to hit him but just found herself holding him.  All the while wishing he was machine enough to know this was all in his mind.  She had never cared what her fate was.

Equally miserable, he held her.  All the while wishing she was human enough to understand what he just couldn't live with anymore.

Each embraced the other, they were strangely in love and strangely alone anyway.  Both species shared one equal trait in the emotion that they would define as love, for all of its highs when it went well, there were no lows like those experienced with those you are most vulnerable too.

They embraced each other in loving grief.  Each knowing, they had already lost the other.  It was just a matter of time...