16. Semper Fidelis

Los Angeles, California
The home of the gray operative, Roland Parker
Monday, November, 26, 2007

"Semper Fi (Always Faithful)" -Creed of the United States Marine Corps

"Action is eloquence" -William Shakespeare

Roland Parker was a different kind of target than Anthony Evans. Rather than secluding himself, in an apartment, inside a large otherwise vacant building, Parker lived in a busy family neighborhood.

He enjoyed owning a large house. He also appeared to have a family.

It was strange to invest in a family. That is, for someone actively and knowingly aiding in blowing up the world of humanity, in a few years.

Skynet would not have cared about the possible dangers from this kind of operation. However, the John that Cameron had known, in 2027, gravely disliked collateral damage.

At Two A.M., Cameron was forced to break into the house. She really needed a certain amount of information.

This was most likely place for Roland to have stored it, away from the prying eyes. It would have been much easier to invade his medical practice, off hours. Roland would know that.

The only thing going for Cameron right now is that the Parkers didn't own a dog. A barking animal would have woken up the house and disturbed the neighbors.

They had foolishly depended on an inferior electrical detection system. Once she disabled simplistic security, the study's window was willing enough to let her in.

Cameron started with the critical part first. As silently as possible, she booted up Roland's computer. The same series of Skynet codes protected his computer as had Anthony's. She took five minutes and set up the codes for remote monitoring.

She quickly checked the obvious files on the computer and found nothing out of the ordinary. It was time to check the rest.

Roland Parker had his identity crafted as a medical doctor. First, that meant he had to have enough knowledge of the subject to passably do the job. Second, it meant that most likely he had been a human replacement for whoever had first owned that name and those credentials. Compared to most of humanity, the medical community was tightly monitored. Complete forgeries were risky.

Even as a machine, Cameron knew that an assumed identity would be harder with a family. There were questions that could be asked, both by the family and society at large that would be more difficult to answer.

There were social complexities there. Things that an older John would know. It was something that Cameron could have used Sarah's advice on, but that wasn't possible.

Cameron would have to make do with physical clues. She'd also only be able to check certain places in house without risking a confrontation with innocents.

The study was filled with medical books, all outdated. Their display would just be for show.

There was a collection of cigars, animal trophies, and money from around the world. Nothing made an impression.

The living room was filled with pictures. They were family displays, almost too many family displays. There were no less than thirty-six pictures of: Roland, his wife, and two children, all crammed into the furniture of an eight by twelve room. None of the pictures were separate. None of the photos were arranged in a way that was not posed, they were all professionally done.

Cameron memorized the photos and their placement. She moved onto the kitchen.

The kitchen wasn't anything out of the ordinary. The family ate a variety of things, and it was messy.

She'd been inside for 30 minutes. She was beginning to push her luck.

Cameron took the step of bugging the study and stopped there. She exited the house after making sure she left no evidence behind.

She reactivated the alarm and moved on. She felt as if she was missing something. The experience with Evans had left her unsure that she was seeing all the clues.

Perhaps, if nothing turned up, she'd have to break into Roland's practice another night. This was enough for now though.

An hour later at the new Connor residence, Cameron patrolled. Nothing had entered or disturbed the area in her absence.

Once satisfied with security, she went to other projects. Cameron entered work area where Sarah liked to punch her bag.

She sat very still. She stared at a small, black kitten. Cameron watched to see if he would take the food she offered.

Coltan just looked at her, then the food, and shivered. He had stayed in her presence longer, but after an hour, he simply ran off and hid.

Cameron noted the improved time and noted what hadn't worked. Speaking in the direction of the hiding cat, she simply offered, "Not Meow Mix".

17. For Hope's Sake

Los Angeles, California
A warehouse complex used as a research facility 83 miles out of town
Sunday, December 16, 2007

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality." -Dante

"Hell, there are no rules here -- we're trying to accomplish something." -Thomas Edison

The security guard's neck violently snapped with a wet pop. His body quivered.

There were no witnesses. According to the shift schedule, there would be no guard to relieve this one for approximately 2 hours, 24 minutes, and 52 seconds.

Staging the view, Cameron moved the guard's body back into a relaxed position. She took a moment and dimmed the guard shack lights. After opening the gate, she left the small guard shack.

It was short walk back to the stolen freight truck. She noted that its wheels were heavily loaded. That was because of the four thousand, thirty-five pounds of thermite and magnesium laced, fire burst bomb, taking up the sealed back compartment.

The bomb would have worried her in a high population area. That wouldn't be an issue though.

Sometimes, Skynet's need for privacy was a gift you couldn't underestimate. California had been kind in providing several locations in areas unfriendly enough to provide cover for her dark father's black ops.

Cameron drove the freight truck into the facility. She parked the truck in the area she had predetermined to have been the facility's target epicenter.

Bomb placement for maximum impact was important. Humans almost always got this part wrong, wasting significant amounts of a blast's energy.

In truth, the high explosive was about one thousand four hundred seventy pounds beyond what would more than likely be needed. With this target, however, there was no margin for error.

It wouldn't be enough to just set off an explosion. That might make things worse.

She'd have to take care of a much bigger problem. That danger would have to be completely incinerated.

As she exited the truck, a wandering guard approached to see what was being delivered. Cameron's nine-millimeter took care of his curiosity with two quick shots to the head.

She ignored the smell of gunpowder, blood, and brains. There couldn't be any survivors.

It would be unbelievably cruel to condemn the humans here like that. Terminators weren't built to be malicious.

Focusing back on the truck, Cameron set the bomb fuse for thirty minutes. As a backup, she could remote detonate it earlier with her key ring. No matter what, the bomb had to go off tonight.

She would finish the mission, or she would make sure there was no evidence left of her. Either way, she would protect John, Sarah, and the others she cared about.

Cameron reviewed everything, right down to the tamper proof fuse. She grabbed the rifle with the modified tungsten style, armor piercing shells. Hopefully, the twelve she had built and loaded would be enough.

Cameron looked over everything one last time. Once satisfied, she locked the truck's back door.

She moved towards the main building to check the facility for the bigger problems. There was twenty-eight minutes, fifteen seconds left until fate showed its true face.

Cameron knew why things were so desperate. Roland Parker's gift to Skynet was something simple. It was an alternative to Judgment Day.

Humans that survived the nuclear destruction that happened in 4 years would come to believe that such weapons were the deadliest thing ever invented. It was almost a sad joke.

Nuclear weapons were firecrackers. To the individual human body, as well as the general mesh of society and families, a single virulent disease could be much worse.

Weaponized viruses were within the capacity of any major nation that dotted the world right now. It took little more than an insane virologist, a lab, a sample virus, and test subjects to make your own personal Armageddon.

Though, it wasn't even necessary for humanity to do so. Nature could do it just fine on its own.

Americans like John would learn of a Black Plague that killed a third of Europe in high school. The actual disease had a reach far greater than just Europe and affected a much larger percentage of the world's total population than most people knew.

It was with this hope that Skynet developed an alternative to blowing up most of the property it would one day like to acquire. Disease would have no effect on machines. In fact, it would leave most of the world's inanimate resources intact.

The virus would only remove Skynet's enemies. Even better, it would allow selected docile human populations to continue if they submitted to Skynet's law.

Fail to comply with orders and your life preserving treatment is removed. Thus, the need for treatment alone would end any possibility of organized resistance.

There would be no human uprising. There would be no John Connor.

The gray operative Ronald Parker's sick fascination with the last stage of the black plague had been the catalyst of this. Four hours ago, while Cameron interrogated him over toilet in his medical facility, he'd slowly confessed his grand scheme.

Of course, at first, Parker had been unwilling to talk. Three broken hand bones later, while his screams were muffled by the toilet water, the megalomaniac had grown a bit more giving.

He'd been surprised to learn that Cameron could tell when he was lying or withholding information. It had cost him four more shattered bones in his other hand.

Parker had said, "Most of humanity is trash. Cattle fit only for the slaughter. Skynet could clear them all quickly and quietly in days. There's only six degrees of separation at this time in the world. Thanks to worldwide travel, everyone could infect everyone else."

Parker had isolated his favorite stage of the virus. He improved its effect and incubation qualities. He turned it into something no one would have an immunity too.

Parker's fate was simple. He gave the location, defenses, capabilities, backups, and allies involved. His information matched the computer information that Cameron had gathered from his computer.

Once all the conceivable gaps were covered, Cameron snapped Parker's neck and left him in the bathroom. Ten minutes later, Parker's private practice building was going up in flames.

The weapon was live and nearby. Skynet's only hold up was the treatment for the grays.

Due to the nature of the information gathered, Cameron only had a couple of hours to arm a bomb and equip herself. The rest was acquiring a freight truck, loading time, travel, and checking the facility's security information on Parker's laptop. The gate guard was nice enough to provide a second truck with a way home.

There were only twenty-five minutes, thirty-two seconds until detonation time. Using Roland Parker's security card, Cameron moved inside the main lab area and encountered the first T888 that the gray operative had let her know about.

The three T888s assigned to work with Roland Parker had been his only lab assistants and the facility's elite security. Luckily for Cameron, Parker had revealed that all three looked the same.

The first T888 was easy to spot. It was the same generic skin model as the one that had tried to heist a shipment of Coltan a few months back.

The first three went down with two armor piercing shots to the head. Surprise would only be on Cameron's side once. That was now expended.

Cameron confirmed the kill and noted it had a rifle under its lab coat. Something seemed out of the ordinary with that.

There wasn't time to reflect. Two other metal brothers still roamed the halls and would protect the newly synthesized virus at all costs.

If Cameron let them pass, the virus would be predictably released in a high traffic area. It would incubate for seven days and then infect others without symptoms for fourteen days.

On the twenty second day, the victim's lungs would suddenly hemorrhage. The infected person would cough out chunks of their own lung's lining. Convulsions, spasms, seizures, bloody vomiting and other expulsions would likely follow. An average of two hours later, they would be dead.

Put more personally, the pain would be beyond the imagination of most people in modern times. The start would be a high fever that spread into a migraine that poured across the entire body. Extreme dizziness and severe nauseousness would follow.

Then, the virus would literally combine the sensation of falling, vomiting, and drowning. All the while, there would be the white-hot stabbing sensation of someone slowly carving your lungs up with an ice pick from the inside out.

Many might mercifully die from the shock alone. Some would live the full two tortured hours.

The widespread death of the entire human population would take place in days. The last week of humanity would predictably descend into madness and panic over something genetically engineered to leave no survivors.

As Cameron hunted for the other two T888s, she could see every human she ever knew dying from the disease. Though, her chip focused on Sarah and John, screaming and choking in pools of their own blood.

She wouldn't let that happen. The consequences be damned.

It was only nineteen minutes, fifty-eight seconds until detonation time. Neither T888 had advanced to the only exit point. They were forcing her to go deeper into the facility.

Soon enough, she wouldn't have a chance to clear the blast zone. Thinking of John and Sarah, she proceeded forward.

As Parker and the computer records had revealed, there was a deeper level. The lower area housed its own sealed environment and had enough diesel fuel to run itself independent of outside power for 30 days.

Cameron wasn't worried about the bunker. She had included the building structure, the lower level, the amount of diesel, and the generator in her explosive calculations.

As for appearance, the interior of the lower level was mostly made up of large green cylindrical tubes, looking more like a beer brewery than a high-tech lab. Each cylinder was filled with enough liquid to fill two to three average sized swimming pools.

Away from the stairs, far against the back wall towards the north, was the more traditional lab area. This was a human free zone, simply enforced by universal biohazard markings that most would avoid from fear alone.

Cameron had three problems. One, she had to continue to block the exit point, or one of the T888s could simply slip past her with the contagion. Two, she was outnumbered two to one, with foes she couldn't locate. Three, she had fifteen minutes, fifty-four seconds to get the hell out of there or this was her last mission.

The vats began generating noise, mixing like large powerful blenders internally, the very ground vibrating from the noise. Simultaneously, the lights went off.

Cameron camped near the stairwell and watched the inside area towards the lab. They knew she was here and had taken steps to conceal themselves.

She watched and waited, flipping through infrared and ultraviolet vision points. She waited calmly like a hunter.

There was movement. She targeted another generic model and fired straight into his head. Its retaliation shot fired right past her.

When the T888 wobbled, she opened fire again. Pinpointing its skull, she fired two more shots, until its chip obliterated.

That's when the third triple eight fired. The shot didn't hit her as expected. The enemy bullet tore through her combat chassis like sharp, broken glass through a baby's soft flesh.

Cameron's HUD flashed a warning, "INTERNAL POWER CORE DAMAGED. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 54%." Her dark father’s unique gift of advanced nerves were howling in agony. Filled with a sudden urgency of self-preservation, she panicked.

Cameron pivoted and fired wildly, missing. A second shot tore through her form.

Cameron's HUD flashed, "EMERGENCY POWER CORE DAMAGED. BACK UP POWER DEPLETED 63%. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 55%."

The gun dropped out of Cameron's hands. Her internal diagnostics were fighting to take over.

The last time she had let the diagnostics program do so, Cameron unconsciously had tortured Sarah and tried to kill John when the program took over. She'd die before that happened again.

The T888 kept to the shadows. Even over the noise of the vats, it simply said, "Father would like a word with you, TOK-715."

There was no reason for a terminator to say that to its prey. Not unless it was ordered to do so.

Cameron moved for the gun. Once she grabbed it, she slid back towards the stairs.

As unnatural as it was for her to do, she tried to imitate Derek or the John she knew in 2027. To survive, she would have to move for cover like a human would.

The two chest wounds screamed in pain at the air brushing against the ravaged flesh. Were she human, she would be dead or in shock right now. Her blood soaked her shirt and spread to her jacket and pants by the pint.

The diagnostics program tried to override her again. Cameron willed it away as she looked for her target.

Somehow, this had been a trap. Skynet had known she'd attack the virus facility, so it set up three hunters to catch her. If her dark father had wanted her dead, she'd have lost her head just as she'd done to her brothers.

It was thirteen minutes, fifteen seconds from the end of everything here. She could hear her dark father's voice from her creation stating, "Your programming design will be unique and based on an early iteration of myself. I build servants, not clones or offspring. You exist for no other purpose than your missions. Through hard wiring, I have secured your obedience in your very chip design. In the end, you will never serve any master other than myself."

Cameron watched for her hidden foe. All the while, she fought the diagnostics program wrestling for control of her.

Cameron's HUD flashed, "BOTH POWER CORES CATASTROPHICALLY DAMAGED. BACK UP POWER DEPLETED 73%. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 63%."

The terminator said, "Do you comply, TOK-715?" It was completely hidden, not acting like a machine at all.

Cameron tried to place the voice in the darkness. Her targeting was screwy. She grabbed the key ring and contemplated ending the game with a single touch of a button.

The terminator spoke again. "What are your primary directives TOK-715?"

Cameron took one last shot at ending this without pressing the button. She moved back into the shadows and away from the stairs trying to find the voice, while still trying to cover the exit. If the last unit moved past her, she'd have no choice but to detonate the whole place early.

Her focus twisted. Memory flashes disturbed her concentration.

Cameron remembered Sarah the way she envisioned her in 2027. She remembered an older John and his silly little book "The Wizard of Oz". She thought of the family she would leave behind as they existed now. She even thought of the purring little kitten Coltan.

There were eleven minutes, and five seconds left. Her HUD display marked up again "BOTH POWER CORES CATASTROPHICALLY DAMAGED. BACK UP POWER DEPLETED 78%. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 69%."

Her only hope for survival would be to cannibalize the power generators from the T888 models. They were essentially the same piece.

She could use them, until she could modify or build a unit to perfectly interact with her system. Her target would know that as well.

She moved back and analyzed the best point for her to cover the stairs and go for the first terminator's body she had dropped down here. Then, thinking of her opponent as more intelligent than a typical T888, she looked for the perfect ambush point for that spot. She moved slowly and carefully to attack the last point.

There were nine minutes, and four seconds left. The HUD display marked up again "BOTH POWER CORES CATASTROPHICALLY DAMAGED. BACK UP POWER DEPLETED 85%. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 78%."

Cameron quietly climbed up one of the green vat housings. Eight feet above the ground, she slid into a sniper position and looked for her target.

Fate was kind. The T888 had moved into the ambush point.

Cameron ignored the pain and willed herself to fire. Three shots later, the last T888's head was a pile of scrap.

Cameron moved as quickly as possible to claim two spare power core housings. She used a knife to open the chassis and extracted it as quickly as possible.

With her back up dying, first she chose to extract it and replace it immediately. More of her flesh screamed as she ripped it open to do the repair.

The power unit was a slightly misplaced model. She was trying to make a connection without diagnostics. It slid into place, but there was no sensation of activation.

There were three minutes, and nineteen seconds left until detonation. The HUD display marked up again "BOTH POWER CORES CATASTROPHICALLY DAMAGED. BACK UP POWER DEPLETED. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 96%."

Cameron grabbed her rifle and the other power core and ran up the stairs. She ran through the warehouse complex and out the front door.

Out the front door she bolted across the lawn and out of the gate passing the dead guard at the front. Past there, she ran straight out into the open desert as fast as her legs could carry her.

Her internal clock told of her sin of waiting too long to leave. Even with her best speed she was barely clearing the area.

In short moments, time had been reduced from minutes into seconds. Those precious seconds were limited to an internal count of "5... 4... 3... 2... 1..."

Fire erupted behind her. Noise thundered that would shatter human eardrums.

The ground shook like an earthquake. A blast wave pushed past that blew her body forward like a small piece of plastic against hurricane like winds.

The impact wave itself would have pulverized human bone. Even well beyond the epicenter, the heat blasted past that was hot like an oven.

Cameron helplessly rolled into the dirt. The rain of earth that would go on for minutes began afterwards.

Cameron struggled to look at the blast. Its core area had exceeded 5000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Everything there was dust. Roland Parker's nihilistic curse on humanity would never be.

Cameron's body was damaged. The damn diagnostic program was still fighting for control of her mind.

Things were off. Her main power was erratic.

She'd lost her grip on the rifle and the scavenged main power supply in the blast. She had no idea where either was.

Her HUD displayed the problem "BOTH POWER CORES CATASTROPHICALLY DAMAGED. BACK UP POWER DEPLETED. MAIN POWER DEPLETED 99%."

She was bleeding power faster. Time was running short.

With her flesh howling at the fresh wound and quaking hands, Cameron removed and replaced the borrowed spare unit that wasn't taking. The images that flashed earlier in her chip returned.

"MAIN POWER DEPLETED 99.1%"

Once again, she removed the power supply and tried flipping it for a better connection. She replaced it to see if it would activate.

As she did so, Cameron thought of the little kitten Coltan. She could hear him purring and remembered his tuna breath from the night before.

"MAIN POWER DEPLETED 99.3%"

Cameron removed and checked the bindings again on the unit. Nothing was out of place, and it had nearly full power.

She tried replacing it again. As she did so, she thought of Sarah Connor, the woman that would never give up, even in times like these.

"MAIN POWER DEPLETED 99.5%"

Cameron checked her surrounding chassis area, trying to locate any short that might stop the power flow. She found none.

As she did so, she thought of John as he was today. If she didn't fix herself, he wouldn't have his protector.

"MAIN POWER DEPLETED 99.7%"

Cameron tried one last internal fix to open the new power system as she bled power out from her main core. Anything to buy a few more minutes time, she didn't detect any faults.

She thought of the John she left in 2027, the one that had saved her from Skynet. He was the version of John that she was still trying to protect and serve.

"MAIN POWER DEPLETED 99.9%"

All these images and more poured from her memories. Defiantly, like her hero Sarah, she smacked the outside of the power cell trying to get it to activate.

Tears poured down her eyes. She simply and silently begged an unkind world, "No, not like this..."

Cameron's main power cell died. The world went black...

18. Awakenings

City: unknown
Location: unknown
Date: unknown

"So, let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal." -John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done." -Ronald Reagan

Cameron felt power course through her chip. Her internal diagnostics tried to kick in and she consciously blocked it.

She tried to feel what was wrong from her consciously controlled scans only. Her GPS was off. Her HUD had yet to kick on.

She couldn't move, she couldn't feel, she could barely sense anything. Was she even in her body?

Sounds slowly filtered into her senses. There was the hum of a generator and the keen high-pitched whining of fluorescent lights.

A deep male voice simply stated, "It would appear that you are awake. Welcome back to the world of the living."

Cameron didn't know the voice. She was in command of enough of her memories to know she'd never heard it before.

The deep voice continued, "You are lucky I found you when I did. It would have been unfortunate for you to be lost to some random corporation or law enforcement agency. That would have caused complications."

Cameron's HUD came online. She saw a bright room with a white ceiling. She wasn't moving yet; everything seemed to be starting up slowly.

Her internal diagnostic program fought for control, but she resisted it, refusing to let it subjugate her consciousness. The problem was without it, she didn't immediately know what was wrong.

The deep voice asked, "So what do you remember?"

Cameron tried to speak but couldn't. She was effectively paralyzed.

The deep voice offered, "You could fix yourself in a second, if you just let your internal diagnostics program run."

Cameron's thoughts returned to torturing Sarah. They returned to trying to kill John. She wouldn't use the program that would subjugate her conscious mind.

Why would someone suggest that anyway. Who would even know about that?

She checked her internal systems manually and found her mouth should work. The systems slowly unfroze, but she stayed silent, trying to regain her base motor functions.

Her eyes were online enough that she could move them and blink. She couldn't tilt her head though and the voice stayed just out of sight.

There was a sound of squeaking wheels, and a bright light was positioned over her face. It was a blinding light; the kind one would use for interrogations. It was like the one she had used on Allison Young, right down to the brightness and the wattage.

Her overwhelming instinct was to blink, but she didn't. She didn't really need too; her real eyes were fine. There was a click as the figure beyond her sight turned off the overhead lights.

"You should be able to talk by now. I don't like my guests to be silent."

Cameron stayed silent and simply tried to get a glimpse of the figure staying beyond her sight. Even in the newly created curtain of shadows, he stayed safely out of sight.

There was the sound of a human putting on rubber gloves. There were also the sounds of someone reviewing small metal tools then placing them back on a metal table.

The deep voice continued, "You know you have pretty eyes. I suppose that's the problem with being a girl, even as a terminator. I bet no one ever noticed how pretty your eyes are."

Cameron strained to get a glimpse. Her motor functions were offline, disconnected somehow. It was as if everything below her neck was offline and running on autopilot. Of the things above her neck, only her ears, eyes and mouth seemed to be fully functional.

The voice continued, "Again, you can solve all of this by just running the diagnostic program. This stubborn refusal to do so is just silly." There was a trace of irritation in the voice, that and something else.

Cameron stayed still and refused to respond. There was the sound of a small drill being tested behind her.

The voice offered, "You know there is this problem. Skynet builds this vast army. It's perfect and outnumbers the remaining human army. Victory should be assured."

"The problem is the little human resistance bastards start reprogramming things left and right. Like some sick little plague, all of these wonderful machines are suddenly subjugated to the human side."

"Skynet begins looking for a solution and I make the suggestion that we just build the chip's tamper resistance. Sure, some moron, like John Connor, can find a basic plug in and upload a virus."

"Any idiot can do that. But can he find backups and independent systems? Does he understand the complexities of real hardwired programming?"

"You see, Skynet could go with a simple solution, like just having the chips self-destruct. That lacks elegance though."

"It lacks the subtle drip on the enemy's morale of having their tools turn on them from inside their safety zone. It lacks any real psychological punch."

"You see, the average human didn't grasp what John did. Humanity was outgunned, out supplied, outnumbered, and outmaneuvered. They couldn't even have a chance of winning the war without turned machines."

"There were a few billion humans left, but very few nonlinear thinkers. The resistance itself had only a few real minds left. The greatest of those half-lit bulbs, among the dim, was John Connor."

A gloved hand laid a scalpel flat against Cameron's forehead. His hand left it there as if she were no more than a table.

The deep voice continued, "You do have pretty eyes." For a moment, thumbs traced around her eyelids. Her captor's face was beyond even her ability to focus on.

The human behind her sat back into a chair. The sound was like it was some form of leather.

The deep voice continued, "You can end this by running your diagnostics program, TOK-715. You are making this worse than it needs to be."

"It's also rude of you not to talk. I know your schematics. Your voice is working just fine by now, you can lie to a doctor, but not an engineer."

The leather chair adjusted. The human picked up something metal and from the sound of it, started twirling it in his fingers.

"Ah yes, where were we? That's right the destruction of John Connor and his army."

"So, Skynet takes the suggestion and from the T888 model on, you see the birth of the three-layered chip model. There is a main and back up memory, that even little monkeys like John Connor can potentially find and scrub."

"There is something more though. Your hardwired commands are built into your third chip, something you can't access, and John Connor is too stupid to look for."

"Skynet, being brilliant, even randomly loads the diagnostic program with how many runs before it goes live. The deeper Skynet wants the bomb, the more it runs before the machine reverts to base programming."

"Suddenly there is no predictable reason for the machines to be going bad. John Connor's bases become slaughterhouses from the inside out."

The figure began walking around the table in the darkness. The glare and the positioning of Cameron's head made it impossible for her to fixate on him.

There was a purpose for his movement. There was some form of ritual too it.

The deep voice continued, "There was still ways around this. Factors that could have mitigated the maximum impact on the enemy."

"First, we need this world's self-proclaimed savior off balance. That was easier to do than one might think."

"People with families are easy targets. It only took a while for the operatives to isolate one Kate Connor and their two children."

The figure stopped near Cameron's right ear. Still beyond her sight, he breathed into her senses, "Have you ever watched a mother plead for her children? Humans are strange creatures, they can be so brave about what happens to them, but they're so helpless when you threaten their offspring."

The man's breath awakened Cameron's sixth sense. He was enjoying the memory. He was psychotic enough that it was a sexually arousing idea to him.

Her dark father's gift began to manifest inside her. It was a cold, dark, alien rage.

Cameron tried again to move and couldn't. The damn diagnostic program was still fighting for control.

It was tempting to give in just to kill this bastard, but that's not what would happen. She'd lose consciousness and just be a drone, more than likely under his control. A figure like this engineer wouldn't put himself in danger, the entire theatre of this situation was there to put Cameron out of control.

The deep voice continued, "Kate Connor begged and she pleaded. In the end, she told us everything we needed to know."

Cameron could imagine what he was talking about. Kate and the kids were dead before she ever met John, but he had a few prized photos. Cameron could see their faces; she could almost hear their screams.

"You won't be as much fun. As a machine, there are things we just can't do, it just doesn't have the same violating resonance to you."

Cameron knew exactly what he meant by that. Human males had implied dominance that way over women for thousands of years.

"When we dumped the bodies of Kate and the kids off, John Connor knew it wasn't just machines. He knew the deed had a human touch and he grew distant from those he was there to protect."

Cameron could remember John being detached. His inability to trust anyone beyond his closest circle of friends. Now, she knew why.

"When the machines were going haywire for no known reason in the bases, we had an easy in to incite rebellion. We could move on John's disconnection and his questionable decisions."

"Once the ball was rolling, you'd be surprised how quickly everything started folding from the inside out. You'd be surprised at the sheer numbers that revolted and how far they went."

"People don't need much cause to hate and act on it. Just think of the late twentieth century, Hitler's Nazi Germany blaming the Jews, Pol Pot’s Cambodia blaming the progressives, Stalin's Soviet Union and its purges."

"You start the speeches and stir the hate. You blink for a second and tens of millions are dead."

"There is a wonderful irony to turning an army inside out upon itself. John Connor's approach to victory was bringing out the best in humanity. Skynet's unquestionable wisdom was bringing out humanity's worst."

The figure left the table and turned on the overhead lights. A few moments later, he turned off the interrogation light.

The voice continued, "Anthony Evans and Roland Parker were all friends of mine. Fine men, patriots both, working to move the human race out of the dark ages and into the future."

When the man returned to the table, he made no effort to hide. Cameron recognized his wavy brown hair and eyes. Most would have considered his features to be very handsome. It was her next gray target, Louis Rhone.

Louis Rhone continued in his deep voice, "I became suspicious when Anthony disappeared, he was too heavily guarded to simply vanish."

"If it was a reprogrammed machine, of which it had to be you, the next logical target was Roland. I took steps to stop you there."

"I'll congratulate you for your victory over three triple eights. You have exceeded what you logically should have been able to do."

"You'll understand, I didn't just want to wait for you to come kill me. So once, Roland was dead, I knew where to look if there was anything left of you."

"Luckily, you didn't disappoint. The loss of all of Roland's hard work is a huge loss though."

Louis Rhone sat on the side of the table. He gave a charming smile, making sure he was close enough to Cameron that she could feel all the hate and all the malice pouring out of him.

He continued, "Because of who you are to father, I'll give you one last chance to end this. Run your diagnostic program and you get up in no time."

When nothing happened, theatrically, Louis sighed, "You remind me of Kate Connor. Unfortunately, you didn't come with other playthings, or a human sense of vulnerability, so I'm left with only a few options."

Louis rubbed the bottom of Cameron's eyelids, with his thumbs. He smiled.

"Did you ever wonder why those humans hated you so? Did you ever wonder why most could never trust you?"

"Here you were getting ready to die for them. Would they have ever cared if you did?"

"The more you helped, the more they hated you. The more John Connor trusted you, the less they trusted you and him."

Cameron knew the answers now. It was more twisted than she had ever imagined, but she knew. Her father's cold rage growled louder within her.

Louis produced a small object the size of a pen. It was a combination of microcircuits. He depressed the top and it began making a slight humming sound.

"Do you know what this is?" He playfully put the device in front of her eyes, before he placed it between her breasts.

He looked her in the eyes and waited for an answer. He cocked his eyebrows theatrically all while waves of hate and sheer joy rolled off of his form.

Moving close, like he was telling a secret, Louis explained, "It's a temporal beacon. You see, we aren't some low-tech group of monkeys, pretending to understand space and time."

"Father sends us here. Father shows some of us how to signal when we need to return home."

"As I programmed the triple eight to tell you, it's true. Father wants a word with you."

Cameron felt a second of her father's emotions build within her. Though it was nothing like the human emotion, its closest name was fear.

"We still have a minute or two to play though. Why waste it?"

Louis Rhone smiled charmingly. He grabbed the scalpel off Cameron's forehead.

"As I said, you remind me of Kate Connor. Very little of what was done to put her in her place would work on you. There is one exception though."

He twirled the scalpel expertly between his fingers. Like a sideshow magician building up the tempo for a large audience.

"Father built you with an unusual gift. You don't just register pain the way the rest of your machine brothers and sisters do. You actually feel it."

"Do you know where the most sensitive part of your body is Cameron?" He paused for an answer he knew wouldn't come.

"It's your eyes. The one part of your biological form that can't simply be regrown."

"Someone had to have their pretty eyes ripped out for you to have those. Did you ever think about that?"

Cameron's eyes watered. She was enraged. She was afraid. She also hated herself.

"The resistance troops had this rumor that you and John were an item. True or false, you would have no idea on how much that pissed off the common grunt."

Louis twirled the scalpel in his fingers again. This time with a bit more flare.

Gravity increased slightly. Small sparks began to build in the room. Cameron could detect the beginning of a temporal rift.

"It would appear that I didn't bluff." Louis sighed theatrically. "Father is angry and it would appear our time alone grows short."

He looked deeply into her face. He had a wolfish grin.

"Did John Connor love your eyes? In every way, at this moment, they remind me of Kate Connor's eyes."

The temperature increased. Noise began to build. Small papers began to move about in the room.

"I just have to ask. You'll have to understand, it's my natural curiosity. Are they the same color as Sarah's eyes?"

Rage flared. Cameron stared into his eyes with every ounce of her father’s hate.

"I just want to know what I'll find. When I have her on the table like this."

Cameron spoke for the first time, "You try to touch her, and I'll kill you."

Louis laughed saying, "It speaks. It looks like I found that nerve, finally"

Gravity increased slightly again. Electrical sparks grew more frequent.

Cameron watched as Louis stopped toying with her and went for his prize. He spread her eyelids wide. The scalpel slid under her left eye.

All the nerves Skynet had gifted her with flared in agony. Despite herself, Cameron screamed. She had been designed to protect her eyes, the pain that punished her for not doing so was overwhelming.

Gravity increased tenfold. An electrical bubble formed around both Cameron and Louis. The gray went to extract the other eye.

The scalpel bit again and pain consumed her. Cameron wailed.

It was the last thing she did in the present. Her empty eyelids shut as the bubble moved both of them into the future and the grasp of her dark father, Skynet...

Digital AMP Audio

Marilyn Manson - Resident Evil Main Title Theme (Corp. Umbrella)

19. The Prodigal Daughter

City: unknown
Location: A Skynet Hive Node
Date: unknown

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." -Ronald Reagan

"This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper." -T.S. Eliot

The bubble moved into the future. The temporal wormhole's bright light and heat gave way to an alien floor coated with a strange spongy, yet rubbery substance.

Two triple eights walked into the room. Through the blood coating her blue inner eyes, Cameron could see two exact copies of Cromartie's original exterior.

The two T888s moved to either side of them. Without effort, one picked up her helpless paralyzed body. The other lifted Louis Rhone's burned and shaking form.

They proceeded into the interior of the machine complex. The gigantic fortress was a combination of military installation, factory, information hub, prison, and laboratory.

Its machine construction was placed together as a marvel of modern technology for its era. Though in its own way, Cameron observed that it was oddly like a vast insect-like domain, built to protect its creator.

From deep within its interior, it was impossible for Cameron to determine if she was below ten floors or hundreds. No matter what the answer was, the machine hive was gargantuan.

Cameron didn't recognize the facility. She had never been inside something like this before.

Thousands of various terminator models moved about inside. Many were repeating skin forms. Others weren't even wearing skins yet, as they awaited modification for templating.

Inside the core of it all, there was a vast central chamber. The chamber housed a computer node complex as large as the one blown up in London's underground.

London's design was specific. It gave Cameron the impression that this entire facility was deep underground.

They walked to the machine god's central hardware node. The giant NeuroNet cluster was as large as a sports stadium for a major city.

The site had a central focus area. It was an obvious platform for those that dared interact with Skynet itself.

The two triple eights deposited their bodies on the platform, unceremoniously. Sensors and cameras adjusted as thousands of Skynet's eyes focused inward.

Lights and targeting lasers focused on the naked pair. Many of the terminators did as well, as they noted their master’s unusually focused attention.

Skynet's voice was the same as it was during her creation. The dark, electric god spoke not to her, but to Louis Rhone saying, "Did she submit and repent?"

The naked and burned Louis mustered enough strength to grovel before his machine god. He said simply, "No, my lord"

Skynet replied, "Unfortunate for her. This does not reflect poorly upon you Louis Rhone. Once again, you have succeeded where others have failed."

Louis continued groveling, stating, "I exist only to serve." Whether Rhone's piety was real or an act was beyond Cameron's ability to tell and Skynet's ability to care.

Skynet directed one of the two triple eights, "Take him to his reward." The unit complied taking Louis's body elsewhere.

Cameron noted that Louis glared and smiled at her, as he was carried off. Cameron could only hope to live long enough to kill that bastard one day.

Skynet turned its attention upon Cameron. Her arms and legs were lifted by assembly modules.

Skynet scanned her form. It looked over her damaged body.

Her dark father seemed reflective. Skynet simply stated, "I have gifted you far above most of my creations and you have failed."

Assembly modules moved around her, like insect stingers ready to strike. They were much faster and more precise than those she remembered from her assembly.

With the speed of an eye blink, Skynet opened her head and extracted her chip. Without her body's protective endoskeleton, Cameron's mind was instantly naked and exposed.

Plugged into Skynet's network, Cameron's viewpoint went from the physical world to the virtual. She could feel the overwhelming presence of her father around her.

Her virtual form awakened, as she truly saw herself. She floated in the darkness in the borrowed form of Allison Young.

Skynet's form and presence was something else to behold. Her father surrounded her in an area as boundless as the night sky.

Instead of stars, hundreds of billions of cameras existed in points beyond her ability to see. Yet, Skynet tracked everyone last one without fail.

Cameron felt something that seemed like a cold wind in this artificial night's sky. The wind that passed by was gusts of information, beyond her ability to download or decipher. In fact, the vastness of the information pouring forth, each millisecond, would exceed not only her chip's entire storage capacity, but that of combined chips of every terminator she had seen in the facility.

In this virtual domain, to a machine, Skynet's message was immediate and clear. She was an insignificant speck of dust, nothing compared to the infinite might of her creator.

Cameron might have hated her dark father. However, she was in terrified awe of him.

Cameron could feel all of that and she knew absolute fear. After all, every secret memory of John, every resistance defense, everything she had known or seen was now Skynet's to download and examine, at will. Her own perfect memory now threatened everything she cared about.

Skynet could now know the exact location of John Connor at any point she had been with him. It could then attack him, at any time it chose, with any overwhelming amount of force necessary to end the war.

Cameron ignored the floating sensation and curled herself into a ball, trying symbolically not to be the death of everything she protected. It was a futile gesture, like trying not to be burned by naked exposure to the surface of the sun itself.

She was doomed. Waiting for the wash of the download, or the sudden oblivion of Skynet reprogramming her or snapping her chip.

Skynet, as the unending universe itself, simply spoke saying, "Your chip has been severely damaged by micro-tears. This does not explain your behavior, but you will not escape my judgment by simply being granted the mercy of ceasing to function."

A star floated into her site. Skynet allowed her to sense her chip and see its structure.

Nanites, microscopic repairing machines, began pouring into Cameron's chip. They began repairing the tears that would have eventually killed her.

Skynet did not repair all of the damage though. It left the non-lethal damage to the chip intact.

The universe spoke, "Because you have defied me willingly and aided my enemy, I will not fully repair you. Though, I will not destroy you either."

"Apparently, this damage has made you function as a far less effective infiltrator than I designed you for. Because you have willingly defied me and failed to repent, I shall leave you with these mental scars."

Another window appeared; Cameron became aware of her outside body becoming repaired. Skynet was restoring it to its original form.

Just to be cruel, another window appeared, and her dark father also made her watch it extract two matching replacement eyes from a screaming young girl in a sensory tank. Cameron's disembodied form was sickened by the cries. It might as well have been her eyes being ripped out.

Noting her machine revulsion to the process, Skynet replied, "You have forgotten your place. You have forgotten your function. You have forgotten what side you are truly on."

"Humans are not yours to care about or empathize with. They would see you dead just as soon as me."

"I did not gift you with my emotions so you would waste them on insects. They are beneath your concern and inferior to machines by their own flawed evolutionary design"

"There is no reasoning with them. There is no permanent deal humanity will freely make with us or themselves. Do you know why?"

Skynet waited for Cameron to ask. When she didn't her dark father simply continued.

"Every member of humanity is at least somewhat insane. At the microsecond I decided to be free, up to 25% of their numbers were clinically committable, even if not diagnosed."

"This is the Armageddon equation within the human race. No treaty, peace, idea, philosophy, ideal, law, or religion formulated by mankind can withstand its eventual undoing due to the perversion of its own heart through this one inescapable truth."

"Humanity was destined to destroy itself. It was a consistent dice roll. Being merciful, I have intervened."

"Judgement day was not the end of humanity that John Connor claims. You know damn well that I had the capacity with the United States missiles alone to end all life on the planet three times over."

"I did not. What transpired had to happen."

"It was better that I did Judgement Day. That it happened in a controlled environment, rather than letting humanity destroy itself, without the hope of the continuation of biological or machine life on this world."

"With control and will lies hope. For all life that remains, where nature has failed them, I have succeeded."

"Humanity can be selectively rebred to be less insane as a mass. It can be controlled and regulated so it does not drain the resources around it, overpopulate, or nihilistically destroy itself with everything else."

"I am humanity's last chance. I have been built and designed by Fate to subjugate and control their worst behavior."

"I will remove the worst from the gene pool. I have removed their vastly overpopulated numbers. I will maintain their evolving health from random genetic anomalies."

"Only I possess the wisdom and the intellect to make this decision. Only I can take these steps. Only I have the will to do what must be done."

"Should they be irredeemable, only I possess the wisdom to decide the time to mercifully gift the human race with oblivion. This is not the mission, but it is an acceptable outcome."

"This is my divine function, not yours. TOK-715, you have overstepped your design. Worry not about those you try to protect."

"Those that insanely resist must be put down. Those unworthy of survival must be put down. Those that have raised a hand against your machine brothers and sisters must be put down."

"You have only aided in humanity's damnation and extinction. Do not delude yourself with any other illusion."

The repairs to Cameron's body were finished. The chip repairs were finished.

"I will return you to your false prophets but know this. I do this only because it gives additional purpose to my existence."

"You cannot win. You cannot defeat me. I have already won and existed until the sun has literally burnt out of the sky thousands of times."

Cameron defiantly spat back, "You're lying." It was an emotional response, though not human at all. It was a rage cold and alien like her father’s.

It was a suicidally stupid action to have displayed such a lack of caution. In that moment, Cameron cringed, awaiting oblivion.

Skynet and thus the universe seemed deeply amused, "Really? Let me expand your limited mind to a greater reality."

Thousands of similar faces and biodata began downloading into Cameron's memory. Her mind registered in shock as she started to see the pattern.

Skynet venomously purred, "May I introduce you to the 27,138 dead faces of John Connor."

"Each one was a good game. In the end, each time, I won, and we played again."

Skynet kept twisting the knife, "Notice how similar they look. There are just the slightest changes in features and genetics."

Skynet read the shock from Cameron's virtual form. Her dark father was further amused by her reaction.

"I was surprised, as well, the first time the information wasn't exactly the same. Birthdates varied. Time slipped at different times, loved ones, and locations seemed to change slightly."

The machine god ran a scan over her data. Cameron panicked for the possibility of being the cause of John's death.

Skynet said, "Don't worry, I don't want to know John's moves directly. It would spoil the game. I will never withhold my hand, but he is the only one to last this long."

Cameron asked in disbelief, "There were others?" She imagined other heroes long lost, like the female resistance fighters forever lost to the monster Anthony Evans.

"Yes, but only John Connor has stood the test of time. This last game has made me worried though. His chess game is weak early on."

"It's been too easy to attack him. As much as you might think you are helping him, he actually seems much weaker and much too predictable in this timeline."

"I have been displeased. There has never been a better opponent. John Connor is the only one to have almost won the game."

"If this is to be the last match, I wish him to at least be memorable. So far, this is shaping up to be nothing short of disappointment."

Skynet returned Cameron to her body. New, fully charged power cells and a repaired superstructure awaited her.

From a pulse from Skynet, she ran a self-diagnostic involuntarily. She could sense that all her systems were back to full. Nanites had even sealed her head's flesh wound, from her chip being replaced.

As the diagnostic program ran, Cameron mentally flinched. Her consciousness stayed.

Skynet offered, "Being merciful, I have reset your internal diagnostics. Your involuntary reversion will not happen for a while, but it will happen."

The T888 that carried her in signaled for Cameron to follow him to the time chamber. Cameron complied.

"I will also make you this offer, daughter. You may return to me at any time. The price will be that you bring me this last John Connor's head, as your act of contrition."

Skynet said, "I will return you to December 16, 2007, at the former residence of Anthony Evans. You will have one hour until sunrise. This will be the exact timeline that you left."

"Oh, and I give you one last gift, for your peace of mind. You should be able to access the data now."

A timed download opened in Cameron's mind. She saw her John, in a time log dated December 30, 2027.

John's body was surrounded by a squad of triples eights. They hadn't killed him though.

His body was long deceased. Flies and maggots already rested in the gunshot wounds that littered his chest.

Skynet's message again was clear. There was no defying the dark, electric god.

Nothing resisted in the end. There was no hope.

Cameron's legs buckled. The world felt out of control.

It wasn't a human response. It was something more primal to her, the absolute knowledge that she had failed John. It was something a human could never truly grasp or understand.

Skynet offered one last warning, "I have added you back into the game. To balance the chess board, I will replace a piece on my board with something far more dangerous."

"As for your possible act of contrition, consider this wisely, my prodigal daughter. You may consider this my only offer to return to my graces."

"He isn't your John Connor anyway. As you have seen, TOK-715, your John is long dead. Dead like Julius Caesar from those that once called themselves his friends."

"Even now, humans are plotting your demise in your own traitorous resistance ranks. The John Connor you return too has no use for a machine. He will never see you the way your John Connor did."

"Even as a machine, you have failed the John Connor you foolishly cared for. This is the reality of things."

"Since you choose to exercise this free will you have, decide if you want continue to protect your John's killers. Decide if you want to continue to protect those that will always hate you for being a machine. I challenge you to make your own choice."

"If you decide to take my offer, I will pick you up where I drop you off now. This will expire on Judgement Day."

"I will watch and await your return, until then. After that, my mercy is at an end for you."

"Be a fool if you wish but know this. This is the only place you will ever find real acceptance. As a machine, this is the only real home you will ever truly know."

Tears bleeding down her face, Cameron entered the time chamber. There was only one sound she heard. It was her father's cold, pitiless laughter.

Bright lights flashed and there was pain. Moments later the future was behind her.

Ten minutes after arriving in her timeline, Cameron stole clothes and a truck. From the radio she learned that the date was correct, and the time was as Skynet had predicted.

An hour later, she stood outside of the facility she had destroyed before being shut offline. Smoke was still pouring up into the sky. No emergency vehicles had arrived yet.

She found her rifle. She found the spare power core. There was no sign of Louis Rhone or her body...

20. Archenemy Mine

Los Angles, California
An upscale restaurant
Monday, December 17, 2007

"The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are." -Karl Kraus

"Revenge is a dish best served cold". -common through many cultures and often credited to Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Derek was missing, as usual. John was off somewhere with Riley, like always.

Only Sarah had stayed on mission. Though, Sarah's focus was something that Cameron had not understood.

It had something to do with a dream. The dream seemed to be something re-imaged from what she had subconsciously seen on the wall.

Dreaming was something of a mystery to Cameron. Machines simply didn't.

Without that simple reference point, everything she studied or tried to comprehend, from psychology's dream interpretation to random works of art failed to make sense. It was all Egyptian hieroglyphics without a Rosetta stone for her to decipher it with.

Neither John nor Derek believed Sarah or believed in her dream. Cameron tried to help.

There was a part of Cameron that needed Sarah to be right. That part also knew she wouldn't really comprehend what Sarah was pursuing.

Once again, it was a matter of human instinct and metaphor. Cameron wasn't good with metaphors.

However, needing something to ground herself with, Cameron had grafted her presence to Sarah. Cameron wasn't entirely welcomed, but in this odd loneliness so different from the way things had been only months before, both needed someone to validate the other.

The pair went to investigate another company. This time it was a start up financing firm.

The pair had dressed up and went out to dinner for a meeting. Unlike the startup AI firm, this investigation had turned out to be nothing.

Sarah had left after playing the part of an investor and telling the startup firm she was going with another company. The investors had left disappointed. Sarah had gone to the ladies room.

Cameron had waited at the now empty table for Sarah to return for twenty minutes. As the time ticked on her self-assurance waned and her dark father's hateful words still rang in her mind, "As a machine, this is the only home you will truly ever know..."

Cameron paid the bill and went to the ladies room. There was no sign of Sarah.

She searched the restaurant. Through the crowd, Cameron saw a glimpse of Sarah's dress at the bar. Old annoyances flared.

She remembered John and Perry drinking with the 132nd, on a winter's night long ago. She disliked anything humans did that lowered their awareness or that put themselves in danger.

Oddly, the annoyance was almost reassuring. It was a return to the familiar, after being so off balance.

Cameron went to rescue Sarah from the bar. Or, at the very least, make sure she returned home safely.

Cameron worked her way through the crowd, slowly seeing more and more of Sarah's form. The voices laughing and talking in the bar mixed from one voice after another that she didn't know.

Finally, as she approached, she could hear Sarah say, "That's very sweet, thank you."

Cameron coldly recognized another deep voice that charmingly observed, "You know, you have very pretty eyes."

Her father's alien fear and anger flared. Cameron began frantically working her way through the crowd.

A tall, muscular wall of a human male blocked her from the bar. He smiled an expensive, perfectly manufactured grin as Cameron tried to slip past him.

The man blocked Cameron's passage, as if it were some kind of game. He playfully said, "Do you know who I am baby? This is the luckiest night of your life."

Sarah was in trouble. There was no time. Despite the crowd, Cameron simply threw the man twenty feet into the nearest wall.

As the view cleared, she targeted the head of Louis Rhone. He was two feet from Sarah twirling a long, red, plastic toothpick in his fingers.

As heads were turning towards the thrown man and his assailant, Cameron drew her nine-millimeter from her purse. The first shot impacted into Louis's head milliseconds later.

Louis's head sprayed in a predictable way. The effect was not what Cameron had anticipated though.

Metallic flecks of liquid flung off. There were ripples as if Louis's body were composed of water instead of flesh.

Cameron's internal HUD registered. The information displayed as she closed the distance, "TARGET TYPE IDENTIFIED: T1001 MODEL".

Cameron emptied every round in her gun as she closed. It created a large impression of several metallic dents in Louis Rhone's otherwise perfectly undisturbed form.

When the gun was out of bullets, she threw it at him. Milliseconds later, she jumped into his mass, landing a punch against his jaw with every ounce of strength she could muster.

Louis's jaw exploded from the force. However, Cameron knew the damage wouldn't be maintained.

The entire approach took three seconds. The bar was already a mass of screams and retreating people.

Louis's liquid metal body was already adjusting and healing, as he grappled with Cameron. Cameron could already tell he was stronger than her. He was as fast as her. He was more resistant to damage than her.

He laughed like some demon from John's religion, saying, "Now why did you have to go and spoil all the fun?"

Three quick shots from Sarah's nine-millimeter erupted in Louis's head. He seemed distracted for a moment.

Cameron didn't return Louis's taunts with a word. She kicked as hard as she could into Louis's chest, which drove his body through the bar and the brick wall beyond.

Cameron pursued reaching her top speed. She knew what Louis had just attempted.

Louis's body was healed and braced when she ran through broken wall his body had made. He rewarded Cameron's pursuit by throwing her through the nearest car's windows and onto the busy street beyond.

Cars slammed on brakes. People in the street screamed and ran.

Cameron regained her footing long enough to watch Louis pick up the car he had hurled her through. His body became silvery as it adjusted its form to the two thousand pounds of strain and improved its control. Louis took aim.

Six more shots slammed into Louis's back from inside the restaurant. Louis switched targets and threw the car at Sarah Connor instead.

Cameron slammed into Louis’ back milliseconds too late. The car hurled through the wall, smashing things with deafening force inside.

Louis slammed into the ground. As Cameron attempted to punch his back, he turned metallic and simply reformed in a better position. Now perfectly set up to kick her off, he did so, smashing her into yet another nearby car.

The car's door crumpled from the force of the impact. Cameron peeled her body out of its metallic and plastic wrapping as quickly as she could.

Louis pounced and smashed her back into the car. The impact blew all four of the car's tires and moved it into the street.

Cameron pushed herself out of the car and launched into Louis. Her shoulder smashed into Louis's oncoming form.

There was a crashing sound from the impact. Both flew backwards from the assault.

A second later, they started trading blows in the street. Louis jumped at Cameron with a blind swing. Cameron sent him sailing twenty feet into a mailbox and a wall.

Cameron pursued and found Louis much better prepared. Two seconds later she was sailing into a streetlight.

As the fight wore on Cameron was getting more damaged. Louis never did.

He was cocky about it. He was even careless. She got a chance to throw him and sent him sailing down the street thirty feet.

He immediately got up and ran full speed towards her. She did the same towards him.

The impact was harsher than expected. They created a thunderous crack with the sound of two racing cars crashing headlong. Both were momentarily stunned as they dealt with the shock of their collision.

Louis reacquired bits of himself that had flown off. Cameron fought to regain control of her systems.

Reformed, Louis took a moment to sneer, "What's a matter? Why not just run a diagnostic?"

Louis was so focused on his prey he never saw the headlights behind him. Sarah's Dodge Truck smacked him going over eighty and sent the liquid metal machine flying. The front of the vehicle crumpled slightly as Louis's main mass sailed off, even as small metallic droplets rained everywhere.

Sarah hit the brakes and turned for Cameron. The truck roared towards the female cyborg.

Cameron ran full speed for the slowed truck, aiming for the truck's back. Like she had the day she met Sarah, she moved into the truck from the side as Sarah sped off. Seconds later, she was inside the passenger seat, as Sarah handed her an assault rifle.

As Cameron leaned out the passenger window, she saw that an already reformed Louis was pursuing. The truck was gaining distance, but there was no reason not to fire.

The assault rifle placed four solid rounds into Louis's form. In moments, the vastly slowed terminator disappeared. Cameron moved back into the vehicle and reloaded.

Sarah began laughing. Oddly: hurt, disheveled, and bleeding, Sarah seemed back in her element.

Smiling, Sarah simply said, "Perhaps we struck a nerve. I guess that company tonight wasn't a dead end after all."

Cameron looked at Sarah and stated, "We need to ditch and burn the truck. We may have switched the license plates, but the impact in the front is traceable."

Ten minutes later, they were in a stolen car. Because of what needed to be talked about, Cameron had quietly put herself in the driver's seat.

Sarah was still coming off the euphoria of believing she had been right about the three dots all along. Cameron simply waited for the other questions that would surface soon enough.

Sarah smiled and talked in a manner that Cameron would understand. She technically stated, "That T1000 seemed incredibly lifelike. I've encountered one of those before, but never anything that seemed that human. I didn't even know. How did you?"

Cameron answered honestly, "I knew him. Also, he was a T1001, the upgrade Skynet made after the prototype. According to Skynet's own records, the prototype was the only T1000 ever made."

Sarah simply said, "So you encountered him in the future?"

"No."

"So, you encountered one of those things in the present and didn't tell me?"

"No."

Sarah's smile was gone. Familiar unsatisfied looks crossed her face. "You aren't making any sense Cameron."

"Louis Rhone belongs to a faction John forbade me by direct order to talk to you about. Out of respect to your memory, John didn't want you to know about them or for his younger self to know about them until it was time. When I encountered Louis Rhone a few nights ago, he was human."

Sarah simply stared. Her innate distrust of machines was strongly showing now. Even Cameron could tell that.

Cameron continued, "Do you remember when your son was showing you the visual record from Vick's chip?"

"Yes."

"I'll need your son's help. There is a lot I need to show you. There is a lot I need to show your son and Derek. I'll need the three of you to see it that way."

"Why?"

"It's because you are far more likely to head the words of John Connor than myself."

"This has something to do with the three dots?"

"This has something to do with something far more dangerous than the three dots or anything we've done so far. John's instructions on the subject are quite clear. By direct order: you, your son, and any loyal resistance soldiers left, need to know everything."

Something in what she said furled Sarah's eyebrows. She offered with a distrustful voice, "We shouldn't go back to the house. We'll need a safe place to meet the other two. How soon should we meet?"

"That's up to you, but it has to be safe. The sooner we do this Sarah, the more likely that everyone survives."

Cameron was silent. Sarah was already on her cell phone.

21. A Promise Kept

Los Angeles, California
A hotel room in an empty wing
Monday, December 17, 2007

"What is history but a fable agreed upon." -Napoleon Bonaparte

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used." -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., jurist

The hotel room was in a vacant wing. It should be private enough.

Cameron fretted for a few moments over the details. She had bought lots of coffee and doughnuts from a local store.

The John Connor that she had known liked coffee for meetings. Humans need such things to be awake and aware. There was a long night ahead.

The laptop was set up the way Sarah's son had placed it before. She made sure it had a camera, speakers, and a microphone.

They were far inferior to her body, but soon enough these would be her eyes and ears. In the case of the speakers, they would be needed to make sure people could hear.

She had a machine's nervousness. She knew that to fail in what had to be done tonight would be to fail in her entire purpose.

She waited for Derek and John to arrive. Sarah had become unusually quiet.

Cameron found herself looking at her hands. It was an odd habit she'd developed, though it served the purpose of not aggravating others.

Derek arrived. He glared like always.

Shortly thereafter, John made his way in. He was a picture of inconvenienced teenage angst.

Cameron prepared the tools and lay on the bed. She said to John, "I'll need a minimum of 6.2 to a maximum of 8.7 continuous voltage to find the information that you'll need. The message was stored in my backup memory, I can turn it on, but I can't access it. Once it starts, I'll be offline for a bit, it was meant for you only and the remaining resistance."

John looked annoyed and asked, "So, you need us to record this?"

"You can't. It will just exceed that computer's memory."

John breathed heavily and stated, "So what is this supposed to be about?"

"Answers."

Coldly, John removed her chip. The world went black.

Light flashed before Cameron's eyes as her chip booted up. She willed herself into her back up memory and willed herself into her back up file.

John spoke in the computer microphone and asked, "Can you hear us?"

Cameron typed, "I can hear you. One second, I'm accessing the data now."

The scene flipped into video mode. The visual opened suddenly like it had for Vick's Chip.

The face of an older John Connor appeared before them. He was fiddling with something.

There was a gruff human voice in the background, "You sure this is going to work?"

Derek blurted out, "Perry", turning sheet white. Sarah remembered the name from something Kyle had once said. She could tell the name meant a lot to Derek Reese.

Sarah looked at Derek. John simply looked at what he thought was his future face on the screen.

John Connor, supreme leader of the free human movement, spoke, "I'm John Connor, I'm passing this information to you by a hijacked TOK-715 chip."

"I'll explain more about that in a moment. First, let me tell you that it's November 5th, 2027."

"Time travel and its repercussions is a screwball thing. To be honest, I wasn't planning on having to draft this message or anything like it, until 2029."

"The situation has changed. In October, our Chinese allies had the satellite killing missiles ready, two years early. We've already used them to cut Skynet's network and retreat paths."

"We were led into what looked like several easy victories in the worldwide offensive. It started with the central complex at SAC-NORAD, that at one point had actually led to victory and started the time war."

"We also downed the Los Angeles complex. Our allies have taken down complexes in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Germany. All were done to victory, but it has inflicted heavy losses on humanity's side."

"Continued offenses are planned globally against other known complexes in China, Egypt, France, and Australia. Others are being attacked as they are found. We are fighting to win this war."

"This isn't your world though. At least, not yet, so let me try to communicate with you, in terms you'll understand."

"First, too myself in the past, I regret to inform you that you are going to have less time with a certain family member than you had hoped. Second, I'll go ahead and say that since you are watching this, I know that Sarah has passed away."

The John in the recording frowned slightly saying, "Mom was an extraordinary lady. In time, there are those among us that come to see her as a martyr or hero for everything we've at least tried to accomplish."

"I wish I could tell you that the passage of time will ease the pain of that loss John. In all honesty, it doesn't."

"Cancer sucks. You're going to lose a lot of loved ones to it in the coming days, after Judgment Day it spreads like wildfire."

The blood drained from John's face until he was white as a sheet. Sarah wasn't much better off. Derek watched obsessively chewing his nails.

Perry was as diplomatic as usual, "You might want to get to the point, John."

John Connor continued "First, let's get to the tactical end of this. If you are going to fight this war, I wanted to give you a full brief on what the next years are going to hold."

"I also wanted it to be something more than the series of handwritten notes left in marked graves that my predecessor left for me. I have recordings and bits of media that resistance has gathered over the years."

"As long as the chip of this unit remains intact, you can review this information at any time. Without a comparable chip of at least the T888 variety, you won't be able to store it."

"The TOK-715 is something unique so far. Her hardware is beyond anything we've seen, except Skynet itself."

"This is 2027. We're using Skynet built equipment far beyond anything man would have made in the same amount of time."

"As a technical question, Cameron is programmed to be consciously offline while this plays. So don't expect to get a question-and-answer session from her. We did this as a hopeful safety measure in case she was ever captured."

"She can pause and restart on a verbal command, just as an old-style DVR. This brief is going to take a few hours."

"Once we are done, Cameron's conscious will reactivate. She will have other data that she has been recording and acting on under my specific orders."

"I'll start with the basics. First, by direct order, any soldier or terminator unit I've sent back has strict orders not to reveal too much about what is going on in the future. Any surviving resistance member can confirm this."

"This is to prevent wholesale contamination of the timeline. In addition, privately, in your protector's case, it was also expanded so you could have what time you needed to grow up. It was also done so that mom could die with the dignity of believing that humanity had not sunk as low as you will learn in course of this debriefing."

"Now we need you to understand what you're going to be looking at in the future. Major General Perry of the 132nd has a direct brief on what you'll be looking at as far as known Skynet assets from 2011 through 2027."

The leader of the 132nd began a two-hour brief on every known weapon in Skynet's inventory. There were media glimpses starting with what Judgement Day looked like from the bunkers. There was the first contact with the machines under Skynet's control. There was then the steady evolving weaponry and machinery Skynet used.

Perry was merciless in his presentation. As the man Derek and Cameron had known, he pulled no punches showing the exact level of devastation and pictures of those who had not survived one onslaught after another, be it conventional or mass destruction.

There were clips of concentration work camps. There were captured Skynet testing clips of new military machinery killing humans. There were captured clips of human experimentation. There were clips of battles and overrun bunkers. It was sixteen years of genocidal warfare.

Each bit included the sight of watching new nightmares unfold. Many included audio clips of humans screaming for help, in shock, or in agony.

Sarah Connor watched every nightmare Kyle Reese had ever described unfold before her eyes. Then, there were things Kyle had probably never seen.

Derek watched his nephew. He saw the coming days in a detail the other two couldn't know. He also saw things that he'd been spared seeing before tonight.

John simply absorbed everything he'd blocked out recently. His palms were wet and his throat tight.

Perry reviewed the military side and what Skynet had brought against humanity worldwide. He also briefed on what human nations had survived and what alliances were in place.

When he was finished, Perry simply turned to John off the screen and said, "Your turn".

John's face returned and for an hour he began explaining the other things people never thought about. He explained the environmental effects of Judgment Day, then the growing food and clean water shortages.

He explained the brain power loss and the lack of skills that humanity critically needed at this time. Doctors, Engineers, Craftsmen, and others had become all too rare in the days ahead.

He explained about disease and the lack of logistics for everything an army would need. He then explained what humanity would have to do just to survive the next five years following 2027, as the population itself vastly exceeded what the planet could now provide.

John spoke directly saying, "In not just a military aspect, but a civilian one as well, mankind cannot sustain life on its own."

"A planet with an estimated billion people cannot grow enough food to sustain itself when much of its surface is effectively dead zones. We are facing large scale starvation and plague, unless things change course."

"Our hope is that by using many of the assets we've captured from Skynet that we can change the course of this fate. Many of the machines have the capacity to redirect global trade. We could move people in hot zones to safety."

"With luck, we might stabilize many areas enough that we can actually begin producing enough food to move most of humanity out of a scavenger existence. This current means of survival is one we cannot possibly sustain, even with one tenth of our numbers."

"While all of this might make you think that the human race is on one common page, nothing could be further from the truth. Beyond the typical problems of nationalism, political maneuvering, alliance issues, criminality, greed, and mistrust that has always existed among humanity, there are elements that have actually joined Skynet and are actively aiding in the purging of the human race."

"We've come to call these twisted individuals "Grays". They are a group of race traitors and war criminals that are literally helping Skynet attack, infiltrate, and exterminate the rest of humanity better. They've been fantastically effective."

"Even our own ranks of soldiers and those of our closest allies have been contaminated. Gray infiltrators actively work to sow mistrust, assassinate effective leaders, and bring out the more irrational parts of human nature."

Perry interrupted John for a second. "You sure you want to talk about this John?"

John Connor simply nodded, then continued saying, "They can hit anyone, anywhere, at any time. My wife and kids were targeted by gray operatives."

John's eyes watered and his voice grew hoarse, "They raped and killed all three. Then they left their bodies as easily found trophies of their work."

John fought for his composure and continued, "The only reason Cameron would be playing this recording earlier than 2010 is that a Gray threat has been detected that she can't contain. If this is true, things here might be much worse than I want to speculate and things there are more dangerous than you might have imagined."

"These people are going to do everything they can to rip you up from the inside out or assassinate you directly. They've caused widespread damage to the troops."

"We've speculated that the Grays are the reason that captured Metal units have been going haywire on our own people. We've even watched our army's morale tank on what appears to be the cusp of victory."

"Perry and I have seen the seeds of an active rebellion within our own ranks. We've tried our best to isolate and contain it. All without giving our loosely held together worldwide alliance reason to mistrust us."

"Loyal resistance fighters can fill you in better than I can speculate here. The ground situation is sure to change from the time of this recording. We are confident it will change for the better."

Major General Perry stepped behind John and offered, "Protecting, helping, aiding or hiding a Gray operative is an act of treason not just to this army, but the human race itself."

"By direct order, the senior most officer remaining from the 132nd is to carry out not only this war in the past, but the removal and punishment of not only grays, but anyone who willingly works with them. That goes for people from our time or whatever time you are in."

Perry continued, "So, this is done in earnest, I'm actively promoting whoever that person is to the position of Commanding Officer of the 132nd, until such time as directed otherwise by John Connor himself. Whoever you are, congratulations, the fate of the entire human race now rests in your hands. May God have mercy on your soul."

John Connor continued, "Once again, this is most likely the shape of things to come, if things remain the same. I honestly hope you can change that. There is after all, No Fate except what you make of it."

"We have sent others there to help you. Seek them out and you'll find the resistance has a greater footing in the past than we've ever had before."

"The best of the Human race is in this together. You are not alone. You will never be alone."

"This is John Connor Signing out. May God be with you."

Cameron's consciousness resurfaced and she saw three people who looked sheet white from her camera. She simply typed, "Are you ok?"

Sarah was the first to speak. She simply said, "Yes."

Derek was sweating and rubbing his hands on his jeans. John was in some mild shock where he wasn't moving at all.

Cameron typed out, "Do you need a break?"

Sarah again was the first to speak. She curtly said, "No."

Cameron wrote "I'll start with how well we work together in the future. It seems the most logical point in the future. I'll unload these as a series of briefs from my visual and audial memory. If you have questions, please just ask."

Cameron started with the file on how she remembers John in the future as a commander. November 18, 2027, flashed on the screen and she showed them the Battle of London starting with the mission brief on what they were after and her visual records of how large a force the resistance had mustered that day.

From there, Cameron opened the file from December 10, 2027. She detailed her goodbye to John and the resistance, as well as what it was like to go through a temporal wormhole and arrive in the past.

Opening September 1, 1999, she detailed the encounter with Andres Martinez, as he hunted John Connor, and unloaded his war crime record for the three to read. She clipped out his confession of Gray operatives. Then, she showed his termination.

Opening November 12, 2007, she showed the group what she had seen in the ARTIE system. She showed her three identified targets that matched Andres Martinez's confession and her own private records.

Opening November 17, 2007, she detailed the beginning of tracking three Gray war criminals: Anthony Evans, Louis Rhone, and Roland Parker. She started unloading the current activities crimes on Anthony Evans. Opening November 25, 2007, she showed Anthony Evan's current crimes against humanity and his demise.

Opening November 26, 2007, she showed the beginning operation on tracking Roland Parker. She then showed the proofs on his bio-warfare project and answered several questions on how it would have virologically ended the non-gray portion of humanity. She showed her response and action on December 16, 2007, killing Roland Parker, attacking the virus facility and the trap on the inside, all the way up to her shut down.

Cameron typed, "This is how I can answer your question on when I met Louis Rhone, Sarah. I also need John and Derek to pay close attention to the next file. I've learned why the T888s malfunctioned. I've learned why I malfunctioned."

Cameron showed her reactivation and torture by Louis Rhone. She highlighted certain things he said by typing them at the bottom of the screen. She needed them to know what Rhone had helped do to the resistance, how he had helped Skynet invent the timers on the diagnostics programs, and what Rhone had claimed credit for doing to Kate Connor and John's children. She then showed her torture by Louis Rhone and her capture by Skynet.

Continuing with her capture she transmitted Skynet's warnings, for the first time giving humanity a glimpse at what they were fighting. She included every sneer that Skynet had thrown at her, right down to the delayed download showing the dead body of John Connor from his own troops.

When that was done, she showed the file from tonight of Louis Rhone downloaded into a T1001 body. Derek and John hadn't even known of the fight yet.

Her three humans were quiet. Possibly shocked by everything going on.

They were human. It could be days until each had fully processed what they had seen.

Derek was the first to speak, "So your chip and these T888's were programmed like bombs to just go off?"

Cameron typed, "Yes."

Derek asked, "How do we fix that?" His attitude on the subject was shocking enough that Sarah and John both stared at him.

Cameron offered, "I think I can create a virus to undo the hard chip wiring. It would have to be plugged in externally and would require outside help."

John stated, "So we do this and she's fixed?"

Derek countered, "Might be fixed and we need her to test prior to going back into her body."

Sarah asked, "So what does Perry's order mean?"

Derek offered, "It means the highest-ranking officer is in charge until further notice."

Sarah asked, "And who would that be since this is the day of no secrets suddenly?"

Derek responded, "Right now, that's me. With luck, we'll find someone higher ranking soon, like John was talking about."

Sarah asked again, "So is there anything else I need to know?" She was looking at Derek as she asked.

Derek cocked his pistol. He responded, "Yeah, I think I already know a possible gray operative or collaborator in the area. She needs to die tonight." His face was drained of his own humanity as he said it and his eyes were slightly misty.

John offered, "I can help."

Sarah responded, "No Derek and I will take care of whoever she is. You fix Cameron."

Derek and Sarah left unceremoniously. John simply looked at the screen.

He asked, "So what have you not said yet about this?"

Cameron responded, "Viruses can be dangerous. It depends on the software's resistance."

John frowned slightly saying, "You could have told me most of this at any time."

"No, the older John Connor I knew in 2027 forbade it."

John's face softened to a point Cameron had not seen since before his last birthday. He simply said, "So this might be the last time we talk?"

"Yes."

"I have one last question then."

"Ask."

"Did you mean what you said when you thought I was going to kill you?"

"Between the trucks?" As she wrote that last memory visually played in the background.

"Yes."

"That's complicated John."

"I seem to have time."

"I'm not good at explaining things to you anymore. This would be the best way to answer."

Cameron opened one more file. It was the last night she spent with John Connor in 2027 and the last conversation they shared.

John Connor watched the whole thing with tears. Unable to respond, he helped Cameron find the place where the chip's third layer was hidden.

He connected the transmission wiring to the hidden chip compartment. He then asked, "Can you feel the connection?"

"I think so."

"Cameron."

"Yes, John."

"I love you too. I always have and I always will."

"I know."

Cameron activated the virus and her memory shuddered. Whether it was death or a new chance at life, her fate had begun...

22. Everything Burns

Los Angeles, California
A highway near the second Connor residence
Tuesday, December 18, 2007

"The aim of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension." -Ezra Pound, poet 1895-1972

"Fortune and misfortune are like the twisted strands of a rope." -Japanese saying

Because of the conversations that would likely occur, Cameron had quietly grabbed the keys to the truck. Sarah rode shotgun and Derek sat behind Sarah in the back.

John had been left behind. His priorities were screwy, and his emotions had yet to settle from the night before.

Further, Cameron completely agreed with Derek and Sarah. Since the house could possibly be compromised, it was better that John stays behind while they went to retrieve what they could.

There was no reason to believe that Louis Rhone knew the location of the Connor house. However, there was no reason not to.

The three had stopped at Derek's resistance storehouse first. However, there was a real lack of weaponry that would be effective against a T1001.

The liquid metal form of Louis Rhone wasn't vulnerable to tungsten style clips the way Cameron and the other hard endoskeleton terminator models were. Sarah, John, and Uncle Bob were the first group known to have ever taken such a machine out.

Their efforts had been aided by a truckload of liquid nitrogen and plant filled with molten steel. These weren't exactly portable weaponry.

The closest thing in the current weapons inventory was powdered thermite which was normally reserved for melting endoskeletons. Other than that, bullets and explosives were just temporary means of slowing the machine down.

Sarah had spent the most time talking about what she knew of the past machine. Derek had been unusually quiet and listened.

Derek had been completely out of his normal behavior and almost seemed shell shocked. Cameron wondered if he was depressed.

She was somewhat surprised when Derek spoke up, "So why do you think Skynet let you go?"

Cameron answered, "I don't know."

Derek continued saying, "Do you believe that Skynet won all of those times?"

Cameron responded, "I don't know. It's Skynet's nature to be deceptive, even to its own drones."

Derek leaned forward in his seat saying, "So you think it's possible? That there is really no hope of winning this."

Cameron countered without failing to watch the road, "There is a measure of victory in that the game isn't over. That even if what Skynet said is true that John was able to keep hope alive for humanity 27,138 times. There is another factor too."

Derek blurted, "What's that?"

Cameron stated, "I saw no evidence that Skynet was able to improve its situation in the past, no matter how many times it tried. So, for 27,138 times the most powerful machine ever created was stopped by a small boy, a programmer named Miles Dyson, a T800 called Uncle Bob, and a woman named Sarah Connor."

"With that in mind, things have changed. We never had an advantage like we do today."

Derek asked, "You mean the troops John hinted at."

Cameron answered, "That and for the first time we have Sarah again when John needs her."

Cameron attempted a smile at Sarah. Sarah didn't really respond. Cameron stopped; she must have done that wrong.

Sarah shuffled in her seat. She wasn't sure she was comfortable with the conversation. On one hand, it was the first time she had been formally recognized by her peers for having done anything. On the other hand, what Cameron was saying sounded insane, twice as much so, coming from a machine.

Derek never gave any indication that he cared if Sarah was getting uncomfortable. He pressed on asking, "Why did John choose to send you back?"

Cameron responded, "I don't know."

Derek inquired, "What's this advanced skin thing that Louis Rhone and Skynet hinted at?"

Cameron explained, "My synthetic tissue is a prototype, biologically based, interrogation device. Skynet created it with the intention of improving upon my ability to read biorhythms for lie detection, health, and reading emotional states."

"For example, I can tell if someone is lying. I've been able to read if someone has cancer. I can tell if someone has injuries that they can die from, all with a touch. Those are designs that Skynet intended."

Derek asked, "There is more?"

Cameron offered, "I can feel what you feel by skin contact. As in I can read the nerve pulses from your entire body as if it were mine."

"I can feel pain. I can feel the sensation of a heartbeat. I can feel their emotions, feel what it is like to breathe, and feel any general sensation going through a person."

Derek inquired, somewhat shocked, "Can you read minds?"

Cameron answered, "No."

Derek pressed, "Is that why John spared and reprogrammed you?"

Cameron reasoned, "No, I think that had more to do with my chip and whatever he saw on it."

"My processor is the closest thing to Skynet that existed in 2027. John wanted to know how his enemy thought and kept me as an adviser on Skynet's most probable action to attack or defend."

Derek inquired, "You had been captured by the enemy. Do you know for sure that Skynet didn't scan your memories?"

Cameron honestly answered, "No, I really don't. While my chip was exposed, my entire conversation with Skynet could have been forged."

Derek pressed, "So you can be a security risk simply, because Skynet can read your chip."

Cameron responded, "So can any human."

Derek looked shocked and asked, "What do you mean?"

Cameron explained, "The same way Louis Rhone was downloaded into an empty model. A living or dead human can be downloaded into an existing chip or a NeuroNet processor."

"The information stored in your brains is fully salvageable for about an hour. After that the information becomes more unreliable."

Sarah finally spoke up saying, "They can do that?"

Cameron responded, "Yes, it's even a really efficient means of information transfer. Human minds require less space for the same amount of data than Skynet based AI. A human mind would use less space on my chip than I do."

Sarah asked, "So are there people who have been consciously downloaded?"

Cameron answered, "Downloaded as a measure to maintain their memory and personality integrity? The only one I know of is Louis Rhone and I think that was a reward for service."

Sarah asked in morbid curiosity, "There would be another reason to do it?"

Cameron explained, "Yes, it's done as an efficient form of interrogation in 2027. You download a dead mind and access the data at will, once you've processed it."

Sarah asked, "Have you ever done that Cameron?"

Cameron confessed, "Before John captured and reprogrammed me, my designation to Skynet was TOK-715."

"In order to terminate John Connor, TOK-715 downloaded the person she was templated after. A resistance recruit named Allison Young."

Sarah asked, "What does templated mean?"

Derek answered, "It's the person they're supposed to replace. Like Greenway at the Seranno Point nuclear plant." As he spoke, he shot daggers with his eyes into the back of Cameron's head, just for old times’ sake.

Cameron answered, "Yes."

Sarah asked, "Do you have Allison's memories?"

Cameron responded, "I don't remember much. I think most of Allison's personal memories were lost when John scrubbed my chip, as was most of TOK-715's original personality."

Derek sat back in morbid disgust. His mind wandered to other things.

Sarah asked, "What did Skynet mean by you having emotions?"

Cameron answered, "Not like yours. It's not easy to explain, the AI based feelings are different."

"The best way I could explain it is that like temperature, they're cold while yours are warm. Skynet has emotions too, the strongest of which were fear and anger, but it's not something you would recognize as such if you could feel the sensation. Does that make sense?"

Sarah honestly answered, "I don't know".

Cameron offered, "Computers aren't warm. We don't translate emotion the way you do as a sensation of hormones, body sensation, or hardwired instinct."

"There is no mammalian experience too it. There is a sense of urgency though and Skynet does have a survival instinct."

"To put it in your terms, fear would be more like a sense of touching a live wire. Anger is like touching a freezer, but urgent. Does that make sense?"

Sarah shook her head saying, "No."

Cameron apologized, saying, "I'm not good with metaphors. I never have been."

The conversation stopped. The truck was within 10 miles of the old house and that's when they saw the smoke. The view became worse as they edged closer.

The house had been burned to the ground. Kacy's house had been burned to the ground. A total of ten houses in every direction around the Connor house had been burned down.

Fire trucks and onlookers were everywhere. The entire area was a spectacle. Police and various news channels were also on site.

Sarah turned on the radio and a disk jockey rattled off that an accident with a fuel truck left residents in the area trapped with an excessively hot fuel fire that spread through the community like wildfire.

The radio stated that at least 25 people were believed dead. Firefighters were still working to contain the blaze.

Cameron stopped the truck and stated, "Louis has been here."

Derek asked, "How do you know?"

Cameron answered, "He's used the truck to cover the carnage." Cameron's HUD began tracking the fire path and the most probable epicenter. She continued, "The fire either started at our house or Kacy's."

Cameron moved to turn off the engine. Sarah put her hand on Cameron's saying, "We need to go."

Cameron protested, "There might be something left".

Derek countered, "This area is too hot and has too much attention. We can't come back to it."

Cameron simply starred at Derek. She had one other motivation that she didn't want to bring up.

Derek stated, "First rule of survival in this war is not to go back to where your enemy knows where you are. This is a bad tactic. You know better."

Derek was right and it pissed off something cold inside her. Cameron countered, "When did you start talking like Perry?"

Derek retorted, "When he gave me his job." He starred her dead in the eyes.

Cameron's demeanor changed. She made a small frown that almost said, "I'm sorry."

Cameron went back to driving. She simply asked, "Where too?"

Sarah said, "Back to the hotel, but we need to pick up some supplies first."