ACT II

 Sarah sat alone at the kitchen table.  Night had descended and the need for sleep weighed on her mind and muscles, but she resisted, watching and waiting for Murch to complete his task.  She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with him after that, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

 Her gun rested on the wood surface, almost forgotten but not out of reach.  In her hands was John’s pocket watch.  She smoothed her thumb over the closed cover, wondering vaguely where John had come by it.  It didn’t seem like something her son would care for.  Time was something John wished he could stop… not keep tabs on.

 Sighing, Sarah’s thumb continued to move back and forth over the warming metal as the thoughts she’d tried not to dwell on all day finally began to seep through.  She wondered where John was.  How far ahead in time had he been sent?  Or had Weaver actually thrust them into the past?  Was he safe?  Was he cold?  Hungry?  Was Weaver looking out for him, shielding him from harm the way she had in her office?  Sarah could only hope her son had at least one ally wherever he was now.

 Her breath caught with a sudden thought.  Kyle.

 Grief and hope rose inside her and Sarah bowed her head and closed her eyes.  Would her son finally meet his father wherever he had gone?  Would Kyle care for the boy, not knowing he was looking after his own child?  The thought eased some of the desperate ache that had settled like a cold ball in her chest since John had left.  The chances of her son crossing paths with his father had to be remote, she speculated, but it didn’t stop her from praying that it would come true.  

 With another sigh, Sarah forced John from her thoughts and slumped further back in her seat.  She lifted her gaze to fix on Cameron.  The terminator was sitting in a chair behind a simple table, a cable connected to the back of her head.  Cameron’s human eye was still closed, her mechanical one still dark.  Sarah didn’t know how she felt about all of this, seeing Cameron hooked up like a damn printer.

 Her green eyes shifted their focus onto the silent monitors.  Sarah roughly admitted that she wanted to hear from Cameron, that she needed to hear from Cameron.  The terminator was all she had left.  It was ironic that Cameron’s presence had worn on her for almost a year, and now that she was finally free of her, Sarah wanted her back.  She could imagine Cameron’s response to her illogical emotions.

 You make no sense, the damn girl would say, and Sarah would know she was right and still tell her to go to hell anyway.  The thought almost made Sarah smile. 

 But Sarah needed answers and Cameron was the only one who could give them, so Sarah waited and watched, feeling the night creep over her as slowly as the moon inched across the night sky outside the warehouse’s high windows.

 Exhausted, Sarah rubbed at her eyes.  Curious about the lateness of the hour, her thumb tabbed the release on the watch and it opened with a soft snick.  She glanced down and blinked when she found a detonator instead of the hands of time.

 Heart jackhammering, Sarah eased up slowly, afraid to breathe as if any sudden movement might set something off.  With a lance of fear, Sarah remembered that John had worn the device around his neck, near his damn heart.  Sarah felt hers nearly arrest at the thought.  Why the hell had John had the damn thing?  What would possess him to…

 Her gaze snapped back to Cameron in sudden understanding.  Sarah’s jaws clenched as she got to her feet, pushing back the chair with a burst of anger.  Murch’s head popped up from behind the table and he blinked at Sarah as if he’d forgotten she was there.  He swallowed nervously when he noticed the murderous look in her eyes.

 “I’m almost done,” he blurted.

 Sarah ignored him as she moved closer to Cameron.  She dropped her gaze to the watch resting in the palm of her hand.  “Get back,” she ordered the scientist.

 “What?” Murch asked, his body already scrambling to comply before his brain had time to catch up.

 Sarah waited until she felt he was an adequate distance from Cameron.  Anger burned in her gut as betrayal turned her mind brutally cold.  Without a second’s hesitation, Sarah pushed the button on the watch and waited to feel the heat of fire warm the ice in her blood.

 There was an anticlimactic click and nothing more.

 “What are you doing?” Murch asked as he watched Sarah push the button again.

 Closing the watch and clenching it in her fist, Sarah strode up to Cameron and grabbed a fistful of her hair, jerking the terminator’s head up and back so that she could look at the now empty housing for Cameron’s chip.

 Murch winced at her rough treatment of Cameron’s body, but Sarah didn’t care.  She ran her fingers through Cameron’s hair, moving the soft locks aside to study the empty slot.  She hesitated when she spied something along one side, but she finally dipped two fingers inside and smeared them across something sticky and gray.

 C-4.  Cameron had lined her chip housing with explosives.

 Sarah felt the air go out of her lungs with the implications.  Had the explosives been John’s idea or Cameron’s?  Either way, her son had possessed the means to stop the terminator in her tracks, and Cameron had known.  Neither of them had told her.  It had been their little secret.  Bitterly, Sarah wondered how many more they’d kept from her.

 ****

 

James glanced around, keenly aware of the number of people in the discount department store even at this time of night.  He’d driven around for hours, waiting for the suburb he had found himself in to settle before venturing out into a public place.  He had a cart full of items and a fresh wad of cash in his pocket to pay for them.  James was about to go off the grid and take someone with him, and for the first time, he felt like he was getting a taste of what Sarah Connor’s life had been like for the last sixteen years.  It was in part because of him that she’d lived that way, but he was practical enough to know if it hadn’t been him it would have been someone else.

 The former agent tried to act casual as he entered the electronics department, passing by the televisions that were turned to the local newscasts.  Images of the fire at Zeira Corp played on every screen, and James took a moment to be stunned at the damage.  He’d known it was bad, but he hadn’t realized the whole building had eventually come down.  Pictures of Catherine and Savannah Weaver were shown, and James felt his stomach turn as sweat broke out on his brow.  The graphic at the bottom of the screen declared them both missing. 

 All the televisions were muted, but when a mug shot of Sarah Connor appeared, James didn’t need to hear what the reporters were saying to know Sarah had just had a long list of new crimes added to her already impressive résumé.  He sighed.

 Turning away, James headed for the checkout.  He had someone waiting for him and he’d taken long enough already.  His last night of peace was coming to an end.  It was time for him to join the war.  He wished he could tell his family… his ex-wife… but it was safer this way.  Safer for all of them.

 He just hoped Sarah Connor wouldn’t blow his head off before he could even say hello.

 ****

 

“You done yet?”

 Sarah watched as Murch glanced around the edge of Cameron’s chair to see her waiting on him impatiently.  It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him the question, but she’d been content to sit and stew for the last few hours.  Nursing anger was preferable to nursing grief, and she’d happily done so.  

 “I’ve been done,” he replied automatically.

 Her green eyes went flinty and Murch apparently noticed as he scrambled to his feet.  “I mean… it’s all hooked up.  I don’t know why she isn’t on-line.  I’ve been trying to figure out if I’m missing a connection or a piece of equipment…”

 “Murch,” Sarah’s voice was cold as she picked the pistol off the table and stood.

 “No!  No, no, no.  I swear.  She should work.  I don’t know why she doesn’t work!”

 Sarah came closer, walking up to the dark monitors and staring at one as if she could will words to appear.  Her fingertips came to rest on the cool glass.  “Cameron?” she tried hesitantly.

 There was no response and Sarah swallowed her disappointment, pissed that she felt the emotion in the first place.  Cameron did that to her, made her feel emotions that were all over the damn place and contradictory as hell.  One moment she was grateful to have her there… the next she wanted to tear her apart with her bare hands.  Sarah pivoted to look at the back of Cameron’s head.  “She suffered a lot of damage…”

 “You’re telling me,” Murch huffed only to straighten when Sarah glared at him.  “That shouldn’t have made a difference,” he explained.  “She’s in the system.  Essentially the brain is connected to the nervous system but it’s like… like she’s in a coma or something.”

 Frowning, Sarah’s gaze shifted back to Murch.  “Is it possible we damaged her in the move?”

 “Physically or…” He waved at the computers for lack of a better term. “Mentally?”

 “Either.”

 “I don’t know,” he admitted.  “I think everything is here.  She should come on-line.  She should be able to talk to us.  Maybe not the way John Henry did.  I haven’t looked too closely at her… body… but she should be able to talk to us via the monitors.”

 “Then why isn’t she?” Sarah demanded.

 “Maybe she’s busy,” Murch replied without an ounce of sarcasm.  “It’s possible she simply doesn’t want to communicate.”

 Sarah looked at one of the monitors once more and sighed.  She rubbed at her tired eyes.  “Get some sleep,” she told the scientist.  “Pick some quarters and get some sleep.”

 “What are you going to do?”

 “Keep watch,” Sarah told him distractedly.

 “But you’re exhausted,” Murch said with a frown, his tone clearly indicating that he thought Sarah was being a stubborn idiot.  “You look like you can barely stand…”

 “I’ll manage,” Sarah replied tightly.  She didn’t want to think about sleep, about the new dreams that would plague her.  Her eyes cut to Cameron.  At least she’d had the terminator to keep watch most nights.  Now everyone she even remotely trusted to be on alert while she slept was dead or gone.

 Murch waited until she focused on him again.  “So… You’re not going to kill me?”

 Sarah lifted her gaze toward the ceiling and shook her head a little before facing him again.  “I’m not going to kill you.  I was never going to kill you.”

 “So I could leave right now…” Murch said, hooking his thumb toward the door.  “I could leave and you wouldn’t try to stop me?” He swallowed nervously.

 “Is that what you want to do?” Sarah asked evenly.  She shifted her weight and regarded him openly.

 “Depends,” Murch said slowly.

 “On?”

 The scientist broke eye contract and looked at the floor.  “Ellison said it wasn’t where Weaver and John Henry went.  It was when.”  He glanced back up at Sarah and waited.

 Sarah took a deep breath.  “He did, did he?”

 “The news… the cops… they all say you’re crazy.  That you killed Miles Dyson to stop some sort of killer robots from the future.”  Murch’s gaze slid to Cameron.

 “What does she look like to you?” Sarah asked, following his line of sight.

 “Broken,” Murch said simply.  “I can fix her.  I want to fix her.”

 He was the very type of man that would be responsible for Skynet coming online, Sarah realized.  Murch was too damn curious for his own good, but she couldn’t find it in her to hate him or want him dead.  Maybe she could dredge up the emotions in the morning.

 “I can’t leave her broken,” Murch admitted before looking back at Sarah.  “And I need to understand a few things…”

 “Then I guess you need to get some sleep,” Sarah suggested.

 Murch offered her a hesitant smile.  “Guess I do.”

 Sarah didn’t bother to watch him go.  Her eyes were now back on Cameron.  From above, she heard a door close softly, and she knew she was finally, completely alone.

 The desire to break down, to let the tears come for what she’d lost, was nearly overwhelming, but Sarah resolutely held on to the reins of her emotions and slowly walked over to Cameron.  Her gaze shifted back to the silent monitors.  “You in there, Tin Miss?” she asked in a near whisper.

 The cursor blinked accusingly at her.

 Sarah sighed and looked away.  She noticed a black toolbox sitting on a kitchen counter and she moved toward it automatically.  It didn’t take long to find a pair of pliers, and a little rooting around uncovered some bandages and gauze in one of the many drawers.  A bowl of water and a few towels completed her haul.  Sarah returned to Cameron’s side and dumped her findings on the table.  For a moment, she simply stared at Cameron’s destroyed profile, wondering what she was supposed to feel for the shell of a girl.

 “Beats pacing the place,” Sarah finally muttered.  She reached around Cameron and undid the zipper keeping a torn and tattered denim jacket closed.  With a little maneuvering, the jacket came free and Sarah tossed it aside, only to pause when she saw the extent of the damage to Cameron’s frame.

 The terminator has possessed a dancer’s body, lean and slight, but with just the right amount of muscle.  More than once, Sarah had found herself watching Cameron, trying to imagine the metal beneath such a beautiful exterior.  That wasn’t hard now.  The terminator’s skin had been shredded with bullets.  Sarah winced when she saw the abuse Cameron had taken to rescue her.  There were too many bullet holes to count.  Blood had soaked through Cameron’s clothes and run down her arms and back, drying into a thick, scaly rust.

 “Good thing you don’t feel, girlie,” Sarah murmured.  She dipped a towel into the bowl of water and picked up Cameron’s right arm, setting the terminator’s wrist on the table so that she could run the towel over the multitude of wounds.  Sarah found herself being gentle, much to her surprise, but she felt no need to change that.  She decided it had to be a lack of energy that had her treating Cameron with such care.

 Once the arm was clear of blood and the water ran red with it, Sarah picked up the pliers and began to wrestle with the bullets embedded in Cameron’s flesh.  “How in the hell did John talk you into coming to get me?” Sarah asked.  “You knew better.  You should have thrown him in a hole somewhere.”  A tiny part of Sarah almost wondered if Cameron had wanted to come for her, but she dismissed the thought outright.  The only thing that mattered to Cameron was John.  It was the one thing she and Cameron had in common.  John blinded them to anything and everyone else.         

 The bullets began to pile up on the table.  Sarah bit her lip as she tried to pry another loose that had gotten wedged between two pistons in Cameron’s arm.  The logical part of Sarah’s brain knew Cameron had taken too much damage to ever be useful the way she’d once been, but it didn’t stop her from wanting to fix the metal girl as best as she could.  It didn’t stop her from needing Cameron as an ally.

 Sarah went still for a moment, breathing a little hard and sweating.  She glanced up and directly into the dull eye of the terminator.  Her gaze shifted again to the blank monitors.  The sudden, almost desperate, urge to hear Cameron’s voice made Sarah swallow hard.  It was too quiet.  Too damn quiet.

 “Cameron?” Sarah called again.

 The terminator sat unmoving and the monitors remained dark.

 Sarah bit her lip and went back to her task.  “So was it you or John that built the detonator?” she asked to fill the unnerving silence.  “I want to believe it was John,” Sarah admitted as the bullet came free and she tossed it on the table with the others before moving to another wound.  “But somehow…” She paused and took a shallow breath.  “Somehow I think it was you.”

 Another bullet plinked loudly on the table’s surface.

 “Something was going on with you.  Something that was making you twitch.  Something that was making you… think.” Sarah thought back over the last few months as she moved behind Cameron and eased the strap of her tank top off her shoulder to get to a pretty nasty wound.  The skin was riddled with buckshot and Sarah grimaced.  “You were still glitchy as hell,” Sarah muttered as she began to remove the warped pellets.  “If I’d have known about the explosive I probably would have…”  She shook her head.  “Whatever happened to you, though… it was making you almost more…” The word that sprang to mind was unacceptable so Sarah moved away, scooping up the bowl and moving to the sink to pour the red liquid down the drain.  She filled it again with fresh water and came back to Cameron, setting the bowl down and eyeing the metal girl dubiously.

 Deciding Murch was indeed down for the night, Sarah crouched in front of Cameron, collecting a pair of scissors from the edge of the table.  Her fingers numbly took a hold of the hem of the terminator’s top before using the scissors to slice it in half right up the middle.  There had been men and women’s clothing in each of the living quarters upstairs, and Sarah figured she’d find something suitable to dress Cameron in from the assortment left in the various closets.  Leaving Cameron naked around Murch was probably not a good idea.

 The halves of the top peeled away and Sarah inhaled sharply at the new damage that was unveiled underneath.  “Damn it, girlie,” she breathed.  “This is gonna take all night.”

 Cameron’s chest was full of holes, but it was the healing slice just under her left breast that made Sarah hesitate.  She looked up into Cameron’s eyes and then glanced over at the monitors before letting her fingers trace the startlingly soft but reddened skin.

 “What the hell?” Sarah whispered to herself.

 Sarah didn’t hear the security cameras adjust and zoom in on her position.  They followed their commands quietly, allowing Sarah to be observed unnoticed.        

 ****

 

It had been days since John had seen anyone but Kyle.  He’d been locked away from everyone he knew as well as the world he knew he needed to know.  They’d given him decent quarters and barely edible meals, but there had been no company, no conversation except Kyle’s repeated questions.  Just time to think about what he’d left behind and what lay ahead.

 He’d cried that first night alone.  Cried for his mom, for all he’d cost her.  John remembered her green eyes, the way they would crinkle at the corners when she smiled at him, and he ached to see that smile, to feel her strong, warm arms around him one more time.  She’d fought so hard to keep him alive, to keep him from his fate, while preparing him for it at the same time.  John felt like he’d let her down, and the knowledge had wrung heavy sobs out of him for hours.

 He’d cried for the destiny he’d never wanted and had left behind, feeling guilty for being relieved that the burden was no longer his to carry.  He cried for the human race, now scavenging among the ruins of civilization like rats, taking what morsels they could find.  Could he have stopped all of this?  Was it his fault that humanity had come to this because he’d done what he thought was right and gone after Cameron’s chip?

 Brushing at an errant tear, John sighed as he lay on his bunk and stared at the pipes in the ceiling above.  He had no idea what Kyle, Derek and the others were doing, and he wasn’t accomplishing a thing by being locked up.  John Henry was out there somewhere with Cameron’s chip, and John couldn’t help but feel that he was getting farther away from him every moment.  He’d come to save Cameron and John felt like he had to accomplish that mission now more than ever.  Otherwise, everything was in vain.

 There had also been no sign of Weaver.  He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

 John had been evasive with Kyle and his questions, telling him as much of the truth as he could.  That he and his mother had been fighting the machines and trying to stay alive.  Then one day there had been a blue light, and John had found himself naked in the bunker.  That was all he knew. 

 The answers didn’t seem adequate enough for Kyle, who obviously suspected he was hiding plenty… or perhaps his father even knew everything and was just waiting for John to confirm the truth.  Either way, John elaborated little.  The more you lied, the more chances you had to be tripped up and caught.  His mother had taught him that a long time ago.

 He had wanted to tell Kyle everything.  Almost desperately.  But John accepted that he didn’t know Kyle Reese yet, he only knew the myth of him.  It was better to wait until he had more information before sharing his true identity with anyone.

 The locks on his door clanged and John hurriedly sat up, ready to face his father once more.  Kyle seemed upset with him, like he’d disappointed him somehow, but no matter how many times they’d talked, John could never figure out why.

 The door swung open and John felt his breath catch when he saw familiar brown eyes and a friendly smile waiting for him.

 “Hey,” Allison greeted him easily.  “You’ve been released,” she declared.  “I thought you might like to stretch your legs… get a little fresh air.”

 John swallowed his disappointment.  For just a split second, he’d thought Cameron had come to rescue him, but the dog at Allison’s side told him otherwise.  “Released?  You mean I’m not going to be treated like a prisoner anymore?”

 Allison looked slightly abashed.  “It’s procedure.  We isolate all new recruits until we can find out a little more about them.”

 “And what did you find out about me?” John asked curiously.

 Allison leaned on the door and looked at him as Duke trotted closer, allowing John the privilege of petting him.  “Not much,” she admitted with a smirk for the dog’s antics.  “We have our ways of checking people out, but the only John Connor we could find is definitely not you.”

 “What do you mean?” John asked uneasily.

 Allison shrugged.  “He would have been a lot older than you… and he was apparently a criminal who spent his time running around with his mother blowing things up,” she said with a laugh.

 “How do you know that?” John asked.  “About the other John Connor?” he hastily added.

 “Other pockets of resistance fighters.  We radio around.  One of them has access to some library records.”

 John nodded.  “What happened to him… the other John?”

 “I guess he died on Judgment Day,” Allison replied, her voice softening.  “Pretty much everyone did.”

 John swallowed.  “What about his mom?”

 Allison tilted her head in a move so similar to Cameron it made John’s heart skip a beat.  “Why do you want to know?”

 “Just curious,” John answered casually.

 “I don’t know.  If it means that much to you I can try to find out.”

 Getting to his feet, John managed to shrug.  “No,” he said and hoped he sounded believable.  “I was just making conversation.”  He moved toward the door, Duke at his heels.  “So now what?” he asked as he licked his lips.  “You guys give me a gun and I start fighting?”

 “Right,” Allison said with another light laugh.  “No.  You gotta go through boot camp first.”

 “Boot camp?”

 “Everyone has to do it,” Allison told him as she closed the door behind him.  “Don’t worry.  Jesse and Derek haven’t killed anyone yet… although they’ve made a lot of people wish they were dead.”

 “Jesse…” John murmured, his thoughts coming so fast and furious he could barely think.

 “Yep.  She and Derek are an item, but don’t tell them I told you so.”  Allison took the sleeve of his coat and tugged him around a corner.

 Resistance fighters came and went around them.  Some of them gave Allison a friendly smile.  Others looked at John with naked curiosity.  Most of them ignored them both completely.

 “You don’t have terminators here,” John said as he realized he’d yet to see a one.  The T-888s were usually easy to spot.

 “Terminators?” Allison blurted.  “Why the hell would we have terminators?”

 “Reprogrammed terminators,” John corrected.  “Ones you’ve programmed to work for you.”

 “You had terminators back at your base camp?” Allison asked in disbelief.  “Are you all insane?” her voice elevated in alarm.

 “What’s wrong?” Derek asked as he came around a corner and practically crashed into them.

 “John says they have reprogrammed terminators working for them where he came from.”

 Derek’s intense green eyes focused on him and John felt the sudden urge to squirm.  “That true?”

 “Just a few,” John said, wishing he could think of a way to make it so that this conversation had never begun.

 “We’ve got one or two,” Derek said slowly.  “Including the one on Jesse’s sub.”  He eyed John.  “Prophet and Tango would like us to have more,” he admitted.  “But they’re a bitch to catch and we’ve got no one to reprogram ‘em.  Personally, the last thing I want is to be sharing space with metal, but I’d rather send a tin can in to blow something up than a soldier.”

 “I can reprogram them,” John confessed, hoping he could turn his mistake into an advantage.

 Allison and Derek stared at him speculatively.

 “Can you now?” Derek asked thoughtfully.  “Prophet and Tango will be glad to hear that.”

 “Can I meet them?” John asked eagerly.

 “Sure,” Derek drawled.  “When boot camp is over,” he added.  He nodded at Allison.  “Get him squared away with quarters.  Be back in a bit.”  Derek moved past John without a backward glance.

 John clamped down on the frustration that wanted to bubble up inside him.  He needed answers, but it didn’t look like he was going to get them any time soon.

 ****

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