ACT II
They were back at the compound, back inside Allison’s
quarters. Duke took his place next to Allison’s cot, the back of the
girl’s fingers brushing lightly over his head. The dog had been Allison’s
touchstone. This was part of their routine; the girl couldn’t fall asleep
unless she was touching the dog. Duke let her. He had learned the hard way how
lightly Allison slept, almost fitfully without some sort of contact before she
fell asleep.
All organic creatures needed sleep. Even sharks,
creatures that had once been believed to require constant motion to survive,
had formed the ability to sleep.
All organic creatures needed to sleep. Except Duke.
Duke no longer needed sleep. He lay there
on the floor, head resting on his paws, Allison’s fingers on his head.
Instead of sleeping, Duke waited and listened. Listened as Allison’s
breathing turned slow and relaxed. Listened long enough to make sure there
were no twitches or quiet whimpers, no signs of a nightmare.
Certain
the girl was finally asleep, the dog rose onto all fours. He padded quietly
towards the door and then stilled. His eyes closed as his body began to
change. Hair, nose, tail, all retracted inwards. The body condensed, losing
shape, losing species, losing gender. In seconds, what had been a dog became a
silver puddle on the floor, and the liquid metal known as Catherine Weaver
oozed through the crack underneath the door.
Weaver took on the appearance of the dirt and grime
covering the floor. From a distance, she looked like one of the many puddles
that dotted the resistance hideout. But, Weaver wasn’t one to take chances.
She moved herself carefully across the floor. Pressing herself into the crack
at the bottom of a wall, Weaver stretched her body until she was as thin as a
wire, blending with a rivulet of water. She slithered through the compound,
crossing corridors, gliding around corners, underfoot and over. Even past the
dogs that would have normally gone into fits at her presence, Weaver went
unnoticed. It wasn’t the metal that bothered them; it was the metal
pretending to be something else. They smelled the wrongness.
There was no need to deviate from her usual pattern.
The path had proven efficient in both time and ease. While the human
resistance knew how to defend themselves from the T-800s, it would be some
time before Weaver’s model would be built, even longer before they would be
detectable by humans.
Pooling herself at the base of the wall, underneath a
stack of long forgotten crates, Weaver once against stretched herself across
the floor. She poured through a crack no reasonable security force could have
considered a breach, and in a second, she was on the other side.
The human named Jesse’s quarters. She and her male
companion, Derek, were rutting on Jesse’s cot. The female’s hand was on
the male’s mouth to keep him silent as she writhed atop him. Weaver didn’t
waste any time on this display of carnal activity. She found human sexual
intercourse inefficient and messy. There were better ways to keep the species
alive, but that would have involved machines.
Minutes later, Weaver was outside the compound, where
she pooled into a larger mass, still without shape. A mile outside the
perimeter fence, Weaver morphed back into a dog, this one bigger than Duke,
and female, with longer legs and a streamlined body. She began to run,
continuing until the crumbling foundations, rocks and debris turned to hard
ground, burned undergrowth and desiccated trees.
She ran until she reached the edge of a precipice, the
canyon wall below her steep, overseeing a dry riverbed. The wind whipped hard,
kicking up dry dirt and dust. Her body changed once more, back legs losing fur
in favor of scales, dog's claws becoming talons, forelegs stretching and
broadening into wings, and her muzzle sharpening, curving, into a beak.
Wings outstretched, Weaver dug her talons into the
rocky soil, hopped once, and then flung herself over the edge, letting gravity
take over. More like a glider than an actual bird, the wind still caught under
her wings. She circled in the strong updraft of the canyon, until she was a
mile above the earth. Duke’s duty was to guard Allison, but Weaver had
larger, more important responsibilities.
She circled the compound. Her eyes catching the things
the humans always missed. But tonight, there were no creatures in the dark, no
terminators lurking around the compound. The humans would never know how many
Weaver had already relieved them of.
She soared higher, until she was just below the cloud
layer. From here, she could see for miles. She saw the machines’ transporter
ships and the ever-searching drones as nothing more than tiny dots against the
black curtain of the horizon. On the ground, she watched T-600s, scouring the
plains.
She had searched for John Henry this way, night after
night as a bird, and at Allison’s side by day, but he’d been careful.
Weaver had been as surprised as the humans when he showed up at the compound.
She still didn’t know what his plans were, or why he had left her behind
when he made the time jump, but she was determined to find out.
She could wait, though. For now, both of her children
were safe in the compound, and she was content to keep them that way until she
had a better grasp on the dynamics of this new future. John Connor, the boy
that should have been a hero, might yet prove to be useful, despite his
relative insignificance in this timeline.
That was something else she had not expected. Without
John Connor, the humans should have been disorganized, scattered and desperate
for a leader, any leader to bring them together, to give them hope. But
someone else had taken up his mantle when the world had burned.
Weaver’s nightly investigations, and what she had
overheard at Allison’s side, had led her to believe this might not, as the
humans believed, be Tango or the elusive Prophet. There was a different feel
to the mind behind this resistance, a familiar one.
Weaver suspected a clue lay in the name without a face,
the name even she had been unable to uncover a face for, the name that
directed the invisible threads of information and espionage through both human
and machine camps.
The Spider.
Weaver banked as something caught her eye.
A flash of light on the distant horizon. To the human
eye, it would have appeared to be no more than lightning. But Weaver wasn’t
human, and this wasn’t lightning.
Tilting her wings, Weaver turned, soaring closer.
****
“In half a mile, turn right on Aceveda,” the
feminine voice spoke with a mild British accent through the tiny speaker of
Sarah’s GPS. Sarah frowned, narrowing her eyes at the device.
“What is it?” Cameron asked and Sarah shifted
nervously in her seat.
“It’s nothing.” She shook her head. It was
nothing, nothing more than that she’d gotten used to it being Cameron’s
voice that was her disembodied shadow. It was strange hearing a computerized
version again after Cameron’s clear tones. Unsettled by the vague notion
that she missed the relatively uncomplicated relationship they’d had when
Cameron had been at a comfortable distance, Sarah shrugged it off. “Tell me
what you know.”
“About?”
Sarah spared a glance at Cameron. “John Connor, the
missing boy.”
Cameron nodded, keeping her eyes on Sarah. Sarah looked
at the road, the unsettling feeling growing stronger. Her chest still burned
with the phantom sensation of Cameron’s touch.
“John Connor. 15. Brown hair, blue eyes. Mother,
Christine Connor, died in 1996. Father, Alexander Connor, sentenced to state
prison in 2005. Adopted in 2006 by Joshua and Emily Kuhoric.”
It was like a greatest hits compilation, same tune,
different band. Only this John had found a family willing to adopt him. Her
John’s foster family had wanted to keep him... but they were dead, and
she’d gotten him back, she’d gotten another chance. She wondered if this
John’s real parents, Alexander and Christine, had loved each other. She
didn’t wonder if they had loved each other as she and Kyle had, but she knew
the pain of loss while raising a child. How that pain can warp a person, a
parent. How that pain can shape the child left in its wake. Maybe Alexander
had been a good father, maybe he hadn’t. Sarah wondered if he’d felt the
same sickening dread as she had when he lifted the pen and signed his rights
as a parent away. She gripped the wheel tighter.
“…in point two miles, turn right on Aceveda.”
The car slowed to a stop at the light a block from
Aceveda. Sarah placed her arm on the windowsill, cheek slightly resting on her
palm. Cameron had stopped talking. Sarah glanced at the terminator through the
corner of her eye. Cameron sat as she always did, neatly, hands on her thighs.
Usually, her face was turned forward or towards the passenger’s window,
scanning the sights around them. Today, her head was turned toward Sarah. Her
gaze not so blank, and if Sarah were inclined to define it, she’d call it
focused. If she were inclined.
“What?”
Cameron continued to stare. Her brow twitched slightly
and Sarah could only imagine what the machine was thinking. “This is
probably a trap.”
“Yeah, I know,” Sarah muttered, clenching her jaw.
The light turned green, and Sarah gently eased on the gas pedal. “I don’t
care.”
****
“Sir.”
Hale, head of security at Kaliba, limped after Vaughn as his boss made his way
towards the elevators. He was still recovering from the gunshot wound to his
ankle he’d received in his first encounter with Sarah Connor. “Are you
sure about this?”
It was unusual, searching for John Connor personally,
but not unheard of. Vaughn didn’t want to have to say out loud that he
didn’t trust anyone else to do it correctly, but there had been too many
incidents like the one that had taken out Miranda and Hale’s own botch at
the garage that had lost them both the possibility of Terissa Dyson’s
cooperation and one of their precious cyborgs. Too many failed missions, with
nothing but the C.A.I.N. project bringing anything to fruition.
The decision to bring Danny Dyson on board had been a
good one, especially with his ties to the Connors. But that was all ancient
history. Vaughn needed something substantial to show his clients, something to
reaffirm their faith in him. He needed to prove that the company could handle
small time problems like the Connor woman and her fellow nut jobs.
A clipboard was handed to him by a man in a white lab
coat. Vaughn paused a moment to look at the man’s badge before clicking his
pen and signing the papers.
“Has a team been sent to the Kuhoric home?” He
stowed his pen back into his jacket pocket and handed the clipboard back to
the lab tech.
Hale nodded. “Yes, sir. They should be arriving
within the hour.”
The elevator doors opened and Vaughn smiled as he
stepped into the lift. “Good.”
“Sir, I don’t understand. This is a high risk
operation. Why take it on personally?”
Vaughn stared at the man with eyes gone hard and
steely, using his expression to say it all. Paling, Hale stepped backwards,
letting the elevator doors close.
The John Connors of Los Angeles County had had a bad
habit of disappearing over the last fifteen years or so, but this one had gone
missing within the past week. If Sarah Connor was, or had been, involved,
Vaughn needed to know.
By any means necessary.
****
“…You have arrived at your destination.”
It could have been any typical middle class suburban
neighborhood in any typical suburban city - two story homes in light colors
with manicured lawns, wooden mailboxes by the street, bicycles lying on their
sides in the yards and SUVs in the driveways. A Norman Rockwell painting come
to life, all mom, baseball, and apple pie.
Sarah used to dream about homes such as these, a home
for her and John. It was a dream she’d all but given up on before John had
left, and now she could only dream about what might have been. Whatever home
she might find for herself, it would never have John in it again.
Resentment threatened, resentment against the people
who could sleep soundly in their white-trimmed homes, oblivious to the war
being waged around them.
There were cars jammed bumper to bumper in the driveway
of the Kuhoric home and along both sides of the street, making parking near
the home impossible. Sarah drove a bit further up the street, sandwiching the
truck between a station wagon and brand new pickup truck. Reaching for the
safety belt, Sarah let her fingers drift lower to the semi-automatic stowed
between the seat and the gearshift.
She had mentally compartmentalized her life into two
sections - life before she knew about the machines and life after. In life
after, there had always been two constants - John and guns. Now, one of those
constants was gone, leaving the metal under Sarah’s fingers as a cold
comfort of sorts.
The metal sitting in the passenger seat beside her was
another matter entirely. Their drive had been one vast reservoir of silence
around tiny islands of stilted conversation. The connection that had been
there last night and this morning by the fire pit felt like it had been
severed somehow. They were grating against each other like two edges of bone
that couldn’t figure out how to fit back together. The mission was the
muscle that prevented them from retreating completely, but instead of helping,
the forced proximity was only making it worse.
Almost involuntarily, Sarah noticed Cameron’s gaze,
the flicker of motion as her eyes went from Sarah’s face to the gun and back
again. Checking the weapon, more out of habit than anything, Sarah sighed as
she stowed it in the glove box.
“I’m not planning to shoot anyone.” She eyed
Cameron. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”
Cameron’s face remained blank though her eyes made a
passing glance as Sarah closed the glove box. “You never plan on shooting
anyone.”
Sarah
frowned. She couldn’t decide if Cameron was simply making an observation or
if there was a reproach hidden in there somewhere. In the past, Cameron had
had a very direct approach to threats, repeatedly questioning Sarah’s
reluctance to do what needed to be done.
Sarah didn’t know what Cameron’s philosophy was
now. She didn’t know what modifications Cameron had made to her programming,
or how they might affect her methods. That was something they were going to
need to talk about, and soon. Just as soon as Sarah had made sure John Connor
was safe.
“What are you planning?” Cameron interrupted
Sarah’s thoughts, the faintest trace of frustration coloring her voice.
There was a visible tension to the set of her shoulders, the same uncertainty
Sarah had seen in her eyes that morning. Cameron was worried.
That worry was like salt in a wound.
“Same as always,” Sarah said, ignoring the unspoken
concern. She reached down and unfastened her seatbelt. “We go inside. Ask
questions. Try and find out as much about the boy as possible.”
Sarah opened the driver’s side door. Cameron didn’t
move. “What?” Sarah snapped.
The terminator tilted her head, tilted it the tiniest
fraction of an inch. Anyone else might not have noticed; to Sarah, the gesture
might as well have been a neon sign declaring that Sarah Connor was a complete
idiot.
“Dressed like this?”
Sarah pulled her door shut, making a quick check of her
appearance - jeans, boots, t-shirt, leather jacket. Her eyes then made their
way to Cameron in her cargo pants, boots and bomber jacket zipped up over a
black t-shirt. Sarah grimaced at her own tactical error. They needed to be as
inconspicuous as possible, and here they were in the suburbs on a Sunday,
looking like two people on their way to a fight club.
Cursing under her breath, Sarah set her elbow on the
windowsill, pressing her fingers to her temple and rubbing in a circular
pattern. “Why didn’t you say something when we left?”
“You didn’t tell me where we were going when we
left.” This time the reproach wasn’t merely a possibility; Cameron was
definitely annoyed.
“I didn’t plan on having a tag along!” Sarah
snarled, regretting it immediately when Cameron’s expression went from
subtle to non-existent.
“I'm sorry,” she said after a tense moment,
speaking to the steering wheel through gritted teeth. “I'm just…”
“Having second thoughts?” Cameron finished for her.
Sarah shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Instead, her eyes went to the car parked in front of them, with its bumper
stickers announcing the academic level of the owner’s child and mountains of
athletic gear in the back.
“What school did you say John went to?” Sarah
asked, a plan forming.
“Canego High School,” Cameron answered. “Why?”
****
The school was empty, as expected for a Sunday. The
parking lot bare, save for a lone car which had yet to be towed. The
terminator strode across the lot, dressed in the jacket, shirt, jeans and
boots he’d taken from a surprised bar patron who’d had the misfortune of
choosing the wrong exit.
The machine didn’t think about the slices on his
fingers as his fist broke through the glass of the front doors. The damage
would heal. The door was chained from the inside, but his hand made steady
work of the lock, crushing it within his fist and then yanking it off.
He walked the corridors of lockers and closed
classrooms until he found the door he was looking for. It was also locked, but
it took little effort to push through.
Sitting behind the desk, he turned on the computer and
waited for it to boot, before beginning his search. It was an older model, and
the task took longer than he had anticipated.
His head tilted coyly, ears alerted to the sudden
sounds coming from the corridor. Footsteps. He rose from his seat, taking a
position next to the open door. A security guard entered the room. He was old,
with a balding head and a protruding belly. He turned towards the terminator,
as if sensing the machine’s presence, hands fumbling at the radio on his
belt before the terminator reached out with lightning speed and snapped his
neck.
The terminator paused, staring down at the man as the
last of his life force twitched out of him. He paused, but only briefly,
before walking back to the computer. It had taken time but the information the
terminator was searching for was on the screen. He had no need to print it.
The moment his eye hit the screen, the information was instantly stored,
immediately processed.
A machine with a singular purpose, he had found what he
was looking for and he wouldn’t stop until his mission had been fulfilled.
****
“Tuck your shirt in,” Sarah mumbled as she knocked
on the Kuhoric door. “And quit fidgeting.”
“I am not fidgeting.” Cameron pulled at the hem of
her two-sizes-too-large ‘Canego High School’ t-shirt. “It itches. And it
smells.”
Sarah fought the sudden smile pulling at her lips.
“Since when do you care if your clothes smell?”
Cameron chose not to answer, but the expression she
turned on Sarah spoke volumes.
The door to the Kuhoric home swung open, revealing a
small girl. She was no more than
eleven with soft Asian features, her jet black hair pulled back into a
ponytail, brown eyes, and a whole lot of attitude in the hand on her canted
hips and the popping of the gum in her mouth. “Fliers or phones?”
“Excuse me?"
The girl rolled her eyes. “Are you here to pass out
fliers or call people on phones?”
“Both?” Cameron suggested while Sarah was still
marveling at the difference between this little princess and Savannah’s
understated sincerity.
The girl sighed heavily, popping her gum again as she
turned on her heel. “Whatever.”
Sarah entered first, Cameron on her heels. There were
people in the Kuhoric home, lots of them. The air in the living room was
filled with the sound of soft, sympathetic chatter. To the right was a large
table with a map half buried under stacks of fliers. On the opposite side of
the table, Mr. Kuhoric, Sarah presumed, stood with two other men, organizing
what looked like a search party.
There were people crowded onto the couches, cell phones
in hand. This was the source of most of the talking, as they made call after
call, asking about John Connor.
Nodding to Cameron, Sarah waited until the terminator
silently moved towards the back of the home before Sarah turned and continued
her exploration of the living room. Moving on to the hallway, she scanned the
family pictures lining the walls. Individual and family group photos, the
standard school pictures, baby pictures and vacation photos. The young girl at
the door was the Kuhoric’s other child, adopted a year after her birth,
judging by one of the pictures on the wall.
In another, John Connor was several years younger,
smiling through his missing two front teeth as he held up a large fish. Sarah
grimaced. She’d never taken John on a real vacation. They could never afford
to take any risks.
“Oh.” Pushing open a door at the end of the hall,
Sarah stopped in her tracks. “I’m sorry.”
She’d entered the kitchen. Unlike the living room, it
was almost empty, but Sarah recognized Emily Kuhoric from the family pictures.
The woman was in her early forties, short brown hair pulled back from her
round face with a scarf, a soft pink color that matched her sweater. She was
holding the end of a pearl necklace between her forefinger and thumb,
nervously nibbling on the end. For some reason, it reminded Sarah of her own
mother. Sarah hadn’t thought of her in years.
Emily, surrounded by plates of cookies and cakes and
tea cups ready to be filled, lifted her head, reddened eyes turning towards
Sarah.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Sarah mumbled, all
at once regretting the resentment that had been building in her chest. This
woman wasn’t sleeping soundly. Not anymore.
“It’s okay.” Emily waved a hand. “It’s hard,
sometimes. Everybody wants to help. I just want John back.”
“I know.” Sarah took a step forward. “How long
has he been gone?”
Emily sniffled lightly, pulling a tissue from her
sweater pocket and politely dabbing her nose. “Four days.”
Sarah gritted her teeth. Cameron had been keeping this
a secret longer than she'd thought. “And the police?”
“They say they’re doing everything they can, but
with things the way they are these days, I don’t think John’s their top
priority. Not anymore, anyway. There was an Amber Alert, but it didn’t seem
to help.”
“And you have no idea where he could be or,” Sarah
paused at the thought. “Who might have taken him?”
Emily seemed to stiffen at the question. She lowered
her necklace, smoothing it out before pulling more tea cups from the cupboard.
“Do you have any kids?”
“Two, actually.” Sarah’s heart ached for the one
truth she always allowed herself, no matter the cover. “John, and…"
She hesitated, balking at the idea of identifying Cameron as her daughter now.
“Savannah,” she finished instead. The new lie felt more natural than the
old one, almost effortless.
Emily lifted the boiling kettle off the stove and began
pouring two cups, one for herself and one for Sarah. “How old is your
son?”
“Seventeen.” Sarah forced a chuckle. “Going on
forty.”
Emily smiled. “I know what you mean. They grow up so
fast. Think they’re older and smarter than they actually are.”
Sarah leaned against the counter, folding her arms over
her chest. “All you want to do is protect them. All they want to do is grow
up and get as far away from you as possible.”
Emily nodded, holding out one of the cups. Sarah
accepted it with a quiet smile. She would have preferred coffee but it was hot
and full of caffeine, and she understood the need to stay busy.
“Where’s your son now?” Emily asked.
The cup held before her lips, Sarah paused, her eyes
looking distant. “He’s with his father.”
****
John twisted and turned in his bunk. It wasn’t the
eerie, tension-filled quiet of hundreds of people always on alert, the
threadbare blanket that itched like crazy, or his rifle in the bed beside him
that was keeping him awake. The routine wasn’t new, and he’d gotten used
to everything else.
He couldn’t sleep because he was anxious, anxious
with a nagging inexplicable anxiety that poked and prodded at him until rest
was impossible. The others would be going on a mission soon, one more
important than any that he’d been included in, where failure wasn’t an
option. But that was every mission, both now and in the past. John was
anxious, not because of the mission itself, but because he had no place in it.
He wasn’t going, and the endpoint was not to protect
him. John still didn’t know how to reconcile himself with either of those
facts.
All his life, he’d been told he was special,
important and even necessary. Now, he was in a world where, by all accounts,
he was anything but necessary. The
resistance still had leaders - Tango, the mysterious Prophet and this Spider
everyone seemed to know about, but no one knew personally- and they all had
one thing in common. They didn’t need John Connor.
John tossed off his blanket, sitting up and draping his
legs over the side of his cot. Slipping his feet into his boots and grabbing
his jacket and rifle, John left his quarters, stopping in his tracks just as
he closed his door. Duke sat no more than ten feet from him in the hallway.
John ran a hand over the back of his neck, smoothing out the hairs that had
leapt to attention in the instant before he’d recognized the dog.
"Hey boy, where's your mom, huh?" John
reached out, intending to give Duke a scratch behind the ears, but the dog
rose to all fours, turning in the opposite direction and padding away.
Shrugging it off, John walked aimlessly through the
corridors, no real destination in mind, just the need to be in motion. He made
his way to the outer walls of the compound. As much as he wanted to go outside
the fence, John quelled the urge, not out of fear but how much trouble he’d
get into for breaking ranks.
“Connor!”
John heard the familiar voice calling his name and felt
the familiar mix of emotions jerk in his chest. He looked up to see Kyle
sticking his head out of one of the many lookout posts in the buildings that
overlooked the wall.
“What are you doing walking around?” Kyle asked in
a forced whisper.
John shrugged sheepishly, thankful it was Kyle and not
Derek. Not only because this world’s Derek was a hard-ass who probably would
have skinned John alive, but because he yearned to spend time with Kyle, even
if the soldier who had fathered him didn’t seem to share that urge or the
knowledge of their connection. “Needed to stretch my legs. I couldn’t
sleep.”
Kyle inhaled, squinting his eyes like he was examining
John, sizing him up. “Get up here then.”
John slung his rifle over his shoulder and climbed up
the wall, using the makeshift ladder made out of a series of holes gouged into
the wall. He heaved himself up over the edge and into a small room. Once
inside, a soldier John didn’t recognize brushed past him without a word to
crawl out the way he’d come in.
The lookout post sat in what used to be a corner
office. The glass in the windows had long ago been blown out, and refuse and
fractured stones were piled high to hide them from the outside, but from
inside, they had almost an 180 degree view.
Kyle lay on his stomach on a pile of rocks covered with
slats of wood. Elbows propped, he scanned their section of wall through a pair
of binoculars. John, realizing he’d been called up to relieve the other
soldier, took the secondary position, mimicking Kyle’s pose and picking up
the binoculars left for him.
It never failed to amaze John - although, ‘amaze’
probably wasn’t the right word - the utter devastation of the world he’d
grown up trying to save. Destroyed buildings, scorched and blackened earth and
a night sky that was never truly dark, lit up by fires still burning, tens and
hundreds of miles away. That was what made up his world now.
It was a world his mother had spent sixteen years
trying to prevent. John inhaled, feeling his chest clench as it always did
whenever he thought of his mother. However it had ended, her fight was over.
The fight was John’s now, or it would have been, if anyone here had given a
damn what he thought.
He lowered his binoculars, turning his eyes towards
Kyle. A good man, John’s mother had always said of him, a hero. Alias after
alias, it was the same story. John couldn’t have said whether Kyle really
was a good man or not, he’d had so little contact with him, and Kyle may
have been a hero to the young Sarah Connor, but here he was just another
soldier.
They were both out of their times.
John would never be the leader of the resistance, no
terminator would be sent back in time to assassinate him or his mother, so no
Kyle would be sent back to protect her. John had forfeited both of their
opportunities for heroism. Did
Kyle know? Was that the source of the disappointment John saw in his eyes
every time the soldier looked at him?
Ask Kyle, Tango had told him, but John was afraid of
the answer.
“What?” Kyle asked, twitching under John’s gaze.
“Nothing.” John placed his binoculars back up to
his eyes. “I was just thinking.”
“Who said you were allowed to think?” Kyle growled,
but the corners of his lips turned up as he said it.
John’s heart jumped as he recognized the expression.
He’d always known he had his mother’s eyes, but she’d never told him he
had his father’s smile. He returned the grin hesitantly and saw Kyle’s
eyes widen a fraction before he looked away.
There was an awkward pause before Kyle sighed. “So
what is it that’s chewing on you, Connor?”
John scratched the seven or eight hairs that had begun
growing on the bottom of his chin. “Have you ever… have you ever thought
about what you’ll do when this is over?”
Kyle lowered his binoculars, turning his head towards
John. “Over?”
“You know.” John shrugged. “The war with the
machines.”
Kyle turned his head forward again, continuing his duty
as lookout. “No.”
“Never?” John scrunched his brows, not sure if Kyle
was lying or if he just didn’t like his father’s answer. “You never
thought about... kids, maybe? A son?”
Kyle stiffened and lowered his binoculars. “Have you
got a real question to ask or are you just making conversation?” The faint
light that reached his eyes betrayed a challenge.
John swallowed. Kyle had just handed him an opening,
albeit a terse one, and John wanted to take it, meant to take it, but the
words wouldn’t go past the lump in his throat. Kyle knew, John couldn’t
think of any other reason for the way the soldier was looking at him, as if
daring him to claim the relationship, but he wasn’t going to claim John
first. Maybe he didn’t want to claim him at all.
Pain closed John’s throat further, and all he could
do was shake his head.
Kyle snorted. “Those are fantasies, John. Fantasies
are for people with futures. We don’t have the luxury of thinking about the
future or the past.” Kyle paused, jaw clenching as his lips pursed together
tightly. “Even if I did meet a woman I’d want to have a child with, even
if we do win the war with the machines, I wouldn’t wish this world on
anyone, not if there was something I could do to prevent it. If I had a son,
I’d hope he’d feel the same way.”
****
Cameron entered John Connor’s room. There had been an
effort made to tidy it; the bed was recently made, the floor vacuumed, but it
still had the smell Cameron associated with teenaged boys - the same scent as
the shirt she was wearing, a cloying stench of hormonal sweat and dirty socks.
There were posters on the walls, action figures on the
bookshelf, a computer, television, DVD player, and a game system with stacks
of games piled around it. Cameron hadn’t been inside the room of any
teenaged boy other than that of her John. She didn’t know if this was
‘normal’ or not, but she found it overly cluttered. Should the need arise
for this John Connor to leave quickly, he’d be dead the minute he tripped
over one of the cords snaking across the floor.
She walked to the desk, casually sorting through the
pile of schoolbooks, spiral-bound notebooks and unfinished homework. There was
nothing of note, nothing unexpected.
She made her way towards John’s closet, wrinkling her
nose as she opened it and discovered the source of the dirty sock smell. Some
of John’s shoes needed to be discarded, immediately. She began sliding his
clothes on the rack, sifting through jacket pockets.
“What are you doing?”
Cameron turned to see the youngest Kuhoric standing in
the entrance of the closet, arms folded over her tiny chest.
“I’m helping to search for John,” Cameron
answered honestly, surprised at the frustration in her own voice. Not at the
emotion itself- this mission was a waste of their time, a waste of Sarah’s
energy and focus—but at the aural expression in her voice.
“By going through his clothes?” the child asked
suspiciously, reaching a volume Cameron estimated capable of bringing unwanted
attention.
In a nanosecond, Cameron processed the various
scenarios by which she could deal with the child. She knew what her original
programming would have told her to do, but she wasn’t a terminator anymore.
She thought of Savannah, of what she would do to protect her, and for the
first time, took that thought further, acknowledging that this little girl was
someone else’s Savannah.
“Yes,” Cameron said, going back to her search. If
the girl was going to sound the alarm, then she would deal with it when it
happened. The research she had done to prepare herself to interact
appropriately with Savannah had also told her that most children, given the
choice, would rather follow the lead of a same gendered role model than appear
un-cool by questioning their actions.
This effect was enhanced if the child believed they
were being taken into confidence.
The girl squinted her eyes, popping her gum. “Are you
a cop?”
“No.”
“How do you know John?”
“I don't.” Cameron paused, pulling out a tiny slip
of paper from John’s jacket pocket. A receipt. Cameron tucked it into her
pocket.
The girl snorted a laugh. “Yeah, John doesn’t know
girls like you.”
Cameron turned her head towards the child, tilting it
slightly. “What do you mean?”
“You know. Pretty.” She unfolded her arms and
entered the closet, imitating Cameron by rifling through John’s pockets as
if she knew what she was searching for. “What’s your name?”
“Cameron.”
“My name’s Sun, but everyone calls me Sunny,”
Sunny said. “You want some gum?” she asked, already pulling out a packet
from her pocket and handing it to Cameron.
“Thank you.” Cameron unwrapped her piece and placed
it into her mouth.
Sunny went back to rummaging through John’s pockets.
“I don’t understand what the big deal is. It’s not like he hasn’t done
this before.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh.” Sunny paused, lowering her head slightly as
she realized she’d said something she wasn’t supposed to. “John’s run
away before.”
“When?” There hadn’t been anything in her
research about John Connor previously running away.
“A couple years ago. That’s why we moved here.”
Sunny shrugged. “His real dad got out of jail back in Arizona. But John,
like, came back after a couple days anyway. Mom and Dad got a court order and
everything to keep the guy away, but it didn’t really matter since he got
sent back to prison.” Bored with searching through clothes, Sunny turned to
Cameron. “Are you adopted?”
Cameron blinked. “I don’t know.”
“I am. So is John. I don’t get why he wants to be
with his real dad so much. He’s…” Sunny frowned. “A bad man. Mom and
Dad are really cool, and they love us and stuff.” Sunny paused, her face
scrunching like she’d been given a difficult math question. “But, I guess
that’s what parents are supposed to do, save you from doing something really
stupid?” she said, not certain if that should have been a question or a
statement.
Cameron stared back at the girl, her own questions
running through her mind. “What if he’s not supposed to be saved?”
****
“What did you find out?” Sarah asked, sliding the
key into the ignition and turning it before Cameron had even shut her door.
Cameron fastened her seatbelt and looked up, studying
Sarah’s profile. She wanted to reach out and push back the dark lock of hair
that always fell forward over Sarah’s eyes, wondering what it would feel
like under her fingers. Of all of the new sensations to explore, this was the
one that she kept coming back to. She had touched Sarah before, both in the
past and since she had left the system. She knew the texture of Sarah’s
skin, so there was no reason for the compulsion to experience it again and
again, and yet, she wanted to. More, she wanted Sarah to look at her with
something other than anger or wariness.
She wanted to be doing anything but this, this
pointless exercise that was putting them both at risk and doing nothing but
hurting Sarah when the last thing the other woman needed was more pain.
Cameron turned her eyes forward. “Nothing,” she
lied.
Sarah glanced away from the house, her eyes narrowing.
“Don't lie to me…”
Cameron didn’t think that now would be an appropriate
time to touch Sarah, but her fingers still itched to do so. She closed them on
the fabric of her jeans instead. “This search is a mistake. We have other
priorities.”
“Our priorities are what I goddamned say they are!”
Sarah snapped. She reached over, opening the glove box and pulling out her
semi-automatic. Checking the clip and loading the chamber, she slid it back
into the space next to her seat.
Cameron watched without turning her head, realizing
that Sarah was reassured by having the gun close to hand. The weapon centered
her. Cameron didn’t think that was healthy; Sarah needed more than a gun.
Cameron had hoped to fill that need when she returned to her body, but so far
she hadn’t succeeded. Her eyes went from the gun up to Sarah’s face.
“He's not your son.”
“That’s not the point!” Sarah hissed through her
teeth.
Cameron felt her own synthetic pulse pick up speed and
realized that she was becoming angry. Sarah was making her angry. “What is
the point, Sarah? Why are we here?”
Sarah’s mouth opened and then closed. She put a hand
to her forehead, pushing her fingers hard against her skull. Things were…
shifting, no, make that spiraling. Cameron’s presence was forcing her to
think about things more than she wanted to. She didn’t want to think
anymore, she just wanted to do. She couldn’t save her son, and she
couldn’t save herself, but she needed to save someone.
Sarah pulled her hand away from her face and turned,
once again, to Cameron. “I have to do this.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Sarah said softly, closing her eyes,
“because protecting John Connor is all I know how to do. Do you
understand?”
The silence stretched while Cameron weighed her
options. She could refuse to give Sarah the information she needed, and Sarah
might agree to return to the warehouse, but Cameron knew from experience that
it wouldn’t end there. Sarah wouldn’t be able to let it go. She would lose
more sleep, and if anything happened to the boy that she could have
prevented...
Cameron released the grip she had on her jeans,
smoothing out the wrinkled fabric. “John Connor’s father was released from
prison three and a half weeks ago,” she admitted, without looking up.
“John’s been keeping up a secret correspondence with him. If the boy has
disappeared, he’s probably with his father.”
Sarah exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she’d
been holding. She shifted the car into drive and pressed on the accelerator.
“Thank you.”
****
“Dammit!” Murch cursed under his breath as he
dropped the last screw. He slid off his chair, getting down on hands and
knees, cursing once again because it had been awhile since the floor had been
mopped and God only knew what kind of germs were on it. Not to mention all the
dust getting sucked into the computers.
Finding what he was looking for, Murch lifted himself
back into his chair, picking up the screwdriver and reattaching the panel to
one of the many computer towers.
“What are you doing?” Ellison asked, walking down
the stairs and heading towards the coffee machine.
“Diagnostic,” Murch answered. “The computer’s
acting… wiggy and I can’t figure out why.”
“Wiggy?”
“Yeah, you know,” Murch turned in his seat,
wiggling his fingers. “Wiggy. Cameron did something to the network, but I
have no idea what she did or how to undo it.”
Ellison frowned. He walked over to the table, setting
his mug down on its surface and taking a seat. “Is it working?”
“Oh yeah. It’s working, the connection is up, and
all the laptops are picking it up, it’s just…”
“Wiggy,” Ellison finished. “I got it.”
Murch nodded and went back to screwing the panel back
on. Satisfied, he turned the tower around and began plugging the cables back
in. “So,” he spoke aloud. “Mini Me asleep?”
Ellison chuckled. “Yeah. I volunteered to finish
reading The Wizard of Oz, but she
only wants Sarah to read it to her.”
“Great,” Murch snorted. “The next time that woman
has a gun pointed to my head, I’ll just remember to ask her to read me a
book.”
“No one’s making you stay.” Ellison stilled and
turned towards the man. “Why are
you staying? I would have thought you’d have left as soon as Cameron was up
and running…”
Murch untangled a cable and fitted it into its proper
slot. “I… I don’t know. This is everything I’ve been working on
since… forever.” He lifted his head from behind the computer and looked
over at Ellison. “I can do that? Just… leave?”
“I won’t stop you.”
“What about,” Murch looked about nervously. “You
know, her. The chick with the big guns? She said I could, weeks ago, but
she’s been a little…”
“Crazy?" Ellison supplied without a trace of
irony. He shrugged. “I have a feeling she’ll be relieved to see you gone.
As long as you remember to keep your mouth shut.”
“Like anyone would believe me,” Murch snorted. He
quieted for a second. “But, it might be nice. Do you really think it would
be that easy?”
“No.” Ellison shifted in his chair again. “It
won’t be that easy. To just get up and walk back into the world knowing what
you know. That the world could be ending, you might have been able to stop it
and you just walked away.” He picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip.
“No, I don’t think it would be easy at all.”
Murch opened his mouth, but no words came out. He had
no idea what to say, and anything he might have come up with was cut off by
the shrill demand of Ellison’s cell phone.
Ellison fished the phone out of his pocket, pressed in
the code Sarah had given him, listening for the response. “Hello?”
“Ellison?” Sarah snapped in an irritated tone.
“Do you have a pen?”
“I have a keyboard.” He snagged the nearest
keyboard and poised his hands over its keys.
“Whatever. I need you to do a search on an Alexander
Connor. He’s John Connor’s biological father. He was recently released
from prison. I need everything you can find on him. He may have some idea
where John is.”
“Okay…” Ellison pinned the phone between his jaw
and shoulder as he typed, leaving the rest up to Murch once he had the name
down. “What’s going on?” he asked as he gave up his chair for the
scientist.
“I’m following up a lead,” Sarah answered.
“Everything’s fine.”
“Do you need anything?”
There was a pause on the line, long enough to make
Ellison shift nervously on his feet.
“No.”
“Alexander Connor!” Murch shouted loud enough to be
heard over the phone. “I got it.”
“What’s the address?” Sarah asked.
****
