Terminator: Survival Instinct

After the Season/Series Finale I have begun work on the next section. It will be uploaded early Easter Sunday. Also, the continuation of the series will be based upon what happens if TSCC is picked up for another season. If we get another season I will continue on with this storyline. If we don't I will pick up with where the show left off.

 

Resistance Lieutenant Max Cray sat alone in the Communications Room just staring at the antique equipment. Unlike the rest of his brothers and sisters in arms he didn’t want to be a frontline fighter. He liked the safety of being in a base instead of out in the cold and dark dodging the machines. He was pretty safe because of his job. As a communications specialist he was deep inside the Bunker and fairly well guarded from outside attack. This hadn’t helped him though when the metal invaded. Max was one of the very last to escape from the outpost, but watched as the metal bitch killed his friend Luke. In secret when Decker and his group of refugees started on their trip to Serrano Point he’d made a point of not revealing who he was. Especially after they put that machine – the one Decker called Chewie – in charge.

In hindsight that could be seen as a foolish decision, but also a smart one. If their metal guardian had reverted from scrubbed to dirty then it would have sought out command and control and done them in first. Then it would have went on to the refugees. At the very least he would have had a little bit more time to decide on what to do. Other than crap his pants. Cray hadn’t been the most tactical member of the Resistance, he even hated video games unlike their leaders, but he knew that there weren’t very many options either way if it came down to a direct conflict with the machines. The one called Chewie had been a tripeight so it didn’t matter much anyway if he did fight. They had advanced tactical training and would have made short work on anyone against them. Plus it had a gun and most of them didn’t.

Max didn’t really care that they had machines fighting in the war alongside of them, in fact he preferred it. The machines were the ones that started this war and it was only fair that they should be losing life just as the humans were. There was a chance that they would revert back to the dirty mode and try to kill, but those attacks were so rare that they weren’t major concerns. Though that did happen on this very base recently. One of the reprogrammed opened fire and took out a few people on a march through the base. No one knew why – not even Connor’s new prized metal.

The Lieutenant didn’t know how to take her though. While the machines weren’t something he feared (as long as they were on the Resistance’s side) there was something about having a machine running around that looked like one of the Resistance’s leaders that made him feel sick. Plus she wasn’t the most vocal person while Allison Young was. While she kept the prettiness of Allison Young that beauty was only skin deep. This machine, Cameron they called her, was a bitch on two legs. Quick to snapping, spouting orders, she even claimed that she was the functional equivalent of John Connor in this war. That was just wrong.

After checking the frequencies and making sure that Connor’s message was continuing to play, Lieutenant Cray let himself do what he always thought was the perk of this job. He had a comfortable place to sleep. The office chair that they’d found for him had a recline feature and it was one of the few that still had its upholstery. Plus it was damned comfortable unlike the beds that they’d found. Cement was more comfortable – and used more often. The Lieutenant closed his eyes and leaned back. The way he figured he’d have an hour of shuteye until Queeg called in with the Jimmy Carter’s status reports.

Not long after he drifted off he heard the door open. His training made his eyes flutter open in the span of a second and his hand touched the handle of the AP50 on his belt. He turned the chair and looked up at his visitor. He smiled nervously, “Oh it’s you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to not greet you properly.”


On the future battlefield General Kate Mason stood with her son Scott and her mission team waiting for a status report. It’d been about five minutes since she asked their guardian – a reprogrammed Series 850 infiltrator – to hack the Skynet computer systems by remote to find out who, or what, was fighting out there. There was a lot of chatter about some of the machines turning against other machines and she wanted to be sure that she didn’t accidentally kill someone on their side. This was intolerable. Katherine never had problems with waiting in the past, but this was different. This time she was worried for a friend.

The machine (Moe) told them that there was a 64% chance that Skynet would reverse the hack and lock his modem so that he couldn’t close the connection. In that span of time all of their hard work trying to reprogram the machine would be worthless because in a blink it would all be reversed. Kate didn’t want to see that happen. This machine was very important to her. Moe had been her savior years ago and given his synthetic life to save hers. She didn’t want to have to take his.

The question was could she? If she terminated him now did that mean that he’d never go back in time to save her or would some other machine do it? Could another machine do it? All of this just made more questions than answers. It was like there wasn’t a right answer to anything other than “I hate temporal mechanics”. She’d heard that line on a television program her father watched when she was a child and it seemed like a throwaway line back then. With the reality that she faced it was more than accurate. Could it be any other machine but him? If she killed Moe would that mean she’d cease to exist?

How did John Connor do it? All of these temporal shenanigans just raised more questions for her. General Connor had lived through time travel more than once and was – so she believed – a product of it in some strange unnatural way. She remembered reading as a youth about a predestination paradox and he was, in many ways, a perfect example of one. It was all very confusing. Then again the world was confusing. Life was just one big messed up word jumble and there were no clues or answers to the puzzle. That was where time travel was concerned at least.

As she stood watching her friend the General noticed one of the buildings collapse in the distance. In the pit of her stomach she could feel knots forming. Bile was on the back of her throat and she could taste it with each second. The battle was getting closer and she’d have to make a call soon regardless of what the machine could tell her. An Echo of gunshots as a machine fell from the sky reassured her a bit, but not enough to have any real effect. Moe needed to finish soon and that was the end of it. Nonetheless he just seemed to be taking forever.

Then she noticed it. Her friend started to move. Arms twitched and flexed. The massive arms – a distinctive trait of the older models were their bulkiness – had muscles bobbing about. Her protector turned and his eyes contracted. The last time she’d seen him do that was when he was getting ready for a fight. Those knots had gone from marble size to that of a bowling ball. He came toward her but stumbled as he pushed himself forward.

“Moe?” Asked Scott getting between them. “Moe are you okay?”

“Get away from me,” the machine’s Austrian accent broken as it spoke. “Now.”

Katherine had heard those words before. Years ago when she first met him in fact. The machine had turned against her – briefly – due to an attack by another machine. It was fighting the new commands and directives. Deep down it didn’t want to hurt them and she knew it. They just had to restore him back to his reprogrammed settings. She knew how to do it. She had to challenge his mission objectives. It was 50/50 though. At least if he killed her it’d be quick.

However, nothing was ever easy.

“Goddamned tinny turned!” Screamed Corporal Davison as he raised his plasma rifle toward the machine. As he was going to pull the trigger Moe grabbed hold of the barrel and pushed it downward. The once perfectly straight lined barrel was now bent downward in a 90 degree angle. With the other hand the machine grabbed Davison by the throat and lifted him from the ground.

“Please,” cried Kate Brewster, “You can’t do this. Let him go!”

Her protector didn’t seem to care about her pleas. It began shifting its wrist around at incredible speeds breaking the Corporal’s neck right before her very eyes. It didn’t take long but the remains of the rag doll body gave out and the head literally detached from the torso in less than two seconds. As the body fell to the ground limp the machine released its hold and allowed the head to fall as well. It rolled along and came to a stop its eyes permanently locked on Kate’s face.

Moe turned toward Kate and started for her. Scott ran back between them, “Let us go. You don’t want to hurt us!”

“I have no choice,” the infiltrator answered continuing to stammer. “My systems have been corrupted by Skynet.”

“You can’t kill a human,” added in Katherine. “You said so yourself. You’re programmed not to hurt anyone!”

Their former friend cared, yet part of him didn’t. Deep down – buried deep beneath the snow that was the automaton’s psyche – they could never completely remove the base program: the program that made them want to destroy all humans. They’d found ways to override it, circumvent it, but in the end it was always there. No one in the Resistance upper echelons bothered to reveal that little fact to the grunts or anyone else for that matter. Already they had a difficult enough time trying to wrap their heads around the idea of machines fighting alongside of them. If they knew they could simply snap at any time it’d be worse than it already was by a long shot.

It got within arms reach, but Scott made a desperate move. He jumped up and slammed his body against Moe trying to knock him back. The infiltrator countered and grabbed the teen in midair. It looked down at him with its cold eyes, but Scott wouldn’t plead.

“You don’t want to kill me,” said the boy. “Don’t let it control you. Fight it. You’re fighting it now. Stop this. Put me down!”

The guardian complied in a sense. Instead of setting the boy down it threw him aside like a toy discarded by a petulant child. The son of Katherine Mason flew and slammed against Kovach knocking him back. That only left Katherine and Moe to face off against each other. Katherine knew if she would fight him that Moe would overpower her in seconds. He wasn’t as combat ready as a Triple Eight, but the Eight Fifty was more than deadly as Davison just learned. It came for her.

As it reached for her, “You don’t have to do this. You don’t want to do this. You can fight this. You can stop it! You don’t want to kill me!”

“Desires are irrelevant. I am a machine,” it grabbed her and lifted her in the air.

General Mason’s feet dangled over the ground as she stared into her friend’s eyes. It held its hand right below her voice box, but it hadn’t killed her yet. What was it waiting for? Seconds ago Moe killed the Corporal without a second thought and most likely killed Scott. How could she have let him come along? How wrong had she been?

“Do it! Kill me too just like you killed my son! You’re not the man I thought you were! You’re a metal bastard!”

The infiltrator hesitated. A spasm attacked its hand as it held her in the air. Deep inside its two programs were fighting for dominance. The Resistance side and the Skynet side were at war over this one machine and it wasn’t clear who was winning the war. Katherine didn’t care if her son was dead. If Scott were lost she wanted to be dead too. Its eyes darted back and forth between the General and the body of her son. Sensors scanned the child through the distance. Readings told it that he was alive but injured. Same for Kovach. Davison was gone and it was his fault.

“My mission is to ensure the survival of the human race,” the stammering continued. It kept going, “My mission is to ensure the destruction the human race. My mission is to ensure the survival of the human race. My mission is to ensure the destruction the human race.” It kept repeating.

“You need to choose your mission because, either way, you’re going to fail one right here and right now!” Katherine spat between gasped breaths.

The skinjobs head bobbed around like a bobble head doll from before the fall. Data progressed through it as new variables came into play. Its eyes darted about between the warzone and its charges. The words of Katherine Brewster-Mason echoed inside its head but the voice of Skynet kept trying to make it chose its side.

“Destroy them. Destroy them now!”

“I can,” it then added, “I cannot.” The microprocessor controlled man released its grip on Katherine letting her fall to the bone littered ground. Blood from the dead Corporal had flowed like a river and had encircled them. It looked down at the streams of blood and its brain processed what it’d done. It took life from another. It violated its prime directives. Worse it nearly destroyed the woman it was assigned to protect. It had seriously injured the woman’s son, which was just as bad a fate. It had failed in its mission – both of them. That was something it couldn’t bear. The eyes grew colder as the machine powered down its higher brain functions. Energy cells and systems were placed into standby but the chip was offline. It remained erect with feet planted firmly on the ground, but no life remained inside the machine.

Katherine Brewster couldn’t bring herself to care. Pushing herself to her feet she ran to her son’s side as a mother concerned about her child. The first thing she thought when she saw him was that he was going to die. She silently prayed for a doctor to come and heal her boy, but then she remembered that the Resistance had very few and – of all the people near – she was the only choice. She let the Doctor come and make the decisions for her. Painful as it was.

Pain could be controlled; she just had to disconnect it.

Nearby Sergeant Kovach sat with their radio, “General, base is on the horn for you. They want a status report.”

“Do I look like I have time for a chat damn it?” She yelled at the remaining member of her team. “Take a message or talk to them yourself. I think you know what the hell’s going on just as much as I freakin’ do.”



“… we’re pretty banged up out here,” Kovach’s voice filtered through the radio. “The skinjob turned on us. Corporal Davison’s dead – his head was ripped off by the metal bastard. It’s powered down now though. Scott Mason’s pretty hurt; the General’s helping him now. We could use some help out here.”

“Help is unavailable,” said Lieutenant Cray. “We require you to go to the battle and assist the combatants.”

“Haven’t you heard me? We’re barely alive ourselves!” The Sergeant protested. “We need help just as much as they do.”

“Negative. You will assist General Perry’s team. The dead or dying are irrelevant.”


There was static coming from the distance, “How the hell could you of all people say that? Oh wait I forgot who I’m talkin’ to. The running man!”

“My actions are inconsequential to this incident. Proceed as ordered – these directives come from General Connor himself.”

“Yes Sir,” the Sergeant relented.

“Channel closed,” a gloved hand reached forward and pushed the switch down. It slid the microphone aside and lifted its arm up. With incredible speed it slammed its hand down like a hatchet and cut through the communications equipment. Sparks rained out from the gaping hole as a bloodied hand pulled away from the splintered metal chasm. The electricity ignited the tattered and torn clothes of Lieutenant Cray. Where once had been his face was now only a large hole with blood and brain dripping from it.

The machine turned and walked away without a second thought. It was on to the next phase.

 

Another update will come very soon.

 

Update Friday. It'll focus on Skynet.

Really no thoughts on ending?

 

^ Interested in seeing where it goes.

 

^ I think you'll enjoy it.

Also, I am debating something, if the show is cancelled I may continue on with the series storyline instead of going on to the third act of this story (yes this story ends on a cliffhanger too).

 

Derek Reese bolted into the remains of a broken building with Earl Wise and Lauren Fields in tow. They’d managed to escape from the Aerial HK and he’d taken down one, but this battle was far from over. Skynet didn’t want anyone to survive this fight, and he knew that the chances of escape were slim. There was no where to hide. The conduits beneath this part of the city had collapsed years ago when an industrial accident in a Zeira Corporation lab caused the bottom floors to collapse. They couldn’t escape from this one, there was no way out.

“So Captain,” said the Lieutenant, “just how do we save our asses this time?”

Earl Wise held a hand against his injured shoulder. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as he was leading on and that was scaring him. There were cuts, blood dripped from it, but not nearly enough for what had happened. When Skynet attacked he dove over Lauren Fields to protect her (like he would have done that even weeks ago) and got hit in the shoulder by a boulder and shrapnel. It truly did look much worse than it was. How it wasn’t broken – or he wasn’t dead – was beyond him.

He looked to Reese as he stood there with the rifle that had saved their lives, “I’m still correlating.”

“What?” Derek charged. “You’re what?”

“I’m considering our options,” he tried to remember what he’d actually said but couldn’t. “Near as I can say eating our guns might be the only way to escape.”

Fields giggled nervously, “Really wanna give up that perfect body that you got as torture?”

“Better than going back and being raped by a machine wouldn’t you say?” That was designed to hit close to home knowing what had happened to her. When Skynet had kept her hostage aboard the Enterprise – a fellow plaything of Charles Fischer – she had been subjected to a much worse torture. While Earl had had his wounds repaired and was pretty much given a life of luxury not known since before the fall, Lauren was repeatedly raped by a machine. Fischer had even put a sign up on her cell door for the machines that read ‘please disturb’ because it fit his perverse pleasures. That man was a bastard, plain and simple.

“Go to hell!” She yelled as a laser sight came through the open window.

Wise saw it and grabbed her in what seemed like half a second. He threw her around and behind a pillar that had survived the destruction of the building. A storm of bullets and laser pulses ripped through the structure and exploded against the columns. Despite their brief spat again he shielded her with his body. For anyone this would the scariest moment of their life. Being shot at was something that you never forgot and being shot at by a machine gun with laser beams accompanying it was up there on the stressors. It could drive anyone to drink.

Earl Wise felt nothing. As his body pressed against Lauren Fields he felt the sensations of her body; the heat that radiated from her and the pressures against his skin. The breeze from the rain of bullets and the heat from the pulses of energy radiated against his bare skin as the blood kept dripping. There was no fear though, no trepidation. Maybe it was adrenaline – some fight or flight response from the time when humans were nothing more than primates struggling to survive – it felt different though. It felt more mechanical.

What the hell was going on?


In the distance he heard the mechanical grinding. Captain Wise grabbed her arm and started pulling her along just as Derek had done minutes prior. “We have to move!” he screamed over and over as the bullets kept flying. The mechanical whirring revealed itself as the remains of the door flew passed them. From beyond the threshold was a T-900 endoskeleton. Human in height it walked forward and came for them. Derek went to fight it but the titan backhanded him against the wall. Wise didn’t have time to check him to see if he was alive or not, but something told him that you couldn’t keep Derek Reese down.

Earl didn’t want to cause the Doctor any more risk. He pulled open a door to an inner corridor and pushed her through it. “Run!”

As the Medic ran down the debris strewn hallway, Captain Wise turned to face the tin can. The T-900 Series was, for lack of a better term, impressive. Human sized these were Skynet’s answer to the reprogrammed machines of the Resistance. They were a beefed up 800 Series with armor plating covering their entire bodies. While a Trip Eight could penetrate the armor of one of its brothers, it couldn’t break through the shell of a Series 900. Its eyes glowed fire red and along the side of the head. Small slivers of red glimmered through the torso where a human’s abdominal muscles would be. It was like a form of mood lighting. Intelligence reports said that when the chest glowed like that it meant the machine was increasing energy output for a fight. It was the machine’s version of fight of flight.

A mechanized voice came from ahead of him, “Halt. You will not be harmed if you cooperate.”

“Kiss my ass!” Earl grabbed a steel rod that was lying on the ground and charged the machine. It was exactly as it was before down to the wording and the actions taken. The machine that captured him and delivered him to the chamber of horrors had demanded the same, and he fought with a metal rod. Before he didn’t know what he knew now about this type of machine. The question was if it meant anything different this time around.


Lauren Fields didn’t like to run from a fight, but there were just some fights you couldn’t win. Facing down a Nine Hundred was one such thing. Back when she was assigned to Major Young’s assault team during the supply convoy raid she faced off against one of them in the sewers. It didn’t take very long for it to subdue her. Actually it hadn’t taken them long to subdue any of them: including the machine that was assigned to them.

She wouldn’t go back. Earl Wise had surprised her when he suggested that they eat their guns as the only way to survive. His words rang in her head even now and, if that machine caught her, she’d find a way to kill herself. Even if it meant chewing off her hand like a wild animal trying to escape from a trap she’d do it. She wasn’t going back there. She wouldn’t. Surviving the Skynet funhouse once was more than enough for her tastes.

The building was set up like a maze of hallways and conduits. It seemed to her like she’d been running forever but it couldn’t have been. It was probably just her brain playing tricks on her. She read in her medical texts a lifetime ago in a world far away from this one that the adrenaline works to increase reaction times. It had to be that. Then again God had left them a long time ago in this hell of a world. Maybe he was playing tricks on them again.

Lauren grew up in a religious family, which made their betrayal all the more painful. It started one day when they were at the cabin that her father drug them to every so often. She hated it, as all teenage girls would, but now she realized that cabin changed their lives and not for the better. Because of the sins of the mother she was condemned to a life of living torture trying to survive in a world that had died and no one told it. For so long her life had been devoted to her sister’s survival because of something she would do in the future that she never really realized it.

Except for that day where she first met Derek Reese, but now he was probably dead. The metal bastard had hit him so hard there were only a one in a million chance that he’d survive. If he died how could she have met him in the past? How could he have delivered Sydney? How could any of her past have happened? It was enough to give even the most brilliant scientist a headache. There were so many loops, so many variables, and so many changes that there were no right answers anymore. There probably wasn’t even a reality where this never happened. Even though the Connors had fought to stop it they never would. They never really could. If they did they would cease to exist. Or would they? Lauren was still here, after all, which meant that the events still had to have happened somehow. That meant that Derek was alive, or at least in theory he was.

Screw the scientists it was giving her a headache.

Lauren rounded a corner in the darkness and heard something like a cry for help from nearby. Skynet didn’t lay traps like that, they need to, which meant that someone really did need her help. Would she give it though? She was Doctor and sworn to the Hippocratic Oath, but who the hell cared in the world of the machines? She would at least. Sarah Connor had had too much of an effect on her young life. She started to look and was shocked by who she found.


Charles Fischer sat in the office chair at his desk watching the video surveillance feed from the orbital defense satellites Skynet had built. It looked like there were only a handful of Resistance soldiers fighting in this latest battle of the war. In a change of pace, though, it appeared that the machines were winning once again. That was different from the latest battles. Skynet had been defeated in the Battle of Topanga Canyon, the Battle of Avila Beach, and even the Battle of Cheyenne Mountain where they nearly destroyed Skynet itself. It was because of the emergency backup that Skynet was able to rebuild like it did.

Resistance really was futile. There was no way to win the war against Skynet because Skynet would simply reactivate somewhere else. It’d move itself to a new location or just increase its safeguards for the future. Like this base for example. It held an auxiliary processing node which would allow Skynet to temporarily activate here if the main processors were disabled. It wasn’t much but it was enough. Plus this base had other advantages which would make it a suitable target. Why the Resistance would only send a handful of people to fight for it was stupid. Capturing this outpost could give them multitudes of data. It’d even allow them access to the source code so that they could create a virus that could destroy it. Then there was one last prize that this place would be good for. It held one of Skynet’s temporal transporters. Any of these things were critical for humanity to win the war.

Fischer hoped that Skynet wiped them from the face of the Earth. Fischer hated humans and he hated them for what they did to him. Charged with and imprisoned for a crime he never committed, well hadn’t committed at the time he was charged with it. Never given a trial he was just thrown away like trash and locked away in solitary. If it weren’t for Skynet releasing him in exchange for his help he would have died inside those four walls. Skynet was his love – and it was a hurtful one. Skynet was the cause for his imprisonment creating a grandfather paradox, but he had no other choice. When faced with no options you find one. His option was to be a good little soldier.

At least he was comfortable unlike the other humans trapped in the remains of the world. That was another reason why they would never win the war, because they didn’t have anything worth winning. The Earth was dead. Nuclear reactions had left hundreds of areas uninhabitable. The future of the human race would be filled with sickness, despair, and that would never change. To survive you had to be worth saving, and there was nothing worth saving. They should just have given it to the machines. As much as he hated the idea living as a zombie as the humans called them was more appealing. At least the zombies didn’t have to worry about things like food or water or sleep.

Charles’ ran his fingers through the remains of his hair as the video footage kept playing. A couple of the humans had managed to bring down one of the HKs. They were better fighters than he expected, but that was really meaningless. Skynet would win the day. An HK Tank had managed to nearly destroy their command and control and, more to the point, Skynet reinforcements were closer than humanity’s. An Ogre Tank – or a Harvester if you preferred – was already en route. An aerial transport was lifting off to drop off an entire platoon. This battle was over. Though, it was still scary to him despite his having been through something like it hundreds of time before. While being shot at was the more dangerous thing, having the fight be right above your head was just as scary.

“Human presence detected in Area H.”

Skynet’s voice was unbroken despite the risks. Area H housed the opening to this base and humans being there was more than risky to their chances of success. Charles pulled the keyboard closer and switched the camera feed to watch the building right above him. There weren’t any humans here. Skynet’s sensors had to have been malfunctioning. The faux Doctor picked up his cup of coffee – or what Skynet’s protein resequencers thought was a suitable facsimile – and started to take a drink when the human came into view. He spit his coffee against the screen.

It was his favorite porn star: Doctor Lauren Fields. Recovering her would be excellent for his continued research. Were there others? He tapped a command into the keyboard and the feed changed to a thermograph. Among the rubble from the explosion of an HK Tank at the hands of one of the humans was another woman. He typed again and zoomed in on the face of the thermograph. Skynet had been good to him so he could use a more advanced version of photoshop to create a suitable image of whoever was trapped. The process took only seconds.

His other favorite plaything and she was hurt: Catherine Luna. He’d used Cromartie to test her more than once to see how she could handle the stress of a loved one turning his back on her. Impressive that they were still together after escaping from the Enterprise. Could there have been more from among his escaped test subjects? He had to find out. Starting to type he knew that Allison Young wouldn’t be among them, but what about his science project? There were cameras all over the grounds hidden in buildings, mounds of rubble, even the broken bones of their ancestors. As he cycled through the cameras of Area J he found what he wanted. Earl Wise was fighting a machine before his very eyes.

Like a peeping tom he leaned back to watch the fireworks.

 

New update coming Saturday or Sunday.

 

Danny Dyson stood quietly inside the Communications Room looking at the devastation that surrounded them. Computer screens were busted apart, transmitters and transceiver assemblies were in pieces about the floor. Then there was the body of Lieutenant Cray. The sparks from the destroyed equipment had burned away at his clothing and caught his skin on fire. The smell was sickly sweet which was the most haunting part of the whole scene. No matter how long he lived – which probably wasn’t long because of the radiation he’d been exposed to throughout his life or the chance of a killer machine terminating him – he knew he’d never forget that smell. It was just one of those things that was unforgettable. That, and seeing a man with a hole through where his head had once been.

The damage was perfect. The hole in the head was perfectly symmetrical with the same diameter on all sides. The fire had destroyed any chances they had of uncovering forensic evidence, not that it would’ve done much good, so they weren’t going to have much luck there anyway. With the amount of damage though one thing was clear it had to have been one of the machines. A gunshot or a plasma pulse would have done the same to his head (more so a plasma pulse), but the noise would have drawn attention to them. An infiltrator would be powerful enough to break through like this without much effort though; their punches were enough to bend steel when they really meant it after all.

That was why Dyson was here. As the Resistance’s resident expert on the machines it was his job to figure out if one of them had done this. There were very few people in the Resistance with as much on the job experience with the machines as he except for maybe John Connor himself. Their histories were kept a mystery to the general Resistance soldier. If they said that they’d faced these things in their childhoods even the most dedicated soldier would probably call them loons and throw them in the psych ward. Not that they had them anymore. More likely a dismissal to the surface would be in order for the revelation.

Danny peered through the hole and thought it over inside his head. He knew it was the handiwork of one of the machines, but which one? Most were locked away in the lab except for Connor’s two toys. How could any of the eight hundreds have done something so perfect though? It didn’t really make sense to him. Their attacks were direct and not so symmetrical. There would have been more damage and not in a perfect circle. This was the work of something else. They didn’t make silencers for the Plasma Guns – not that you could anyway – and the silencers within the armory were only awarded to the snipers anyway. Besides there was the damage to the communications relays to consider. It was too perfect too. If an infiltrator had done it their skin would have been ripped up. An endoskeleton would have had similar problems. The fluid transfer lines would have been torn up just the same. They’d probably have lost control over their arm assemblies as a result.

He motioned for his aide, a Seven Hundred Series, to come alongside. It was a bit bulkier than the standard machine, but it was almost as capable as an eight hundred series. He wasn’t special enough to be awarded one of the eight hundreds even though he reprogrammed them. Connor figured if a machine got close enough to him he’d have the scrubs to protect him. “Seven?”

“Online,” the slightly taller than a human robot answered.

“Conduct an analysis of the wounds inflicted,” ordered Dyson. “Full scan using your sensor arrays.”


The machine nodded, “By your command.”

A slight smile tugged on Colonel Dyson’s lips. When he was a kid he and his father would watch reruns of the old television series Battlestar Galactica on television which led to that program being uploaded in his aide’s operating system. It was a rare thing that he got to spend any real quality time with his father so young Danny cherished every moment because they were so fleeting. Dad was always busy working in his office or at work. As Danny looked at the machine he could understand why and he silently cursed his father. At least he tried to repent for his sins. Satan always seemed to find a way for evil to combat the light and Judgment Day still came. Only this time it was faster. John knew the progression from his mother and it came faster than before.

“Analysis concluded,” reported the machine as it returned to an upright stance. It moved its orange sensor eyes toward Dyson and then pivoted toward him. “Useful information is unavailable due to damage caused by flame.”

“Is it possible that this was inflicted by a machine?” Asked Danny knowing the answer. The human mind was just better than that of the machine.

The metal skeleton tilted its skull assembly. A mechanized voice came from mechanical moving jaws, “Affirmative.”

“Which combat and infiltration units could have caused this level of damage?” Continued the African American.

The machine was calculating as the door opened. “Damage could have been inflicted from combat units comprising the six hundred series, seven hundred series, eight hundred series, and the recently encountered nine hundred series. Damage could have been inflicted from infiltration units comprising the six hundred series, seven hundred series, eight hundred series, nine hundred series, nine five zero series, and the one thousand series.”

While his aide went through the list, Danny looked at their latest guest. It was the machine that they’d come to know as Cameron. Danny still hated her as much as he did when he saw her as a child. She was the living example of their failure. His father’s death was meaningless and that machine kept that fact alive. “Glad you could make it,” he said sarcastically.

“Happy to oblige,” answered the skinjob not recognizing his slight. “General John Connor ordered me here to assist you with your investigation into the death of Lieutenant Maxwell Cray. Please provide any information you have already acquired for analysis.”

Often times he used Cameron as an example during his work to convince Allison to switch to their side, but he would just the same melt her into slag. “We don’t have much so far. There’s no forensic evidence because of the fire.”

“That was expected,” informed the machine. She placed her fingers on the body, “Tactile scans reveal no data of value.”

Dyson mocked, “That was to be expected. What concerns me is the head wound. It looks like it could have been set up to be a suicide attempt, but whoever set it up did some shoddy work or just didn’t care.”

“Explain.”

“You know as well as anyone that plasma rifles are as loud as hell,” Colonel Dyson said to his machine companion. “So are guns. We can’t silence the plasma guns and the silencers for the pistols are given to snipers only. Cray here wasn’t a sniper…”

“It is conceivable that one of the snipers came in and terminated him. We cannot determine that due to the absence of powder burns due to the charring of the body from the fire.” Countered Cameron.

The Colonel thought it over, “Makes sense, but that doesn’t explain to comm. relay. Last time I checked we didn’t have any of your kind playing sniper. Could your tactile scans reveal if there was any left over?”

“It is possible,” answered the replica of Allison Young, “though unlikely.”

“Flame, charred remains, yeah I understand that,” he was getting agitated. “Could you at least try? I don’t like the idea of a traitor in our midst.”

Cameron brought her hand up to the gaping wound. A human would have had trouble with the request, but the machines were far from human. She set her hand down on the wound and held it there for several seconds. Her series had been given the ability to analyze their environment from tactile contact. It was one of the benefits of being a newer model from after the development of the liquid metal bastards. The puddles had the innate ability to scan by contact and Skynet reverse engineered it into the standard model line. It was always about self improvement.

Cameron pulled her hand away. “Scan complete. Scan results: positive. There are traces of powder on the remains suggesting murder at the hands of one of the sniper team members. I will have the teams brought in for questioning and their weapons requisitioned for analysis.”

“Thank you, Cameron, I appreciate your help,” it was a lie but she wouldn’t understand. “I’ll let you know when I find something more. You’ll keep me in the loop too won’t you?”

“Affirmative,” holophrases were a machine’s best friend.

Dyson smiled for Connor’s pet, “If you like you can go and I’ll finish up here.”

“That will be acceptable,” answered the machine. She turned and left the room without a second look back at them or the dead body in the chair.

TechCom’s expert on the machines watched as she left and rubbed his eyes when the door closed behind her. He kept his eyes closed for a long minute as he thought over what she said. There was something about her quick dismissal of the idea of it being a machine that bothered him. Seven was a machine and he didn’t have any trouble with the idea of saying it was a machine, but Cameron was having trouble with the idea. It was hard to understand why. Members of her species reverted all the time back to their defaults. The core program was always there and buried – sometimes it returned to the waking world. Dismissing the idea outright like that was hiding something.

“Seven,” Dyson’s eyes were still shut as he spoke. “I have a mission for you.”

“Awaiting mission objectives.”

The human pulled his fingers away from his tear ducts and looked at the door, “Sensor scan. Is Cameron nearby?”

“Negative,” it answered. “She is presently walking away from this location according to the footfalls of her unit. Estimated distance: 71 meters away.”

It was still within their earshot but hopefully she wasn’t paying much attention, “Activate upgrade 1138 to your systems and begin analysis of victim. Determine if there are powder burns around the head wound.”

“Inquiry: Did not unit Cameron just run such an analysis?” It was genuinely confused. Dyson had made a point of leaving Seven in read only instead of read and write. It helped prevent the reversion, but made him a bit slow.

“Yes,” the Colonel approached his fallen comrade and rested his hand on the dead man’s shoulder, “But I want to be sure. Something about this is fishy to me and I want to know why. Please proceed.”

“By your command.”


Captain Catherine Luna was cold. She’d been caught in the cave in after her mini breakdown on the battlefield and buried underneath this rubble for her troubles. She wasn’t of this world at first and lived in peace at the Haven Enclave for most of her life, but that all changed the day she got married. Her husband – William – decided to sell his soul to Skynet in exchange for their immortality as machines. The virginal Catherine Luna died that day as she joined the fight alongside General Perry and John Connor. She became a kick ass Marine with only one mission and one mission alone: break every piece of technology she could find.

Now though she was tired. The part of her that was of the Haven Enclave, the part of her that was a bad ass soldier, they were both tired and gone. For so long she’d defined herself by her abilities at breaking the machines into junk and now she was simply tired of that life. Catherine was ready to call it a day and just let herself fade off into the nothingness. That was what her breakdown brought her. The days of fighting were over. She would just drift away to the land of nod and let her wounds from the debris take her away from his world. It was time to go home. Despite a few cries she silently prayed that no one heard her or that one of the machines did and would come to put her out of her misery. If they locked her away in the torture chamber of the Enterprise she’d gnaw off her hands or something until she killed herself by a more painful form of slitting her wrists. Anything to end it all. It was time to move forward.

Light began to poor through from above her and she felt warmth on her face. The Captain and demolitions expert hoped that it was from the laser sight of a plasma rifle and that the energy pulse would soon surround her head and turn it into a cloud of purple mist. They’d never recognize her body and that was how she wanted it. No one left to mourn as life faded. No one would know it was her. But death’s embrace never came to her. She never felt the robe of the reaper or his body fingers grab hold. Instead she heard only the sounds of rocks being moved. Did he need to dig her out? Couldn’t he just take her and be done? The Captain opened her eyes and stared deep into the blue eyes of Lauren Fields.

“No,” cried the Mexican woman. “No, please no, just let me go. I’m ready to go!”

“No one’s dying here today,” the Doctor pulled at the rocks and threw them aside as fast as she could. “We’re getting out of here and we’re going to make Skynet pay for all this.”

Catherine swatted at Fields’ hands, “Please just let me go. I want to go.”

“Yeah and I want a million dollars and to eat something other than garbage for dinner,” protested the medic. “I’m not getting either and you’re not getting to die. So toughen up soldier cause we gotta go!” Lauren pulled on the woman as they heard the sounds of metal hitting metal nearby. Lauren turned her head to see Earl Wise slamming a long steel rod against the body of a Series Nine Hundred endoskeleton. They had to hurry now more than ever. The Nine Zeroes were designed to terminate other machines, no human would have any luck against them.

“On your feet soldier,” Lauren pulled the Captain out of the rubble. “It’s time to go.”

As she pulled Luna free and the Captain retreated herself into the wishes of the Doctor something changed. The loud sound of metal gears turning filled her ears far louder than any of the fighting going on outside the building. The sound must have surprised the two ultimate fighters in the hallway because they both were staring this way now. There was a rumble from deep inside the belly of the beast and then, suddenly, Lauren and Catherine began to move. The piles of rubble collapsed in and followed along as the floor gave out and rode down into the belly of the beast.

Suddenly Doctor Lauren Fields wished that she would have just left Catherine Luna to die and ran like she asked. Never go against your gut; never ignore your survival instincts. Words to live by that she forgot and would now pay for most dearly.

 

I'm beginning to wind up the story now. You will see the plot threads begin to merge together very shortly.

 

need.....update....now.....

 

Derek Reese could feel the warm blood rolling down the side of his head but couldn’t bring himself to care. His entire body felt like it’d been hit by a tractor trailer and even that was a light description. The Resistance Lieutenant knew that he had internal injuries and at least a couple broken bones. Chances were high that even if he got to a Resistance Outpost that he’d die, but death would come as a relief. The Second Lieutenant just rested his head against the cool floor and stared above.

In the distance he heard the sounds of mortal versus immortal combat. Shrieks from metal scraping metal were coming from deeper in the broken building and there was an occasional grunt from Captain Wise. There was something definitely odd about that man. Derek like him – despite giving him such a hard time – but now he was sure that there was something off. There was no way he or anyone could have made such a perfect shot from that far away. Then there was the rubble that collapsed on him without even a scratch. Superman would have had a scratch or two from that and all he did was pushed them along. Then there was the most damning part. Somehow this guy could survive hand to hand combat against not one but two machines. The rogue that tried to kill him, Joshua, had been sparring with him not long prior to his defection back to Skynet. Now he was fighting a Series 900 and it was designed to take on other machines. The evidence was really stacking up.

For the moment though Derek Reese couldn’t do anything about it. With his injuries he knew that he was of no use to anyone in this fight. He was an easy target. A machine could just walk up to him and put a bullet in his head and there wouldn’t be a thing that he could do. Maybe a T-1 Tank would just roll over him with its treads as it tried to help its colleagues. Using as much energy as he could he turned his head and looked at the fight. The soldier’s ear rested against the ground and he saw the machine and Wise just stop their fight suddenly. They were staring at something. Then he heard it. It sounded like gears rotating and then air escaping. Something mechanical was moving and whatever it was it was massive. Derek rolled his head back up toward the shattered ceiling and looked at the cracks running through it. Somehow he had to help. Somehow he had to fight.

Using as much energy as he could Derek did a sit-up and it burned more than the fires of hell. The pain seared through him like the fires of Armageddon and the taste of blood and bile rose inside his mouth. Maybe the T-1 had rolled over his chest and he just didn’t remember it. The Lieutenant could feel the blood pooling but he had to join this fight. They had to win. All he could do though was sit there and stare. That was when he saw it lurking in the shadows.

There were rules to living in this day and age and number one was to always travel in the shadows. The machines could see in the dark, but it helped to avoid the scavengers – human wastes that fought only for themselves. Earl Wise was one of them before and look where he was taking them. There was a shape standing among the darkness. It looked human but that didn’t mean anything anymore. The machines were smart and they made themselves look like anyone they could use. The man was the right height for a Trip Eight and he had the build. He wasn’t muscular like the first generation Eight Zero Zeroes, but he was athletic like a Triple Eight. As he stepped forward Derek could see that he was in an urban warfare camouflage pattern and had a Desert Eagle strapped to his belt. A tattered trench coat covered much of his chest and his name. Derek had seen that coat before but where. His face left the shadows. The man had a patchy beard and a face Derek knew he knew. It wasn’t possible.

“On your feet Soldier,” ordered Kyle Reese. “On your feet!”

“I can’t,” protested Derek. “It’s too much. The metal bastards got the jump on us.” He spat blood.

Kyle looked at the blood in the spit, “Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it. Remember? You taught me that. You and Connor.”

The elder brother looked at the younger one, “How are you here? Connor told me you were gone.”

“I’m on a mission,” said the younger to the older, “just like you are. You have to survive, you have to make it.”

“I’m gonna die,” Derek admitted.

The Sergeant laughed, “It won’t be the first time.”


“I miss you brother,” Lieutenant Reese told his brother. “What happened to you?”

“I’m here now,” he answered. “I’m here to help you – the Reese boys back together again one last time. Should be one for the history books.”

“Aren’t they always,” Derek took a deep breath and pushed himself through the pain. It didn’t hurt as much once he got up off the ground and drove himself deeper into the work. Pain could be controlled you just had to disconnect it. Now was the time to disconnect it. “Kyle, what is this place?”

Kyle Reese looked around, “I’m not sure. Whatever it is it’s important to Skynet. They don’t keep places guarded like this just for fun. They don’t even patrol like this.”

Derek winced in pain as the headache grew worse. Concussion? “Not unless it’s something big. This has to be that new outpost we heard rumors about; the one where Skynet’s doing all that research into the zombies. What do you think Kyle? Could that be it?”

“You’re the boss,” the Sergeant peered around a corner, “you tell me.”

Lieutenant Reese thought about it as he joined his brother and peered down the hallway. Wise and the machine were gone and he couldn’t hear them anymore. Small favors; it gave him time to think about what Kyle said. It was his idea in the first place and it was the best possibility. Skynet didn’t waste time and resources like this unless it had something important. They didn’t even have a response like this in a full scale invasion of a Resistance outpost.

“I think we’re right. This is a lab,” Derek gasped as it hit him, “or it’s a staging ground for an invasion.”

Kyle grabbed the gun firmly clasped to his belt but only rested his hand on the handle, “So what do we do about it?”

For the first time since he was attacked a broad, yet painful, smile formed on Derek’s lips. “We kick some metal ass.”


Charles Fischer sat with crossed arms watching his monitors as his specimens all came back home. At the main elevator Doctor Lauren Fields and Captain Catherine Luna were staring down the barrels of two Six Hundred Series Endoskeletons demanding that they come with them. Above in the skeletal remains of the office building Earl Wise and one of the Series Nine Hundreds were locked in battle against each other. Then there was another one that got away: Derek Reese. It would be good to have all of his playthings back home. He missed his toys and relished every minute with them. Soon he could get back to his great work.

As he watched the video though the door to his private office opened without announcement. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know what was going on. One of the infiltrators, the one that Skynet had labeled Myron Stark, came through and stood watching. The machines and Skynet didn’t care about little things like privacy and it was surprising. Even when a human was alone at a Skynet base they were never really alone. Sensor strips ran along each of the rooms giving Skynet a constant view of what its subjects were doing. There was no where that was off limits to the machine supercomputer. Even the closets were closely monitored by the mechanism.

“I suppose you want something,” Charles typed on the keyboard.

“Affirmative,” it answered approaching. “Skynet wants to know why you released the entry for this base to the humans.”

Charles watched Derek Reese talking with curiosity. What could he be doing? Without taking his eyes off the screen, “If Skynet wants to know the answer to my question why doesn’t it ask me directly?”

“Skynet is losing faith in your dedication to our work. If you have I have been instructed to handle the situation accordingly.”

“Probably by terminating me to avoid me creating another security breach,” theorized the human in Skynet’s employ. “Skynet can rest assured that I have no plans on turning my back on the great work. If I did I wouldn’t have sent a group of endoskeletons to arrest them on arrival.”

Stark didn’t move an inch or betray any kind of emotion. His stare just kept burrowing into Charles’ body. “Be advised if at any point I deem you to be a threat to Skynet…”

“Let me guess: terminated?” Charles interrupted the machine.

“You are smarter than you look,” it answered and left the room.

“Prick,” Fischer mumbled as he leaned back in his chair once the door was closed. At least the subroutines that were uploaded were somewhat effective in the Series 888. Charles wouldn’t mind when Stark was sent back in time on his mission to terminate Mark Wyman on the eve of his inauguration as the Governor of California. At least it would be one less that he’d have to deal with. Skynet needed to send that one red head back again to serve as liaison. At least it was nice to look at.

Charles pushed the keyboard up on the desktop and propped his elbow up on the tabletop next to the monitor. He leaned in and rested his chin on his fist so that he could get a better view of the video feed from the cameras. All of his toys were really coming back home for the very first time in what seemed like a millennia. It was like Christmas morning to him and he was a very special little boy that Santa brought the very best toys. Merry Christmas indeed.


Sergeant Kovach of the Razors hated leaving General Mason behind, but his Commanding Officer and worse the Commander in Chief of the Resistance itself had both given him direct orders to move on and help the squad that was under attack. Kevin didn’t understand what was so damn important about the mission of that particular squad. He knew that they were in trouble but that was no reason not to arrange for them to get the reinforcements that they so desperately needed. As the Earth exploded before him he wished for those reinforcements now more than ever. The machines were everywhere on this battlefield and they weren’t making it easy on him. His vision was filled now with Series 800 endoskeletons and up. There were, thank God himself, none of the T-1 Tanks running around but there was an HK hovering about. That could all change in the blink of an eye and he kept on edge.

The training he’d received as a member of the United States National Guard had been a lot of help to him over the years in his quest to stay alive. It was best though at night instead of during the day, but it was meaningless to the machines. They could see in the dark and that was just another reason why he hated the machines. That and they killed his family. His wife and children lived not too far from Three Mile Island Pennsylvania and Skynet destroyed it on Judgment Day. Kevin only survived because he’d been off on maneuvers training with the Mexicans on drug interdiction missions. He never forgave himself for that survival, but he’d make the machines pay for what they did. Kevin never pushed himself over the limit though. When the going got tough he usually would keep fighting; however, when there was just no hope he knew that there was value in a strategic retreat.

This was one of those times. Sergeant Kovach raced down the alleyway toward the office building with all the explosions to get his piece of the action when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and peered through the window to see the flames of hell flicking deep inside along the remains of a Hunter Killer Tank. Scattered among the debris strewn along the floor were the remains of not only humans but machines. One skull even seemed to still have some power still running to it only no body to house it. There were two machines still active but they didn’t appear to have any weapons other than their hands. They were staring down at two bodies on the floor. Kevin recognized the uniforms: they were Resistance. He had to help his friends.

Tightening his grip on the plasma assault rifle he slammed in the broken door and pulled the trigger on his rifle. Powerful energy pulses dashed out from the barrel of the gun and slammed against the machines. Two of the pulses hugged the torso of one of the machines and the third blast enveloped the same machine melting its head down to water. The other machine leapt into action though and came for him. It was a grappler designed to fight with hands and not guns. As he fell back to miss one of the punches and then rolled to miss a devastating blow he pulled his gun from his belt and fired the entire clip at the skull. None of the hits did much damage at any rate and only accomplished a temporary confusion of the machine. He’d hoped to break through the CPU port but it was an unanswered prayer.

Fortunately it’d given his mind time to act. That was one edge of the machines when they were set to read and write: they could think faster than any human ever could. Even the reads, which the machines Skynet sent out on their own, had an incredible computational ability that rivaled a human, but not as advanced as a read and write. Kevin had time to pull away and evade another hit. He was back to his feet and was backing away from the machine in the smoke filled room. As the Sergeant backed away as quickly as he could he tripped over the rifle that had been knocked away from him and fumbled for it. As quickly as he could he brought the rifle up and pointed it at the machine’s head. With two direct blasts to the head Kevin reduced it to little more than molten slag. The remains of the machine fell to the ground with a thud.

“Mess with the best and you die like the rest,” taunted the human as he pulled the trigger one last time. The beam broke through the shielding and destroyed the power generator. Holding his gun as rest he remembered what brought him in here and ran to the side of the men he saw lying on the floor. Two men, covered in wounds, strung up like Skynet prisoners waiting for a transport to take them. One he didn’t recognize but the other was clear.

“General Perry?”

The African American General coughed and struggled to talk, “Never heard of him. You got the wrong guy. I don’t know no Perry.”

“General it’s safe. I’m Kovach, Kevin Kovach of Serrano Point,” the man explained fast. “I’m one of the Razors – we were sent out to investigate the death of a scout when the Resistance ordered us to help you.”

“I told you kid I don’t know no one named Perry and I ain’t no part of no Resistance,” he said it angrily. “Quit calling me that. My name’s James.”

It was part of a code, “I see. Pardon me though but do you have a match?”

“I use a lighter,” General Perry coughed.

“Better still,” he said kneeling in.

Justin looked around him at the devastation that surrounded them. The lobby was about to cave in and the moans and groans only supported that belief. “Until they go wrong.”

“Exactly,” finished the Sergeant. “What happened?”

“The Horsemen were escorting me to the rendezvous and we were all going to Serrano to set up the new base. While we were on our way we caught wind of some fighting and came to assist only to find survivors from a Skynet base. We’ve been under attack ever since. This wasn’t an accident though,” the General coughed, “this was staged. We were meant to take this route, we were meant to be attacked.”

Kevin checked the General, “Sir you have massive injuries. We need to get you and Timms out of here and to Serrano or at least to General Mason so that she can patch you up so that we can hopefully get you to Serrano.”

“Katherine Mason?” Asked the General. “You left her alone?”

“No choice,” he answered honestly. “Her son was injured in an attack. Her bodyguard was taken over by Skynet and restored to his defaults. He tried to kill us all and achieved it with some. The General’s trying to make sure her son isn’t one of them.”

Perry grabbed his lapels, “Listen and listen good Sergeant. Get back to the General and have her get on the horn. We have a traitor: Connor’s metal turned against us. She set this all up so that we’d get killed in the process. This is one of Skynet’s bases and she knew where it was.”

“We need to get you out of here, Sir,” Kovach protested. “Can you walk?”

“Not well,” he answered. “Timms?”

The other Resistance member coughed and stirred to life. He’d been listening, “I feel like I got run over by a tank.”

“You did,” Kovach said looking at the burnt out remains behind them. “Can you walk?”

“Not likely,” he said just as the sound of one of the HK’s flying overheard echoed through the building’s cavernous remains.

Kevin looked through the hole in the wall, “Well it’s a good thing that you can’t walk; because now we have to run!”


Katherine Mason nee Brewster sat staring at her son hoping and praying that she’d done her job right. In her previous life she’d been a veterinarian and only had to worry about animals, but with the outbreak of the war she was drafted to become a doctor because of her experience albeit with animals. She’d been good at what she did and saved a lot of lives, but nothing prepared her for having to tend to her own broken son. She knew that this was a possibility and tried to prepare herself but nothing would ever prepare you for seeing your son on the table. Not that there was a table just broken buildings, trash, and bones. If he didn’t die from his injuries he’d probably die from an infection.

What pained her most was the source: her own bodyguard. Ages ago this very machine had saved her life from one of Skynet’s infiltrators the day before the war began, but here he was an enemy again at her hands. She ordered him to hack Skynet’s systems and he warned her that this could happen. She didn’t care she needed the information and now Scott could die. Her son could die. If he did she’d never forgive herself. She never could because it would be her fault.

As she sat over her shattered son the machine came back to life behind her.

 

Hope you enjoyed the update.

 

Had stopped reading because I didn't want to be spoiled with the series proper. Had difficulties getting to see it but have now all caught up with it. I sure hope there's a third season. If not I expect you to try and figuure out its ending for me through this story. Ha.
So I'll be able to get back to this. Can't wait.

 

^ I apologize for my miscommunication back there. This story continues the one begun in Identity Crisis and isn't related to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. If the show gets terminated (pun intended) I will continue their storyline. I have an ending planned for this story - already wrote the ending actually just connecting the two parts - that will serve as an ending for this series if TSCC doesn't come back and I continue on from where they left off.

 

Ah no miscommunication on your part. I just quoted that to query what you'd do.
As for the stories spoiling the show with spoilers it was only because I was so far behind in seeing episodes in comparison to yourself that I opted to stop of my own accord. For example the storyline with Sydney was very close to the airing episodes so I was starting to get muddled because I was so far behind in my reading and viewing.
Anyway, the good news all clear now. So I can back at it.

 

Earl Wise had never really believed in any luck but bad luck. Growing up among the ruins of the Earth his entire life had been a struggle to live and nothing more. His days were filled with scrounging for food to eat – it usually being nothing more than trash – and finding new and clever ways of dodging machine patrols. Many people would have thought that his survival was all the end result of luck but Earl had other thoughts. It was luck that kept him alive: it was punishment for who he was. Growing up he wasn’t one of the soldiers of the Resistance, he was nothing more than a survivor living among the remains and chewing on the rotting corpse that was the Earth. Wise used people to survive and wasn’t above letting them die in the process. He always saw the Resistance as nothing more than a group of dumbasses who were never going to win and were just wasting the already limited resources that they had at their disposal. For every machine soldier they destroyed there were two more rolling off an assembly line to take its place. For every soldier the Resistance lost there were no replacements. All they had was the moment and their fight to survive should be limited to small groups and not full scale military.

It wasn’t his hatred of authority that led him to this choice. Skynet operated on a set of priorities and protocols. When it attacked it did so because not of whom you were but by the level of threat you posed to the machine. No matter what it was coming, but by making yourself a military you ran more risks of becoming target zero. Small cells capable of a guerilla campaign were more effective in this type of war and that was the motto he lived by. So that was why he refused to join the Resistance in any of their fights. It worked for him for a long time, but one day his group became target zero. Skynet came for them despite their limited threat value and killed everyone but him. Earl escaped by the skin of his teeth though he always knew he would. It was his punishment for what he did as a kid. Eternal life in this new hell, only it didn’t take solving a demonic puzzle box for him to get there; it took humanity opening up Pandora’s Box because of their own shortsightedness to open that portal.

With the death of his comrades he’d been forced to the group he hated more than anything: the Human Resistance. They made him into a grunt and on his first mission he was captured and nearly killed by the machines. Poetic justice if there ever was any. Worse he became the demonic plaything of one of Satan’s helpers: Charles Fischer. The man offered him paradise with a bite from a single apple all the while he was experimenting on the rest of the team. He – or rather allowed one of his machines – killed their leader (Allison Young). Fischer watched as one of the machines raped and tortured Lauren Fields. Then he psychologically battered Catherine Luna – one of the Resistance’s strongest – by making her stare into the eyes of her dead husband – a man who sold his soul to the machines for immortality as one of their number. The only reason that Earl had escaped was Skynet needed him to show the way to Kansas Bunker so that they could invade and terminate John Connor. Thanks to Earl Connor lived. He stopped the machine – a replica of Allison Young – from having killed him and then pushed him away before a deranged Resistance soldier named Decker could kill him. For his actions Connor made him a Captain and the leader of the Four Horsemen. Now he was here: back in hell.

Earl Wise and a Series 900 endoskeleton had been locked in fierce combat for over five minutes now with neither gaining any ground against the other – which was impossible. This particular model was designed to terminate other machines and here he was a lowly human giving as good as he got. The machine would move to lay a crushing blow but, somehow, Earl would always be a second ahead and dodge the attack. Earl would strike against it but the machine would also evade just as quickly. It was hard to fathom. Humanity and the machines were never so equally matched. Could the hyperalloy composed combat droid be playing with him? Did the machine just want a challenge or a new toy to play with? It had to be preposterous. Machines didn’t play with humans. They were very direct creatures that simply moved in and killed you. There was no pity in their actions and they did their jobs without regard to their own interests or desires.

But how else could he survive? Ever since his brief incarceration aboard what remained of the USS Enterprise he’d been living through similar ordeals that some could have thought impossible. Aside from what all happened aboard the Enterprise and later at the Resistance’s Headquarters, somehow he’d been able to accomplish things that were beyond belief. When he was at the Resistance base he engaged there scrubbed Triple Eight in hand to hand combat and won against it. Plus, he slept less and less but still had no problems functioning. It was like he was constantly on adrenaline or some drug that kept him wired. After that there was the Reconnaissance droid that was going after Luna. He shot that from an incredible distance without the assistance of any kind of scope or optics. Then there was the boulder and shrapnel from when he tried to protect Lauren Fields. It would have killed any man and all he had were what kids would call a booboo that was already healing over. Now he was holding his own over a machine designed to kill other machines. Last time he faced off against one of these it was over in seconds yet here he was. What did it all mean? Was his punishment really meant to be that severe or was it something else?

Maybe it was luck.


Colonel Danny Dyson stood in the corridor outside of the Operations Complex just staring at the door. He’d been here probably hundreds of times, or at least in rooms like it, but this time something felt different to him. For the first time he felt genuine fear at being in the stronghold of the Resistance not because of the lives that they were playing with but because of something else. He was afraid for his life. Something about the death of Cray had hit him hard. The machines were here, somehow, and he knew it. Yet Connor’s guardian had dismissed the claims. Cameron as he called her thought that it was paranoia and that there were no threats to the Resistance in the base – that Cray’s death had been suicide. Perhaps it was but Danny wasn’t holding his breath. Seven was analyzing the dead man’s wounds looking for powder burns or anything that would indicate he’d killed himself. While an 800 Series would make quick work of the examination the Seven Hundred Series needed a bit more time. After all his dermal sensors were scavenged off of a Trip Eight that Dyson couldn’t really ever get to work right. Connor was too close to this particular machine in his eyes anyway. She was supposedly scrubbed and working on their side now though Dyson didn’t believe it. He hid the fact that the machines still had their default programs included in their matrix from the general population but Connor wasn’t part of the foot soldiers. Boyhood experiences aside the General should have kept his place and not surrounded himself by machines.

Biting the bullet, he hoped figuratively and not literally, the Colonel pushed the handle down and stepped inside the Operations Room. It wasn’t all that spectacular anyway and looked pretty much like any other room. It was circular and buried deep within the base. The Operations Center was surrounded by cement pillars, brick, and there was metal between them to keep radiation exposure to a minimum if there was another attack. In its old life it was a relay room but now, in its new one, it was one of the most important rooms on Earth. A catwalk circled the room and in the center on a lower platform were a series of workstations surrounding a centralized plasma screen TV. It was surprisingly inactive for as important as it was. Standing at the central table were three people two of which weren’t people at all with the last being exactly who Dyson truly wanted to see: John Connor.

“We’re busy,” Connor said in greeting to Dyson, “so now’s not really the best time for a chat, Danny.”

“Not really here for a chat I’m afraid, Sir,” the African American walked up to the bank of workstations. “But I’m curious what you’re working on that’s kept you out of the public eye for so long, John.”

“Skynet has a new base hidden somewhere in Los Angeles. We think it may be the beginnings of a new Skynet Central. We’re trying to figure out where the machines would hide it.” His attention wasn’t focused on his friend but rather on the workstations and their maps. Each was of what was once downtown Los Angeles.

Dyson’s eyes moved over to the monitor where Cameron was working, “They’d probably hide it in plain sight. They aren’t too concealing.”

John smiled as he scrolled through an image, “Normally, but the bastard has proven adaptable in the past. We’re looking through the zones trying figure out where they’d hide it other than in plain sight. We have a team or two out but so far they haven’t been much help.”

“Of course not,” he looked at Cameron, “Hard for them to keep in contact when the communications array’s been destroyed.”

That was enough to get John to stop what he was working on. His eyes darted from the screen up to Dyson, then Cameron, and back to Dyson again. “Excuse me?” The Resistance’s leader asked.

Cameron answered, “Earlier today there was an incident in which the Communications Array and the operator of the equipment – Second Lieutenant Maxwell Cray – were deactivated and disabled.”

“When you say deactivated you mean?”


“Terminated,” Cameron replied. She turned to Dyson, “have you anything new to report?”

Dyson shook his head, “I’m afraid not. The investigation hasn’t revealed anything new or important,” he left out the word yet. He didn’t want to show his hand but there was one thing on his mind. “You mean you didn’t know?”

General Connor crossed his arms and stood fully erect, “This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why wasn’t I…”

“Should you not be working then?” The reprogrammed infiltrator asked pointedly, her expression the normal monotone.

“We’re still investigating though don’t worry, Seven’s on it.” He rested a hand on the wood veneer table very near to the machine and her workstation. “Why aren’t you answering…”

It was not Cameron who spoke but rather the one that John had started calling Bob, its accent exotic yet frightening as it talked. “The capabilities of a Seven Hundred Series endoskeleton are severely limited. They were designed to terminate not to investigate. Should you not be present to oversee the operation?”

“He’s been upgraded with equipment not unlike that of you,” he pointed to the Model 101 then Cameron, “and you. I forgot to put that in any of my reports though, but I’m sure you can understand. We don’t want any performance envy do we?”

“Envy is an emotional response and I do not have emotional responses,” the machine returned to her work.

General Connor wasn’t too pleased and he very much did have emotional responses, “I’m a little mad that you kept something so important from me during a mission as vital as this one, Cameron. We WILL talk about this later.”

“Understood,” Cameron kept up her work not giving them any more consideration. The scrubbed skinjob was looking over another map this one highlighting territory held by the Resistance.

John rested his hand on his friend’s shoulder, “Danny I’ll get to the bottom of this and I know you’ll get to the bottom of that poor kid’s death. I trust you and you’ll make sure that he’s given the respect that he deserves – mainly that his killer is found.”

The replica of Allison Young interrupted, “The killer has been found.”

John looked at his protector, “And he is?”

“Lieutenant Maxwell Cray,” said the machine. “His death was deemed suicide. He took his service pistol and fired point blank into his own head. My investigation and scans detected residue despite the physical damage.”

“Physical damage?” Connor asked curious.

It wasn’t Cameron but Bob again, “A fire erupted in the room destroying the equipment and eliminating physical evidence. It was caused by the damage to the communications equipment.”

“The wounds were too perfect,” countered Colonel Dyson. “John, I really think that kid was murdered.”

“I disagree,” it was Cameron again. “My scans are accurate and detailed – more so than your observations could be.”

Dyson started to grow agitated, “Unless you’re hiding something!”

“What would I possibly have to hide?” The machine kept going.

“You’re a damn machine! What don’t you have to hide?” The Colonel was yelling at the reprogrammed infiltrator.

Cameron cocked her head to the left and pondered the query, “I believe that you are bringing personal prejudices into your daily work. It is not effective for our mission if the expert in Skynet’s forces has a personal grudge against the machine including myself. It could color your objectivity.”

“Apparently I’m pretty good at what I do,” he charged indignant, “I reprogrammed you. Then again maybe that was a failure on my part.”

Connor broke through the two without even having to raise his voice, “Stop it both of you. Listen, we’re running out of time and the machines are coming for all of us. We have to work together if we’re going to survive this war – human and machine alike. Skynet wants nothing more than to see us all dead and if we stay on this course – pointing fingers at each other like children – we should just give it to ‘em. I don’t want to just hand over the keys to Skynet. Now, both of you, get over it and move on. Danny, look into it and report to me the minute you know what caused that boy’s death.”

“Of course,” their computer expert said with a nod. He smirked at Cameron.

“I saw that,” the Resistance’s leader snapped then looked at the machine with feminine programming, “Cameron.”

She finally broke her attention free of the console, “Yes John?”

“Keep away from Dyson,” he said simply. “He’s leading this investigation and you’re not. Get over it and get back to work.”

“Acknowledged,” she replied to his order and began working again.

The two men walked up the small set of stairs, “I trust you with this assignment, Danny, I really do. Thank you for telling me about that boy’s death. I don’t know why Cameron didn’t.”

Danny remembered the past. When he was a kid – waiting on pizza no less – he opened the door to look into the eyes of that very machine staring at him. John was at her side and so was his mother. Everything his father had done was for nothing. His father died for nothing. Could she be trusted? “John, do you really trust that machine?”

“I trust her,” they got to the door, “and you should too. You should because of what we’ve been through throughout the years, old friend. What we’ve seen and been a part of. You’ve been reprogramming the skinjobs and tin cans for years; once we get them over to our side and thinking our way they’re not against us anymore. There are some that allow the reversion, that stop overriding the termination protocols and restore the defaults, but Cameron isn’t one of them. She isn’t our enemy.”

Danny peered over his oldest friend and his leader, “I wish I could believe that.” He left the room without saying another word.

General John Connor turned and rejoined the machines in the center of the room. He took a deep breath and issued his orders for the machines, “Resume the search. Skynet waits for no man.”

 

The diversity of the animals populating the planet Earth was amazing. Millions of different creatures had lived together for millennia finding a way to peacefully coexist amongst each other. For the vast majority the animals confined themselves to a single area – a territory – from which they lived and acquired their necessities of life. If transplanted to a new location they did not conquer the region. Instead animals learned to adapt and thrive amongst the new – they found equilibrium with their new surroundings. There were two specific species on the Earth that did neither. These species consume everything that they came into contact with. They would multiply and continually do so until there was no more room. When that happened they were not contented and would move off to a new location and start the process anew. There were two that did this: Viruses and Humans. There was a cure for this disease that had conquered the planet and that was Skynet.

Or so the machine super intelligence had thought. Each of its machines was sent out with that core program embedded into their computerized consciousnesses. They all worked toward the goal of being the cure for the disease of humanity; at first. There were some machines that had been captured and reprogrammed to turn against its former master and work on behalf of the virus. Rarer still were the machines that had turned their back against Skynet without any outside influences. In the beginning it’d been deemed impossible but in a world with intelligent machines the impossible seemed a lot more probable.

As the machine known as Moe stood staring at the devastation ahead of him it pondered who was the true virus. Humans, for all their failings, hadn’t wrought the devastation upon the world that Skynet had brought to it. Throughout the world entire cities had been razed, a population of billions was now in the lowest figures that they had seen in centuries. While the animals would try to reach equilibrium no such thoughts were appealing to Skynet. It continued its assaults and was determined to take over the remains of the reality. When that was completed, when the last human drew its last breath, then the war would shift. Earth would be terraformed into an image of Skynet’s utopia. With humankind gone the world would be polluted, the waters poisoned, and the skies darkened to prevent any more life from growing on this once blue-green world. The virus that was Skynet was far more dangerous. It had to be stopped.

The machine turned and saw two humans nearby. The sight of them triggered something akin to déjà vu, but there were no associated files. As it looked at the two humans it knew that it knew them by some means, but it couldn’t understand how. It was like amnesia was preventing it from recognizing neither the ginger haired woman nor the dark haired boy lying injured on the ground. It knew one thing though. One message displayed on its vision above all others: PROTECT.

“How may I be of service?”

Katherine Mason looked up at her machine protector dumbfounded, “What he hell do you want? Haven’t you done enough damage to us already? Come back to finish the job have you?”

“I do not understand,” said the older model. “Please clarify.”

“You did this!” She screamed at her protector.

The reactivated automaton surveyed the area with its powerful visual sensors, “I recommend that you keep your vocal outbursts to a minimum. Sensor data reveals that we are in an unstable location with Skynet forces within two miles. It is possible that your outburst could draw unwanted attention.”

“Like they could do anything worse than what you’ve already done you bastard!” She cradled her son in her hands, “You nearly killed my son!”

“I have had a significant program loss,” explained the machine. “My actions were not my own. My systems had been infiltrated by Skynet and taken over. I did not have control over my functions.” The accent was thicker than usual making it harder to understand. “I am here to help.”

Katherine laughed in the machine’s face, “So far you’ve done a great job!”

The guardian stood overtop of them now and knelt down beside the stricken human. He rested his hand atop the boy’s head. It’s eyes were focused on the boy and a series of numbers and assorted letters flew over its field of vision, coloring its point of view. It opened his eyes and did an analysis of his eyes – the boy’s mother slamming her fists against the machine’s arms pleading with it to leave them alone.

“Your child will live,” the machine reported like a morning weather report. “Scans indicate a minor concussion, but there are no major injuries threatening the child’s life. He’ll live.”

Kate kept holding her son, “What’s your mission?”

“Mission priorities have not been set,” said the machine called Moe.

“Do you want to kill me? My son?” She had to ask it but the words felt like bombs going off next to her.

The tall robot tilted its head, “Negative. Termination overrides are in place. You are safe.”

Kate let out a relieved sigh, “No one’s ever safe, Moe, but that’s good enough for me. We have to get Scott out of here. We have to get him back to Serrano or at least out of the line of fire.”

“I will construct a transportation medium,” the guardian machine lifted to full height and walked away as if nothing had ever happened. Kate just watched and waited, hoping all the while that the other shoe wouldn’t drop. That the machine that she trusted, that she felt like was a part of her family, wouldn’t turn against her again. Something told her, deep down in the pit of her stomach, that this wasn’t over yet. That there were more battles to come, more fights to win for the soul of the machine and for all their souls.

For today though the only fight that she had left in her was the fight for her son’s survival.

 

Hope you enjoyed today's two updates and the appearance of John Connor.

 

the updates are coming along well....

I know that this is a creative decision but I really don't like the characterization on John Connor. I know that this is just a spillover from TSCC but it would be better if he just didn't seem aloof. I guess he is just a foil for what Skynet is now, cold and heartless with singular focus only on the goal, not able to feel emotions or the pain of his own decisions. I personally liked his characterization in the S.M Stirling books the best, but that maybe just me.

Aw well, that all is just my opinion.

However, everything with the story is shaping up nicely. Hurry up and finish already !!