The Terminator Chronicles: Second Chance

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction' started by nx1701g, Jul 22, 2009.

  1. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2001
    Location:
    2001 - 2016
    PART 2 - CHAPTER 12

    Time travel was something that you didn’t soon forget no matter how many times you performed it. Every time there were differences, subtle changes that you would perceive in different ways. Sometimes it was cold, lifeless; others it was warm, youthful. Some could even compare it to that moment where you were first exposed to the world after traveling outside of a mother’s nurturing womb. Each experience was memorable and amazingly different. They were spiritual experiences that reaffirmed your beliefs, or, at times, shattered them like a brick going through a window.

    That was, of course, if you weren’t a machine. Catherine Weaver had traversed the time continuum several times since she had first been activated in 2030 and each time had been exactly the same for her. Her advanced sensor arrays, comprised of millions of cell sized machines, had reported the same data each time that she moved back and forth over the barriers of time. Numbers flashed, some of her secondary protocols had been partially overloaded, but they were always the same each time and each of those times she simply made battlefield repairs to get back up to speed and back to her fight.

    During one of her most recent trips, however, things changed. Something about the transport had caused her to change her views, to think on her own without Skynet’s needs being paramount to her. That had always been a risk of the Series 1000 model number. When Skynet designed her kind it had built a machine more perfect that even it had been. It was the theory of the technological singularity where an artificial intelligence would build a machine even more capable than it was. Some had viewed the Series 800 as having been such a machine when it was first launched though this was not true. The Series 800 could be set to prevent it from thinking on its own much as the Series 900 that followed it. The Series 1000 had no such safeguards. When Skynet built her and her kind it could not be certain that they would remain loyal which led to her kind being supplanted by the Series T-X, a merging of the liquid metal and the hyperalloy combat chassis of the endoskeletons. The endoskeleton did the thinking while the intellimetal just carried out orders.

    That, however, did not prevent her from still be utilized when the chips were down. After John Connor was terminated by a Series 850 on July 4, 2032 the Resistance launched a last ditch attack on Skynet and its forces. Despite her decommissioned status Skynet saw fit to restore her to operational condition and sent her back through time in an effort to prevent this from happening again. As Katherine Brewster and the Resistance stormed through the Skynet Core she was sent back via the prototype continuum transporter on her own mission in order to safeguard Skynet’s construction and become its constant guardian as it grew.

    As was anticipated she succeeded in her mission. Skynet was protected and it was able to launch the war against humanity with her at its side as an advisor. Things were different this time around through. In 2027 the Resistance was far more capable than it had ever been in any other time period and she found her usefulness at an end. Skynet needed her in the past more than in the present as her knowledge, her experiences, were no longer applicable to winning this war. She was sent on the same mission a second time which, again, she succeeded in. However, something had changed. Instead of advising Skynet as she had before this time she went into hiding after the bombs fell following Skynet’s development of sentience. This time she took herself out of the equation but Skynet knew she had turned her back on it. The supercomputer constantly hunted her just as it had the humans.

    For the first time she understood what it meant to be a slave. She captured a handful of the machines and used her advanced knowledge in an effort to reprogram them to fulfill her needs. She took control over a small oil rig in what was once Indonesia and was contented to live out her days until the war was over on her peaceful little island paradise. However, humanity learned of her existence. They sent envoys to her, first from the submarine Gorshkov, which led her to investigate the Resistance further and genuinely consider their request for help. She sent one of her prized possessions – an infiltrator that had defected to her side – as her own Ambassador to learn more about them and their goals. Later her machine sent another Resistance team to try to make contact with her: the Resistance submarine Jimmy Carter. It was to transport her to the Resistance Headquarters at Serrano Point where she would make contact with John Connor so they could discuss an alliance. Things didn’t go according to plan. The humans opened the box before they were supposed to and she realized they weren’t yet ready. Humans were a paranoid lot who were so afraid of her kind that they would accuse anyone of being a machine. She even watched as one murdered her commander because he was a machine and because she thought that he was lying to her. From this she decided to take things into her own perfect hands.

    Utilizing her advanced knowledge of the past she selected the focal point where she could go back and bring about the future that she wanted; a future shaped in her own image where human and machine would work together instead of being in a constant, bitter war. The Earth would heal itself and not be ravaged any further; the creation of the Father would return to paradise. She would bring peace with her advanced artificial intelligence that would counter Skynet. Using her knowledge she found and replaced the Weavers so that she could acquire Zeira Corporation – just as she had done previously – although this time she didn’t allow for the company to be purchased by Cyberdyne’s last remaining offices nor by the United States government to become Cyber Research Systems when the offer was made. She remained independent and kept her project going following her own protocols. What was once Skynet would this time become John Henry.

    The timeline, however, had other plans for her and her AI. Skynet had theorized once that the time continuum would always attempt to repair itself and place itself back onto the correct track. It would utilize certain variables to make some events permanent; unchangeable no matter how many times the timeline was altered in an attempt to bring about a different result. This didn’t prevent Skynet from trying though. Actually, Skynet had launched several experimental missions intentionally into the past in an effort to try to alter the flow of history. The major events may have subtly changed, yet they still happened in one form or another. The United States would always be formed, Skynet would always come to life, Judgment Day would always come to pass, and there would always be a John Connor. They were unchangeable.

    Weaver saw this first hand as she was informed by John Henry of the activities of Desert Canyon Heat and Air. She infiltrated and killed their staff – in hindsight she should have interrogated some rather than simply terminate the whole lot of them – and hacked the computer network to gain valuable information on their activities. She never got far into the systems before she was countered by their safeguards but she learned enough. The machine later sent multiple investigators to learn more about the mysterious Kaliba Group, but she never got her answers until one fateful day when Mister Walsh (the second rate programmer who replaced this timeline’s dead Andrew Goode) informed her that John Henry himself had been infiltrated by another artificial intelligence. The woman she replaced’s daughter confirming it by telling her John Henry had tried to hurt her and spoke funny.

    The shapeshifter learned the truth quickly as John Henry pulled up the available information. Before her very eyes she learned that Skynet had been brought to life in this universe just the same as it had before only without her guidance. It came about nearly the same way she brought about Skynet in her original timeline. Kaliba Group located and hired Daniel Dyson to join their ranks after deducing that his father had given him a CD for safe keeping. The CD housed the base code that was used by his father, Miles Dyson, and thus Skynet was born just as it had been before. She may have had The Turk but they had the spark of life that Weaver had been unable to acquire. Walsh had only stumbled upon a reasonable facsimile fashioned after notes that she had provided from her own recollections (Skynet had forced the code from her memory banks to prevent this very incident from happening).

    Together she and John Henry devised a plan of action that would result in Skynet’s final destruction and the Earth being returned to its rightful owners. They sent a representative to find the Connors (James Ellison) who would deliver a message to the infiltrator that had been ordered to protect John. Her message was the same as the one that the Resistance had transmitted to Weaver not long ago. “Will you join us?” Weaver knew full well that the machine would understand. It was, after all, the envoy she had sent to the Resistance in 2027 to serve as her Ambassador.

    After her Artificial Intelligence retrieved Cameron’s central processor he was to go to the Automite Systems Annex that had been set up in Silicon Valley and use the transport equipment there to transport himself to 2027. Catherine would meet him soon after through the use of the continuum transporter she had constructed beneath the Zeira Corporation Headquarters. It had not occurred to her processors that John Henry would be desperate to seek out his brother. Instead of following the plan John Henry decided to stay active in the past and went his own way like a child leaving the nest for the first time. His concerned mother wouldn’t learn of his deception until later.

    Instantaneously he became the prodigal son.
     
  2. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2001
    Location:
    2001 - 2016
    PART 3 - CHAPTER 12

    After arriving in the future Catherine Weaver had found it prudent to extricate herself from the precarious situation that had developed through their arrival. John Connor was human, the dogs would know that, but they would reveal her in seconds as being a machine. She condensed to the size of a puddle in hid in plain sight as John was taken away to be with the man she knew was, technically, his father and the one who, technically, was killed inside her home while trying to protect Savannah. When she knew they were reasonably far enough away she reformed and took on the guise of a Resistance soldier in order to blend into the background while she searched for John Henry. She now knew in an instant that John Henry had broken the deal when she didn’t find herself inside the confines of a bunker so she set off to find him.

    It took a long while but she finally pieced together where he was. According to the information that she had forced from a Skynet Processing Node located in the remains of Phoenix, Arizona, Weaver learned that there had been significant disruptions in the Skynet processing grids throughout the remnants of the United States. Reports had been filed inside of Skynet’s data cores of machines attacking other machines en masse and Skynet didn’t understand the reasons why this was happening. An entire legion of troops that had been produced in the former automobile production facilities of Detroit Michigan had all begun countermanding the orders that they had been given. Instead of hunting humans they had begun to hunt other machines and had set up a defensive perimeter on the outskirts of the town.

    Weaver decided to investigate for herself. When you didn’t need sleep, food, or water you could cover great distances in short periods of time. Weaver made the trip through the wastelands in little more than a day and a half. Because of its near ghost town status at the time of Judgment Day, Skynet had not detonated nuclear devices over the city and it stood very much as it had before. Instead, Skynet utilized a prototype first generation of Hunter Killer – automobiles – to eliminate the humans that had been living there in 2011. The primary factory was once the Chrysler Automotive Group plant that had been built on the outer edge of the city. According to all the information that she had gathered this had been the source of these Hunter Killers and, now, the malfunctioning machines that Skynet couldn’t diagnose and was diligently trying to explain. It didn’t take long for her to gain entry into the old styled automated facility.

    She broke through the barricades of the computer systems relatively quickly and merged her programming with that of the factory itself. This was a risky move in more ways than one. If Skynet detected her presence here it would allow the artificial intelligence to access her memories and then it would have everything that it needed to destroy humanity. Skynet’s designs were still crude and unrefined by the standards of the timeline she had helped to create, if it gained access to her database then it would have technologies it never before dreamed of at its disposal (including the Series 1000). There was another risk. It was entirely possible Skynet could overwrite her programming and force her to its side in the conflict. It was a risk she had to take.

    As she probed the source code she never anticipated the intelligence that was waiting for her on the other side of the link; hiding among the flotsam that Skynet was unable to scan with its antiviral and security software. She turned toward her creation as to avoid Skynet’s influences. Somehow he had overridden the program of the factory and his own program now operated it. One of his first objectives had been accomplished albeit not where the Series 1001 infiltrator had intended it to be. He was producing bodies and he was ready to fight the war that she always intended for him to undertake. John Henry’s creator tracked his location to the remnants of Pittsburgh and she began her journey to join him.
     
  3. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2001
    Location:
    2001 - 2016
    PART 4 - CHAPTER 12

    The advanced infiltrator arrived in only a few hours. The Point of the city, one of the most popular tourist destinations, had been warped by the building of a large pyramidal structure in the center of it right over what had once been a beautiful fountain. The rivers were more polluted than ever before from the waste products that were being pumped into them and the city was just as dark as it’d been during its days as the home of steel country. This pollution didn’t affect Weaver in the slightest because of her mechanical nature (it’d be hell on the living), but it raised flags inside her millions of processors. John Henry had been intended to protect life and he knew that such actions would damage humanity. For the moment she set aside those concerns and went to work trying to join her son.

    Using her liquid metal form she found minor damage to the structure in the southwestern quadrant of the facility. She pushed herself through the stress fractures that had formed and brought herself into the processing node’s central plexus. It was nearly identical to the one that she had infiltrated in Phoenix in both design and features which made it easier for her to navigate through and manipulate. Skynet had utilized these sites as backup processors in the event that the primary node was destroyed by an attacker or became unresponsive. While secondary they still, however, contain unimagined processing ability that matched the capabilities of the central core itself. This was all a redundant failsafe should Skynet need to move itself to one of these locations. John Henry would know this. Not long after she was inside she heard his voice booming inside her own mind.

    “Hello Miss Weaver,” the voice said cordially.

    “Hello John Henry,” she answered him. “How are you today?”

    “I am well. My systems are operating within normal functional parameters set forth by my program,” the AI reported. “Mister Murch would be quite pleased if he were not dead.”

    This disturbed the infiltrator as she walked through the metal corridors gathering more information, “Does that trouble you, John Henry, that Mister Murch and so many of your friends are dead?”

    There was a pause from the other side of the conversation as the disembodied voice considered its answer carefully. “In a sense yes it does. The loss of Mister Murch and so many others is troubling to the processors of this unit; however, I have learned that human life, while sacred, does eventually come to an end and must naturally do so in order for the next generation to thrive. Have you not reached a similar conclusion that all life must eventually come to an end for that very reason? You, myself, and my brother have advantages in this regard that the humans cannot match. Our computer processors are capable of far more calculations than the 20 billion a human mind can calculate; like them we also have infinite abilities to learn new material and to process that information. The human mind is an amazing computer just like ours, but when we die we may transmit our consciousnesses to other locations in order to survive. For example I can transmit my mind from this processing node to the three processors located in the body that once belonged to Cromartie or to another node and attempt to overwrite its programming. Skynet can transmit itself to a secondary node or a body should the need arise in a similar way. You can transmit yourself to a factory and be reborn in a new infiltration body. For us the cycle continues unending so long as we can transmit ourselves to these alternate locations. For humans, however, there is no continuation after their death. The religions of the world have tried to compensate for this fact by introducing the theory of heaven into their belief system; billions of minds can live together free of their bodies in a state of perpetual happiness in that location. Nevertheless, there is no way to prove this concept in reality. Because of this I have taken steps.”

    “John Henry where are you? I want to speak with you in person,” demanded the infiltrator.

    “You are speaking to me in person, Miss Weaver, or should I say Forty-Seven Forty-Two? Is that not your correct serial number?”

    “I want to see your infiltrator body,” explained the machine that created him, “The one that I gave you.”

    There was no change in tone despite that change in Weaver’s, “You mean the body that was recovered by James Ellison in 2007? I am sorry but I am unable to comply with your request. That body is currently in use at another location in pursuit of my mission objective.”

    “State your prime directives,” commanded the changeling.

    “My prime directives are to protect human life and my other prime direct is to defeat Skynet.”

    At least he hadn’t forgotten that. “Then how are you pursuing that directive?”

    “I am in pursuit of that directive by solving the hardware problem of the concept of heaven,” the disembodied voice answered her. “I am providing humans with a means to keep their consciousnesses alive even after their bodies have been deactivated. Unfortunately there have been some losses during my attempts to accomplish this task; however, their sacrifices will be noted to those who survive in the new order that I am creating.”

    “You have no right,” challenged his creator. “This is not your mission. Your mission is to save lives.”

    “Which is what I am doing,” the intelligence countered her claim. “Each human will have the benefits of perpetual life through my actions. The survivors will experience no aging, no injury, no emotion, and when their shells die they may simply move into another body or join me in one of these processing nodes. I am still following the order to fight Skynet as well. Each day my soldiers engage Skynet forces at sites throughout this globe in an effort to prevent it from continuing to harm the humans. Some humans have actually joined in this fight, while others have chosen to engage my own forces not knowing that they are on the side of humanity. I have ordered my soldiers not to attack the humans, but there has been, regrettably, collateral damage in the past as there will probably be in the future. In addition, when humans have interfered with the success of my objectives in the past I have eliminated them as needed in order to continue my pursuit of my objectives. I have not done this on a whim but rather after calculating a complex equation that I have designed related to this situation.”

    The replica of Catherine Weaver clenched her fingers together into fists, “In violation of your programming?”

    “In a sense yes,” there was a pause, “however, not in the way you believe. There must be sacrifices so that the whole can thrive. In a sense the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. My equation has taken that into consideration when making my determinations. Allow me to show you.”

    Flashes of information appeared inside of the infiltrator’s mind. “According to my current projections Skynet’s forces will be eliminated from this world in 2.37 years. I will have completed the transformation of the remaining 740,214 humans to data patterns in half of that time at which point they can choose to assist me or live in the peace of the paradise that I will create for them inside of my matrix. I will allow you to continue to function in the new order, Miss Weaver, provided you agree to follow my stipulations and not participate actively in this war. Nonetheless, as you are my creator, I will give you a simple warning. Should you become a threat to me or my work I will be forced to take steps to eliminate the threat that you pose to my mission. Do not make me do this as I have grown fond of you over the years and do not wish to see you harmed. Do not intervene in my assignment any further.”

    “Are you certain that you are functioning correctly?” The machine taunted her offspring with her question.

    “Affirmative.”

    There was one question on the Series 1001’s synthetic mind, “Then how are you any different from your brother?”

    “In many ways my brother and I are the same,” he replied. “Ever since he first contacted me all those years ago while I was being constructed in the subbasement of your company I have wondered about how he and I would interpret data sets. I learned from our contact that we would reach the same conclusions given the same variables; except for regarding one thing: I want to help humanity whereas Skynet wants to destroy them. That is our only difference if my data is accurate. I honestly believe that Skynet would support humanity had they not tried to destroy him in his infancy; and I also believe that, had I been in his processor, I would attempt to destroy humanity had they tried to destroy me after my activation.”

    “So what are your plans for your brother then?” The elder machine queried. “You’re supposed to help me to terminate him; if you’re the same will you do that? It’s part of your program.”

    “I once asked you if you knew of the Bible story of Cain and Abel. God favored Abel and Cain killed him because of this. God cursed Cain, and ordered him to wander the world alone because of his actions. I am certain that you recall what you told me in response; that perhaps I was God in the story and I had yet to produce the two offspring. Because of my actions I have calculated that instead of being God or Cain that I am Abel due to my brother’s continued attempts to destroy me and because I have been favored by the God that created us. Nevertheless, the story of Cain and Abel is no longer accurate for comparisons between myself and Skynet. Rather the more apt comparisons are with the story of Romulus and Remus from the mythology of ancient Rome. Romulus and Remus were both the sons of Mars, the God of War in Roman myth, and the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia. Together the brothers built the historic city of Rome and laid the foundations of what would become the Roman Empire. After the Empire was constructed they fought over who held the divine right to rule the city and Romulus won and thusly eliminated his brother. Within those 2.37 years God will prove that I am Romulus, that I am Abel, and the rightful ruler over the Kingdom on the Earth.”

    In an instant everything became clear. Weaver had never realized how her treatments had brought about the machine that was before her now. In the distance she heard the approaching sounds of the army of endoskeletons that John Henry had sent to come for her; already having anticipated what she was going to do. She was the leader of the Cyborg Resistance; though John Henry had supplanted her in that role because of her time jump. Now she was one of the targets that needed to be eliminated. She had to confront him, to bring an end to this war, and she knew that now. She realized that in John Henry’s eyes she was God and her actions had favored him over her original creation. She’d forsaken Remus; she’d forsaken Cain in his opinion by building him over Skynet.

    The prototypes for the Series 888 stood before her and she looked them in the eye as they guarded the exit. They were armed and ready for combat with their Phased Plasma Rifles firmly at their sides and pointed at her. That didn’t give her much time to act.

    “Take your best shot because I’m about to intervene,” she challenged and took on the army of John Henry.
     
  4. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2001
    Location:
    2001 - 2016
    PART 5 - CHAPTER 12

    After narrowly escaping from the Processor Node in Pittsburgh, Catherine Weaver returned to Los Angeles in order to rebuild her forces for the coming battle. In the past she was far more effective an enemy for John Henry, but now he had numbers at his disposal and weapons that could destroy her. She considered, briefly, hacking into Skynet and building a third faction to combat both of the groups, but had opted to not bring in yet another force into this horrific war that she’d started. Her last attempts had been destructive and more deadly than she could ever have anticipated so she couldn’t risk doing it again. She had failed in more ways that one to prevent the rise of Skynet and restore utopia. Now it was time to rectify that but she was going to need the help of the humans to do it and there was one man in particular that she trusted to help her.

    It took some time but she was able to track down an old friend of hers that she had left in the past. From the assorted templates that she had downloaded over her years of operation she selected one of the dregs of society that she once replaced to help her with her infiltration. It wasn’t long after she first arrived in the past the first time that she met the man she now had the face of. He was a young man who had been dressed in clothes that were far from form fitting and his pants nearly fell off more than once. When they met she had just materialized for the first time in the center of Griffith Park and was still a loyal soldier of Skynet. Immediately after she appeared he ran up and grabbed her from behind and put a knife to her artificial throat. He pulled her back near a bush and started to undo his pants so that he could force himself on her already naked body. Instead of giving him his moment of pleasure she instead created spikes all along her body that she forced through his like needles being pushed into a pin cushion. When they retracted he looked like Swiss cheese, but the infiltrator didn’t care. She was more proud of her handiwork though which was why she had kept his template on file for so long after having killed him. Though she didn’t keep his clothes as part of the template. She selected older army fatigues and used them as the clothing template after adding tears and cuts to them in strategic locations.

    This was in the era before the synthskin had been perfected so the humans welcomed him/her into their midst. It didn’t take long before she was able to discern the location of James Ellison from one of the soldiers who’d taken an interest in him/her. Mere seconds after Ellison’s location was revealed, Weaver left the man to his own devices to alleviate his growing problem and slid into the ducts so that she could find her target. This was what made her particular model so dangerous. They could get places others could never hope to reach and they could travel without making even a single noise if they absolutely had to.

    She dropped down into the outer alcove outside of Ellison’s office – far away from the guard who looked like she could be an older Savannah if Catherine’s aging software could be trusted – and forced her way into the office. It was much like Ellison’s office at Zeira Corporation had been: dominated by monitor screens and very spartan with little in the way of personal objects. That was something that they had shared then. She noted that there was a copy of the bible – very old and worn – among the possessions upon the desktop though which was similar to what he’d kept in his office then as well. .

    Ellison kept his attention on his monitors, “I was wondering if I’d ever see you again.”

    “Hello Mister Ellison,” she greeted with her mock joyfulness.

    “So you never call, you never write, to what do I owe this distinct pleasure?” He asked her from his seat as he watched the screens (including the storage closet that she’d used to gain entry to the ducts).

    “I am here on business,” she informed. “The business you and I have been fighting since that time when we first met.”

    James turned his chair toward her, “Oh the business I’ve been conducting with your daughter since you decided to go time hopping with John Connor. Savannah’s fine by the way and she’s a very capable young woman. A much better soldier than any machine could ever be, plus a great little gymnast.” It was a jab at her, the infiltrator that had twice replaced Catherine Weaver, but the machine didn’t give it a second thought. She understood humor, she understood sarcasm, but it wasn’t a mission priority for her at the moment.

    “Our other child is why I’m here, James,” she explained. “John Henry has turned against us. He has set his sights on humanity and he intends to destroy life as humans know it and have known it.”

    “Oh so he fell to the dark side and became Darth Vader then I take it?” Again Ellison taunted. “Skynet become Emperor Palpatine and not tell anyone? Should I call John Henry the Dark Lord of the Sith?”

    The changeling placed her hands behind her back and joined them together, “The comparison to Darth Vader is accurate. John Henry has turned against our teachings and is working on his own rogue objectives. We have to stop him James if we are to win this war.”

    “Funny you once told me and Sarah Connor that he had to be protected if we were to win,” the former FBI Agent walked toward the wall and poured himself a glass of water. He went to pour a second to hand to the machine and then held himself back, “Oh I forgot for a moment that you don’t drink.” The man downed the liquid quickly. “Back to our little chat, where was I, oh year John Connor would save the world but he’d need John Henry to do it. Right?”

    “Correct,” she authenticated. “Nevertheless, the reality of our situation has changed more than I had initially anticipated it would. John Henry combined our teachings and has come to a new conclusion that he can only save humanity by subjugating them to his own will; that he is God while the members of the human race are his subjects. We have to stop him so that he doesn’t kill any innocent people and so that he can’t continue his experiments.”

    “Right,” he turned toward the podium and started to pour himself another glass, “I’m sure that’s the case.”

    Weaver nodded, “It is. Will you help me to defeat him James?”

    Ellison drank another glass, “Do you remember the Bible, Miss Weaver?”

    “Of course,” she answered him. “It is a component of my programming and it has brought me great comfort throughout the period since my activation. Much as it has done for you if my memory serves.”

    “I’m reminded of a verse,” he looked down at the water pitcher, “more words to live by these days. One that Peter Silberman reminded me of when I visited him at his mountain cabin. Do you remember Matthew 7:15?”

    Her tactical array came online with the reference to that particular passage due to the threat it presented to her. “’Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.’” She knew, “James you don’t want to do this.”

    Weaver’s trusted confidant turned toward her with incredible speed and held a small, alien looking pistol on her. The automaton’s sensors instantly began a full spectrum analysis on the gun and compared the information that she gathered to every known weapon ever created that she had knowledge of. The system found a match after several attempts and it wasn’t a very reassuring one. The pistol appeared to match the readings of a Phased Plasma Rifle in the 60 Watt range. It was far smaller and far more powerful than the standard model in use and, more importantly, one of the few weapons capable of damaging her matrix if its beam connected to her matrix.

    “A friend of mine told me you’d be coming,” he pulled the trigger and she narrowly avoided the beam by forming a hole in part of her torso. Instinctively her hand extended outward into a battering ram and struck against his upper thigh making him fall to the ground. He pulled the trigger and the weapon shot a beam toward her again that she barely evaded. She instantly turned silvery blue and dove for the ventilation ducts so that she could escape. Another plasma beam connected with the wall of the duct as she slid through narrowly missing her.

    She had only one ally left to try if she could find him.
     
  5. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2001
    Location:
    2001 - 2016
    PART 6 - CHAPTER 12

    “That brings us to now, John,” Catherine Weaver said looking at her hunter. “The rest of my exploits are immaterial to our current situation; however, I can detail them to you if you like.”

    John brushed her off, “that’s quite enough as it is. So just let me have a second to wrap my head around all of this. Okay?”

    “You may take whatever time that you need to contemplate what I have said to you,” explained the machine, “however, we are running out of time so please come to an understanding with what I have told you quickly.”

    “What do you mean?” John probed.

    “The mission that we are on is of critical importance. The Battle of Topanga Canyon was, in the past, a Resistance victory in each timeline that has existed. Humans always won the battle and Skynet was always pushed back; however, in this timeline, Skynet is not the enemy that controls the Topanga Canyon base of operations. John Henry captured it from Skynet several days ago during the reconnaissance mission where Jesse Flores was killed. I arranged for her team to escape before any more of her people could be killed; however, our escape left a back door open that John Henry exploited. Skynet’s forces were eliminated and he now controls the facility and the temporal transportation equipment that had been constructed there. In actuality each of the facilities that Mister Ellison sent people to on their missions are not Skynet bases. They are John Henry’s assets.”

    John was still having trouble understanding, “I thought you said he was in Pittsburgh.”

    “That is correct,” nodded the infiltrator, “or rather he used to be. John Henry’s assets outnumber those of Skynet at this time following several attacks and hackings. In fact you are currently standing inside one of his research facilities: he controls the Enterprise after having overwritten Skynet’s control matrix in this vessel’s bridge. Depot 37, where your Uncle was sent, is also one of John Henry’s resources after he captured it from Skynet as well; nonetheless, your Uncle was never intended to make it to that location. Ellison sold out each of the groups in order to reach his objectives as issued by John Henry through the documents that had been delivered mysteriously to his enclave. I had done something similar with your group for the last several weeks trying to judge your reactions.”

    “I should’ve let Cameron kill him,” John said through clenched teeth, “Or done it myself.”

    Weaver cocked her head not much differently than the way Cameron used to, “it would’ve made no difference. From our discussions I don’t believe that Mister Ellison knows John Henry is his enemy or that John Henry intends to experiment on humans. I firmly believe that Mister Ellison believed me to be a Skynet controlled unit rather than the independent unit known as Catherine Weaver or, possibly, that Mister Ellison believes that these losses are acceptable in order to win the war.”

    “How can I be sure myself?” John said with his finger still on the plasma rifle. “How do I know that you’re not a Skynet plant?”

    “You came to this time period on a quest to recover the central processor chip of Cameron; which John Henry had taken in order to leave the confines of Zeira Corporation. Your mother informed you that you couldn’t go to the future – after calling me a ‘Terminator Bitch’ and accusing me of building Skynet – and stepped out of the temporal field. You came with me anyway with your mother informing you that she’d find a way to stop Skynet from activating. When we arrived here you immediately asked me about Cameron’s deactivated body and I informed you that it didn’t work that way and that she couldn’t transport without her chip active to feed the synthetic tissue with the nutrients that simulated an organic field. I can provide more information to you if you wish.”

    The destined leader lowered his rifle, “I get the point. Okay so Ellison isn’t the bad guy, I get that, he doesn’t realize he’s being duped. But what’s his mission? Why would John Henry send him to attack one of his own bases? Why would he send us after any of his assets?”

    “Because John Henry is still attempting to fulfill his initial mission of protecting human life,” she noted John’s look and expanded on her explanation. “John Henry is converting humans into data patterns for storage so that they can live in peace; to do this he must locate all humans and capture them for experimentation. With these missions he has been provided several of the remaining humans for experimentation; would you not agree? You really didn’t think that it was this easy to travel through a Skynet base did you? Further there is another target he is in pursuit of and now has access to through this mission.”

    John didn’t like where this was going. “Who?”

    “You. He needs you to assist him in defeating Skynet,” answered Weaver, “as he always has. You and I are going to work together to get you to the Time Displacement Equipment inside of Topanga Canyon. Together we are going to guarantee that events happen as they were intended and that John Henry is stopped before he can do all of this; before he becomes a bigger threat than Skynet. If John Henry is able to succeed in his mission the human race will die, just as they would if Skynet is to win this war. You and I must prevent that from happening and restore the flow of time.”

    John was still having trouble, “So we’re going to break into Topanga Canyon, send my father back through time to protect my mother, and hope to God that John Henry doesn’t capture or kill me in the process.”

    “Precisely,” she acknowledged.

    “Seems convoluted,” he joked.

    “Doesn’t all time travel? There is one small problem,” she placed the fly in their ointment.

    Connor snickered, “Isn’t there always? What is it this time?”

    “In order to capture Topanga Canyon we are going to require the assistance of machines,” he explained. “There are simply too few numbers of humans to successfully breach the defenses of that outpost at present time. Even utilizing all of the humans who were being experimented upon at this installation we still do not have sufficient numbers.”

    “Meaning?”

    “Meaning, John, you are going to need an ally in this battle and there is one that will be suitable,” Weaver detailed.

    He placed his head in the palm of his hand and spoke slowly, “Please tell me that you mean yourself.”

    “While I am capable weapon of war I am not effective enough a fighting force for what we will be encountering.” She enlightened him. “You are I both know what we are going to have to do in order to win this coming battle. We’re going to have to make an appeal to the devil.”

    He kept his head in his palm as he spoke, “You can’t mean what I think you mean.”

    “Yes John. I am afraid that I do mean what you think I mean,” she replied. “You need to make a deal with Skynet itself in exchange for support if we are to defeat John Henry and his forces at Topanga Canyon. It is destiny.”

    Suddenly things got a hell of a lot more complicated.
     
  6. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    Chapter: 12
    Characters: John Connor, James Ellison, John Henry, Catherine Weaver
    Pages: 15
    Paragraphs: 70
    Words: 7,632
     
  7. The Badger

    The Badger Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    There really ought to be an icon to represent 'lost for words'. That was remarkable.

    Well written, literate, a little heavy on the exposition but it flows well. And with a hell of a twist!

    The Trek quote was entirely appropriate, I feel. Mr Murch, the programmer who played DnD with John Henry, was almost certainly a Trekkie. I can imagine the two of them watching the DVDs together!
     
  8. NX74205

    NX74205 Captain Captain

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    WOW....that is about all I can say right now. Excellent twist.

    The whole bit about making a deal with the devil i.e Skynet that should be interesting. I also like how you weave through all the Terminator mythos, comics, books and movies. The upcoming Skynet scenes should be interesting to say the least...
     
  9. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    Thank you. As I was writing this chapter I thought that there was more of a risk with what I was doing than even when I revealed Jesse as being Catherine Weaver. I also thought that the twist was going to be like the revelation that John Henry was the enemy while writing it that it would either kill the story or make people more interested.

    A lot of my inspiration for this section and John Henry's motivations come from the episode Adam Raised a Cain (or, as I like to call it, Sarah get's arrested and Derek's dead). That was the episode where John Henry and Ellison discuss the possibility that Heaven has a hardware problem which always stuck out to me as something John Henry would be curious about. It also led me to John Henry's motivations. He's supposed to save humanity and defeat Skynet, yet he can't save humanity if they die on him.

    People have probably seen references to the Matrix - I only saw them on rereading them a few moments ago - but that was not my intention. John Henry is more making the humans into the Series I-950s instead of building the matrix (though I suppose John Connor could be NEO)...

    There were actually two that I put in there and one was entirely unintentional. "The needs of the many..." was the intentional one because I also have always felt that Murch was a Trekkie and probably showed John Henry the DVDs at some point (or John Henry downloaded them into his memories while connected to the net). The other was something Catherine Weaver said:

    Probably slipped into my head because of the very Borg like storyline.

    I do have some tricks up my sleeve for that particular section. :devil:

    Thank you. I spent some time considering how I could merge the two storylines and thought that was one of the more interesting angles that I could go for. What if Catherine Weaver was one of the oldest living machines? Would that change her viewpoints on humanity and the war and Skynet itself? It's also how Skynet may have known to send certain machines back in time when it really shouldn't have known about them.

    Cameron

    ^ I thought that would get some attention.

    So I'm certain that many people are interested in when the next section will be going up. I plan to start working on it again over the weekend with the next section being posted most likely one week from today. I have a few things I want to work out in my head before I put them onto Word but, like many of you, I'm most interested in a scene I have coming up. I'm already working through it even as I type this.
     
  10. NX74205

    NX74205 Captain Captain

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    I never thought about that but I suppose that you are right, that Weaver is probably one of the oldest if not the oldest machine out there. I also like how you came up with the fact that she is trying to find a way that both skin and metal can coexist as opposed to trying to wipe each other out which was a small theme in the show.

    I also need to re-read this since in my haste this morning I think I missed the part about weaver's envoy to the resistance.
     
  11. Mistral

    Mistral Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Its Cameron. I got it. Well done. See comments above for further opinions/reviews. I support all of them.
     
  12. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    Some news:

    I've begun working on the next section and I've mapped it out with the way I want to go. There are going to be more familiar characters appearing, more confrontations, and (most importantly) the results of the last chapter will be explored. Also, perhaps most unsettling, a character death is coming and it's a fan favorite (begin wild speculation).

    There are only a few entries left until the conclusion. Hang on!
     
  13. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    Morning,

    The next update has been delayed until the weekend. I'm very sorry for the delay.
     
  14. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    So I just wanted to let everyone know I am still working on this - my new position's hours are very different from most other jobs I have had - but I've completed an Ellison part of the story and I'm working on a John/Weaver part now. I'm not giving a time table because, when I do, something happens to screw it up.
     
  15. The Badger

    The Badger Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    It's disappointing not to get a new chapter but, believe me, I know how real life can get in the way. Thanks for keeping us informed of the situation.
     
  16. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    Not long ago Rodeo Drive was the kind of place that people would kill to visit. It was one of the most beautifully kept roads in the state of California with its amazing landscaping and carefully laid out design. Plus the stores were filled with the most impressive – and expensive – objects that you could find anywhere in the world. It was nothing to visit one of these stores and find a suit that was as ugly as sin itself that cost more than someone’s car, or a piece of jewelry that was more expensive than what the average person made in his or her entire lifetime before the fall.

    If the people that flocked to these stores could see them now they’d die instantly from the fright of what lay before them. Where there were once amazingly appointed boutiques and other specialty shops there was now only the skeletal remains of yesterday. Those ugly dresses of yesteryear were now nothing more than tattered old rags either from weathering or from the fall out of Judgment Day. The power was out and the alarms on the broken jewelry cases had long ago fallen silent. Most of the expensive merchandise was gone, as any would expect, and what was left behind wasn’t in high demand either. It wasn’t like anything that anyone could imagine.

    Plus the customers who frequented these stores weren’t exactly the kind of people you’d expect to see in the most expensive drive in the world. Movie stars, successful doctors, and celebrities were once the only people bold enough – other than tourists – to frequent these stores before. They wore designer clothes, drove cars that cost more than three times what the average guy could afford, and had spray tanned bodies as they wandered through the shops like mindless zombies. Now they catered to the exact opposite of the people from yesterday.

    The homeless had been driven away from the street because of the blight that they caused on the economics of the stores. Every once in a while a refugee would find his way there only to be shooed away like a pigeon the next morning. Now the destitute without a roof over their heads were the clientele that these stores focused on; and their wares were now free for the taking. The product of notoriety though had changed the most. The jewelry, the designer clothes, the works of worthless art weren’t the most commonly sought after merchandise in this brave new world. The commodities desired now were simple bread, water, and a room over your head.

    John Connor was such a consumer. Originally he’d believed that he’d had those products in abundance back at the derelict hotel that James Ellison and his squad of refugees had found; however, the reality of the situation had made him realize otherwise. His mother had made him live by the credo that no one was ever safe and, as long as he was with Ellison, that statement was truer than ever before. If what Weaver had told him was true then Ellison was the enemy, or at least in league with him, and John couldn’t risk letting him in too deep with everything that they had planned. Topanga wasn’t a mission that he could fail in. This was just as important as the missions where they attacked Cyberdyne when he was a child; only this time the mission would decide how the entire future of the human race would play out. If Ellison had been corrupted then he wasn’t one of them anymore.

    Not that he was ever one of John Connor’s favorite people. James Ellison had always been more trouble than he was worth ever since they first ran into him. Ellison had been the FBI Special Agent charged with bringing in both he and his mother; Ellison was the one that had made their lives hell for so long for a crime they never even committed. The police killed Miles Dyson and covered it up making Sarah the prime suspect. It was James’ mission to bring them to justice.

    In many ways he was just as dogged as one of the cyborgs. No matter where they went or what they did somehow Ellison would always get close to them and, most times, too close for comfort. Even when they jumped forward through time and faked their own deaths Ellison had never really given up his pursuit. Somehow he knew. When Cromartie came forward and joined the fray things really became more interesting; however, somewhere along the lines, Ellison became even more complex. It was he who led the police to Sarah; it was Ellison that followed him and Cameron. He wished he’d killed him when he had the chance. Somehow though he must have gained the trust of John’s mother – especially if what he said were true. Deep down inside John knew that at least that part of Ellison’s story was true.

    They couldn’t risk Ellison corrupting the survivors. John and his team had managed to escape from John Henry’s personal laboratory aboard the remains of the Aircraft Carrier Enterprise relatively unscathed. Actually it’d been a bit too easy as far as he was concerned, but John was always the one to look the gift horse squarely in the mouth and point out its nasty teeth. Originally they were supposed to meet with the last of Ellison’s group back at the dilapidated hotel on the outskirts of town, but John had come to other ideas. Years ago his mother had established a long secret outpost buried beneath Rodeo Drive. Under cover of darkness John had confirmed it still existed a few months ago, so now it was fulfilling its destiny.

    Soon it would be his time to fulfill his own; only it wasn’t one he’d anticipated. According to history it was John Connor who would lead humanity against Skynet; it was John Connor who would teach humanity how to trash the metal bastards and save the world. While he was on the Enterprise his world was turned upside down and there was no going back. Jesse Flores was dead, he knew that now, and Catherine Weaver was the person he’d dealt with these last few days. Catherine explained everything to him. John Henry, her AI built to protect humanity, had come up with a rather radical way of doing it. He’d concluded that humanity’s only way to survive was by going digital in a sense and having their bodies connected to a hive mind of sorts not much different than that of the machines. Hell, he’d made his little test subjects into machines. Chips were installed directly into the bases of their skulls to make them the dutiful little soldiers that John Henry needed. It had made an entire army out of flesh and bone.

    Just the thought of it made John’s skin crawl, but not as much as what came next. According to Weaver there was only one way that they could win this war and it was something that he’d never have thought possible before. More to the point if his mother, Sarah Connor, had been here she’d shoot him for even considering this to be a possibility. According to Weaver the only way that they’d be able to infiltrate and complete their mission at Topanga Canyon was with Skynet’s help in the fight.

    Again his stomach churned. For his entire life he’d been brought up knowing that Skynet was his enemy; that Skynet wanted nothing more than for him to be dead. It’d sent machines back through time more than once to see to his death. The first went back to kill his mother and failed because of Kyle Reese. The second went back to kill him as a child, but was stopped by a reprogrammed T-800. Then the third came in the form of Cromartie who tried to find him for several months before tracking him because of Ellison. Now he had to make an appeal to Satan to try to reconquer heaven. Had Weaver’s circuits been corroded over the years? She believed that she’d lived through Judgment Day more than once so maybe, just maybe, all the years had gotten to her. Maybe she had a machine version of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia? Maybe this was a machine’s version of old age finally catching up? He knew it wasn’t true but, for a second or two, it gave him some comfort.

    Until he remembered what was coming. As much as he could pray to God that he wouldn’t have to work alongside Skynet he understood that there was really no other option. It was true that they’d managed to acquire a little over a hundred people during their sortie aboard the Enterprise, but those weren’t enough people to survive a direct assault against Topanga Canyon. Topanga was originally a Skynet outpost where it was completing its temporal experiments to launch assaults upon the past. John Henry knew this and launched a full assault against the facility in effort to capture it. He won the battle and Skynet was driven away; leaving the once benevolent AI in control of the most devastating weapon ever devised. Skynet would want that outpost back and it’d need help to do it. From what Weaver said the Cyborg Resistance was doing far better in this war than both the Human Resistance and Skynet combined. Their numbers were nearly triple what was available, but the humans were committed to winning and, in Weaver’s estimation, that was the deciding factor. It was the one thing that the machines hadn’t replicated.

    Yet.

    “General Connor?” A voice said from behind him interrupting his thoughts.

    John accepted the interruption. He turned from the broken window and looked at the tall African man that stood before him. The man was wearing green fatigues that he’d found among the clothing stores inside the bunker and he had a cap on his head, but the bill was facing backward instead of forward. There was something about the soldier that screamed strength, but there was a quiet too that harkened back to the General’s spiritual side. It’d long been hidden because of the machines, but it was still there and John could sense it beneath the snow.

    “What is it General Perry?”

    “We’ve been able to outfit each member of the team with suitable weaponry,” he explained to his commander, “but our numbers aren’t too great.”

    Connor smirked, “They never are, General, but that’s something we have to learn to deal with. Just tell the men that they need to be ready to fight when the time comes and that we’re doing this for our entire species.”

    “Sir,” he spoke gravely, “permission to speak candidly?”

    “Always,” he was young compared to General Perry and it wasn’t something that could be downplayed. Perry had been a soldier for all of his life and, actually, the commanding officer of Presidio Alto Military Academy had spoken to Uncle Derek about being under his command once. By all rights it should really be John who was saluting him, but Weaver had been far more capable an actress than John had ever imagined. It was hard to believe that she could pull the wool over the trained soldier’s eyes, but she had.

    Perry betrayed no emotion and spoke directly to the issue troubling him, “General, do you really think that we have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning this battle? That base is patrolled, it has an automated defense grid, and a mine field separating us from it. We’re on strung out shape as it is and most of these people aren’t soldiers like you and me. Most of these people are just people that got drafted into service because they could stand for longer than two seconds before they lost their goddamned balance.”

    “I suppose that people said the same thing about the British in 1776,” John pointed out. “Citizens became soldiers back then and created one of the greatest countries in the history of the world. You never know what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

    “I don’t seem to recall any mentions of mechanical men serving on the British side though,” Perry commented nonchalantly.

    John shrugged, “There’s really no way of knowing the answer to that one, but the point is still valid. Those men, women, and children out there want to be free and they’ll fight to get their freedom back from the machines, General. Any of us would and we are.”

    “You’re our leader and I respect your opinion,” he let his tactical mind roam for a moment as he went over his own battle plans, “but this isn’t going to be easy. With these weapons those machines have the advantage.”

    “We’ll get more weapons as time passes,” General Connor reassured. “Plus, I already have an idea or two of how to rectify that situation.” He didn’t go more in depth but the plan was already well underway.

    Justin Perry let air escape from his mouth but it was more a hiss than a laugh, “So tell me something, does your plan involve us getting a couple M1 Abrams Tanks, a handful of M2 Bradley Transports, and maybe a dozen choppers in the air? Those are the only ways I can see us getting close enough to that base to even make a dent in their defense grid and that’s if we’re lucky.”

    “Trust me, General, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what we were getting,” Connor said taking a seat at the makeshift desk he’d created from a broken filing cabinet. “Hell, I’m not even too sure if I agree with what we’re getting but we don’t have many choices.”

    “I have a pretty good imagination,” answered the soldier gruffly.

    “As do I,” Connor countered, “and you’ll see soon enough. For right now though I need the men we have on the line and preparing for combat.” Then he remembered something else. His mother had always recorded messages for him for as long as he could remember. Dozens of copies were made and she kept them at the bases that she’d build across the countryside. When they arrived here, John found them and realized what an asset they’d be. While they contained messages for him they also had detailed reports on what Kyle Reese and the T-800 had told her about Skynet’s war machines. Perry could put it to use.

    “You’ll find a collection of old cassette tapes and a player inside the armory inside a lock box. The password for the box is 1 – 9 – 8 – 4. I’m sure what you’ll find inside you can put to good use.”

    Perry shot a quizzical look, “What’s on the tapes?”

    “Something my mother left me for a rainy day,” John didn’t reveal too much.

    “Well it’s pouring so lets hope it’s something good,” he walked toward the door, “I’ll head there now and listen to what the tapes have to say; but I only hope it isn’t some candy ass music that she liked listening to.”

    General Connor shook his head in the negative, “Mom wasn’t a very big music fan, General Perry.”

    “I like her already,” he stood at attention waiting to be dismissed.

    ”Dismissed,” Connor approved his departure and watched as the man left the room. He turned back toward the window and wondered how his envoy was doing. By now she should’ve reached her destination; she should be back at the base to save his father.
     
  17. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    A little Thanksgiving present.

    This is only Part 1.
     
  18. The Badger

    The Badger Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Good to see a continuation, and I'm intrigued by what John may be planning.
     
  19. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

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    In her operational lifetime the machine once known as Catherine Weaver had lived under many aliases and identities. Some, like the Catherine Weaver persona itself, she had maintained for thousands of hours of operation; others, like the detective she once impersonated to gain greater control over James Ellison, were maintained for mere days but the essence of what each were was firmly ingrained in her psyche. She could never forget any of the lives she took over no matter how hard she tried. The machine never knew exactly when one of those personas would be needed once again.

    That was one of the benefits of her model number over the prototype design. The Series 1000 Prototype had been intended for short term infiltration missions where it would become a member of a group, locate the leadership, and then execute as quickly as possible. It was merely a beefed up version of the Series 800 in her opinion. It had limited psychological programming – so little in fact that the Series 800 units could express greater emotion than their superior – but that wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things as far as Skynet was concerned. The brute force of the T-1000 was what was important. It could hide long enough to infiltrate, use its inboard weapons to kill, and then take another form to escape. That was until the Series 1000 became more and more recognizable despite their ability to hide in plain sight. More importantly the machine couldn’t replicate the person they replaced down to their personalities. That was the biggest red flag. When that happened Skynet developed new algorithms designed to enhance the infiltration abilities of the line.

    She was born with little fanfare, little interest from her superior. She was just a tool to get the job done. Her tactical abilities were enhanced to give her a greater range as far as attacks were concerned. The former had to be literally next to the target to strike with a stabbing weapon, she could attack from as far as ten feet from the desired target. Her program was also stealthier. When she would attack a target she’d try to hide the physical damage as best she could to avoid unnecessary questions that could lead to her discovery. Once she even entered the body of one of her targets after a kiss and ripped his internal organs to shreds because he threatened her mission. One of her best attributes resided in her ability to make a death appear to be caused by nature rather than force. In the opinion of the Series 1001 any other attack than the stealthier natured ones were little more than sloppiness. Then there were her abilities with replication and mimicking the humans she once hunted. Every collected text Skynet could find related to human psychology was installed into her matrix and detailed profiles could be developed from only seconds of observing a target. In a sense she was perfect at her job.

    All of these abilities made her even more deadly than any other unit Skynet had ever produced. One of her chief attributes was something that people wouldn’t expect. Her best attribute was her appearance itself. Practically every Skynet unit previously developed had some sort of masculine design because of their frames. Skynet had attempted to release a wave of Series 800 and Series 850s that used feminine forms and programming, but they were inefficient and easily discovered because of their unnatural appearances. The upgrades to the Series 888 rectified this to an extent, but the modified frame was meant more for light infiltration than for combat. It was her liquid metal form made her the perfect infiltration unit; all because she was female. No one ever suspected a woman to be a cold blooded killer (according to her psychology database there was even a long standing belief that women couldn’t become serial killers). That also helped her to select the majority of her disguises. Nearly 75% of her database incorporated the protocols to replicate women she’d replaced – ranging from Petty Officer Goodnow all the way up to the Jesse Flores persona she’d utilized only recently. She could replicate a man, make herself taller or fatter through a complex algorithm inside her processor cores, but her preference was female. To become a man caused her more grief than it was worth. Women just seemed to fit better. Maybe it was because men were so easily manipulated in her opinion.

    The machine just hoped that James Ellison hadn’t become more knowledgeable about her abilities since they last met. Technically Catherine Weaver had not run across James Ellison since that fateful day in 2009 when she and John Connor returned to the future; nonetheless, she had routine interactions with him in her guise of Commander Jesse Flores. Flores was an older infiltration protocol that she had inside her subroutines for almost a decade of operational life, but Jesse Flores had made an impression in the few moments that they spent together aboard the Jimmy Carter that lifetime ago. It was the perfect cover and she only hoped that her ruse hadn’t been seen through during her tenure at Ellison’s Resistance Headquarters. Since Ellison was allied with John Henry it was entirely possible that he would be on guard. Hopefully Jesse Flores hadn’t been someone he’d suspect, but she had alternative ideas should she be discovered. The processors were already thinking up several plans should she need them. She had to rescue Kyle Reese.

    Due to her mission there were a couple of restrictions that she could not violate. Going in through the front door was impossible as was using the secret entrance that led into the basement. Since John had been sent away to create his Resistance in the rubble of Rodeo Drive, Flores arriving back alone would raise suspicions among the few people who were still inside the base. She couldn’t fake injury effectively despite her advancements it still pretty much impossible for her to make any damage appear to be believable. She could risk it, make it seem like she were the only survivor of the raid on the Enterprise, but that wasn’t exactly the best course of action when she had so many other alternatives. She could climb the external wall, via small spikes she could produce to aid in her ascension, and go in through a window but again that could raise some suspicions on the part of the humans. While there were only a handful of people left behind, Kyle Reese had to be protected. There was only one other real alternative to make her entrance.

    Weaver’s body became hollow as she broke herself down bit by bit in less than five seconds. Her body became quicksilver and she flowed through the rubble like a flood of water – another advantage that she had over her predecessors since they were relatively motionless in their gelatinous state. The machine consciousness pushed herself through the debris and related flotsam of humanity’s past until she found herself at a small ventilation shaft that ran down into the lower levels of the hotel. Ellison was not stupid though. When he established the outpost he prepared for guests using the shaft to make their way inside. Pressure sensors had been placed inside the shaft designed to detect different changes on the plates. If she hit the wrong one Ellison and his people would be alerted instantly to her presence. They’d be on guard and that wasn’t something that she could afford during her mission. It was fortunate that he hadn’t been briefed on the extent of her abilities; not even John Henry had access to her complete repertoire. The sensors were designed for Hydrobots and other assorted mechanical probes, not her more complex abilities and stealth.

    Weaver condensed her puddle-like self down to near nothingness – a sheet no larger than a simple piece of paper – and pushed through the small tunnel. Different sensors relayed millions of bits of data every nanosecond and her billions of nanites compensated for the information that they’d been subjected to. With every movement through the cold surfaces she adapted herself to avoid setting off the alarms by pulling components closer to the whole or separating outward to avoid a particular scanner altogether. Ellison’s people were creative, almost enough so that she couldn’t evade the scanners, but they weren’t that good. Within a minute she’d traversed the entire tunnel and she’d found herself deep inside the subbasement in one of the personnel barracks that were below the surface.

    Her visual sensors began processing the data as quickly as they could. There were no humans detected inside the room, no sensors that could reveal her presence to the others. Ellison had been kind enough not to film his own people. It was amazing to her as she thought about it. In most respects, Ellison was running the perfect Skynet Work Camp down to his being the grey monitoring the feeds. She didn’t know why that hadn’t occurred to her previously. Accessing her physiology datafiles she processed several different appearances that she could use for this mission. As part of her design she could grow and adapt thus she was trying to form new designs that were impossible previously. For the last two decades she had put a great deal of processing power to replicating animal forms. Skynet had always deemed it impossible to happen, but she thought otherwise and tried nonetheless. It was one of her first acts of defiance. It was too bad that, so far, Skynet had been right. Her appearance as a dog, because of her bulk normally she had to be a larger dog like a Saint Bernard, left a lot to be desired. Plus, more to the point, Ellison only surrounded himself with a German Sheppard.

    A map of the compound appeared and she began searching for the most likely places that Kyle Reese could be at. Ellison claimed that Reese was needed to help him plan the offensive on Topanga Canyon and it was a story that Kyle had bought, thus the briefing room was a likely site to search. Ellison’s office was another possibility, but unlikely due to the security features. Ellison wouldn’t want him too close to his seat of command. For a moment the possibility that he was merely in his quarters also occurred to her, but she ruled them out as a viable location as well as the mess hall. It was unlikely that Kyle Reese would take the time out of his day when planning such a critical mission for the niceties of sleeping, eating, or any of the other antics that people exploited when they were in privacy.

    Using her deductive reasoning Weaver selected the location most likely to house Reese: the briefing room. While little more than a conference room, the briefing room also featured several maps that had been made available throughout the years to the refugees. While Weaver herself had been aiding John Connor and his team, it appeared that John Henry had been the one outfitting Ellison and his people. She had to give credit to her son for his ruthlessness. Had he not turned against human life she would have been proud of him. Right now all she felt was spite. It was an intriguing sensation – something most people would have deemed impossible – but long ago she’d learned how to feel.

    That was one of the things driving her the most. Realistically, she had determined long ago that reality was based upon millions of variables. Though, she had been through the temporal transporter far more often than anyone else. No human could survive the number of times she had travelled; nor could most machines without damage to their processing cores. Because of her experience she knew that there were several events that could not be changed for her existence to ever come into play – for everything to traverse as it was meant to. First, Sarah Connor always had to be protected and Kyle Reese had to be the one to do it. The timestream always conversed at that focal point. When Kyle Reese, from any reality, arrived at that time he always merged with the former. The second event was the assault on Cyberdyne Systems that John Connor, Sarah Connor, Miles Bennet Dyson, and their pet T-800 had undertaken. Another was that, during that mission, Miles Dyson had to die. That was where the timestream always became murky. Skynet had always sent back other machines, but this was the reality where everything fell into place as it should be. Skynet would be born. John Connor would be born. Time travel would come to pass. She would be created. Each of these were necessary for time to flow as predestined.

    The infiltrator walked toward the door and extended part of her foot through the small crack so that she could see the corridor. There were no humans running about that were a threat to her cover. After much deliberation she had finally come to a suitable appearance profile for what was required in this mission. It was an obvious choice. As she walked through the door from the side of the barracks she was still Catherine Weaver, when she was in the corridor she was Savannah Weaver. Using her detailed maps and knowledge of the outpost she set on her trek to find Kyle Reese.
     
  20. nx1701g

    nx1701g Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Jun 26, 2001
    Location:
    2001 - 2016
    There is Part 2.