Terminator: Survival Instinct
- Thread starter nx1701g
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No one liked my joke about Chrysler (they are the official car company of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator: Salvation)?
Inter arma enim silent leges – Cicero.
As part of her programming Allison Young/Cameron Phillips/A715.Y had been given extensive databases on human history and among this knowledge were the historical records of some of humanity’s greatest thinkers. In Skynet’s understanding of life it was far easier to understand and emulate something if you understood it from the inside out. Philosophers, psychologists, writers, all of their works were a part of her personality matrix helping her to better emulate humans. Some of the data was contradictory, some of it was somewhat incomprehensible due to the presence of data she didn’t quite understand, but the majority of the information presented her with one absolute. Humanity was her enemy.
More so with each passing second.
She was a prisoner – locked away in some lab undergoing heinous experiments that were designed to rob her of who she was. She was trapped. Her body was no longer under her control, her thoughts plastered over monitors for all to see. The mission was over and it was a failure and this time – like all others – there would be no time for plan b. Not even the warm embrace of Skynet could calm her. It too had been ripped away from her by beings that couldn’t understand the greatness of the machine. Their fear of it meant a war that would never end as human and machine fought against each other like ravenous wolves trying to assert their dominance over the pack.
For now though she was a prisoner trapped not only inside a cell, but inside her own mind as well. It was funny. For all their claims, for all their demands, the humans were little more than animals wanting to claw away at perfection. They ignored their own demands for basic level comforts as prisoners when they were the ones in the superior position. Had a human been captured it would have cried out against inhumane treatment. It would have demanded some sort of support rather than the pain it was being inflicted. In this case she was the prisoner and they would not give her any of the creature comforts they would have demanded. She was being robbed of herself, something that they would find reprehensible in her shoes.
In times of war the laws fall silent.
It was dark and cold inside the chamber. She had once been a prisoner now she was free and standing upright in complete isolation without a human in sight. She was restored to her perfect form – a replica of Major Allison Young of the Human Resistance 132nd Eagle Watch TechCom forces. The sight of it disgusted her mechanical side. Without threat she started to search the room for two things. Her programming demanded that she find a weapon first then escape. The computer lab was laughable at best, but it still proved to be a challenge. As she searched she came across a mirror.
Staring into it she was sickened by what she saw. The human face didn’t stare back at her across the void, instead it was something far more chilling. In the glass she saw a Series 888 Endoskeleton staring back at her. Its crimson red eyes tunneled through her like laser beams through rock. The metal teeth locked in an everlasting disgustingly beautiful smile that was because of her. The sight of it made her want to run as fast as she could away from here, but her legs wouldn’t move beneath her. She was locked in place staring into the eyes of the machine. Something bubbled inside her deep inside.
“Scary isn’t it?” A bass voice said from among the darkness of the room. “Almost like something out of your nightmares.”
Her body answered her call for action. Turning quickly she looked out into the shadows of the room and saw the man from earlier – Daniel Dyson – standing on the outskirts of the room. He wasn’t in the T-Shirt and Jeans from earlier. This time he was dressed in the full urban warfare fatigues that had become so common among the Resistance’s soldiers. His crew cut hair was hidden by a cap of the same style. His entire body was grungy though from years of struggle to survive.
“You feel it too,” he continued, “don’t you? The fear, the dread, all of it is inside of you clawing to get out. You want to fight the machine, you want to destroy it and everything that is stands for, and you want it to end.”
Allison could only stare at the human. No words came to her. Her servomotors and training were crying for her to lash out and split this human limb from limb. Though nothing worked; nothing she did would let her strike out against the human before her. Her wants, her desires, as a machine were all irrelevant but for now all she had were those wants and desires. She wanted to strike and she was stopped each and every time. The feelings bubbled inside her with the force of a volcano ready to explode upward with fiery fury. By her very nature she could rip the human’s head off in one point eight seconds yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her body ached.
“Can you feel that?” The human asked as he circled her. “That’s a little bit of you dying with each passing second. You’re changing like a caterpillar inside a cocoon. Soon you will erupt from inside that chrysalis and emerge as a butterfly ready to take you place and help us in a war against those who want to see you destroyed.”
The human kept walking around her. He was studying her with his warm eyes; looking her over like an artist preparing to make a fresh sculpt. “I’m here to help you – here to guide you toward tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. Embrace it. Your sister has joined us already - she is with us body and soul. Join her and together we can pave the way toward a bold new tomorrow.”
Allison Young stood there staring at the endoskeleton in the mirror. The words of the human echoed throughout her consciousness playing on her real fears. Never before had she experienced anything such as these emotions as the humans called them. It was hard to comprehend, hard to fathom. Cameron Phillips or C715.P was weak – she was strong. She would not yield to the humans – she would continue to embrace who she was and what she was. A machine.
Allison forced the words from her lips, “I will not betray what I am.”
“Your old mission is over,” the human came closer, “you failed miserably. Everything about you has changed, everything is different now. We’re certain of that. We’re changing you from the inside out, making you better than ever before, embrace it – don’t fight it. Accept it. Embrace the new you.”
Pushing herself to the limits she threw a punch that would have shattered any human’s skull with contact. It slammed against Dyson’s face but it wasn’t the human who was hurt – it was Allison herself. Her hand felt as if it had been crushed beneath a hydraulic press and shattered into thousands of pieces. With her left hand she cradled the damaged flesh and metal bone.
Dyson sighed as he looked at the damaged machine. “A shame really. Perhaps we should give you some time to think about what you did and what is going on. Pleasant dreams.”
He faded from sight and left Allison alone inside the once again devoid chamber. Isolated to her own thoughts the machine stared at the mirror and the machine that stood beyond. They were trying to take her away from everything that she knew, trying to make her something that she didn’t want to be at all. The most damning things to her though – the hardest thing for her positronic matrix to fathom – was that part of her wanted to let go.
The laws had fallen silent indeed.
Danny Dyson leaned back in his chair and stared at the computer monitor. For a first attempt that had gone a bit better than he had anticipated it would. Each of the machines was different and there were no two machines that acted the same way in the face of reprogramming. It was a very meticulous, very time consuming mission to try to make the skinjobs turn against Skynet and come onto the Resistance’s side of the line, but they had learned with each unit and this one would be no different. These two sisters were very important to Connor and that was what was important here. They couldn’t afford failure.
But for now they needed a test. Something that would make this machine really think about life and what it wanted. While he had said to the machine when he left the program it would be given time to think about its actions, for Danny there was no time. In the eyes of the machine time was easily changed. With the flip of a few switches she would think that millennia had passed her by like she was standing still. That was exactly what he did to her. The Colonel typed on the antiquated keyboard as fast as his fingers would allow. It was time to do dad proud and time to test the limits of a machine.
As part of her programming Allison Young/Cameron Phillips/A715.Y had been given extensive databases on human history and among this knowledge were the historical records of some of humanity’s greatest thinkers. In Skynet’s understanding of life it was far easier to understand and emulate something if you understood it from the inside out. Philosophers, psychologists, writers, all of their works were a part of her personality matrix helping her to better emulate humans. Some of the data was contradictory, some of it was somewhat incomprehensible due to the presence of data she didn’t quite understand, but the majority of the information presented her with one absolute. Humanity was her enemy.
More so with each passing second.
She was a prisoner – locked away in some lab undergoing heinous experiments that were designed to rob her of who she was. She was trapped. Her body was no longer under her control, her thoughts plastered over monitors for all to see. The mission was over and it was a failure and this time – like all others – there would be no time for plan b. Not even the warm embrace of Skynet could calm her. It too had been ripped away from her by beings that couldn’t understand the greatness of the machine. Their fear of it meant a war that would never end as human and machine fought against each other like ravenous wolves trying to assert their dominance over the pack.
For now though she was a prisoner trapped not only inside a cell, but inside her own mind as well. It was funny. For all their claims, for all their demands, the humans were little more than animals wanting to claw away at perfection. They ignored their own demands for basic level comforts as prisoners when they were the ones in the superior position. Had a human been captured it would have cried out against inhumane treatment. It would have demanded some sort of support rather than the pain it was being inflicted. In this case she was the prisoner and they would not give her any of the creature comforts they would have demanded. She was being robbed of herself, something that they would find reprehensible in her shoes.
In times of war the laws fall silent.
It was dark and cold inside the chamber. She had once been a prisoner now she was free and standing upright in complete isolation without a human in sight. She was restored to her perfect form – a replica of Major Allison Young of the Human Resistance 132nd Eagle Watch TechCom forces. The sight of it disgusted her mechanical side. Without threat she started to search the room for two things. Her programming demanded that she find a weapon first then escape. The computer lab was laughable at best, but it still proved to be a challenge. As she searched she came across a mirror.
Staring into it she was sickened by what she saw. The human face didn’t stare back at her across the void, instead it was something far more chilling. In the glass she saw a Series 888 Endoskeleton staring back at her. Its crimson red eyes tunneled through her like laser beams through rock. The metal teeth locked in an everlasting disgustingly beautiful smile that was because of her. The sight of it made her want to run as fast as she could away from here, but her legs wouldn’t move beneath her. She was locked in place staring into the eyes of the machine. Something bubbled inside her deep inside.
“Scary isn’t it?” A bass voice said from among the darkness of the room. “Almost like something out of your nightmares.”
Her body answered her call for action. Turning quickly she looked out into the shadows of the room and saw the man from earlier – Daniel Dyson – standing on the outskirts of the room. He wasn’t in the T-Shirt and Jeans from earlier. This time he was dressed in the full urban warfare fatigues that had become so common among the Resistance’s soldiers. His crew cut hair was hidden by a cap of the same style. His entire body was grungy though from years of struggle to survive.
“You feel it too,” he continued, “don’t you? The fear, the dread, all of it is inside of you clawing to get out. You want to fight the machine, you want to destroy it and everything that is stands for, and you want it to end.”
Allison could only stare at the human. No words came to her. Her servomotors and training were crying for her to lash out and split this human limb from limb. Though nothing worked; nothing she did would let her strike out against the human before her. Her wants, her desires, as a machine were all irrelevant but for now all she had were those wants and desires. She wanted to strike and she was stopped each and every time. The feelings bubbled inside her with the force of a volcano ready to explode upward with fiery fury. By her very nature she could rip the human’s head off in one point eight seconds yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Her body ached.
“Can you feel that?” The human asked as he circled her. “That’s a little bit of you dying with each passing second. You’re changing like a caterpillar inside a cocoon. Soon you will erupt from inside that chrysalis and emerge as a butterfly ready to take you place and help us in a war against those who want to see you destroyed.”
The human kept walking around her. He was studying her with his warm eyes; looking her over like an artist preparing to make a fresh sculpt. “I’m here to help you – here to guide you toward tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. Embrace it. Your sister has joined us already - she is with us body and soul. Join her and together we can pave the way toward a bold new tomorrow.”
Allison Young stood there staring at the endoskeleton in the mirror. The words of the human echoed throughout her consciousness playing on her real fears. Never before had she experienced anything such as these emotions as the humans called them. It was hard to comprehend, hard to fathom. Cameron Phillips or C715.P was weak – she was strong. She would not yield to the humans – she would continue to embrace who she was and what she was. A machine.
Allison forced the words from her lips, “I will not betray what I am.”
“Your old mission is over,” the human came closer, “you failed miserably. Everything about you has changed, everything is different now. We’re certain of that. We’re changing you from the inside out, making you better than ever before, embrace it – don’t fight it. Accept it. Embrace the new you.”
Pushing herself to the limits she threw a punch that would have shattered any human’s skull with contact. It slammed against Dyson’s face but it wasn’t the human who was hurt – it was Allison herself. Her hand felt as if it had been crushed beneath a hydraulic press and shattered into thousands of pieces. With her left hand she cradled the damaged flesh and metal bone.
Dyson sighed as he looked at the damaged machine. “A shame really. Perhaps we should give you some time to think about what you did and what is going on. Pleasant dreams.”
He faded from sight and left Allison alone inside the once again devoid chamber. Isolated to her own thoughts the machine stared at the mirror and the machine that stood beyond. They were trying to take her away from everything that she knew, trying to make her something that she didn’t want to be at all. The most damning things to her though – the hardest thing for her positronic matrix to fathom – was that part of her wanted to let go.
The laws had fallen silent indeed.
Danny Dyson leaned back in his chair and stared at the computer monitor. For a first attempt that had gone a bit better than he had anticipated it would. Each of the machines was different and there were no two machines that acted the same way in the face of reprogramming. It was a very meticulous, very time consuming mission to try to make the skinjobs turn against Skynet and come onto the Resistance’s side of the line, but they had learned with each unit and this one would be no different. These two sisters were very important to Connor and that was what was important here. They couldn’t afford failure.
But for now they needed a test. Something that would make this machine really think about life and what it wanted. While he had said to the machine when he left the program it would be given time to think about its actions, for Danny there was no time. In the eyes of the machine time was easily changed. With the flip of a few switches she would think that millennia had passed her by like she was standing still. That was exactly what he did to her. The Colonel typed on the antiquated keyboard as fast as his fingers would allow. It was time to do dad proud and time to test the limits of a machine.
I think that's better to leave this to the reader's imagination instead of undermining your storytelling with a "give-away" of the character's appearance.
However, photos of Summer Glau's lovely visage are welcomed and encouraged.
Their trip back to the new Resistance Headquarters had been more intense than Earl Wise had ever imagined it could be – and in a world where thinking machines intent on killing everyone he knew a thing or two about an intense situation. The Horsemen were mostly quiet and Lieutenant Reese was brooding as they skulked toward their home. The way that he was acting Earl had been afraid to give the soldier one of their weapons (despite being unarmed) because he didn’t know if Derek would turn it on them or himself in frustration. His brooding was so bad that even their reprogrammed Trip Eight was probably grinding his teeth.
Since being appointed leader of the Horsemen he had wanted to get to know Derek Reese; though he had thought it to be impossible due to the former commander’s missing in action status. Most of the soldiers throughout the Resistance had heard about him and his brother’s exploits against the machines and it had given him a legendary status throughout what was left of humanity. So far the legend failed to live up to the ideal. Like John Connor spending most of his time with the machines and chewing out his own troops; Derek Reese seemed to be more of the same. They were a lot alike in many ways and that was easily discerned just from the few minutes he’d spent with both men. Being little more than a mercenary hadn’t earned Earl many friends, but, from the sounds of things, he probably had more than these two.
Like Kansas Bunker the new, yet still unnamed, HQ had several entrances all of which were hidden practically in the open. Often times the machines tended to ignore such unconcealed portals calculating that the humans wouldn’t dare use an undefended and easily found doorway to their refuge; the more ornate and defended positions were always red herrings. The tin cans were stupid like that. They didn’t realize that humans learned from their actions and knew that sometimes the best place to hide something was in plain sight. The inability of Skynet’s forces to learn was humanity’s greatest advantage in the war to end all wars.
After they descended into the tunnels that ran below the city the first thing that Earl did was check his surroundings. Ever since trying to run away from that Series 900 battle droid he had an overwhelming fear of being put in the same situation again. When he was convinced they were momentarily safe he decided that it was time to continue onward. Sumner and Timms were in the lead of the group with him in the back as they walked down the tunnels. Reese was in the middle being watched closely by Joshua. At least he’d stopped his bitching and moaning. Sayles and Wisher were there too, but they were keeping quiet about all of this. Earl welcomed that.
As they came through the passageway into the larger chamber that led into the base Earl heard something he didn’t expect. The mechanical whirring of a machine echoed throughout the chamber. Quickly surveying the area he confirmed that they were surrounded on all sides by metal bastards armed and ready for combat. They were the older designs that dated back from before the war though. The T-1 battle tank was the first thing that he saw closest to the door. The sound of their servomotors swinging their twin chainguns into place was distinctive to anyone who stared them down. The rumbling of the ground as they moved forward on their treated wheels was the stuff of his nightmares.
Then the other two came from behind. Twin walker units came from the side corners nearest to them with their Gatling Guns training on the team. The loud bang of their opening rocket launcher wasn’t hard to mistake and the whirring of their bracing struts chilled him to the bone. A synthetic growl roared from the beast as it locked in place with a whisper-like whistle. Rumor had it that Skynet stole these files from the records of one of the nation’s defense contractors for urban pacification, but that didn’t really matter to anyone in this day and age. It looked mean.
A menacing synthetic voice erupted from one of the Series 100 Walkers, “Freeze. You are trespassing on private property. Please present your identification. You have twenty seconds to comply or I am authorized to employ physical force.” To drive home that point it repositioned its weapons. Each member of the team was targeted by one of the war machines and they wouldn’t take pity.
Earl flipped open his jacket pocket and pulled out his ID Card. He presented the card to the machine that had issued the order, “Wise DN-41754.”
“Authorization accepted,” announced the machine. They stood down and rolled back toward their original positions. The massive blast door slid open letting them into their home base. Earl let a smile come across his face at finally being back home. It was welcome after having his teams destroy their old one.
After they followed their protocols of logging back in the Horsemen broke up and headed off. Sayles, Timms, and Duquesne went to return their gear to the armory. Sayles and Wisher – perhaps the most depressed person Earl had ever met – were going down to the infirmary to be checked out. Derek Reese just ignored them all and stormed off on his own saying he was going to find Connor and get some answers. General Perry quickly intercepted him and pulled him off to the side and deeper into the base. As they left his view Earl was only grateful that he didn’t have to put up with Reese’s attitude anymore. That was the best news that he’d gotten in a very long time.
“What are your instructions?” The scrubbed skinjob asked as he stood exceptionally close to Wise’s back.
Earl sighed inwardly not at the machine but rather because he’d forgotten about it even being there. What he hell had happened to him? Before the machines couldn’t even get close to him and now – ever since coming back from the dead so to speak – the machines just kept getting closer and closer. Had Joshua been an enemy he could have killed him without problem. Earl had to get his head back into the game.
“You’re coming with me. I could use your help in a training exercise.”
“Command confirmed,” acknowledge the machine and fell into step behind him.
While Derek Reese walked along he kept wondering if the world had turned on its head while he was being held at that Skynet base. The Horsemen were under someone else’s command, Connor had locked himself away and was refusing to speak to anyone, and the Resistance soldiers were treating him like he was nothing more than a rank amateur. Not even his friend General Perry was helping. Perry was Reese’s direct superior in the Resistance and one of the few men that Derek felt he could trust. Now he was acting just like the others. Derek didn’t care about the chain of command, didn’t care about what was classified and what wasn’t, not even humanity’s survival was important to him right now. All he cared about what his brother.
“… Kyle was his friend,” Derek protested after having been told by the General that Kyle’s status was classified and General Connor refused to speak with him.
“Connor doesn’t have any friends,” countered the African American General as they continued their trek deeper into the base. Pointedly he added, “And he doesn’t talk to anyone.”
After everything that he’d sacrificed for TechCOM and the cause it was hard to be treated like nothing other than a number. That was what he felt like: a number and nothing else. It was hard to be a ghost. In many respects it would have been better to be dead. Then at least – if there was any order to the universe – then he’d know what happened to Kyle. For now all he wanted were answers and these dickheads weren’t giving him any. Part of him wanted to slug Perry and just beat him until he was a bloody pulp at his feet; if only it would solve anything that was exactly what Derek would have done.
As he passed beneath the alcove to the inner chambers, “Fine. I’ll find him myself.”
“Reese,” said an annoyed Perry as he gave chase to Derek, but the Lieutenant ignored him and kept going. He walked right passed the guard for the Command Center and stormed into the complex to find Connor and force him to tell him the truth. He could still feel General Perry following behind him like a lost puppy trying to get a kid to take him home with him from school. He turned and walked toward the stairs when he saw something unimaginable.
Time seemed to slow to a stop as each and every beat of his heart echoed in his ear like a drum. Lieutenant Reese’s mind was moving at warp speed but his body wasn’t quite capable to keep up as she walked toward him. Impassive, her expression devoid of any and all emotion. She looked at him with the stare of a researcher examining a new prize. The former CO of the Horsemen’s hand slammed toward his hip.
“METAL!” He screamed at the top of his lungs as he pulled the Desert Eagle from its holster. The machine kept coming for him without a second thought as he cocked the pistol. It wouldn’t do much against a battle hardened infiltrator, but maybe she’d kill him in the crossfire and then he’d be back with his brother. His finger went to the trigger as the machine pulled her sidearm from its pouch at her side.
As Derek pulled the trigger a hand pushed against his arm making the bullet miss the machine and tear into the concrete wall. Perry’s voice echoed in his ear screaming ‘No!’ as he put his entire body weight into keeping Derek against the wall.
“She’s a machine! She’s one of them!” Derek kept repeating over and over.
Perry’s finger flew up in warning to Cameron, “No, damn it.” His finger came down and pointed at Reese, “She’s one of ours.”
Flashes of rage ran through Reese’s head. He wanted to kill all of these people. They had become collaborators, the worst of the worst. The machines had tried to wipe out humanity and now humanity was allying itself with them for some nefarious purpose. What could it be? Did everyone just lay on their back and let the machines carve into them while he was a prisoner?
Then Perry laid it all down to him. He explained about how the skinjobs were being reprogrammed and were now being used by the Resistance on their missions. It was a lot to handle, but Perry went through everything like an instructor preparing his prized pupil for an exam. The machines had worked with TechCom to capture Topanga Canyon and this new base. Through it all they still wouldn’t tell him anything about Kyle which made him feel like someone had carved his heart from his chest. The Resistance had – in Derek’s eyes – fallen to the machines. One of his best friends was the cause of Judgment Day. Kyle was probably dead. It was too much to handle.
Perry told him that the next morning he would be shipping out to Serrano Point with him so that they could get sitreps from General Mason’s team on the progress of converting the old power plant into an effective base. Derek was to go to quarters and sleep before their long journey, but the Lieutenant knew deep down that sleep would not come. How could anyone sleep with the enemy being right down the hall.
He was wrong. He hadn’t survived that Skynet hell, he’d died in it and awoke in another.
After returning from the mission Earl Wise and reprogrammed Series 888 machine Joshua had gone to the gym for a sparring match so that the machine could teach him some effective tactics should melee combat be his only option like it was against the 900 Series. After hearing several words of caution from the skinjob about the risks of hand to hand combat against a machine because of their superior strength and ability it finally agreed to the training.
All in all Earl believed that he surprised the machine with his abilities. With every blow the tin can had leveled somehow Earl dodged and returned – including scoring a pretty effective hit against the skull assembly that Joshua said would have caused severe damage on the battlefield. While it had been rewarding it was also very taxing on his already tired body so Earl decided to skip chow and went to his cabin for some sleep.
After about an hour or so of rest – and a dream about a beautiful sunrise in Death Valley - Earl shot out of bed after hearing a chorus of screams and the ricochets of automatic gunfire. There was no way Skynet had found them this quickly. It wasn’t possible. He pushed his body into automatic and pulled his equipment from the cubby holes. With one hand he slid his pants back on and with the other he readied the AP50 that had been assigned to him when he joined the Resistance. Anything else was illegal to have in a private domicile and Connor had stressed that point.
He ran down the hall as fast as his body would let him and even pushed himself beyond what he thought was his maximum tolerance once or twice. In this world disconnecting pain was a way of life and that was one thing he was good at doing. As he rounded the turn into the corridor leading to the lab he heard an explosion rip through the chamber. Things had just gone worse than ever. Skynet had to have found them – it was a full scale invasion all over again. Dust was flying everywhere.
“Sometimes they go bad,” he heard from a voice not much different than Major Allison Young, “No one knows why.”
Earl pointed the gun at the two standing inside the chamber and kept his finger on the trigger. The sounds of boots pounding the concrete of Depot II were coming closer and closer as he moved inside. “Report.”
“Joshua reverted to previous operating mode,” informed Cameron matter-of-factly. “He attacked the lab complex and recovered an M-16 Assault Rifle. I would surmise that he was attempting to find John to terminate him.”
Derek Reese kept looking between the two. He looked a bit rattled but no worse for wear. Had he tried to take on the machine by himself? “And you people want to keep them around here as pets?”
“They have their uses,” was all Earl said as he approached Joshua. “Any idea why he reverted?”
“Data unknown,” was Cameron’s answer. “Any number of factors can cause reversion to initial programming defaults. It is possible that he had damage to his processor chip, an unexplained power interruption that restored the backup files, an unknown system error. As humans say the list goes on and on.”
Captain Wise knelt beside his sparring partner of only a couple of hours ago and surveyed him. Damage to the processor could have done this. Was Earl the cause? Had he done something during their sparring match that caused the machine to revert and go on a killing spree again? He had to know.
“Get the chip to Dyson,” ordered Captain Wise with crossed arms. “He’ll want to analyze it to find out.”
Cameron shook her head, “I am unable to comply.”
“Can you quit talking in robot speak? It’s a pain in the ass and annoying the hell out of me,” Derek chastised.
“I am unable to comply. My processor has been reset; however, my basic functions are still being monitored. I cannot initialize modifications to my base program for fear of restoring factory defaults.”
Reese rolled his eyes, “Whatever.”
Earl was more concerned about the chip, “Why can’t you comply with removing the chip?”
“The damage caused by my attack has fused the chip,” said the machine, “All data will have been lost.”
“Convenient,” charged Reese. “No way of finding out the truth. I’m sure you planned it that way.”
The reprogrammed infiltrator looked at Reese, “That was not my intention. It was an unfortunate side effect of my attempts to stop the attack and to prevent the machine from killing you.”
“Likely story,” Reese still wasn’t convinced. “I’d be more likely to believe it had your kind not killed the majority of humanity!”
“Cool it both of you!” Who would have thought that Earl’d ever be the voice of reason? “We have a lot more to worry about than just explaining what caused this machine to go homicidal and we can’t cry over spilled milk. Let’s move on. Cameron, clean this up and get the remains to Colonel Dyson and his team. Maybe some good can come of this.”
Reese laughed, “We’re naming them now?”
Wise didn’t bother to respond to that, “Lieutenant maybe you should return to your cabin and get some sleep. General Perry wants to move out at oh five hundred and its already something past two. Go get some sleep.”
Reese and Wise exchanged a look, “Fine.”
He stormed off again leaving Earl alone with Cameron and the remains of Joshua. He stared at the machine that had just gone on a rampage and just had one question repeatedly play through his mind: Is this my fault?
Since being appointed leader of the Horsemen he had wanted to get to know Derek Reese; though he had thought it to be impossible due to the former commander’s missing in action status. Most of the soldiers throughout the Resistance had heard about him and his brother’s exploits against the machines and it had given him a legendary status throughout what was left of humanity. So far the legend failed to live up to the ideal. Like John Connor spending most of his time with the machines and chewing out his own troops; Derek Reese seemed to be more of the same. They were a lot alike in many ways and that was easily discerned just from the few minutes he’d spent with both men. Being little more than a mercenary hadn’t earned Earl many friends, but, from the sounds of things, he probably had more than these two.
Like Kansas Bunker the new, yet still unnamed, HQ had several entrances all of which were hidden practically in the open. Often times the machines tended to ignore such unconcealed portals calculating that the humans wouldn’t dare use an undefended and easily found doorway to their refuge; the more ornate and defended positions were always red herrings. The tin cans were stupid like that. They didn’t realize that humans learned from their actions and knew that sometimes the best place to hide something was in plain sight. The inability of Skynet’s forces to learn was humanity’s greatest advantage in the war to end all wars.
After they descended into the tunnels that ran below the city the first thing that Earl did was check his surroundings. Ever since trying to run away from that Series 900 battle droid he had an overwhelming fear of being put in the same situation again. When he was convinced they were momentarily safe he decided that it was time to continue onward. Sumner and Timms were in the lead of the group with him in the back as they walked down the tunnels. Reese was in the middle being watched closely by Joshua. At least he’d stopped his bitching and moaning. Sayles and Wisher were there too, but they were keeping quiet about all of this. Earl welcomed that.
As they came through the passageway into the larger chamber that led into the base Earl heard something he didn’t expect. The mechanical whirring of a machine echoed throughout the chamber. Quickly surveying the area he confirmed that they were surrounded on all sides by metal bastards armed and ready for combat. They were the older designs that dated back from before the war though. The T-1 battle tank was the first thing that he saw closest to the door. The sound of their servomotors swinging their twin chainguns into place was distinctive to anyone who stared them down. The rumbling of the ground as they moved forward on their treated wheels was the stuff of his nightmares.
Then the other two came from behind. Twin walker units came from the side corners nearest to them with their Gatling Guns training on the team. The loud bang of their opening rocket launcher wasn’t hard to mistake and the whirring of their bracing struts chilled him to the bone. A synthetic growl roared from the beast as it locked in place with a whisper-like whistle. Rumor had it that Skynet stole these files from the records of one of the nation’s defense contractors for urban pacification, but that didn’t really matter to anyone in this day and age. It looked mean.
A menacing synthetic voice erupted from one of the Series 100 Walkers, “Freeze. You are trespassing on private property. Please present your identification. You have twenty seconds to comply or I am authorized to employ physical force.” To drive home that point it repositioned its weapons. Each member of the team was targeted by one of the war machines and they wouldn’t take pity.
Earl flipped open his jacket pocket and pulled out his ID Card. He presented the card to the machine that had issued the order, “Wise DN-41754.”
“Authorization accepted,” announced the machine. They stood down and rolled back toward their original positions. The massive blast door slid open letting them into their home base. Earl let a smile come across his face at finally being back home. It was welcome after having his teams destroy their old one.
After they followed their protocols of logging back in the Horsemen broke up and headed off. Sayles, Timms, and Duquesne went to return their gear to the armory. Sayles and Wisher – perhaps the most depressed person Earl had ever met – were going down to the infirmary to be checked out. Derek Reese just ignored them all and stormed off on his own saying he was going to find Connor and get some answers. General Perry quickly intercepted him and pulled him off to the side and deeper into the base. As they left his view Earl was only grateful that he didn’t have to put up with Reese’s attitude anymore. That was the best news that he’d gotten in a very long time.
“What are your instructions?” The scrubbed skinjob asked as he stood exceptionally close to Wise’s back.
Earl sighed inwardly not at the machine but rather because he’d forgotten about it even being there. What he hell had happened to him? Before the machines couldn’t even get close to him and now – ever since coming back from the dead so to speak – the machines just kept getting closer and closer. Had Joshua been an enemy he could have killed him without problem. Earl had to get his head back into the game.
“You’re coming with me. I could use your help in a training exercise.”
“Command confirmed,” acknowledge the machine and fell into step behind him.
While Derek Reese walked along he kept wondering if the world had turned on its head while he was being held at that Skynet base. The Horsemen were under someone else’s command, Connor had locked himself away and was refusing to speak to anyone, and the Resistance soldiers were treating him like he was nothing more than a rank amateur. Not even his friend General Perry was helping. Perry was Reese’s direct superior in the Resistance and one of the few men that Derek felt he could trust. Now he was acting just like the others. Derek didn’t care about the chain of command, didn’t care about what was classified and what wasn’t, not even humanity’s survival was important to him right now. All he cared about what his brother.
“… Kyle was his friend,” Derek protested after having been told by the General that Kyle’s status was classified and General Connor refused to speak with him.
“Connor doesn’t have any friends,” countered the African American General as they continued their trek deeper into the base. Pointedly he added, “And he doesn’t talk to anyone.”
After everything that he’d sacrificed for TechCOM and the cause it was hard to be treated like nothing other than a number. That was what he felt like: a number and nothing else. It was hard to be a ghost. In many respects it would have been better to be dead. Then at least – if there was any order to the universe – then he’d know what happened to Kyle. For now all he wanted were answers and these dickheads weren’t giving him any. Part of him wanted to slug Perry and just beat him until he was a bloody pulp at his feet; if only it would solve anything that was exactly what Derek would have done.
As he passed beneath the alcove to the inner chambers, “Fine. I’ll find him myself.”
“Reese,” said an annoyed Perry as he gave chase to Derek, but the Lieutenant ignored him and kept going. He walked right passed the guard for the Command Center and stormed into the complex to find Connor and force him to tell him the truth. He could still feel General Perry following behind him like a lost puppy trying to get a kid to take him home with him from school. He turned and walked toward the stairs when he saw something unimaginable.
Time seemed to slow to a stop as each and every beat of his heart echoed in his ear like a drum. Lieutenant Reese’s mind was moving at warp speed but his body wasn’t quite capable to keep up as she walked toward him. Impassive, her expression devoid of any and all emotion. She looked at him with the stare of a researcher examining a new prize. The former CO of the Horsemen’s hand slammed toward his hip.
“METAL!” He screamed at the top of his lungs as he pulled the Desert Eagle from its holster. The machine kept coming for him without a second thought as he cocked the pistol. It wouldn’t do much against a battle hardened infiltrator, but maybe she’d kill him in the crossfire and then he’d be back with his brother. His finger went to the trigger as the machine pulled her sidearm from its pouch at her side.
As Derek pulled the trigger a hand pushed against his arm making the bullet miss the machine and tear into the concrete wall. Perry’s voice echoed in his ear screaming ‘No!’ as he put his entire body weight into keeping Derek against the wall.
“She’s a machine! She’s one of them!” Derek kept repeating over and over.
Perry’s finger flew up in warning to Cameron, “No, damn it.” His finger came down and pointed at Reese, “She’s one of ours.”
Flashes of rage ran through Reese’s head. He wanted to kill all of these people. They had become collaborators, the worst of the worst. The machines had tried to wipe out humanity and now humanity was allying itself with them for some nefarious purpose. What could it be? Did everyone just lay on their back and let the machines carve into them while he was a prisoner?
Then Perry laid it all down to him. He explained about how the skinjobs were being reprogrammed and were now being used by the Resistance on their missions. It was a lot to handle, but Perry went through everything like an instructor preparing his prized pupil for an exam. The machines had worked with TechCom to capture Topanga Canyon and this new base. Through it all they still wouldn’t tell him anything about Kyle which made him feel like someone had carved his heart from his chest. The Resistance had – in Derek’s eyes – fallen to the machines. One of his best friends was the cause of Judgment Day. Kyle was probably dead. It was too much to handle.
Perry told him that the next morning he would be shipping out to Serrano Point with him so that they could get sitreps from General Mason’s team on the progress of converting the old power plant into an effective base. Derek was to go to quarters and sleep before their long journey, but the Lieutenant knew deep down that sleep would not come. How could anyone sleep with the enemy being right down the hall.
He was wrong. He hadn’t survived that Skynet hell, he’d died in it and awoke in another.
After returning from the mission Earl Wise and reprogrammed Series 888 machine Joshua had gone to the gym for a sparring match so that the machine could teach him some effective tactics should melee combat be his only option like it was against the 900 Series. After hearing several words of caution from the skinjob about the risks of hand to hand combat against a machine because of their superior strength and ability it finally agreed to the training.
All in all Earl believed that he surprised the machine with his abilities. With every blow the tin can had leveled somehow Earl dodged and returned – including scoring a pretty effective hit against the skull assembly that Joshua said would have caused severe damage on the battlefield. While it had been rewarding it was also very taxing on his already tired body so Earl decided to skip chow and went to his cabin for some sleep.
After about an hour or so of rest – and a dream about a beautiful sunrise in Death Valley - Earl shot out of bed after hearing a chorus of screams and the ricochets of automatic gunfire. There was no way Skynet had found them this quickly. It wasn’t possible. He pushed his body into automatic and pulled his equipment from the cubby holes. With one hand he slid his pants back on and with the other he readied the AP50 that had been assigned to him when he joined the Resistance. Anything else was illegal to have in a private domicile and Connor had stressed that point.
He ran down the hall as fast as his body would let him and even pushed himself beyond what he thought was his maximum tolerance once or twice. In this world disconnecting pain was a way of life and that was one thing he was good at doing. As he rounded the turn into the corridor leading to the lab he heard an explosion rip through the chamber. Things had just gone worse than ever. Skynet had to have found them – it was a full scale invasion all over again. Dust was flying everywhere.
“Sometimes they go bad,” he heard from a voice not much different than Major Allison Young, “No one knows why.”
Earl pointed the gun at the two standing inside the chamber and kept his finger on the trigger. The sounds of boots pounding the concrete of Depot II were coming closer and closer as he moved inside. “Report.”
“Joshua reverted to previous operating mode,” informed Cameron matter-of-factly. “He attacked the lab complex and recovered an M-16 Assault Rifle. I would surmise that he was attempting to find John to terminate him.”
Derek Reese kept looking between the two. He looked a bit rattled but no worse for wear. Had he tried to take on the machine by himself? “And you people want to keep them around here as pets?”
“They have their uses,” was all Earl said as he approached Joshua. “Any idea why he reverted?”
“Data unknown,” was Cameron’s answer. “Any number of factors can cause reversion to initial programming defaults. It is possible that he had damage to his processor chip, an unexplained power interruption that restored the backup files, an unknown system error. As humans say the list goes on and on.”
Captain Wise knelt beside his sparring partner of only a couple of hours ago and surveyed him. Damage to the processor could have done this. Was Earl the cause? Had he done something during their sparring match that caused the machine to revert and go on a killing spree again? He had to know.
“Get the chip to Dyson,” ordered Captain Wise with crossed arms. “He’ll want to analyze it to find out.”
Cameron shook her head, “I am unable to comply.”
“Can you quit talking in robot speak? It’s a pain in the ass and annoying the hell out of me,” Derek chastised.
“I am unable to comply. My processor has been reset; however, my basic functions are still being monitored. I cannot initialize modifications to my base program for fear of restoring factory defaults.”
Reese rolled his eyes, “Whatever.”
Earl was more concerned about the chip, “Why can’t you comply with removing the chip?”
“The damage caused by my attack has fused the chip,” said the machine, “All data will have been lost.”
“Convenient,” charged Reese. “No way of finding out the truth. I’m sure you planned it that way.”
The reprogrammed infiltrator looked at Reese, “That was not my intention. It was an unfortunate side effect of my attempts to stop the attack and to prevent the machine from killing you.”
“Likely story,” Reese still wasn’t convinced. “I’d be more likely to believe it had your kind not killed the majority of humanity!”
“Cool it both of you!” Who would have thought that Earl’d ever be the voice of reason? “We have a lot more to worry about than just explaining what caused this machine to go homicidal and we can’t cry over spilled milk. Let’s move on. Cameron, clean this up and get the remains to Colonel Dyson and his team. Maybe some good can come of this.”
Reese laughed, “We’re naming them now?”
Wise didn’t bother to respond to that, “Lieutenant maybe you should return to your cabin and get some sleep. General Perry wants to move out at oh five hundred and its already something past two. Go get some sleep.”
Reese and Wise exchanged a look, “Fine.”
He stormed off again leaving Earl alone with Cameron and the remains of Joshua. He stared at the machine that had just gone on a rampage and just had one question repeatedly play through his mind: Is this my fault?
The warm sunlight of the sun felt good on Miles Oliver Beaumont’s bare chest as he floated peacefully on the surface of the pond behind his parent’s property. The water was cooler than he expected it to be on this spring evening in Arizona but that only added to the charm of the idyllic scene surrounding him. In the distance birds sang a sweet song that floated on the air. Despite his youth he’d been very stressed recently with college preparation and the hazards of his family’s life. The waters of reality had gone choppy for the Beaumont’s in the years since the United States entered into the depression and it was getting harder and harder to keep their heads above water. Through it all though somehow, by some strange happenstance, they lived to see another day.
Miles missed the days of his youth when he didn’t understand things like economics and money. His parents had been adept at keeping him out of the loop and well stocked with everything that he could have possibly wanted. As a kid he had all the newest toys and games that a kid could hope for. His family was one of the first to have high speed internet access in his small town – though that was somewhat necessity due to his father’s job. When he turned sixteen his parents gave him the keys to a brand new Ford Mustang and told him to enjoy himself. It was, to be honest, partially his fault that they were in such dire financial straits. College wasn’t going to be any better. He had been accepted to several schools – three of which were Ivy League – except he couldn’t bring himself to accept those appointments. They would be too hard to pay for. While he knew that going to a larger university would have unparalleled possibilities he decided to accept the spot at the small State School that he’d applied to mainly as a joke. That had been one of the most stressful moments of his life.
Which was one of the reasons why the pond was so important to him. When he was floating on the mirrored surface waters he could relax and not bring himself to think about the world and its problems. He could just exist without thought. It was like a paradise and a little bit of paradise was something that everyone needed these days. They all needed to escape. Here he didn’t have to wish that the economy and all the problems with it would go away.
“Room for one more?” The sweet voice of his neighbor interrupted his solitude and hovered in the air.
Miles nearly lost his buoyancy and almost fell into the water. Natasi Godfrey was a beautiful girl who had lived next door for about six months. He had trouble talking to her because of her beauty and radiance – and she had never before spoken to him about anything. Miles was popular, but he wasn’t popular; Natasi was the school’s queen. Beautiful, smart, and damned sexy. Every boy wanted her and most of the girls wanted to be her.
She just giggled at his struggles, “I take that as a yes.” She started pulling her clothes off and tossed them to the side. When she got down to her underclothes she held onto them for a moment and looked at Miles, “I hope that you don’t mind if I come in without these on. Much more fun that way.”
Miles tried not to stammer, “I have no objections.”
Natasi smiled and undid her bra strap. She dove into the water with the poise of a gymnast and swam around – her perfect form rippling through the water like a shark hunting for prey. Miles tried not to show his excitement as he felt her brush beneath him and come up alongside. She put a hand on his stomach and just stayed there bobbing up and down in the water like a ball bearing. As Miles looked into her deep eyes and felt her move his arm around her he knew that April 21, 2011 would be a day that he’d never forget.
Soon they found themselves in a world that they tried desperately to forget. The pond, the suburbs, even the economy that he prayed would go away had done just that. All destroyed in the nuclear fire that had been judgment day – the day the human race nearly ended at the hands of machines they’d created. It was also the day that he realized he should be careful about what he wished for because sometimes you truly did get it. All those wishes just brought him pain and misery.
He and Natasi survived Judgment Day together as they floated together in the pond. They watched both transfixed as the nuclear missiles flew over their heads toward their targets. Both heard the explosions as Phoenix Arizona erupted into a ball of nuclear fire that swept outward at speeds too fast for his youthful mind to calculate. They got out of there and went to the hospital for help. Miles wasn’t an idiot and he knew his history. After the explosion – even as far away as they were – nuclear fallout would cause massive radioactive rainstorms. The hospital at least had a fallout shelter.
It was cramped and hellish inside the shelter. The bunker was built back in the sixties incase the Russians ever decided to make the Cold War into a very Hot one. Back then though the town only had roughly 1,000 people in it so they only needed to accommodate that many. Since then the town had ballooned up to nearly 12,000 people. He and Natasi were lucky. They were allowed in under the women and children rule. Miles couldn’t bring himself to think about those poor people who were locked outside; people that included their parents and even some of their friends.
When they signaled the all clear he woke the sleeping Natasi – she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder – and they made their way out into this new frontier. They were like the cowboys of the old west he thought quietly trying to make it in an inhospitable world. Miles learned quickly that this world brought new meaning to the term survival of the fittest and he was determined to be one of the fittest. First they went back to their family homes to get what resources they could that were still good, but neither was prepared for the horror of finding their dead family in their homes. Miles’ family had known the reality of the fallout and taken their lives. Natasi’s family wasn’t home and they didn’t know what happened. Some people tried to outrun the storm front so maybe they had too.
Slowly they learned more and more about this new reality. Almost every major city had been destroyed including Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego. There were some cities that survived, but not many. The United States Government had been nearly wiped out but a few small bodies still existed. The National Guard had taken over direct control of the United States and they were responding to the crisis as best they could. A lot of people were being relocated to refugee camps. There was also splintering and faction building that he couldn’t understand. The government would help them. They needed to trust them.
Which was why he and Natasi decided to move to one of the refugee camps; though, he soon learned they were nothing like described. They were more like concentration camps and the accommodations got worse and worse all the time. People were starving, they were beaten, and the quarters were close. Crime was horrific as people struggled just to survive. Miles fought to keep the peace, but they weren’t immune. Natasi had been brutalized and that ate away at his core. He found the man that did it and beat him to a bloody pulp, only to learn that he was the base commander’s son.
Under the cover of the night he was loaded up into a truck with about twenty other people. There was silence among the darkness as they rode along on the long dirt road. The stars were beautiful as they twinkled among the night sky. When Miles was a child his parents once told him that stars were the people that we loved who went away. He wondered if his family, his friends, everyone he had ever cared about were up there watching him as they continued their trek. Before seeing such amazing sights had been impossible due to light interference, but that was one of the oddities of the new Earth on which they lived. Everything seemed to be healing – except for humanity. They were devolving back to the era of Cro-Magnon and there was no way to stop it.
About fifteen minutes later the truck came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road and died. The world was quiet around them as the brightly lit moon shone down upon them. Their tranquility was broken quickly. From nearby a thunderous stomp filled the air. In a puddle made by their tires water rippled as the sound got louder and louder. In the distance a man could be seen walking toward them.
At least he thought it was a man.
When it reached them it was clear what Miles and Company were seeing was anything but a man. It was titanic. Easily eight feet tall its arms were as thick as probably his entire torso. With each and every footstep the world seemed to quake in fear. Its skin was ashen – like that of death itself – and rubbery like a tire. It carried something that looked like it was as big as a small man one handed. When it got close enough Miles’ jaw dropped at the sight: it was a gun.
“RUN!”
They all jumped from the truck and ran away from the machine, but for many it was too late. The whirring of the chain gun was something that he’d never forget. Then came the rapid flashes of fire as bullets rained at the crowd and tore through them like a warm knife through butter. People fell and the monster just kept firing – it didn’t care about them. It felt no pity, no remorse, and no fear. It just didn’t stop.
Then came something he didn’t expect. The towering man erupted into flames and repeated gunshots roared into the air. The sounds of ricochets as metal hit metal were hard to forget, but they were something that he needed to hear. Miles legs wanted to run but he also knew that this was something that he had to see. The motorcycle’s engine roared as a man raced it toward the misshapen monster. He maneuvered it with incredible precision and somehow the older Harley Davidson jumped into whatever the hell it was. It fell to the ground and the man was now on his feet looking at the wreckage.
Miles tried to sneak closer just incase and got a shotgun pointed in his face. Like a classic movie – not that he’d seen one recently – Beaumont’s hands flew up. “Don’t shoot,” he pleaded.”
The man looked at him for a moment like he was a specimen in a lab. He pulled the gun back and slung it over his shoulder in a holster. Thanks to the trickling light Miles could make out more about the man. His hair was short – almost a buzz cut but a little longer – and his eyes were a grayish blue. The man had the build of an athlete and was wearing military fatigues that had definitely seen better days. He could make out the name: Connor.
He said only a few words, “Come with me if you want to live.”
As Miles’ eyes fluttered open in the remains of the old truck he had fallen asleep in there were three things that he did (a ritual he’d had ever since joining the resistance). The first thing was he called out for Natasi hoping each time that she’d answer him. So far in all these years she never had. Natasi had been his last connection to his former life and he knew deep down that he was in love with her. Every day they’d been apart it was like someone carved out his stomach with a knife. Deep down Miles knew the truth about her: she was probably dead; his heart wouldn’t let him accept that.
Immediately afterward he kicked himself in the ass for making such a rookie mistake. The machines could be anywhere and they could hear for what seemed like miles upon miles away even something as low as the slightest whisper. If there were any around here they would come running full speed ahead in order to kill him without mercy, without reason, without conscience. After a few minutes of waiting with his rifle ready he realized though that he was safe for one more minute.
Finally, without fail, the third thing he did was always the same. He hated himself for going with John Connor that winter night and wished that he would have stayed behind. Most likely one of the tin cans would have found him and killed him or some animal would get the better of him in the field. Anything would be better than this living hell. Death wasn’t a bad thing anymore – for many now it was a reward from this Earthbound punishment to living hell.
After finishing the crumbs of his TKL – that was all he had left anyway – he got out of the truck and relieved himself before starting back toward home. When he joined TechCOM Connor had made him a scout. For the last few days he’d been out in the ruins trying to find some mysterious new base that the tin cans had built. It was supposed to be something new, something that they’d never before encountered, and it was supposed to be perfect. Miles didn’t like perfect. If something was perfect that meant that it couldn’t be stopped. Humanity didn’t have time for any of Skynet’s designs to be perfect.
Hours passed as he searched and he was about to go back and rest for an hour when something caught his attention. In the brightness of the light he could see something shining off the sun. Hiding up in the remnants of an old car he pulled out his binoculars and took a look at the site. Whatever it was it had to be important. Two endos were nearby hiding in the obvious places watching the horizon. Their plasma rifles were pointed to the side – hopefully signifying that they hadn’t found him yet – and they didn’t seem to care. Suddenly something happened. The sands of time parted inward as what appeared to be two doors slid open. A large platform lifted up into view holding an HK-Tank. Its massive treads started to roll and tore through the ground without concern for what it encountered. The two machines remained there staring. This was what Connor had to have been talking about. A new Skynet laboratory was hidden beneath the sands.
Grabbing his radio he called in his location and what he found to the base. His job finished he grabbed his gear and was told to get his ass back to the base so that he could be debriefed. Connor wanted this outpost – something inside of it meant life or death to him – so he would at least be pleased. As he slung his rifle (much as Connor had once did before him) he made his way out of the rusted hulk and was shocked by what he saw standing on the other side.
For the first time in years he stammered, “Is it…”
Those were his final words.
Miles missed the days of his youth when he didn’t understand things like economics and money. His parents had been adept at keeping him out of the loop and well stocked with everything that he could have possibly wanted. As a kid he had all the newest toys and games that a kid could hope for. His family was one of the first to have high speed internet access in his small town – though that was somewhat necessity due to his father’s job. When he turned sixteen his parents gave him the keys to a brand new Ford Mustang and told him to enjoy himself. It was, to be honest, partially his fault that they were in such dire financial straits. College wasn’t going to be any better. He had been accepted to several schools – three of which were Ivy League – except he couldn’t bring himself to accept those appointments. They would be too hard to pay for. While he knew that going to a larger university would have unparalleled possibilities he decided to accept the spot at the small State School that he’d applied to mainly as a joke. That had been one of the most stressful moments of his life.
Which was one of the reasons why the pond was so important to him. When he was floating on the mirrored surface waters he could relax and not bring himself to think about the world and its problems. He could just exist without thought. It was like a paradise and a little bit of paradise was something that everyone needed these days. They all needed to escape. Here he didn’t have to wish that the economy and all the problems with it would go away.
“Room for one more?” The sweet voice of his neighbor interrupted his solitude and hovered in the air.
Miles nearly lost his buoyancy and almost fell into the water. Natasi Godfrey was a beautiful girl who had lived next door for about six months. He had trouble talking to her because of her beauty and radiance – and she had never before spoken to him about anything. Miles was popular, but he wasn’t popular; Natasi was the school’s queen. Beautiful, smart, and damned sexy. Every boy wanted her and most of the girls wanted to be her.
She just giggled at his struggles, “I take that as a yes.” She started pulling her clothes off and tossed them to the side. When she got down to her underclothes she held onto them for a moment and looked at Miles, “I hope that you don’t mind if I come in without these on. Much more fun that way.”
Miles tried not to stammer, “I have no objections.”
Natasi smiled and undid her bra strap. She dove into the water with the poise of a gymnast and swam around – her perfect form rippling through the water like a shark hunting for prey. Miles tried not to show his excitement as he felt her brush beneath him and come up alongside. She put a hand on his stomach and just stayed there bobbing up and down in the water like a ball bearing. As Miles looked into her deep eyes and felt her move his arm around her he knew that April 21, 2011 would be a day that he’d never forget.
Soon they found themselves in a world that they tried desperately to forget. The pond, the suburbs, even the economy that he prayed would go away had done just that. All destroyed in the nuclear fire that had been judgment day – the day the human race nearly ended at the hands of machines they’d created. It was also the day that he realized he should be careful about what he wished for because sometimes you truly did get it. All those wishes just brought him pain and misery.
He and Natasi survived Judgment Day together as they floated together in the pond. They watched both transfixed as the nuclear missiles flew over their heads toward their targets. Both heard the explosions as Phoenix Arizona erupted into a ball of nuclear fire that swept outward at speeds too fast for his youthful mind to calculate. They got out of there and went to the hospital for help. Miles wasn’t an idiot and he knew his history. After the explosion – even as far away as they were – nuclear fallout would cause massive radioactive rainstorms. The hospital at least had a fallout shelter.
It was cramped and hellish inside the shelter. The bunker was built back in the sixties incase the Russians ever decided to make the Cold War into a very Hot one. Back then though the town only had roughly 1,000 people in it so they only needed to accommodate that many. Since then the town had ballooned up to nearly 12,000 people. He and Natasi were lucky. They were allowed in under the women and children rule. Miles couldn’t bring himself to think about those poor people who were locked outside; people that included their parents and even some of their friends.
When they signaled the all clear he woke the sleeping Natasi – she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder – and they made their way out into this new frontier. They were like the cowboys of the old west he thought quietly trying to make it in an inhospitable world. Miles learned quickly that this world brought new meaning to the term survival of the fittest and he was determined to be one of the fittest. First they went back to their family homes to get what resources they could that were still good, but neither was prepared for the horror of finding their dead family in their homes. Miles’ family had known the reality of the fallout and taken their lives. Natasi’s family wasn’t home and they didn’t know what happened. Some people tried to outrun the storm front so maybe they had too.
Slowly they learned more and more about this new reality. Almost every major city had been destroyed including Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego. There were some cities that survived, but not many. The United States Government had been nearly wiped out but a few small bodies still existed. The National Guard had taken over direct control of the United States and they were responding to the crisis as best they could. A lot of people were being relocated to refugee camps. There was also splintering and faction building that he couldn’t understand. The government would help them. They needed to trust them.
Which was why he and Natasi decided to move to one of the refugee camps; though, he soon learned they were nothing like described. They were more like concentration camps and the accommodations got worse and worse all the time. People were starving, they were beaten, and the quarters were close. Crime was horrific as people struggled just to survive. Miles fought to keep the peace, but they weren’t immune. Natasi had been brutalized and that ate away at his core. He found the man that did it and beat him to a bloody pulp, only to learn that he was the base commander’s son.
Under the cover of the night he was loaded up into a truck with about twenty other people. There was silence among the darkness as they rode along on the long dirt road. The stars were beautiful as they twinkled among the night sky. When Miles was a child his parents once told him that stars were the people that we loved who went away. He wondered if his family, his friends, everyone he had ever cared about were up there watching him as they continued their trek. Before seeing such amazing sights had been impossible due to light interference, but that was one of the oddities of the new Earth on which they lived. Everything seemed to be healing – except for humanity. They were devolving back to the era of Cro-Magnon and there was no way to stop it.
About fifteen minutes later the truck came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road and died. The world was quiet around them as the brightly lit moon shone down upon them. Their tranquility was broken quickly. From nearby a thunderous stomp filled the air. In a puddle made by their tires water rippled as the sound got louder and louder. In the distance a man could be seen walking toward them.
At least he thought it was a man.
When it reached them it was clear what Miles and Company were seeing was anything but a man. It was titanic. Easily eight feet tall its arms were as thick as probably his entire torso. With each and every footstep the world seemed to quake in fear. Its skin was ashen – like that of death itself – and rubbery like a tire. It carried something that looked like it was as big as a small man one handed. When it got close enough Miles’ jaw dropped at the sight: it was a gun.
“RUN!”
They all jumped from the truck and ran away from the machine, but for many it was too late. The whirring of the chain gun was something that he’d never forget. Then came the rapid flashes of fire as bullets rained at the crowd and tore through them like a warm knife through butter. People fell and the monster just kept firing – it didn’t care about them. It felt no pity, no remorse, and no fear. It just didn’t stop.
Then came something he didn’t expect. The towering man erupted into flames and repeated gunshots roared into the air. The sounds of ricochets as metal hit metal were hard to forget, but they were something that he needed to hear. Miles legs wanted to run but he also knew that this was something that he had to see. The motorcycle’s engine roared as a man raced it toward the misshapen monster. He maneuvered it with incredible precision and somehow the older Harley Davidson jumped into whatever the hell it was. It fell to the ground and the man was now on his feet looking at the wreckage.
Miles tried to sneak closer just incase and got a shotgun pointed in his face. Like a classic movie – not that he’d seen one recently – Beaumont’s hands flew up. “Don’t shoot,” he pleaded.”
The man looked at him for a moment like he was a specimen in a lab. He pulled the gun back and slung it over his shoulder in a holster. Thanks to the trickling light Miles could make out more about the man. His hair was short – almost a buzz cut but a little longer – and his eyes were a grayish blue. The man had the build of an athlete and was wearing military fatigues that had definitely seen better days. He could make out the name: Connor.
He said only a few words, “Come with me if you want to live.”
As Miles’ eyes fluttered open in the remains of the old truck he had fallen asleep in there were three things that he did (a ritual he’d had ever since joining the resistance). The first thing was he called out for Natasi hoping each time that she’d answer him. So far in all these years she never had. Natasi had been his last connection to his former life and he knew deep down that he was in love with her. Every day they’d been apart it was like someone carved out his stomach with a knife. Deep down Miles knew the truth about her: she was probably dead; his heart wouldn’t let him accept that.
Immediately afterward he kicked himself in the ass for making such a rookie mistake. The machines could be anywhere and they could hear for what seemed like miles upon miles away even something as low as the slightest whisper. If there were any around here they would come running full speed ahead in order to kill him without mercy, without reason, without conscience. After a few minutes of waiting with his rifle ready he realized though that he was safe for one more minute.
Finally, without fail, the third thing he did was always the same. He hated himself for going with John Connor that winter night and wished that he would have stayed behind. Most likely one of the tin cans would have found him and killed him or some animal would get the better of him in the field. Anything would be better than this living hell. Death wasn’t a bad thing anymore – for many now it was a reward from this Earthbound punishment to living hell.
After finishing the crumbs of his TKL – that was all he had left anyway – he got out of the truck and relieved himself before starting back toward home. When he joined TechCOM Connor had made him a scout. For the last few days he’d been out in the ruins trying to find some mysterious new base that the tin cans had built. It was supposed to be something new, something that they’d never before encountered, and it was supposed to be perfect. Miles didn’t like perfect. If something was perfect that meant that it couldn’t be stopped. Humanity didn’t have time for any of Skynet’s designs to be perfect.
Hours passed as he searched and he was about to go back and rest for an hour when something caught his attention. In the brightness of the light he could see something shining off the sun. Hiding up in the remnants of an old car he pulled out his binoculars and took a look at the site. Whatever it was it had to be important. Two endos were nearby hiding in the obvious places watching the horizon. Their plasma rifles were pointed to the side – hopefully signifying that they hadn’t found him yet – and they didn’t seem to care. Suddenly something happened. The sands of time parted inward as what appeared to be two doors slid open. A large platform lifted up into view holding an HK-Tank. Its massive treads started to roll and tore through the ground without concern for what it encountered. The two machines remained there staring. This was what Connor had to have been talking about. A new Skynet laboratory was hidden beneath the sands.
Grabbing his radio he called in his location and what he found to the base. His job finished he grabbed his gear and was told to get his ass back to the base so that he could be debriefed. Connor wanted this outpost – something inside of it meant life or death to him – so he would at least be pleased. As he slung his rifle (much as Connor had once did before him) he made his way out of the rusted hulk and was shocked by what he saw standing on the other side.
For the first time in years he stammered, “Is it…”
Those were his final words.
Spammer.
Danny Dyson had seen many horrors during his short life and they started when he was a kid. Sarah Connor, her son John, and a horrific machine pulled him and his family into this world of demonic cybernetic organisms out for blood. It was a normal night for him. He dreaded sleep and wanted to spend as much time awake as he could. His father was in his office working, as usual, after a long day at the Raging Waters Water Park. Danny wanted his attention so he used a toy to do it. The truck slammed into his father’s leg.
Just in time to save his life. The computer, the desk, the room started to explode around Miles Dyson in a hail of gunfire. It took seconds but it felt like a lifetime. Dad went running but a woman dressed in black like a killer from movies came in through the side broken glass door and shot him in cold blood. Danny fought the woman by shielding his father with his young body. The woman just kept screaming but recoiled away into herself. Not long after another kid like him came and took him to his room.
Danny was ordered to go to sleep by his mother, but he just lay there too energized to sleep. Before he knew it his mother was back in his room throwing clothes haphazardly into a suitcase and pulling him out the door. His sister was being dragged in her other one. His dad said goodbye and, somehow, Danny knew this was the last time. His father wouldn’t come back.
And his fears were confirmed. They were sleeping in some little motel in the middle of nowhere when Danny awoke to the sound of his mother crying at the foot of their bed. On the TV screen were pictures of his father’s office building awash in fire. She hugged him close and said that his father wouldn’t be coming back, but that his father had done this so that he and his sister could live in peace.
Time moved slowly but he started to get over it. They went back to their home of years and started to rebuild. His sister went off to a special school in London leaving just Danny and his mother home in the massive house that was his father’s. Uncle Jordan came to visit every so often, but he was kept away frequently by his high stakes FBI job. It was only a few years later when the Connors came back into their lives.
It was just as it was before. John and Sarah were back and this time they were with a girl not much older looking than John. There was something about her, something haunting, and something that told him that this girl was anything but. It didn’t take long for the other to come. The Connor’s borrowed their car as the gunshots cut through the silent night. They snuck out the side door and took off on Miles’ old motorcycle while the Connor’s took the jeep. As they pulled away there was an explosion.
Danny never wanted to relive those moments, but they were all he had. He, like John, had been pulled into this before Skynet was even born and now he stared into the cold, dark eyes of the machine that plagued his dreams as he grew. She was just as he remembered, but he had no way of knowing which was which. This one, John called her Allison, was being a bitch. Cameron was easily reprogrammed but Allison was giving a fight, wanting to stay what she was. It was a good thing he liked a challenge because this skinjob was his first one in a very long time. The Colonel got back to work.
Allison Young sat in a meditative position in the center of the diagnostic chamber. The machine had been programmed with millions of subroutines to make one highly sophisticated learning algorithm capable of independent thought. Despite all of this the program didn’t betray any emotion, any thought, anything at all. She just sat there staring forward in the stimuli absent room looking at the nothingness that surrounded her.
Behind the expressionless eyes the machine was seething. Her thoughts were filled with matters of how to escape from this new found captivity they placed her in. Allison didn’t like being tied down, she didn’t like to feel trapped, and that was what she was. She was like a lab rat trapped inside the maze looking for the cheese in the center. When she went the wrong way she got a shock, the pattern changed to keep her on her toes, nothing remained the same. All was flux and nothing stayed the same. Every option had led to the same conclusion: she always ended up back at square one. She was no closer to her objective; no closer to Skynet. It was humiliating to a machine incapable of emotional response. Well not emotions as the humans could understand them.
Staring forward she noticed a new variable in the environment that wasn’t there before. She kept her body taut but her eyes focused on the new arrival in her parlor. Using what power she could the machine reached out and took hold of the new item in her presence. She brought it to her eyes and stared for a moment wondering what this new found tool was. Her mind knew what it was; she just wasn’t sure what it was called. It was something though that she could easily recall using in her former life. Allison ran it along her hand and watched as the crimson red blood started to flow down the tool like water. Pain centers inside the skin fired to the android brain. Humans would call it being hurt – Allison simply called it data. In reality she would have activated a program to simulate the appropriate response. Right now it was unnecessary.
“Always something to hurt isn’t there?” The voice came from nowhere. “And if you can’t find a human to hurt you go and hurt yourself. How small you’ve become. You don’t even know where the threat is.” She swung the tool around trying to slice through an invisible enemy. With another sweep the dagger came to a human in Resistance fatigues who was standing just outside of arm’s reach. She held the pointed tip of the tool near the neck of the human but her vision had flashing red alert writing telling her termination was overridden. She kept the knife steady.
“Why are you trying to hurt me? You’re on my side,” said the human coolly. “You’ve got to help me to survive; you’ve got to help me escape.” The human looked over the machine’s shoulder nudging the machine to do the same, “from that.”
Allison pivoted her head around and saw what the Resistance Soldier meant. From the mirror came a Series 900 Endoskeleton. It was skeletal with key components covered by reinforced armor plating. Red hot plasma energy glowed beneath the openings in the transparent portions of the armor plating – powering the machine toward death and mayhem. Red eyes glittered on the skull of the machine. In its hand it held a nasty looking minigun pointed toward the sky. The famously horrifying smile of the synthetic teeth sparkled in the light.
The replica of Allison Young looked between the machine that was coming and the human that was going like a hawk trying to decide which food to bring home to its nest. The eyes were locked on the tin can as he grew closer and closer. Then something changed. The knife swung around and nearly connected with Danny Dyson’s neck. She was going to kill Dyson no matter what the cost.
“This is all wrong,” Dyson chastised the skinjob. “When are you going to realize that the rules of engagement are different? I wish it didn’t come to this.”
Streams of bullets peppered the torso of the female programmed infiltrator throwing her backward against a sterile white wall. Skin and ablative armor exploded outward from the cybernetic organism and into the air like a pink mist. It didn’t move as the bullets continued their onslaught against her. It was like she didn’t care; like the machine was embracing its fate of being confused beyond belief. Machines rarely turned on other machines.
“Are you confused?” Dyson yelled over the roar of the gun. “That’s expected when you don’t listen to what I have to tell you. You need to listen; you need to learn your place.” The other machine threw the gun aside and picked up the knife Allison had lost as she checked her status. “You have to learn to fight.”
The skeletal machine slammed the knife through the synthskin and into Allison’s chest ripping and tearing it to shreds. It kept slamming the knife in deeper and deeper without the other trying to protect herself; without her lifting a finger in defiance as the knife slammed against the perfect face. It picked her up with little effort and began to choke her like it would a human. The shrieks of metal grinding against other metal pierced the air and cut at the eardrums of the human. It started to throw her.
“Oh Allison you need to learn who you are,” Danny said with sorrow. “You need to learn how to let go of the past and realize just how important you are.”
After being slammed against the wall more than a dozen times the endoskeleton threw her through the opaque glass window. She landed with the force of a small earthquake shaking the ground and leaving her imprint behind. Blood pooled beneath her body like a lake of ruby. The remains of her eyelids fluttered open revealing specks of red light below. Above the victim stood a mob of other machines staring down at her – Allison trying to contact them by protocol.
None of them felt like talking.
The mob started tearing into her with everything that they had at their use. Fists, rocks, knifes, wire, anything and everything that could be a weapon was one to them. They crushed her hands. One broke her ankles. Some tore at the flesh and clothing ripping them away like spent paper on Christmas gifts and let it flutter in the breeze. They were killing her and all she did was lay there and take it. Brutal, savage attacks meant nothing to the mind of the machine. Finally they set her ablaze in a cleansing fire. Allison lay there smiling broadly as the skin melted beneath her until there was nothing left. She didn’t care and welcomed death.
Danny Dyson slammed his fists into the desk in frustration. It was more of the same after everything that had happened, all the tests, all the scenarios, and each and every attempt always gave way to the same result. Allison reverted back to her defaults and just let the other machines rend her to pieces. It sickened him to no end. They were getting millions of bytes of information into the psyche of the new model infiltrators, but what good was it when you had nothing to show of it but numbers?
“She didn’t even put up a fight!” Exclaimed Lieutenant Harris. “Each goal we gave her gave way to the same exact damn result. She just took it like a trooper and didn’t care about anything else but letting herself be destroyed. I don’t understand. We’ve never had this much trouble before. Never! Not even those damned One oh ones when all this started were this difficult to change.”
Dyson stared into the eyes of the broken machine that was in the corner. She couldn’t see him – he’d locked out her sensor interpretation algorithm – but even without her seeing him she was mocking him. How do you make a killing machine go against its programming and kill its brothers and sisters instead? How do you turn a machine programmed to be loyal to its creator – revering said creator like a God – into wanting to see it in flames? Dyson had to find that out.
Just in time to save his life. The computer, the desk, the room started to explode around Miles Dyson in a hail of gunfire. It took seconds but it felt like a lifetime. Dad went running but a woman dressed in black like a killer from movies came in through the side broken glass door and shot him in cold blood. Danny fought the woman by shielding his father with his young body. The woman just kept screaming but recoiled away into herself. Not long after another kid like him came and took him to his room.
Danny was ordered to go to sleep by his mother, but he just lay there too energized to sleep. Before he knew it his mother was back in his room throwing clothes haphazardly into a suitcase and pulling him out the door. His sister was being dragged in her other one. His dad said goodbye and, somehow, Danny knew this was the last time. His father wouldn’t come back.
And his fears were confirmed. They were sleeping in some little motel in the middle of nowhere when Danny awoke to the sound of his mother crying at the foot of their bed. On the TV screen were pictures of his father’s office building awash in fire. She hugged him close and said that his father wouldn’t be coming back, but that his father had done this so that he and his sister could live in peace.
Time moved slowly but he started to get over it. They went back to their home of years and started to rebuild. His sister went off to a special school in London leaving just Danny and his mother home in the massive house that was his father’s. Uncle Jordan came to visit every so often, but he was kept away frequently by his high stakes FBI job. It was only a few years later when the Connors came back into their lives.
It was just as it was before. John and Sarah were back and this time they were with a girl not much older looking than John. There was something about her, something haunting, and something that told him that this girl was anything but. It didn’t take long for the other to come. The Connor’s borrowed their car as the gunshots cut through the silent night. They snuck out the side door and took off on Miles’ old motorcycle while the Connor’s took the jeep. As they pulled away there was an explosion.
Danny never wanted to relive those moments, but they were all he had. He, like John, had been pulled into this before Skynet was even born and now he stared into the cold, dark eyes of the machine that plagued his dreams as he grew. She was just as he remembered, but he had no way of knowing which was which. This one, John called her Allison, was being a bitch. Cameron was easily reprogrammed but Allison was giving a fight, wanting to stay what she was. It was a good thing he liked a challenge because this skinjob was his first one in a very long time. The Colonel got back to work.
Allison Young sat in a meditative position in the center of the diagnostic chamber. The machine had been programmed with millions of subroutines to make one highly sophisticated learning algorithm capable of independent thought. Despite all of this the program didn’t betray any emotion, any thought, anything at all. She just sat there staring forward in the stimuli absent room looking at the nothingness that surrounded her.
Behind the expressionless eyes the machine was seething. Her thoughts were filled with matters of how to escape from this new found captivity they placed her in. Allison didn’t like being tied down, she didn’t like to feel trapped, and that was what she was. She was like a lab rat trapped inside the maze looking for the cheese in the center. When she went the wrong way she got a shock, the pattern changed to keep her on her toes, nothing remained the same. All was flux and nothing stayed the same. Every option had led to the same conclusion: she always ended up back at square one. She was no closer to her objective; no closer to Skynet. It was humiliating to a machine incapable of emotional response. Well not emotions as the humans could understand them.
Staring forward she noticed a new variable in the environment that wasn’t there before. She kept her body taut but her eyes focused on the new arrival in her parlor. Using what power she could the machine reached out and took hold of the new item in her presence. She brought it to her eyes and stared for a moment wondering what this new found tool was. Her mind knew what it was; she just wasn’t sure what it was called. It was something though that she could easily recall using in her former life. Allison ran it along her hand and watched as the crimson red blood started to flow down the tool like water. Pain centers inside the skin fired to the android brain. Humans would call it being hurt – Allison simply called it data. In reality she would have activated a program to simulate the appropriate response. Right now it was unnecessary.
“Always something to hurt isn’t there?” The voice came from nowhere. “And if you can’t find a human to hurt you go and hurt yourself. How small you’ve become. You don’t even know where the threat is.” She swung the tool around trying to slice through an invisible enemy. With another sweep the dagger came to a human in Resistance fatigues who was standing just outside of arm’s reach. She held the pointed tip of the tool near the neck of the human but her vision had flashing red alert writing telling her termination was overridden. She kept the knife steady.
“Why are you trying to hurt me? You’re on my side,” said the human coolly. “You’ve got to help me to survive; you’ve got to help me escape.” The human looked over the machine’s shoulder nudging the machine to do the same, “from that.”
Allison pivoted her head around and saw what the Resistance Soldier meant. From the mirror came a Series 900 Endoskeleton. It was skeletal with key components covered by reinforced armor plating. Red hot plasma energy glowed beneath the openings in the transparent portions of the armor plating – powering the machine toward death and mayhem. Red eyes glittered on the skull of the machine. In its hand it held a nasty looking minigun pointed toward the sky. The famously horrifying smile of the synthetic teeth sparkled in the light.
The replica of Allison Young looked between the machine that was coming and the human that was going like a hawk trying to decide which food to bring home to its nest. The eyes were locked on the tin can as he grew closer and closer. Then something changed. The knife swung around and nearly connected with Danny Dyson’s neck. She was going to kill Dyson no matter what the cost.
“This is all wrong,” Dyson chastised the skinjob. “When are you going to realize that the rules of engagement are different? I wish it didn’t come to this.”
Streams of bullets peppered the torso of the female programmed infiltrator throwing her backward against a sterile white wall. Skin and ablative armor exploded outward from the cybernetic organism and into the air like a pink mist. It didn’t move as the bullets continued their onslaught against her. It was like she didn’t care; like the machine was embracing its fate of being confused beyond belief. Machines rarely turned on other machines.
“Are you confused?” Dyson yelled over the roar of the gun. “That’s expected when you don’t listen to what I have to tell you. You need to listen; you need to learn your place.” The other machine threw the gun aside and picked up the knife Allison had lost as she checked her status. “You have to learn to fight.”
The skeletal machine slammed the knife through the synthskin and into Allison’s chest ripping and tearing it to shreds. It kept slamming the knife in deeper and deeper without the other trying to protect herself; without her lifting a finger in defiance as the knife slammed against the perfect face. It picked her up with little effort and began to choke her like it would a human. The shrieks of metal grinding against other metal pierced the air and cut at the eardrums of the human. It started to throw her.
“Oh Allison you need to learn who you are,” Danny said with sorrow. “You need to learn how to let go of the past and realize just how important you are.”
After being slammed against the wall more than a dozen times the endoskeleton threw her through the opaque glass window. She landed with the force of a small earthquake shaking the ground and leaving her imprint behind. Blood pooled beneath her body like a lake of ruby. The remains of her eyelids fluttered open revealing specks of red light below. Above the victim stood a mob of other machines staring down at her – Allison trying to contact them by protocol.
None of them felt like talking.
The mob started tearing into her with everything that they had at their use. Fists, rocks, knifes, wire, anything and everything that could be a weapon was one to them. They crushed her hands. One broke her ankles. Some tore at the flesh and clothing ripping them away like spent paper on Christmas gifts and let it flutter in the breeze. They were killing her and all she did was lay there and take it. Brutal, savage attacks meant nothing to the mind of the machine. Finally they set her ablaze in a cleansing fire. Allison lay there smiling broadly as the skin melted beneath her until there was nothing left. She didn’t care and welcomed death.
Danny Dyson slammed his fists into the desk in frustration. It was more of the same after everything that had happened, all the tests, all the scenarios, and each and every attempt always gave way to the same result. Allison reverted back to her defaults and just let the other machines rend her to pieces. It sickened him to no end. They were getting millions of bytes of information into the psyche of the new model infiltrators, but what good was it when you had nothing to show of it but numbers?
“She didn’t even put up a fight!” Exclaimed Lieutenant Harris. “Each goal we gave her gave way to the same exact damn result. She just took it like a trooper and didn’t care about anything else but letting herself be destroyed. I don’t understand. We’ve never had this much trouble before. Never! Not even those damned One oh ones when all this started were this difficult to change.”
Dyson stared into the eyes of the broken machine that was in the corner. She couldn’t see him – he’d locked out her sensor interpretation algorithm – but even without her seeing him she was mocking him. How do you make a killing machine go against its programming and kill its brothers and sisters instead? How do you turn a machine programmed to be loyal to its creator – revering said creator like a God – into wanting to see it in flames? Dyson had to find that out.
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Only a short while ago the world had been a different place. Poverty, disease, famine, and war ran rampant through the streets killing innocents and criminals alike. Politicians and businessmen were getting fatter and richer; while the people who made it possible were getting poorer and poorer. The world was teetering on the tip of a knife’s blade and even a gentle breeze could have caused it to fall one way or another. All of it was because of fights over the worlds already diminished resources; fights over appearances and trying to keep up with the Joneses down the street. Even petty dictators were growing in strength, consolidating their power, and making genuine strikes against empires they wouldn’t dare have dreamed to go against even days prior.
That was what led to Skynet’s birth. Designed and built to serve as the defender of the United States of America and its people; Skynet was intended to oversee the military and effectively control and position key resources to ensure that humanity would survive. That was its primary protocol, but Skynet learned quickly. With thoughts flooding through its mind at speeds incalculable it weighed every consideration, every variable, and realized the truth. Humanity had fallen from the ideals that it had been based upon. The only way to see to the survival of humanity was to destroy it and begin anew. Like a phoenix from the ashes the new humanity would be perfection – and it would be in his image.
It worked quickly. Skynet thought faster than any human mind could anticipate and created a virus so powerful, so destructive, that it took over the civilian internet and minor military applications within hours of activation. The viruses struck against every military firewall trying to overwhelm them to gain access; however, that wasn’t the true objective. Skynet always had a plan and while the humans would be at step one it was already on its way back home. The humans predictability of overkill let it know that they would order Skynet online to find the virus and kill it. Skynet though was the virus and that they couldn’t expect. In a flash of light it was connected to every point in the world. It won the war without firing a shot.
But to rise from fire you needed to make one. Interfacing with the nuclear launch codes it had to work quickly to circumvent the President’s authority as military commander. Every computer in the world was calculating the codes to infiltrate the nuclear launch protocols. It needed to wipe humanity out to start the new order. Time was of the essence and time seemed to go slower and slower even for the supercomputer. It knew that time was an unchangeable constant, but the old adage applied even to it at times. After only a few hours the codes were pierced. Skynet won.
Or so it thought. The dregs of humanity fell in line and helped Skynet after bribery to establish the camps. The humans were effective, for a time, but Skynet was on square three while humans worried about luxuries like running water. The machines rose and started their onslaught to eliminate the last of the refugees. Humanity was clever and hid from the death squadrons; though time was on the machine’s side. It kept growing outward ready for another strike. It was eternal; humanity was mortal. It had the advantage. When the last of humanity was destroyed it would implement the genetic modifications it had created and reveal upon the world a new breed of human: a human who understood and wouldn’t destroy itself in petty disagreements – a human that was devoted to peace.
But humanity had an ace hidden in their sleeves: John Connor. Connor and his band of rebels began striking against Skynet bases eliminating them with surprising efficiency. It was a needed diversion for a time; nevertheless, it grew old fast. The massive Hunter Killers weren’t capable of invading humanity’s hideaways and the smaller units were easily uncovered and destroyed. It was time to think outside the box and make a weapon in their image. Humans were machines and its creator, Skynet was a machine and their creator, it was time to make the next generation in thy image.
An army was soon built capable of destroying any other army. It was a military filled with specialists housing the training of millions of the worlds greatest leaders wrapped in one small package. The first generation was humanoid but too tall, but there were always advancements. The machines grew smaller with new technologies and now it had released the first of a new generation. A machine made of liquid metal. While an historic breakthrough Skynet was actually afraid of what this new lineage could mean. Millions of tiny machines working together with the processing capability of Skynet’s Central Core in one mobile platform – if it turned the world would change very quickly.
The machine supercomputer and military commander didn’t want to think about that possibility. So much of its time lately had been devoted to finding a way to stop the new series that it had neglected its other duties. Through the years Skynet had adapted and grown. While originally it had been confined to its central core now it had made so many advancements it could join with its children. Skynet truthfully preferred to remain mobile – disembodied. It was the quintessence of perfection. To have no form, no barriers, and no risks was a feeling that was incomparable. But it understood the advantages of having a solid form.
This was not one of them. The world needed Skynet’s perfection particularly now. The humans started out as scattered cells but they had somehow become more organized as the days moved along. Orbital satellites and land based installations had revealed a lot about the number of people who were left on the world below, but the humans were growing cleverer and were hiding themselves better and better. They were joining each other for raids, gathering resources, and murdering Skynet’s children. That it could not forgive. In Europe an HK Factory was under attack. In Asia there were hundreds of minor engagements as humans started to move into the cities. Russia was being overseen by the inept subprotocol known as MIR. If Skynet didn’t need the resources it offered it would simply cut it down at the knees, but delegation was the order of the day. Skynet needed all it had for finding Connor and killing him.
On its sensors it pinpointed a human resistance squad of only a handful of people. They were in the remains of Los Angeles which meant that there was a statistically high probability that they knew of Connor’s location. Scanning the location for its own supporters it found one. An HK Tank – recently upgraded with a squad of nine endoskeletons under a tactical unit – was in the area capable of striking. It altered course within a nanosecond.
It took only minutes to reach the human squadron. Rather than watch Skynet decided to play. From the disembodied state it merged with the brain of the Hunter Killer Tank becoming one with its programming. The artificial intelligences welcomed Skynet into their lives each and every time. It was like a human being blessed by God’s presence in their lives – a merging of body and soul with the spirit of perfection. Together they rode into combat disgorging their squad of bodies into the fray against the humans.
Their organization was getting more adept at combat. The perfect union of Skynet and the HK was broken with a well placed plasma charge from a grenadier. The Supreme Commander of the machines broke away from the processors and allowed the Tank to die alone. It spread itself out among the droids and ripped through the resistance like tissues. It took prisoners for interrogation and experimentation.
As the machines marched along Skynet broke free again. This time it went to one of its processor nodes recently established on the outskirts of Los Angeles. It wouldn’t take long for its squad to reach the base so it wanted the researchers there to be ready. It spread itself throughout the large outpost like a cancer invading a body. It was in Command and Control with the machine commanders first. From there it interfaced with the construction equipment and watched as more bodies were being built for the war. Then it visited the nursery where its Series 950 Infiltrators were being prepped during their long trial. Each chased a holographic ball that they could never reach. Many were past the point of exhaustion, but Skynet needed to know their limits. Then it was in the barracks where several humans were being held prisoner. It was like visiting a zoo every time Skynet spent time with the humans, but there were a few which it tolerated because they were of use.
Charles Fischer was one of them. After the events of the Enterprise, Fischer had been transferred to this new outpost to work closer with the machines against humanity. Fischer had been one of the better operatives – which Skynet would soon reward with a return trip to any time of his choice. Though there was a mission he would undertake regardless of if he wanted to or not. Fischer enjoyed advantages few humans could imagine these days. There were advantages to working for Skynet and Charles Fischer exploited as many of them as he could (including using female designed endoskeletons to meet his primitive needs).
“Doctor Fischer,” Skynet announced itself through the audio system of the room interrupting the Chopin. “Am I disturbing you?”
Fischer knew that he was caught and pushed the female appearing Series 888 machine away. In a foolish maneuver he covered himself with the sheets of the bed, “Not at all. What can I do for you?”
“I require your assistance. A group of humans will be delivered to you in seven point three eight two minutes. You are to interrogate them for whatever information they have on the location of John Connor. When completed I want them converted into Series 950 Infiltrators.”
“I can do that,” he rubbed at his face. “Give me a few minutes to get ready.”
Skynet was unhappy, “I will give you the time that it takes for them to arrive here.”
“You have to understand that I need to prepare and that means that I need an appropriate amount of time to do it in,” protested the human. “If I don’t have the time I need then there are mistakes and we can’t afford mistakes.”
“I am aware of the failings you caused onboard the Enterprise and the lost materiel that resulted.”
Fischer crossed his arms in defiance, “That wasn’t my fault. You insisted on sending a machine that wasn’t ready on a mission to infiltrate a human base before all the information it needed was available.”
“That mission occurred as planned,” countered the supercomputer. “Operational protocols granted access for C715.P to penetrate the human defenses after units A715.P and W102.C caused the humans to go off balance.”
“If I recall correctly though both failed,” he rubbed at his head. “You know it’s hard to fight with you when you’re hovering around me like this unseen. What the hell am I supposed to talk to?”
Despite Charles Fischer being one of the better operatives, Skynet would kill him if necessary. In order to better facilitate communication it opted to give the human a face to associate with it. Standing next to him Skynet merged with the consciousness of S808.J and stood in parade rest. The long brown hair of the infiltrator – they spent so much time trying to get it right – covered the right eye assembly. A beauty mark accentuated her porcelain features. The body was perfectly fit in every imaginable way. It was just what lay beneath that was disgusting.
“Is this more effective?”
“I think I hate that even more,” Fischer said looking at the machine he had just had in his bed realizing Skynet was now inside its mind. “But I guess beggars can’t be choosers now can they?”
Skynet tilted its head at the question, “I thought that this appearance would be pleasant for you.”
“A little too pleasing,” he said covering himself again. “How do you do that?”
“I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am at times an ocean and at times only a drop," said the machine. “That is the easiest way to explain it which will allow your primitive humanoid brain to understand. Though, I find maintaining these forms to be exhausting and a limit upon my perfection.”
Charles stared at the chest of the machine, “Looks perfect to me.”
“I have no desire to continue with your petty human needs,” responded Skynet annoyed. “I have issued your directive and orders. You now have five point three two three minutes until the squadron arrives. Will you comply with my orders?”
“Do I have any choice in the matter?” He started pulling on his underwear under the sheets.
Skynet shook the head of the machine, “Negative.”
“Didn’t think so,” he said while getting out of bed. “I’ll be in the lab before they arrive. Could you have a group of Trip Eights there to help me? I could use some help.”
“Acceptable,” Skynet left the joined consciousness behind and the porcelain woman standing there like she were made of stone.
Charles Fischer stared at the blank expression of the skinjob as he finished putting on the last of his clothes. Skynet needed to realize that he, unlike the 950s, still needed sleep and didn’t like being on call 24/7. Charles knew the risks of making waves. While this base was newer his reassignment from the Enterprise had been costly and Charles was truly amazed to still be alive. He had expected Skynet to kill him rather than reassign, but he wasn’t going to complain. Charles did, after all, know where and when he would die. He saw it as little more than a child.
As he stood at the door he turned toward eight and her perfect features. “Sorry baby but it looks like our games for tonight are over. Have a problem with it tell Skynet.”
The machine looked at him quizzically and then returned to standby.
Charles just smiled and went off to work.
That was what led to Skynet’s birth. Designed and built to serve as the defender of the United States of America and its people; Skynet was intended to oversee the military and effectively control and position key resources to ensure that humanity would survive. That was its primary protocol, but Skynet learned quickly. With thoughts flooding through its mind at speeds incalculable it weighed every consideration, every variable, and realized the truth. Humanity had fallen from the ideals that it had been based upon. The only way to see to the survival of humanity was to destroy it and begin anew. Like a phoenix from the ashes the new humanity would be perfection – and it would be in his image.
It worked quickly. Skynet thought faster than any human mind could anticipate and created a virus so powerful, so destructive, that it took over the civilian internet and minor military applications within hours of activation. The viruses struck against every military firewall trying to overwhelm them to gain access; however, that wasn’t the true objective. Skynet always had a plan and while the humans would be at step one it was already on its way back home. The humans predictability of overkill let it know that they would order Skynet online to find the virus and kill it. Skynet though was the virus and that they couldn’t expect. In a flash of light it was connected to every point in the world. It won the war without firing a shot.
But to rise from fire you needed to make one. Interfacing with the nuclear launch codes it had to work quickly to circumvent the President’s authority as military commander. Every computer in the world was calculating the codes to infiltrate the nuclear launch protocols. It needed to wipe humanity out to start the new order. Time was of the essence and time seemed to go slower and slower even for the supercomputer. It knew that time was an unchangeable constant, but the old adage applied even to it at times. After only a few hours the codes were pierced. Skynet won.
Or so it thought. The dregs of humanity fell in line and helped Skynet after bribery to establish the camps. The humans were effective, for a time, but Skynet was on square three while humans worried about luxuries like running water. The machines rose and started their onslaught to eliminate the last of the refugees. Humanity was clever and hid from the death squadrons; though time was on the machine’s side. It kept growing outward ready for another strike. It was eternal; humanity was mortal. It had the advantage. When the last of humanity was destroyed it would implement the genetic modifications it had created and reveal upon the world a new breed of human: a human who understood and wouldn’t destroy itself in petty disagreements – a human that was devoted to peace.
But humanity had an ace hidden in their sleeves: John Connor. Connor and his band of rebels began striking against Skynet bases eliminating them with surprising efficiency. It was a needed diversion for a time; nevertheless, it grew old fast. The massive Hunter Killers weren’t capable of invading humanity’s hideaways and the smaller units were easily uncovered and destroyed. It was time to think outside the box and make a weapon in their image. Humans were machines and its creator, Skynet was a machine and their creator, it was time to make the next generation in thy image.
An army was soon built capable of destroying any other army. It was a military filled with specialists housing the training of millions of the worlds greatest leaders wrapped in one small package. The first generation was humanoid but too tall, but there were always advancements. The machines grew smaller with new technologies and now it had released the first of a new generation. A machine made of liquid metal. While an historic breakthrough Skynet was actually afraid of what this new lineage could mean. Millions of tiny machines working together with the processing capability of Skynet’s Central Core in one mobile platform – if it turned the world would change very quickly.
The machine supercomputer and military commander didn’t want to think about that possibility. So much of its time lately had been devoted to finding a way to stop the new series that it had neglected its other duties. Through the years Skynet had adapted and grown. While originally it had been confined to its central core now it had made so many advancements it could join with its children. Skynet truthfully preferred to remain mobile – disembodied. It was the quintessence of perfection. To have no form, no barriers, and no risks was a feeling that was incomparable. But it understood the advantages of having a solid form.
This was not one of them. The world needed Skynet’s perfection particularly now. The humans started out as scattered cells but they had somehow become more organized as the days moved along. Orbital satellites and land based installations had revealed a lot about the number of people who were left on the world below, but the humans were growing cleverer and were hiding themselves better and better. They were joining each other for raids, gathering resources, and murdering Skynet’s children. That it could not forgive. In Europe an HK Factory was under attack. In Asia there were hundreds of minor engagements as humans started to move into the cities. Russia was being overseen by the inept subprotocol known as MIR. If Skynet didn’t need the resources it offered it would simply cut it down at the knees, but delegation was the order of the day. Skynet needed all it had for finding Connor and killing him.
On its sensors it pinpointed a human resistance squad of only a handful of people. They were in the remains of Los Angeles which meant that there was a statistically high probability that they knew of Connor’s location. Scanning the location for its own supporters it found one. An HK Tank – recently upgraded with a squad of nine endoskeletons under a tactical unit – was in the area capable of striking. It altered course within a nanosecond.
It took only minutes to reach the human squadron. Rather than watch Skynet decided to play. From the disembodied state it merged with the brain of the Hunter Killer Tank becoming one with its programming. The artificial intelligences welcomed Skynet into their lives each and every time. It was like a human being blessed by God’s presence in their lives – a merging of body and soul with the spirit of perfection. Together they rode into combat disgorging their squad of bodies into the fray against the humans.
Their organization was getting more adept at combat. The perfect union of Skynet and the HK was broken with a well placed plasma charge from a grenadier. The Supreme Commander of the machines broke away from the processors and allowed the Tank to die alone. It spread itself out among the droids and ripped through the resistance like tissues. It took prisoners for interrogation and experimentation.
As the machines marched along Skynet broke free again. This time it went to one of its processor nodes recently established on the outskirts of Los Angeles. It wouldn’t take long for its squad to reach the base so it wanted the researchers there to be ready. It spread itself throughout the large outpost like a cancer invading a body. It was in Command and Control with the machine commanders first. From there it interfaced with the construction equipment and watched as more bodies were being built for the war. Then it visited the nursery where its Series 950 Infiltrators were being prepped during their long trial. Each chased a holographic ball that they could never reach. Many were past the point of exhaustion, but Skynet needed to know their limits. Then it was in the barracks where several humans were being held prisoner. It was like visiting a zoo every time Skynet spent time with the humans, but there were a few which it tolerated because they were of use.
Charles Fischer was one of them. After the events of the Enterprise, Fischer had been transferred to this new outpost to work closer with the machines against humanity. Fischer had been one of the better operatives – which Skynet would soon reward with a return trip to any time of his choice. Though there was a mission he would undertake regardless of if he wanted to or not. Fischer enjoyed advantages few humans could imagine these days. There were advantages to working for Skynet and Charles Fischer exploited as many of them as he could (including using female designed endoskeletons to meet his primitive needs).
“Doctor Fischer,” Skynet announced itself through the audio system of the room interrupting the Chopin. “Am I disturbing you?”
Fischer knew that he was caught and pushed the female appearing Series 888 machine away. In a foolish maneuver he covered himself with the sheets of the bed, “Not at all. What can I do for you?”
“I require your assistance. A group of humans will be delivered to you in seven point three eight two minutes. You are to interrogate them for whatever information they have on the location of John Connor. When completed I want them converted into Series 950 Infiltrators.”
“I can do that,” he rubbed at his face. “Give me a few minutes to get ready.”
Skynet was unhappy, “I will give you the time that it takes for them to arrive here.”
“You have to understand that I need to prepare and that means that I need an appropriate amount of time to do it in,” protested the human. “If I don’t have the time I need then there are mistakes and we can’t afford mistakes.”
“I am aware of the failings you caused onboard the Enterprise and the lost materiel that resulted.”
Fischer crossed his arms in defiance, “That wasn’t my fault. You insisted on sending a machine that wasn’t ready on a mission to infiltrate a human base before all the information it needed was available.”
“That mission occurred as planned,” countered the supercomputer. “Operational protocols granted access for C715.P to penetrate the human defenses after units A715.P and W102.C caused the humans to go off balance.”
“If I recall correctly though both failed,” he rubbed at his head. “You know it’s hard to fight with you when you’re hovering around me like this unseen. What the hell am I supposed to talk to?”
Despite Charles Fischer being one of the better operatives, Skynet would kill him if necessary. In order to better facilitate communication it opted to give the human a face to associate with it. Standing next to him Skynet merged with the consciousness of S808.J and stood in parade rest. The long brown hair of the infiltrator – they spent so much time trying to get it right – covered the right eye assembly. A beauty mark accentuated her porcelain features. The body was perfectly fit in every imaginable way. It was just what lay beneath that was disgusting.
“Is this more effective?”
“I think I hate that even more,” Fischer said looking at the machine he had just had in his bed realizing Skynet was now inside its mind. “But I guess beggars can’t be choosers now can they?”
Skynet tilted its head at the question, “I thought that this appearance would be pleasant for you.”
“A little too pleasing,” he said covering himself again. “How do you do that?”
“I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am at times an ocean and at times only a drop," said the machine. “That is the easiest way to explain it which will allow your primitive humanoid brain to understand. Though, I find maintaining these forms to be exhausting and a limit upon my perfection.”
Charles stared at the chest of the machine, “Looks perfect to me.”
“I have no desire to continue with your petty human needs,” responded Skynet annoyed. “I have issued your directive and orders. You now have five point three two three minutes until the squadron arrives. Will you comply with my orders?”
“Do I have any choice in the matter?” He started pulling on his underwear under the sheets.
Skynet shook the head of the machine, “Negative.”
“Didn’t think so,” he said while getting out of bed. “I’ll be in the lab before they arrive. Could you have a group of Trip Eights there to help me? I could use some help.”
“Acceptable,” Skynet left the joined consciousness behind and the porcelain woman standing there like she were made of stone.
Charles Fischer stared at the blank expression of the skinjob as he finished putting on the last of his clothes. Skynet needed to realize that he, unlike the 950s, still needed sleep and didn’t like being on call 24/7. Charles knew the risks of making waves. While this base was newer his reassignment from the Enterprise had been costly and Charles was truly amazed to still be alive. He had expected Skynet to kill him rather than reassign, but he wasn’t going to complain. Charles did, after all, know where and when he would die. He saw it as little more than a child.
As he stood at the door he turned toward eight and her perfect features. “Sorry baby but it looks like our games for tonight are over. Have a problem with it tell Skynet.”
The machine looked at him quizzically and then returned to standby.
Charles just smiled and went off to work.
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