Allison Young wanted to cry but her body had no tears left to spare; the machines had ripped them away from her in the latest of their probes into her and her memories. Their psychological assault had been brutal, devastating, and drilled through her like a miner drilling toward the center of the Earth in search of the perfect blood diamond. Their invasion had been so brutal that it felt like they had chipped away at her very soul and left little behind for her to seek comfort in. All for information that she had sworn to keep no matter what; information that she would take to her grave if she had to and it was looking more and more like that would be the case.
At first they asked her the basics like her name and where she was from, but that wasn’t the only thing that the machines had wanted. They poured more and more of a burning cocktail into her body, using it to make her break through her barriers and the defenses that she’s erected around her mind and its secrets. It was a deadly brew that they’d put together for just such an occasion as ripping apart a patient. Perfectly perfected by Skynet’s deadly thinkers, the chemicals were a combination of drug therapy and even good old fashioned alcohol to eliminate her inhibitors and make her reveal her secrets. Normally the amalgamation would kill whomever it was injected into, but the machines were far too smart to let their prized test subject die. So they kept the ratio in check. Instead of killing her outright the combination brought her right to the boundaries of death but never let her cross through the threshold no matter how hard she would try (and she’d been trying like her to slip through). If she got too close the interrogator’s aide, a sparkly new model that lacked a single blemish, would inject her with a counter agent or shock her system back to the living side of things.
All they did was made her soul numb, but they’d forced her resolve to grow even stronger. She’d never break down and tell them what she knew about the survivors, about the hideouts, or about the weapons stockpiles that they still had set up throughout the ruins of the United States and northern Mexico. She’d never give in to answering the question which Skynet repeatedly demanded the answer to over and over again like a broken record. It was a question that she had trouble comprehending.
“Where is John Connor?”
Allison would never lead those metal bastards to any of her friends no matter what they did to her. They could drug her, they could beat her like they’d tried before, they could even cut her up until she was nothing more than a head on a platter if they felt like it and she still would never tell them where they could find any of the survivors. Let alone would she give up John Connor. She cared for him far too much to let him be subjected to this torture; that was something she was certain of. The question though wasn’t the one that she’d expected. Kyle Reese was the leader of the enclave, Skynet would’ve known that, so why was John so important to Skynet? Why would they want him so badly? It didn’t make much sense if any.
Unless you believed that the stories about John Connor were true. Everyone had heard the stories about how John was supposed to be humanity’s savior and that he was the man that would lead humans out of the new Dark Age and back into the light. Hell, she’d even lived it on that fateful day three years ago when she, Derek, Kyle and Fuller found John naked in the remains of the Zeira Corporation Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Kyle’d convinced the search team to visit that tomb because of a ‘gut instinct’ he’d had that night, but there was something more to it and Allison could tell. Could there be though? Could it have been preordained? Destiny? No it was insanity to believe anything like that. The stories couldn’t be true. Could they? Stranger things had been known to happen so anything was possible, improbable, but possible still. The question was what would lead Skynet to believe a rumor about some mystical savior who would fall naked from the sky? There was no logic to it, no reason behind it, and Skynet was supposed to be logical. It didn’t make sense unless, maybe, Skynet had lost its mind just like she feared she was starting to do?
God wouldn’t that be the luckiest break that the survivors could ever have? Skynet going insane would be the best stroke of luck that they could ever have – well unless Skynet decided to nuke everything left from orbit. But, she knew, humanity wasn’t that lucky. As much as she hoped and prayed for it Skynet would never lose its mind; it’s processors would just come up with some sort of equation to fix the problem before it did any damage she supposed.. So, for now it seemed, she was stuck here inside these four walls waiting for Skynet to question her again and praying for something to happen to end her life before the next round would begin.
The cell that they’d put her in was once little more than a cargo container used to ship equipment to and from United States Navy ships; or, at least, that was what she was assuming since that was what the flag logo on the wall meant. Years ago she’d hid out in one of the cargo fields to try to avoid a Centurion patrol and, to pass the time, she’d picked up an old styled cargo manifest and read it to keep her mind off of her impending doom. If she remembered correctly since it was a red compartment that meant that the materials once stored inside of here were flammable. Maybe she’d get lucky and Skynet would just catch her on fire? Even though it’d get her away from them she hoped that that wasn’t going to be the case. As much as she wanted to die, to escape, death by burning alive wasn’t something she’d wish upon even Skynet. There was still a chance that she could escape, albeit small, and that was another reason why she’d keep up the good fight. Besides it wasn’t likely that Skynet was going to burn her alive, it was more like the machines were going to give her food poisoning. The white slop that they’d given her for dinner looked about as appetizing as mud and she’d eaten mud before but wouldn’t touch whatever the hell this stuff was. She wouldn’t eat that crap and, in defiance of the machines, she slammed it against the wall. Allison realized that the only person she was punishing was herself and not Skynet, but she didn’t care. It felt good to fight back even in this simple manner.
She rested her head against the wall and stared at the dark ceiling. She let out a long breath and that was when she heard the click clop of an approaching endoskeleton. The cargo door’s handles moved and the right door opened letting the smells of the outside world and the heat to rush in and assault her nostrils. The smell of prisoners wasn’t something that she’d soon forget. She could smell sweat, urine, and crap soiling the outside world. There were cries coming from outside the container too. Some were calling out to God, their mothers and fathers, and some were begging death to come for them and get it over with. Then the heat made its way to her. It felt like a burst of gas from a volcano had filled her small room and it was almost as bad as being burned alive. She was fascinated that her arms didn’t start to boil off from the warmth. A bright light like the one from the chamber shone through the door to block her view of the outside world.
From among the blinding light a body emerged and slammed against the ground. It was a woman, she assumed at least, from the silhouette her eyes could make out, who thudded as she landed. The door closed behind her with a thunderous boom and the locks reengaged by sliding back up into their holes. Allison, despite her better judgment, ran up to the woman and knelt beside her to give aid. She reached down and checked the woman’s body for visible injuries. She had a lot of cuts and bruises covering her face and upper body. Her left eye was swollen shut and there was caked blood in her hair. The right of her lip had a scar that looked like it had been hastily sewn back together and, from the perfection of the stitching, it had to have been a machine that performed the mending.
“Are you alright?” Allison asked knowing the answer even before it had escaped from her lips.
“I had a lot worse when I was in Century,” she rolled over and winced. “But not by much.” She felt her body beneath her breasts, “They didn’t break any ribs at least.” The newcomer looked at the other woman, “You look like hell.”
Allison smiled her first legitimate smile since she was captured, “Look who’s talking – I’m sure that you’ve seen better days and that wasn’t exactly the nicest introduction I’ve gotten but I’ll take it. Now, tell me, who the hell are you?”
“Katherine Mason,” she answered with quick words. “Wish we’d met under better circumstances, Miss?”
“Good question,” Allison replied. “As many times as the machines have asked me that question – and as many times as I’ve made up a new name – I don’t even think I know the answer to that myself anymore.” “I’m Allison,” she said after a brief pause and then spoke slowly, “Allison Young.”
Mason looked around the cell that they’d been forced into, “Well Allison do you have any bright ideas about how to get the hell out of here because I’m fresh out of ‘em and I don’t think I’ll be getting any new ones any time soon?”
“We could always rush the guard when he comes back for us,” she suggested mockingly. “Knock him on his metal butt and hope that he can’t get back up like a turtle.”
“If only it were that simple,” Katherine forced herself up and stumbled over to the wall with the sole window. She could see the sky above in the far distance, but it was too dark to be night alone. There was something covering them. A large endoskeleton – Series 600 by the looks of him – looked in through the portal with its red eyes blazing like the fires of an inferno. Katherine jumped back away from the window startled. The tin can stepped back and moved off leaving the two alone. Katherine spoke in a near whisper but she knew the machine could hear her anyway. She didn’t care, “Do you have any idea where we are? They blindfolded me when they captured me.”
Allison knew a lot of the survivors and she couldn’t remember ever meeting this woman before. Could Skynet have planted her here to get answers? To lead her into a false sense of security and then crush her with it? It was a tactic that the machines would employ. “And where would that be?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where’d they capture you from?” The younger woman questioned the older one. “I’ve never met you before and my people and I have been looking for survivors for a very long time.”
The former veterinarian felt her eye and knew, from the swelling, that her captors had broken the bone around her eye. They probably had destroyed her ability to see out of it ever again too. She leaned against the cold, metal wall and was amazed that it wasn’t as hot as the air from when they threw her in here. Maybe they were on a ship? “Then maybe you weren’t looking in the right place then. But that didn’t stop the machines from getting lucky. They found us last night when one of our more colorful comrades – a paranoid schizophrenic – went running into the night and caught the attention of a Hunter Killer Tank that had been rolling around nearby. One of those new infiltrators came first then an army of its buddies came in and started killing us en masse. Some of us were lucky and were able to escape through the sewers, but not all of us.” She started to cry, “They killed my son; they killed my Scott!”
Allison fought back against every natural instinct that her body had to run over to counsel the woman, to hold her in her time of need. But her body held back and stayed frozen in place. Well played, Skynet, they’d sent in the perfect means of getting its answers: a mother who just watched her son get killed would be the perfect bait to make even the most accomplished con artist slip up; to make her say too much. Well played, Skynet, well played indeed.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Allison offered from across the room but didn’t move an inch toward her roommate.
“He’s not the first one,” she kept crying. “The damn machines killed my husband, the man Scott was named for, on Judgment Day.” Katherine sniffed, “Those bastards sent back a bitch of a machine that killed him while she was trying to get to me! Eight years together and we never got to say goodbye! I was at the veterinary clinic dealing with the neurotic owner of a cat when it all happened. Can you imagine how horrible that feels? To never get to say goodbye? Worse we had a fight before I left. He was in marketing and he made enough that I’d never have to work and he wanted me to stay at home since our son was on the way, to quit my job. Of all the stupid things to fight over!”
Allison stayed across the way from her incase she’d need to move (not that there was anywhere to go if this was a machine in disguise), “I’ve been through that too. I think everyone has.”
Katherine Brewster-Mason looked the younger woman dead in the eyes from her one good one, “Yeah, but you can’t understand what I’m going through now can you? You’ve never lost your son to one of those things and watched it rip him apart like a piece of trash! I carried him inside me for nine months, I protected him from the tin cans that entire time and for all of his life, and now I let him die because I ran away from him! Oh Scott! Scott, I’m so sorry. What have I done?”
She pushed herself to the door and slammed her fists against it over and over again, “Come out here you metal bastards! I want to see you face to face! I want to kick your asses for what you did to me! For what you’ve taken from me! What no answer for what you did? Come on and face me you bastard! If you’re so high and mighty you shouldn’t have a damn thing to worry about! Coward!”
“Calm down,” the younger woman tried to reassure her even though her body was telling her to let this scene play out. “You’re not helping anyone by getting yourself killed by the machines. You won’t get vengeance for your son by getting yourself killed inside a shipping container in god knows where.”
“They need to pay!” Katherine kept slamming her fist against the door. She’d hit it so many times that blood had started to come from the fresh wounds that she’d inflicted upon herself. Katherine didn’t care about her own injuries though. She threw herself at the bulkhead again, “These bastards need to pay for everything they’ve done and I’m going to make them do it.”
Allison finally relented. She forced herself to the woman and grabbed hold of her in a tight embrace. The two women stared at each other for a long moment as tears kept falling from Katherine’s one good eye and rolled down her dirty cheek. Allison gave her a reassuring smile, “We’re going to get out of here and we’ll make them pay for what they did to you, to all of us. Trust me on that.”
“How can you be so sure?” Asked Brewster-Mason, “How do you know anyone’s coming? How can you be so sure?”
The other prisoner looked at the woman with fiery red hair mixed with caked blood, “Because I have faith in my friends.” She realized that that could’ve been too much information, but it was, hopefully, not enough for the machines to go on if this woman were a plant. Something deep inside of Allison reassured her though that everything was fine, that this woman could be trusted. Allison was sure of it as much as she was sure Skynet would one day pay.
Then everything changed. The door beside them flipped open at incredible speed and one of the combat chassis marched in. From the glittery endoskeleton Allison assumed it to be the assistant that had come in. The chrome colored endoskeleton looked at the two women and tilted its head to the right for exactly a second before it made a move – obviously trying to comprehend why the two women were holding each other so tightly. It grabbed Allison by the arm and spoke to her with its mechanical, demonic voice, “You are coming with me, Allison Young. Command Unit Seven One Five has more questions for you to answer.”
“No!” Allison screamed in terror and tried to break free from the machine. “I don’t want to go with you!”
From behind her Katherine Brewster sprung into action and jumped on the back of the Series 888 Endoskeleton. With every ounce of her strength she slammed her fists against it, kicked at it with her feet, clawed at it with her fingernails until the nails themselves were ripped away and left bloody holes behind. She was fighting for her life trying to save her friend, but it wasn’t Allison that Katherine was fighting for at that moment. It was her son alone. Katherine kept fighting and slamming against the machine as hard as she could. “I won’t let you take her!” The woman screamed over and over at the battle droid.
It was a futile gesture. The endoskeleton grabbed hold of Katherine’s arm during a blow and flung her around at an incredible speed no human could ever match. It brought her face even with its own; its two red eyes looked her directly in her single good one. In defiance Brewster-Mason spit in the machine’s face, the saliva rolling down the chrome and over the synthetic teeth. The machine didn’t move.
“You go to hell!” She spat in its face.
With a fluidic motion the endoskeleton threw Katherine Mason over its shoulder and into the far wall with such force that a dent formed where she hit. That wasn’t the only thing that was left behind in the steel wall though. As the woman slid down the wall blood and scalp were left behind in her wake making a devastating trail. Her eye, so warm only a second ago, was now as cold as snow. It was locked on Allison.
The machine restored its grip on its true prisoner, “We are now .817 seconds late for your interrogation session. Please come with me,” it spoke mechanically, “if you do not accompany me willingly I will apply force.”
“I choose force,” Allison threw herself at the machine for her friend that she had once been convinced was a Skynet plant. The machine caught her in mid air and placed her into a fireman’s carry over its shoulder, “Your actions are futile – your attack has a .0000001% chance of disabling this battle unit with a .0000001% margin of error.”
“I like those odds,” she kept kicking.
“As you wish,” the machine walked forward with Allison kicking and screaming the entire way.
