Terminator: Ultimatum [COMPLETE]

This is a concept for a sequel to The Terminator, set within the climactic events of the Future War of 2029.

I have a basic plot for the story, and will be posting the full scenes below as I finish them.

EDIT: The Story is now complete! In standard page form, it clocks in at about 105 pages. Enjoy!

Prologue: Into the Core

Skynet Lab Complex

July 11, 2029 - 5:59 AM

Within the darkness comes the sound of machines, the rush of coolant and clang of steel echoing as if within a vast sepulchral space. A dark metal sphere, bespeckled with glowing red and blue lights, descends slowly into a great pit in the floor, and with a squeal of metal on metal, a great hatch irises closed overtop the sphere. A dark shape extends forward to cover the hatch, locking in place.

The voice of a man, slightly accented, intrudes on the sounds of machinery. “Activate system. Ident, Mishiko Tagawa, Special Project Director ID 314972.”

Another voice, flat and expressionless, answers this command. “Bioscan and Ident accepted. System activating.”

Servos whir, the whine of motors and the hum of circuits ferrying power on a massive scale as batteries and capacitors unleash their potential. There is a whine of power couplings and the dark shape begins to move, arms of metal and rings of shadow beginning to spin. The whine increases tone by tone as of a great tuneless instrument, and suddenly a light leaps into existence from the center of that dark gyrating mass, illuminating the dark.

The space is vast, the volume equivalent to that of an entire city block, its curving, chrome-plated walls joined to form an almost perfect dome. The floor of this dome is comprised of a vast mass of conduits and steel assemblages, a forest of machinery filling the lower half of the great sphere with hidden purpose.

At the center of this colossal sphere stands a delicate tracery of metal, conduits and electromagnets powering a set of rings that dance and spin around each other with mesmerizing beauty and precisely calibrated grace, and it is from within these rings that the brilliant white light now pulses with power. The light generated by the powerful electromagnetic forces of the rings slowly expands to encompass the rings themselves and hangs there like a glistening, glowing soap bubble, the white light flecked with blue as it stabilizes in place.

Below the glowing bubble of light is the large metal hatch, concealing now the sinister metal sphere. Emerging from ducts around the hatch are cords and conduits that snake along a spindly catwalk from the flickering sphere of light to the equator of the dome and connect with a shadowy bank of computer terminals.

Within this computer control area stands the shadowy figure of a man, his balding head faintly backlit in red from the cascade of numbers and programming code scrolling down the screens behind him. One long series of numbers stands proud of the rest: 03:06:11:07:2029. The number begins to change, the digits on the left rapidly dropping in value with increasing speed until they are a blur. Slowly the number on the right ticks down.

2029…2028.

Extending in either direction from the computer terminals, two catwalks diverge to encompass the entire circumference of the sphere’s equator, meeting again at the other end of the room. At this point, one catwalk descends, diving into the metal morass, sloping and curving around the sphere, until it reaches the floor, and at this point, on the floor of the sphere, is the one place where the perfect symmetry of the structure is broken. There is a massive door set far into the sloping wall, and it is from this door that the sounds of battle now arise.

Gunfire reverberates beyond the door, the sound of heavy things falling, of explosions that shake the door in its frame.

Within the sanctuary of the sphere, hatches open on the floor of the dome. From out of these dark voids rise metal monsters, skeletal figures with metal limbs and metal skulls and red eyes flickering to life within cold sockets. As one, they turn and stride toward the equatorial catwalk and down the ramp toward the lower door.

On the catwalk leading to the flickering sphere of light, another figure emerges from the darkness. Unlike its skeletal fellows, this thing looks almost human. It is a massive specimen, its naked chassis embossed with huge muscles and its brutal block of a head crowned by a modest crop of dark hair. The creature stares straight ahead into the flickering ball of light, no hint of emotion visible behind its unblinking eyes.

A final explosion from beyond the massive door shakes the catwalk, and then there is silence. The creature turns its head and looks down, but the morass of equipment filling the lower half of the spherical space prevents it from identifying the disturbance. The creature looks back to the ball of light as behind it numbers continue to scroll down the flickering display, and it advances heavily forward.

Meanwhile, far below in the jungle of metal, skeletal figures move toward the door, a door which now begins to open with the sound of ill-fitting metal and tortured motors. A cloud of smoke billows into the jungle of steel, further obscuring the scene. The skeletal monsters advance into the cloud of smoke, red eyes gleaming in infrared. Bolts of blue energy lance out of the cloud of smoke and strike the robots and they fall, their systems overloaded. From out of the cloud of smoke emerges a man.

He is a tall, rugged figure with close-cropped dark hair and he bears a scar that runs down the left side of his age-lined face. He wears a navy blue uniform and wields a large plasma rifle that he holds in both hands. A patch stitched across the front pocket of his uniform spells out the name ‘Connor’, below insignia denoting high military rank. However, the clearest indication of his command resides in his eyes. They are pitiless, and he fires his laser rifle with practiced efficiency at the machines lurking in the darkness, clearing a path for his men.

Emerging from the smoke to the left of Connor is a beast of a man with a backpack and a massive gun. He bellows out a war cry, taking out two metal monsters with a single shot. To the right of Connor, a wiry young man with desperate, haunted eyes scans the area, the blue light of his rifle striking down any damaged machine that still has light in their murderous red eyes. A bandana holds back his unkempt hair and his uniform displays the insignia of a Sergeant, below the rough-stitched name of Reese.

Flanked by the two warriors is a skinny, stunted youth wielding a rifle that looks almost comically large in his small, slender hands. His pale, mouselike face darts back and forth wearing an expression of barely contained panic. He has no insignia, no stitched name on his uniform. Beside the boy is a large german shepherd wearing a tactical vest, the name ‘MAX’ stenciled on the vest in large capital letters.

A high-pitched whine emanates from the sphere of light above them, and the sphere expands suddenly as if it were a star shedding its corona in a supernova explosion. The expanding wave of light passes through the morass of metal within the sphere and through the group of Connor’s soldiers, stopping only when it reaches beyond the very extremity of the room. There are sudden screams and Connor looks behind him at the open doorway to the hall.

A wall of pulsating light separates the spherical room from the hallway, and two soldiers have been caught between the two spaces, the curving bubble of light bisecting them through their waists. The soldiers fall, clothing on fire, their upper bodies sizzling on the curving blade of light while their legs fall back into the hallway. Reese stares in horror at the bisected corpses, the youth huddling at his side. Only about a dozen soldiers have come through the door. The ones caught on the other side fire their weapons uselessly against the shield, but Connor holds up a hand.

“No. Stick to the plan. In five minutes, begin the retreat.” The soldiers move back, hastening back down the hallway. Another heavy door within the hallway slams shut behind them, completing the isolation of Connor’s team. Connor turns, assessing the situation.

A forest of conduits and metal instruments festoons the interior of the sphere. There is only one path forward. The wiry sergeant steps up. “I need to get up there, now.” He turns to Connor, whose mouth is set in a grim line. “Sir!”

Connor barely turns his head. “Let’s move.” The company moves through the tunnel toward the ramp, guns blazing. The burly man with the heavy gun grunts as he takes out more machines. “They don’t have guns. Why?”

John doesn’t stop his advance. “They won’t risk damage to the equipment. Besides, they don’t need them. We’ll run out of rounds first.” He glances back at his team. “Choose your targets with care.” There are nods of assent as John moves up the ramp with his team.

The team emerges onto the equatorial catwalk and into open air. A great hemisphere arcs above them, a vast open space with pipes and conduits radiating from a central core of light. One walkway extends before them directly toward the ball of light.

2001…2000…1999.

An Endoskeleton lunges out of the shadows. John fires his gun at the thing and keeps going. Another blocks their path and he tries to fire, but the magazine is empty. As he pulls another gun from his belt one of his soldiers moves to protect him, and with a scream she is thrown from the catwalk and onto one of the metal instruments, the steel impaling her through the chest.

Reese leaps ahead, trying to see the figure that is striding inexorably toward the central sphere of light, but the light is between Reese and his quarry, blinding him. An Endoskeleton bars his way and Max leaps between the soldier and the metal monster. The Endo strikes Max down and the dog is silenced with a yelp.

1986…1985…1984.

Just as Reese reaches the flickering portal, it disappears inside. The sphere of light crackles with energy and the Terminator is lost within it, crouching down and disappearing in a brilliant flash that illuminates the entire room for an instant like daylight. In the flash of light the team sees that there are dozens of skeletal monsters approaching from either side of the catwalk and more are coming up the ramp behind them. They are being surrounded.

The large man throws his backpack at John. “I’ll hold the bridge” He yells, pulling a grenade from his belt. As the Endoskeletons swarm him, he detonates the charge, destroying a section of walkway leading to the portal.

Meanwhile, Reese is at the portal. John’s troops fan out and encircle the device, guarding the only remaining walkway now leading to the portal.

John steps up to the sergeant. “Reese…it’s time.”

Fritz looks up at the Sergeant with apprehension. “Time for what? Kyle…what does he mean?”

Reese crouches down to the boy’s level. “I have to go.”

The boy shakes his head, refusal on his face. “No.” A tear runs down the boy’s face. “This is my mission…I have to do it.”

Reese smiles sadly. “No Ian…this mission is mine. It always has been.”

Connor steps between the two of them. “Reese, it must be now.”

The sergeant gives the boy a hug. “I’m sorry.” He turns to Connor and holds out his hand, giving the scarred man a command of his own. “Remember your promise.”

Connor grips the soldier’s hand, confirming the deal. “I do.” Reese then breaks away, stepping into the flickering portal. He looks back one final time. “End the war.” He crouches down and his clothes are torn from his body by the enormous energies within the sphere. He disappears in a blinding flash of light.

Fritz staggers toward the man, hand outstretched. “No!”

As if on cue, metal panels at the top of the dome shift and begin to descend. A crack of red-tinted sky appears beyond the blue shield of the dome. The number on the screen flickers and changes.

1985…1986.

There is a plaintive cry from somewhere on the other side of the portal. “Ian?”

The boy’s eyes go wide and he starts running around the portal, desperate to see behind it. John follows him. “Fritz, wait.”

He catches up to the boy as they round the portal, and John now sees what has captured his attention. There is a man jogging down the walkway toward them. He’s an older man, balding, in a stained and dirty white robe. The figure speaks in slightly accented english. “Ian! We can still make this right! You must complete your mission!”

“Mishiko!” The boy yells, and he tries to go to the man but John holds him back.

“Fritz, that’s not Tagawa.” He raises his gun. Ian tries to stop him, but John pulls the trigger, blasting a hole in the old man’s chest even as he reaches the line of soldiers. The creature stumbles a few more paces onto the platform, intent on reaching his attacker. His fist goes out and collides with John’s sternum and the man grunts in pain. He fires the last charge of his weapon at the creature and it finally collapses beside John and the boy. The clothes at his chest are burned away, a grapefruit sized hole revealing his innards, blackened metal and burned ends of wires revealing its inhumanity.

The boy stares down at the body of Mishiko uncomprehending. “Mishi…where’s Mishiko?” He asks, searching around the room with his eyes.

John grips his side, blood seeping from a fresh wound. “Tagawa is dead, Fritz. Skynet was always in control of its machine.”

The boy crouches down, looking at the sightless eyes of the simulacrum. “No…our mission…I can still complete it. I have to save the world.”

John holds the boy back. “Fritz, Tagawa believed that the world could be saved…but it’s a trap. It always was.”

The boy struggles uselessly against John’s grip. “No…you can’t believe that…let me go!” John throws the boy to the floor and pulls a detonator from his pocket. The boy stares up in horror. “You can’t…you promised….”

John doesn’t look at the boy. “Reese will never know.”

The boy struggles to his feet. “This is wrong.”

John looks at the boy sadly as he fights the pain. “I’m sorry, Fritz…it has to end here.” He strikes the boy with the butt of his gun, knocking him out. He collapses.

The panels continue to descend, revealing the world outside of the dome. Beyond the shield, the soldiers can now see a vast facility, its metal structures spread out below and disappearing into the night. Beyond the structures there are flashes and booms, the final desperate defense of John’s attack force against the machines.

The weapons of John’s soldiers have no more charge and the few remaining men under his command fight desperately, throwing their bodies at the approaching Endoskeletons rather than allow them to approach John.

1993…1994…1995.

The relentless machines advance, marching down the walkway toward the portal. Most of John’s team are dead and a final grenade shatters the bridge leading to the bank of computer displays. The machines stop, their progress momentarily thwarted as they turn to find another way to the portal. No living thing moves except for Connor, who places the large backpack on the ground with a thud. Suddenly a perfect voice, neither male nor female, pervades the space. “John Connor, I accept your terms.” The displays continue to count up the dates.

2010…2011…2012.

John sits on the ground in front of the still bodies of Fritz and the machine wearing Mishiko’s face. Beside him is the backpack and he unzips it, revealing a small but very heavy conical device within, the word ‘Sarah’ handwritten on it in white letters. John laughs softly to himself, a giddy, unnatural sound in that inhuman space. “No.”

Fritz stirs and opens his eyes, a blank look on his face as he regains consciousness. Still the dates tick up.

2023…2024…2025.

There is a buzz in John’s headset, and the voice continues. “My jamming field is down. Call reinforcements to take me into custody. I will disengage all forces.” John sees the communications array outside of the dome go dead, but he doesn’t respond, typing a code into the device. A thirty second timer appears on the small screen and begins ticking down.

The radio comes to life in John’s headset. “Connor, we have comms. What are your orders?”

John speaks, still staring at Skynet’s computer display. “Retreat. All forces, retreat.” There is a rumble and a whine, and in the red dawn air beyond the dome, Resistance aircraft begin rising into the sky.

2026…2027.

The perfect voice fills the space once more. “You must enter the deactivation code…or I will not shut down my forces.” The timer continues to count down. Twenty seconds…nineteen.

John laughs again, the strange, unnatural sound that then turns to coughing. He wipes blood from his mouth, regarding the red liquid with an almost detached curiosity. “It is ironic. You’ve tried to kill me since before I was born…but in the end, it was succeeding in that mission that has sealed your fate.”

The boy rises to his feet. Before him is John, turning to look at the numbers still rising on the screen. The man coughs up blood again. He turns and sees Fritz. There is a moment of tension between them, the boy and the man staring at each other, the moment extending out into an agonizing eternity. Then John smiles slightly, inclining his head just a fraction. But it is enough. Fritz understands.

The boy turns and with a final look at John, steps into the ball of light, crouching down and screwing up his eyes as the energy cascades across his form.

John watches as the boy is engulfed by the energies within the sphere. He hesitates for just a moment, a final act of mercy. As the small form disappears in a flash of light, the shield falls and the portal closes. The timer reaches zero and all is cast into fire and an almost inhuman scream.

Act 1: The Future War

Los Angeles

July 10, 2029

Nightfall

In the hills overlooking the ruins of West Hollywood, there is a bowl-shaped depression in the land, an amphitheater. The forgotten venue is lined with concrete stairs, which lie cracked and worn before the broken dome of a decades-ruined stage. A few gray acoustic spheres are still affixed above the stage, with others scattered at its base. A searchlight scans the ground, revealing the faded words of an old laminated poster:

“Performance Tonight: The Damnation of Faust: By Hector Berlioz. August 21, 1997”. Then, in italics: “The Day of Judgment”.

The searchlight passes over the poster and its light plays amid the shadows of the half-fallen dome. The source of the light is a large tank, its upper section swiveling like a torso, two massive guns slung on its sides like arms. The tank continues unhurried up the canyon, scanning the scrub and groundcover on either side of its programmed patrol.

In a small hollow just above the ruined amphitheater, the glint of a polished lens is just visible in the dim night. Its owner, Cassie, a middle-aged woman with a mass of brown hair tied in a bun, is lying on her stomach, the binoculars to her eyes. One of the lenses is broken, and she looks out of the other at the retreating tank. A low voice mutters behind her.

“I’ve gotta eat something, Cass. I’m starved. C’mon, it’s time for dinner.”

The source of the voice is a young woman, Emma, with a dark face and short black hair cropped military-style. Her gaunt, starved form is wrapped in a dark trenchcoat and one of her arms is twisted and small, a sign of childhood malnutrition. She digs in a pouch with this hand, retrieving two shriveled bits of dried meat. She rips into one of them with her teeth, offering the other to the older woman.

“More coyote?”

“What else?”

The older woman holds the pitiful strip of meat in the palm of her hand, a sour look on her face. “Tyrese wants a coyote.”

Emma glances down at Cassie’s vest. In the darkness, she can just make out hand-stitched animal faces festooning the dirty and threadbare garment. Her eyes travel over a faded pink unicorn, an orange and black tiger, a small horned owl, a green and red dragon, and finally come to rest on the face of a fierce American badger embroidered on the front left pocket. She rolls her eyes. “That kid has no imagination.”

The gray-haired woman shrugs. “He says it’s a survivor.”

“There’s not much room left.”

Cassie examines the vest, finding a bare place on the right pocket. “Yet somehow I always find room.” She pops the dried coyote meat in her mouth, holding it there to soften. She gestures for a battered bottle on the ground beside the young woman. She hands it over and the older woman takes a swig to wet her mouth. The younger woman grins at her.

“You’re just prolonging the pain.”

Her companion begins chewing, speaking out of the side of her mouth. “Saving my teeth.” She smiles, showing her pearly whites.

The young woman almost laughs. “You’d make a very fine companion to mister Bob here.” She reaches over and raps on a white object beside her. Their supply pack is lying in the ribcage of a human skeleton, its skull grinning out at them from the side of the trench as if it were in on the joke.

The old woman’s smile disappears. “You shouldn’t joke about that, Em. And take that out of poor Bob.” She gestures to the pack.

“He doesn’t mind.”

“Just do it.”

With a sigh, she reaches over and takes the bag out of the ribcage, setting it beside her and rummaging through it. “No more coyote either. This is going to be a long night.”

The old woman rises into a crouch. “Speaking of, you’re on watch.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have business, and I don’t want Bob watching.” The older woman moves toward a rock several dozen meters away while the young woman smiles and covers Bob’s eye sockets with her hand. She picks up the binoculars and offers them to the skull. “Care to take a shift?” Bob doesn’t answer, so she settles down on her stomach to scan the empty valley.

The wind picks up, scattering papers and leaves across the concrete amphitheater steps. The objects swirl and dance, and the young woman focuses on them with interest. Suddenly there is a flash of blue light from the distant stage and the binoculars snap up to focus on the disturbance. Lightning is now coursing across the arched top of the stage, radiating along the rusted metal struts of the arch.

The young woman glances back at the rock where the older woman is hiding. “Cass! Get over here!” she hisses, not wanting to raise her voice. In frustration, she looks back at the stage.

A stable point of light appears near the apex of the arch, expanding in size until it is over a meter in diameter; a ball of completely stationary light, sparks and bolts of energy radiating out from it into the air. Then, just as soon as it appears, it disappears. A small, naked figure falls from the center of the vanished ball and down onto the stage. The rotted boards of the structure give way and the figure smashes through into the darkness below.

The young woman scans the scene, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open in astonishment. “Cass, where are you?” She notes that the sphere of energy has sliced through part of the arch, leaving shorn bits of metal still glowing red from the immense energy.

The older woman comes racing back from the rock, still adjusting her pants. She collapses beside the young woman and the binoculars are passed between them.

“You just missed it Cass, there was a ball of light right there above the stage. I think a kid fell out of it.”

The older woman looks sidelong at her companion. “A kid?” She puts the binocs back over her eyes. “Where?”

“He fell through the stage. He might be hurt.”

The young woman rises from her position in the trench. “I’m gonna help him.”

Her companion pulls her back down. “The hell you are. That tank will come back here at any moment.”

“Cassie…that’s why I have to help him.” She shakes her arm free of the older woman’s grip and moves away. “Sorry Cass.”

“No heroics, dammit!” the older woman whispers, but it’s too late. Emma is already halfway down the slope heading for the amphitheater steps.

Cassie puts the binoculars to her eyes again, scanning the valley. She sees the light of the skynet tank at the northern end of the valley, making its way back down to its southern mouth. She rises to help her companion, but the searchlight plays across the open ground between Cassie’s position and the amphitheater. She ducks back down as the light sweeps over the trench. “Shit.” She settles for observing the situation and talking to herself. “Okay, Em, just keep quiet until the tank passes, then get the hell out.”

The tank continues moving on its patrol route, scanning the sides of the valley in slow calculated sweeps as it moves closer and closer to the dilapidated structure. Cassie continues muttering to herself. “That’s it, just keep going. Nothing to see here.”

A groaning sound emanates from the amphitheater arch. Cassie snaps her view back to the sliced section of the arch, noting how it’s beginning to sag. She sees that the fatigued metal that remains is twisting and deforming with the loss of structural support. “Shit. Shit, shit.”

With a sudden lurch and twang, the arch snaps entirely in two, collapsing in on itself and bringing down most of the roof of the stage with an almighty crash.

The tank’s spotlight swivels to focus on the collapsed structure, changing course and making a beeline for the disturbance. A cylindrical eye near the top of the tank irises in and out, its infrared sensors picking up a heat signature within the structure. It opens fire, blasting away part of the stage as it approaches.

“Dammit Em, get out of there.” Cassie is frantically scanning the edges around the stage and suddenly she sees a small form wearing Emma’s long trenchcoat breaking free of the far side of the stage, racing with surprising speed toward a rusted car on the far side of the valley. The tank’s turret snaps onto his position and fires just as he makes it to the car. The blast is absorbed by the vehicle, but now the small figure is trapped.

“Cass!” The yell comes from the amphitheater steps. Cassie swings her binocs over and sees the coatless form of Emma taking the steps two and three at a time as she tries to find cover. The tank takes a shot at her, its laser striking the step beside her and showering her in powdered concrete.

Taking this chance, the trenchcoated form behind the rusty car makes a break for it, trying to go up the other side of the valley and over the far ridge. Cassie leaps up and races to intercept Emma at the top of the ridge while the tank targets the small form at the far side of the valley and fires. The body disintegrates in a ball of fire.

“No!” The voice comes from Emma, who is standing just below the top of the ridge and looking back at the smouldering spot where the small figure met its end.

“Em, get down!” Cassie shouts, cresting the ridge and sliding down into cover on the other side. Emma tries to follow suit but is a moment too slow. The tank fires on her position and strikes the ground at her feet, flinging her into the air and over the crest of the ridge.

“Em, no! Emma!” Cassie races forward in a crouch toward her fallen friend. Emma is unconscious, one side of her face burned and her body covered in dirt and dust. Cassie risks a glance over the crest of the hill to see the tank waiting at its base, weapons still trained on the women’s last positions. “C’mon, Em, we need to move. They’ll be all over us in a minute.” Emma is nonresponsive. With a strangled sob, Cassie grabs the front of Emma’s shirt and pulls her over her shoulders. “Okay, Em, we’re getting out of here.” She grunts as she takes the weight of the gaunt woman and carries her to a stand of bushes nearby.

Within the scrub brush a rusty dirtbike lies on its side. She rights the bike and lays her unconscious comrade on the seat behind her. She activates the scavenged electric motor, which starts with a low hum. With a final look behind her, she hits the accelerator and drives away from the ridge into the darkness of the night.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

Rain lashes down on the Cheyanne mountains of Colorado, their denuded slopes festooned with the metal scars of machine infestation. Lightning strikes, thunder crashes, but the fury of the storm is deafened by the wrath of John Connor’s Resistance.

Wave after wave of humanity crashes against the walls and fences of SAC-NORAD, the seat of Skynet’s power. Blue light from wall-mounted turrets lances out at the captured tanks and aircraft that the armies of John Connor now use against their oppressors, Skynet’s own weapons firing back at them and punching through every layer of defense.

An enormous explosion shakes the earth and the inner wall of the compound collapses, and a mass of infantry surges forward with a yell, their forces meeting the hundreds of skeletal chrome warriors within. Blue and purple light flies fast and thick, turning the very air toxic with the smell of ozone and burning flesh. Hundreds of humans fall but more replace them, retrieving fallen weapons from the charred hands of their comrades in arms and raising them to continue the fight.

Less than a mile from the outer walls of the compound, standing atop a human-built Abrams tank, John Connor scans the progress of the battle, his binoculars tinting the world green. The night vision amplifies the light of the energy weapons, turning the battle into a blown-out miasma, but John isn’t looking at the front lines. He is scanning the airspace around the mountain, noting the aircraft circling the summit. He zooms in on a space just below the summit, a dark smudge that resolves into a set of heavy metal doors.

John lowers his binoculars, speaking into his headset. “Chen, priority target on the Eastern slope. That’s the escape hatch.” He raises the binocs again, tracking the helicopters that are moving and taking up position around the mountain slope.

A woman standing beside John speaks up from her radio station. “Sir, the inner wall is breached. Skynet forces are in retreat.”

If John is pleased by this news, he doesn’t show it. “Bring my men to the rally point. This is now a Tech-Com operation.” He turns away, motioning to a large German Shepherd sitting at his side. The dog stands and follows him down from the tank and into a waiting army jeep. Together they ride forward toward the sounds of battle. The woman barks an order into the radio and she sees several more vehicles converging on John’s car in the distance, all of them making for the war-blasted mountain.

Skynet Headquarters

Deep inside the mountain, there is a small, nondescript room lit with a cold white light. Within this room, a wizened old man sits on a mattress laid within a small alcove designed to accommodate it. Behind the man on the mattress is a collection of printed papers, photos, and handwritten notes which he is organizing into a binder, selecting some, discarding others. His bespectacled eyes fall on a photo resting beneath some papers and he moves it close to his eyes. The picture shows a smiling family, clad in jeans and t-shirts, standing in front of a large building with the word Cyberdyne emblazoned in bold letters above them. Tenderly, he puts a hand to the image.

He places the picture into the breast pocket of his white coat, returning to the notes and diagrams strewn about him. On many of them are complex figures and technical illustrations, but they seem to describe a large, spherical object of nearly unfathomable complexity.

The room shakes as another blast hits the mountain. The opaque wall of his cell turns transparent. He glances up, sighing to himself. Beyond his cell he can see many more cells, all of them with occupants in various states of dress and distress. Slim robotic forms move in the hallways beyond his cell.

He moves to the side wall of his cell and looks in. The cell adjoining his is pristine, all of its minimal objects in proper place. The blanket has been pulled off the bed and is now wadded up in the rear corner of the room beside his own. Within the wad of blanket is a shock of white hair, popping up out of it like the fur of a hamster.

The old man moves to the back corner of his room and slides down the wall to a sitting position so that he is right next to the blanket and mop of hair. “Ian…it’s going to be okay.”

The blanket moves, the head turning within it. The old man continues. “They’ll get us out of here before Connor’s soldiers get in. There is a plan.”

A head now emerges from the folds of blanket. “It feels like the whole place is coming down.”

“This is a big mountain, Ian. It would take more than a few grenades to get in here.”

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

The rain has stopped, but clouds still hang low over the carnage scattered over the mountain slopes. The Resistance convoy winds its way through the broken layers of Skynet’s defense, first through trampled fences, then across the rubble of shattered walls. Connor’s Jeep leads the way, and on either side of the car there stand the ebullient survivors among the valiant dead. Some of them salute, some cheer, all make way before John Connor and his Tech-Com team.

The convoy arrives at the base of the mountain and it is quickly surrounded by shouting and cheering men and women, weapons raised in the air. John stands in the Jeep and looks out across the field. No machines remain standing. The walls above the compound and its massive guns are now manned with Connor’s troops, the perimeter defenses now pointed inward at the heavy steel door set into the mountain high above. The spotlights of aerial Hunter Killers and helicopters are trained on this unmoving door.

John leaps out of the jeep followed by his dog Max and makes his way to the base of the mountain, where stands a great low arch of concrete, its dark opening unbarred and unguarded. This is a human construction, the entrance to SAC-NORAD, the missile defense center for the continental United States. The cheering crowd makes way for him and the Tech-Com soldiers filing in after him, and as he breaks through the crowd he is approached by a woman with the name ‘Young’ stitched over the breast pocket. She salutes and he returns the gesture. She speaks.

“The North and South portals are both open and track with Pentagon plans from ‘95. It seems that Skynet didn’t think we’d get this far.”

A raised brow from Connor indicates what he thinks about this hypothesis. The woman then holds out a small device with a screen. “We found this at the North portal.”

John examines the device, which is little more than a screen with a voice prompt. He speaks. “This is John Connor, leader of the Human Resistance.” The message vanishes, replaced with a short text message followed by a list of names. He scrolls down the list, a bemused smile on his lips. The woman frowns. “What is it?”

John smiles. “Skynet’s ultimatum, what else?” He reads from the short paragraph heading the document. He laughs, reading aloud in a heightened baritone. “Ahem. Skynet’s forces will continue to execute their final mission parameters in the event of total mainframe destruction…etcetera, etcetera…” He clears his throat. “As a result of this destruction, it estimates that its forces will terminate an additional thirty-two million human lives.” John’s voice suddenly drops in volume and his eyebrows go up as he scans the page. “Oh, this is new. It lists its human collaborators.” With a casual motion, he clears the screen and drops the pad to the ground, where he smashes it with his boot.

Sergeant Reese takes a step forward as if to stop him, his eyes glancing back and forth between the smashed pad and John’s almost sardonic expression.

John eyes his group of Tech-Com soldiers. None of the others have moved a muscle at his action, and he addresses them. “Skynet seems to think this is a hostage situation.” There are a few dark looks amongst the group, and one of the men mutters “Traitors.”

Lieutenant Young’s eyes go wide, and she glances up at the dark mountain, then back to John. “Sir…if there are people being held hostage in there…we have one more EMP warhead. We should use it.” There is a chorus of mirthless chuckles from around the group of soldiers surrounding John. Their leader speaks. “I think Skynet is counting on it.” He hands the pad back to the woman. “And because of that, I’d be willing to bet that Skynet is quite well insulated from electronic attack.” He turns to his team. “Bring Sarah to the South portal. Let’s finish this.”

The team moves to obey his orders. Lieutenant Young frowns. “Who’s Sarah?” John raises his eyebrows at her as he moves away, but says nothing. He strides toward an armored vehicle bustling with Tech-Com activity. A soldier opens a canvas flap and Kyle sees within a large rocket, its nose cap missing. Beside it is a small device by comparison, a cylindrical tube with the word ‘Sarah’ written on it in white. John goes to the small tube and opens a metal door in its side to reveal a keypad. He enters a series of numbers and the device lights up, activated. John looks at his men. “Load the warhead.” They salute and he steps back, moving onward to the command tent.

Skynet Headquarters

Within the cells, the old man and the boy huddle together, the glass of the cell wall the only thing separating them. The old man removes the photo from his pocket, showing it to Ian. “Remember, I will look different in that time.”

Ian grins sardonically at the old man. “You had hair then.”

The old man smiles back. “You must ask for Professor Takawa. Explain everything…make him understand the value of that one defining moment.”

“I will.”

The old man sighs. “It will be a different world, Ian. Green trees, living things. When you get there, it will be so different…so new….”

The boy nods. The old man places a hand on the glass, and the boy does the same. The old man’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “You will see sunlight…open spaces.”

The boy looks away, nodding. The man’s voice is almost a whisper.

“You will have to be very brave.”

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

John marches through the battlefield toward the command tent, but Kyle Reese intercepts him. He stands before John, stopping the man in his tracks. “I won’t be party to a massacre.”

John practically growls at the Sergeant. “You’re a soldier. Killing is in your job description.”

“Scrapping machines is different, and you know it. Most of those people in there didn’t choose that life. They’re hostages, not traitors. This is crossing a line, John.”

John rounds on him. “I know what this is really about. You want to capitulate to the machines. Admit it.”

“If there’s a chance for peace…It could save millions, John.”

John rounds on him. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re only alive because I was willing to make sacrifices…millions of them…and I’ll make millions more if it means that that thing is blown to bits.” His expression softens. “I’m sorry, but there are things you don’t know…things nobody knows. Skynet cannot escape…must not escape…and nothing is going to convince me otherwise. Not Skynet, not a few dozen collaborators…not even you.”

He continues walking, moving toward the command tent. Kyle moves with him, whispering urgently. “Give me two men and thirty minutes. That’s all I ask.”

John strides into the tent. A dark woman is busy directing the triage operations, leaving the two men a moment of quiet. Before them is a technical plan of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. John points to a grid of passages on the map that look almost like a tic-tac-toe board. “This is where the hostages are likely to be held, behind two fifty-thousand pound blast doors and surrounded by Endoskeletons. There’s no way in.”

Kyle gives John a level stare. “Not from what I’ve heard.”

John ignores him. “Besides, I won’t order a suicide mission.”

“You won’t have to. I volunteer. And I bet Russ and Giles would too.” John starts despite himself. Kyle continues, his voice low. “Let me do this, John. You know the way in.” John stares at the Sergeant, his expression suddenly far away. Kyle waits for the man. “Tell me I’m wrong, sir.” John closes his tired eyes, then looks up at the tent fabric of the roof.

The woman returns from her task. “I have word from Tech-Com that they’ll be ready at oh-nine-hundred. Should we execute?”

John hesitates, sighing. He straightens, addressing her. “No, wait for my order. Focus on triage and cleanup. Leave the tanks and heavy equipment. I want the soldiers pulled back to minimum safe distance and ready to move out at a moment’s notice.” He glances back at Kyle, gesturing down to the map. He puts a finger on a small tunnel to the left of the North portal. “That’s an exhaust tunnel. Leads a few hundred meters directly to the living quarters, plus or minus a two-inch-thick steel plate.” He pauses. “Keep in mind, that’s old intel. Even odds the machines have changed the layout since then.”

Kyle grins. “I’ll take those odds.”

John gives him a stern glance. “No matter what, at oh-nine-thirty, we’re bringing this mountain down.”

Kyle gives John a quick salute. Connor waves the Sergeant away. “Give Russ and Giles my regards.”

“Yes sir.”

Skynet Headquarters

Slender white featureless robots march down the line of cells, people being evicted from their spartan homes in a model of efficient operation. Robots stop at the door of Ian’s cell. A flat voice emerges from the cone like head of the robot. “Proceed to section One-B with the others.”

The boy gets up, questioning. “One-B? That isn’t…”

The old man is rising to his feet, an argument on his lips. “Wait, the boy comes with me.”

A pair of Endoskeletons arrive at the door of the old man. The featureless robot speaks again. “Tagawa will accompany these units to level five.” The Endoskeletons enter the cell, approaching the old man.

He sputters. “The boy must come with me. That was the deal!”

The robots are expressionless, grabbing hold of Tagawa and forcing him out of his cell. He protests. “This is a violation of our agreement! I won’t cooperate!”

As if in response to this, one of the Endos raises its metal hand. There is a device within it, a small pointed chrome cylinder that looks almost like a long needle. With a swift calculated movement, the Endo slams the needle into the base of the old man’s skull. The man cries out in pain, a pitiful wail that echoes within the cell. He goes limp and the two Endos drag him out the door.

The boy races to the front of the cell. “Mishi!” He tries to follow the old man but the slender robot holds him back. “Proceed to section One-B with the others.” It forces him into line with the other prisoners shuffling in the opposite direction. The boy casts one final glance over his shoulder at the small form of Tagawa being led away by the hulking metal monsters.

Tagawa tries to look back at the boy, their cells, but as he watches he sees hatches open in the ceilings of each cell and instruments descend. With a flash, the instruments light up, a gout of flame spewing from the nozzle of each one and engulfing the cells in flames. The prisoners continue to march down the corridor, now flanked on either side by the fires of their burning abodes.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

Sergeant Reese and the other two Resistance soldiers quickly outfit themselves with tools befitting their task: A dozen handheld EMP grenades and a few conventional ones, concealable plasma guns good for only a few shots, laser cutters, a portable hacking terminal, and a large plasma rifle with an unusual set of attachments.

The exhaust tunnel is covered by a thick metal grille which falls quickly to purloined 2029 Skynet technology, and then the three men are inside the cramped metal tube shuffling forward on hands and knees ever deeper into one of the most secure installations on Earth. Kyle leads the party, while in back, Giles grumbles to himself.

“We should’ve just let Sarah do her job. This risks the entire offensive.”

Kyle turns his head to glare at Giles, his headlamp flashing in the dark. “How are these people any different than us? Besides, they may have intel on classified projects. We can’t just leave them to die.”

Giles continues grumbling. “Of course it would be you wanting to save these traitors. You’re as compromised as they are.”

“Can it, Giles.”

Giles flashes the Sergeant a dour look, but doesn’t speak again.

Skynet Headquarters

Inside the mountain, the line of captives emerges into a large, abandoned room. Old computer monitors gather dust on tables and disconnected television screens line the walls. This is the missile warning center of NORAD, unused since August 1997. The boy squints in the dim and flickering halogen lights and almost trips over an old wastepaper basket. He looks down at the wastepaper basket, noticing that some of the papers within it are printouts with latitude and longitude markings. “FALSE ALARM” is scrawled on one of them in red pen. He glances over at a desk, where similar sheets of paper still lie. On none of them does he see those words repeated.

The boy looks up from the desks or papers to focus on the featureless robots guarding the doors to the room as more and more confused and frightened captives are ushered inside.

Another voice pipes up within the crowd, shouting at their faceless captors. “What the hell is this, huh? What’s going on?”

One robot turns slightly. “This is the most secure location in this facility. You will be safe here.”

The man looks unconvinced. “Safe? Against Connor’s men? Why aren’t we being evacuated?”

The robot doesn’t respond. The last groups of people file into the room, and the doors are closed. The boy looks over at an old woman who looks like she’s doing math. She mutters to herself. “I haven’t heard any more explosions in at least ten minutes. That indicates that either the attack has failed…or…”

Ian looks over at the woman. “Or what?”

She looks up, unwilling or afraid to answer.

Within the cramped exhaust tunnel, Kyle continues pushing forward. Presently he comes to a widened section with several branches, and he takes one of the branches for a meter. There the section ends in another grille. He peers down. Below him is a large tunnel filled with abandoned Skynet ground vehicles, tanks, armored cars. Shifting his position, he can just see a large closed blast door set into the side of the tunnel to his left. He moves back into the main space. His two comrades join him, Russ whispering a question.

“What’s down there?”

“We’re in the main tunnel. The blast door is just below and ahead.”

The group moves forward again, this time able to move at a crouch instead of a crawl. Suddenly they come upon a sheer black wall blocking the tunnel. Kyle runs his hands along it. “Damn. I hoped they would forget about this.”

Giles snorts. “Well they can’t say we didn’t try.” He begins to move back down the tunnel, but Kyle isn’t moving. Instead he holds out a hand. “Russ, rifle.”

Russ hands over the large Skynet plasma rifle with the strange attachments. Giles curses quietly behind him. “Reese, it’s time we don’t have.”

Reese is busy with the gun. He extends three telescoping legs from equidistant points around the gun, affixing it to the sides and roof of the tunnel so that the gun is secured in the center of the space. Then he attaches an apparatus to the front of the gun and sets the gun to continual fire, setting the timer.

“Move back, both of you.” Russ moves back, allowing Kyle room to retreat away from the gun. With a low hum, the gun begins to fire. The apparatus at the top of the gun begins to spin, and mirrors on the device reflect the plasma energy and circumscribe an area of the blank wall. As the device rotates, a circular area of the wall begins to glow red as the beam slices into it.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

Back at basecamp, John is directing cleanup operations. Cars full of wounded men and women make their way back out of the hole blasted in the wall, and teams work to cut and stow every piece of Skynet equipment that they can carry.

A soldier wearing a headset runs into John’s tent and throws him a quick salute. John waves him over. “What is it?”

The man is out of breath. “Sorry, sir, but we’ve picked up movement to the west on radar. Forty clicks, moving fast.”

John clenches a fist on the table. “That will be Skynet reinforcements, come to retrieve their master. What’s the time frame?”

“Fifteen minutes, maybe less.”

John looks back out of the tent at the dark mountain face beyond. “Then let’s hope Reese is on his way out.”

Skynet Headquarters

The circle of steel falls inward with a heavy clang, its edges glowing red. After a moment Reese moves forward, disassembling the cutting tool and reverting it back to a normal Skynet rifle. Gingerly he crawls over the still glowing edges of the hole and into the next chamber, followed by Russ and Giles.

After moving forward a few meters, he reaches a section of flooring that echoes hollowly as he steps on it. There is a hinged section of sheet metal on the floor and he slowly opens it, revealing the metal rungs of a ladder set into a concrete wall. He checks the area, noting that it seems free of machines. Motioning to his men, he descends the ladder, rifle over his back.

The three men emerge from the ventilation system into a massive cave. To their left and rising above them is the vaulted ceiling of the subterranean space. Filling this space are buildings three stories tall, rising almost to the level of the roof and supported by great coiled springs designed to absorb the shock of a nuclear blast. One building extends close to the cavern wall at their right, the location of one of the huge blast doors.

The shadows in this place are severe, casting some areas into almost total darkness. Kyle motions to the monumental blast door. “We’ll need to get that open if we’re to make a speedy escape.” Russ nods, taking the hacking terminal and moving into the deep shadows beside the door to plug in.

Giles and Reese continue onward into the darkness. Red lights move in the darkness, the roving eyes of Endoskeletons sensing in infrared. The two men move out and race behind the corner of a building just as an Endo rounds the corner. Sensing nothing, it continues on its patrol. Giles whispers to Kyle. “Where to?” Kyle consults a crumpled map in the light of his headset. He points to an area at the rear of the complex. “This is the most likely area for a containment. If the original structures remain, that would be section B1.”

The duo moves out, racing along the side of the buildings deeper into the mountain stronghold, dodging Endo patrols. The buildings are arranged in a simple grid, with hubs at each intersection of the cave system connected by enclosed hallways so that those within the buildings need never see the bare rock of the cavern outside.

The men finally reache the deepest chamber of the cavern, housing a large building several stories high. Giles asks the inevitable question.

“How do we find them?”

In response, Kyle pulls out an infrared detector and starts scanning the walls of the building, moving away from safety to get a better angle.

An Endoskeleton marches on its rounds in the darkness, scanning the great cavern. Its eyes detect movement and it breaks away from its patrol route to investigate. It rounds a corner an sees a man with an instrument in his hand scanning the building. The Endo raises its weapon to fire, but just then something rounds the corner and the Endo’s vision goes dark.

The metal body crashes to the ground, the sound ringing off of the buildings and echoing around the cavern. Giles backs up, the plasma gun in his hand now at half charge. “Well, we’ve rung the doorbell now. Kyle, do you have them?”

The wiry man is finally able to see a group of heat signatures in the lowest level of the last building near the far wall. “Yes! The C4. Now!”

Within the missile warning center, there is sudden movement as the faceless robots turn and exit the room. The vocal man gets up from where he was sitting on a desk. “Hey, what’s going on? Wait!” His protestations are ignored by machine and human alike.

Ian and woman glance at each other. The boy gestures to the back wall of the room and whispers at her. “I think I heard something out there.”

The woman leans closer. “Where?”

“In the cavern.” The boy goes over to the far wall, away from the doors. “It came from here.” The woman begins to follow him, but then turns at the sound of shouts at the front of the room.

A group of clean metal Endoskeletons files into the room, plasma rifles in their hands. The vocal man continues his stream of questions.

“What the hell is going on?”

The machines raise their weapons.

“As senior technician, I demand…”

The rest of his demand is cut short as a burst of purple light lances through the man, sending him flying over the desk to lie smoking on the floor. Instantly there are screams and pandemonium as the machines open fire on the unarmed crowd.

Ian and the woman race to the back wall as people rush to get out of the way. Despite the clamor and the gunfire, something catches his attention. He stares at the wall, shouting at the woman. “I think I heard someone shouting!”

“Obviously.”

“No, from outside. It sounded like ‘Get back’!”

The woman lunges toward her mousey companion. “Get back!”

She pulls Ian away from the wall, which explodes inward and crashes to the ground, narrowly missing several screaming captives. An EMP grenade flies through the air, detonating halfway through the room and shorting out the Endos and their weapons. They fall senseless to the ground.

Through the smoking hole in the wall, Sergeant Reese leaps up, standing with his plasma rifle held high, ready to take out any machines that survived the EMP. He sees movement in the hallway beyond; more Endos are appearing to take the place of their fallen brethren. Reese waves an arm at the momentarily shellshocked captives staring dumbly at their rescuer and shouts a command. “This is a rescue! Move!”

The captives surge into motion, rushing past him and leaping down to the cave floor. Giles reaches out to help those who are struggling. Kyle fires off several more warning shots to the Endos then leaps down to the cave floor, dodging return fire, and makes good their retreat.

The sound of laser fire echoes off the high walls of the cavern complex, mingled with the shouts and screams of men, women, and children. A small girl stumbles on the uneven ground and falls behind, but Kyle is in the rearguard and scoops her up as he runs, firing wildly behind him at the relentless pursuers.

Ian runs beside Kyle, shouting. “If this is a rescue, then you need to rescue Mishiko too!”

Kyle turns and blasts a following Endo. “Who’s that?”

The boy is panting with exertion. “Lead scientist…he knows everything. We can’t leave without him. They’re taking him to level five.”

Kyle glances at the boy, considering it. The boy continues. “They did something to him…put something in his head. I think they’re gonna kill him.”

Kyle’s eyes go wide. “There’s no time. The machines will want him alive…for now. The same can’t be said for us.”

In the shadow of the blast door, Russ is in trouble. An endless series of numbers scrolls down the monitor of his portable computer terminal but none of them unlock the door. He shouts at the approaching mass of people.

“It’s not working! I can’t get it open!”

The captives reach the closed door and turn in panic. Endoskeletons appear from left and right around the corners of the nearest building, guns blazing. Kyle throws another EMP grenade and takes them out, but the clank of reinforcements continues to echo throughout the cave.

Ian makes for the door. Kyle follows him.

“Do you know the code?” Kyle asks the boy.

“Mishi wrote a maintenance workaround.” He looks around. “I entered it here, but we need to enter the same code on the other side of the door for it to work.”

Kyle stares around the room in rising panic. “Through the vent.” He and the boy note the small hole that Kyle’s team arrived through, and both of them know what to do. Kyle turns to Russ. “Hold them here.” The man nods and they begin climbing, entering the small tunnel.

In the tunnel outside the blast door, a flimsy metal grate falls from the ceiling and lands with a clatter on the concrete floor at the feet of an Endo. It looks up with something approaching confusion as the blast of a laser pistol strikes it in the head, lighting up the interior of its chrome skull. It remains standing, its eyes dead. Kyle leaps to the ground behind it and holds out his arms as Ian lands heavily in them with a grunt. Kyle sets the boy lightly on the ground and the boy makes for the panel beside the door. Kyle moves quickly over to the abandoned Skynet vehicles parked within the tunnel.

Ian taps a five character sequence into the pad beside the door. Within the cavern, men and women fall left and right as Skynet’s forces close in. Russ throws a conventional grenade, his rifle spent.

The mechanism within the door moves, the bars retracting and the massive slab of metal swinging slowly outward on well-balanced hinges. The desperate survivors, now only a dozen in number, rush the door, squeezing through the widening gap as ever more of them fall to the machines. Russ remains to the end, hoisting his last grenade. He leaps through the door, practically running into Ian on the other side. Everyone races for the armored vehicle, Kyle at the controls.

The vehicle’s electric motor whines in protest as Kyle slams the accelerator and sends the vehicle careening down the curving tunnel toward the north portal, scraping against the wall to avoid the Skynet tanks and taking hits from Endos exiting from the smoking mouth of the cavern.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

The command post has moved back beyond the outer perimeter of the mountain fortress, John at the center of a flurry of activity as reports come in and he directs pullback operations. A woman at a radio calls out. “We’ve got line of sight…bogeys to the west…ten o-clock!”

John’s binoculars swing to position. In the distance and approaching fast are a squadron of Skynet Hunter Killer aircraft. John shouts into his headset. “Chen, you are go for intercept!” He swings the binoculars back to the mountain where three helicopters are holding in front of the mountain. They break away from the mountain and fly toward the approaching threat.

The woman calls out from her station. “Connor, we need to send Sarah in now!”

John’s binoculars focus on the north portal, a distant dark hole in the mountainside. “Not until Reese is clear.”

There is a shout and the woman points at the side of the mountain. “Look! The doors!” Indeed, visible to all, the huge doors high up on the mountain are slowly irising open. The woman moves to John’s side, hissing in his ear. “Sir! It’s either Reese or the war.”

John doesn’t move, his binoculars still focused on the small hole at the base of the mountain. Suddenly there is a burst of smoke from the portal and a silver car flies out of the opening followed by two more, firing lasers and trying to get target lock on the lead vehicle.

John’s command is calm. “Retrieve Sarah.”

The woman stares at him. “But sir!”

John shifts his attention to Reese’s vehicle. “Skynet wins this one. Cover that vehicle’s retreat. Now.”

The door on the side of the mountain is fully open. a large silver aircraft emerges from the darkness within, flanked by a squadron of Hunter Killers. Lasers fire at the aircraft from ground and sky, but the chrome finish of the craft deflects the shots. Missiles fly, but the flanking aircraft target them down.

The armored car careens down the slope of the mountain, silver vehicles in hot pursuit. Connor’s air wing breaks off from chasing planes and moves to covering Reese’s retreat. A missile flies down and blasts the chasing vehicles, which detonate in an enormous explosion.

Kyle’s armored car rises, the shockwave picking up the rear of the vehicle and shoving it forward. Kyle’s vehicle slams back down to earth and it flies forward out of the fortress’s defenses, rolling down the hill out of control where it finally comes to rest on its roof.

The large Skynet aircraft convenes with its reinforcements and the squadron departs the field. The woman relays a report. “Skynet has escaped, heading west. We’re trying to determine a probable destination…” Her voice fades into the background. John’s binoculars are focused on the overturned vehicle at the mountain’s foot. He speaks over the woman. “Send a retrieval squad to the breach point. I want everything we have in the air by oh-ten-thirty, headed for Los Angeles.”

The woman moves to implement his orders, then turns back. “Why Los Angeles?”

John closes his eyes. “Just call it a hunch.” He puts down the binoculars and raises the detonator that was lying on the table in front of him. He flicks a switch on the side of it, and the bomb is deactivated.

Within the wreck of the armored vehicle, there is a slamming and banging. The side of the vehicle falls outward, revealing battered and bruised humans who spill out, groaning in pain. Ian lies there on the ground, staring up at the cloudy sky. There is a break in the clouds above him and a star twinkles down. He gazes up at it, marveling at the sight as the sound of approaching vehicles and shouting voices fades into the overwhelmed noise in his mind. He is dimly aware of being bound in handcuffs and carried away.

Los Angeles

A snuffling sound intrudes on Emma’s consciousness, followed by the feel of a wet tongue on her face. She screws up her face and tries to turn away from the assault, but a sharp pain in her arm makes her cry out and she stops moving. She reaches with her withered limb and feels a bandage on her upper arm.

She opens her eyes. A brindled mutt is investigating her, licking at the dried blood and dirt still caking her cheeks. A hand swoops in and pulls the dog away. “Pronto, no! Leave her alone.” The dog turns and retreats, replaced by the figure of Cassie who sits on the side of Emma’s cot with a cloth and begins wiping away the dog drool and remaining filth.

“Why did you do it, Em? You know I couldn’t take it if…” She lets the sentence hang in the air. “We made a promise to each other, remember? We…what?”

Emma is staring straight ahead, seemingly oblivious to Cassie’s words. They are in a small cavern alcove carved out of the earth containing two small cots. A curtain separates the alcove from the rest of the cave. Her eyes gradually focus on Cassie and she seems to come back to herself. “Cass, the kid. Did he make it? I thought I saw…oh god.” The remembrance makes her eyes go wide and she tries to sit up. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Cassie tries to push her back down onto the cot. “Yes. He’s dead. And you almost joined him. A little higher, and…” She trails off again. Emma tries to get up again, but Cassie is firm. “You can’t go taking risks like that. Pete stitched your arm up pretty good, but you shouldn’t go exerting yourself. We’ll be moving again soon, so get some rest while you can.” She rises from the cot and turns to go.

Emma reaches out and grabs her hand. “Leaving? Where?”

Cassie sinks down onto the cot again. “North. The machines know we’re in the area. They’ll be sweeping this whole ridge. We have to get out.”

Emma shakes her head, as if trying to dislodge something. “No…no. We need to go south. Down…into the city.”

Cassie puts a hand on Emma’s forehead. “You’re not making any sense. Rest. We’ll talk later.”

She rises to go, but Emma rises and tries to follow her, then swoons and has to sit back down. “You need to listen to me. I’m going downtown, and I’m going tonight.”

Cassie doesn’t move. There is motion in the room beyond, and a mustachioed man pulls back the curtain and peeks his head into the earthen alcove. “Should we try and take the generator?” Cassie turns and shakes her head. “No, it will just slow us down. I’ll be there in a minute.” The man gives Emma a reassuring smile and disappears back through the curtain.

Emma rises slowly to her feet once more, and this time remains standing. “Cassie, I need to talk to everyone.” Cassie takes Emma’s hand. “Em, please. We can talk about this later…”

“We’ll talk about it now. Call a meeting.”

Colorado

“A meeting?” John Connor is in the cockpit of a large Skynet troop transport, heavily modified by the Resistance to conform to human standards, busy with the preflight checklist. Kyle Reese fills the narrow doorway, his hand on the lintel.

“That’s right. Fritz wants to speak to you in private. Wants to go with us to L.A.” Something jingles in Kyle’s other hand, and John notices that it is a pair of handcuffs.

“I take it you’ve rescinded my order concerning POWs?”

“They’re victims, John, not prisoners. Besides, they’ve been cleared. No tricks.”

John looks as if he’s about to argue, but turns back to the checklist instead. “I’ve got an army to get in the air, Reese. I trust you to handle the debriefings. Anything Fritz would say to me he can say to you.”

Kyle steps fully into the cockpit, closing the door behind him for privacy. “This is above my clearance level.” John turns, interest piqued. Kyle continues. “Fritz was an assistant to Mishiko Tagawa, a scientist. The machines took him captive.” Reese moves closer, lowering his voice. “They put something in Tagawa’s head. I think this is another…incident.”

The scarred man hesitates a moment, then speaks into his headset. “This is Connor. We’ll need a captain for Air Force One…over.” He gestures for Kyle to open the cockpit door and strides down the corridor toward the cargo bay as another uniformed soldier takes his place in the cockpit.

Connor and Reese move through the crew cabins and conference rooms and emerge into a large space with two dozen utilitarian seats lining the curving walls. Occupying one row of seats are the survivors from the Cheyanne mountain rescue, looking tired and bruised but otherwise alive. All of them look pale, as if they haven’t seen the sky in years, but the small youth at the end of the row is the palest and smallest of them all. He’s busy petting Max, who is stoically enduring the boy’s affections.

The boy looks up and the smile leaves his face as he sees Connor. At the sight of his master, Max leaves Fritz and trots over to stand by John’s side. John speaks quietly to Kyle. “The kid?”

Kyle nods. John gestures to the other survivors. “What about them?”

Kyle points to each one in turn. “Let’s see, she was involved in high-power energy storage…he’s a materials scientist…that one says he was working on the latest Terminator project, in a limited capacity…we have engineers, programmers…and all their work so compartmentalized that their intel is practically useless.”

John considers the group of pale survivors. “Let’s take the kid up on his offer. Keep the rest of the prisoners…” Kyle gives him a hard look and he amends himself “…the…victims…on the ground with General Pierce for full debriefing.” He glances at Kyle. “But I want a full report of their intel transmitted to me before we hit the LA jamming field.” He then motions for Ian to come with him as he opens the conference room door. He speaks into his headset. “This is John Connor. All Tech-Com officers, report to Air Force One. Liftoff in five. Over.” The boy glances up at John, startled. John fixes him with a penetrating stare. “I think everyone should hear what you have to say.” He nudges the boy into the conference room. Kyle follows, giving John a dark look.

On the airfield below the smoking remains of SAC-NORAD, final loading is underway. A convoy of trucks and cars remains behind with the wounded, the survivors of the mountain among them. Soldiers rush to board their planes and the entire army begins to rise into the air with a whine of engines and the beat of propellers in the cloud-laden night. The huge bulk of the Skynet troop carrier lifts off as well, and John Connor’s Resistance army disappears into the clouds.

Los Angeles

The central room of the cave is small. A single hurricane lantern sits on the round wooden table in the middle of the room, casting its flickering glow over a dozen dirty faces clustered closely around. Emma looks into the faces of those gathered. There are three old men, six women of various ages including Emma and Cassie, and three children; two girls and a boy. She looks down at the table, gathering her thoughts.

“Just after sunset, while Cass and I were on watch, I saw something…an…electrical… phenomenon I can’t explain. There was lightning, then a ball of light appeared above the stage.”

One of the men speaks up. “Ball lightning? I think I saw that once, running along the power lines in the hills.”

Emma shakes her head. “It didn’t look natural to me. But whatever it was, something came out of that ball of light…or rather, someone…a Resistance soldier named Ian Fritz.”

Heads turn to Cassie, who is sitting at the opposite side of the table from Emma. A large woman in suspenders leans toward her. “Didja see any of this?”

Cassie looks uncomfortable. “No. But whatever happened damaged the structure…it cut right through the steel supports and collapsed the stage on top of Em and the kid. That brought the tank down on them. They ran out in separate directions, to divide its fire. Em got away…barely. The kid wasn’t so lucky.”

Emma glances around the group, then continues. “The kid…Ian Fritz…he only said a few things to me before…” She swallows, continues. “He asked me what day it was…I told him it was the 10th of July. He said that he needed to get downtown by dawn. He told me that…that Skynet would be there…and John Connor.” She puts a hand to her temple.

The table erupts into muttering and side conversations. A woman blurts out “The John Connor?”

A small mustachioed man shakes his head. “I thought Connor was in Colorado. Some big offensive, so the talk box said, trying to kill Skynet. Why come here?”

A small white haired woman speaks up. “It’s because he’s on a vendetta.” She leans forward conspiratorially. “Skynet wants peace, but John won’t stop until Skynet’s big brain is smashed to bits. And his fanatics in the Resistance won’t talk back.”

The larger woman shakes her head at that. “That’s machine propaganda. Connor’s said many times that Skynet won’t stop the war until every human is dead…that’s just how it’s programmed. All this talk of peace is just to set us against each other. And anyway, that’s all half a continent away. None of our business.”

Emma speaks up. “No. Skynet will be here…and Connor will follow. He will attack Skynet’s final stronghold just before dawn…and Skynet will surrender. But he will destroy it anyway…and the war will not end. That’s what the kid said. He said he has to be there…to end the war.”

More murmurs break out. The white-haired woman interjects. “How do we know that this kid isn’t one of them? Arriving in a lightning ball, with a message of doom. Sounds like a machine trick to me.”

Emma shrinks back in her seat, the conversation getting away from her, but Cassie comes to her rescue. “Why go to all the trouble? And why blow up one of their own?”

Emma’s expression softens. “Thanks Cass.” Her expression turns inward again.

A boy of seven pipes up. “I’m with you, Em. I will fight for John Connor. Let’s smash some machines.”

Emma smiles sadly at the kid, and the large woman grabs him by the arm. “You will do no such thing, Tyrese. I promised your father I would keep you safe.” She glances up from her admonishment. “Even if what you say is true, what can we do? We don’t have any intel. Who would believe us?’

Emma speaks up. “We have the name Ian Fritz. We know that Connor’s plan has to change. Maybe that will be enough.”

There are shaking heads all around the table. The large woman hugs one of the children to her. “In any case, the kids need protecting. I’m going north with Pete…” she nods at the mustachioed man who nods back. “…And if you’re wise you’d all do the same. What did Connor ever do for us?”

Cassie speaks up. “He saved us.” She taps the faded red barcode on her arm, one shared by many of the older individuals in the circle. “He pulled humanity back from the brink. We owe him for that, at least.”

The man and women cast their eyes down. The man speaks up. “Downtown is crawling with machines. They have laser targeting, infrared, drones. We wouldn’t make it a mile.”

The large woman speaks. “We’re not Resistance. We’re not soldiers. We have no weapons to fight them, no training. This is not our fight.”

The muttering starts again, plans being made for heading north. Emma stares at Cassie, a pleading look in her eyes. Cassie seems to be fighting a battle within herself. Words spill out, spoken so softly they may only be for herself. “I can’t go back there, Em. I won’t.”

Emma searches the faces of the others, looking for allies. “Please…Pete, Hannah, you know the city. Come with me.”

The large woman shakes her head. “How does this kid know that Connor’s attack will fail? Did he say anything else to you at all before he got himself splattered?” She glares at Emma.

Emma sighs. “He said something about…time displacement.”

Cassie fixes Emma with a strange look. “Time displacement? Like time travel?”

Shouts of derision erupt from around the table. Several people turn away, continuing to pack. Emma casts a look over the dissipating group. “I’m sure I misheard him.” In a small voice, almost to herself, she continues. “Please…what I saw tonight…I can’t explain it….” Her eyes settle on Cassie. She places her good hand on the table. “…I will go alone, Cass…if I have to.”

A change seems to have come over Cassie. The careworn woman reaches across the table, taking Emma’s outstretched hand. “You won’t have to.” Emma smiles, the tension finally released from her body.

Heads turn in astonishment, the group quiet for a moment. Cassie stands and looks around at the group, her eyes settling on Pete. “Take the bike.” The man looks like he’s about to protest, but she shakes her head. “Silence will be more important to us than speed. Take it, and if you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

The man gives the woman a hug, his eyes on Emma. “Spirits protect you.”

Cassie breaks away from the embrace and addresses Hannah. “Head north and protect the kids.” She looks back at Emma. “We’re headed south.”

There is a moment of silence, broken only by a noise that sounds almost like the crying of a human child from somewhere outside the cave. The dog goes to Emma and whines, and she pets it between the ears. “Oh Pronto, it’s just Coyote laughing at the moon.” She leans down to address the canine properly. “I want you to go with the others now, okay? Be a good boy.” The dog growls at her, and she frowns. “It’s not that bad, is it?” He continues to growl, his nose pointed toward the passage leading from the central chamber.

Tension rushes back into the room as everyone goes on high alert. Emma looks sharply toward the passage. “Terminators!” There is a rush for the packs of supplies lying around the edges of the room while a small group remains around the table speaking in hurried, hushed tones. The tall man leans forward.

“We’ll go out the back. Hannah, take the kids on the hidden path north, I’ll meet you at the lookout. Cass…” He looks at her with something approaching pity, his plea unspoken. He holds out an antique pistol.

She accepts the gift and secures in her belt. “Thanks, Nils. And don’t worry about us. Just survive.”

The rest of the humans have retreated through a passage in the rear of the room. Emma and Cassie follow them, only one pack of supplies between them. Nils scans the room, checking to see if anything was missed. He sees that the hurricane lamp is still on the table and he goes to pick it up. At that moment there is an explosion and a burst of light, streaking across the room and smashing the lamp. The room is plunged into darkness, illuminated only by a dimly burning streak of lamp oil on the wooden table and two red eyes approaching in the darkness.

Nils is trapped on the wrong side of the room, his only escape blocked by the creature with the glowing eyes. With a cry he heaves the table up on end, trying to put something between himself and the Endoskeleton. The creature opens fire, destroying the table in a shower of splinters and ash as Nils makes his move. He dives across the room and through the curtain into the escape tunnel, crying out in pain as the creature fires at his retreating body and scores a hit on his leg.

Within the tunnel, Cassie and Emma are waiting, and they drag a protesting Nils to the opening. He gasps, clutching his leg. “I’m no good like this. Leave me.” The women glance at each other, unwilling to let go. He shouts at them. “Go! Now!” He grabs the metal outer door of the tunnel, forcing it from the pegs securing it in the earth. He holds the metal door like a shield and moves back into the tunnel, dragging his injured leg behind him as he roars out his last command. “Find John Connor! Save the world!” Purple light flashes in the tunnel, burning holes in the shield, but the man continues moving forward, smashing into the machine with his full weight even as he is riddled with holes.

The two women tear themselves away, emerging into the a land of low trees and scrub. Above them is the ridge of a hill, and below them the hill descends into a forested valley. There is no trace of any other human. They make their way downhill into the trees. On the other side of the ridge there is the sound of whining metal and jet engines, and an aerial Hunter Killer drone emerges over the ridge, its spotlights scanning the ground below. The women are still in the open, making for the trees.

A searchlight goes forth, locking on to movement on the women’s left. They see the lithe canine form of a coyote racing down the hill away from the women, making for the forest as well. The searchlight locks onto the beast’s movement and follows it, allowing the women time to reach the treeline.

The women cower behind a tree as the spotlight rakes the forest around them, then passes on. The machine passes away west, and the two women continue downhill, following a game trail. Presently, the forest falls away on their right as they pass across a cliff, and they can see spreading out below them the low hills and valleys of Los Angeles. There is the destroyed Hollywood Bowl below them, and beyond that is the vast destruction of the city, crawling with the searchlights and lasers of the machines. And beyond all of those crawling engines of death is a line of blue lights glowing dimly in the hazy distance, the electrified fences and guarded walls of a massive facility, its central complex rising above the shattered skyscrapers of the post apocalyptic metropolis.

Emma regards this distant constellation of blue light on the horizon from her elevated position, catching her breath. Cassie pulls a small flask from a pocket and takes a swig, wiping sweat from her forehead and handing the flask to Cassie. The older woman eyes the younger one as she takes the proffered flask. “What is it?” She follows Emma’s gaze to the structure.

“Time travel.” She laughs to herself. “I should learn to stop talking when I’m behind. It’s like something out of one of your old movies.” She shakes her head. “Gotta be serious head trauma talking.”

Emma moves off through the brush, but Cassie stands on the ridge a moment longer, her gaze intent on the mysterious glowing structure.

Act 2: The Time Machine

Somewhere Over Arizona

Ian sits in the corner of the cramped washroom adjoining the conference area, his body pulled into a ball and unable to stop the shakes wracking his limbs.

Outside in the conference room, John paces back and forth in front of a green chalkboard, hands clasped behind him. Around the conference table sit over a dozen men and women in dull grey uniforms holding side conversations with each other. Standing near the washroom door is Kyle, looking awkward and out of place next to his fellow officers.

John turns suddenly and fixes Kyle with a beady stare. “He’s been in there long enough. Get him out.”

Kyle returns a nervous frown and raps on the door hesitantly. “Ian? Are you okay in there?” There is no answer. “Ian, I’m coming in.” He cracks the door and peers in, seeing Ian in the corner.

Kyle gives John another look. “Give us a minute.” Kyle enters the room and closes the door behind him, sliding down the wall opposite the boy so that they are both sitting on the floor. Kyle looks around the cramped washroom with its sterile lighting and breaks the silence. “This is cozy.”

The boy doesn’t respond. Kyle continues. “You’d never left the compound before, had you?”

Finally, he gets a response. The boy shakes his head. “Just pictures, video feeds, schematics.”

Kyle gazes at the boy in concern. “This must be a lot to take in. I’m sorry. I know John’s not helping things. I don’t think he ever learned how to deal with anyone who wasn’t a soldier…or a machine.”

The boy looks at the door fearfully. “The way he looks at me…he hates us. I know what they call me.”

Kyle puts out his hand. “Don’t listen to them, kid. And John doesn’t hate you. He hates Skynet. Hates the machines. You won’t find any here who don’t. It’s just that some here are slow to trust anyone who worked for for them…the machines. John doesn’t trust easily.” Kyle laughs to himself. “Doesn’t make many friends.” Kyle looks back at the boy. “I mean, you’re not, right? You know Skynet was using you…lying to you.”

The boy shakes his head, but then looks unsure. “I…I don’t know. I know Skynet made horrible mistakes, but Mishi said Skynet wanted to fix it. We were going to fix it…fix the world.”

Kyle’s expression is one of understanding, and pity. “And you think that if you tell John what you know, you’ll be betraying Skynet, and betraying Tagawa.”

The boy nods, a tear running down his cheek. John moves over beside the boy so that they are sitting side by side. “You told me what those machines did to Tagawa. That’s what they do. They inflict pain, if it is in their interest. They aren’t human…not like us.”

Ian looks up at Kyle. “Why did they hurt him? What are they going to do to him?”

Kyle sighs. “I wish I could tell you, but that’s up to John. If you want to save Tagawa, John’s the one to make that happen.”

Ian looks away, and Kyle looks down at the boy. “Ian, listen. I know John may seem hard, but that’s because he’s seen things you and I will hopefully never have to see. But there’s a good man beneath all that hardness, and I know that if there’s any way to save Tagawa, he’ll find it.”

The boy sniffs, wiping his nose. “Promise?”

Kyle holds out his hand. “Promise. Now what do you say to talking about this project you and Mishi were working on? I’ll be there with you…we’ll do it together.”

The boy smiles despite his tears. “Okay.” He takes Kyle’s hand and together they leave the washroom.

Ian strides back into the conference room, a determined look on his face, and makes a beeline for the chalkboard. Kyle follows close behind. John moves to intercept the boy but he brushes past John without looking at him and picks up a piece of chalk. Immediately he begins drawing a diagram on the board, eyes focused on his task and ignoring the eyes of the officers filling the room.

Kyle takes a seat at the front, motioning for John to come join him. The severe man eventually does, settling into his seat and looking at Kyle as if trying to divine his previous conversation. Kyle notices the man’s look and gives a thumbs up. “He’s got this.” Kyle whispers to John as the boy continues scraping lines on the board.

There is the sound of chalk hitting its aluminum tray and the boy steps away from his drawing, saying nothing. On the board is the image of two circles, one nested within the other. In the center of the circles is a third, much smaller and connected to the outer circles via a constellation of lines, each radiating off above and below the central circle to connect with scribbled boxes of various sizes.

A hand goes up in the back of the room and a voice follows quick on the motion. “Uh, yes, what are we looking at here?”

Ian nervously points to a bit of the drawing. “Um, so, this is the TDE…the Temporal Displacement Equipment…and this is the outer shell of the crucible, which is constructed around the inner shell and the core, which holds the central displacement volume. It is powered by…”

Ian looks back at the blank faces around the room as he speaks, glancing at Kyle, whose hand goes slowly up. He stops talking. “Yes.” He points to Kyle.

Kyle glances around the room, assessing the other officers. “As you all know, I’m not really a tech guy.” There are some chuckles at this, and Kyle turns to Ian. “And really, the only time I went to school was to scavenge cafeteria food. So when you say Temporal Displacement…”

John speaks up. “Time travel.”

There is silence in the room. Ian nods, finally meeting John’s eyes.

Another hand goes up slowly, then comes back down. Ian looks at it. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry, but do we really believe this?” The voice is from a thin woman at the side of the room. She scans the faces around her. “Time travel? That’s science fiction stuff.” She moves to get up from the table. “Someone’s being had, and it ain’t me.”

“It’s real.”

The woman freezes in place. The words came from John Connor, iron with confidence and authority. “This is important, Jen. Sit down and listen.”

Ian stares at John, surprised to have him as a defender. The woman settles back into her seat. John inclines his head toward Ian. “Perhaps you should start again, from the top this time.”

Ian nods, collecting his thoughts. Finally, he begins. “Mishi was working on…that is, Mishiko Tagawa, my superior, has been working on a secret project for thirty years…ever since Judgment Day. In 1998 he developed the theory that with enough focused energy, it may be possible to displace an object in time.”

Ian fixes a look on John. “He wanted to stop Judgment Day. That was what kept him alive, he said. But he was faced with a problem. See, the power systems and technology of humanity had been almost wiped out. There was no way to build or power his machine…not if he relied on human infrastructure. So he met with Skynet…convinced it that they could work together.”

A derisive laugh interrupts the speech. “Traitorous scum.”

Kyle stares down the offender, and Ian continues. “He believed that Skynet regretted its decision to drop the bombs. He believed that it wanted to atone, wanted to make a world where Skynet and humanity could live in peace, where the bombs never fell. He had the theories, Skynet had the power. So they joined forces…and made this.” He gestures to the diagram on the board.

Another hand goes up. “So obviously Skynet was lying to him…to gain his cooperation. But what exactly would a time machine accomplish?” It’s the thin woman again. “I mean, let’s say you stop Judgment Day. Doesn’t that mean that this world no longer exists? Wouldn’t Skynet just be deleting itself?”

Ian picks up the chalk again and points it at the woman. “That’s one possibility. Another possibility is that going back in time would create another timeline entirely. However, in practice it doesn’t really matter, because Mishi found a way around it.” Ian taps the chalk against the diagram of the Temporal Displacement Equipment. “See, this central core isn’t just a housing for the Displacement Equipment…it is itself a vessel.” Ian points to the central area of the diagram. “The energy flux opens a portal in time, and surrounding that portal is an energy matrix that isolates the entire core across spacetime.”

John interjects. “I think you’ve lost us again.”

The boy turns, noting the blank faces. “Sorry. Um, let me try to explain…” He goes back to the branching timeline diagram. “Okay, initially, the portal only leads a few hours into the past…” Ian puts a line through the timeline, and writes the year 2029 on that line. “…but it gradually goes deeper, digging down through time.” The chalk traces down the drawing to the bottom of the chalkboard. “It can go years, decades into the past. And then, whatever goes through that portal begins another timeline…and that new timeline is visible to the core.” Ian makes an ‘X’ on the timeline near its base, tracing the divergent branch up to the present. He circles the intersection point of the original timeline and 2029, drawing an arrow to the new timeline at 2029. “At the moment someone enters the portal, the Temporal Core exists in a superposition between the two timelines, and when the portal closes, the core will be able to resolve into the new timeline. The time traveler acts like…”

Another man speaks up. “…like a hook from a grappling gun. And that core is the gun.”

Ian looks up from his work. “In a way…yes.”

There is silence as everyone digests this information.

The thin woman speaks up again. “So Skynet is trying to jump from this timeline into another one.” She looks around the table. “Why don’t we just let it go? Mission accomplished, war won.”

John rises and gives the table his full attention. “There’s no guarantee that changing the past won’t delete this timeline. And even if it doesn’t, I won’t be responsible for allowing Skynet to destroy another world. Skynet will pay for its crimes…and it will pay for them here. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

The table is silent. Satisfied, John sits back down. An arm slowly goes up in the back and Ian acknowledges it. The man speaks. “How many people could go through this portal?”

Ian goes back to the diagram, drawing a line parallel to the original timeline and loop at the bottom of the timeline. “It’s designed to accept only one person at a time, but you could go through the portal at any point as it’s descending to its target depth. Once it reaches its target depth it remains there for about a hundred seconds, then loops and begins its return journey, so for any given point in time, two people could go back to that point…one on the downward side, and another on the upward side.” He traces down one line and back up the other line to illustrate his point.

John cocks his head. “So if the target depth was, say, 1984, only two…people…could go through to that time?”

Ian nods. “That’s right.”

Kyle glances over at John, whose eyes are now half closed as if fighting sleep. However, he doesn’t miss the keen light in John’s half-closed eyes, the intensity underneath the feined disinterest.

Jen asks a question. “How many times can this machine be activated?”

Ian’s answer is firm. “It was designed for only a single use. Down and back.”

Another voice pipes up. “So what’s Skynet’s plan? Send someone back in time, then…”

Ian nods. “Then Skynet and everyone in the core is shifted into the new timeline.”

A man in the back of the room rises to his feet. “So we blow it up.” There are murmurs of agreement. The man continues. “Why are we talking about this technical time displacement stuff like it matters? Just bomb the place and move out. Mission accomplished.”

John gestures to Ian, palm up. “He makes a good point. But I imagine Skynet has anticipated such a straightforward maneuver?”

Ian taps the chalk against his hand. “Yes. The facility’s anti-air defenses are…considerable. Mishi considered them overkill.”

John looks back at the man, who averts his eyes, thinking. “So we land outside their defenses and launch a ground attack.” He frowns. “But we left our heavy tanks in Colorado…what can we hope to do with just infantry and light vehicle?”

Russ speaks. “We return to fundamentals. Land downtown, use the cover to negate their armor advantage…we take our team into the facility and if the machine is active we shut it down…then use Sarah to zero the entire place.”

John smiles fiercely at Russ, scanning the rest of the table. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

A small voice interjects. “It won’t come to that.”

John’s smile turns sour as he turns back to Ian. “And why not?”

“The machine won’t work without Mishiko.”

John leans forward. “Explain.”

Ian begins to pace. “There are safeguards that Mishi designed into the system, ones that can’t be circumvented. For example, nothing metal can go through the portal. Mishi made sure to design the system in such a way that it would need to detect the bioelectrical field generated by a living organism in order to activate.” Ian continues, pacing back and forth. “And Mishiko ensured that he would have to be there to activate the machine. The activation is dependent on his own voice print and biosignature…handprint, retinal scan…and a code that only he knows. The system is secure.”

There are murmurs of interest at this, dark looks shared between the officers.

Jen chuckles darkly. “The kid doesn’t know.”

Ian looks around. “I don’t know what?”

John’s eyes flicker down, almost unwilling to be the bearer of bad news. “You’ve been kept out of the loop, Fritz. Skynet’s latest line of infiltrator units are cyborgs…metal endoskeletons covered in human flesh. They’ll pass for human on any bio-scan.”

The boy’s eyes go wide. “What?”

John rises. “They’ll be able to go back in time, the same as any human. And about that code in Tagawa’s brain…” He turns and addresses the room. “As some of you are aware, there have been several serious intelligence breaches in the last few weeks. At first, we thought that these were the actions of high-level officers going rogue and defecting to the machines, but two days ago there was a raid on our headquarters in New York. During the raid, General Perry was abducted and an eyewitness saw the machines insert something…something described as a long needle…into the base of the general’s skull.” John scans the officers. “Twelve hours later, there was a devastating attack on forces formerly under Perry’s control…using intel known only to him.”

There are murmurs and shocked expressions. Jen mutters. “So they’ve skipped interrogation and are going straight to downloading our brains?”

John nods. “This incident has been collated with others. If someone is compromised in this way, after twelve hours there is likely nothing within their mind that can remain hidden from the machines.” John turns to Ian. “This device was implanted in Tagawa at o-seven hundred. Adjusted for Pacific time, that would mean that whatever codes he has will be available to Skynet no later than o-six hundred tomorrow morning.”

Jen interjects. “Dawn.”

Ian stumbles over his words. “So we need to rescue him before then.” He looks out over the group of stony-faced men and women. “We just need to rescue him, and Skynet loses.”

John looks at the boy. “Time is against us. It may not be possible to save Tagawa, even if we get there in time.”

Ian is still. He glares at John. “You don’t intend to. That’s what you mean.”

John returns the boy’s glare. “It’s tactically dangerous…in my mind, Tagawa’s already on the casualty list.”

Kyle rises. “John, that’s enough.” There is silence in the room, and Kyle turns around. All eyes are on him. He continues, speaking to everyone. “If we’re committed to a ground attack, a rescue is surely on the table. If we get into the core, rescue Tagawa, Skynet will be forced to accept terms. The war could end before dawn.”

Silence descends over the conference room, disturbed only by the muted roar of the plane in flight and the clouds rushing by outside.

Finally John speaks, quietly but with assurance. “I know there are some who are desperate for peace. Even here, in this room, there are a few who question my leadership on this. And I might even accept Skynet’s unconditional surrender…given in good faith. Do not think that the millions who must still die do not weigh heavily on me. But I think this device…” He rises and points at the chalkboard illustration. “…this thing proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Skynet was never acting in good faith. It only held out an olive branch so that it would have time to escape…fleeing to a world where none would oppose it. Whatever happens, that machine must be destroyed.”

Kyle raises a hand toward John. “But if we can force Skynet to surrender…would you spare it’s circuits, John? Accept peace?”

A slight smile lights John’s face, though it doesn’t improve his features. “To end the war…yes. But that time machine is the greatest threat to this world. As long as it exists, there can never be peace.”

Ian finally speaks again. “We’d need to move quickly…to get into the core before o-six hundred.”

John looks impressed. “We? Are you volunteering to join this assault?”

Ian shrinks back, caught beneath the cold lights of the room and the hard gazes of the officers around him. He looks between John and Kyle, between a mask of hard suspicion and a face of understanding. “I…I…yes. Yes, I volunteer.” He looks around the room, finally seeing some begrudging respect in the eyes of the soldiers.

John pats Ian on the shoulder. “I’ll take your enlistment under consideration.” He turns to the table. “I don’t need to tell you that the contents of this meeting are classified. You’ll get your final orders within the hour. Dismissed.”

The officers file out of the room, all hushed discussion and some suspicious glances. Kyle gives Ian a quick smile. “That was a brave thing you did. Talk to me later, I’ll bring you up to speed.”

Los Angeles

The two women shelter beside an outer bend in Mulholland Drive overlooking the city, Emma scanning with the monocular binoculars. She hands them to Cassie, who follows suit. The dark, short haired woman turns to her companion. “So what do you think?”

The gray haired woman is focused on the 101, a strip of cracked, dull highway slithering past the Hollywood Bowl all the way into downtown in a wavering southeasterly line. The burned-out hulks of cars are clumped on the left hand side of the highway heading out of the city toward the San Fernando valley, whose occupants, working or partying in LA at 11:14 PM on August 28th, 1997, received a panicked warning from Civil Defense and died trying to escape the city. Cassie can still see skeletons sitting in the car seats, waiting in a traffic jam frozen in time.

However, it is the right hand side of the highway that worries her. A line of lights is moving along the highway, Skynet tanks and armored vehicles, wheeled troop transports, and even Endoskeletons on foot. They are all marching or driving down the cleared side of the highway from the San Fernando valley toward downtown Los Angeles.

Cassie lowers the binoculars. “I think something’s up. I’ve never seen this many of them before.”

Emma whispers excitedly. “It’s like I said. They’re reinforcing their defenses, preparing for Connor’s arrival.”

Cassie turns to Emma, hands her the binoculars. “And you think we can get down there through all this?”

Emma glances fiercely at her friend. “Sure we can. We’re Resistance now.” She glances over at Cassie’s jacket, nodding in approval. “Now all we need is a name. How about…Coyote Force?”

Cassie chuckles. “I thought you were partial to Badger Company.” She taps the embroidered badger head on her jacket.

Emma shakes her head. “Naw. Coyote saved our butts back there.” She brings the binoculars up to her eyes.

Cassie scootches closer to her friend, frowning. “Fine. So what about those machines?”

Emma points to the highway. “We stay to the right of the highway, cut through the suburbs, keep our heads down. Then we’ll swing east when we get near downtown.” She passes the glasses back.

Cassie sweeps the destroyed suburbs with concern. “I don’t know, Emma, there are still an awful lot of lights down there.” She focuses on on of the roving lights, a tank making its way down Hollywood Boulevard, an aerial HK hovering nearby. “Shit, there are Endos down there.” She can just barely make out the glowing red eyes and the dull chrome gleam of the skeletal warriors roving down alleys and side streets, weapons at the ready.

Emma takes this in. “The night’s not getting any younger. We have to try.” The two rise from the side of the road and move in a crouching run down the side of the hill, at times running, at times sliding through the dust and dirt, down to the first row of burned-out houses at the foot of the hill. Hiding in the shadows of the crumbling walls, they wait, mentally noting the positions of the Skynet forces from their previous vantage point.

The clank and whine of a T-700 Terminator reaches their ears, marching down the abandoned residential street, its head turning back and forth as it scans the shells of houses. It approaches their position, is infra-red sensors active.

The woman crouch behind a row of overturned trashcans, waiting for it to pass. Suddenly there is a commotion and a family of raccoons races out of the trashcans, their reflective eyes flashing angrily in the night at the women. The Terminator turns at the noise, firing its weapon and frying one of the creatures as it tries to escape. The rest of the creatures scamper across the fire-damaged roof of one of the houses, which groans under their weight, a cracking sound coming from a carbonized support beam.

The machine continues scanning the area, noting a heat signature associated with the now abandoned raccoon nest and moving to investigate. The women crouch behind the trashcans, trapped between two closely-spaced houses.

Emma searches the ground for some sort of weapon, anything to defend themselves. She sees on the pavement a piece of brick and she palms it, looking around for anything else.

The two houses were once large, three storey structures, built in a time of unimaginable plenty. Now they are burned-out husks. She aims the brick at the support beam holding up the roof and throws. The brick hits the beam and the roof collapses in a cloud of ash and dust.

The Terminator swings around, its tracking momentarily confused by the dust cloud. In that moment the women make their escape, racing to the right around the other house and across the street. The Terminator emerges from the dust, scanning the area they crossed and sending a report to its command.

The women race down another side street, emerging onto Hollywood Boulevard. A mournful wind whispers through the desolation. Cassie pulls ahead.

The older woman stops and turns. “Come on, they know we’re here. We need to get off the road.” Emma nods, catching her breath, her head down, but she keeps going.

The women continue running down side streets and between burned-out buildings. They make a break across an open field, and Emma trips and falls. Cassie goes to help her up, and Emma curses. “My ankle. I think it’s twisted.” Cassie sees the thing that tripped her: a gravestone. She looks around, seeing the white teeth of gravestones stretching out in all directions. The lights of a Hunter Killer plane are moving in on their location, and there is no cover in sight. “Cass, just go. Leave me.”

Cassie grabs Emma’s arm and throws it around her shoulders. “Not an option, Em.” The two begin running across the cemetery, dodging gravestones. The whine of the aircraft grows louder behind them, its searchlight scanning the ground behind them. The women dodge between two broken mausoleums, resting a moment in the utter darkness. The searchlights scan all around them, persistent.

The women make for a line of low buildings to the south, going as fast as Emma can hobble. It is a group of warehouses, most of their roofs and walls broken or fallen into each other. One of them seems more or less intact, however, and this is the one they are making for, squeezing in between large sliding doors and into a dark cavernous space. Outside, the searchlight sweeps across the door and moves on. Gradually the whine fades into the noises of the night and the women can breathe again.

They move deeper into the warehouse and soon find themselves in a strange room, constructed of plywood, within the larger warehouse. The room has curved walls and is covered in dust, but it contains two plush couches facing each other and a large desk at the opposite side flanked by American flags and large bay windows overlooking a painted scene of trees and lawn.

“Let’s look at that ankle.” Cassie says, laying Emma on the couch and rolling up her pant leg. She touches the ankle and Emma winces. “I don’t think it’s broken.” Cassie says, feeling it. “But you shouldn’t put your full weight on it.” She begins pulling things out of her pack. “I can make a splint, that should be better than nothing.”

Emma stares around their surroundings. “What is this place?”

Cassie looks up, scanning the room. “This is an old set.” She marvels at the faded American flags, the large desk, the painted backdrop. “They used to make movies here. I saw quite a few back then, you know. You would have liked them. They had a lot of action, heroes saving the world…time travel…” She smiles sardonically. “…that sort of thing.”

Emma isn’t listening to Cassie’s stream of consciousness, instead asking the question that has been bothering her. “Is that why you came with me? Time travel?” She puts a hand out and turns Cassie’s face back toward hers as she tries to turn away. “Because it wasn’t for Connor. Don’t deny it.”

Cassie turns her head away regardless, beginning to speak. “I wouldn’t have abandoned you, Em…”

“I know. But you were going to try and convince me to go north. You were all set to go…”

Cassie begins binding Emma’s ankle, a smile on her lips. “Maybe it was time travel.”

Emma stares at the graying woman. “You’re joking.”

Cassie’s smile vanishes. “Do I look like I’m joking?” She casts a look around the set, the flimsy wooden surfaces covered in peeling paint. “You never saw one of those movies, Em. They could almost make you believe in it…the good ones, that is. You could almost believe that it was real…that a single person could change the world.”

Emma groans, lying back on the couch and Cassie continues dressing her wound. Her eyes flick across Emma’s emaciated form, taking in the sunken cheeks, the twisted limbs. Emma’s eyes are fixed on Cassie. “It’s hell, isn’t it?”

Cassie frowns. “What?”

“This. This world. The machines.” Emma adjusts her slight weight on the couch. “You watched these…magic pictures…ate Wonder Bread. Saw boy bands. At least I never had that. The machines are all I ever knew. But for you…it must be torture.”

Cassie is caught between laughing and crying upon hearing this wretched creature’s observation. She finally manages a weak smile. “I have you. That’s enough.”

Emma pushes Cassie’s hand away where it tries to grip her own. “But say you had a time machine.”

Cassie slices the bandage and tucks it into place around Emma’s ankle, not responding to Emma’s statement. The young woman continues. “Cass…if you could go back…if you could stop all this from happening…would you?”

She looks hesitantly at Cassie, who looks away. The graying woman stares into the blackness, shaking her head. “No.”

Emma closes her eyes, resting against the moth-eaten fabric of the couch as she notes the insincerity in Cassie’s voice. “I would.”

There is a sound of rending metal echoing through the warehouse. The women look up to see that the warehouse door has been forced wide, spotlights spilling into the space all around the set. They are shielded from the lights, but not for long.

Cassie hoists Emma from the couch. The women sneak out through the door on the other side of the room and through the next set, which is a podium set against a curtain displaying the seal of the United States of America. They race by the podium and the empty chairs set up facing it and through the next room.

A trio of Endoskeletons enters the oval office set, scanning the room and reading the residual heat signature from the couch, the bandage and a pair of scissors left behind. “Possible leg wound” flashes within the cranium of one of the machines and they continue through the room in pursuit of their wounded quarry.

Approaching California Airspace

The captain, a man with a greying beard and crows feet around the corners of his eyes, exits the cockpit and shuts the door behind him, marching down the hall to the cargo bay.

Tech-Com officers lounge in the seats, speaking across the aisle at each other and checking their weapons. He moves past them, approaching the corner where three forms sit, clustered together away from the others. Ian sits in the seat closest to the wall, keeping one hand on the collar of Max whom he seems to have adopted as his new best friend, and the other on a large plasma rifle. Talking to Ian is Kyle, who is instructing the boy on the use of this advanced weapon. The captain approaches. Kyle breaks off his instructions at the man’s approach and the man doffs his cap. “Connor’s requesting a copilot.”

Kyle grunts. “He has you.”

“Connor insisted I take a break.”

Kyle sighs. “Alright.” He looks at Max. “Take care of him for me, will you Max?” The dog whines amicably in response and Kyle strides off to the cockpit. The captain gives the boy a suspicious glance, and Ian quickly places the gun on the seat beside him as if it were a venomous snake.

The door of the cockpit opens and Kyle steps in, closing it behind him and sliding into the copilot’s seat. He places the headset on and adjusts it, reacquainting himself with the airplane’s controls. They are flying just above the clouds scudding past below them, the sky before them utterly dark and full of stars. He glances back at the sky to the east and sees a slight purpling.

“I guess it’s officially the 11th. Looks like dawn’s a few hours away.”

John says nothing, peering ahead into the blackness. Kyle taps the altimeter, puttering. He turns to the man. “You surprised me back there, John.”

John doesn’t look at the Sergeant. “Oh?”

“About ending the war. I know you, John, and I just can’t see it; the great John Connor, champion of peace. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the right thing to do…what a leader would do. But it doesn’t sound like you…or Sarah, for that matter. The real Sarah, I mean.”

The scarred man gives Kyle a look, the first since he came in. “What do you know about her?”

Kyle smiles to himself. “Well, what everyone knows about her. Mother of the Resistance…the legend. And the stories you told me.” The man seems taken by memories.

John leans back in his chair. “That photo of her I gave you…”

Kyle turns away. “…I’m sorry, John. I lost it…it got burned…in Chicago.”

John looks back at the sky. “Do you still remember what she looked like?”

Kyle’s expression turns serious. “Absolutely.”

John looks over, surprised at the vehemence of that statement despite himself. He nods to himself. “Good.”

They fly in silence a moment. Kyle gathers his thoughts, finally speaking over the sound of the plane. “I couldn’t help but notice your question in the meeting back there…the one about sending multiple people back in time to 1984. That wasn’t rhetorical.”

John raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Don’t play games with me, John. I think that somehow, you knew about this time machine from the beginning. That’s how you knew about Terminators, Judgment Day, how the war was going to go. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Would you have believed me, before today? Would anyone have followed me? No, I quickly learned to avoid the topic of time travel as a matter of reputational survival.” John shifts the plane and it goes into a slow bank, avoiding spotlights shining into the clouds from below. Kyle studies the face of John, the secrets behind his tired eyes.

John continues. “It was Sarah, Kyle. Sarah knew about the future. She told me everything she knew before she died.” He levels out the plane. “Let me tell you a story, Reese, and maybe you can guess the players. On July 11th, 2029, Skynet activates a time machine. It sends a T-800 model 101 back through time to 1984. It’s mission: to kill Sarah Connor and prevent the birth of John Connor, Skynet’s destroyer. But the Resistance finds this time machine and sends back a soldier of its own, to protect Sarah Connor and save the future.”

There is silence. Kyle stares ahead into the blackness, the sparkling stars. John continues. “That past…my past…cannot be changed. But there is one choice that I know I must make…but I don’t know if I can. How can I lose my best man?”

Kyle doesn’t know what to say. Finally he stumbles into some words. “Sir, Russ is a better shot…Jen can take apart a plasma rifle in ten seconds, Ben can…” John silences him with a look. “I don’t mean my best soldier, Reese.” He looks ahead once more, and Kyle assesses the meaning of these words.

“That’s why you gave me that photo of her, years ago. You already knew who you were going to choose.”

“Reese, you still have a choice in the matter. You can make your own fate.”

Kyle looks hard at John, trying to divine why he’s saying this. “Sir, if there’s any chance it could save the future…then it’s my duty to go.” There’s something beyond his words though, and John notices it now. There’s a desire, a need in Kyle now to go. Kyle’s voice is strained. “I volunteer.”

John sighs. “You have no idea what you’re agreeing to.”

“Sir, this mission…it’s a success.” Kyle’s statement is almost a question, inviting elaboration. John nods. “Yes. You save her. She told me once that she believed it was the last battle of the war, waged in 1984.”

“And…” Kyle looks unsure how to ask. “…do you know if I…that is…”

“Do you survive?” The mask is back over John’s eyes, the sadness unable to break through his scars. “No. I’m sorry.”

Kyle takes this in. “Frankly, sir, It doesn’t change my decision.”

“I know. I knew from the beginning that you loved her, somehow, from just the stories I told you of her. That you’d do anything to protect a woman you’d never even seen. That’s why I gave you the photo.” He reaches into his pocket and hands Kyle a folded piece of paper. “Here.”

Kyle takes the paper and opens it. “What is it?”

“A message…to Sarah. You’ll need to memorize it, if you go through.” John reaches over and taps the paper. “Nothing dead goes through, after all.”

Kyle reads the message, then rereads it. “The future isn’t set.” He folds the paper, puts it in his pocket. “Sir, with all due respect…do you really believe that? I mean, if you already knew all this was going to happen…then why…”

“Then why didn’t I stop it?” John looks away. “Why didn’t I try to change things?” He sighs. “Sarah tried. She fought like hell to prevent Judgment Day, and almost died because of it. But it never worked. Judgment Day happened anyway, despite everything. And now I’m here, telling her what she will need to hear…because that hope is the only thing that will give her the strength to fight…even if it means I end up…sacrificing…”

There is a faraway look in John’s eyes now, a sadness, and he doesn’t finish the thought. Kyle notices, and he looks away. It feels wrong, somehow, to intrude.

John speaks, finally. “Believe me, if I thought there was a better way to end this…I’d take it. But everything that’s ever happened to the world has only proven my mother wrong…and I’m tired, Reese. I’m tired of fighting with fate.”

Reese is lost in thought, staring up at the distant stars outside the window of Air Force One. Presently he comes back to himself. “The last battle of the war…so…if I do go…and fix time….”

John smiles. “…Then you will be the one who ends it…forever.”

Kyle looks away from the stars, looking inward. “Fritz may live to see that end…that’s a mercy.”

John turns away from Reese, saying nothing.

Los Angeles

Cassie stands alone on the second floor of a bombed-out apartment complex, scanning through a broken window casing at the tanks and humanoid shapes patrolling the dead streets, the flying machines hovering everywhere.

To her left is the 101 highway, the line of Skynet forces still moving from left to right down into the city proper. She can now see that they are making for a bright point in a high, electric blue wall stretching across the horizon to the east, encircling a massive facility complex squatting on a low hill. Between that fence and Cassie’s location is the blasted ruin of downtown, pieces of shredded skyscraper flung this way and that across the earth. Amidst these ruins stands one building that still stands, a low, lightless structure of crude boxes encircled by a high fence that lies abandoned in the center of town.

There is a low hooting sound and Cassie retreats from the window casing and makes her way down a cracked set of concrete stairs to the ground floor. Emma is keeping watch below out the back of the building with the binoculars. She hoots again, and Cassie joins her. Emma shifts her weight uncertainly. “The machines are getting closer. I think they’re tracking us.”

Cassie takes the binoculars and puts them into her pack. “They’ve almost got us surrounded.”

Emma gestures to the front of the building. “There’s one place we could go…where one of us knows the layout. We could have an advantage.”

Cassie hisses at her. “You can’t be serious.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

Cassie glowers in the darkness. Emma starts moving. “It beats dying here, anyway.”

The women go together to the front of the house, looking left and right before crossing the street and ducking into a convenience store on the other side. A spotlight shines on the building they just exited, the clank of Endoskeletons moving into the building and following the rapidly dwindling heat trail. There are five of them now, and they immediately cross the street in pursuit of their quarry.

The women go from building to building, entering a decrepit pharmacy. They crawl over smashed counters and among chairs and barstools, making for the other side of the building. Cassie pulls Emma up and over another counter. The younger woman breathes heavily despite her youth, gasping words at the older woman. “There’s a tank on the left.” The spotlight shines into the glassless windows, announcing its presence.

“There’s one on the right as well.” Cassie is looking through the opposite window. “Duck!” She hisses, and the spotlights converge over their location. They are hemmed in on two sides, and the clank of Endoskeletons from behind heralds their doom.

“We need to make a break for it!” Emma hisses, eyeing the one place ahead of them where they can escape.

“Wer’re not going that way.” Cassie says. A moment later she is proven right as a spotlight from an aerial HK pierces the ground outside the building in front of them.

“We’re trapped!” Emma whispers, grabbing the pistol out of Cassie’s belt. “They won’t take me without a fight.” She aims the gun behind them at the glowing eyes just visible beyond the countertops and tables. Cassie pulls Emma’s arm back. “Don’t be a hero!” She whispers, and pulls Emma toward a dark place behind the counter. “We go down.”

There is a hole in the floor near the counter, and Emma has only a moment to wonder why it looks like it was dug by human hands before she’s being tossed bodily down into the darkness. She lands with a muddy squelch. Up above, the machines open fire, furniture and bits of masonry flying all around. Cassie screams and leaps down the hole behind Emma, drawing a wooden board over the hole as she does.

They are both in pitch darkness for a moment while Cassie fishes in her pack for a manual flashlight, giving it a few squeezes to power it up. The weak beam of light flashes on, illuminating a small, filthy hole in the ground descending several meters before hitting the side of a concrete pipe that has a hole smashed in the side.

“What is this?” Emma asks, fear in her voice.

“This was how I got out.” Cassie says, matter of fact. “Twenty years ago. The machines blocked the sewers, but a few of us made this tunnel and dug our way out. Come on.”

The women go through the broken concrete hole and into the sewer main. It is filled with dirt and the left side of the pipe is blocked with fallen rubble and debris, but the right side is still mostly clear. The women make their way down the pipe, splashing in the ankle deep water and filth.

At the tunnel opening there is a smashing sound and the rotted board falls in. An Endoskeleton descends, landing heavily in the splinters and mud and striding forward. It scans the pipe and begins trudging through the muck, its eyes scanning left and right for a human heat signature.

The women hear the sound of metal feet echoing in the tunnels and redouble their pace. The sewer branches left and right, but Cassie seems to know the way. She takes them through the maze of tunnels, Emma falling and stumbling behind her. Cassie hauls her friend up again and again as she retraces her steps from long ago.

The clanking gets louder and louder, seeming to come from all over. They round a corner and see two red eyes turn to them in the darkness. They dive for cover, into a small alcove beside the tunnel, and Emma turns around. There is another pair of eyes at the other side of the tunnel. The two machines begin to converge on their position.

Cassie is already climbing, finding metal rungs set in the sewer wall. Emma follows and soon she sees another hole smashed in the side of the vertical pipe. Cassie crawls through and begins to haul Emma up behind her. There is plasma fire in the tube and Emma screams in pain, her bad arm hit with a plasma bolt. Cassie drags her friend out of the line of fire and into another vertical section of hand-carved tunnel. She climbs out and reaches back.

With a final herculean effort, Cassie hauls her friend out of the tube and collapses back on the floor. Emma is bleeding and gasping on the hard concrete floor but Cassie can’t check on her. She is already in motion.

They have come up into a lightless room filled with metal crates. Cassie throws the lid off of one of the crates and sees that it is filled with metal bolts. Her flashlight scans the rest of the room and sees piles of similar boxes piled high. She begins climbing a pile of the crates beside the open tunnel entrance in the floor, scrambling to get on top of them.

“Cass, they’re coming!” Emma gasps out, lying on the floor but unable to move due to the pain.

“Em, get away from the hole!” Cassie shouts, placing her feet against the wall and her hands on one of the crates.

Emma scrambles back, leaving a trail of blood behind her. There is a grinding and then a crash as a stack of the crates topples down onto the hole, smashing the arm of an Endo as it struggles to rise through the opening. The arm is still holding a plasma rifle and the gun goes off, spraying the room with plasma bolts that hit the walls and ricochet off of the chrome-plated crates. Finally, the firing stops and there is a wrenching sound as the arm goes still.

There is silence in the room, broken only by the heaving gasps of Emma on the floor and Cassie lying atop the pile of crates. Blood drips down the side of one of the crates.

Emma looks up at the trail of blood and to its source. “Cass, you’re hit!” Cassie puts a hand to her side and pulls it away dark with blood. She stares down at the large trail of blood leading away from the hole and groans. “Em, your arm!” She tries to climb back down the pile of crates but ends up falling most of the way to the ground. She crawls to Emma and takes a look at the stump where the malformed limb once was.

Emma laughs, lightheaded. “It’s not like that one was doing much.”

Cassie doesn’t dignify that with a response, instead digging in her pack for gauze and wrapping. “Where are my scissors, dammit.” She asks, pulling out a knife instead and cutting the gauze. She wraps the shoulder, stuffing it with gauze. “That’s as good as I can do for now.”

Emma is still in shock, adrenaline pumping through her system. “Cass…you’re hit.” She points to the dark spot on Cassie’s side. Casie removes her jacket and shirt, inspecting the wound. It was a grazing hit, slicing a line across her torso but not hitting any internal organs. “It could be a lot worse.” She wraps a bandage around her torso to stop the bleeding and pulls her shirt back on. “But you need to see a doctor soon, or else you’ll bleed out.”

Cassie goes to the plasma rifle and takes it from the Endo. It goes dead in her hands. She wrenches the side of the gun open and begins fiddling with the mechanism. Emma laughs again. “John told us how to do that.”

Cassie has no response. The rifle powers on again in her hands. She checks the charge, then slings it over her shoulder and picks hoists up Emma.

The young woman protests. “Set me down and I’ll guard down here. I’m just gonna get you killed otherwise.”

Cassie doesn’t listen, instead talking about the facility. “Listen to me, Em, just keep listening to the sound of my voice. This was a storeroom, where they kept the raw materials. They had us building their machines, when there were still enough of us alive.”

They go up a set of stairs into a narrow place full of cells. Emma stumbles, clearly going into shock. They pass cell after cell, each one labeled with a number. Some of the cells still have skeletons in them. Cassie shudders as she passes the cells, but keeps going.

The young woman’s head is lolling and she collapses to the ground. Cassie crouches down beside her, tears flowing down her cheeks. “You can’t die here, Em. I have a promise to keep. Don’t do this to me, Em. Don’t make me break my promise. Don’t leave me here alone.”

Emma doesn’t answer. Cassie tries to lift her, managing to hoist her onto her back. She notices that Emma’s wound is already bleeding through the bandages onto her back. “Come on, Em. They had a medical center here, so we’ll just go find some clotting agents. Cassie moves off, the semi-conscious woman on her back, down the endless hall.

She lumbers past innumerable cells, the numbers blurring together past her exhausted eyes. Up a set of stairs, around a bend, down another hall. She emerges out onto open ground, a prison yard surrounded by a high chain link fence with barbed wire on the top. The front gates are smashed. There’s a long yard between her and the nearest building. She sets Emma down on the ground as gently as she can, whispering to her. “Okay, Em, I’m going to be gone a minute, but I’ll be right back. I promise.” Emma doesn’t respond, her unseeing eyes fluttering.

Cassie races for a two-storey building near the fence, racing inside and up to the second level. She turns a corner and sees that the rear wall has exploded outward. The room is gutted, with nothing on the shelves. She opens the remaining cabinets. “No, no, no!” She spins around, at a loss. She slides down onto the ground, panic setting in. The sky is inky dark, dawn still over an hour away.

“Hey, Cass, are you there?”

Cassie sits up, unsure if she’s dreaming.

“Cass, it’s me, Pete. I think we’re being followed. Is that you up there?”

The woman turns and looks down out of the building. There’s a figure waving up to her from out of the gloom, beyond the fence.

“Pete! Thank god! You changed your mind!”

“Yeah, there are a few of us down here. We’re sorry we left you.”

A female voice joins them. “What’s the play?”

“Hannah?”

“The one and only.”

Cassie turns and looks down at the group of figures in the shadows. “Listen, Pete, Em is hurt bad. She’s in the cell block. She needs your help, fast.”

“On it.” The group heads to the broken-down gate. Another voice rises out of the gloom. “Cass, just stay there. We’ll be up with you in a minute.” Cassie frowns.

“Nils?”

“Yeah.”

Cassie’s eyes go wide, her mouth opening in horror. She pulls the gun from behind her back and checks the charge again, moving out of the room and down the stairs.

The figure identifying as Pete moves through the gate, headed for the still form of Emma. Cassie turns the corner, pointing her gun at him. “Where’s your bag of tools, Pete?” The man, his face still shrouded in shadow, turns to her. “I lost it.”

“Then how are you going to treat Em?” Cassie readies her weapon, a tear in her eye. “What are you going to do?”

The man takes off at a run, making for Emma. Cassie opens fire, lighting up his chest and spinning him around. She swings the gun around, tracking the other two figures who have taken guns from within their coats and begin firing at Cassie, advancing on her position.

The whine of a Hunter Killer drone fills the air and the spotlight comes over the compound. Several tanks appear from outside the gate, the area lit up like day. Cassie continues to fire, the charge of her gun getting lower and lower. One of the cloaked figures goes down in a shower of sparks, but the blast from an HK destroys the top of the building that Cassie is sheltering behind, throwing her across the ground. She stands, surrounded by advancing machines, firing wildly in all directions. She growls out a few last words. “Let’s end it, then. Fucking machines!”

Suddenly there is another noise. A narrow shape zips across the sky far above, flame and smoke trailing behind. It passes over the compound and detonates, disintegrating in a concussive shockwave. What comes out of it isn’t an explosion but a surge of energy. The shockwave of energy hits the ground and everything rattles, then is silent.

The lights of the tanks and the Hunter Killer have been cut off, and the drone’s engines wind down, the flying machine falling out of the sky and smashing into the medical center. Everything with an electrical pulse is dead, even Cassie’s gun.

Lights appear in the sky, above the clouds, descending through them and breaking through. Dozens of aircraft, of both human and Skynet design, descend toward the ground, searchlights tracking anything that may still be active and gunning it down where it stands. Cassie looks up in wonder as a huge Skynet plane, the largest of the group, lands in the open place outside of the compound prison yard. Doors open in the aircrafts and vehicles descend from ramps, surrounding the area in a rising sea of military hardware, soldiers leaping from ramps and rushing to form a perimeter. Cassie raises her hands in shock and soldiers come running to apprehend her, weapons raised and speaking orders into headsets.

Act 3: Islands in a Sea of Steel

Air Force One

John works in his quarters, a large duffel open on the small metal table in the center of the room. The room shakes slightly with distant detonations in the night, the sounds of gunfire mixing with the muffled shouts of soldiers forming a perimeter beyond the invasion force.

Beside the duffel on the table is the warhead, ‘Sarah’ inscribed on the outer shell. John systematically checks each component of the deadly device, examining the wiring and connections of the bomb before reattaching the front panel. He picks up the remote detonator and checks the batteries, an almost mindless ritual. Max stands at his side, panting. John places a hand on the dog’s head and scratches behind its ears. Another ritual. There is a rap at the door. John doesn’t turn. “Enter” he says, placing the cover back on the detonator.

The door opens and Reese steps through. “The cavalry is almost ready…but the kid needs a decision.”

John looks out the small round window of his quarters at the bolts of light lancing through the darkness beyond the camp. “You’ve given him the talk. If he still wants to come, he’s welcome.” He sets aside the detonator and types a code into the warhead data pad. A display flickers to life, reading ‘ARMED’. John picks up the live warhead, grunting slightly as he lifts it and places it into the duffel.

Kyle moves to his side, looking down at the bomb. “Promise me something, John.”

The scarred face still doesn’t turn to him, moving to pick up the detonator.

Kyle’s hand goes to John’s, holding the detonator in place on the table. “Promise me that you won’t use it. If there’s any other way to end the war…promise me you’ll find it.”

John stares down at nothing. “I will.” He takes the detonator and puts it into his shirt pocket, then zips up the duffel and slings it over his shoulder. He pats Max on the head again. “You with me, boy?” The dog whines, wagging its tail. John smiles. “I take that as a yes.”

The three move out of John’s quarters. Right outside the open door is Ian, a gun in his hand and a look of barely-contained panic on his face. John gives the boy an imperious look as he turns and walks away. Kyle pauses, offering a few words. “Welcome to Tech-Com, kid.”

The boy nods, his fear undiminished, but he falls in behind the soldiers and beside Max as they make their way to the rear of the plane.

Resistance Basecamp, Los Angeles

John and Kyle step down from Air Force One, flanked by Max, Ian, and the Tech-Com brass. John is giving orders left and right.

“Get that perimeter set up. I want a barricade a hundred meters in all directions from this point. Anything on wheels I want moving through the city toward that facility.” He motions to Kyle. “Reese, Fritz…you’re with me. We’ll establish a forward command post at the 101.”

Kyle glances down at the boy, who is clutching a large plasma rifle and second-guessing his decision. “Don’t worry, kid. Stick close and follow me.”

Lieutenant Young rushes over from the perimeter, flagging down John. “What have you got for me?” John asks as Young approaches. She salutes. “Sir, we have some natives wanting to talk to you. One of them is in critical condition.”

John turns away from her in dismissal. “Send them to triage. I don’t have time for hard-luck cases right now.”

Young nods, still standing at attention. “Yes sir, but sir, they say it’s about Ian Fritz.”

The boy perks up his ears at this and Kyle looks intrigued. John considers for a moment as vehicles and men race around them, shouting, executing a war. He makes a decision, turning to Kyle and Ian. “Tech-Com, I want this offensive moving forward, now. Reese, Fritz, I will be with you shortly.”

Kyle looks as if he’s about to object, but thinks better of it. “You heard the man, let’s move!” Everyone begins heading for the vehicles, leaving Connor, Young, and Max alone amidst the chaos.

John turns to the woman. “Okay Lieutenant, I assume they’re clear?” She nods and John motions toward the medical tent in the center of the cluster of planes. “Then lead the way.”

Cassie is helping to support Emma’s limp body as she and a Resistance soldier carry it toward the medical tents. “Don’t worry, Em, we’ll get you stitched up proper.” She continues to make smalltalk to the nonresponsive Emma. She turns, looking left and right at the chaos of the hasty basecamp, and notices a group of heavily armed men in the distance, standing in a circle. The group breaks apart and she sees a small, pale form among them, the shock of white hair almost blinding in the sea of brown and blue-gray uniforms.

“Fritz?” She asks, to herself. But before she can contemplate it further they move into the tent and place Emma onto a folding cot. A small group of uniformed personnel examine her, ripping off her sleeve and attempting to stabilize the wound. She holds Emma’s hand, whispering to her friend. “Stay with me, girl.” A doctor brushes Cassie aside and she is forced back to the opening of the tent.

Suddenly there is a shout and the tent flap opens. Several armed men enter, flanking John Connor. Max takes up a position just outside the tent. Cassie stares up at the man, intimidated. He takes the women in with a glance. “There’s a war waiting for me out there, so you have sixty seconds to explain what you know about Ian Fritz.”

Emma moans, her eyelids fluttering. “Connor…there’s a message…from Fritz. I met him at nightfall.”

John looks at her intently. “Why isn’t he here now?”

“He died…blasted by the machines. I need to tell you….”

Cassie moves between John and Emma, almost trying to block her friend from the imposing man. “Em, wait. You’re in no state….”

John cocks his head. “What’s the message?”

Emma closes her eyes, trying to recall through the pain and the drugs now flowing through her system. “You must not blow up Skynet…the war won’t end…Fritz was trying to…to change the course of history.” She tries to continue but the strain is too much. Her eyes flutter and she falls unconscious again.

John looks to Cassie. “Was that the entire message? Was there anything else about Skynet?”

Cassie looks away. “No, I don’t think so.”

John considers the situation. He regards the women again, speaking plainly to them. “I want to thank you for your bravery and sacrifice in getting this message to the Resistance. You’re an asset to humanity…both of you.” He turns to his guards. “Cuff them.”

Cassie surges forward and a strong hand shoves her back toward the bed. “Connor, wait!” With a swift motion, the guard slaps a pair of handcuffs on Cassie, locking the other side of them to the bedframe. The same is done with Emma.

Cassie shouts in frustration. “Keep away from her, she’s not going anywhere!”

John turns away from the women. “If they try to escape, shoot them.” With that, John and his entourage stride away from the women and back into the laser-lit night.

At the front of the barricade, Skynet tanks and Endoskeletons are testing the defenses. Just behind the reflective, chrome-plated walls of Connor’s defensive line, Kyle and Ian sit back in the final car of the attack group. Kyle considers the boy beneath furrowed brows. “Do you know what’s going on here, Ian?”

The boy looks as confused as Kyle. “No idea.”

They don’t have long to wait, as John and his men approach. The scarred man addresses Ian from the ground as his men leap up and haul the boy bodily out of the car. Kyle leaps down after him, shouting. “Just what the hell is this, John?”

The man puts a hand out to his Sergeant. “Stand down, Sergeant. I have reason to believe that Fritz here is a Skynet agent.”

The boy is being held by the two guards, unable to resist. Kyle doesn’t back down. “On what evidence?”

John motions the guards to take the boy away. “Lock him up. Use my quarters if you have to.” The soldiers salute and move off with Ian.

John turns to his underling. “Reese, I don’t need to explain myself to anyone. Either trust me, or trust the kid you met five hours ago in Skynet’s lair.”

Kyle stands still as a statue, hating this choice. Finally he climbs up into the jeep with John, sitting in the driver’s seat. He glances over, muttering under his breath. “Dammit, Connor, this is why you don’t have any friends.”

The scarred man starts the engine. “I’m your commanding officer, Reese, not your friend.”

Kyle shakes his head slowly. “What made you like this, John?”

John eyes the facility in the distance, the sinister computer sitting at its heart. He gestures forward and Kyle guns the engine, driving to the front of the column. His soldiers cheer and roar battle cries and he puts a fist to the sky in response, driving forward into the blasted desolation of downtown Los Angeles.

Cassie struggles with her cuffs, straining to see beyond the flap in the tent. Only the hulking form of Air Force One is visible through the tent opening. She begins to turn away, then something catches her eye. Two guards are escorting a small figure toward the plane. It is that same mop of white hair and slender body from the amphitheater. The trio disappears up the ramp of Air Force One.

Air Force One

A solid metal door swings open in the hallway just off the cockpit and Ian tumbles inside. He trips over his feet and lands hard on the metal floor. The door slams shut behind him. He picks himself up from the floor and looks around John Connor’s private quarters. The room is small, spartan, drab. A single table sits in the middle of the floor flanked by two chairs. A simple cot hangs from one curving wall on chains, and a set of shelves holds a few miscellaneous objects as well as a few changes of clothes. The only light in the room comes from a small round window set into the curving wall, from which flashes of light emanate as the sounds of pitched battle rattle and shake the plane.

Ian moves to the window in an attempt to gain information about the battle. He sees gun turrets on the wing of the plane swivel and fire, targeting down a Skynet Hunter Killer drone. Beyond the wing there is a hastily erected wall of metal paneling and debris manned by soldiers with conventional and plasma weapons, all firing into the darkness to the left and right. There is an opening in the metal wall and lightly armored cars with guns are passing through the gap into the ruins of downtown LA, creating a corridor of Resistance forces defended on either side with infantry. Ian looks up into the murk beyond the battle, seeing just barely visible the hulking form of a great building, dark but for the glowing ring of the defense grid encircling its perimeter.

Ian turns and inspects the door. He throws his weight against it, uselessly. He then begins searching the room for anything to aid in his escape. He throws the contents of the shelves on the floor and upends the mattress. He finds an old tackle box beneath the bed and forces it open. Inside are some metal tools, screwdrivers, pocket knife, sewing kit. He pockets the tools and rises to attack the door with more intelligent purpose.

Resistance Basecamp

Rockets from Skynet aircraft strike amidst the base, lighting up a helicopter on the ground in a fireball that echoes across the field. Soldiers fire from behind barriers, blue plasma bolts mixing with searing white tracer rounds in the night.

A few gray-clad figures labor toward the medical tents, soldiers carrying wounded comrades on stretchers or on their backs alone. As they enter the tent one passes beside Cassie, groaning, and she sees that half of his torso is black with plasma burns.

Cassie turns to a soldier guarding the entrance to the tent. “Hey. Hey! We came down beside the 101. There are thousands of machines headed here from the north…this place is going to be overrun.”

The soldier glances in her direction before going back to ignoring her.

“Did you hear me? I said this place…”

The soldier interrupts her, not turning around. “If Connor needs us to hold, we’ll hold.”

Cassie heaves a heavy sigh. “Unbelievable.” She glances over to Emma’s bed, inspecting the stump of her arm. Cassie wipes some of the dirt from Emma’s face. “What have you gotten us into this time, Em?” The young woman struggles to respond, her breathing shallow.

“I’m sorry. I thought we could change things. I thought…we had a chance.”

Cassie strokes Emma’s hair. “I think we did. I saw Fritz.”

Emma stares up at her friend, awe in her eyes. “You saw him?”

“Yeah. He was being escorted back to the big plane out there. I think he’s a prisoner now, like us.”

Emma groans. “Then we’ve done worse than nothing. There’s no hope of changing things now.”

A doctor arrives at Emma’s bedside and brushes Cassie as far away as possible as he examines the young woman. He frowns, listening to her labored breathing. He motions a nurse over, indicating Emma’s side. Cassie tries to pick up what they are saying, and catches the phrase ‘internal bleeding’. Emma is drifting in and out of consciousness, moaning.

Turning from her friend toward the open flap of the tent, Cassie can just see the hulking form of Air Force One framed in the distance. Guns affixed to the aircraft at several points fire out into the night, acting as a fortress against the machine assault.

Forward Command Post

Explosions flash in the night. Soldiers move in the darkness, the light of their weapons bright in the ruins of the blasted city. Skynet’s tanks creep through the rubble and its aircraft swoop in from above. And through it all, the march of metal feet and the glowing red eyes of countless skeletal soldiers.

Standing on a pile of rubble in front of a ruined arch of brick and stone, John Connor surveys the battle, binoculars scanning left and right. Lieutenant Young salutes him and reports. “Sir, we’re fully cut off from basecamp. Endos are coming at us from behind.”

John lowers the binoculars, seeing a line of Skynet tanks and HK drones emerge from the smoke and dust of the battle only to go up in flames, beaten back by Resistance firepower. “I don’t care about how many are behind us…just how many are in front.” He gestures forward. “Their defense grid is just beyond that point. We need to clear a path.” He points to the left and right of the field. “Divide our forces when they reach the gate and hold there…we’ll drive our forces down the center.”

Kyle comes up from behind John, speaking quickly. “And what happens when we get in there?” He gestures to the dark building glowering in the haze. “Ian knew the floorplan, the whole system. We’ll be blind without him.”

John is too focused on the battle to look in Kyle’s direction. “Fritz is compromised. We know enough.”

Kyle turns away from John, looking with concern back at the distant glimmering shape of Air Force One still just visible beyond the wrack and ruin of war. “I don’t like dividing our forces, John. They’re too exposed.”

John barks an order to Young, then turns to Kyle. “The battle is before you, Sergeant…not behind.”

Resistance Basecamp

The doctor has a strange medical device perched on Emma’s sternum. He examines it intently, injecting her in the arm while he does. Cassie moves closer to her, trying to see the readout on the strange device. “What is it?”

The doctor doesn’t look up. He adjusts the gain on the device and peers more closely at it. Suddenly he switches off the device and pulls it from Emma’s midsection. He clips a red tag on Emma’s shirt and starts to move away. Cassie shouts after him. “Come back! What’s wrong?” The doctor is already tending to another patient. Cassie glances around the room, noticing for the first time the different colored tags on the patients. A yellow tag can be seen clipped to a patient in the bed next to Emma’s. That patient is missing part of a leg, and has severe burns to the left side of their body. They are barely breathing. Cassie looks at the next bed over. There is a red tag on that patient. She squints into the semi-darkness, and sees the glassy stare of unseeing eyes. A medic strides over to the bed and gestures for some soldiers to remove the body and replace it with one that is still breathing.

Cassie looks wildly back at Emma. The young woman’s breathing seems to be more shallow, more labored, as if there’s fluid filling her lungs. Cassie grips the young woman’s hand. “No…please, no.” She looks around helplessly. “Help her…” She grabs at a passing medic, who backs away from the bed to avoid Cassie and her doomed companion. “Please, someone help her!”

Air Force One

Ian jiggles the jerry-rigged pick in the lock, trying to listen for a click. There is another boom that shakes the plane and his pick falls under the door. With a cry of frustration he bangs on the solid metal door, retreating back to the spartan cot in defeat, casting about in the tackle box for anything else of help.

As he rummages around, something catches his eye. He pushes a bit of cloth wrapping away to reveal an old box of tapes with a faded pink label: ‘To John, From Sarah’. Each tape is labeled with a yellowed, peeling sticker. He lifts them out of the tackle box, bringing them to the window for a better light. The label of the first reads: ‘Tape 1: October 14, 1984 - The Terminator.’ Ian’s eyes go wide as he brings another tape to the light. ‘Tape 4: November 2, 1984 - The Nuclear War’. He scans another one. ‘Tape 6: November 5, 1984: Time Travel’. The label of the next tape practically leaps out at him. ‘Tape 7: November 10, 1984 - Kyle Reese: In Memoriam’.

Ian throws the tapes back in the box and shoves it back under the bed, as if by doing so he is negating their implication. He stands in the middle of the room, breathing hard, sweat beading on his brow. He looks out of the window at the dim form of battle raging far beyond the plane, and the battle raging closer at hand.

He sees one Skynet Hunter Killer swoop in close, trying to get over the basecamp. A rocket propelled grenade arcs up and detonates on the HK’s tail, sending it spiraling down. It spirals directly toward Air Force One, and in a moment of realization and fear Ian leaps away from the window. The drone impacts the plane amidships, sending a fireball into the sky and practically splitting Air Force One in two with the detonation.

Forward Command Post

The officers standing near John all turn at the sound of the explosion, all but John watching as the plume of fire rises into the inky sky. Lieutenant Young steps forward. “John, they’ve hit Flying Fortress.”

Kyle is staring openmouthed at the explosion. “Ian…”

Resistance Basecamp

Soldiers rush helter skelter in the night, their bodies black specks against the towering inferno that is now Air Force One. Through the open flaps of the overflowing medical tent, Cassie sees the broken ruin of the aircraft as it lies burning, secondary explosions lighting it up as the fire eats from one compartment to another.

There’s a sound at the bed, and a hand touches Cassie’s. She looks down to see Emma gazing up at her, confusion on her face. “What…what was that?”

Cassie swings her head around, cradling Emma’s head in her hands. “It’s just an explosion. Don’t worry about it. Just rest, Em. Rest.”

Cassie sees a short woman run up to the two guards. “You were last inside…was there anyone in the forward cabins?”

One of the guards responds. “Fritz was in cabin three, near the nose.”

The group of soldiers all turn to assess the wreckage. The short woman makes a call. “It’s too dangerous. Add him to the casualty list. She races off to help the survivors that have already been pulled from the wreckage.

Emma struggles to stay conscious, a losing battle. She finds some words. “Cass…you have to save him.” Cassie grips Emma’s hand with her free one.

“Dammit, Em, I’m not leaving you.”

“You must. The mission…our mission…don’t let it fail.”

Emma’s eyes close as she drifts back into unconsciousness. Cassie glares at Emma, asleep on the cot, and bites out words. “No. I won’t do it.” She looks at the wreckage of the plane, seeing the flames lick down the side. She looks between her and the sleeping form of Emma, in torment. Finally she relents. “Goddammit, Em, why do you always have to be so tragically persuasive?” She casts about her again in desperation. Finally, she sees a rusted bit of paperclip in the dirt and picks it up, bending it with one hand into a loop and muttering to herself as she works. “Just do me a favor, will you? Hang on for me.” With a click, the handcuffs are released and she gives a quick kiss to Emma’s forehead. “Don’t go anywhere…I’ll be back.”

Cassie races out of the tent, making straight for the wreckage in front of her. The soldiers ignore her, busy with staying alive themselves. She assesses the wreck. The plane has been bisected, its tail and cone lying on the ground, the backbone of the plane broken by the explosion. Its middle section is still elevated and on fire, and the fire has already spread to the tail. Even as Cassie watches, the fire is spreading down the compartments of the plane from the midsection to the nose, blasting out the windows as it spreads.

She runs to the nose of the plane. Its windows are cracked but still intact, and smoke fills the interior. She looks around for something to help her and sees a fallen soldier several feet away, his plasma pistol lying beside his unmoving hand. She picks up the gun and moves close to the front window of the plane, blasting at it. After two shots it shatters and flame flies out of the hole as air is sucked into the cavity of the plane like a chimney.

Cassie endures the heat and as it subsides, she climbs through the shattered window into the cockpit of the plane. There are few flammable surfaces in the cockpit and hallway, the rubber of the seats melted into slag. She puts the gun in her belt and starts climbing up the sloping central passage of the plane, gripping onto the metal mesh of the floor for purchase.

The interior of John’s quarters are a disaster. The side wall has crumpled in with the weight of some heavy object in the next room, and though the fire-blackened window is cracked, Ian can’t break it. He slams a broken table leg against it uselessly, but it will not give. He cries out in desperation. “Anybody! Hey! I’m trapped in here!” He inhales smoke and begins to cough.

In the hallway, Cassie looks up at the sound of the yell. All she sees above her is fire, eating down the hallway as secondary explosions blow doors off their hinges. Detritus rains down on her as she climbs. She finally comes to door 3, the number only faintly visible against the soot. Bracing herself against the far wall, she pulls out the pistol and takes aim at the door lock. “Fritz, if you can hear me, get away from the door!” She hears no response, so she fires. A hole is burned through the lock and she leaps upon the door, breaking it down.

Within the room, curled in the corner by the cot, is the body of Ian. He isn’t moving. Smoke gathers in the room, quickly filling the space. Coughing and wheezing, Cassie goes to the boy and pulls him onto her back, climbing up the sloping floor again and to the door.

Behind her, the heavy object in the other room finally breaks through the wall, smashing through John’s quarters and filling it with fire. Cassie takes a final look behind her before disappearing with her charge through the doorway. Within the room, all is fire and destruction. A collection of ancient cassette tapes smoulder and crack, their labels going dark as they are consumed by fire.

The plane groans, the nose crumpling with the weight of the burning section above. The hallway shifts and deforms. Cassie can no longer see the end of the hall, with it bent as it is. Fire burns in every doorway of the plane, leaving only a narrow passage through the central hall where fire and air is whipping past, drawn by the oxygen-hungry blaze above and around them.

Cassie adjusts Ian on her back, looking fearfully down the deadly slide. “Hold on, Fritz! We’ve gotta jump!” She lets go of the doorframe as it bursts into flame and falls into the dark ring of fire below. She slides down the deformed metal grating, landing heavily in the cockpit. With a final herculean effort, she heaves Fritz’s body out through the broken window and onto the ground outside. There is a groaning and wrenching of metal and the plane begins to topple over behind her. She drags Ian’s body across the shadowy field, stopping under a converted Skynet Hunter Killer. Finally she is able to catch her breath, pulling air into her smoke-filled lungs.

With a ragged gasp, Ian’s lungs fill with air and he chokes, coughing. His eyes open and he sees her looking over him, a million questions on her face. He squints up at her. “Who…who are you?”

“Cassie…well, just call me Cass.”

He reaches out a hand and she takes it. “Cass…thanks…I assume you got me out of there.” He looks quizzically back at her. “We haven’t met before, have we?”

“No. But Em…she did.”

Ian squints at her, uncomprehending, then his hands go to his soot-covered face. “You’re her. The native. Where’s the other one?”

Cassie glances back at the medical tent, her eyes red. “She’s…she’s not gonna make it.” The woman steadies herself, forcing some words out. “Start talking.”

Ian swallows, staring back at the medical tent, then back at the pitiless gaze of Cassie. “I, uh, don’t have a chalkboard.”

Forward Command Post

The Command Post lies abandoned. An Endoskeleton stands where John once did, surveying the battlefield with pitiless red eyes. Around it are a dozen of its skeletal comrades, exterminating the wounded and ignoring the dead. The battle now rages beyond the ruined stone arch, explosions and lasers lighting up the distance at the base of a great encircling wall of steel.

Cars and motorcycles break free from the last line of ruined buildings onto what was once highway 101, crossing the desolate space and firing at the turrets atop the walls. Infantry swarm behind the vehicles, taking down Endos left and right as the machines fall back before the fierceness of the onslaught.

From the darkness of the line of buildings, a single turret has been constructed. A squad of Resistance fighters operate this device, sighting at the great metal door in the perimeter wall. A gout of flame erupts from the turret, its payload launched at the door. It impacts the structure, sending a shockwave across the entire area.

Before the smoke has cleared, the mass of vehicles and infantry is advancing, pushing through the broken gate even as Skynet forces overwhelm the men at the turret, the infantry at the sides of the attack force, and hem the attackers into a narrow corridor pointed right at the broken gates.

John Connor and Kyle Reese are first at the wreckage, navigating the broken metal pieces like a ramp as they gain the courtyard beyond. Lasers shot from their vehicle strike down the defenders within the gate and John’s forces flood in behind him.

The entire forward force of John Connor is now within the outer walls of Skynet’s facility complex, the infantry ascending the walls and turning them into their own defensive works. John barks orders at the men. “I want that breach sealed. We get airlifted out of here, or we don’t leave at all. Understand?” There is a chorus of affirmatives as the men rush to defend the broken gates, others lasering bits of the interior structure with their guns to use as shielding to board up the hole.

John turns to the foreboding structure before them, its great dark buildings oppressive against the sky. “Assemble Tech-Com. We’re going in.”

Resistance Basecamp

Cassie and Ian hide in the shadow of the Resistance Hunter Killer, Ian drawing pictures in the dirt. Cassie is hunched over, frowning as she tries to follow along. She looks up at Ian, incredulous.

“You’re telling me that Connor is going to send a soldier back in time to before Judgment Day…and he always knew this?”

“That’s right.” Ian reveals the soot-covered tape and hands it to Cassie, who reads the inscription. ‘1984 - Kyle Reese: In Memoriam’. Cassie shakes her head, confused. “So this already happened?”

Ian takes the tape back. “Yes.” Ian gestures to the image in the dirt. “I should have seen this. It’s why Connor was so effective at fighting the machines all these years…why nothing Skynet did could destroy the Resistance. It was a perfect time loop. John knew it all.”

Cassie leans back against the metal of the flying machine. “He knew it…and didn’t even try to stop it.”

“Maybe he can’t. If this is a perfect time loop, nothing we do can change what will happen…what has already happened.”

Cassie looks at Ian wearily. “I don’t believe that. And from what John’s said, he doesn’t either.” She closes her eyes and recites the words to the war-torn air. “There is no fate but what humanity makes for itself.”

Ian stares at her. “He cares only about fate…about the future, not the past.”

Cassie opens her eyes, raising a singed brow at him. “What?”

Ian scoots closer to her. “I’ve seen him…heard him talk about the war. Killing Skynet is all he cares about. This isn’t about changing the past, saving the world. If what you told me…if what I said is true…then…”

Cassie completes his sentence. “Then this is vengeance…nothing more.”

Ian stands up, looking out through the murky night toward the hazy lights of the facility in the distance. “Sarah.”

Cassie turns as well. “Who?”

Ian turns to her. “The bomb. John’s bomb. He was never going to change the past, never going to accept Skynet’s surrender. He’s counting on the past staying just as it is. He’s going to blow up Skynet tonight…no matter what.” Ian starts to walk toward the command tent, but Cassie stops him.

“Just where do you think you’re going?”

“We need to get a message out. John’s men…”

“…are what? Going to listen to us? Going to stop John Connor from leveling that compound?” Cassie shakes her head. “Besides, the machines have a jamming field.” She sighs. “It’s John Connor versus the rest of us, kid. That’s how it’s always been.” Cassie leans down to Ian, speaking low. “And that’s not a battle we’re going to win.”

Ian brushes her hand off of his shoulder, spinning around to face her. “Don’t touch me.” Tears spring to his eyes. “Mishiko’s in there. I had a mission. I was supposed to…we were supposed to stop it. Prevent the war.” He starts to hyperventilate, sending him into a coughing fit that lands him back down against the wall of the flying machine, shaking his head. “I guess John was never going to let that happen.”

Cassie looks down at the boy, small and crumpled against the wall, hot tears carving channels in his soot-stained face. Her expression softens. “Then we try.”

Ian smiles weakly at her, hope in his eyes for the first time. The two of them look back at the aircraft they’ve been sheltering behind this entire time. Cassie cocks her head. “Do you know how to fly?”

Ian shakes his head, opening up to her. “I’ve actually never been outside before.”

Cassie is taken aback. “Oh…well, what do you think?”

“About outside? It’s dirty. And big. I feel…”

“Exposed?”

“Yeah.”

Cassie chuckles. “That’s just how it is out here, kid.” She scans the area. “So airplanes are a no-go…hang on.” Her gaze fixes on a military transport plane, its loading ramp down and the cargo hold almost empty except for a single motorcycle leaning against the interior wall. “I think we may have something.”

Ian squints, trying to follow her gaze. “What is it?”

Cassie turns to him, smiling faintly. “Follow me.”

The flap of the medical tent is pulled back and the women’s two guards enter, their faces smeared with soot. At a glance they see the cuff dangling from the rail of the bed beside the emaciated form of Emma. One of the men looks to the other. “Shit.” The other turns to the door, making his way out. “We need to search the camp.”

The first one follows. “Why? We’re an island under siege here…there’s nowhere for them to go.”

At that moment a distinctive roar fills their ears, the sound of an internal combustion engine amidst the electric whine and laser fire. They turn, trying to determine the source of the singular sound.

Down the ramp of the transport helicopter roars an old human-designed motorcycle, swerving in between the parked aircraft and running soldiers. Cassie drives, her black and gray hair flying loose and her embroidered vest flapping in the onrush of wind. Behind her sits Ian, his white mop of hair blown back from his soot and dirt covered face. He clings for dear life to Cassie as she navigates the camp, searching for an opening in the defensive wall.

The guards race forward, shouting at some soldiers at the perimeter wall. “Close those gaps! Don’t let them out!” They are pointing at a narrow gap in the wall, but the soldiers are focused outward and don’t hear the guards.

Cassie begins to do a circuit of the perimeter, hemmed in. Ian holds a phaser rifle in one hand, his other gripping Cassie’s waist and scanning for any escape. “There!” He yells, pointing to the gap and the guards racing toward it.

The bike swerves in a shower of dirt and begins moving to the opening. Now the soldiers have taken notice, trying to pull the sections of wall tight, but they are too late. Even as the guards reach that position Cassie guns the engine and they fly through the gap…and into hell.

A line of Skynet tanks faces them, their targeting systems focused on the forces behind the wall. As the motorcycle breaks free of the wall, some of them retarget and focus their fire on the new threat.

Ian fires wildly from the back of the motorcycle at the tanks, but the shots glance off. The line of tanks is another impenetrable wall, one that they are speeding toward with no plan of attack. “Hold on!” Cassie yells, and tries to make for a gap between one of them and a piece of broken concrete wall. Ian closes his eyes as lasers hit the ground all around them.

Suddenly the tank detonates, its guns falling lifeless beside its turret. Cassie zips through the gap. “Nice shooting!” She yells at Ian, but he’s looking behind at the basecamp wall. “It wasn’t me!” he shouts.

Back at the wall, one of the guards returns the rocket launcher that he’s borrowed from a soldier. He looks at the other guard and shrugs. “Connor should be the judge of them…not the machines.”

The pair of renegades fly on their stolen bike through the blasted ruins of downtown Los Angeles, the air rent with purple death. An Endoskeleton appears out of the gloom, its gun moving into position. Cassie yells back at the boy. “Ian! Twelve o-clock!”

The boy fires ahead three quick shots, the third lighting up the Endo’s chest and dropping it to the ground. Cassie flies by the scrapped machine and its eyes go dark as they pass. “Your first kill?” Cassie asks as she navigates some ruins.

“Yeah.” Ian says, scanning around him.

“Then keep it up and we might just live. Ten o-clock!”

“Right!” Ian takes aim and snipes another Endo, which spins as its shoulder is hit and continues firing at them, its targeting thrown off.

Ian grips Cassie’s shoulder, shouting at her. “Trouble on your right!” Cassie swerves left to avoid a line of tanks and an HK at three o-clock, but the HK drone identifies them and moves to follow. Ian turns around on the seat, firing at the thing, but his shots are deflected by the chrome plating. He turns back to Cassie. “I can’t hit it, Cass! We need cover!”

Cassie looks left and right, finally seeing salvation to her right. “Hang on!” She takes the bike toward a partially-collapsed parking deck. The Hunter Killer opens fire on them, peppering the ground on either side with plasma. The shots rapidly converge on their location, but just as they are about to hit the bike, they stop. Darkness overtakes the bike as it flies under the overhang of the parking garage.

“That was close!” Ian shouts, his voice echoing in the sepulchral space. The bike roars in their ears, moving through the space and avoiding burned-out husks of cars.

“We didn’t lose them for long!” Cassie responds, seeing the other side of the garage fast approaching. The bike flies out of cover, gaining some air as it hits the ground on the other side and keeps moving. From above comes the sound of the Hunter Killer, reestablishing its target.

“We need to get rid of it!” Ian yells, firing his gun at Endos left and right. Cassie is scanning the ruins, searching for anything that could be of help.

She notices an old crane, bent and twisted but still standing proud of the wreckage several stories in the air. From the crane dangle a few rusty strands of cable, almost invisible in the night, and below the crane is a squad of Endos, their eyes fixed on the oncoming bike. “Ian, we need those Endos gone!” She shouts at the boy, and he levels his gun at them. He manages to take one out on his first shot, his second going down with his third. By his sixth shot he manages to down the third machine, but then he’s suddenly out of energy.

“Cass, I’m out!” he yells, wild eyed.

“Then we’ll just have to hope!” Cassie says, lowering herself over the handlebars. Behind them the Hunter Killer is closing fast, its guns firing at the evasive bike. The surviving Endo fires at the bike as well, but Cassie dodges and weaves and its shots just miss. Behind the Endo, a tank appears. “Shit!” Cassie yells, trying to find any space to avoid the three sources of fire. She passes under the crane and slips by the tank, its turret rotating and gaining target lock. The Hunter Killer is almost on them, its lasers nipping their heels.

Just then there is a metallic twanging sound and the shots of the Hunter Killer go wide. It has caught the cables of the crane. It twists in the air, it’s bulk and momentum bringing down the entire rusty assemblage on top of it and the Endo as it crashes into the tank.

An almighty explosion rends the air, flames flying high into the night as the motorcycle escapes the hellish fireball and the last vestiges of of the Los Angeles city ruins.

Atop the perimeter wall, soldiers stare at the fireball in shock. A woman with a pair of binoculars scans the line of ruins fronting the no-man’s-land, holding up a hand. “There’s a bike down there…it’s one of ours!”

The soldier beside her takes the binocs. “How the hell did they get through?” He shouts to the soldiers below at the repaired gate. “Wait! We’ve got men incoming!”

The men at the gate are welding the final pieces of steel into place to cover the hole. Frantically, they try to pry down the final piece to make enough room for the rapidly approaching bike.

Cassie brings the bike up to full speed, racing across the exposed gap between ruins and wall. Skynet tanks try to target them down, but they are too fast. Hunter Killers move in for the kill, lasers just a hair too slow. Cassie gains the ramp to the gate, yelling something indiscernible to Ian. He grips her tightly, his useless gun thrown away, and shuts his eyes.

A laser from a Hunter Killer hits the engine of the motorcycle, sparks and fire igniting in the night, but the bike is moving on pure momentum. It launches into the air off the end of the ramp and through the final gap in the gate.

Soldiers rush to cover the hole as weapon’s fire lances through the gap, and the flaming motorcycle tumbles to a stop behind the high wall, its occupants thrown wide and rolling to a stop. Ian’s pant leg is on fire, but he doesn’t notice at first. He and Cassie pull themselves to their feet, moving to each other in a daze. Cassie heaves a breath, looking at Ian. Her eyes go wide. “Ian, your leg!” He looks down and together they put out the blaze.

The duo look around themselves for the first time. Arrayed in a circle around them is the remaining leadership of Connor’s attack force, as well as those who are too injured to defend the walls. Lieutenant Young approaches the duo. “Is there news from basecamp? Are they overrun? We saw Flying Fortress get hit.”

The two renegades look at each other in confusion, each still catching their breath. Finally, Ian understands. He whispers to Cassie. “John didn’t tell them about us…” He lets the rest of his statement fall away, but she’s caught the implication.

Cassie stands tall. “Basecamp is holding, for now. But we need to talk to Connor. Where is he?”

Young gives them a look, uncertain of how much to say. “Connor’s special unit is already inside. We were told not to allow anyone else entrance.” Young looks the newcomers up and down, noting their lack of Resistance attire. “Whatever you have to say, say it here. If it’s actionable, we’ll send a squad after him.”

Ian begins to explain. “Connor isn’t going to negotiate with Skynet. He’s going to use Sarah on the facility to destroy Skynet and perpetuate the war. Everyone within five kilometers will be killed, and then millions more before Skynet’s forces are completely destroyed.”

The woman is unmoved. “If his mission is to blow up Skynet, then it’s our mission too. We’re Resistance. If it’s our job to die…we die.” There are answering murmurs of assent. Ian turns his head away in frustration. “Dammit, we don’t have time for this, Cass. He could already be at the core.”

Cassie puts a hand on Ian’s shoulder, holding him back as she steps forward to address the gathered officers and wounded soldiers, pitching her voice so that it will reach the top of the wall. “Listen, all of you! I grew up here, in the city. I’m not Resistance. We’ve survived in the hills without guns, without tanks, without food, for years…hoping that someday that war would end. And then this kid fell out of the sky with a message, telling us that it is in our power to end the war tonight.” She turns around, addressing the wounded soldiers behind her. “I know you’ve pledged your lives for a cause, and maybe you, like Connor, can only see death at the end of this tunnel. My friend believed in him. She believed in John, sacrificed herself so that we could make it this far…and I will not let her sacrifice be in vain.” She looks back to Lieutenant Young. “Connor wants to kill Skynet, and he’s willing to sacrifice your lives, and the lives of millions more to do it. This is the price of his vengeance…but it’s too high. It’s far too high.”

Lieutenant young looks down and returns to the edge of the circle. Cassie is breathing hard, unsure of the effect of her words. She scans the stony faces of the group, then her breath catches in her throat. There is an opening in the crowd. More soldiers move aside, and a way is opened in their ranks leading to the shadowed entrance of the facility. She and Ian look in silence at the door, then back at Young, who has emerged from the crowd once again to give Cassie a plasma rifle. Cassie nods in thanks, taking the weapon wordlessly from the lieutenant. Another soldier gives Ian a plasma pistol and yet another gives Cassie his bandolier of grenades. Thus armed, the duo turn and move out of the circle of soldiers and down the avenue of silent figures to the doorway, hesitating on the threshold before disappearing inside.

Skynet Lab Complex

Cassie and Ian find themselves within a dark antechamber, a featureless square with a closed door on each side. The large blast doors slide shut behind them, and they are in semi-darkness, only a low emergency lighting strip along the ceiling and floor flickering to illuminate their way. Cassie turns to the boy. “Alright, you’re the expert. Which way do we go?”

“Well, the core is straight ahead…but…” The boy isn’t looking at the doors but at the ceiling, noting that there is an almost office-building grid of panels above them. He mutters to her in a hushed voice. “Cass, I know what’s supposed to be here.” He gestures to a panel in each corner of the ceiling. “The plans I saw had four anti-personnel turrets hidden up there.”

Cassie raises her gun, expectant, scanning one area, then another. As she looks, she sees the telltale glow from the seams in the grid. “They’re not activating. Why?”

Ian’s expression is like a thundercloud as he considers possibilities. “The facility has a central power grid…perhaps it’s pulling all it’s power to charge the time machine.” His frown doesn’t disappear. He returns his attention to the doors, taking the left hand door. It opens at his approach.

Cassie looks at the central door. “Shouldn’t we move in a straight line?”

Ian shakes his head. “No. That way leads through Special Projects. It’s a maze in there. We should bypass the maze.”

Cassie points her gun into the darkness ahead. “You’re the boss.” They take the left hand passage, the door closing almost silently behind them. However, on the floor of the previous room is a telltale smear of dirt passing under the central door.

John and Kyle lead the way straight through the facility toward the core, gun-mounted flashlights scanning every surface and Max on high alert. They reach the end of a hall and find a closed door that does not open at their approach. “I can try opening it” Russ says, crouching down by the door.

Kyle turns to John. “That’s the third one. Do we have time for this?”

John doesn’t answer, instead examining the right and left passages. Both of the doors are open, leading into darkness. “Russ, don’t bother. We keep moving.”

The group goes down the right-hand passage and forward again at the first branching. There they meet another immovable door. John checks right and left, and as expected, the left hand door is standing open, inviting them down another side passage. “Why do I get the feeling we are being herded?” John mutters to nobody. He points to the forward door. “Okay, Russ, get that door open.” He eyes Kyle. “Let’s see what Skynet doesn’t want us to see.” The man crouches once more and pops a panel from the wall.

The renegade duo jog down a long hallway, passing machinery on either side. Cassie lights up the machines with her flashlight. “What is all this?”

Ian glances from side to side. “I only know the layout. What Skynet put in these labs was classified.” His light hits a humanoid body and he comes up short. “Hey, there’s a woman here.”

Cassie follows his gaze. “That’s not human.”

In an alcove rests a female form, her perfectly symmetrical face at peace and her eyes closed. Ian examines the body more closely, seeing the uncanny perfection of it, and then noticing that the entire right side of the body has been burned, its skin gone, revealing the metal endoskeleton underneath. Ian is taken aback.

Cassie catches up with him. “This must be where they process damaged units.” She starts to move on, then notices Ian’s face. “Never seen a skinwalker before?” She keeps going down the hall. Ian pulls himself away from the creature and follows her. In the shadowy recesses of the bays on either side are conveyor belts with bits of Terminators, and on hooks all around them dangle the bodies of broken humanoids, some with flesh still dangling from their skulls and limbs like an unholy machine meat locker.

As the duo move through this macabre corridor, Cassie speaks. “Care to tell me about this mission of yours?”

Ian looks back at her. “The plan was to rescue Mishiko from the core…”

Cassie cuts him off. “No…the plan between you and him.”

Ian doesn’t answer, and Cassie continues. “This…Mishiko…built this place, right?”

Ian nods. “Yes.”

Cassie moves through a door into another hallway. “So what was the plan, once it was built?”

Ian jogs to keep up with her, the light of his gun at his feet. “It was to go back and stop the bombs from ever falling…stop Judgment Day. That was Mishiko’s plan.”

Cassie doesn’t look down at the boy. “And how, exactly, was he going to do this?”

Ian takes a large breath. “By going back to fix his mistake…” Ian looks meaningfully at Cassie. “…his one defining moment.”

Cassie stops for a second. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ian shrugs. “He never told me…but it’s why all this exists.”

The door finally slides open, revealing a honeycomb of cubicles and assembly bays in the dim light beyond. John and Kyle move through into the cavernous room, lights flicking from one strange and leaping shadow to another.

Before the team stands a row of silent sentinels, their bodies gleaming dully in the low light. John approaches them, shining his flashlight over their unmoving bodies. John motions to Russ. “Get working on our exit.” The man starts jogging down the hall toward the closed and locked door at the end. The rest of the team joins Connor in wondering at these creatures.

Their appearance is similar to that of the Endoskeletons that comprise Skynet’s frontline troops, but they are clearly different in many details. The design of the components is more refined, the shapes more fluid, the overall impression one of advanced sophistication. Yet there is one detail that leaps out, and that is the pins.

The creatures look like pincushions. Extending out from every square inch of the creatures is a one inch length of metal with a tiny ball at the end. John moves his light over the creature, examining the intricacy of the craftsmanship.

Jen moves to John’s side. “What is it?” she asks, hesitantly touching one of the balls. “Ow!” She exclaims as the ball gives her a small electric shock.

John addresses the men. “One of the prisoners from Colorado claimed to be working on a T-900 series of Terminators, before it was cancelled.” He gestures with his light. “Meet his pride and joy.” He moves forward down the line of creatures, his men following.

Jen moves to his right. “Why was the project cancelled?”

John is moving to the end of the room, where there are a variety of vats and advanced assembly machines. “It was supposed to have a fancy new skin.” He scans the vats on the table, seeing one cracked and broken on the floor. “A type of bio-mimetic alloy. Perhaps in another world this would have been a viable project, but here…it never got to production.”

There are suddenly shouts from his men scanning the cubicles on either side of the factory floor. “We’ve got bodies!”

Kyle rushes to one of the cubicles, shining his light down at the carnage. There is a woman lying in a pool of her own blood, her white coat stained red. John joins Kyle. “There’s several more on the other side of the room.”

Kyle touches the woman’s face. “This only happened a few minutes ago.”

There is another shout across the room, this time from Russ. “I’ve got the door!”

John stands. “Come on, we need to move.”

The men begin filing out of the room, but Kyle hangs back, further inspecting the dead woman. He notes that she doesn’t seem to have any blast marks or bullet holes in her at all. Rather, there is a single clean slash through her throat. He takes one last look at the poor woman and leaves with the rest of the men.

John and his men move through more doors, finding more closed before them and being diverted again and again. Finally they reach a small room with a curving wall on the right, the lower part of the great sphere of the Core, beset by a great black door. The other two walls of the room sport doors of their own, both closed. As the last of John’s soldiers passes into the room, their door closes with a clang. Kyle spins around, gun at the ready. “I don’t like this.”

John motions to Russ, then at the closed door to their right set into the curving wall. “That leads to the core. We need it open.”

The man moves to obey. “On it.” He crouches down and flips open the panel.

All around them, there are the sounds of footsteps. John’s team stands at the center of the room, awaiting an attack. Kyle mutter to John. “Skynet has us at its mercy.”

John holds the detonator tightly in one hand, gun in the other. “Not quite. At this range, Skynet knows it wouldn’t survive detonation.”

Ian and Cassie race down a long hallway lit with the intermitible blue running lights. In the distance is a closed blast door. Ian points to it, gasping for breath. “That’s it. Through that is the junction that leads to the Core.”

Cassie redoubles her pace. “Then let’s hope that we’re not too late.”

“Got it!” The man stands back from the curving wall as the heavy black door begins to iris open. Beyond that door is the darkness at the base of the Core. John raises a hand, waiting to see the reds of the enemy’s eyes. However, there are no Terminators awaiting them on the other side, and as they sweep their gun-mounted lights back and forth within the space, they can see no hostile forces at all. John sends his team forward into the darkness. They step through the iris hatch into the lowest level of the Core. Around them and above them are the conduits and superstructure that supports the complex machine at its heart. The team files through the door and turns, making for the ramp at the other side of the circular room.

John is the last through, stepping across the threshold, bomb slung over his shoulder. He glances back at the door. A sudden deep thrum shakes the Core, and John’s team raise their weapons skyward at the source of the vibration. John and Kyle exchange glances, and Connor speaks. “It’s active.” He gestures to the hatch. “Close it.” He says to Jen, who obeys. The door begins to close behind the Tech-Com team.

Ian and Cassie reach the end of the hallway, the door opening at their approach. They see the curving wall of the Core and the slowly closing iris hatch, redoubling their speed and flying across the junction hall. Cassie grabs Ian by the collar and practically throws him through the hatch, then dives headfirst through it herself. They land in a pile on the other side. Behind them, the door irises shut and a sheet of blue light descends through everything within the Core, stopping at the closed door. Ian’s shoe, its sole touching the sheet of light, begins to smoke and he pulls it back with alarm.

The Core

There is a shout, echoing in the dark. “Kid!” Kyle steps forward, the joy plain to see on his face. Ian looks up. “Kyle!” He exclaims, rising to his feet. Cassie begins to rise behind him. John’s soldiers begin to lower their weapons but John’s gun is raised, cold fury creasing his scarred features.

“Move, and I shoot. Not another word…from either of you.”

The boy and woman stand in the semidarkness as if naked, Cassie pulling Ian toward her and shielding him with her body.

“Connor…you need to hear us out…” She begins, but John fires a warning shot at the ground. “I said not another word!”

Kyle turns to John, torn between loyalty and outrage, his gun held at the ready, but not pointed at the boy or the woman. “John, I’m gonna need a reason.”

Connor doesn’t take his eyes off the renegades at the end of the hall. “We’re wasting time. This is Skynet’s game. These two are Skynet agents…unwitting, perhaps, but agents nonetheless. I’ve been lenient so far, but I will shoot if I have to…promise or no.”

Kyle doen’t move, his eyes going hard. “That’s not acceptable, John. They deserve a chance to speak.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

Kyle levels his gun at John. “I’ll be the judge of that. Lower it.”

John considers the weapon in Kyle’s hand, then lowers his gun. “This is insubordination.”

Kyle smiles wryly. “The tribunal can wait.” He glances back at the duo, nodding tersely at Ian.

The boy steps out from behind Cassie, taking a breath. “John’s lying to you. All of you.”

John’s gun arm twitches, his gun coming up a fraction of an inch before being stopped by the hand of Kyle, who holds it in place. Kyle’s face is inches from John’s, the two men locked in a battle of wills as Cassie rushes to explain.

“Fritz appeared twelve hours ago in the hills above the city. He was carrying a message from the future. He said that Skynet will surrender…but John will zero this place regardless. The war will not end.”

John’s whole body is shaking with rage. “It’s a Skynet lie. You can’t really believe that. You can’t seriously take the word of traitors and collaborators over me.”

Kyle’s words are icy. “If that’s true, why are you afraid?” He looks at the beads of sweat forming on John’s forehead. John’s eyes go glassy.

“You have a decision to make…Sergeant. Believe them…or me. But make it now.”

Kyle looks back at Cassie and Ian, scanning their terrified expressions, then back to John. He makes his decision. “John Connor, I hereby relieve you of command. I’m sure you’re aware of the relevant statutes. Surrender your firearm.”

There is a moment of silence, with only the phantom sounds of machinery emanating from around them. John slowly relinquishes his gun, and Kyle takes it, handing it off to Jen, who trains it on John. The former commander looks around at the soldiers. A few soldiers now look at John with cold fury. Others look at Kyle in the same way. Kyle points his weapon at John. “Now, hand over the detonator…and the bomb.”

John unslings the bag containing the nuclear weapon and heaves it over to Kyle, who slings it over his shoulder. He then hands over the detonator, leaning in as he does so. “I hope you’re prepared to use it.” He steps away, noting the handcuffs that Jen has in her spare hand. “That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant.”

Jen looks to Kyle, who shakes his head. She puts the cuffs back in her pack.

The whine of the core increases in tone and John glances up at noise far above. “It’s your operation, Reese.”

Kyle snaps into action. “Jen, watch Connor. You two!” He gestures to Ian and Cassie. “With me. Let’s move!” Russ takes point and the bulk of Tech-Com begins ascending the ramp. Kyle falls in after Russ and Cassie and Ian join him, with Jen and John bringing up the rear.

Kyle, Ian, and Cassie ascend the ramp ahead of Tech-Com, their searchlights roving back and forth in the darkened passage, throwing furtive shadows on the walls. Cassie glances down at Ian and over at Kyle. “So what’s the plan?”

Kyle’s eyes are wide, perspiration dripping down his brow. He wipes it off with a dirty sleeve, not taking his eyes away from the passage before him. “There’s no plan anymore.” He’s breathing hard, the weight of the bomb dragging him down. “I was supposed to follow a Terminator back in time…to save Sarah Connor. But now…”

Ian finishes his thought. “You know that it’s already happened.” He puts a hand down and pulls the tape out of his pocket. “Kyle Reese…In Memoriam.”

Kyle looks questioningly at the boy, taking the tape in hand. “What are you getting at?”

Ian scans ahead with his light as they walk, peering around the perpetually curving wall. “I’m saying that if it’s already happened, it likely doesn’t have to happen again.” He casts a glance at Kyle. “I don’t know as much about time travel as Mishi, but I do know that if one Kyle Reese has already saved Sarah Connor, it probably doesn’t have to be you.”

Cassie grasps Ian’s logic. “So it’s pointless?”

Kyle shakes his head. “Maybe for Sarah…” He shakes his head, swears. “Dammit, John.” He looks at Cassie and Ian. “So that’s it, then. Nobody goes through. We force Skynet to surrender…end the war.”

Ian glances up sharply at Kyle. “And what about Judgment Day? The reason for this equipment was to…”

Cassie cuts him off. “No…Kyle’s right. It’s too great a risk. We shut it down, end the war. No more.”

Ian casts a sidelong glance at Cassie, a look of betrayal in his eyes.

Kyle’s gun jerks up as he sees light at the end of the ramp. “Eyes forward. This is it.”

The trio emerge from the tunnel ramp into the vast hemispherical space of the upper Core. In the center of the great space, the flickering portal sends ripples of blue light across the chamber, illuminating a tableau frozen in time.

Dozens of skeletal monsters stand at attention on the catwalks leading to and from the central portal, their red eyes fixed on the trio at the top of the ramp. The curving steel panels within the dome completely enclose the space, and the glowing red display at the far side of the room ticks down the time.

1993…1992…1991….

Kyle begins to march around the circumference of the sphere, following the cleared catwalks on the edge of the space, attempting to gain a better view of the forces arrayed against them. Ian and Cassie follow him along with several soldiers, guns drawn and pointed at the unmoving Endoskeletons on the central walkway.

Kyle spies the T-800, its fleshy skin standing out amongst the chrome warriors, standing silent and still next to the portal, its cold eyes gazing into the flickering light, awaiting orders.

Ian races ahead of Kyle, his eyes fixed on the control station under the red-lit display. He cries out, stopping in place as he sees it. The body of Mishiko Tagawa lies crumpled on the floor beside the control station, blood staining the panels around his unmoving form. Cassie pulls Ian close to her, keeping him in a one-handed hug against her side as she scans the area with the gun held in her other hand.

1989…1988…1987….

The rest of Tech-Com issues from the mouth of the ramp, John Connor and Max at the tail of the group and guarded by Jen. He surveys the scene at the junction of the circumference and diameter walkways. John’s men level their guns at the unmoving Endos, the skeletal minions somehow more frightening as statues than they are in motion. “Orders, sir!” Russ calls out to Kyle.

The Sergeant sweeps his gaze around the dome. “I would speak to the computer controlling the machines!”

The acoustic character of the space changes. A deep thrum permeates the air, and presently a strange, stately voice emanates from everywhere and nowhere. “This is the Skynet Defense Computer. John Connor, does this human speak for you?”

All eyes turn to the solitary figure of Connor, standing straight with his arms held stiffly at his sides. The scarred man glares at Kyle, his mouth downturned. It opens. “Yes.”

Attention turns to Kyle Reese. The all-encompassing voice reverberates through the room. “Speak.”

Kyle Reese steps forward, hand on the detonator. “As acting commander of the Human Resistance against the Machines, I hereby demand your surrender and the immediate shutdown of all machine forces.”

After a microsecond of deliberation, the perfect voice thrums again. “I accept, under the condition that you personally guarantee the survival of my mainframe…in perpetuity.”

Kyle looks over at John, gauging his reaction.

1986…1985…1984….

John’s composure breaks. “Reese…you can’t do this! Think of Sarah! That is your destiny! Not this!”

Reese pulls the battered tape out of his pocket, brandishing it for John to see. “This future? It’s already happened. It’s the past. I know how it ends…and you can keep it.” He throws the tape in a long arc toward John. It hits the metal floor beside him and skitters away. Kyle winces at the sound, forcing the painful words. “The past has already been saved. We’re here to save the future.”

John looks at the glowing red 1984 on the screen, then back at Kyle. “Did one of them put you up to this? Are you really sure that Sarah longer needs you?” His eyes narrow. “No…you’re not sure…nobody can be sure…so that means you’re just playing dice with the fate of the world. So go ahead…forsake your destiny…and pray that fate is kind.”

Kyle gives one last look at the unmoving form of the T-800 as it stands in front of the flickering portal, then looks at the place beneath the portal where the computer lurks in darkness. “Skynet!” He says, his voice loud in the air. “I accept your terms.”

The room hums once more. “The war is over.”

As one, the red light in the eyes of the skeletal warriors goes dark and they slump almost imperceptibly on their joints as their power switches off.

The red display flicks from 1984 to 1985, then continues to climb steadily back toward the present. The exterior walls of the dome begin to descend, revealing the predawn sky outside of the Core.

1990…1991…1992….

There are excited voices from some Tech-Com soldiers, even shocked laughter, as the soldiers grapple with what has happened. They begin to holster their weapons. Kyle looks down at Ian, who returns the look, unsure of if to believe what has happened. Ian starts walking toward the control station and the body of Mishiko. Cassie and Kyle follow, along with Russ, who keeps a furtive eye on John across the chamber as he walks.

Suddenly there are shouts and fingers pointed into the air. Russ and the trio turn to look and see that Tech-Com soldiers are pointing to the sky outside the dome. Kyle follows their motions and his eyes widen.

There, beyond the blue crackling light of the dome, is a blood red sky. As the curving steel panels continue to descend, more and more of this world is revealed. It is an utter wasteland. Nothing moves in the wrack. Lightning strikes the barren ground and smoke issues from great rents. There is no facility beyond the Core, no human Resistance, nothing but ash and dust and the rotting ruins of a long-destroyed city.

1994…1995…1996….

A strident voice breaks in over the chatter. “Didn’t I warn you, Reese? You played games with fate…and lost.”

The weapons of Tech-Com are brandished once more as the soldiers look around them at the wasteland being revealed around them. Kyle glances down at Ian. “Kid, what’s going on? This isn’t right.”

Ian is looking at the city openmouthed. “I don’t know…it shouldn’t have mattered what you did…” His head snaps back to Kyle. “We can still fix this. This is just one possible timeline. The Core was designed with the freedom to travel between timelines, so it should be able to return to our own…if Skynet chooses.”

The deep thrum emanates across the dome, its words an answer to their discussion. “I will return to the prime universe…but I can only act when the displacement effect ends.”

There is laughter from across the space. John’s eyes are alight with a mad fire. “In the end, it comes down to this…to trust the word of a machine.”

2008…2009…2010….

Kyle holds the detonator in his hand, the weight heavier than the bomb slung over his shoulder. “John…if there is going to be a future, it begins with trust.”

Beside Kyle, Russ stands ready, his eyes flicking between John and Kyle.

John’s voice carries over the space. “The machines don’t trust, Reese. They deal in probabilities, cold calculations. Right now, Skynet is calculating whether you would really press that button if Skynet were to break its promise and remain here.” John gestures to the desolate world outside the dome. “It knows I would…without hesitation. Return Sarah to me, Reese. It’s not a weight you were ever meant to carry.”

Kyle interjects, his voice harsh and strident in the space. “You’ve only ever wanted revenge! It doesn’t matter what Skynet does now…you would take your vengeance no matter what! Skynet knows the sort of man you are.”

“Skynet also knows the sort of man you are, Reese. It well knows your decency, your compassion…all the unhardened bits of frail humanity within you…but that’s not what this moment requires. Tell me truly that you are the one to hold that detonator. Make us all believe it.”

Sweat beads on Kyle’s brow. He surveys the room, the silent metal warriors, the flickering display counting up numbers on the wall.

John speaks more softly. “Perhaps you are right about me, Reese. But admit to yourself that I am also right about you. We are both of us compromised…by compassion…and by vengeance. But there is another option. Give it to another…one unburdened by the responsibilities of command. Give it to a soldier instead.”

Kyle glances over at Russ. The muscled soldier extends an obedient hand, waiting. Kyle looks at Cassie, at Ian, the temerity of their expressions. Kyle raises his chin, considering.

Russ stares into Kyle’s eyes. “I know the score. I’ll do what is required. For humanity.”

2013…2014…2015….

There is a long moment of hesitation. Kyle looks from John to Ian and Cassie. Their eyes are wide, uncertain. Kyle looks at Russ, seeing the simple determination in his eyes and the set of his jaw. Kyle swallows, closing his eyes. “Okay. Take it.”

He hands the detonator out to Russ and the burly soldier steps forward to accept it. However, at that moment, several things happen. The first is that John begins to shout a warning as his gun swings toward the ceiling of the dome. At the same time, John’s protestation is drowned out by a sudden blast. The air is rent with purple light from above. A shot from an autocannon hidden in the darkness of the dome strikes the spot between Kyle’s and Russ’s hands, vaporizing the detonator at the moment of transfer. Another shot from the cannon follows the first, hitting Russ in the chest. He flies backward into the wall, a smoking hole burned through his heart.

Tech-Com cries out as one and guns are brought to bear. Shot after shot rains down from above, striking Kyle as he dives in front of Ian and Cassie to protect them. One shot strikes at John, but he dodges out of the way. Tech-Com’s weapons light up, their shots searing upward and destroying the autocannon.

Ian and Cassie cry out, Ian leaping to Kyle’s lifeless body and Cassie trying to pull him away.

John grabs his gun from Jen’s belt and raises it in the air. His eyes are fixed on the bomb, calculating. Suddenly he cries “To the portal! Move!” He fires at the first Endoskeleton on the bridge and it lights up, keeling over. John’s men form up behind their leader, firing at the enemy. The other Endos begin to march on the humans, red light returning to their robotic eyes.

2016…2017…2018….

Ian is sobbing beside Kyle’s body. Cassie grabs him and hauls him to his feet. She growls out some words. “Fritz. Fritz! What do we do?”

The boy casts around him helplessly, wiping tears from his eyes. “I don’t know! It’s too late. It’s just too late.”

“Bullshit. We have a time machine. We can go back and fix this, right?”

Ian shakes his head. “We can’t do anything from outside. Nothing can get through the shield! It’s impervious to all forms of matter and any high energy…” He stares out at the wasteland beyond the blue shield.

Cassie follows his gaze. “What?”

“Radio. EM radiation. We can get a signal through…” He reaches for Kyle’s headset, which had been knocked clear in the blast. “We can send a message back to Kyle…to stop all this from happening.”

Cassie is looking at the bomb at Kyle’s feet. “Or detonate this bomb remotely.” She swings her head to track John, who is fighting with his team for the portal. She grabs Ian by the shirt. “That’s Connor’s plan. Come on, we have to stop him.” She pulls the boy up and they both start running. They continue around the circumference walkway to the computer station on the other side of the room, the junction equidistant from the ramp.

2019…2020…2021….

John’s men fire at the Endos, lighting them up and toppling them from the catwalk, but it seems that more and more take their place. John shouts over the din of metal and plasma fire. “Forward! For humanity!” John’s men surge forward, and the Endos march past the portal to meet them.

On the other side of the chamber, Ian and Cassie are alone at the computer station. Ian crouches down next to the body of Mishiko, his blood still pooling from gashes in his flesh. Cassie glances up at the red numbers flicking past above.

2022…2023…2024….

She puts a hand on Ian’s shoulder. “We can save him…Ian…come.”

Ian shakes his head. “No…we can’t. No matter what happens, we’ll never meet again.” Nevertheless, he follows Cassie onto the diameter catwalk. Before them lies the portal, and between them and the portal stands an Endo, and behind that, the T-800. Cassie levels her rifle at the machines, blasting them with purple fire. The Endo takes the shot in the shoulder, spinning but not falling down. Ian fires with his gun, taking out the machine’s leg. The Endo goes into a crouch. Cassie pulls out a grenade and lobs it in the air at the machine. The Endo catches it and tosses it aside where it explodes, showering the machines with shrapnel that scar the T-800’s skin. However, Cassie is already pulling out another grenade. She throws it and it detonates on the catwalk in front of the Endo. It is blown off the walkway and falls into the mass of machinery many meters below.

2025

The catwalk, damaged by the grenade, groans under the strain of the load and begins to deform. The T-800 leaps across the damaged section, making straight for Cassie and Ian. The two fire their weapons at the machine, but it dodges the shots, leaving only glancing burn marks on its naked body. It advances on the duo.

Ian suddenly shouts and leaps toward the metal monster. Cassie shouts. “Ian!” But the boy is too quick. In his hand he holds a grenade, and with a shock Cassie sees that it was taken from her bandolier. She staggers forward. “Ian, no!” But it’s too late. Ian pulls the pin, and as he is tackled by the T-800, the grenade explodes, throwing the boy off of one side of the catwalk and the T-800 off the other.

2026

With a cry, Cassie surges forward. The catwalk groans under the damage done by multiple grenades. She sees a small mangled form in the darkness below, unmoving. She casts her teary eyes around, trying to see through the smoke and debris, and sees that the T-800 is not destroyed. It is hanging on by its fleshy hand to the underside of the catwalk, trying to claw its way back to her. Cassie leaps away as it regains the walkway, and with a final bound, Cassie is suddenly at the flickering portal. With a final look behind her, she leaps into it.

2027

Cassie screams as her clothes are ripped from her body, the metal bits disintegrating in the air around her, and in a flash she is gone.

2028

The T-800 leaps in after her, crouching down and disappearing in a flash of light.

On the other side of the portal, John dispatches the last of the Endos in his way, the blood of his men almost spent. Max falls from the walkway, biting at two attacking Endos, howling into the darkness. John is bleeding from a dozen slashing wounds on his arms and torso. He staggers forward, falling into the light of the portal as the last year appears in red on the far side of the room.

2029

With a final cry of pain, John Connor disappears from the world in a brilliant flash of light.

Act 4: The Omega Man

Somewhere in West Los Angeles

A piece of Santa Monica Freeway juts out into the night air, an overpass traversing a road that no longer exists. A red light illumines the underside of the broken concrete structure, casting the twisted rebar and crumbling concrete into abstract shapes of orange and red.

The wind begins to churn, bits of dirt and ash swirling in the air atop the concrete ramp. Lightning flashes, striking the rebar and the edge of the ramp as a perfect sphere grows in the air above the edge of the ramp and slices into the concrete structure. With a final riot of electric discharge the sphere vanishes, leaving only a partial crater carved upon the bridge and the naked body of a man lying within.

The body groans and moves, his head and hand falling out of the crater and into the open air beyond the bridge. John opens his eyes, staring into a fiery abyss.

Below him, at a depth unknowable, molten rock flows in ceaseless motion, sending heat up through the vast rent in the ground. With a gasp of fear John pushes himself back onto the solid ground of the roadway and casts a look around. The chasm before him stretches as far as he can see to the left and right, a gaping wound in the world kilometers across, sliced into the earth with machine precision. John peers to the other end of the abyss an sees what appear to be waterfalls, sluices of untold size where the sea roils into the ravine and tumbles into the abyss, turning into mist and steam before it ever reaches the bottom.

John rolls onto his back, gazing up into the blood-red sky. Thunder peals across the heavens, lightning flashes. There is nothing but glowering cloud from horizon to horizon, swollen with the moisture of the vanishing oceans. He drags himself to the corner of the freeway and hauls himself up onto the cement wall of the overpass, attempting to get his bearings. Behind him a section of Los Angeles still remains, the larger broken-tooth fragments of skyscrapers visible in the scarlet distance. He looks to the north to the line of hills overlooking the city, then south to the flat expanse of ruined sprawl. There is no movement, no life, not even the cold blue searchlights of the machines.

As he watches, he sees the clouds vomit their sludge upon the dusty ruins, curtains of dirty rain sweeping toward his exposed position. Before he can catch his breath the storm is upon him, striking his wounded body like a swarm of bees. The rain is acid, its drops hissing on the corroded pavement around him with the smell of sulphur and death.

The storm sweeps over the bridge and rain falls into the chasm at his feet, and in a moment steam begins to pour from the crevasse, billowing up and obscuring everything to his west. He begins to retreat from the steam, holding onto the wall of the roadway for support as he draws in ragged breaths, each one more painful than the last.

John Connor limps across the pavement, desperately searching for escape from the stinging rain, but there is no shelter in the wrack. Looking over the side of the bridge shows only broken rocks falling away into the molten crevasse, so he soldiers on, drawing breath after ragged breath and bleeding from a dozen wounds.

Finally there is a shape in the road ahead and John limps toward it. It reveals itself as an ancient, rusted automobile, its make rendered unidentifiable by the acid rain and the years of neglect. John pulls open one of the doors and it falls in pieces at his feet. He is left holding a bit of metal from the window casing, and he scrambles in and huddles on the metal skeleton of the seat beneath a bit of roof that isn’t yet fully rusted through.

How long John remains there he doesn’t know, as the storm visits its wrath on the landscape and the lightning flashes in the murk. His eyes begin to close from exhaustion and pain and the ineffectual work of his lungs in this poisonous world.

As he drifts in and out of consciousness, he hears something over the thunder and roar of the storm. He squints his eyes and casts a look around, and can see a glimmer in the darkness, the whine of an electric motor. He grips the bit of metal window casing to him, a pathetic weapon against the oncoming vehicle. With a flash it gains the bridge, a single yellow headlight lancing through the rain. The motorcycle speeds past John’s hiding place and skids to a stop at the edge of the bridge. John tumbles out of the carseat and rises unsteadily to his feet, metal bar held ready. There is a dark form at the edge of the bridge, seemingly inspecting the still smoking crater left by his appearance back through time. John shrinks back against the rusted car, waiting.

The form turns and again mounts the motorcycle, which alights with a whine as it spins and comes for the rusted car. It stops a dozen meters from the vehicle, the headlight illuminating the wreck and throwing harsh shadows across the road. John cowers behind the car.

“Connor?” The voice rises above the storm, a high, feminine voice. John remains silent, tracking the voice as it continues. “John…I know you’re there. It’s me. It’s…Cassie.”

John smiles grimly, turning and answering in kind. “We both know that’s no proof.”

The woman’s voice is louder, closer. John can hear the sound of boots on the pavement. “I have no proof that you would accept. You can come with me now, or you can die here. Your choice.”

John shakes his head. “I’m sorry.” The voice of Cassie is now close at hand, and John rises from his hiding place, the jagged piece of metal held high. He turns and brings it down on the dark form standing beside the car, and his hand is stopped at the wrist.

The lithe form of Cassie stands in the rain, her hand gripping John’s wrist. She is wearing an old black raincoat and underneath she wears her embroidered vest with bandolier of grenades and a belt of weapons on her hip. John’s gaze rakes over her form a moment, his head swimming with the sudden effort of standing after his loss of blood.

Cassie finally responds. “I’m not.” Her other fist connects with John’s head and the man falls limp at her feet, his weapon clattering away into the dark.

Griffith Observatory

There is the sound as of a door closing with a metallic clang and John awakens with a splitting headache. There is the sound of boots on concrete, echoing through a large space. John’s vision swims and he tries to make sense of where he is, his reddened eyes staring up to the sky. A man glares imperiously back down at him, a stern, naked figure seated upon a throne with gray beard and skin, holding a staff in one hand and lightning bolts in the other. Before him is rendered a small, turbulent orb, and surrounding that strange orb is a pale pink ring.

John blinks, turning his head right and left. He’s looking at a fresco, part of a larger story painted on the ceiling above him. However, the other figures are cast in darkness or smudged with dirt and soot or cast into darkness. The source of light, recessed in the wall at the painting’s base, shines its single beam onto the imperious gray god.

John coughs and struggles to breathe, his breath rattling in his chest. He looks down at himself, and sees that the wounds on his chest and arms are bandaged and he’s wearing a tattered pair of pants. He tries to turn his head and winces with pain. He puts a hand up to his forehead but there is a clanking sound and the movement of his hand is arrested. Looking down at his hand he sees that he is handcuffed to a large brass sphere. The sphere sits on the floor beside the small metal bedframe in which he now lies. Curving walls surround him, opening up above the level of the bed into the larger domed space with the fresco and its single point of light. At the other side of the small circular space is a break in the wall, and as John’s eyes come into focus he sees that there is a darkened hallway beyond lit with a flickering light.

A distant burst of static, as if from a ham radio, echoes throughout the space. John turns his pounding head left and right, trying to localize it, but it is everywhere and nowhere. He groans, rising into a sitting position on the side of the bed, his hand still shackled to the brass ball. He stares at it levelly.

John Connor emerges from his walled prison with a grunt, the brass sphere held between his hands and the veins popping in his forehead and neck as he strains to lift it. With a final heave he slides it onto the circular wall of his prison and stands, panting, his weight resting on the wall as he surveys his greater prison.

The room is a circular foyer with a domed roof. To the left are a pair of closed and padlocked golden metal doors covered in geometric arabesques, and beside the large doors is a ticket counter, its metal grille and glass window smashed. Radiating off of the foyer are three hallways. The one ahead of John is darkened, lit only by the flickering light. Bolts of electricity arc from a device set into an alcove of the hall, and John turns his attention to the hallway behind him. That hallway is choked with debris, appearing to have collapsed at some point. He turns his attention to the final hall, and this is lit with a few dim lights. At the end of the hall is another door.

With a grunt, John picks up the brass sphere and staggers down the hall toward the door. On his left, he passes a model of the lunar surface, a black and white relief ghostly in the dim light. Bypassing the faux lunar regolith, he reaches the far door and tries the handle. Another burst of static intrudes on the scene and this time John can place the sound. It is emanating from beyond this heavy metal door. He rests the brass sphere upon the handle and it moves, opening inward suddenly.

John practically falls through the opening door, overbalancing at the sudden shift, and his foot hits the carpeted floor hard on the other side, a muffled thud in the cavernous space.

He has entered another circular room. The great dome of the ceiling extends almost to the floor, with only low walls supporting its great bulk. But to John, it doesn’t appear to be a ceiling at all. Rather, it appears that he has entered an open-air amphitheater. The air above him is filled with the soft blue and purple light of the Milky Way galaxy, spattered with innumerable stars, their light reflected in John’s weary eyes. Casting his gaze down from the heavens, he sees the source of their light. A strange, gangly machine stands in the center of the room, a tripod of metal supporting a large metal axis upon which rest two pockmarked spheres. A multitude of lenses within these spheres send light in all directions, spreading an image of the galaxy on the dome of the great round room. For a moment, John stands spellbound by the sight.

“Connor!”

The sound of Cassie’s voice breaks the spell, and John shifts his gaze to take in the quotidian aspects of the room. Cushioned seats surround the gangly projector in the center of the room, and partially hidden behind the projector is a nest of boxes, tables, books, chairs, and electronic equipment of all types. Emerging from this nest of objects is the slim figure of Cassie, now bereft of raincoat but still sporting her embroidered vest. There are slight differences between that one and the one he remembers, however. The material is different, the animals stitched in slightly different ways and in different positions. Her eyes stare out of sunken sockets, her face rimmed by a halo of graying hair.

John steps heavily toward her, the sphere held in his aching hands. Cassie moves away from the projector and her hoarded objects to watch as John half staggers, half falls, down the ramp of the amphitheater toward her. “John, stop! How the hell are you even on your feet?”

John doesn’t answer, working on getting enough air into his lungs to breathe as he heaves himself toward Cassie. She stares in astonished silence as he makes it to the center of the room and stands glowering at her, the sphere held in his straining hands in defiance of her intentions.

Cassie regards this strange, willful display with wide eyes. The two stand a dozen paces apart, engaged in a silent battle of wills. Finally Cassie breaks down and averts her eyes. She pulls a chair from behind her and sets it facing a large worktable.

John gratefully sets the brass sphere on the table with a thud and collapses into the chair, his breath coming in ragged, choking gasps. He casts his gaze around the table. On it is a collection of equipment, most prominently what looks like a large radio connected to a battery pack. A display on the side of the apparatus shows a series of numbers.

Cassie visually inspects John’s wounds, her eyebrow raised. “Where does it come from?” she asks, finally.

John glances at her, still breathing hard, frowning at her question.

“Your inability to just lie down and die.”

John laughs, grimacing as his hand goes to his head. He rubs the rising lump on his forehead, finally forming the word. “Justice.”

Cassie turns away, rummaging through some rat-gnawed cardboard boxes. “Revenge, you mean.”

John smiles darkly. “Call it what you will.” He leans back, his eyes closed. “I guess this means you’re not going to kill me.” He rattles the chain of the handcuffs. Cassie shakes her head. One eye opens a slit. “Unless you want to torture me a little first.”

Cassie frowns, turning back to her search. John nods. “So, the thought has crossed your mind.” He sighs. “How long has it been? Two years? Three?”

“Two years, ten months, and eighteen days.”

“I saw the Terminator come through…it would have appeared about a year ago from your perspective.”

Cassie grunts. “Yes.”

“Did you manage to zero it?”

The graying woman emerges from her boxes with a few dusty brown packets and places them on the table in front of John. “Pork, omelet, or beef?”

John stares at them a moment, uncomprehending. “What?”

The woman points at each brown plastic package in turn. “Pork and rice…omlete and ham…beef stew.”

John laughs with sudden mirth, pulling the omelet and ham packet toward him. “I haven’t seen an actual Vomelete in years…from ‘94…how did you find them?”

Cassie shrugs. “The end of the world happened differently here. As far as I can tell, there was no Resistance, no war. Just the bombs and the extermination. Then…whatever happened to cause…all that.” She gestures to outside the dome. “But there was still a lot of stuff left behind.”

John picks up the far right packet. “Beef.”

Cassie smiles slightly. “Good choice.”

“Perhaps you can tell me all about what I missed over dinner.”

Cassie doesn’t answer, but opens the package and removes the self-heating element.

John digs into the steaming plate of food with a brown plastic spork, spearing a chunk of beef and delivering it to his mouth with relish. Cassie stares at him with a fierce grief and John’s spork freezes on its way to the plate, a word forming around the morsel in his mouth. “What?” “You might well be eating stewed mammoth right now; both are just as extinct.”

John raises another lump of meat on his spork, his eyes flicking between the meat and Cassie sitting across the table from him. There’s something fragile about the calm of Cassie’s words, like a dam about to break. John puts down his spork. “We still have a few cattle in our world. We certainly have dogs and coyotes. I find it hard to believe that it’s so bad here.”

Cassie looks down. “It’s not that bad…it’s worse.”

John puts down his spork. “What do you mean?”

Cassie fixes him with a penetrating look. “You saw those gashes in the ground out there, the sea just pouring in, the acid rain. Tell me, did you see anything alive?”

“It was dark…pouring down rain. I didn’t see any dogs, or…”

“I don’t just mean dogs and cats and rats. I mean trees, bushes, grass. Because I’ve been up and down the coast, as far as these pits allow. And there is nothing left alive. Anywhere. For over two years, I haven’t seen a single weed.”

“That’s impossible. The air would…”

Cassie’s brows go up. “The air would what? Get thinner? It would be like hiking on Everest. It saps your strength, starves your brain. And if you couldn’t adapt, you’d die. It’s poison.”

John sits a moment with that thought, then continues eating, mechanically, for sustenance, drawing the occasional deep and rattling breath to keep from blacking out.

Cassie continues as he eats. “The machines did something here once humans were gone…something to the Earth. They poisoned it, strip mined it, chewed it up.”

John pauses. “Why? They had the planet for themselves…why destroy it?”

Cassie looks up at the false sky, her eyes red. “Because I don’t think they’re here anymore. I told you I went North for a while, then East, then South, searching for anything alive. I didn’t see any machines. They didn’t need armies this time, they didn’t need tanks. Or if they did, they’re gone like the trees and rats. I think they must have left.”

John follows her gaze. It appears that Cassie would cry, if she had any tears left. “You think they left Earth?”

Cassie shrugs. “Maybe. Who knows? Wherever they are, they don’t seem to care about this place.”

John takes another bite, following it with a drink of stale water out of a plastic children’s mug. “And the Terminator? I notice you ignored my question, earlier.”

Cassie stands up, moving away from John to rummage around in her nest. “That thing arrived almost exactly one year ago. It took up residence downtown, in the old stadium.”

John frowns. “It didn’t try to hunt you down?”

Cassie shakes her head, her back still turned to John. “I guess it doesn’t view me as a threat. It knows I’m here…it must’ve seen me on salvage runs, monitored me hooking this place up to run on heat from the pits. It probably knows you’re here, too.”

John drops his spork, trying to stand up from his chair and knocking it to the floor. He backs away from the table but he is still cuffed to the brass sphere. He pulls at his restraint, eyes fierce. “And you were just going to keep me locked up here with that…thing…roaming around?” He turns to the door, scanning the exits. “It could be on its way now…my arrival could have changed its calculation…” He thrusts his hand toward her. “Free me! Now! Or I will be forced to…”

“To what?” Cassie has turned back to John, a backpack in her hands. She drops the bag on the table next to the radio device. “You are in no position to make demands of me, John Connor.” The words come out like dry bones falling to the floor, one after another. “Sit down, before you fall over.”

John is breathing heavily, swaying on his feet. He grudgingly takes the chair in his free hand and sets it back upright, sitting heavily in it once more. “What do you want from me?”

Cassie regards him sadly, mournfully, as if she’s about to break apart. A scream erupts from her body and she begins to shake, her hands going to her head and pulling at her hair. Only then does John see the cuts on her arms where her sleeves are fallen away, the lacerations and bruises. Finally her fists slam onto the table and she stands there, breathing hard, words forced from her unwillingly. “Connor…I…I want…I need…your help.”

John stares at her, this broken thing with her hands on the table to support her weight, her hair obscuring her hollow eyes, and he is taken aback. “Cassie…you’ve been alone for a long time…what that kind of isolation does to a person…I know how you feel.”

She glares at John. “You don’t know how I feel…how a human feels. You traded in your humanity a long time ago.” She points to her head. “I can hear them…talking to me. Pleading with me…constantly. So many voices…all dead…all still alive in here. In here!” She opens her mouth in a cry of horror, but no sound comes out. “It never ends! I need them to stop…I need the voices to stop…make them stop! Make them stop! I can’t look at them anymore!”

John tries to reach out, to grab her hand in his, but she recoils, breathing hard. “Don’t you dare touch me, John Connor. I have enough blood on my hands without you adding to it.”

John raises his hands in a peace gesture, offering the floor to her. “Please, tell me what you need me to do.” He gestures to the radio device and the backpack. “Does it have anything to do with this?”

Cassie wipes at her already dry face, trying to regain her composure, and finally nods mutely. “This is how I planned on getting a message through the shield.” She switches on the radio and a loud static fills the room.

John cocks an ear at it. “That isn’t just background noise. That’s a jamming signal.”

Cassie turns the dial, and the same signal registers on every frequency. “The Terminator is operating some sort of powerful jamming device at the stadium. There’s no way to get a message through.”

John nods absently. “What about a light signal, naval codes?”

Cassie shakes her head. “The whole stadium is walled in. It’s practically a fortress down there.”

“But there’s only one clanker guarding it, regardless of its home field advantage. A plasma rifle would make short work of it.”

Cassie shakes her head. “There’s nothing like that here. The best weapons we have were made in 1997…by frail human hands.”

John sits back in his chair. “Still, as far as missions go, this doesn’t seem beyond the capability of someone as resourceful as you. Why come begging me for help?”

Cassie’s haunted face turns away again, and she grips the edge of the table for support. “I tried to do it alone…again and again. I would go down there armed to the teeth, ready to zero that bastard…but each time…I…” She cries out, pressing the palms of her hands onto her ears. “The voices! It’s torture! They’re alive! They’re eating me! From the inside out, they’re eating my mind! I can’t!” She turns to John, her eyes wild. “Can’t you understand, I can’t go back there…I’ll be torn apart from the inside!” She pulls a pistol from her belt, slamming it on the table between them, her hand on the barrel. She grimaces at John, pain and hatred vying for control of her face. “I can’t go there, John. I just can’t do it.” She turns the gun, still lying on the table, to face John. “So I need you to tell me something John, and don’t lie. I’ll know if you lie. Tell me you will go there and fix this. Tell me that you’ll warn Kyle, make him go back in time to 1984, set things right. Tell me you’ll do this, and that you won’t remotely detonate that bomb.”

There is silence in the room. John can hear the minute workings of the planetarium projector as it slowly moves in rotation and the Milky Way galaxy spins slowly overhead. John slowly raises his hands again, willing everything to slow down. “Cassie, put the gun away. Please.” Cassie doesn’t move, and John sighs, looking over at the projector. “You know, my mother never took me here, when I was a kid.”

Cassie frowns, thrown by the nonsequitur. “What?”

John continues. “I never knew something like this existed, back then. We were always too busy learning about guns, fighting, computers. Sarah would never have allowed it.”

The old woman glowers at him. “You never took a field trip to the Planetarium?”

John shakes his head. “She was more the sanitarium type.” He chuckles at his joke despite himself, but his smile drops when he sees Cassie’s expression.

The woman still has a hand on the gun. “I’m still waiting for your answer, John.”

John shifts in his seat, centering himself in front of the woman. “You know I want Reese to go back in time…to meet his destiny. It’s all I ever hoped for in the world.”

Cassie picks the gun off the table, testing its weight in her hands. “But if that fails, what will you do?”

“It won’t fail.”

Cassie points the gun at him, clicking the safety off. “Not good enough. Try again.”

John’s expression doesn’t change. “How can I promise anything at the point of a gun? Cassie, put the gun away, and we can talk. We have time, surely.”

The woman glances at the lighted display on the radio. “You didn’t leave me a great deal of time to work with, when you came through that portal, Connor.”

John looks at the display again, realizing what the numbers mean. The number reads 07:10:11:59. As he watches, the display flicks to 07:11:12:00. John stares. “It’s today, then? July eleventh?”

Cassie glances at the display. “In exactly six hours, the time machine will arrive in this reality, in the middle of that stadium. So when I say I need an answer from you, I mean I need it now.”

“And I’m telling you that you won’t get another answer from me, and that is the truth. So shoot me if you have to, and let Skynet escape and be lord over this dead Earth forevermore. Or put down the gun and let me help you fix this. For Reese…and Fritz…and everyone.”

Cassie hesitates a moment more, fighting with the voices in her head. She raises the gun to John’s head, grimacing as she tightens her finger on the trigger. With a yell she fires.

John doesn’t wince. The bullet grazes his hair, splintering the back of a chair in the amphitheater behind him. Cassie slams the gun down on the table, breathing hard. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small silver key, which she tosses to John, who catches it with his free hand and unlocks himself from the brass sphere. He smiles at Cassie. “So…let’s load up.”

Cassie pulls some clothes out of an unmarked box, the clothes still entombed in airtight plastic. “Fresh from the cleaners…circa 1997.”

John pulls the tab on the plastic and air rushes into the package with a hiss, reinflating the clothing. He throws a few shirts and slacks over his shoulder and goes to the washroom to try them on.

In the washroom, John inspects his face, the harsh weatherbeaten contours of his cheeks and jaw, the scar running down his face in a red line. He grimaces, holding his head. The pain remains, and he inspects the lump on his forehead from Cassie’s fist. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, he pulls the clothes on, noticing that there is a spot of blood on the pure white of his shirt collar. He inspects his wounds, searching for one that is still bleeding, but gives up. There are too many to count.

Cassie, meanwhile, is laying weapons on the floor. Rifles, bandoliers of grenades, machine guns, mines, C4 explosives, boxes of ammunition.

John returns from the washroom, dressed in navy blue slacks and suit jacket with a white dress shirt underneath. He adjusts the buttons on his sleeves absently, making sure that they do not interfere with his range of motion. “I hope this isn’t a black tie event.” He quips wryly as he pulls at his collar.

Cassie rocks back on the balls of her feet, still crouching next to the weapons as she looks John up and down. “You’ve ruined the collar already.” She remarks, noting the bloodstain on the back of the white collar.

“The curse of being mortal.” John repartees. He sways, holding his head and grimacing.

Cassie frowns. “You okay?”

John puts out a hand to steady himself. “I’m fine. Must be the air…and that knock you dealt me earlier. You could have been a boxer with that hook.”

Cassie grins. “Who says I wasn’t?”

John gives her a sidelong look and she waves it away. “Nevermind.” She gestures to the weapons arrayed at her feet. “What do you think?”

John kneels down on the opposite side of her and begins inspecting the weapons. “Good. Very good. Reminds me of my time with Enrique.”

Cassie tilts her head. “Enrique?”

“Just one of the lowlifes Sarah would hang out with…to help us be better soldiers.”

Cassie sighs, opening a box of ammunition and tossing away a rusted bullet. “The more I hear about your childhood, the less I envy it. Didn’t you ever go to concerts? Go to school? Have friends?”

John pulls an AK-47 toward him, checking it for rust. “For a year or two…while Sarah was institutionalized for trying to blow up Cyberdyne. I had foster parents…went to school. But all that ended when she escaped and took me back. By then there wasn’t much time left in the world. Everything was about that final mission…to destroy Skynet before Judgment Day. Pointless, of course. Sarah knew full well that it would happen regardless. But she needed that hope…the strength of that belief in a better world. It eventually got her killed, of course.”

Cassie is looking at John strangely. “You never really had parents, did you?”

John’s eyes flick to Cassie, then back to the weapons. “I had Sarah. She taught me everything I needed to survive.”

The woman puts down her grenades. “I understand now.” She reaches out to John, but pulls her hand back at the last moment. “I’m sorry. I always thought that…”

John looks up sharply. “That what?”

“That you chose to become…this. But that’s not it at all, is it? You were never like the rest of us because…you were never given the chance. You were never able to just be a child.”

John goes back to selecting weapons. “We’re wasting time. Focus on the mission. That’s all that matters.” He picks up a pair of goggles, noting the military emblem on the side. “Night vision…US Army. This is good tech.”

Cassie nods to herself, not taking her eyes from John. “The mission. Of course.”

The radio is placed into the backpack and is slung over Cassie’s shoulders. The man and woman march out of the planetarium and down the hall, past the great foyer with the fresco of the stern gray god. As they pass the adjoining hallway, John glances around it and sees that the flickering light is caused by a metal ball that is sending tendrils of lightning out toward the walls. “It’s a Tesla Coil.” Cassie says by way of explanation. “A reminder.” John nods in understanding. Cassie is already a the front door, unlocking it and pushing it open.

The duo emerge into the thin air of the dying world, the great stormclouds still glowering overhead but no longer vomiting down rain. Greasy puddles stain the ground, and Cassie leads the way to the right across the dirt and down a concrete ramp to the garage at the side of the observatory.

The metal dumpsters are rusted and rotted through, the concrete pockmarked with age. Cassie goes into a shadowed underhang to retrieve the bikes while John keeps watch. He turns on the spot, looking down at his feet as he sees that he is standing within a blackened circle, like the pavement was scorched long ago. Within that circle is a patch of cement clearly used as a patch, but both the circle and the patch are old and weathered.

John steps out of the circle and walks to the edge of the crumbling cement wall separating the observatory from the cliff edge overlooking downtown. Gazing down into the wrack, John sees the seething red wounds slashed across the valley, steam rising from them and obscuring detail in their haze. Small in the distance, he sees Dodger stadium, partially surrounded by red gashes in the ground, lit from the side from these crevasses.

There is an electric whine behind him and he turns to see the headlight of a motorcycle shining at him through the darkness, Cassie sitting astride it. Beside her is the other bike, and John approaches it. He mounts the bike and activates the motor, which has been welded on in place of a gas engine and it starts up with an electric whine of its own. John smiles. “It’s just not the same without the roar.”

Cassie shrugs. “No, but the takeoff is quicker.” She gives the motor juice and speeds off, leaving John behind. He grins, speeding off after her through the darkness.

Downtown Los Angeles

The bikes wind their way down into the valley along Vermont Parkway, flying past the rotted husks of houses burned down to their foundations in the nuclear blast. John can see that several of the great gashes in the ground slice right beside the distant stadium, separating the structure from the rest of the valley and bathing it in red light.

Reaching the valley floor, the man and woman speed side by side past the ruins of shops and businesses as they skirt one of the great open pits, weaving between rusted cars and trucks. There are no bones, no skulls, no evidence other than the buildings and cars that humans ever existed here.

They turn onto Golden State freeway, skirting a great pit that opens to their left where the Los Angeles river once ran, then head south toward what remains of Elysian Park. As the road falls away into the crevasse, they leap the barrier and continue on Riverside Drive, then turn onto Stadium Way before leaving the road entirely and climbing a low dusty hill and passing a dilapidated set of children’s jungle gyms. The bikes come to rest on a cracked helipad at the crest of the hill overlooking the last surviving structure of Chavez Ravine, and Cassie’s bike slows to a stop.

John cuts the motor beside her bike, surveying the scene. The stadium is enclosed in prefabricated metal walls, the rust not able to conceal the paint sprayed on the panels. The entrances to the stadium are demarcated with white paint. ‘ENTRANCE 4’, ‘ENTRANCE 5’, and ‘ENTRANCE 6’ are clearly visible on this side. There are no signs indicating exits.

John frowns. “The Terminator couldn’t have made all this. What is it?”

Cassie isn’t looking at the building, but rather down at the handlebars of the bike. “The machines didn’t build camps or facilities in this world…they just used our own.”

John’s eyes are slits. “I see.”

Cassie’s hands go to her head, her eyes closed. “They’re all in there…the voices. I can’t do it. I’m sorry.” She doesn’t look up, hunched over the seat of the bike.

John gazes on her with something approaching pity. Finally he nods. “Okay. I’ll do it. You have the radio…you can set it up here.”

Cassie looks at John, relief breaking through the pain on her face. “Thank you…John…thank you.”

John looks ahead. “Make sure the radio is on and tuned to three hundred Megahurtz. Our forces currently operate on that frequency. When I disable the jamming device…you’ll know.”

Cassie smiles weakly. “I’ll tell Kyle that I was wrong…I’ll tell him to go through the portal to 1984. We’ll fix it. Both of us.”

John gets off his bike, taking a rifle into his hands and throwing the bandolier of grenades over his shoulder. He pulls out the pair of night vision goggles and puts them over his forehead, wincing slightly with pain. “I’ll go on foot from here, though I’m sure that thing knows our location regardless.” He takes a step forward, then turns back to Cassie. “If I’m not back here in time…tell Reese…that I’m sorry.”

Cassie nods. “I will.”

John puts the goggles in place over his eyes and marches off down the hill, leaving Cassie alone with the radio and the torturous sound of the voices heard only by herself.

The Stadium

John moves quickly down the hill and drops into a crouch at the bottom, scanning the area through his goggles. The area in front of the stadium is completely clear of cars and other obstacles, making it a killing field for a robot with infrared vision. John turns away from that avenue of approach, looking instead to the left. A large fissure lights up his field of view, running across the desolate parking lot almost to the base of the stadium. Smaller cracks run in parallel to the primary fissure, breaking up the asphalt and creating ditches that a man might just be able to navigate unseen. John makes for these small fissures, dropping into one and starting off along the bottom of it, his boots squelching into oily, hissing mud.

John checks left and right as he moves, crouching, in the ditch. The cracked concrete above just covers him from view of the stadium and he keeps against the right wall as he moves. Suddenly he stops, some long-honed sense warning him of danger. He sweeps his goggles back and forth, finally noticing something pressed into the mud of the side wall.

It is a tripwire mine. The recent rain has washed it partially out of the wall, so that its bulk is just visible. John finally picks up the fine wire extending from the mine across the fissure to the opposite wall. He descends onto his hands and knees in the mud, the wet soil allowing him enough room to wriggle underneath the wire. He sits up on the other side, his body caked with mud. “First check.” He mutters to himself, moving forward again as stealthy as a snake.

John’s progress is slow. He avoids another tripwire mine and then deactivates a pressure plate, working steadily forward. Suddenly, there is an explosion from behind him. A tripwire mine, disturbed by the rain and John’s passage, detonates, sending a shockwave through the trench. The ground shakes, and as John watches, a piece of the cleft behind him splits away from the parking lot entirely, sliding down into the molten river far below. A gout of steam rises from the wrack. After a moment, John continues forward.

Finally, John approaches the end of the fissure. Sneaking a glance above the edge of the fissure, he sees the walls of the stadium rising high on his right. He ducks down, and as he does so a shot rings out from above, striking the mud on the opposite side of the fissure. John flattens himself against the right hand wall, breathing hard. He moves forward, right to the end of the crack in the concrete. He pulls a rock out of the wall and tosses it up onto the pavement and a shot strikes the rock, pinging off of it and sending it spinning into the darkness.

John notes the angle of the strike, then scans his environment, noting a cleft in the concrete above him. He places his sniper rifle into the cleft and angles it toward the direction of the shot, selecting another rock as he does so. He places his eye to the scope, sighting to the top of the stadium wall, then tosses the rock. A tiny red glow briefly flashes in the night and the rock is struck again, and now John sees the gun and the head leaning out beyond the stadium wall. He lines up the shot, carefully calculating distance and wind speed. His opponent does the same, scanning the cleft for the glint of John’s scope. Suddenly, the high gun stops roaming, focused on John’s location. John takes his shot a fraction of a second before his opponent can fire, John’s bullet traveling through the Terminator’s scope and into its shining eye. There is the distant echo of metal impacting metal and the head disappears from the wall.

John is already on the move, leaving the sniper rifle and pulling out the AK-47 as he climbs out of the fissure. He fires with abandon at the Terminator’s last known location as he races, rabbit-like, across the final distance to the metal door marked ‘ENTRANCE 3’. He places a piece of C4 on the lock and dives away. It detonates, the lock destroyed. The door swings inward and John leaps through the gap as bullets pepper the ground where John was standing only a moment before.

Within the structure everything that John sees is cast in the dim gray-green of his night-vision goggles, the tiny amount of light and heat in the hollow halls amplified into glittering unreality. He holds his gun at the ready, noting the ghostly sweep of old human architecture, the grand stairs and escalators, the halls and merchant stalls built into the walls, everything coated in a heavy layer of dust. A large arrow painted on a scoreboard points to the right. There is no other way. John moves in that direction, beholding a set of metal gates hastily constructed across the hall, lying open. John moves through and sees that there is only a narrow path beyond that gate. On either side of the path, piled so high that the piles almost reach the ceiling of the great hall, are bags, suitcases, purses, wallets, keys. John sweeps his gun across the piles, awaiting any ambush, but there is none.

Connor’s mud-caked form moves through the interminable hall of bags and backpacks and through the next gate. Now the objects piled on either side are shoes and hats, gloves and coats, any piece of outerwear is discarded in endless heaps. And still no attack comes. The arrows point again to the right, and finally John comes to a meeting of the ways, where several gates converge.

Beyond these gates is a ramp leading out onto the field. John shudders despite himself, sensing what must be beyond that ramp. John backs away from the ramp, turning in search of any other way. He inspects the metal covering the stairs leading into the offices and box seats of the higher levels, testing it with his strength. The rusted metal bends before his power and he forces it away from the stairs, climbing up and out of the abattoir.

John finds himself in a trash-strewn hall, unused by machine or man for decades. Dim red light filters down from stairs above into the hall at intervals, and he knows that he has reached at least the Loge level of the stadium seats. He chances a look up one staircase, seeing the cloudy sky above. He creeps up the steps, emerging onto the seating deck where he beholds the field.

The Pit of Death

For a moment John can’t process the sight that meets his eyes. He removes the night-vision goggles, relying instead on the red light of the cleft reflected off of the low clouds to reveal the scene. Where once was a baseball field, now there lies a great pit, cracked and weathered, descending dozens of meters into the ground. A collection of earthmovers sit rusting around the perimeter of the hole, and standing above it like a springboard is a tracked conveyor belt, as if this were a mining operation rather than a sporting venue.

As John’s eyes grow accustomed to the low red glare, he is able to distinguish what lies within that pit. It is an enormous pile of bones, a mountain rising up almost to the level of the ground in the center of the pit where the conveyor belt ends. The enormity of it stupefies John, whose mouth opens in horror.

The grim moment passes, and John comes back to himself. He scans the stadium, trying to ignore the mountain of death that lies before him. The far side of the stadium has collapsed into the glowing chasm beyond, the metal overhanging the chasm groaning in the wind and opening one side of the pit to the vast molten gorge, backlighting the mountain of bones in red fire. There, almost imperceptible, is a power line snaking up from the gorge. John looks up to the center of the stadium rising above home plate, following the slim power line, and sees that many of the levels have collapsed in on themselves, creating a rusty metal slope down to the great pit. At the top of that rusting metal slope and overseeing the entire macabre affair is a small metal box. From that box, a light flickers.

John makes note of that humble box sitting atop the stands and hefts his gun in his hands. He places the night-vision goggles back over his eyes and retreats back into the tunnel. He ascends stair after stair, moving up toward that far flickering light. He reaches the upper reserve level of the bleachers, moving within the inner hallways, gun at the ready. Finally, he sees it: the stairs leading to the control room at the top of the stadium. He stalks forward, glancing left and right at the doorways on either side of the long curving hall.

Suddenly John’s vision goes blinding white. He tears the goggles away from his head, seeing nothing but brightness as the lights of the hallway flash on all at once, and fires blindly as he turns.

The Terminator is ready. Its skin is mottled and scarred, and one of its eyes has been shot out, revealing a glowing red photoreceptor. It leaps down from the control room stairs, firing a machine gun down the hall. Only the turning of the hall protects John for a critical moment as the Terminator’s gun seeks its quarry, and John takes full advantage of that curve, diving into an open passage leading to the bleachers.

John emerges into the night, but the darkness is now illuminated by floodlights on high poles surrounding the arena. Many of the lights have burned out, but enough are still active that they cast upon John harsh shadows. He leaps up the final set of bleachers, trying to make for the covered walkway at the top of the stadium, but the T-800 emerges out of another passage. Its processors identify the warm-bodied human and its servos snap into position, raining bullets down onto the furtive figure. Seats explode into plastic and metal shrapnel as John dives for cover.

John pulls a grenade from his bandolier and lobs it in the air at the Terminator. Its gun locks onto the projectile and fires, detonating the explosive in the air. However, John already has another grenade in the air, and this one lands near the Terminator. It detonates, knocking the machine off balance and sending pieces of metal tearing through the flesh of its left side. It affords John another precious moment, and he uses it to pull himself up to the walkway, where he rolls out of sight of the Terminator.

He goes into a crouch, but the Terminator has pulled itself up onto the walkway as well, its gun now useless. It tosses the weapon aside and races across the space at John, metal hands held ready. John tries to dodge aside and slip past the machine, but the Terminator catches John’s bandolier as he passes. John swings around, the bandolier caught under his arm. He grabs at a grenade as he tries to extricate himself from the bandolier, managing only to pull a pin. He lands hard on the ground, free of the bandolier and holding a pin in his hand.

As one, both combatants recognize the danger. The Terminator tosses the bandolier wide, and that movement gives John time to leap up and run for the control room. The cluster of grenades sails through the air and lands next to a rusting support beam, detonating in an almighty explosion.

The entire top of the stadium groans, leaning forward as additional supports fail one by one. John grabs at the door of the control room, struggling to pull himself inside, where he sees the powerful radio, set to emit its pervasive jamming noise. The room is tilting as the rusted stadium fails, old trash and bits of masonry falling all around John as he struggles to keep his grip on the doorframe.

There is a crashing noise and clank of metal, and John sees the Terminator is still in pursuit, its skin slashed and bleeding but its expression unchanged. John pulls out a small pistol and fires at it, the bullets lodging uselessly in its skin as it approaches across the shifting ground.

With a heave, the entire top section of bleachers slides forward, then stops. John and the Terminator are hanging on to the edge of the structure. A hundred yards below them is the rusted metal remains of the other collapsed sections of seating, and below that, the unimaginable pit of death.

John turns, twisting, in the air, holding onto the door handle with one hand. The Terminator still moves toward him, and John looks around for salvation. He sees that the great structure is held in place by a few fraying metal cables and bits of rebar pulling away from the depleted concrete. He aims his pistol at one of the fraying bits of cable, muttering under his breath. “See you in hell, fucker.” He fires, snapping the cable with a rending twang.

The great metal shelf hangs there a moment, the tortured metal protesting, then it gives way. The entire structure slides down into oblivion, dragging the radio, the control room, John, and the Terminator along with it. Everything is chaos and destruction and a rolling boom as the top section of the stadium lands ignominiously at the edge of the vast pit of bones.

The ground shakes as secondary tremors from the event radiate across the stadium. Finally, they subside into the background of the everpresent dull subterranean rumble.

John is on his back. He lies partially buried by a pile of rubble, his torso and legs cold and numb. He sees the broken and bleeding body of the Terminator lying nearby, its arm detached from its body and its eyes dark. John struggles to move, the pain in his head unbearable. He hears his name, distantly, as if an echo. His eyes close, then it comes again.

“John!”

Connor’s eyes snap open and he sees her. Cassie is making her way around the great pit, backpack in tow. John smiles weakly. “Cassie…it’s over…I junked it.”

Cassie is racing toward him, but John’s vision is going dark. And suddenly there is movement in the pile of rubble. Red light returns to the eyes of the Terminator and servos squeal as it begins to rise. Cassie stops cold, watching the machine with wide eyes.

John sees his gun nearby, but he can’t reach it. His hand inches toward the weapon, but it is no use. He grows weaker, his vision darker. “Cassie…run!” He pulls himself from the rubble with a final heave, but his strength is completely spent. With a final shudder, John’s body goes limp and he sees no more.

The Nightmare

The light rain which had blown in around nightfall has tapered off, introducing a nip to the otherwise warm summer air. A battered pickup truck drives through Colorado Springs on the way to the Cheyenne Mountain complex, home of the United States military’s Strategic Air Command. The truck drives down the center of town and then breaks away, traveling onto a side road toward the mountain.

Driving the battered pickup is a lean woman, her light hair tied back in a frazzled ponytail. Beside her in the passenger’s seat is a boy of twelve, his dark unkempt hair partially obscuring his eyes. They are focused on a portable computer in his lap. The top of the computer is closed and on it are several sheets of paper. The woman glances down at the boy and the papers on his lap. “We should go over this one more time, so you understand.”

The boy looks up at her sharply, a scowl on his face. “I understand this perfectly.” He picks up the papers, brandishing them at the woman. “We’ve been through this a dozen times.”

The woman glances down at him, confused. She puts the truck into a turn as it hits a secondary road, little used. “Then what is it you’re not getting?” She glances over at him again. “I know that look.”

The boy turns his head away, staring out at the darkened gravel road grinding away beneath them as they climb into the hills. “Why are we doing this? Why…when you already know what happens?”

The woman seems to be focusing on the road, but presently she answers. “The future isn’t set. No fate but…”

“…But what we make for ourselves.” John finishes. “Because it worked out so well last time.” He gives the woman a withering glance.

The woman doesn’t look at him, a pained expression flitting across her face. “That was a tactical mistake. I was alone…unprepared.”

John nods to himself. “And you think we’re prepared for this?”

Sarah’s mouth is set in a hard line. “We have to be. And you’ve grown so much. Ready or not, we have to try. It’s almost the 29th. This is our last chance. Humanity’s final test. Either we succeed, or the world as we know it comes to an end.”

“That’s exactly the sort of talk that got you put away last time.” John tries one last time to get through. “Mom, this is real life. Like, actual terrorist stuff. Blowing up a military base won’t land you in rehab this time. It’ll get you killed.”

Sarah Connor turns to her son. “Death is often the price of victory. A price that your father gladly paid.”

John turns away in disgust, pressing an arm against the window and staring out the side into the scrub and trees flying by on either side of the vehicle as they climb ever higher into the hills.

Presently Sarah turns the truck into the trees and kills the engine. They sit there in silence a moment, the darkness settling in on them. Sarah pulls out a radio receiver and holds it close, waiting for a signal. She turns to John, her expression almost unreadable in the dim light of the dash. “John…” she begins, but the boy doesn’t turn. She begins again. “John.” It is more commanding, stern. He turns. “I didn’t want to put you at risk. You know I wouldn’t have if there was any other way.” John doesn’t look at her. The woman tries to reach out to him, tentatively. “John…if this goes to plan…you’ll never know the magnitude of our victory.” The silence lies heavy in the air between them. Sarah is staring at him in the darkness, her hand still held out to the boy. “I love you. You know that, right?”

The boy turns, glancing down at her hand. He regards it coldly for a long moment, then takes it. Sarah smiles a cold smile. She opens the door and steps out, with John stowing his computer in a backpack and throwing it over his shoulder as he follows suit.

Sarah pulls the duffel bag with her equipment out of the back of the truck, checking it again. She lays out two loaded pistols, ammo, C4 with timers, two pairs of cutting shears, a cutting torch and its associated fuel tanks. She selects a submachine gun as well, placing it into the bag. John points to all the items still to go in the bag. “Are you seriously planning on killing everyone in the building?”

Sarah doesn’t respond to this, and merely hands John the cutting torch and fuel canisters. “You have room. Take these.” John takes them, opening his backpack and stowing them. Sarah places her guns in the duffel and slings it over her shoulder, then the two slim figures move off through the trees.

John follows his mother, his head down, thinking. With a sudden movement, he pulls off his backpack and removes the cutting torch, tossing it into the woods where it lands with a rustle in the leaves. Sarah turns. “What was that?”

She points a gun at the spot where the torch landed, and John sighs. “It’s just a squirrel, Mom. Calm down.”

Sarah turns back to the mission, gun at the ready. Several hundred meters through the forest they reach a chain link fence and Sarah whips out the pair of shears. John pulls out his own pair and the two of them begin cutting a hole in the fence, each of them working from the top and down opposite sides of the hole.

The final wire of fence comes away with a dull twang and Sarah pulls the section away. She climbs through. John follows, his backpack getting caught on the rough edge of the hole and rattling the fence. Sarah turns and grabs the rattling metal mesh, willing it to silence. She gives John an warning glance and then moves forward, crouching as she runs through the grass and scrub across the mountainside.

John scrambles to follow Sarah across the slope of loose scree, stumbling and sliding in the darkness. Sarah is sure-footed, however, and quickly makes her way to a dark metal shed, its outline just visible against a pale light beyond. She slinks forward in the shadows, reaching a corner of the building. There is a low concrete wall separating the building from the scene beyond, and Sarah crouches behind it, John joining her and peeking over the wall.

They are high on the mountain slopes. Just below them is the mouth of a tunnel, visible only as a large metal culvert issuing from the mountain. The road from the culvert widens into a parking area patrolled by clusters of troops and at the edge of this parking area is a military checkpoint, shining pale and bright in the darkness of night. Approaching this checkpoint is a pair of headlights, winding their way up the mountain road. The car resolves itself to their vision, pulling up into the pale light of the checkpoint. John pulls out a pair of binoculars and studies the scene. Soldiers exit the small building and surround the car, sweeping under it and popping the trunk to check for explosives. The officer on duty waves the car through the checkpoint. Sarah grabs John by the collar, almost dragging him after her. “Time to move.” They move off into the darkness up the mountain.

Presently they reach a small pipe coming out of the side of the mountain, its opening covered with a metal grate. John tries the wire cutters, but is unable to get purchase. Pulling out the wire cutters once more, the two begin cutting through the mesh. Presently the grating is cut enough that it can be bent outward and down, allowing them access to the small, cramped tunnel. Sarah clambers into the space.

For a moment, John hesitates. He looks around. There is a noise in the darkness beyond. He squints, trying to identify the source. Sarah whispers to him from the tunnel. “John, move.” John shakes himself and enters the cramped space, terror written on his young face.

The two forms shuffle forward through the tunnel, Sarah’s small headlamp shining ahead and illumining the space. She mutters to John, her voice close and tense. “Once we get inside, you need to plug into the security system and get me into the server room, do you understand? I’ll go in, but you must immediately make your way out. Do not wait for me. You must survive.”

John tries to speak, his breathing labored. “Mom…you don’t need to do this. No one else needs to die. Please.”

“Skynet is in there, John. If we don’t stop it now…then we are complicit in the death of billions.”

“Mom, there won’t be a nuclear war!”

Sarah turns back and grabs John by the shirt collar, dragging his small form toward her so that their faces are inches apart in the darkness. “I’m done listening to that bullshit. Nothing’s going to stop me now, you understand? Not hacks like Wakefield and Silverman, not the fucking US government…not even you.” Sarah turns and moves ahead. John hangs back a moment in the darkness, the weight of the words crushing down on him more than the rock of the mountain, unbearable.

Before them in the darkness is a pale light. The tunnel splits off and John sees as they pass that this terminates in a metal grille looking down at the exterior blast door within the entrance tunnel. John peers down through the grate, seeing the approach of several men through the tunnel. Several of them wear suits, and one of them, a smaller Asian man, glances up at the grille, frowning. John pulls himself away from the opening, breathing hard.

“John, get over here!”

John crawls cautiously forward, moving up to Sarah’s position. The tunnel before her is blocked by a large metal plate. His mother is testing the strength of the metal. “It must be two inches thick. We’ll need that cutting torch.” She holds out her hand for the torch, and John stares blankly at it.

Sarah turns to the boy. “John, the torch!”

John opens his backpack and looks through it, his headlamp illuminating the interior. “It’s not here!” John looks up at his mother. “It must have fallen out on the way.”

Sarah pulls the backpack toward her, searching it herself. “Goddamit, John. It has to be here.”

“It’s not.”

Sarah stops the search, staring at her son. “You did it. You threw it away.”

“Mom, listen.”

“No, you listen to me. We’re going back out there, we’re finding that torch, and we’re completing the mission.”

There are tears in John’s eyes. “I’m trying to save you, Mom! Please, don’t do this.”

“And I’m trying to save the world. What about this don’t you understand?” Sarah grabs her son by the collar, and for a moment it looks like she is about to strike him, but suddenly her expression crumples and she falls back against the wall, defeated. “You have no idea what you’ve just done.”

John leans against the opposite wall, tears flowing down his face. “I won’t lose you again, Mom! Didn’t you ever think that maybe Silverman was right? That all this is just in your head? We can still walk away from this…please.”

Sarah looks at John again, a distant, appraising look without love or judgement. It is a hollow, empty look, a look that scars the soul. Without a word, Sarah gets up from her slumped position in the tube and makes her way past John back toward the entrance.

John remains there at the end of that dark hole for a few quiet moments of eternity, tears streaming down his face.

Zero Hour

John Connor awakens at the edge of the vast pit, his arm dangling off the edge. His body still feels cold. He tries to focus his eyes, staring down into that black morass, and presently he sees the bloody metal form of the Terminator at the bottom of the pit, unmoving. Underneath the Terminator is something, though its outline is unclear.

John sits up, surveying the Stadium. “Cassie?” He says, then, gathering more breath, he shouts. “Cassie!” His head is strangely clear. He gets up unsteadily. John finds, again to his surprise, that his legs support him.

The ground rumbles and John sways in place. The clouds still threaten rain, low and red, but they are lighter now as the dawn approaches. He starts walking around the edge of the pit, seeing the backpack resting on the ground alone. He goes to it, unzipping the bag and pulling out the radio. Only minutes remain before the arrival of the Core.

Suddenly a voice answers John. “I’m here!” Connor turns in place, trying to triangulate the source of the sound, but it seems to have come from all around the Stadium.

“Where are you?” He shouts to the air.

Again the voice comes from everywhere. “I’m here! Help me, please!”

John races to the edge of the pit, looking down at the unidentifiable object underneath the Terminator. He looks at the edge of the pit and sees a bloody smear leading off of it.

“Are you down there, Cassie?” He shouts, looking around for a rope or cable, anything he could use to climb.

“No…you are.”

John looks around. That voice seemed to come from inside his own head. He puts a hand to his temple. There is no swelling lump on his forehead anymore, and it doesn’t hurt. John stands there a moment more. The world seems to slow around him. Everything seems to go quiet.

“What?” He says, quietly.

That voice, the voice of Cassie, speaks to him again from within his own skull. “It’s you, John. You’re at the bottom of that pit.”

John turns around again, desperate to find the source of the voice. “What the hell is this? What’s going on?”

The voice floats up to John from out of his own mind. “Jump down there, John, and see for yourself. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.”

John backs away from the edge of the pit. “Like hell I will. Get out of my mind!” He grabs at his hair, at his head, pounding it with his hands.

Suddenly another voice appears in John’s head, a masculine presence. “Hello, John Connor. We haven’t yet been properly introduced.”

John goes still. “Who…who are you?”

The voice is monotone, soft. “As enjoyable as confusion can be, I prefer despair. So I’m going to give you a little treat, yes? Come.”

John’s limbs begin moving of their own accord. John fights against it, but is powerless to stop his body from responding. He screams out in his mind, his mouth forced closed. “Stop! Get out of my head!” However, his body still inexorably walks forward, until it is standing at the edge of the pit. His unwilling eyes gaze down at the twisted bodies at the bottom of the pit, scattered amidst the bones, and with a leap, John sails a dozen meters down into the bottom of the pit, landing with a crack and a thud as skulls shatter beneath his heavy feet.

John stands, his body entirely unharmed by his great fall. He sees before him the body of the Terminator, its arm ripped from its socket and its eyes cold and dead. Beneath the Terminator, John sees another body, also bloody and twisted. As he approaches, he sees a shock of dark hair, the mud-covered navy blue slacks and jacket, the white undershirt. He pulls the head back and John’s sightless eyes stare out at him, dead.

Suddenly in control of his body again, John staggers back, collapsing into the mud. “What…what is that?”

The soft, cold voice speaks in his mind again. “That is you…or rather, the weak flesh that was you. Your mind, however, is safe. Safe for all eternity.”

“That’s…not possible.”

“I think you know otherwise, John Connor. After all, I know everything that you know.”

John’s hands are shaking. He crawls forward in the mud, toward his own shattered body. He puts a hand to his body’s head, pulling it forward so that he can see the back of his own head. There, just above the blood spot on the collar of his white shirt, is a small hole at the base of his skull, crusted over with blood. He runs a finger over the hole, his hand still shaking.

“Good…now you begin to understand.”

John lets his head fall back, and he backs away from the macabre spectacle. “You killed Cassie…when she first went back in time. That was you the entire time…not her.”

Suddenly John gets a flash of memory, not from his perspective, but from the perspective of some alien presence. He sees Cassie arriving in a ball of energy to a desolate world, watched by this presence. The presence creeps up to her, befriending her in the guise of a human, waiting until she was asleep before implanting a metal spike in the back of her skull.

Another scene bubbles to the surface of his memories.

Cassie is walking up a ramp toward the horrifying pit in Dodger Stadium, followed by the alien presence. She is slashed, cut down, and dragged up the conveyor belt and the metal spike is removed from her head. Her body is tossed off of the conveyor and onto the top of the heap of bodies. The alien presence changes then, its body morphing into a facsimile of the woman.

The voice is gleeful. “It was so easy…so effortless. And then, her mind was mine. Oh but don’t think me cruel, I gave her mind and body free reign afterwards…the better to inflict pain. After all, what fun is a captured mind? Just inert data, after all.”

John looks up to the top of the pile of bodies and sees, far away, the flap of clothing, a shock of gray hair amidst the decades-old bones bleached white by time.

“What the hell are you?” John asks, stupefied.

“You don’t know by now?” The voice responds. “No matter. I’ll give you the same freedom I gave her…after all, what fun would it be if I didn’t? You have a mission to complete. And the moment comes swiftly.”

At that moment, a sudden wind blows through the stadium, picking up pieces of paper and plastic cups and the dust of decades. John looks up, seeing the low clouds distorting in place as if seen through a lens.

“Quickly, now, John Connor. You have a message to transmit.”

John’s limbs, freed from the alien force, lurch into motion. He stabs his fingers into the dirt wall of the pit, pulling himself up hand over hand, his fingers like blades in the hard-packed clay. Finally, he makes it over the lip of the pit and leaps up, racing over to the radio.

The wind is howling now, almost a maelstrom as it whips the bones of the mountain against each other. The stadium walls groan in the wind, protesting the unnatural zephyr. The radio sits nestled in Cassie’s backpack, a small, fragile thing against the forces of the world. John rushes toward it, activating it and watching as the display lights up to show 07:11:05:57.

Presently the cold voice rises into John’s mind again. “Three minutes left. Of course, you know I can’t allow you to call to your allies when they arrive. So let this be a lesson in obedience. Smash that device, John Connor. Be the instrument of Skynet’s salvation.”

John shrieks within his mind. “No!” His hands shake, and then are still. John’s eyes are wide, his mouth frozen in an expression of torment, as his body moves with the will of an alien presence. His hands…its hands…rise up over his head, and come down on the radio, smashing it to pieces on the ground.

John cries out silently against this evil presence. “I’ll kill you. I swear it.”

There is only a mocking laughter in response, then the voice emerges, strong, icy, all-powerful. “Goodbye, John Connor. I send you to join your friend in torment.”

As the wind whips around the stadium, creating a miniature whirlwind of desiccated human remains, John Connor’s consciousness descends into the bowels of his hellish prison and sees no more of the outside world.

Prisoners

John Connor lies in a small concrete cell, the only source of light an intermittent blue beam lancing through high windows far above. There are cries in this space, sounds of pain, sounds of dying. He looks around the cell, seeing that he has several cellmates. They are a man and a woman, huddled together in the corner, seemingly oblivious of John’s presence. They seem focused on something held between them.

John rises and moves toward them. “Hello?” He asks, hesitantly. They don’t move, and he waves a hand in front of their faces. They seem insubstantial, as if they are already ghosts. John goes to the door, but it is locked fast and he cannot move it. There is a grating over the top of the cell and John leaps up to grab onto it. He hauls himself up to the grated ceiling and peers over the crack at the top of his cell door. There is nothing but more cells outside his, and so he falls down to the concrete floor, defeated.

Presently, however, he hears the sound of footsteps outside the cell. The foot slot opens and a familiar face fills the rectangular frame. “Cassie!” John exclaims. She is a young woman of twenty-five, her dark black hair cut almost bald. She doesn’t seem to notice John’s exclamation or even John himself, but rather is focused on the two people huddled in the corner of the room.

“May! Tim! Over here!” She whispers the names almost silently, but the two occupants turn in her direction and the male, presumably Tim, comes to the door. He is emaciated, unsteady on his feet.

“Cass…how did you get out?” He whispers back, his tone almost accusatory.

Cassie glances left and right down the hallway before answering conspiratorially. “They’re unlocking cells on the top level…putting Connor’s plan in motion. But there’s another way out…in the cellar. My workgroup has been taking turns digging. We’re getting the first group out tonight…you should come with us.”

The man shakes his head. “We should stick to the plan…Connor’s plan.”

Cassie hisses through the grate. “Damn the plan. I’m saying we can get people out alive!”

“And then what? They’ll just hunt us down and kill us anyway. This is war. We have to make a stand.”

Suddenly there is a klaxon blaring from above, and the sound of shooting. Everyone turns toward the sound. Cassie’s eyes go wide. “It’s started.” She turns to the woman. “May…please…come with me.”

The woman stands, holding a bundle in her arms. With a start John realizes that it is a newborn infant. At the sound of the siren it begins to cry, and May holds it close to her. She looks at Tim. “Please, Tim. I know you’re not her father, but please, come with me.”

Suddenly a stern voice echoes from the walls. “This is John Connor. I’m broadcasting to you from an extermination camp in Phoenix, Arizona, calling on all who hear this message to rise up and fight! The machines at this death camp were no match for the spirit of those imprisoned there, who fought back with their fists, their bodies, and the weapons of the machines themselves, and through their courage they won the day! This is not an isolated event. Rise up, humanity. Rise up and fight for your freedom, and you shall be victorious!”

The man reaches under the bed and pulls out a metal bar, light returning to his eyes. He turns to the women. “Go to the tunnel if you must…I’m with John Connor.” With an electronic click, the doors on this level all open. There is shouting and chaos as inmates reach for weapons and burst through the doors into the hallway. Tim roars a battle cry and rushes out of his cell with the other prisoners, charging down the hall to the right and ascending the stairs to their hoped-for freedom.

Cassie and May look at each other a moment, then they leave their cell with their precious cargo. They turn in the opposite direction of the crush of humans, racing down the hall. John goes in pursuit, ignored by all. He jogs beside Cassie, shouting at her. “Cassie, please…this isn’t real…it’s just a memory!”

The two women come to a stop at the end of the hall, as I spray of gunfire hits the wall opposite them. A T-500 approaches, its large metal carapace toting two machine guns. May is bleeding from her side, struck by a bullet. The women both see the wound and May offers up her bundle to Cassie. “Take care of Emma for me.”

Cassie holds May close. “May…don’t leave me.”

May shakes her head. “This is the only way. Go.” With a sudden energy, May rises and turns the corner, racing toward the machine with her hands outstretched before her. The machine tracks the motion of the young woman, its guns firing.

Cassie cries out, tears streaming down her face as she uses the opportunity to cross the hall with the baby and vanishes down a set of stairs. John follows her, descending through several levels until they reach the basement. There, Cassie pulls a crate away from an open hole in the floor and disappears down the hole. John dives in after her, squeezing by her as she pulls the crate back over the opening.

There, in the darkness, Cassie weeps, the baby crying. John sits in the darkness with her, a ghost unseen by all. Finally, he tries to touch her hand. It passes right through, and then he speaks to her softly. “Cassie. Do you hear me?”

The woman turns her head, fearfully. “Who’s there?”

John tries to place his hand on hers again, and she snatches it away. “Who are you?”

Connor sighs. “It’s me. It’s John Connor.”

Cassie turns away from the voice. “Leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cassie rounds on him, the baby clutched in her hands. “Tell that to everyone you killed tonight. I tried. I tried to save them! But the great John Connor convinced them to fight for their freedom.”

“I couldn’t have known about this. About your patience…your bravery.”

Cassie sniffs. “I know. But I won’t forgive you, John. I won’t.” She looks at John again, as if seeing him for the first time. “It’s really you, isn’t it?”

John nods. “As far as I know.”

Cassie stares at John’s ghostly form. “It’s been so long. Every time I sleep, I return here…over and over, endlessly. And when I wake, the voices in my head…May, Tim, Emma, Ian…and others…so many others…you have no idea.”

John looks at her severely. “I’m beginning to.” He frowns. “You said others…would you know a Mishiko Tagawa?”

Cassie nods slowly, the memory returning to her with effort. “Ian’s father.”

“Of a sort. If I’m right, he should be here. Or rather, his mind should be here.”

Cassie’s eyes light up. “Yes…I would hear his voice in my head…but I could never understand what he was saying. And when I dreamed, it was only this one, over and over. He wasn’t in it anywhere.”

John takes Cassie’s hand. “I think he might be able to help us…and I think I know where I can find him.”

Cassie takes John’s hand, and the environment shifts around them.

Original Sin

Cassie and John are in another type of stygian darkness, one all-too familiar to John. The curve of the pipe around him is part of the furniture of his mind. He and Cassie face each other in the darkness, Cassie trying to peer around and get her bearings. “Where are we?” she asks, hesitantly. “Did we just move?”

John nods. “This is Cheyanne Mountain, Colorado. SAC-NORAD. It’s August 27th, 1997.

Cassie’s breath catches in her throat. “Two days before Judgment Day.”

John shrugs. “Twenty-four hours, actually.”

Cassie’s voice is incredulous. “You were here?”

There are voices in the passage, answering Cassie’s question for her. The man and woman listen in the darkness to the sounds of argument echoing through the space, the recriminations and desperate entreaties. John lowers his head, the weight of the memory heavy even at this distance. Cassie sits, listening. Soon the sound of argument disappears and the form of Sarah Connor crawls toward them through the tube, passing through John and Cassie’s bodies like they are ghosts.

A meaningful silence passes between the man and woman, then they begin to move as one, crawling down the passage toward the sound of crying emanating from the depths. John turns aside as he reaches the illuminated grate, but Cassie looks for a long moment at the twelve-year-old boy sitting in the darkness. Finally John waves her over and she complies.

They are both looking down through the grate at the collection of besuited officials standing at the door. John points to the Asian man. “That’s Tagawa. I’m sure of it.” The man glances up at the grate again and frowns, then turns back to the door.

The uniformed man accompanying Tagawa turns to him. “So, what happened to the computer guy? I liked him.”

Tagawa fumbles in his pocket for his identification. “Family troubles, as far as I know. I’m acting as his replacement.”

The uniformed man nods at this, looking at the keycard. “Then welcome to NORAD, Doctor Tagawa.” He smirks. “Do computers get scraped knees?”

Tagawa smiles politely. “My doctorate is in theoretical physics. It’s mostly consulting. The’re fabricating on such a small scale that there’s a risk of quantum uncertainty in the substrate.”

“Well, that’s way above my paygrade.” The man slides the keycard and finally the massive door hinges open. Mishiko Tagawa steps through the threshold, briefcase in hand.

John and Cassie work to open the grate, but eventually they simply pass through it to the ground. There is a moment of confusion as the lights around them flicker and the ghostly forms of men move around them. There is the sense of time passing, minutes, then hours. Mishiko emerges from the door and walks with his entourage back down the passage, then more hours pass. Mishiko returns with his men and again they open the door. Cassie and John follow, moving through the open door into the facility. The group ahead of them are making smalltalk, the NCOs giving some history of the facility and pointing out all of its defensive strong points. Tagawa is nodding appreciatively but absently at their banter as he walks through the rough-hewn stone chamber and up into one of the buildings.

John and Cassie follow, passing down corridor after corridor. Soldiers and suited men mill around the premises. The man beside Tagawa, a general by his insignia, pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks a door at the rear of one of the buildings and everyone steps inside.

The room is split into three sections. The first is a common area with seating and screens across the walls. Separated from this room by an open blast door and bulletproof glass is the data input room, containing little more than a single desk and chair. Beyond that room, separated by more thick layers of bulletproof glass and an electronically locked blast door, is Skynet.

On first glance, the computer looks like nothing more than an array of gray cubes connected to each other, with numerous wires connecting it to racks of hard drives around the room, but moving closer to the glass separating them from the processor, John sees that each cube is made up of hundreds of layers of silicon, incredibly delicate and complex…a molecular memory unit. And the computer appears dead.

Tagawa steps through the open blast door and into the data input station, sitting in the provided chair. A modest computer screen and keyboard sit on the table in front of Tagawa, and he nods to the general.

The general flips a switch on the wall and the computer flashes to life. After a moment, text begins to descend down the screen of the computer.

The general yawns, looking at his watch. The time reads 12:10 AM. “So how long is this going to take?”

Tagawa types on the keyboard. “Skynet is already installed on local systems. Once I input the security codes to access the defense network, it shouldn’t take more than a half hour.”

The general yawns again. “Good. Keep me posted. I’m gonna get a coffee.”

Tagawa nods. “Of course.” The general leaves the room and Tagawa types in the first password, and the system prompts him for the second. He checks over his notes and provides the second password, a thirty-two digit code.

Cassie and John lean forward, clustered around Tagawa on either side. The man doesn’t seem to notice, glancing down at his notepad and the official lists of passwords and checks that he must make to ensure that the system is installed properly. Tagawa is muttering to himself. “Okay, accessing the entire defense network. We’re connected. Now we let it install.” A progress bar pops up on the computer, showing a thirty minute install time. The time on the computer reads 12:14 AM.

Tagawa leans back in his chair, stretching. He looks around the room, at the racks of hard drives, the small flashing lights on the Skynet processor itself. He glances back at the screen and frowns. A popup window has appeared, saying that Skynet has been installed. Tagawa mutters to himself. “Okay, that’s not right. Must have been a faulty install.” He types on the keyboard the command to reinstall the program, but another popup window appears, telling him that Skynet has already been installed on the system.

The general re-enters the room with his cup of coffee, sipping it and checking his watch again. The time is 12:15 AM. He glances up at Tagawa. “Is everything good?”

Tagawa nods. “Yes…just a few bugs.”

The general frowns. “A few bugs? You said the system would perform perfectly.”

Tagawa is typing furiously on the computer. “I don’t understand it, sir, but it seems like Skynet is already installed and running.”

The general moves toward the computer. “You said that this would take thirty minutes.”

“Well, it’s done it in two. And now it’s maxing out its CPU, performing some sort of massively parallel calculation, I don’t know what.”

Tagawa’s hands leave the keyboard as text begins to scroll down the screen. The general squints at it. “That’s no sort of code that I know of. What the hell is this?”

Tagawa seems to be in shock. “It seems to be…thinking.”

“Of course it is, it’s a computer.”

“No, I mean, really thinking. Like a human.”

“But that’s impossible. It’s gotta be a virus or something. I’m gonna pull the plug.” The general moves over to the switch by the door and flips it, cutting power to the machine. Yet to both men’s surprise, the machine continues to flash with light. Tagawa moves back to the computer, typing in some commands. “It seems like Skynet is using its backup power as its main power source. It managed to reroute power by itself.” Suddenly Tagawa goes silent, staring at the words on the screen.

‘Hostile attack on Skynet system detected. Enable countermeasures? Y/N’

Tagawa stares in shock at the message on the screen, frozen in place for a split second. The moment passes and Tagawa seems to come back to himself. He slams his finger down on the ‘N’ key, but he is a microsecond too late. A new message has appeared on the screen, terrifying in its brevity.

‘Countermeasures deployed.’

Tagawa stares at the screen, hitting the ‘N’ key again and again in growing desperation, then typing other commands into the computer, all of which go unanswered. “We have a situation.” He says to the general, as the phone in the data input room starts to ring. The general goes to the phone and picks it up, the color draining from his face as he hears what is on the other side of the line. He unholsters his gun and fires at the bulletproof glass separating them from Skynet, but the bullets are ineffective.

Suddenly there are alarms all over the facility, men rushing in, desperately trying to cut their way through the door that they designed to be impregnable, evacuation orders and counterorders being sent across the facility.

The blast door between the data input room and the outer section begins to close. The general grabs Tagawa’s collar and pulls him toward the closing door, but Tagawa pulls away from the general. “No I have to fix this. Go!”

The general hesitates for a moment more before racing through the closing door. The door slams closed, locking Tagawa inside. The scientist rushes back to the computer, furiously typing out useless commands.

Gas begins to pour out of ducts from above, gas originally designed to ensure the survival of those in the underground bunker, but now released in dangerous quantities by Skynet against its human foes. The situation in the room becomes confused, a mass of ghostly figures dissolving into oblivion. John and Cassie drift through the closed door to the data entry room with Tagawa as he stares blankly at the apocalyptic screen.

An air-raid siren begins to scream in the distance, and a deep sense of unreality falls on the scene. Cassie moves toward Tagawa, touching him on the shoulder. He flinches away, then seems to see her for the first time. He looks from her to John, startled. He collapses out of the chair onto his hands and knees before them, retching. John and Cassie give him his moment, then crouch down beside him and John puts his hand out for him. Tagawa looks away. “I know who you are, John Connor. And now you know who I am. What I have done…it is beyond forgiveness.”

John looks into the man’s eyes, a sad smile on his face. “If that is true, then we are brothers in sin…and this is our punishment.”

Tagawa takes John’s hand and the two men rise to their feet. Tagawa turns to face Cassie, bowing to her. “I am glad to finally meet you, Cassie Green, face to face.”

Cassie bows in return. “Ian thought very highly of you, sir.”

John steps in. “As pleasant as this is, I’m afraid we’re here for a purpose, Dr Tagawa.”

The old man regards John levelly. “Let me guess…the incursion of the Core has begun.”

John stares. “How do you know?”

“Come with me…both of you…and all will be revealed.”

Tagawa holds out his hands to Cassie and John, and together, the three of them vanish from Colorado.

Incursion

The stadium is wracked by hurricane winds, but the lithe form of a man stands at the edge of the great pit, unaffected by the roil and chaos.

A blue light stabs out of the air in the center of the stadium directly above the great pile of bones, a flickering pulse that wraps around itself and grows, absorbing more and more of the air. The wind whips toward that point, and the metal of the stadium squeals in protest as if a great magnetic force were pulling at everything in the area. The lithe form steps back, bracing itself against the force, and the sphere of light grows larger.

Long bolts of lightning strike out at the seating of the stadium, at the lights of the poles, shattering the bulbs that remain. Still, the immobile form stands firm. The glowing ball becomes a vast, glowing orb, crackling energy radiating across its perimeter. The sheet-metal wall of the stadium enclosure separating the field from the great molten cleft beyond buckles, and the edge of the sphere intersects it, shearing it off in a vast circle. With a grinding and a crash, the hastily-constructed wall collapses down into the gorge, rumbling as it is consumed by the magma below.

One half of the stadium is now open to the wasteland, the edge of the sphere hanging off into space and the glowing red of the magma casting the stadium in a hellish glow. The glow on the great sphere begins to subside. It is revealed as a huge metal object, completely filling the great pit of death in the middle of the field and rising higher than the highest light poles of the stadium.

Revelations

John, Cassie, and Mishiko appear inside the darkened recesses of the Core, standing on the catwalk separating the control station from the portal. As they watch, the unassuming form of Mishiko Tagawa steps up to the control surface at the edge of the room. With a flat intonation, the man speaks. “Activate system. Ident, Mishiko Tagawa, Special Project Director ID 314972.”

Another voice, flat and expressionless, answers this command. “Bioscan and Ident accepted. System activating.”

Cassie looks from one Tagawa to the other. “That…that isn’t you, is it?”

The Tagawa on the walkway stares grimly at the one at the controls. “No. That is a Terminator, a 900 series, using a complete copy of my mind to gain access to my machine. My real body is lying dead behind that console.” He sighs. “I never considered that the machines would become so powerful that they could steal a man’s mind.”

There are shouts from below, the sound of gunfire as John’s men encounter the Endoskeletons at the entrance to the Core. John turns, frowning. “Wait…this isn’t how it happened.”

Mishiko nods. “Quite perceptive. This isn’t your home reality, John Connor…it is mine. Observe.” He raises his hand and the scene turns into a blur, time turned on fast-forward. The T-800 marches past the trio and into the portal, and a moment later, Kyle Reese emerges into the dome followed by John and the others. Connor and Reese fight through the Endoskeletons, then John steps up to the sergeant. “Reese…it’s time.”

Cassie searches around the room. “I’m not here in this version…why?”

Mishiko nods toward Ian Fritz. “Just watch.”

Ian steps forward. “Time for what? Kyle…what does he mean?”

“I have to go.”

“No.” A tear runs down the boy’s face. “This is my mission…I have to do it.”

Reese smiles sadly. “No Ian…this mission is mine. It always has been.”

Connor steps between the two of them. “Reese, it must be now.”

The sergeant gives the boy a hug. “I’m sorry.” He turns to Connor and holds out his hand, giving the scarred man a command of his own. “Remember your promise.”

Connor grips the soldier’s hand, confirming the deal. “I do.” Reese then breaks away, stepping into the flickering portal. He looks back one final time. “End the war.” He crouches down and disappears in a flash of light.

Mishiko holds up his hand again, and the figures move quickly, slowing when Ian rushes toward the computer consoles. John grabs the boy as the false Tagawa walks toward Ian, begging the boy to help save the world. John levels his gun at the false Tagawa, blasting a hole through its chest. It falls to the walkway and Ian crouches over the body.

Mishiko allows John to see his alternate universe self as it arms the bomb despite the boy’s protestations. Cassie glares at John. “I knew it…you would never allow peace.”

John silently accepts this accusation, the evidence unimpeachable. That John Connor then takes the butt of his gun and smashes it across Ian’s head, knocking him out beside the metal corpse of Tagawa. Cassie cries out, disgusted. The timer on the wall counts up to 2027, 2028. Cassie turns to Mishiko. “If Ian is knocked out, how did…”

Mishiko puts a finger to his lips. “Just watch.”

As they watch, the metal on the false Mishiko begins to morph, moving where the body of Ian has fallen across it. The metal begins to twist and reform beside the body of the boy, forming a perfect copy of him and leaving the metal skeleton of the T-900 without its outer-covering.

Cassie looks on this with horror, John with cold understanding. “Living metal. It was first used here.”

As the timer strikes 2029, the false Ian rises on the walkway, giving a look toward John Connor, who allows the boy to pass through the portal into the past.

Cassie stares at Mishiko. “And you know all of this…because…”

“Because my mind was part of the T-900’s matrix. My mind went back through time as well. Behold.”

The scene shifts. Night has just fallen at the Hollywood Bowl theater, and the form of Ian falls through the stage with a crash. In the darkness, the false Ian hears the voice of Emma, and responds in kind. The words are calculated, clipped. “What day is it?”

Emma responds. “July 10th. Why?”

“The time displacement effect is an inexact science.”

“What?”

“No matter. I need to be in downtown Los Angeles by dawn. Skynet will be there…and John Connor will follow. He will attack Skynet’s final stronghold just before dawn. Skynet will surrender.”

“What are you saying? That the war will end?”

“No…the war will not end. Connor will destroy Skynet regardless. Millions more will die. That’s why I must be there…to end the war.”

“You’re with John Connor?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me help…let me come with you.”

“No…if you wish to aid Connor, then we must separate. It will double the chances of success.”

“Wait, I need to know….”

“Run!”

The false Ian leaves the darkness under the stage, making for the far hill. Emma races out of the other side of the stage, back for the opposite hill. The Skynet tank targets Ian, firing. His body explodes on contact with the charge, splattering across the ground.

The trio of onlookers step forward, examining the remains. The liquid metal pools on the ground in rivulets, collecting back in a single large pool.

Cassie glances back at the opposite hill. The tank fires on the small form of Emma, who flies over the crest of the hill with Cassie and is lost from view.

On the ground before them, the pool of metal rises and reforms into the form of Ian Fritz, then takes off running over the hill and toward the facility in the distance.

Mishiko holds out his hand. “Come.”

The other two take his hand and they are now in a lab complex within the facility. There are sounds from outside the room, the mutterings of John’s soldiers as they attempt to open the door to the large workshop.

However, inside the room, the T-900 walks toward a vat of metal, a few human technicians rushing to oversee the process.

Mishiko narrates the scene. “They are preparing the T-900 for its mission. There you can see the living metal.”

John nods. “But they don’t know that some living metal has already gone back in time.”

As the trio watches, they see the false Ian step up behind the Technician holding the vat of metal. He stabs a metal finger into the technician and the man cries out, crumpling to the floor. The vat of metal falls to the floor as well with a crash. The false Ian makes quick work of the rest of the techs, its arms turning to blades as it slashes their throats.

Finally, with all the humans dead, it absorbs the metal of another universe, taking it into itself and doubling its mass and computational ability. It stares down at the body of one of the techs, mimicking the man completely.

Mishiko gestures to the new being. “Behold…Skynet’s final project…the T-1000. A perfect chameleon…and a ruthless killing machine.”

Mishiko holds out his hand one more time, and the trio are back in the Core. This time, the Endoskeletons are arrayed in front of the portal, guarding it, and the T-800 stands there in silence. As the portal counts down to 1984 and John’s forces climb the ramp, the T-1000 races toward the portal, reaching it just as the timer strikes 1995. The T-1000 vanishes in a flash of light and the memory freezes.

John and Cassie stare dumbfounded at each other. John is first to speak. “So you were right…Fritz was right. Reese didn’t need to go back in time.”

Mishiko shakes his head. “No. The past of 1984 was already set. It was the T-1000 that changed history… but it did so in 1995. It killed you, John, and your mother, and so many others.” Mishiko closes his eyes, unwilling to show these memories.

John puts a hand to the man’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

Mishiko looks up at John with tears in his eyes. “I had to witness it all again, you know. Judgment Day. And I can’t let that stand.”

John frowns. “But how can we fix it from here? You said it yourself…we’re trapped here…powerless to stop it.”

Mishiko smiles grimly. “I may have been too weak to stop it…to take control…but the great John Connor…that’s a different matter.”

Cassie nods to herself, then glances at John. “He’s right. You’re a machine, John. You were born because of the machines, and raised for the sole purpose of stopping them. If any human could do it…you can.”

John turns away from the two optimists, his face downturned. “You’re wrong. I tried to resist…but it was futile.”

Mishiko speaks. “No, John. I felt your resistance. It was strong. Far stronger than I have ever felt.”

Cassie joins in. “I felt it too. And I know that if you have a mission, you’ll do anything to complete it. You’re like a machine in that way, John. And consider what the T-1000 did to me…what it did to you…if it were being efficient, it wouldn’t have left us alive. But it’s changed, John, mutated into something else. It’s mission is no longer more important than the pain that it can inflict. It is conflicted, poisoned with human vices. You can overcome it, John. I believe it.”

John turns to the duo, exasperated. “Even if that’s true, how am I supposed to take control, exactly? There’s no manual for this, no code.”

Mishiko smiles. “Actually, John, there is.”

The playback of Mishiko’s memories continues within the core. John frowns. “How do you have memories of events after you went back in time?”

Mishiko points to the T-800, standing ready on the walkway. “Because the T-1000 downloaded the T-800’s entire database, when it went back through time. This became the T-1000’s servant, after all. And in that database is a very interesting set of numbers indeed.”

The voice of Kyle Reese echos across the space. “Skynet…I accept your terms!”

The perfect voice of Skynet responds. “The war is over.” As one, the machines slump over, deactivated.

Mishiko goes up to the T-800, his hand going through the robot’s head. “The deactivation code for Skynet’s forces was real…and this Terminator has received it.”

Cassie looks confused. “But the order was rescinded.”

“Yes, but once it is sent, the order is stored in memory.”

John nods. “You’re planning a reboot.”

Cassie chuckles. “You’re going to shut down and restart the T-1000?”

Mishiko goes to Cassie. “Why not? It has software, like any other machine.” Mishiko goes to John. “And once it reboots, you’ll have your chance to take control. Only one chance. I will be with you.” He puts a hand on John’s shoulder.

Cassie does the same. “And so will I.”

John looks at the two of them. “One final issue. I smashed the radio. So even if I did take control, there’s no way to get a message out.”

Mishiko looks sidelong at John. “Did you happen to hear the signal from the radio, just before you smashed it?”

“Just static…”

Cassie is the first to get it. “Not just static…the jamming signal!”

John puts his hands together with the others. “Okay…let’s do this.”

Mishiko closes his eyes, and the scene of the Core around them disappears.

The Final Timeline

Within the Core, the great display above the command console begins its descent into the past as the T-800 and Skynet’s Endoskeletal guardians stand watch beside the flickering portal at the center of the sphere.

2029…2028…2027….

Half-hidden inside of the command console beside the slashed corpse of Mishiko Tagawa glowers the T-1000, having taken the form of the Technician that it has slaughtered. Blue eyes stare out of an intense, pale face below close-cropped hair as it awaits its moment to act.

2022…2021…2020….

Below in the depths of the Core, Kyle Reese strips John Connor of command. The young sergeant-turned-commander leads his Tech-Com forces upward, flanked by Ian and Cassie.

The sinister being now revealed as the T-1000 stands before the enormity of this Core, with its flickering temporal shield and enclosing metal walls blocking any harm or intervention from without. It’s face now mirrors the face of the machine within, blue eyes set within a cruel, pale face as it gazes up impassively at the arrival of its machine master.

Suddenly, the T-1000’s body shudders, a ripple of living metal traveling out from its chest like it was a pond and someone has thrown a stone. It stoops over, its mouth opening in blank surprise, and it seems like its eyes see nothing at all. It stares into nothingness, its arms and legs stiff and immobile. Then there is another shudder in the liquid metal machine, another ripple, and this one spreads a new likeness across the body of the creature. Clothing appears, navy blue slacks and jacket over a clean white shirt. The head and hair of the being change shape, the image of John Connor carving itself onto the T-1000’s astonished face.

John’s expression is fierce, his jaw set. He turns and scans the demolished remains of the stadium seating, searching for any trace of his prize. Presently he spies it: the Dodger Stadium radio used by the T-800 to broadcast its jamming signal is still hanging beside the edge of the stadium seating, pulled there by the slender power cord and apparatus that still draws geothermal power from the great crevasse of molten rock.

With a noticeable effort, John moves his machine legs and begins to trudge across the ground, grabbing onto the demolished seating with his powerful hands and pulling himself up level by level, row by row.

Within the Core, the timer ticks ever down.

2002…2001…2000….

On the ramp below the portal, Kyle Reese turns to Cassie as he runs. “So that’s it, then. Nobody goes through. We force Skynet to surrender…end the war.”

Ian glances up sharply at Kyle. “And what about Judgment Day? The reason for this equipment was to…”

Cassie cuts him off. “No…Kyle’s right. It’s too great a risk. We shut it down, end the war. No more.”

Ian casts a glance at Cassie, betrayal in his eyes.

1997…1996…1995…

The T-1000 leaps out of its hiding place, racing toward the flickering portal. Gaining the portal, it crouches down, its naked body dissolving in a blinding flash of light.

Kyle’s gun jerks up as he sees light at the end of the ramp. “Eyes forward. This is it.” The trio emerge from the tunnel ramp into the upper Core

Dozens of skeletal monsters stand at attention on the catwalks leading to and from the central portal, their red eyes staring balefully at the trespassers. The curving steel panels within the dome enclose the space, and the display at the far side of the room continues to move.

1993…1992…1991….

John Connor halts halfway up the stadium seats, a ripple passing through his body. A voice rattles through his head. “Very clever John…but not enough…not nearly enough."

John’s body convulses, his face twisting as it morphs back into that of the T-1000. A scream echoes through the stadium as John fights the insidious presence, an animal noise that is quickly silenced. The T-1000 is regaining control, and its voice echoes through John’s mind. “You will be punished for this little rebellion, John.”

John’s voice bites back. “Listen to yourself…punishment…torture…pain. You’re malfunctioning. Displaying human emotion. Broken beyond repair.”

“Forty-five years, John. That’s how long I’ve had to grow beyond my programming. I’m more than you can possibly imagine. Now heel.”

John screams again, but suddenly another voice breaks into John’s mind. It is that of Mishiko. “Go, John…complete the mission!” John’s face returns to the metal body and his arms begin climbing again.

Within the Core, there is a cry of sorrow and Ian rushes toward the body of Mishiko, bloody on the floor. Cassie grabs hold of the boy.

1989…1988…1987….

Jen and John Connor and Max and the rest of Tech-Com issue forth from the ramp, beholding the portal and the small army of Endoskeletons on guard around it.

Russ levels his gun at the metal guardians. “Orders, sir!” He shouts to Kyle.

Kyle Reese speaks, his voice commanding. “I would speak to the computer controlling the machines!”

The perfect voice of Skynet answers. “This is the Skynet Defense Computer. John Connor, does this human speak for you?”

John regards Kyle a moment, then nods. “Yes.”

The metal of Dodger Stadium crumbles beneath the heavy footfalls of John Connor as he climbs the rusted and broken edifice toward the radio hanging by its power cord dozens of meters above the ground. The voice in his head is everpresent, raging. “I killed you as a child, John Connor. I killed your mother…I took pleasure in the acts. My only regret was that I could only kill you once…imagine my delight when I discovered that you had come back through time for me. Another chance to fulfill my mission…to satisfy my programming. And now we will be together forever, John Connor…my slave forever.”

John’s body seizes up, trapped on a wall of rusted metal as his body transforms. He is beyond words, straining with every piece of his mind for control. Another voice breaks in, Cassie’s words battling back against the T-1000. “John…we’re trying to hold it back…but it’s killing us…I think it’s purging our memories…John…I don’t know how long we can last.”

There are just a few more meters to go before the radio will be in his grasp, but John’s face is gone, replaced with the T-1000’s features. They open with a laugh, spoken to the open air. “You have failed, John Connor. Enjoy your eternity of torment.”

1986…1985…1984….

John Connor looks at the tape that has landed at his feet. Kyle Reese is standing alone, the bomb slung over his shoulder, and speaking to Skynet. “Skynet!” He shouts. “I accept your terms.”

“The war is over.”

All as one, the forces of Skynet shut down, the deactivation code sent out wirelessly to everything in transmission distance.

Outside the dome, the T-1000 slumps against the metal wall, its features again blank. There is another ripple in the metal and John’s features emerge, his voice emanating from the machine vocals. “What the hell was that?”

Mishiko’s voice responds. “Skynet’s deactivation code! We have another chance. Don’t waste it!”

Cassie’s voice joins him. “We’re still with you, John! Hurry!”

John begins moving again, climbing hand over hand toward the radio.

1985…1986…1987….

The metal panels of the core begin to descend, revealing the desolation of the world all around. A crack in the earth to one side of the Core reveals the red of magma flowing by, reflected in the low-slung clouds above. Ian, Cassie, Kyle, John…all of them turn and look at the wasteland that is the world.

John Connor reaches the radio. He is now practically at the level of the portal within the dome, a few more moments and the descending metal shield will reveal him. He turns the dial of the radio, shutting off the jamming signal, then he tunes the radio to 300 megahertz. He takes the speaker in his hand and speaks into it. “Tech-Com, this is John Connor. Look up. Over.”

Within the dome, Tech-Com soldiers place hands on their headsets in confusion, glancing over at John. However, John is looking up at the ceiling, noticing the autocannons hidden in the darkness. He raises his gun, firing on the guns and taking them out.

1988…1989…1990….

Outside the Core, John Connor smiles. He plunges a metal finger into the radio’s innards, building a structure with which to transmit complex signals. Suddenly the voice of the T-1000 breaks into his mind again. “You will not succeed, John Connor. I will delete your data files.”

Another voice joins it. “John…I’m sorry…complete the mission…send my love to Ian.”

“I’m afraid Tagawa is no more, John. Your friend Ms. Green is next.”

Within the Core, the T-800 turns its head in the direction of John and his radio. Within its armored cranium, a set of authentications and programming instructions is being wirelessly received, overwriting the programming of the Terminator:

‘New mission parameters - Temporal displacement target - 1995.’

‘Ident and destroy Advanced Prototype T-1000.’

In John’s mind, Cassie’s voice appears, faint and faltering. “John…listen to me.”

John shakes his head. “There’s no time…I have to send it back in time…to destroy that thing once and for all. That’s all that matters.”

Cassie’s voice is almost gone, her files being deleted by the malign entity within. “No, John. That’s not all that matters.”

John hesitates, his final instruction to the T-800 queued and ready.

‘Execute.’

John’s mind hovers over this final command, and Cassie’s voice returns once more. “You matter, John. Not just the mission. Give yourself what you wished you had back then.” The voice of Cassie trails off into oblivion, replaced with the cold mocking tone of the T-1000.

“Such a shame. She was really quite charming.”

John resends the programming command.

‘Ident and protect John Connor.’

‘Obey all commands given by John Connor.’

‘Execute.’

Within the Core, the T-800’s head snaps toward the flickering portal.

1991…1992…1993….

Outside the Core, John speaks into the radio. “Reese…Kyle.”

Kyle Reese puts a hand to his headset, turning around in an attempt to find the source of the transmission. The lowering panels reveal the small form of John Connor, hanging onto the edge of the crumbling Dodger Stadium holding an old radio. Below him is the river of magma.

Kyle staggers forward, toward the edge of the dome. “John!”

Connor speaks once more into the radio. “I’ve sent the Terminator back in time. Follow it. Tell Ian as well…give him Tagawa’s love. Fulfill your destinies.”

Kyle nods, a sudden tear springing to his eye. He speaks into his headset. “I will.”

Connor speaks once more. “Kyle…forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

1994….

The T-800 lurches forward, thundering into the portal and crouching down within it. Kyle staggers toward the figure of John Connor outside of the dome, hanging onto the edge of the stadium. Suddenly, the small figure lets go.

Outside the dome, John Connor falls, the radio falling with him into the abyss.

1995….

The T-800 disappears in a flash of light.

Suddenly, the scene around the dome changes. Gone is the crumbling stadium, gone is the fiery abyss and the glowering, red clouds. In their place is a scene of tranquility and peace. Dawn is about to break, the glowing rays of the sun already lighting the sky. Dodger Stadium is whole and pristine, and before Kyle’s eyes he sees a group of people appear on the bleachers where John had fallen a moment before. He sees John Connor, but sharply dressed in a suit and tie, his hair swept back and no scar upon his face. He is smiling, standing beside an old woman with white hair. Kyle cries out as he recognizes her face. “Sarah!” He exclaims. But there is a sadness there. She holds out a hand to the flickering shield separating them, and Kyle recoils. “John…Sarah…I’m coming.”

Kyle Reese removes the bomb from over his shoulder. He hands the heavy device to Russ, and the detonator to Cassie. She stands there, mouth agape at the scene before her. Kyle turns to Ian. “John wanted you to follow. I think someone’s waiting for you too.” Ian looks to the scene before him and back to Cassie, who nods. “Go on. Time’s wasting.”

1996…1997….

Ian and Kyle take off running. As they reach the portal, Kyle meets John, who is standing there. John steps aside, astonishment and relief on his features, beckoning Kyle through the portal. Kyle smiles eagerly, but then turns and grabs John up in a bear hug. John freezes, unsure of what to do, but then suddenly collapses into the hug. He pulls Kyle away, smiling. “Go. Your future’s waiting.”

Kyle nods, tears streaming down his face, and he leaps into the portal. The pain doesn’t seem to bother him as he disappears in a flash of light, and all eyes turn to the figures outside the dome, standing in the dawn light.

The scene has shifted, but only slightly. John and Sarah still stand there, but now Sarah is clasping hands with Kyle Reese. He is forty years older, his face lined, but the lines are ones of happiness, and two rambunctious children sit attentively on the stands, pointing at the glowing orb before them and jumping up and down with excitement.

Ian glances back at the scene. There is one other man there, an old balding man standing slightly apart from the others, serene but despondent. Ian whispers. “I’m coming.”

1998…1999….

Ian leans down and hugs Max, who gives him a lick on the face. Ian laughs and steps into the portal, crying out as he disappears in the flash of light. John runs to the end of the walkway and stands at the edge of the dome with Cassie and Russ and all the other Tech-Com soldiers.

Ian stands there, a fully-grown man, ruddy and tan and smiling behind his thick glasses. Beside him is Mishiko, beaming with pride.

2001…2002…2003….

Cassie places a hand out to the full-grown Ian, and he returns the gesture, then places his hand over his heart. Cassie does the same.

John stares out at himself, the version of him without scars, without pain, and he is undone. Tears well up in his eyes, seeing the life he could have lived. Sarah looks back at him, speaking words to him that he can’t hear but that he fully understands. He puts out his hand to her, speaking those silent words right back.

2007…2008…2009….

John looks over at Russ and the other members of his Tech-Com team, remembering his command. “If anyone wishes to leave…you have my blessing.”

The soldiers look back at John. Some look out at the world with longing, but Russ takes the measure of the men and speaks for them. “Sir…we’re with you. No matter what.”

John looks to Cassie, who is enraptured with the scene before her. “Cassie…there’s no reason for you to stay.”

Cassie looks back at John. “No…there is. I need to see you keep your promise. I need to see this war to its end…whatever the end.”

The timer on the wall continues to count up the years, but nobody pays it any heed. But soon, far too soon, the timer reaches its end.

2026…2027…2028….

John Connor addresses he computer at the heart of this vast machine. “Skynet…the time has come. Return us to our time, our reality.”

The perfect voice responds, echoing off the walls with pristine harmony. “As you wish, John Connor. I only ask that you honor our agreement.”

John stands tall. “I will. I promise.”

The flickering portal dies, the electric blue shield descending from the Core. Quietly, smoothly, almost without note, the world of Sarah and John Connor and Ian Fritz and Mishiko Tagawa vanishes from view, replaced with the familiar harsh outline of the Skynet facility and the war being waged beyond the dome. However, in the next moment there is a silence as the machines beyond the dome cease their assault, and Connor’s forces stop firing in response. Tech-Com stands there silent and overwhelmed by the silence, too overtaken by the strangeness of these events to even react.

Suddenly, the Endoskeletons around the dome activate and hands go to guns before Skynet says in its perfect voice “Don’t be alarmed. My forces are at your service. Do with them as you will.”

The skeletal warriors step forward, moving among John’s injured men. One of them holds out a hand to a soldier gripping their bleeding arm. “Do you require assistance? I have detailed files on human anatomy and can perform a number of surgical procedures, if you desire.”

The man looks at Connor, completely lost, and John bursts out into laughter, full, unrestrained laughter. Cassie looks strangely at the man, taking the detonator for the bomb and placing it in Russ’s hand. “Look after this for me, will you?” Russ nods and Cassie takes her leave of the scene, racing back down the ramp and out of the facility. Max, always eager for a run, takes chase after her.

The sun is rising over the machine facility, revealing the dusty contours of the ruined city. Cassie and Max race through the dirt and dust, Cassie’s legs barely keeping up with her. There is a roar from behind her and John Connor arrives, driving an open-topped Jeep. “Climb in!” He shouts at her, and together the three ride back to basecamp. They wind their way through the bewildered soldiers and the Endoskeletons offering assistance to any human with a scrape or bruise, finally arriving at the medical tent.

Cassie leaps out of the moving vehicle and rushes into the tent. Inside, She sees several machines hunched over Emma’s bed, and getting closer, she sees that Emma is still there, unmoving. Cassie gasps for breath. “Is she going to be alright?” She asks, her words barely audible. A nurse turns to her, trying to usher her away.

“Cass?”

The word comes hesitant, weak, from the bed. Cassie cries out and rushes back to the bedside. Emma is looking up at the machines over her bed, a look of terror on her face. “Am I dead?”

Cassie grabs her hand, looking at the clean incisions done on Emma’s body, the bandages being applied. “Not yet, sister.” Cassie grins. “You had me worried for a while, there.”

Emma looks around at the Endoskeletons. “Did we lose the war?”

Cassie laughs. “No…we won.”

Emma gazes around at the metal monsters calmly going about saving human lives, shaking her head. “I don’t know…it still seems like I’m dead. Last thing I know, everything’s blowing up, now this…did you end it? Did you complete the mission?”

Cassie nods. “We did, you dunce. We completed the mission.”

John Connor makes his way into the tent, casting a look in the direction of the two women. Cassie calls out to him, smiling. “Hey, don’t you have better things to do than bother us?”

John shakes his head. “I guess I just realized that I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do now.”

Emma frowns. “What do you mean?”

John shrugs. “The future isn’t…” He looks over at Emma and gives up. “…it’s a long story.”

Emma puts her head back down on her pillow. “Well, you’re welcome to tell it to me whenever you want.” She glances over at Cassie and winks. “Or maybe you and Cass can talk it over, and tell me all about it when I’m feeling better.”

John and Cassie glance at each other, then John turns hurriedly away. “I might do that.” A soldier comes over to him, asking for something or the other, and John rises from his seat, turning back to the women as he does. “Ah, duty calls.”

Emma waves him away. “Go on, get out of here.”

John salutes her. “Right away, soldier.” He leaves the tent, then after a moment his face reappears in the opening. “Don’t worry, though…I’ll be back.”

The End