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