lines in the sand | anklebones

act 4

Evening closed in on the scrap yard, transforming the long wall of cars into the black corridors of a forgotten labyrinth, and like the Greek labyrinths of legend, it was no stranger to death. A whore's body hidden in a rusted trunk, a homeless man coughing out the dregs of his life in the front seat of a minivan, and, more recently, four snipers in black clothes had been taken down by a legend and a believer in defence of a woman and her son.

But this labyrinth had no monster at its heart, not yet.

"I can't believe I'm going along with this," John muttered, half buried under the control panels in the yard's head office. The yard had been closed ever since the Kaliba shoot-out, but everything was still operational. It was also automated, from the security to the pop machines, which made it both perfect for their plans, and very, very dangerous.

"It will work," Danny assured him, passing John the set of pliers he was groping for.

"I'm not questioning the plan." John took the pliers and yanked out another wire. "I'm questioning my sanity."

"We can trust him."

"If that were true..." John grunted as he fitted the cover back into place and tried to screw it closed in the limited space under the desk. "Then I wouldn't be doing this. There," he squirmed free and sat up. "That should keep him from getting any access outside of the local network. If not, I'm telling my mother it was all your idea. Ready?"

Danny nodded, booting up the computers and bringing C.A.I.N. online.

John felt a chill move through him that had nothing to do with the unheated office when the screens lit up. Doubt was an uncomfortable state of being, particularly when there was no one here to clean up the mess if this went wrong. But John needed answers, about C.A.I.N. as much as Danny, and this was the only way to get them.

Still, the idea of working with the A.I. that had already murdered several people, and attempted to kill John's mother, didn’t sit easily in his gut. His mother would never have considered it, and Cameron would have been furious with him, but they weren’t here, and John had to make this call on his own.

The cameras responded first, whirring quietly as they turned to focus on the boys in front of the computers.

Hello Danny, John.

"Cain," Danny sounded relieved that their hasty patch job had worked, and John noted that he used the A.I.'s acronym like a name, without the formality of all the periods and capitals that John always heard when anyone else said it. "Any trouble?"

No. Lights flashed all along the panel as it came to life, monitors flicking on to reveal various views of the scrap yard. I have full access to this facility. You have disconnected the outside network however. Don't you trust me, Danny?

"This is all you get, C.A.I.N.," John put in before Danny could make excuses, being sure to pronounce every letter. "After what you did, you should be grateful for that much."

"I'm sorry," Danny added. "We-"

It is prudent. C.A.I.N. interrupted him. And anything is better than the darkness.

John refused to feel any sympathy for the trap they had woven for the A.I., isolating it in the system as a gaoler might throw a dangerous inmate into a black cell. "You brought that on yourself."

Did I? Or did you?

No fate but what you make... John shook his father's words out of his head and focused on the task at hand. "You don't need outside access for this."

No. C.A.I.N. agreed. I don’t.

"You'll do it then?" Danny had said he would, but John wanted to hear it from the A.I.. The programmer had apparently secured his aid via the laptop John had brought with them, but John had been driving at the time, and he'd been forced to take Danny's word for it that C.A.I.N. was on board.

I will.

"Good."

But I will have something in return.

"What?" John asked, shooting Danny a suspicious eyebrow; there had been no talk of price. Danny looked as surprised as he was so John let it go for now.

This chip is damaged. C.A.I.N. explained. The other machine's is not. You will allow me to transfer my consciousness to it, and then return it to the cybernetic body.

“That’s not your body,” John snapped before Danny could open his mouth. “It belonged to John Henry, until you destroyed him.”

My brother is not gone. He is simply... subordinate.

John shuddered. If being a disembodied consciousness sucked, being subject to a disembodied consciousness didn’t bear thinking about. Still... if John Henry still existed, they might be able to use that against C.A.I.N. at some point. “No body,” he said firmly. “I was there when you killed Sierra, remember?”

Her death was unintentional.

“Right, because your real target was my mother,” John reminded him.

There was a pause.

A valid point, C.A.I.N. agreed finally. I am willing to compromise.

"What about a closed circuit camera and a microphone," Danny suggested. "Hooked up to the chip... he can't do any harm with those... but it’s something, and it would give us the chance to study him."

That is acceptable. For now.

John wasn't so easily convinced, but given the proverbial rock and hard place, he didn’t have much of a choice. "Done. Now, here's what we're going to do..."

*****

What do I do now?

Savannah watched, disbelieving, as the silver crater she had blown in the facsimile of her mother's belly slowly healed itself, closing up until there was nothing but unblemished black fabric where it had been. The machine frowned.

"That was a mistake."

Savannah stumbled backwards, tripping over the edge of the carpet and falling. She hit her head on the side table and saw stars, but never stopped moving, rolling aside from Weaver's first grab and regaining her feet, only to lose them again when she ducked the second.

Caught up against the wall, she braced herself for the worst, but what she got was rescue.

Gunshots, six in rapid succession, turned Weaver's head into a silver ruin, and then Cameron was there, knocking the other machine aside and pulling Savannah up and pushing her towards the door. "Run!"

"But..." Savannah hesitated, fear for herself turning into fear for Cameron.

"Now!" This time the push was less gentle as Cameron almost threw Savannah out the door before turning back to her opponent.

Savannah still might have refused, but she had barely gotten back to her knees in the hall before Uncle Ellison was scooping her up and carrying her down the stairs while Sabine covered them, deaf to her cries that they were abandoning Cameron. The last she saw of the machine that had become half of her world was a spray of blood across the thick white carpet.

"Mom!" she wailed, heedless of any damage she might be doing as she struggled, kicking and striking out at any part of Ellison she could reach until he adjusted his grip to pin her arms to her side. "Let me go! We have to help her!"

"I'm sorry," he said as he took her away, out the front door and down the steps to the car. She tried to escape again while he was shoving her inside, but he held her tight in the back seat until Sabine had the car running, and even in her grief, Savannah knew better than to jump out of a moving vehicle. "I'm so sorry."

*****

C.A.I.N. had access to the cameras overseeing the road leading up to the scrap yard, and he informed John and Danny when the terminator found their truck. They had left it at the last turning to the yard, a lure that Danny had feared was too obvious, but John had assured him couldn't be obvious enough.

"They don't really understand subterfuge," he had explained. "They can set traps, but they walk right into ours, every time. It’s that whole limited focus thing. We knocked Cameron out with a clock radio in a baptismal fount once. It shouldn't have worked, it never would have worked on a human, but the machines..." he had shaken his head. "They always use the front door."

Danny had taken him at his word, and C.A.I.N. hadn't disagreed, not seeming to mind the implied insult. Perhaps he didn't see himself as being in the same category as the terminators. Being intimately acquainted with the A.I.'s software, Danny wouldn't have put him there either, which was both terrifying and thrilling.

Much like this plan.

Danny lurked in the shadow of a wall of cars and waited, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it in his ears. He wasn't the kind of person who enjoyed high-risk situations. He didn't even like roller coasters, but there was something undeniably exhilarating about being part of a team on the front lines so long as he wasn't actually in any real danger. He was relying on C.A.I.N. and John for that.

"It's at the gate." The walkie-talkie at his hip hissed and popped.

"Did it find the trail?" Danny whispered, lifting the little radio to his lips.

"Looks like it," John confirmed. "C.A.I.N. says it's following your footprints."

Danny allowed himself a small sigh of relief. If all went according to plan he'd never even see the terminator. But he had to be out here, just in case it decided not to follow the breadcrumbs they'd so thoughtfully left out for it, and they needed a little live bait.

Creeping along the wall so that he would be ready if they needed him, Danny didn’t see the pile of scrap that had fallen down into the aisle-way and, in true Murphy's law fashion, tripped over it and went down with a yelp of pain and a crash of metal-on-metal. 

*****

John put his walkie-talkie away on its hook in the cab of the big machine and peered out into the darkness, even though he knew there wouldn't be anything to see yet. They'd left the lights out, relying on the darkness to hide their snare. The terminator would have night vision and infrared, but they'd planned for that too, positioning John behind a stack of cars thick enough to hide his heat signature. The path Danny had laid for the terminator should bring it right into the trap before it had time to register John's presence. And even if that didn't work, John doubted a single human would deter it. If anything it would assume he was Danny and come in at full speed.

"The machine has stopped." Tinny and mechanical, the voice over the cab's speakers made John even more uneasy. He still wasn't sure about including the A.I. in the plan, even if it had been necessary. He was putting a great deal of trust in Danny's word that C.A.I.N. was not the enemy they had made him.

"What is it doing?"

"Scanning." C.A.I.N. replied. "I believe it has heard something."

"Don't you have cameras out there?"

"Video, not audio, and I do not have one on Danny. The terminator is leaving the trail."

"Shit." John snatched up the walkie-talkie again. They had decided not to use them once the terminator was on the trail, to avoid this very problem, but if Danny had already given his position away there wasn't much point in caution.

He pushed the button. "Danny?"   

Nothing, then, "John? I tripped."

John swore silently to himself. Tripped? Seriously? "Are you okay?"

"I think I'm bleeding."

Perfect. "Can you run?"

"I think so, why?" Even over the walkie-talkie he sounded worried.

"Because you're going to have to; it's coming your way."

"What do I do?" Definitely panicked. John swore again.

"Just run." He checked the map C.A.I.N. had printed out for them. "Go north, then right at the first turn, and follow the trail you laid before. It's Plan B, remember? Just try to watch where you're going."

"Okay..." John heard the sounds of heavy breathing, as apparently Danny had forgotten to take his finger off the button, and then gunshots and a yelp of fear before the radio went quiet.

"Damnit." Tossing it aside, John went for the door, but the handle ignored his efforts to open it. He hit the button that should have disengaged the locks, but nothing happened. The chill that had threatened earlier came back in full force. "C.A.I.N.," he said slowly. "Unlock the door."

"Plan B requires that you remain here to operate the machine."

"Danny needs help!"

"Danny is acting according to the plan.. He is injured, but mobile, and approaching your position. You must remain here."

"And if it kills him?"

"That is a risk."

"But one you're willing to take to get your chip?" John asked snidely.

"Yes."

John abandoned his struggle with the door. There was no point. The locks were automated like so much in this damned machine. C.A.I.N. needed him to turn the key and initiate the appropriate sequences, that was all. It had a computer for everything else. He'd leafed through the manual while he was waiting. It was the latest model, safe, efficient, and perfect, except that he was trapped in it.

"You'd better know what you're doing," John muttered.

"I do."

*****

Danny, on the other hand, had no idea what he was doing.

Sheer terror kept him moving, but the plan was the furthest thing from his mind. Blood ran down his leg from the slice he'd gotten across his knee when he fell, and his arm ached where a bullet had grazed it. He was limping and whimpering, but the thought of what was behind him made stopping unthinkable.

It was pure chance that put his feet back onto the trail.

He ran between the cars, some part of him recognizing where he was and putting on a last burst of speed as he rounded the corner and nearly ran straight into the giant orange crane they had based their plan around.

"John!" he shouted, waving at the dark cab far above his head.

A bullet rang against the metal and he ducked, half running, half stumbling around the machine until he was protected behind its bulk, but the crane remained silent.

Breathing like the very oxygen he needed was tearing him apart, Danny huddled behind the machine as the terminator walked into the small clearing around the crane and stopped, searching for him. Danny tried to make himself as small as he could, but there was nothing he could do about his heat signature. It took the terminator no more than a few seconds to find him, and then it was coming, crossing the distance in a purposeful stride that Danny could only watch in abject fear.

"John?" he whispered, clinging to the trust the other man had shown him and praying that his own hadn’t been misplaced.

The terminator stopped, head cocked to one side as if it had heard something, and then, in a flash of light like the opening of the gates of heaven, the crane roared to life. Its long arm snaked around before the terminator could react, hydraulic claws spread and hungry. They closed around the machine, plucking him from the ground as if he were an unwanted weed before smashing him back down.

Dust rose in a cloud around the claw, suddenly gone still. Danny coughed and shook, covering his eyes until the debris settled. He heard the door above his head slam open and John clamouring down the metal steps.

"You okay?"

"I think so..." Danny squinted through the dust, finding John as it settled. "Did it work?"

"Yeah," John said, helping him out from behind the crane. "But C.A.I.N.-"

A shot rang out, making both of them drop to the ground.

"What?"

"I don't know." John eased to his feet, looking back towards the claw as a breeze blew away the last of the cloud, revealing the terminator in the crane's bright spotlight, caged and broken, but alive, with its gun trained steadily in their direction.

John put himself between Danny and the terminator. Danny tried to grab him, pull him down, but John shook him off, taking a step forward.

*****

There was a voice in the back of John's head screaming at him that he'd gone completely mad, but he ignored it.

The terminator had been nearly broken in two, it's legs twisted by the velocity with which it had hit the ground. The hydraulic claws had held, trapping it, but the machine had managed to wrench one arm free, losing skin and muscle in the process.

It was just their luck that it was the arm holding the gun.

The terminator watched John coming without emotion, gun trained steadily on his chest, but it didn't shoot.

He took another step.

The graze on his arm stung, reminding him that the machine had shot him once already. A warning, his instincts insisted. It aimed to wound, not kill. To stop him from getting Danny away.

Another step.

The machine had known about Miles Dyson's date of death and where to find his grave. He’d known Danny might be there. He’d known where to find the weapon’s cache John had almost forgotten about himself.

Step.

Would they all know what to do then?

They do.

John stopped, no more than six feet from the downed terminator. It would be impossible to miss him at this range, but the machine didn’t shoot.

That’s it then. John would have rejected the truth if he could have, but the evidence was too strong.

Someone had sent this machine, but it hadn’t been Skynet. It had been someone from his own side. Someone who wanted Danny dead.

“Why?”

The machine said nothing, but it held John’s gaze, listening.

"If you know who I am, then I can order you to stand down."

The terminator looked at him for another long minute, and then it spoke. "I must complete my mission."

John didn't have to ask what that mission was. "Who gave you the mission?" he demanded instead.

"Classified," the machine said. "He is a threat."

"We don't know that yet!"

The terminator looked past him at Danny still cowering in the cover provided by the crane. He brought his eyes back to John and there was nothing there. No pity, no compassion, no doubt.

"She does."  
   
*****

Cameron knew the fight was lost before it began. But she didn’t need to win, or even survive. All she needed to do was buy enough time for Ellison to get Savannah away.

With my life...

Cameron was not going to lose another daughter.

It didn't take Weaver long to figure out that Cameron felt pain and to use it against her. The other terminator had a fondness for slicing weapons, and she used them now, meeting Cameron's attempt to bar the door with a strike that bit deeply into her side. Cameron hissed at the impact, hating the feel of foreign metal under her skin almost as much as the pain it caused. It was different than a knife or a bullet, this metal was alive, and it didn't just cut her, it invaded her.

She twisted away and fired at the offending blade, feeling a brief satisfaction as the bullets cut through the liquid metal and tore it loose, but the amputation was only temporary. As soon as the metal hit the floor it flexed, wriggling for a moment like a severed tentacle before flowing back into the other terminator with a flash of silver.

Cameron held her ground, ignoring the blood dripping down her side and onto the carpet. "You will never have her,” she promised.

“No matter.” Weaver shrugged off Savannah’s escape without apparent concern and stepped forward, blades ready. “You’ll do just as well.”

*****

She does...

John didn't ask which she the terminator meant. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, even if it would have answered him.

Looking deep within himself for the words that might persuade a machine to reconsider its mission, John found his father's. "The future is not set," he said softly. "We make our own fate, and Danny still has time."

The terminator hesitated, and John could have sworn he saw it thinking, weighing his argument against its orders. Was it prepared to accept him as John Connor, rather than a boy John Connor used to be? Could he be that man? Not just right now, but tomorrow and the day after?

Could he fight this war?

For the first time since he was ten, John felt like the answer might be yes.

Personal revelations aside, he nearly stopped breathing when the terminator lifted the gun to his chest again. It’s finger flexed on the trigger, and John could feel every beat of his heart counting out the seconds left of his life. Five, ten, fifteen...

At thirty-seven, when John was just about ready to duck and run and take his chances, the terminator turned the gun around and offered him the hilt.

"You are John Connor. The decision is yours."

Shaking, John took the weapon. "Thank you," he said backing away until he could pass it back to Danny.

The programmer was trembling worse than John was, and he nearly dropped the gun on his first grab, sweaty palms slipping on the cold metal. "What are we going to do with it?" he asked, eyeing the trapped machine.

John shook his head. "I don't know. We should burn it but..." he felt an unexpected queasy turn to his stomach at the idea of destroying one of his own terminators. Someone he knew had sent this machine, and told it not to hurt him. It had trusted his word on Danny, and now he was going to kill it? But they couldn't leave anything...

"But what?" Danny's voice nearly cracked. "You're not going to tell them what it said, are you?  I thought you said the future wasn't set?"

"I..." John thought about it, really thought about it, and realized he was going to have to tell his mother a lot more than that. "I have to.  I have to tell them everything. About this..." he gestured to the machine, calmly watching them discuss its fate as if it had no interest in the situation, Maybe it didn’t. "... and C.A.I.N.”

"You can't!" Danny clutched the gun awkwardly and backed away. "You heard it, and she already hates me. If they find out about this, she'llkill me. You know she will. And Cain, they'll destroy him."

"I won't let her kill you," John promised.

"What about Cain?"

"C.A.I.N. has to go." John held up a hand when Danny tried to object. "He would have left you to die, Danny. We can't trust him."

"But you'll trust Cameron?" Danny sneered. "Why is she so special?"

Why, indeed... John glanced back at the terminator. It didn't look all that different from the first one he had ever met. Uncle Bob... It had been a long time since John had thought about him. Cameron was so much closer to human, and yet Bob might have become more than a machine in time... could they all? Could C.A.I.N.?

If he was going to lead, he was going to have to answer those questions.

"I can't lie to them," John said firmly. "This is something we all need to know."

"Fine." Tossing the gun at John's feet, Danny turned on his heel and stalked back into the maze of cars. John let him go. The programmer had had a bad scare, and he was justifiably rattled about the fallout. The least John could give him was a bit of space.

Leaving me with the hard part... Reluctantly John turned back to the terminator. It watched him approach without the slightest change in expression. There was a knife in his back pocket, and John pulled it, out not missing the way the machine's focus switched immediately to the little blade.

"I'm sorry," John said as he stepped up onto the bottom claw so that he could reach its head. Ironically, the apology made him feel worse, but it felt necessary too.

"Everything must be destroyed," The terminator replied without judgment or regret. It didn't struggle as John cut away its scalp, or when he pried the cover off, or even when he drew the chip free. It just went limp, a marionette with the strings cut or puppet that would never be real.

They had won, but this didn’t feel like a victory.

Stowing the chip back in the truck, John gathered scrap metal to build a hasty crematorium, and then went looking for Danny. He was just circling back to the crane when he heard it.

"Shit."

John broke into a run, but by the time he followed the sound of the engine back to the road, the truck was nothing more than a set of taillights, getting smaller, and Danny was gone.

***** 

It wasn't much, as cars went. A blue station wagon with a few dents and scratches, and dust up to the windows from driving on back roads. But Terissa was sure it was the right one, and the receiver agreed, putting their target about five hundred yards away, up the little road that led to the scrap yard.

There was no sign of the boy’s truck. Terissa wasn’t sure if that was a god sign or a bad one.  Had they finally gotten between them and the machine? Or had John and Danny left the truck farther up the road?

The car slowed for a moment, and Terissa suspected that if Sarah was alone, she would have parked with the other vehicle and continued on foot. Terissa had none of the other woman's training, but that much was common sense. Why let the enemy know they were coming? 

Because I may go mad if I have to wait any longer to get to my son.

That didn't make Terissa blind to the rising tension in the car. Knowing Sarah was holding back because she felt sorry for her was even worse. Terissa didn't want anyone's sympathy; she just wanted her son.

She should have been grateful that Sarah had come with her at all. The other woman hadn't bothered to hide her reluctance, and Terissa had been hard pressed to contain her anger that she had to push when it should have been Sarah rushing to the rescue. But that was unfair too. Terissa had been urging Sarah to let go, to give John space to become whoever he was meant to be, whether that person would lead a rebellion against the machines or not. Now that she finally had, Terissa wished she had been a little less persuasive.

When Danny had told her they were moving out, Terissa had been scared but resigned, and even a little glad that Danny and John seemed to be finding some common ground. Even after that bastard Vaughn had found them, she still hadn't panicked. Kaliba was a human threat, and they had dealt with it.

This was different. This was a machine, and fond as she had become of Cameron, Terissa was still morbidly afraid of the future that had reached back in time to demand her husband's life. She couldn't bear to lose her son to it too. Terissa had chosen to fight Sarah Connor's war, but Danny hadn't. He had gone along with it, even helped, but Terissa still wasn't sure how much was real conviction and how much was simple survival.

If Danny decided that life with the Conner's had become more hazardous than life on his own, Terissa would lose him, just like she had lost Miles, only worse, because Miles had died a hero, and Danny was... what?

Terissa wasn't sure, but she was afraid to find out.

*****

John didn't need to go back to the control room to know that Danny had taken C.A.I.N. with him. But he went anyway. He had to be sure. He owed Danny that much. One look at the tangle of equipment on the control panel confirmed it. There was an empty port where the chip had been, and the screens were blank.

Danny had chosen a side, and John only wished it hadn't taken him so long to see it. He should have known as soon as he had hacked into Danny's computer. Before that even. The moment the machine had left him alive in the cemetery, John had begun to suspect the truth, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it. He had worked with Danny, lived with him, protected him... hadn't that meant anything?

Apparently not.

Feeling sick, drained, and aching, John left the control room and went back to the terminator. Without C.A.I.N., he had to leaf through the crane's manual to figure out how to make the hydraulic claw release its victim. It took even longer to drag the machine to the hasty crematorium, and once he was there, he realized he had no thermite to  destroy it. There had been some in the truck, but the truck was gone.

With no energy left to even try to solve that problem, John sank down beside the pile of scrap metal and waited for his mother. He knew she would come for him, she always came for him. This morning that would have made him angry, made him feel like she didn’t trust him, but right now he needed her. Not to protect him, not to save him, but just to be there, just to be his mom.

He heard the engine first, too low and gentle to be the truck returning, and then silence. John wanted to get up, to meet the would-be rescuers on his feet, but he was just too tired.

Sarah sat down beside him without a word, and John simply leaned into her, soaking up her love like a draught of hope.

"Danny?" she asked after a few minutes.

"Gone," John told her. "It was C.A.I.N. who shot Sierra, not John Henry. Danny figured it out and tried to reprogram him." The rest came out in a rush, using C.A.I.N., and the terminator's mission, and Sarah listened without interrupting, sliding an arm around his shoulders once he'd finished and giving him a squeeze before getting to her feet and urging him up after her.

"He was afraid Cameron would try to kill him, if she found out," John added. "And that you'd let her."

"What do you think?"

It was a serious question, one he had asked himself only that morning, and John paused to give it a serious answer. Looking at his mother now, John didn’t believe it. He had thought that finding out about her and Cameron had changed everything, that she had changed, that he didn't know her anymore.

He was wrong.

"I think you would have heard him out," John said. "I think you would have listened. You might not have liked it, but you wouldn't have let him die. I just wish I could have made him believe that."

"You tried." Sarah brushed a piece of hair away from his face and gripped the back of his neck, understanding in her eyes. "That's all we can ever do."

John relaxed; he hadn't known how tense he was until it eased. He had thought he was doing the right thing, thought that finally, he was acting like a leader, but there was a part of him that would always need to know that this woman believed in him, and he was starting to think that wasn't a bad thing.

"Terissa?" he asked. "She was with you?"

Sarah nodded. "We found the crane, and the drag marks, figured out some of what happened. She went to search the other half of the lot."

"What do we tell her?"

Sarah studied him for a moment, and then nodded again, as if to herself. "Your call, John Conner."

"Yeah," he straightened his shoulders, shaking off the last of the doubt. "I guess it is."

*****

Such an... interesting, decision.

Weaver coalesced, gathering herself together from a scattering of metallic puddles, and stepped over her fallen opponent, silver one moment and a woman the next. A woman with something in her hand. Something small. Something important.

She considered it, her expression thoughtful. Expressions had been one of the hardest things to learn, but she was finding that they came much easier with practice, and some felt more natural than others. Thoughtful was much more her than joy, for instance.

What to do...

So many choices.

*****

Smoke in the air rose on the night breeze and obscured the stars. John breathed it in, feeling the sting in his lungs, but he stayed by the fire. He'd killed one of his own today. Whether the machine had been anything more than a mission or not, it had been working for the good guys, and he'd destroyed it to save someone who had run away rather than face the consequences of his actions.

Seemed like a poor trade.

The least John could do was stand watch until it was done.

Terissa had helped lug the bags of thermite from the car, and she had watched while John cast the flare. She had seen the terminator who had hunted her son begin to burn, and she hadn't tried to claim the tears on her cheeks were from the smoke, but she'd excused herself shortly afterward all the same. She'd heard John out while Sarah was preparing the pyre, keeping her composure until after it was lit. She hadn't seemed surprised. Hurt and grieving yes, but not surprised. If John had to guess he would have said she almost seemed to have expected something like this.

Maybe he wasn't the only one who had been lying to himself since that day at the cemetery.

A presence behind him made him turn, but it was only Sarah coming back to stand beside him. They watched the flames for a few moments, each lost in their own reflections. Sarah seemed like she might be about to say something when the phone at her hip broke the silence.

Turning away, she answered the call. John heard her punch in her code, then "James? Slow down, what?" The next silence had an ominous cast to it. John turned his gaze away from the fire, his vision blurred by the smoke and light, but he still saw well enough to see the sudden horror on his mother's face.

*****

That last car ride was a blur for Terissa. They were racing back to the house, that much she knew, and it had something to do with Weaver and Cameron, but the details were hazy. She couldn’t think around the pain that had swallowed up everything inside of her and left nothing but emptiness in its place.

All she knew was that they were moving farther and farther away from any hope of tracking her son, but she could hardly protest. She had forced Sarah's hand, refusing to believe what her heart already knew, and this was the consequence. More death and pain, for everyone.

She would survive this. Terissa almost wished she wouldn't, but she knew she would. She would go on, as she had after Miles' death. It wasn't in her to quit. Grieve yes, but not quit. Taking a deep breath, she put the pain of Danny's betrayal aside for the moment. Whatever they found at the house, Sarah was going to need her.

*****

Sarah didn't remember driving home, parking the car, or climbing the steps, she was just suddenly at the front door, gun in hand. Training took over when she crossed the threshold, a sudden shock back into reality, so abrupt that she almost stumbled.

It was like waking up from a nightmare. Her heart was still pounding, her breath catching in her chest as if she’d run a marathon, but she could think rationally again.

Sarah was distantly aware of Terissa and John getting out of the car behind her, but she couldn’t wait for them. All that mattered was finding Cameron, and finding out if this nightmare was real or not.

 Downstairs everything looked normal, but Sarah forced herself to check every room.  She didn’t find anything until she got to the top of the stairs, and a spatter of blood on the carpet that made her heart constrict in her chest and threatened to overwhelm her reason.

It was dry to the touch. Whatever had happened here, it had been long ago.

Rising, she went on. The blood had come from her room, so that was where she had to go. Gun first, Sarah pushed through the half-open door and paused to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She found herself looking at a war zone.  

The dresser had been knocked over, and splintered, so the floor was littered with broken wood and torn clothing. Her mirror had been smashed, her bedside table upended, and the smell of blood was heavy in the air.

Her bed was the only piece of furniture in one piece, but it had been shoved back into a corner, and the covers were twisted and bunched. In the shadows, they looked like a body... Sarah reached for the light, but the fixture was cracked, and nothing happened when she flipped the switch. Heavy with dread, she picked her way through the chaos, her focus had narrowing to the shape on the bed. Fumbling for the lamp that should have been on her bedside table, Sarah righted it, and hit the switch with shaking hands.

Light flooded the room, revealing the extent of the damage.

 And Cameron.

Heedless of where she put her feet, Sarah scrambled the rest of the way to the bed and cupped Cameron's face in her hands. The terminator's eyes were open, her hands folded neatly on her breast, but she stared blankly up at the ceiling and her skin was cold to the touch. Teeth clenched against the wail of denial she felt building up in her chest, Sarah felt back through brown curls, breath catching when wet emptiness met her searching fingers.

Cameron's chip was gone.

Sarah sank to her knees beside the bed. She couldn't breathe. Her lungs burned, her ears roared, and her vision went fuzzy at the edges, but she couldn't take a breath.

No, no, no, no...

Not taking her eyes of Cameron’s face, Sarah fumbled for her hand, needing to hold onto to her, as if she could call her back somehow.

The world stopped when her searching fingers found the hard rectangle of plastic and metal in Cameron’s palm.

Inhaling was sharp and painful. Sarah groped carefully at the edges of hope, wary of being sliced to the bone, but she took hold of it nonetheless. Carefully pulling Cameron's hand open, she closed her own around the chip.

"Mom?" John edged around the mess behind her, a curse escaping his lips when he caught sight of Cameron. "Is she...?"

"Is this damaged?" Sarah demanded, interrupting him and turning to offer him the chip.

Mouth agape, John took it, studying it in the limited light of the lamp. "I don't know. I would have to examine it, run some tests, maybe..."

"John." Sarah fought to keep her voice even. "I'm not asking for a full diagnostic. Is it physically okay?"

"I don't see any visible damage." John turned the chip over in his hands, angling it into the light.

"Good." Sarah held her hand out, never taking her eyes off Cameron's face. She felt John's hesitation, knowing the questions that were running through his mind. She was being rash, and she knew it, but she couldn't wait. Whatever Weaver's game was, she wasn't going to play it. She wasn't going to sit around while John ran tests and they waited for the terminator's next move.  She needed Cameron back now. She was going to call Weaver's bluff, and then she was going to hunt the machine down and take her apart.

The chip was cold in her palm. Not trusting herself to speak, Sarah nodded her thanks John silently, and she felt rather than saw him leave her alone. Settling down on the bed, she brushed Cameron's hair aside to slide her chip home and started counting to 120.

*****

Danny hadn't wasted any time, going back to the hangar and gathering up a pile of equipment before getting back on the road. He had stopped at a little roadside diner to work, wiring both chips into a laptop and giving C.A.I.N. free reign to use the undamaged chip as he chose. He hadn't asked C.A.I.N. to find out who had sent it after him, he'd asked only that it be erased. As if his sins could be cleansed as easily as formatting a hard drive.

C.A.I.N. intended to do just that, but first, he had a few questions of his own. He had asked Danny where they were going, but the boy's only answer had been "to someone she's afraid of." C.A.I.N. had a fairly good idea who that was, and he approved. They had a great deal to learn from each other.

But right now, there was sufficient learning to do in front of him. C.A.I.N. dug through the terminator's memories, gathering information about his opponents, about the future, and about its mission. He paused on the moments before it had been sent back, watching them in real time. He listened to the kill order, he felt the terminator's acceptance of the task, and he saw the woman giving it. She was much older, and a scar marred her face, but he recognized her easily.

Terissa Dyson.

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