Sarah leaned her head against the glass, staring into open space. He could see that she was upset. The light in her eyes was dim, her mouth was set grim and the nostrils of her nose were wide. She was fighting off her emotions, her tears.
It upset John that his mother was this upset. The only other thing that had impacted her this much had always been the mere mentioning of his father’s name because it triggered the memory of his father.
He wished that Tyler had kept his word and had told her, that she had told Tyler. Maybe he was just a sixteen year old but he had seen enough of the world to know that the fighting between them had been nothing more than foreplay. His mother had liked Tyler more than she was willing to admit, and now her mind’s health was in jeopardy again. He had come to realize once again that she allowed herself nothing, that all she ever did was to help him survive and get ready for the future to come.
No matter how much he had liked Charley, Tyler would have made a better choice in the end because he had known about the things to come. Because he would have always died to protect them. Because he would never have been scared of her.
It had been four days since Tyler’s noble sacrifice. Four days since they had gotten hold of the fake Turk. Four days since TJ had come to realize that it would never stop, that it would only change. Change equaled surprise, something his mother did not like.
“You’ll meet him again, mom,” he said to comfort her, knowing that it was a lie.
Even if TJ would become Tyler, they would never be the same person. By the meeting of present Tyler with future Tyler, everything had changed.

John looked at the bars and sighed when he saw a drove of steel birds[1] fly by. Slowly he shook his head: it would never end. Time was in a loop and unless in the past they could definitely stop Skynet from ever existing, this would happen over and over again.
Outside Century, the war raged on and on, and he felt helpless but he had to stay here for another few years to teach the prisoners everything they needed to know to form a fist against Skynet’s rule. First Sergeant Tyler Devlin was his man on the outside.
He took another deep breath and looked at the others in the room. They were all looking back at him as if they were expecting a miracle from him. So many people had died after Judgment Day, during battle, during their stay at the prisoner camps. And many more would have to die before the Resistance could claim victory in the summer of 2027. Even his mother would have to die. He knew their destinies and their purposes.
His mother’s death would strengthen Tyler, would give him a reason to live, but this Tyler knew the name of the traitor beforehand, Would Tyler try and change the future by taking out the traitor before the latter could inflict damage by giving up IT Base in exchange for his life?
John didn’t know about the previous Tylers but the one living in this time, in this world, appeared more torn than the one he had known in the past.

He smirked when he caught his mother looking at TJ curiously. Dinner at the Connors was already something to look forward to. Not only because it would be interesting to see if his mother had not messed up on the cooking again, but also because their strange lives could lead to interesting dinner conversations.
He looked at his best friend and sent him a conspiring wink.
“You are not bringing that girl into this house, young man,” his mother said sternly.
TJ chewed, then swallowed his bite and tilted his head a little: “Too bad. I guess I will have to spend some of my nights at her place then.”
John knew that was exactly the wrong answer to give and it looked like TJ had done it on purpose. If you belonged to the Connor clan, you better listened to the mater familias or you would be in serious trouble.
“Do you care about this girl, Tyler?” Sarah asked sharply.
TJ shrugged his shoulders: “I suppose. She’s nice and all.”
“I suggest that you leave her the hell alone in that case,” she growled.
“Stop acting like a mom, will you? We all know you suck at that. Besides it’s only two more years before JD, so I might as well do as I please.”
John could see the thunder clouds pack together over his mother’s head, added the familiar brooding look in her eyes and all the ingredients for the storm were there. However TJ never shied away from them, instead he faced those storms head on. How different it had been when TJ had just come to live with them, even if he had not been the target of her storm, he had always been affected by her harsh words and the darkened look on her face. Now he just sat with his arms crossed and crooked smirk on his face, waiting for the storm to arrive, ready to counter her verbal attacks, knowing it would drive her crazy.

Had that been some kind of foreplay as well? John could not deny that there had been jealousy on his mother’s part. He had been able to tell from the pitch of her voice when she attacked Tyler about his girlfriends, about his so-called social life. Still it could also have been that she had just been concerned; next to his own, Tyler’s existence in the future was crucial.
He looked at the barred window again. The moon was up; the fights on the battlefields had intensified during the evening, only to escalate during the night. How many would die tonight?
“Are you okay?” A young man asked from across the room.
“I’m fine,” he answered slowly.
“Do you really think it will help to sit around and do nothing?”
“It’s better than getting our asses shot off. Besides a storm is coming,” he stated matter-of-factly. “The Devil is coming.”
He heard the snort of contempt, followed by: “The Devil is a myth. Something to keep the stupidest among us believing we can win this fucking war.”
“Dean,” he sighed. “We can win this war. We will win this war, but it won’t be tomorrow. It needs time, preparation and fighting.”
“What the hell do you think I have been doing the past seven years?” The man named Dean countered.
“And we appreciate it, but unless we won’t get better organized, the machines will keep the upper hand.”
“Maybe you should ask that Devil dude to do that?” Dean offered sarcastically.

He watched as the big reinforced concrete doors slid closed. The world was on fire, big mushroom clouds shaped the horizon. The Day of Judgment had come, and it tore him apart. The future had begun. He looked at his best friend of the past four years, at his mother who stood talking to the girl they had saved on the way over.
How on earth had TJ gotten into his head to drive across a missile field? It had been important for them both to live another day and TJ had taken a short-cut straight through enemy territory, like he had wanted to confront their fates.
He noticed his mother looking at his best friend and he smiled faintly. She wasn’t staring him down. It were shy glances and he wondered what they meant. He had a pretty good idea. He just didn’t think it was a good idea.
He had seen his mother lose it on numerous occasions. In Mexico, after disabling Cromartie, she had completely lost it, and had smashed not only Cromartie’s chip but a prefect good rifle too. It had scared and upset him that she had been so emotional, so fragile. Sarah Connor was the strongest person he had ever known and even she had fallen apart. TJ hadn’t been there, only learning about the events in Mexico after they had returned, and he had taken it upon him to give him a severe beating for running off like that.
He knew that his mother treated him like a prince, sheltered, kept out of harm’s way on purpose, and normally she would have frowned upon TJ’s behavior but this time she had stayed out of it. Maybe because on the way home she had gotten sick? Maybe because she had known that TJ would only hand out a lesson about ditching responsibilites.
The world as they had known was coming to an end. Soon the new world order would be established and the long battle against the machines would begin.

“Welcome to Century again,” John smiled grimly when the latest prisoner started to come to again.
“Wait a minute… I know that voice…John?”
“That sure took you a long time, TJ.”
“A mere four words,” Tyler protested while he slowly opened his eyes.
“What are you doing here?” John asked, barely able to suppress his annoyance
“A bunch of rubber balls cheated during a game of tag,” Tyler answered wryly.
“Don’t they always,” John chuckled. “Injuries?”
“One hell of a headache and probably a couple of cuts and bruises. Nasty side-effect of being slammed into things that won’t budge.”
“You have a habit of it," John managed to laugh "They have to catch you with explosives. But speaking of things that won’t budge… How is she?"
"Fine, wondering when I get to busting your pathetic ass out of Century."
"You just got here and already there's talk of escaping. Gotta love you for it," John grinned. "You do know you really are going to get it once we bust out of this joint, don’t you?”
“No doubt. It’s quite possible we’re safer in here than out there,” Tyler quipped. “She’ll fry my ass for getting caught... again.”
John chuckled with amusement: “Like you’d mind… Whispers in the tunnel say that she loves your sorry ass. So it could go either way.”
“Shut the fuck up!” A young man’s voice broke through the darkness of the night. “I’m trying to sleep here.”
“Who’s there?” Tyler barked in the direction the voice had come from.
"Oh, that's young private Reese, Tech-Com D-N-3-8-4-1-6," John explained. "Don't mind him."
"And who the hell are you?” The voice bellowed.
“This walls have ears, kid. Never ever say your name out loud again, is that understood?” Tyler growled. “If you want to know who I am, you will have to come over here.”
Scraping noises. John worried as the young soldier approached them slowly. Maybe he should never have told Tyler about his father, but it was too late to reconsider now.
“Okay, private Reese. A few basic rules… one, if I ever hear you give your real name aloud in a place crawling with machines I will kick your ass all the way into next year,” John could hear that Tyler made no effort to hide his annoyance from his voice.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
“TJ Devlin, Sergeant Major Tech-Com J-S-4-9-7-2-8,” John answered for him.
"The Devil?" Kyle asked with reverence. "I thought he was a myth? Some imaginary hero to keep us fighting for a better world."
“Second, now that you know who I am, you will keep quiet about it. You will address me with Tom and him you will call Jim, and we will call you Ken. No last names to complicate matters.”
John noticed the devilish smirk on Tyler’s face and he wondered what went on in Tyler’s mind. Kyle Reese, his mother’s to-be past lover, his future father, and Tyler Jess Devlin, his mother’s present lover, his best friend: it was an explosive situation that didn’t bode well and he had to come up with a solution to defuse the situation.
Kyle didn’t know about his fate but Tyler did, and the look on the latter’s face spoke volumes. Brooding with a hint of jealousy. John knew that Tyler didn’t have much to worry about because it would be years before he would start sending back fighters to strategic points in time, but this was not the future he had been told about.
A key was turned and he looked at the door that was slowly opened. A large figure with a damaged rubber skin entered the room. Rustling of chains told him that Tyler was trying to get to his feet, but Skynet had learned from its past mistakes. It only allowed some people enough room to move a little. The loud howl of frustration chilled him to the bone: “Easy, Tom. Don’t get them alerted. You've escaped them one time too many.”
He watched as Tyler sat back on the floor again in defeat, his eyes following the machine’s movement. Wincing when the machine yanked Tyler to his feet. He averted his eyes when Tyler tried wrestle free. He knew what was coming next. His eyes drifted down to his own right fore-arm, to the bar code tattoo he had gotten a few months ago, after Tyler’s umpteenth successful escape from Century.
The Devil was an elusive creature and Skynet’s technology was not so far advanced yet that it had given its toys the ability to determine a person’s identity by verifying DNA. Which didn’t make any sense to him, since this Skynet was smarter, faster and stronger than the one the other Tyler had told him about out on the rooftops. Why didn’t Skynet install that little bit of technology in its minions? Did it like the hunt for the key players or were things complicated as usual? Or did it think it was safe and in a superior position, thus complacent?
Tyler’s howl of pain sent shivers up and down his spine. No doubt his friend would think that he was to blame but this was just the natural course of events. At one point in time Skynet would start to mark the humans to make identification easier, to sort out its informers and its worst enemies. The bar code would help Skynet’s toys out on the battlefield. Skynet was learning to make a distinction between the humans who were willing to help and the humans who would fight to the bitter end.
He looked at Tyler, who lay curled up in a ball clutching his burnt right forearm.
“I’m so sorry,” he mumbled while he noticed that his friend had passed out.

The office overlooking the main hall of the abandoned warehouse on Naples Island was used as command center for the developing resistance. John looked up from the maps and the battlefield reports when there was a knock on the door.
“Enter!” He grumbled.
The door opened and closed.
“Sir,” Private McNab saluted him.
John rolled his eyes: “What do you want, Private?” He asked gruffly,
“There’s a Sarah Baum who requested entrance to CD Base and Sergeant Devlin has returned with a former Corporal with the US Army,” Private McNab answered in a formal tone. “Furthermore there are two children in the waiting room, who have asked refuge at the Base,” he added while he looked at his clip board to find their names. “O’Conlin, Robin and Weaver, Savannah.”
John rose to his feet and started to pace back and forth in front of the large window that overlooked the main hall. Sarah Baum, an alias of his mother. He wished he could feel happiness about her return to him, but Skynet was gaining ground just north of Naples Island fast and it consumed his thoughts. She had gone missing in action two years ago and now she was back. He had learned to go on without her guidance and tutoring, without her.
He felt guilty for not feeling some kind of joy that she was still alive. Maybe it would all change the moment he saw her again? After two years of war against the machines, he had grown numb. Already he had sent hundreds to their deaths and the only way not to be affected by it was to keep a safe distance and disconnect any feelings he might have. Being John Connor meant being extremely lonely, by choice.
“Your orders, sir?”
“I want to talk to the Corporal first. Maybe he is useful for the resistance?”
“It’s a she, sir,” Private McNab said smugly. “So she will be more useful to us on her back than out on the field. Maybe she’s a ‘teacher’ like that Baum woman? I bet she could teach the guys on this base a thing or two.”
John stopped in his tracks and turned to glare at Private McNab. He felt tempted to draw his sidearm and shoot him for making such a degrading remark about his mother, about women in general. If there was one thing clear to him, it was that women made just excellent fighters as men; his mother was living proof of that. She was by far the best fighter he had ever known. Not Kyle, not Tyler, not he himself, but Sarah Connor.

He looked at his second best fighter who was studying the shackles of the chains that confined him to only a few feet of moving space. Tyler Devlin, the Devil, already legendary for his bold escapes from Skynet death camps. In the six years he had been imprisoned at Century, there had been numerous break outs with his friend leading the way.
Tonight it was his time to escape, along with the Reese brothers with the help of the Devil. Turning his head a little, he looked at the young man who was destined to become his father in a distant past. It was no secret that Tyler didn’t like the kid and if Tyler did not have another destiny to fulfill, he might have considered to send him instead of Kyle Reese, but Tyler was needed in another time.
Besides he seriously wondered if his mother as a naïve college student and Tyler were as compatible then as they were now. In 1984 his mother was a completely different person than she was now. She had been a part time waitress, trying to work her way through college. Young and sweet, unaware of the future that lay ahead of her.
He looked at Tyler again, who was now jiggling the padlock that kept him in chains.

Time seemed to slow down to a complete halt while he watched Tyler fall to the ground. He tried to yell but his voice refused. Rooted to the floor, unable to move a muscle, he watched as Tyler tried to push himself up off of the street.
Tyler wasn’t supposed to die for him yet. Wordless, he could do nothing but watch while Tyler collapsed on the street a third time. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He would have to send back Tyler in six years to keep TJ, his mother and himself safe. Nevertheless this wasn’t one of the many futures he had been told about. So many things had been changed in the distant and recent past.
Derek’s survival after Vick’s attempt on his life. Tyler meeting Tyler. Tyler should have swallowed his deeper feelings for Sarah and he should have suffered in silence as the world would have turned into the darkest pits of hell after the fall of IT Base, only four years from now. Tyler should not have known about his daughter until it was too late so he could have used her as leverage to get Tyler into a fit of complete and violent insanity. Robin Baxter should not have known about her son and her destiny until she would have to save his life. If Derek had died, Tyler would never have met his future self. He wouldn’t have known the future the way he did now.
Finally he found his voice back and yelled: “Man down!” to the young fighter closest to Tyler.
“Whaddya want me to do, sir?” The young soldier yelled back while ducking away in the shadows.
“We need to get him out of there,” John barked, picking up Tyler’s modded out plasma rifle.
It had jammed and now its owner could die. John only knew of one incident where ‘Peacemaker’ would refuse duty, the morning IT Base would fall but that was years from now.
“He’s bait, sir. The moment we move in to get him, they’ll get us!”
“I don’t care, Reese! We need to get him!” He shouted while he took in his surroundings before leaping over the pile of rubble he had been hiding behind.
“Sir!” Private Reese called, immediately opening cover fire as John ran to get his friend.
He kept his head low, his eyes up and dodged the lasers and plasma charges the best he could.
“Damn you, Devlin,” he hissed when a laser grazed his upper left arm and set it on fire.
Pain seared through his body but he kept going. It wasn’t his time or Tyler’s. He dropped himself to the floor when he reached Tyler and quickly examined him. It didn’t look good. The blood flow had stopped after the charge had scorched the wound shut but it had left a deep wound.
“Ty,” he whispered while he tried to figure out the best way to get them out of the line of fire.
“C…? Get… the fuck… outta… here,” Tyler panted. “She’ll… kill me… if… something… happens… to you.”
“She’ll kill me if I leave you here to die,” John grumbled, grabbing Tyler by his right forearm with his left hand.
“The needs… of the… living… outweigh… those of… the dead… and… the dying,” Tyler breathed.
“You’re not dying, goddamnit!” He growled furiously. “You’re not dying,” he repeated as he dragged him to safety.
“Yeah,” Tyler started coughing up blood. “You… just.. keep… re-peat-ing… that, C.”

He looked at the dead man on the wooden floor. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins at a dazzling speed. It felt so surreal, like he was watching it from afar. The man had tied them up, had started beating on his mother and he had blown a fuse. Inhumanly strong under pressure, he had managed to scrape through the plastic band that had bound his hand. A struggle, a snap.
The man had been unaware, occupied with getting his revenge on his mother. Where were Derek and TJ when you needed them the most? Despite Tyler’s death, a fake Turk and an unstoppable future they still tried to stop Skynet. TJ had resigned in his fate and tried to enjoy his life the best he could for the time this world had left. Now TJ was away at college.
His heart felt like it was going to explode. He had killed a man. He had killed someone. He looked at his mother, who stared at him in shock, the look in her eyes one of pity and horror. His knees gave way and he felt himself fall backwards. She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up again. Her eyes drifted to the man he had killed.

The sickening sound of when Sarkissian’s neck had snapped, he had never forgotten it. It had been his virgin kill. And nothing had ever been the same again. He had harbored a kind of grudge against his mother for not protecting him any better, but she could never have anticipated the surprise attack by Sarkissian and his thug. It had been an unfair resentment towards her, because she had done everything and more to help him the best she could, to stop the future from happening, to save his life.
Why was he thinking of it now? With his friend convulsing on the makeshift gurney? Only a few minutes ago they had returned to CD Base. Things had sure changed over the years. Maybe he should have brought Tyler to IntelliTech Base so he could. His thoughts stopped. What could Tyler do? Die in the arms of the woman he loved? Be strengthened by her presence and fight to live? Should he send someone to get his mother?
He looked from Tyler to Kyle and Derek. Getting his mother to CD Base was the last thing he should consider and yet he was considering it. But what if Kyle would meet the legendary Sarah Connor by accident? Kyle had not been ‘prepared’ yet and it would mess up the future even more than it already was.
With Tyler’s help, they had busted out of Century just a few hours ago and now Tyler would most likely pay the ultimate price for doing so. Didn’t he owe his friend that much that he should get his mother to CD Base?
“I’m sorry, Tyler,” he mumbled, hanging his head. “But I can’t.”