Sarah glanced in the rear-view mirror, at the man who had just escaped from the police station, and heaved a deeply annoyed sigh: “What the hell did you do?”
“Wasn’t me,” Tyler answered while he looked out the window.
“Then who?”
“Another infiltrator,” he said simply.
She rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the road ahead: “Another one… How many more are there? Are there actually any infiltrators left in the future?”
“They come of an assembly line, made by the dozens, to increase their chances of finding and wiping out human bases.”
“But won’t the survivors make them when they move on to the next base?” TJ ventured to ask.
“What survivors? Those metal bastards are thorough to a fault. When Firebase Gamma fell, they did not only kill everyone, they burned the place to the ground to limit the chances of survival.”
“Firebase Gamma?”
“One of our biggest strongholds. It fell in the spring of twenty-twenty-seven. The harder we hit Skynet’s forces, the harder they hit us back. Skynet was losing ground. We were finally winning but it did not just give up and go away. It increased the brutality of its infiltrators by adding the order of total annihilation of the bases those metalheads found. Firebase Gamma was one of the first strongholds Skynet totally destroyed. Before its toys would move on after their killing spree, but now they went from room to room, from tunnel to tunnel, destroying everything in sight, and when they were done, they set fire to the place.”
She didn’t want to talk about the things to come anymore. Talking, hearing about things to come in the past tense always gave her a headache and drove her crazy. It was her life’s purpose to keep John alive and stop Skynet from ever coming into existence. Hearing about the dark future always gave her a sense of failure, like no matter what she would do it would always happen. Seen in that light, it was a moral defeat she could not permit herself. Knowledge of the future weakened her determination and yet strengthened it as well. She was determined to put a stop to it, but could she ever be successful?

“Better, much better when you’re out of the prison overall,” TJ smirked when Tyler entered the living room dressed in black combat pants, a black sleeveless T-shirt and combat boots. “Though I wouldn’t have gone for that military look.”
Tyler rolled his eyes and walked over to the window: “One day you will, kid.”
“So you’re really me, but then from the future?” TJ asked hesitantly as he walked up to the window as well.
Tyler shrugged: “I guess so.”
“What’s it like? I mean, what’s the future like?”
“Gonna play twenty questions with me?” Tyler countered, unable to hide the annoyance from his voice. “The future will be here soon enough, and you will find out then.”
He looked at his younger self and could see him in nod in agreement. It was hard to imagine that he had been like that once. A shy, lanky kid, inspired to improve himself after meeting his future self. This one would be no different.
“Why did you want to kill me?”
He shrugged again and kept quiet.
“Is it because of all that lies ahead?”
A faint sound and he turned his head to look over his shoulder. His heart began to pound erratically when he saw her in the door opening. She wasn’t the one he had known, at least not yet and she would probably never be that one.
A deeply sad sigh escaped him; he had changed everything. The course of the future unknown again by his foolish actions. Kissing her. Trying to kill himself in a strange way. He took a deep breath and turned his head back to look out over the street again.
Somewhere deep in his mind he realized what he had done, but there was no changing it back now. Only the future would tell what he had changed.

Sarah looked from the young man to the older version and smiled very faintly. The boy would become the huge, sullen man who had a knack of pissing everybody off in a matter of seconds. Yet she wondered how much she had meant to him in the future. She couldn’t believe that she had only been a mentor and friend to him.
She had asked Cameron about it but the mechanical girl had simply informed her that it was not in her files. However her instincts told her that she had been lying. Tyler was one of the best men in her son’s army. His fame proceeded him. Derek hated him and even Cameron would do a step back when he got a crazy look in his eyes.
Maybe it was a form of survival but it was strange to see that fearless machine consider and reconsider her actions. It experienced things but it did not feel like humans could and would feel.
She could tell that TJ had outstayed his welcome with Tyler and she silently motioned him to leave. The young man heaved a deep sigh and left in the direction of the kitchen. Cameron was doing another perimeter scan and her son was sound asleep. With TJ out of the room, she would have all the time and chance to have a firm talk with Tyler.
“Anything out of the ordinary?” She asked, approaching him but keeping a safe distance.
The man was clearly insane and she didn’t want to be in the way when he would lose his cool, which seemed something he could do any moment of the day.
He shook his head slowly, not moving an inch or turning to face her. It annoyed her to no end, because it was rude and showed of no respect for her. Was she mistaken? Was he just an arrogant jerk with nothing to lose? And had he only wanted to confuse her?
“What do you want, Sarah? Rip me a new one once again? Nothing new in that department,” he said darkly.
There you had it. He had to piss her off again within a matter of seconds.

His heart would not stop pounding erratically in chest, and it made him uneasy. For a moment he feared that she might actually hear the beat, but he knew it was all in his head. Part of romantic stories to emphasize the attraction between the hero and the heroine.
He pissed her off for a reason. He needed to keep her at arm’s length. Not because he didn’t want her close again but because otherwise he would ruin any chance the young version would have with her. His big romance had happened and he had nearly died to protect it, to protect her, but it had all been in vain. He had still become the man he had said that he would never want to become. Just like Judgment Day, it had been an inevitability. Becoming a demon, a knight of the night.
After making sure that the street was deserted, he turned back to face her. She stood a few feet away from her, with her arms folded across her chest, looking at him curiously. In a few months she would come so close to losing her mental sanity but her instincts would guide her through. At least when taking into account that he hadn’t destroyed the known future completely.
His younger him would watch from a distance and learn from it. He would be away at college under a new name with an entirely new life story, observing how hate for metal would ruin lives and result in murder.

It was one of the few times he was sent to Serrano Point, also known as Firebase Zeta. He had a message from John to give to First Lieutenant Reese: an order to go to Topanga Canyon.
He passed a young woman in a protective suit: “First Lieutenant Reese, where can I find him?” He asked her.
“He’s in the infirmary,” the woman replied, giving him a stern look. “Who are you?”
“Lieutenant General Devlin, ma’am,” he said with a crooked smile.
“The Devil?” She asked in shock. “But-”
“It was said that I had died at City Ruins,” he finished her sentence. “Nope, I’m still alive and kicking tin can ass.”
“Are you really the Devil?”
He nodded: “I didn’t catch your name though.”
A nervous giggle escaped her, causing him to raise his eyebrow in interest.
“Fields, Lauren,” she said while she extended a hand to him.
He laughed warmly: “Birdhouse girl… Connor told me about you. And your sister. She’s another key in our battle against Skynet,” he stated as he shook her hand.
“Your rep proceeds you as well,” she grumbled with a hint of annoyance in her voice. “Half-breed, thanks to Connor.”
He raised his left arm and clenched and unclenched his fist: “Never asked for that honor.”
“It was just bestowed on you,” she mumbled wryly as he noticed that she kept looking at his left hand. “The first and only human such an operation was successfully performed on.”
“It got you MedCom,” now it was his turn to be annoyed.
“You know as well as I do that MedCom has been around since twenty-twenty-one,” she said defiantly.
He burst into hearty laughter and she did a step back. People were either intimidated by him or tried to bully him into a fit of complete insanity. She fit in neither group. Despite keeping her distance he could sense that she wasn’t really scared of him or that she wanted him in insanity. Just like Connor.
A deep sadness washed over him like a tidal wave. Connor. It had been one and a half year ago that IntelliTech Base had fallen, but the feeling of missing her grew stronger and stronger every day. She had been his buoy, keeping him afloat in a world marked by war and madness. In her arms he had found comfort and rest. In her heart shelter and love. In her mind intelligence and humor, a challenge. She had been his emotional rescue.
He didn’t miss the sex, which was only one way of expressing a love, but it could also be something meaningless to relieve the tension. With Connor, it had been an act of confirmation of a love shared. With others, it never had meant anything.
“You’re right. It’s been around longer than most people know. C founded it because I was dying after I busted his sorry ass outta jail,” he smiled wryly.

Sarah wanted answers, no matter how she would get them. Even if she had to beat them out of him. No more stonewalling, no more lies.
“What the hell were you thinking?” She asked sternly.
He shrugged again.
“Were you even thinking?”
Now he glared at her: “I’m always thinking. Ask the kid. One thing leads to ten things. Ten things will lead to a hundred things. You do the math.”
“I would lose the arrogance if I were you, Devlin,” she said haughtily. “You’re in no position to do so.”
“Must be chilly,” he remarked suddenly after a minute of silence.
“What?”
“On your high horse.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Devlin. And it won’t work,” she stated, desperately trying to keep her cool.
He had only needed seven words to piss her off, but she wasn’t going to fall for it. If he managed to get her worked up and into an argument, he would win. He had another thing coming in that case. She had attacked him on the rooftop and had lost in an embarrassing manner.
“Worth a try.”
Another shrug of his shoulders, it irked her to no end, but she had to be strong. The moment she would physically attack him again, he would hold the upper hand. For now she was no match for him.
“Why won’t you try explaining why you tried to kill your younger self?” She asked slowly.
“What’s there to explain?” He countered with a question of his own.
“Why?”
“Too complicated,” was his answer.
“Then uncomplicate it,” she offered.
“If you had seen what I have seen… If you had experienced what I have experienced… And you would be sent back in time on a mission, and you came across your younger self… Would you let her live, or would you want to shield your younger self from all that will lie ahead?”
“But killing? You could have just sat him down and told him all he needed to know?”
Her temper rose to a dangerous level when he burst into heartily laughter: “You know what? When I met me when I was the kid’s age, I tried to play twenty questions with him as well… He didn’t give me answers, and you honestly think I will give the kid the answers he desires?”
“Maybe you should? If it would help with stopping Skynet, stopping Judgement Day-”
“Skynet? JayDay? Com’on, Sarah. It’s inevitable… John’s purpose is to ensure that we, humankind, survive. When we finally beat Skynet, it was a welcome bonus but it was not why John Connor is or was so important.”
She frowned.
“We were this close to going out forever. He brought us back from the brink, taught us how to fight, how to storm the wire… Well, not me. I had another teacher,” he smiled faintly. “But you catch my drift… I could’ve busted his sorry ass out of Century a dozen times but he insisted on staying… Why do you think he wanted that?”
It was partially what Kyle had told her: her son had turned the fate of mankind around by teaching others how to beat the machines into shrapnel. Why had the assumption that he would be a great military leader taken over? And when? Had it been her own projection on her son?
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued. “He’s smart, plays a mean game of chess and is very charismatic. However he’s a ‘teacher’. He’s the ‘teacher’… If there’s a fighter, it’s you. He will see his fair share of battle, but it is nothing compared to what you will face and have already faced. C used to quip that you were tougher than nuclear nails and I have to agree with that… When John and I discussed your time jump, we both came to the conclusion that you, by far, are the best fighter we’ve ever known. We fade in comparison to you.”
A deep frown creased her forehead when she thought about it. A strange feeling welled up in the pits of her stomach when she caught the reverence with which he had uttered the last sentence. It was the first time he showed her respect, and the tone of voice he had used had her wonder about destiny’s path.
“The cancer?” She gulped nervously.
“It will always be in the back of your mind. Lurking like a dark spirit, but you will never get it. There will be a scare or two.”
“A scare or two? I suppose that you don’t want to tell me so that I will be prepared when the time comes?” She asked before swallowing hard.

“Sir, you can’t go in there without protective gear,” Lauren exclaimed when he pushed the plastic sheets that quarantined the infirmary of Serrano Point aside.
He turned back and looked at her: “I appreciate your concern, Fields, but I don’t think I have much to fear or to lose.”
“It’s highly contagious, sir. They’ve been given the antidote but we don’t know how long it will be before it takes effect.”
“Too bad because the First Lieutenant has to be given his new order and I’m not gonna sit around and wait for him to stop playing sick. I’ve got more important things to do,” he grumbled annoyed.
“First Lieutenant Reese isn’t playing sick. He is sick,” she protested. “He was close to dying because of the virus.”
“Good. Maybe now he gets it,” he remarked darkly.
“Sir?”
“We’re all gonna die some day.”
She looked at him and wondered if he really had a death wish. One of Skynet’s latest attempts to wipe out humanity, a biochemical virus, airborne and highly contagious, had swept through a few civ bases already, killing everyone in a gruesome way. Only one had survived until now. Her little sister Sydney, who had been a key in it because she possessed the means of the antidote, hidden in her body, in her DNA.
She could tell that it was no use to try and convince him not to enter the infirmary, so she stepped back and watched him disappear behind veils of plastic. A tear slid down her cheek: why did people insist on being so stubborn? On dying? It was so very frustrating, and went against everything she stood for. She should’ve stopped him, but could she have stopped him?
Slowly she turned to a young Private, only a few feet away from her, and gave her the order: “Get me Ethan Scottsdale on the line.”

TJ looked at the soda can, at the small drops of condense slowly sliding down the aluminium. He had tried to listen in for a few seconds but the voices were too hushed to make out anything they were saying.
The future had come looking for him and it made him very uneasy. Without warning upfront, he started to shake all over and his stomach turned. Barely able to keep himself from throwing up. Now that he was sitting at the kitchen table of the Connors, everything the past evening and night had happened finally started to sink in, only to be amplified by the sudden realization that all the fantastic tales his mother had told him had been true stories. Maybe she had embellished them to make them less horrifying, but they had been stories of a life to come, of a life passed.
Tears welled in his eyes and he quickly wiped them away with the palm of his right hand. The man in the living room was the Tyler from his mother’s stories. A fearless man, covered in scars and marks of an everlasting war. A champion of the people, who had died so many times and had risen again like a Phoenix from the flames.
He wasn’t that man. He would never be that man. It all had to be a nightmare, and he would wake up soon to find himself safe in his own bed with his father sleep two rooms down the hall. It was wishful thinking because he wasn’t asleep. His father, who had dismissed his mother’s stories as figments of an imagination gone wild, had been killed by a man with a blank expression on his face, like he had been a machine instead of a human. Had he been a killing machine? Sent back from the future to kill him and his? Of all the stories his mother had told him, she had never told him about this part of his life. Had she kept it from him? Or had he simply been too interested in the stories about the war against Skynet and the machines?
The shaking intensified and he jumped up to run to the kitchen sink so he could throw up.
“Are you okay?” A monotone girl’s voice asked from behind him while he ran cold water from the tap so he could splash his face.
He whirled around and looked at the girl introduced to him as Cameron, who stood looking at him with her head a little tilted. She had a pretty face but it was void of any expression or emotion. Cold eyes. A machine. He turned back to the sink and threw up again.
“Do you need help?”
Her voice sounded closer this time, and fear struck his heart. She was one of them. She was one of those killing machines. Would she finish the job the other one had started last night?
Cupping his hands to catch the cold water so he could take a sip and wash the vile taste from his mouth, he accepted the things to come if she were to finish him off. If she had the intention of killing him, she might as well do it now. The grim prospect of the future to come was not enticing and right now he could not care if he lived or died.
“Are you okay?” She asked again.
Her right arm reached past him and she grabbed a dish towel before holding it under the cold water and folding it into a compress: “Here, hold this to your forehead. It will make you feel better,” she said while she held the dripping wet compress out to him.
“Will it?” He mumbled weakly.
“Yes.”

Sarah pointed in the direction of the kitchen: “There’s one confused kid in there.”
“So?” He asked while he shrugged his shoulders once again. “It wasn’t any different for me. Innocence lost, impressions scattered, wild fantasy became cruel truth.”
“If you know so well what goes on inside of his head, why don’t you talk to him? Put his mind at ease, if only to make him see that you’re not some monster.”
"But I am a monster, forged in the heat of battle, formed and defined by war, death and destruction," he growled through gritted teeth as he kept clenching and unclenching his left fist.
She shook her head fiercely: “You’re not. You’re human. You know what goes through his head. You can help him… So help him. And will you stop doing that?” She asked, nodding at his left hand. “It’s rather annoying.”
“He doesn’t need my help. It will do him more harm than good. Everything that made me ‘me’ I handled on my own. Never got any help from the Tyler I knew in my youth.”
“And how is that working out for you?” She asked with great sarcasm in her voice.
“Better than ever before,” he replied sarcastically. “I can’t help him. He needs to face everything alone and without bias.”
“So you’re just gonna turn your back on him?”
“It’s what the other me did to me, so… Yeah.”

Chapter 17: 400 Rounds And Counting

Chapter 19: The Price Of Survival Was My... Humanity