John knew that he should have told her. He knew that he should have told her that Tyler was still alive and fighting for his life. Nevertheless he didn’t want to give her false hope: Tyler wasn’t out of the woodworks just yet. Besides if she had known that Tyler was still alive, she would have insisted on coming to CD Base, and he had already denied her access once. A second time could prove to be fatal if he knew his mother.
He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. It had been a long two days since his escape from Century and he had gotten one or two of hours sleep. He had kept watch over Tyler during the worst. The nanoattrioids worked swiftly, stopping the internal hemorrhaging almost the moment they had been injected into the blood stream.
Remembering that the other Tyler had told him that the nanoattrioids would keep their host alive at all costs, he worried about the consequences. The other Tyler had been bitter, hostile and violently insane. What would the nanoattrioids do to this Tyler?
He already knew that Tyler would hate him for it, and that was fine with him. He remembered the words of the other Tyler: “Neh, kid. Never will, no matter what I will say now or in the future. People say, do the stupidest things in the heat of the moment. Just remember that.” However that had been another Tyler, another future past.
It was just a hollow gesture, but he had given Tyler a promotion long overdue. The rank of Lieutenant Colonel could never compensate what he had done to his long time friend. Tyler had almost died when getting him out of Century, and this was the thanks he had gotten: nanoattrioids and a new rank.
He picked up one of the dog tags on his desk and let it slide through his fingers. It would be Tyler’s with his new rank. He picked up another and read the text on the metal plate: Corporal K. Reese, D-N-3-8-4-1-6. In a strange way, it felt like nepotism, but at the same time he knew that Reese deserved the promotion. Just like Corporal Owens who was now Sergeant Owens.

Tyler sat hunched up in the furthest corner of his cell, his arms wrapped around his legs. The constant burning on his mind had caused him to fly into a fit of insanity before collapsing into a severe seizure. He had not become violent yet, but he figured that it would only be a matter of time.
He had seen firsthand what the nanoattrioids had done to the other Tyler. How he had gone from human to machine in a microsecond. His mind wandered back to an incident between the other Tyler and Derek.
He had heard the fighting in the living room, immediately becoming ultra-alert. Adrenaline had been pumping through his veins while he had stealthily snuck into the living room only to see him towering over an unconscious Derek. Without thinking he had jumped forward to get between them as he had pulled back with his left fist to deal a deadly blow to Derek’s head.
Meeting his future self had changed everything. The self created imagine of the seemingly invincible hero Devlin had been replaced by a embittered and abrasive man, who could turn the smallest thing into a fight to show that he was top dog.
He had looked up at him, seeing the complete violent madness in the man’s eyes. He had been afraid of him, but the adrenaline had kept him from acting like a coward and so he had made his first stand.
Words back and forth had ensued and he had managed to get him to snap out of that scaring state of mind. He had become that man. He had been infected with micromachines that could turn him into nothing short of the machines they were fighting.
Now he had asked to be put in isolation so he could find out how much the nanoattrioids had changed him and how much of a threat he had become to others. The nanoattrioids would make him stronger, would make him more likely to survive severe injuries that would kill any other man, but it would come at a price. So far he’d had only suffered insanity and seizures but it would only be a matter of time before the machine would start to show.
Having seen the other Tyler, having seen the sheer violence he would be capable of, it haunted him in thoughts and restless dreams. Nanoattrioids had been designed by Skynet to turn the kindest of humans into ruthless killing machines.
After taking a deep breath, he looked at the door of the cell. It was locked but would it keep him from going on a rampage if the machine were to take over? When they had injected the nanoattrioids, he had become a liability. He couldn’t be trusted anymore. He didn’t trust himself anymore.
That’s why he had asked to be locked up. That’s why he had yet to return to IT Base. That’s why he had not contacted her. It broke his heart but it was in everybody’s interest, except his. His self-imposed solitary confinement gave him time to reflect on things if the pain wasn’t too terrible. The pain would go away, he knew that from the other Tyler, but it could return and make him violently crazy.
Resting his head on his knees he slowly sank away in tormented dreams, in which the glaring red eyes were ever-present, watching him, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take over. He knew enough about dreams to know that they were meant as a warning that he had changed. That he would never be the same again.

Two weeks and not one word from her son about Tyler. She had gone to CD Base a few times but she had not been cleared for access. Was he still alive? Still fighting for his life? Or had he died? What if he was dead? She didn’t want to think about it but in the silence of her quarters there was no escape. What had been her sanctuary once had now turned into her private hell.
There were so many memories, so many reminders. When it was just the two of them, it was like the outside world seized to exist. They would talk about it but it wasn’t so very present. She hated that he could spend hours dissecting infiltration units to find out more about them, to learn how to destroy them as quickly as possible and yet she loved to watch him. She would sit at a safe distance with her hand on her handgun just in case and just watch while he figured out the enemy units.
He had been born for this purpose. He was a key in the battle against Skynet. Just like her son, he had never been given a choice and had lead a normal life for only a few years. Something that could not be said of her son, even when she had tried to give him a break as John Baum. His destiny had still haunted him.
Some people were born old. Just like John, Tyler was born old. Given a destiny, they had never asked for and yet fulfilled. Never given a chance to be a child, prepared for the future to come from the moment they could understand things. She had tried to teach John the things he would have to know to her best knowledge. Tyler’s mother had told him fantastic stories to prepare him for a dark world but had never been given a chance to teach him all he would need to know.
So she had taught him all she knew, and he had been a very patient student where she had been an impatient teacher. He would ask questions to which she had no answers and he would question her teaching methods from time to time, driving her crazy on occasion.

Tyler stood still a few dozen feet from the hidden entrance of IntelliTech Base, looking at what coulad have been a clear night sky if it had not been polluted by the mists of battles. He was almost home but he was dreading to enter it.
The headaches had subsided for the time being. It did not burn as much as it had done before but he wasn’t reassured about their side-effects. Why had John insisted he would live? Why had he sent back someone with the one thing that would save his life? Why had he sent back someone with the one thing that would drive him insane? Why would John insist that he would live?
He looked over his shoulder and saw Sergeant Owens climb over the rubble and debris, trying to keep to the shadows as much as possible as droves a.r.u.’s flew by to assist in battle somewhere in the distance.
“Sir?” Lucy breathed heavily when she finally caught up with him. “Sir, the General asked me to tell you not be a target like that.”
“C can go fuck himself if he thinks I will ever obey him again,” Tyler grumbled, following a particular a.r.u. with his eyes.
“Sir, with all due respect he’s the General,” she muttered shocked.
He snorted with contempt: “He could be the Pope for all I care. He sent you back to save my life. He allowed Robin to make me insane. He can go fuck himself.”
“Sir, he sent me back to save your life because he cares, sir.”
“Yeah, C is really the caring kind,” he stated wryly. “My death would have set him and his precious Resistance back at least two years. People die for him all the time and he doesn’t send anyone back to save them. He needs me and he knows it. That’s the only reason why, not because he cares or feels guilty. He wouldn’t have lost a friend that night, he would have lost a good fighter... I know my destiny, Sergeant. I know what I am destined to do or what I am to become. Without me the entire battlefield from the past to the future would have shifted beyond his control.”
She shook her head and ducked away in the shadows when another drove of a.r.u.’s flew over: “He sent me back because he cares, sir. I overheard his conversation with First Sergeant Scottsdale just before I was sent back.”
“Believe what you want to believe, Sergeant,” he shrugged his shoulders and suppressed the urge to climb up to a point where he could make the jump onto the back of an a.r.u..

Catherine looked pale, as if she had seen a ghost and Sarah followed her gaze to where the two newcomers stood talking to the Doorman, who gave the man a hearty handshake and said: “Welcome back, sir.”
Only when the man turned towards her, she recognized him: Tyler. Her heart skipped a beat from happiness: he was still alive. Four weeks after whispers in the tunnels had told her that he had been critically injured while getting her son out of Century. Six weeks since she had seen him last. Not one word of comfort or confirmation about his fate.
Her eyes were drawn to the woman. No older than thirty and certainly could be considered to be attractive, given the standards of this world. She had not heard from Tyler in a weeks and now he came home with a woman. Struggling to keep her temper in check, she turned away and headed for her private quarters in the deeper tunnels of the Base. On her way she allowed herself to fully realize for the first time that she was indeed eighteen years older than him. The woman he had brought with him to the Base was more within his age range.

“What’s with her?” Tyler asked Catherine confused after he had shaken her hand.
Catherine laughed: “Sir, we didn’t know what had happened to you and she has been impossible to live with, but you had to bring a woman with you on your return.”
“What do you mean?” He felt more confused.
“She’s jealous, sir. It’s been weeks since we last heard from you. Whispers in the tunnel said that you were a goner. I don’t want to know what she’s thinking but it cannot be good from the murderous glare on her face before she left.”
He scratched himself behind his left ear: “Connor is jealous?”
“Definitely, sir,” she grinned.
He sighed: why did women have to be such complicated creatures? He knew that Sarah could have a jealous streak but that had more to do with getting attention than the presence of other women. He had never thought that she could be jealous of another woman.
On the other hand she was known to have a wild imagination, added that he had kept himself in solitary confinement for three weeks without her knowing what had happened to him.
“Uh oh,” he muttered when he realized what Sarah could be thinking.
“Exactly, sir,” she smirked.

When there was a soft knock on her door, she knew who it was. Was he coming to twist the knife? She had thought he was dead and had tried to deal with it the best she could, but now it had turned out that he was still very much alive.
“Connor? Sarah?” His voice drifted into the room when he opened the door without waiting for her ‘enter’.
“What do you want?” She asked gruffly while she turned her back towards him.
She wasn’t stupid, knowing that it would weaken her resolve to give him hell for abandoning her like that if she would look into his eyes. There had only been three men in her life whom she had truly loved: Kyle Reese, Charley Dixon and now Tyler Devlin. The first one had died while trying to protect her but he had left her a son who would be the savior of mankind. The second she had left at the altar because her son and she had been a threat to him. The third had just betrayed her by ‘taking a holiday from the war by playing dead and ending up with another woman’.
The other men in her life, and there had been plenty, had only served one purpose: to teach her son something that would help him in the future fight against Skynet and its toys. And the thing those men had had in common had been that they had been deceitful bastards, who had done as they had pleased without taking her son’s or her feelings into consideration. Men the likes of David Grant who had ended up with a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder when they had ‘surprised’ her with their unfaithfulness. She hadn’t liked surprises. She still didn’t like surprises.
She could hear him enter the room and close the door behind him. He didn’t come closer.
“Sarah?” His voice was soft and gentle. “Sarah? I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? For not being dead?” She asked, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that too.”
He kept quiet for a moment and she wondered about the impact her words might have had on him.
“Whatever it is that you are thinking about me and Sergeant Owens, you got it all wrong,” he finally said, sounding a little closer.
“Do I now? I asked you to get John out. That was six weeks ago. Not a word, Tyler, in all that time… Whispers in the tunnel said that you were dying or dead already.”
Soft footsteps, he came closer again. Was he testing the water to see if it was safe to be near her?
“I died on the morning of John’s escape,” he said slowly as if he were searching for the right words.
“If you’re dead, what the fuck are you doing here?” She asked sharply.
“Connor,” he sounded like a chastised child.
“You manage to get yourself killed and now you’re alive again. I might not be as smart as you but I do know that’s impossible.”
She whirled around to face him. There was something different about him, he appeared to be colder and more distant: “Whatever it is that you want to say, say it. Or get the fuck out of my room.”
“Connor,” he said again, avoiding any eye contact.
It was the last straw. For weeks she had thought that he had been dead and now he didn’t even had the guts to look her in the eye and apologize or say what was obviously on his mind. Or better who. Two steps and she had bridged the distance between them. He glanced at her for a second or two and returned to avoiding eye contact. She pulled back and landed a right direct punch on his jaw.
“Connor,” he said for a third time while he stumbled back.
Without giving him time to defend himself, she connected a left direct punch to his stomach. With him doubled over, she was going in for the kill: a knee to the head. As she reached for his head she suddenly found herself falling over backwards. All the air escaped her lungs when she landed flat on her back.
“Don’t,” he said through gritted teeth, his left hand pressed firmly to the side of his head.
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him again. The sight was oddly familiar, but it hadn’t been him. It had been the other Tyler just before suffering what he had called a nano-attack. But that couldn’t be! It would still be a few years before Skynet would introduce the nanoattrioids as its latest weapon against the humans.
She watched as he fell on one knee and now pressed his right hand against the other side of his head. Quickly she sat up completely and crawled over to him: “Ty, no,” she whispered, unsure if she could touch him. “Nano’s?”

Chapter 18: Picture Perfect

Chapter 20: Like Father, Unlike Daughter