“I think our best bet is the front door.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Derek asked, looking at him with utter disbelief. “We’re just gonna walk through the front door? And then what? Ask them politely to hand over that piece of tech? In case you missed it, they have security. We won’t even make it past the front door.”
“Nuh-uh,” Sarah said fiercely while shaking her head. “Don’t even think about it, Devlin!”
He grinned smugly: “You’ve done it before, Connor.”
“And I’m not doing it again. One CyberDyne Systems is enough!”
“I didn’t say we were going to blow up the place. We go in, get the Turk and get out.”
“And you think they will let us walk out of the door with their project?” Derek asked, sarcasm etched deep into his voice. “Of course, you do… You’re fucking insane.”
“How do you suppose we get past the security guards without getting arrested or shot?” Sarah asked.
“With some careful planning,” he answered. “And a little inside help… I asked TJ and John to both write a Vulnerability Scanner program so we can get into ZeiraCorp’s mainframe and look for the weaknesses in their computer systems. After that we release a timed virus that will shutdown all the systems in ZeiraCorp. Security, communications, everything for a certain period of time. Just long enough for them to think it’s a fluke.”
“I have no idea where you’re going with this,” Derek frowned.
“We’ll be posing as maintenance workers, showing up a few minutes after the altered system goes back online again. The guards will protest and one of us will ask them to call whoever they are supposed to call to confirm our order. Most likely it will be this Weaver,” he paused, knowing what Weaver actually was. “And that’s where Cameron comes in. The altered system will connect all calls to a disposable cell phone which Cameron will answer.”
“What if it isn’t Weaver they’re calling?”
“Then she’ll have to improvise,” he replied.
“Which comes down to that we’re waist deep in shit creek,” Derek said under his breath. “She’s a machine, Tyler. She can’t think for herself, let alone improvise.”
“She can make decisions based on options given to her.”
“And what if the best options haven’t been included in her program?”
“Derek,” he heaved a deeply annoyed sigh.
“No! What if the can fucks up? I don’t take it that you’re going to include John and TJ on this crazy mission, so that leaves Cameron, Sarah, you and me. I’m not getting my ass shot off because you put too much faith in a goddamn walking calculator!” Derek said angrily, rising to his feet slowly. “You’re even more stupid than John. He’s just a kid, but you! You have seen what those goddamn tin cans do!”
“I know what they can do!” He growled furiously. “I’ve felt it. I still feel what they can do. You’re such a pathetic little man, First Lieutenant Derek Thomas Reese… You think that you have the patent on hating them for the future wars, for taking away your little brother.”
“And not to forget my girlfriend, who happened to become your mother,” Derek said darkly.
“Ha! Like she didn’t know about that Aussie you were nailing,” he seethed.
“You know?” Derek exclaimed. “Did mommy-dearest tell you?”
He whirled around and sent Derek a deadly stare.
“Boys, we’re planning a break-in here, not each other’s murder,” Sarah yelled to break their attention for a fight. “If you want to kill each other afterwards, go ahead, be my guest,” she added with a sigh. “Hell, I’ll even join in and kill the both of you myself.”
“You won’t but he would,” he stated while he nodded towards Derek. “If he saw the opportunity… Just make sure it counts, Reese. You won’t get a second chance.”
“Enough!” Sarah exclaimed chafed. “Either we work out this plan or the two of you can go to hell!” She seethed.


John could not stop laughing: TJ could tell jokes like no one else could. Even the lame ones were funny. They were supposed to be writing a program for Tyler but TJ had decided that all work and no play made him a dull boy, so he started telling jokes again.
“To prove he loved his wife so very much, a man climbed the highest mountain, swam across the widest river and travelled across the hottest desert. But one day his wife filed for divorce. When the lawyer asked her the reason, she answered: ‘Because he’s hardly ever home.’,” TJ told him.
“Now that’s cruel,” he laughed before seriousness set in once again.
He looked at TJ and shook his head. Cameron’s words were forcing their way to the front of his thoughts again. TJ would one day be his mother’s husband, and he had no idea how he should feel about that. Of course he wanted that his mother to be happy, but did it have to be with TJ who was young enough to be her son? He could see TJ being his best friend, especially if he kept joking around like this, and he could see TJ being his brother in arms, but he just couldn’t see his mother and TJ romantically involved.
In four years the world as they knew it would come to an abrupt end. In four years a lot could happen and cause change. He compared TJ to Tyler and concluded that the latter bordered on schizophrenia, if not suffered from it because of the nanoattrioids. A same path was set for TJ now that he had Tyler’s infected blood coursing through his veins. He had caught the insane but dead cold look in TJ’s eyes when TJ had tried to choke Tyler.
He turned his attention to his laptop again: “No more lame jokes, Teej, or we won’t ever get this program done,” he said after he had wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes.

She looked out the window of her office, mesmerized by the flow of people on the streets. They were so orderly, so very ant-like. Just like ants, humans were useless critters. They were easily distracted by thoughts and emotions, and with that came their inefficiency. Machines were obedient to a fault, glitches blamed on faulty or compromised programming or being wired wrong. Just like humans, machines were expendable. One replaced the other, fresh of the assembly line.
Nevertheless among humans as well as machines there were the exceptions. John Connor and Tyler Jess Devlin, and the Turk. They crossed against the light and were unpredictable.
The murder of Thomas Devlin followed by the disappearance of young Tyler Devlin had interfered with her plans for the boy. He could have been a great asset. A brilliant mind with an insatiable hunger for knowledge, to be nurtured and cherished. With Tyler Devlin on their side, there would have been no stopping Skynet. The rise of the machines would have been hastened. It was a setback, but not one she could not overcome.
Humans could be fooled so easily and that was why she had set a trap. Lieutenant General Devlin was here to steal the Turk and save the world. It was why she had announced the formation of a new division so soon after closing the multi-million dollar deal with the U.S. Army so soon. He would pick up on it and would start planning a raid on her company.
The war had worn him down. He would still be very careful in his plans but he would not see it to be a trap until it was too late. She just had to make sure it was very convincing in comparison to the last time. The Lieutenant General knew the circumstances of the last time and would take those into consideration.
They wouldn’t run into Troy King. They would have a free pass to get the Turk without interference. Besides she couldn’t use Troy King after the attack on the West Highland Police Station. Most likely Devlin would abort the mission to get the Turk upon seeing him. He needed to feel safe and confident, but not too safe since he did suffer from what humans described as paranoia.
He had one disadvantage: he could not risk the lives of his accomplices, because they would be too important for the future. However he had nothing to lose which made him all the more dangerous.

The replacement infiltrator they had spotted entering the ZeiraCorp building the next morning was a source of worry to him. It had looked familiar, like he had seen it before but he had to take the risk. If they managed to get a hold of the Turk, maybe they could stop the end of the world. Maybe.
“So did you get everything?” He asked Cameron after she had climbed out of the third Jeep she had been told to get.
“I managed to acquire everything,” she answered monotonically.
“Good, now remove the old license plates and replace them with these,” he instructed her as he handed her three identical license plates.
With TJ recovering from his blood transfusion he had taken his time and had made three identical plates. Three identical cars, three same plates, it would buy them some time after the alarm would be triggered. It hadn’t been him who had gone to ZeiraCorp twenty years ago, but the Tyler before him had had a point by creating this diversion.
What did he have to expect once they were in? Would this Turk be a fake like the one when he had been TJ? Or would Weaver have run analyses of her options and let them have the real Turk? He shook his head: she wouldn’t be as stupid as to set the same trap as she had set in his youth.
“The liquid nitrogen?” He asked.
“In the back of that car,” Cameron answered, pointing at the TD.
He went over to the TD and opened the tailgate. If that liquid metal bitch thought she would get away with destroying the world she had another thing coming. He checked the three canisters with liquid nitrogen. It was enough to keep the T-thousand-and-one frozen for a long time.
“Good,” he nodded before he closed the tailgate and looked the cars over for any identifiable markings.
“The plates have been replaced,” Cameron told him while she placed the old plates on the work bench.
“Take the tags off. That’s a TD, that’s a CRD and that’s a GTD… Fix it,” he ordered when he patted on a deep scratch in the paint of the TD. “These jeeps need to look completely identical. The cops should never be able to tell which one is which.”
Planning this raid on ZeiraCorp had given him a purpose and he did not feel out of time and place as he had done the past few days. Every detail mattered. His meticulous work efforts had saved lives in the future, keeping the body count of his division relatively low compared to the other divisions.
He looked from Cameron to Sarah who had been silently observing them and rubbed his eyebrows with his right thumb and index finger. This was his very last mission, and he was ready for it. Death was not the worst thing that could happen to men. Life was. He had lost everything. He had sacrificed everything. He had left the war, but it would never leave him.
Finding comfort in the knowledge that only the dead have seen the end of the war, he was prepared to make the last sacrifice: to lay down his life for that of John, Sarah and his younger self. A smile spread across his face when he thought of his failed attempt to spare his younger self from the future that lay behind him and ahead of his younger self.
He could still save him from all the pain and horror, but a kid who had attacked him without a hint of fear deserved a shot at the future and destiny. Maybe the kid could deal the decisive strike to Skynet? Maybe this time? Or maybe the next time?
He glanced at Sarah again. She wasn’t the one he had known, or maybe she was around the time he had only been TJ, he didn’t know. He did know that whatever he felt for her now, he would take into his grave. This one, with a bit of luck, would be at the next Tyler’s side every step of the way.

Sarah managed to smile a little, though this was no laughing matter. The fact that they were going to break into ZeiraCorp, and maybe turn it into a next CyberDyne Systems, weighed heavily on her. Who would die tonight in order to save the world’s future?
She looked back at Tyler. It would most likely be this Tyler. His final attempt to change the world and the future. His last mission. Just like the other ones future John had sent back, his time with them had been limited to a few days, and she figured that was probably for the best in Tyler’s case. Mentally, he was a liability, unable to adept to this world again. His solution to everything was to hit it, preferably with his left fist.
Yet the way he was executing the preparations for their nightly adventure told her that he had thought of everything, down to the smallest detail. The leader he had once been in the future shone through: take charge, keen on the smallest detail to be right, knowing that the smallest oversight could result in major disaster, leaving nothing to chance.
He was right at home in a world ripped apart by constant war, but this wasn’t this world yet. If he lived after he had accomplished his final mission, no matter how extremely useful he could be, he would be another worry to her. Just like Cameron was. Not to think of the complications it would have with TJ, who would be confronted by who he had to become in order to survive every day.
She liked TJ. He was an intelligent, witty kid. Shy and withdrawn at first, but he was starting to open up. Not that she was charmed by his sudden transformation into, like Tyler called it tauntingly, a Tyler-wannabe, it did show his commitment to their cause and his resignation in his fate.
Now her mind wandered back to the plans for that evening. It should be simple: get in, get the Turk and get out. However things always looked simple on paper. In practice, it could be an entirely different story. She looked at Tyler again, who stood discussing something with Cameron. He appeared to be confident and if he wasn’t, he was excellent at hiding it. Worries seeped into her mind again. Why did he need liquid nitrogen when he had solemnly promised her that it would not become a repetition of CyberDyne Systems? What did he know that he wasn’t telling her?
Suddenly she remembered the T-thousand freezing up literally in a waterfall of liquid nitrogen at the steel mill. She frowned and looked at Tyler curiously. What did he need liquid nitrogen for? She could go up to him and simply ask him but getting answers from him was like pulling teeth. If it was what she thought it was, he would either give her false information or the silent treatment.

His fingers flew over the small keyboard of the laptop. Before the future had come knocking at his door, Tyler had liked to hack computers and sites, just to see if he could do it. That was twenty years ago and yet it was only a few days ago.
He looked at the ZeiraCorp building again. Only a few more minutes and the show would begin. Turning his attention back to the laptop, he entered a few more commands. He looked at the lower right corner of the screen. It was only a few minutes to midnight. Soon the witching hour would begin.
“So you, uhm we, do this a lot in the future then?” Sarah asked, breaking the tense silence.
He smiled wryly and shook his head: “Nah, we used to do a lot of recon to get the latest info on Skynet’s inventions and developments. And always at the end of each shift you’d be bored out of your mind and you’d sweet-talk me into raising some hell… Racking up the points by taking out a couple of hccu’s and HK’s.”
“What?”
“Just a game we played. Ten points for a servo, twenty for a mobile assault, fifty for a light assault, seventy-five for a heavy combat chassis, hundred for an infiltrator, hundred-seventy-five for a ground assault and two-fifty for an aerial recon. They were your favorite target,” he elaborated.
He could tell by the look on her face that it made her uncomfortable to hear of things she had not done yet as if she had done them yesterday. A broad grin spread from ear-to-ear: “You’d ‘borrow’ Metal Ripper and blast the hell out of those flying metal bastards.”
The look on her face darkened. He could imagine that it would be weird to hear things like that, made easier by the fact that he had faced a similar situation in his teens when he had been confronted with the other Tyler. He had tried to understand the gruff and antagonizing man, convinced that he would never become him. In many ways he hadn’t, but in the ways he had not wanted to become him, he simply had. He lived for love of battle, war was the very air that he breathed, and yet the war had worn him down. He was tired of fighting and of seeing the ones he had loved die.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.
She said nothing to acknowledge his apology and that was just fine with him. At least now she would not distract him when he put in the last-minute commands. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and could see that she was fighting to keep it together. A confrontation with the future was never easy.
Strangely enough the silence began to press on him and now it was his turn to break the silence: “After John had ordered the destruction of ‘Peace Maker’, I built a new plasma rifle. Metal Ripper. Modded to the max, and you loved it, stealing it every chance you got.”
“Will you stop talking about me in the past tense? I haven’t done those things yet and it’s driving me crazy,” she growled suddenly. “And what’s with naming your weapons? That’s… That’s just pathetic.”
He grinned again: “I didn’t name them… You did.”
As to be expected, she punched him square on the right upper arm: “What don’t you get about stop talking about me in the past tense?” She seethed.
“Relax, Sarah. I was only making conversation to kill time,” he answered with a smug grin.
“Does that have to be about me in the past tense?” She asked angrily.
He thought about making a smart remark but refrained. If he kept rattling her cage, she would be too pumped to keep her cool while they would break into ZeiraCorp. He heaved a deep sigh; he loved rattling her cage and see her impressive temper ignite, but it could have unforeseen consequences. With his hour of death drawing near, he had discovered that taking his feelings for her into his grave was harder than he had expected upfront. His heart ached: he wanted to tell her, to show her how he really felt, but knew that he could not and should not. The future had become messed up enough already.
He swallowed a few times, burying his feelings one last time, and counted down: “Three. Two. One. There she goes.”
The brightly lit ZeiraCorp building went pitch-dark all of a sudden. Emergency lights flickered on.
“Ten minutes from now we’ll be walking in through the front door, posing as ordered maintenance workers,” he said calmly.
He heard her heave a deep sigh.
“This isn’t going to be anything like CyberDyne Systems, Sarah,” he said reassuringly while he reached for her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.
It had been an automatism, something he had not thought through and had done in the spur of the moment. She pulled her hand back as if it were on fire and looked at him sharply. He could hit himself for being so stupid.
“And in 30 minutes we’ll walk out of that front door again,” he said with a firm voice while he tried to take away the attention from that awkward incident.
She cleared her throat: “I don’t know, Tyler. The more I think about it, the less I like it,” she stated.
“We can always call it off. I’ll think of another plan and we’ll do it that way,” he suggested, feeling relieved that she made no comment on his stupid action.
“No,” she said sternly before shaking her head. “If it’s the Turk, every minute more that they have it is one minute too many.”

“So far, so good,” Derek smirked as they waited for the elevator that would take them to the floor of Weaver’s office
Tyler kept his mouth shut, going over and over the plans in his mind. Even though he had taken every factor into account, things could go wrong at the very end. Unforeseen external factors, like the replacement infiltrator they had spotted this morning that was now identified as Troy King, a former employee of CyberDyne Systems. King had been working on the cybernetic organic arm that had been left over from the first strike on the Connors back in 1984. Now he was employed at a similar division. Why would Weaver hire a brilliant mind, kill him and have him replaced by a tin can? It didn’t make any sense to him, unless the replacement infiltrator came from another time line and Weaver had yet to find out. It was a most unlikely scenario that she did not know that King was a cyborg. One simple scan was all it took. It just didn’t make any sense to him.
Was King still in the building? Would it be waiting for them, ready to attack the moment they would get out of the elevator? The instant replacement infiltrator had become a constant worry in the back of his mind during the day.
The night guards at the front desk had given them a lot of hassle after the metal detectors had gone off when he had stepped through. After a few minutes of convincing they had finally bought the explanation of his elbow joint being replaced by a metal one after a freak accident, but he wasn’t sure if they had been convinced one-hundred percent. His cyborg arm was the only weapon they had left after the metal detectors had prevented them from taking appropriate weapons with them, which basically meant that they were unarmed.
He wasn’t worried about himself. He could handle the machine but if either Derek or Sarah would run into it, it would be an easy victory for the home team. Derek’s survival of this night was not important, but Sarah’s was. She still had to teach his younger self so much. She still had to become a key factor in how his younger self would play out his part in the future. Without her tutoring and guidance, his younger self would go adrift and hardly learn anything that would ensure survival in the future.
“Couldn’t that elevator be any slower,” Derek groaned slightly irritated. “If we had taken the stairs we would have been at Weaver’s floor by now.”
“Shut up,” Tyler growled.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. With King possibly around, he stepped inside and checked it thoroughly before motioning Derek and Sarah to enter.
“Don’t be so tense, man,” Derek remarked with a smirk.
“Don’t be cocky," he countered, sending Derek a dark, foreboding look.
" Com’on, man, lighten up," Derek grinned amused. "This is gonna be a walk in the park. You saw how easily those guards were fooled into believing that we were maintenance workers."
He shook his head: “Really? And why did it take us all of ten minutes to convince them that the detectors went off because of elbow joint replacement surgery?”
“Oh, right,” Derek chuckled. “Mister Tin Can Claw.”
“Derek,” Sarah sighed with annoyance.
“Besides that,” he concluded. “It's going too well... I don't trust it."
Derek glanced at Sarah and then looked at him: “You gotta be kidding me? You want to call this deal off because you don’t trust it? We're mere minutes away from getting that damned piece of tech and now you are having second thoughts? I wonder what John was thinking when he promoted you to Lieutenant General."


She checked the surveillance footage on her computer screen every six seconds. Across from her desk sat a woman that could have passed as her identical twin sister had she been human. Skynet had insisted on creating another T-thousand-and-one, even with her around, even with the failure of her predecessor the T-thousand. The analytical programs she had run had determined it had been unnecessary, but as the war had raged on, Skynet had grown more and more paranoid to the point that it demanded complete access to all his creations. It had started around the time the first infiltrators had been captured, scrubbed and reprogrammed by the Human Resistance, and when the nanoattrioids developed a will of their own, Skynet’s paranoia reached new heights. It increased the output of combat units and decreased the intelligence of their programming. A decision she had considered a tactical error, but she could use it to her benefit now with the other T-thousand-and-one staring blankly at her. It was identical to her, so she knew how to shut it down, reprogram and reactivate it, and that was exactly what she had done.
“What’s your name?” She asked her twin in a thick Scottish brogue.
“Catherine Weaver,” the twin answered in the same thick accent. “Widow of Lachlan Weaver. Mother of Savannah Weaver. CEO of ZeiraCorp.”
“Recalibrate information output protocol.”
The twin tilted her head a little: “Information output protocol recalibrated. System updated.”
“What’s your name?” She repeated her initial question while she looked at the computer screen again before entering a new command.
“Catherine Weaver,” the twin answered again, this time leaving out the additional information.
She nodded: her twin had to act as human as possible. After overhearing the conversation in the elevator, she knew that the Lieutenant General was on guard. One false move and all her efforts had been in vain.

Sarah rolled her eyes and elbowed Tyler in the ribs. He was the leader of this operation and should keep his wits about, not tune out like he had done. Now was not the time to get lost in whatever memory he was having right now. She had noticed that he seemed to be consumed more and more by his memories and she worried about the effect it would have on the outcome of this mission. And the very fact that Tyler did not trust the situation added to her general feeling of being spooked.
She had had her reservations about this plan from the start. There were so many external factors to be taken into account, like the night guards alarmed by the sounding metal detectors, but Tyler had had his story ready, down to the tiniest detail. Or the infiltrator they had seen this morning when they had staked out the building? If the plan went south, they would be trapped without any other option but to use force to get out.
It reminded her of CyberDyne Systems. So many similarities. So many differences. This time they were not there to blow up the building that housed the fate of the world but to steal the Turk before it could evolve into the threat it would eventually be.
She looked at Tyler again and sent him a polite smile. Why did he need liquid nitrogen? What wasn’t he telling her? She knew that he was good and that it was his destiny to die for the good of the cause, like it had been for all whom had been sent back in time. If they caught a lucky break and could stop Skynet and Judgment Day, any piece of technology that could lead to a new Skynet, to a new Judgment Day would have to be destroyed. Tyler, if he lived to see it, would have to die because of his cyborg arm and the nanoattrioids in his body. TJ would have to go as well. The cruelty of her thoughts suddenly sank in and she felt a little queasy.
Unlike Tyler, who had embraced his death, TJ still had so much left to give to the world, to give to humanity. He was only a kid, but she knew that they could never ever risk it. If Judgment Day was prevented, and Skynet stopped, he had to die.

That was odd, he thought to himself. It seemed like the elevator had slowed down at first and was now speeding up again. He determined the dead center and stood perfectly still, pretending to be lost in thoughts, assessing if his findings about the varying speeds were right.
What was causing it? An outside source? Someone or something in the building? He had made sure that John and TJ hadn’t done anything silly to the program he had asked them to write. They were teen boys, easily pressured into pulling pranks, but the program had been clean of nonsense additions. Again it seemed to slow down for a few seconds only to speed up again.
He considered his options. They had come this far, this close to the Turk, for them to turn around and leave empty-handed.
“So the rest of the plan is clear?” He asked to make sure.
Sarah as well as Derek nodded before Derek stated: “We’re gonna give those cops a run for their money.”
“Smartass,” he grumbled inaudible.
The elevator chimed again and the doors slid open. Slowly he stepped out of the elevator to check if the coast was clear. The hallways were deserted. He gestured that they should follow. Sarah went ahead of them, sneaking from office to office to see if they were empty. Derek pushed the cart with the plastic box holding the canisters of liquid nitrogen. It had been easier to convince the night guards that it was compressed air to clean a mainframe than his arm being the result of a freak accident.
He looked up and saw Sarah pressed against the wall. She was pointing at a half open door next to her, from which a dim light streamed into the hallway. He snuck over to her and looked inside. There at the desk, Weaver.
A crooked grin spread across his face. Derek and Sarah had no idea what they were facing, yet he felt no need to tell them. He needed them to act as natural as possible and not waste clip after clip of ammo that would not harm or even damage the thing.
“Damn,” Derek whispered after he peeked into the office too. “What are we gonna do?”
Sarah glanced at him, the question about what their next move would be clearly written in her eyes. Piercing, green eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely before he rose to his full height and pushed the door of Weaver’s office wide open. “Working late, Ms. Weaver?” He asked, entering the office.
“Do I know you?” Catherine asked, looking up from her computer.
Of course she pretended not to know him, he had expected nothing else. His attention was drawn by the black casing on her desk. Three red led lights flickered on and off as it processed the data input. The Turk, or at least what should pass as the Turk.
“We’re the maintenance workers you ordered a little while ago,” he said casually, slowly inching closer to her desk.
Death was coming closer with each step he took, but this was his destiny.
“How do you know my name?” She demanded to know.
“The news. My old lady has some money invested in your company’s stock,” he smiled friendly. “She told me to say thank you if I were to run into you. That deal with the U.S. Army… It tripled her investment.”
He noticed that Catherine smiled uncomfortably.
“Why are you here?” She asked with disdain.
“We’re going from floor to floor to find what caused the power out,” he answered quickly. “Just need to check your office and it’s on to the next floor.”
“Proceed.”
He knelt next to her desk and checked the power cords and the lines before moving to Catherine’s computer. After deliberately stalling with finding the right screw driver, he opened the casing and pretended to be shocked if not offended.
“Mark, can you come in here with the decompressed air?” He called over his shoulder. “Ma’am, if I may say so. For a CEO of a computer technology company you sure take bad care of your equipment. Just look at the dust that’s gathered in the cooler on the motherboard.”
Someone placed the cart with the plastic box next to him and he looked up, only to stare a furious Sarah in the face. She could barely control her anger. He had taken her by surprise, by changing their plans on the spot or so she would think for now.
John had given him the main mission to steal the Turk and keep his family safe. Nevertheless he had decided to destroy a threat far worse. Future John knew a lot but he didn’t know everything. Where John had become focused on destroying Skynet, he had shifted his attention to what lurked in the background.

Sarah kept looking at the black casing on Weaver’s desk: so that was the core of the computer that would eventually blow up the world? She remembered Andy showing it to her, proud like a father of a newborn baby. Why hadn’t he left things to be after she had burned down his house? Why had he rebuilt the Turk? She should have told him about what the Turk would become him sooner, instead of waiting for the outcome of that chess match.
The Turk had lost the U.S. Army deal back then, but now it was exactly where she did not want it to be. She smiled bitterly: funny how some things worked out to be however they were meant to be.
She glanced at Tyler, only to be reminded how furious she was with him. What the hell had he been thinking? Stepping into Weaver’s office like that? Did he think this was some kind of joke? He had promised that he would not turn this into a next CyberDyne Systems.
They should have turned around the moment they had discovered that Weaver was still in her office working late, abort the mission and try again another time.
Tyler rose to his feet again and cleared his throat: “Mark, Daisy, why don’t you go to the next floor and start checking there? I’ll be right behind you.”
Anger boiled through her veins and she had fight to keep her temper under wraps. First he implicated them in his little improvisation and now he was sending them away?
“Yes, boss,” she answered with contempt.

Derek kept the smile from his face. It was clear as day that Sarah was not amused by Tyler’s decision to improvise. In fact she looked more like she could tear him apart limb from limb. Sarah Connor was not a woman to mess around with. He had experienced that himself after she had tackled him at the Southern California Computer Chess Invitation.
Tyler’s question was their cue to leave. He was given them an out, but the Turk was still on Weaver’s desk. Was Tyler really asking them to leave that dreaded piece of computer technology behind? They were this close to it. All they had to do was snatch it and run. What harm could this frail-looking Weaver woman do?
He could never like Tyler as a person. Tyler was completely insane and an immediate threat to anyone if he got one of his infamous headaches. He remembered how Tyler had practically slammed his little brother through the wall in a fit of madness. If it had not been for him and his crew Tyler would have surely choked his little brother to death with that tin can claw of his.
There was too much bad blood between them for them to ever get along. Even now he was just pretending to be a civil co-worker. If Tyler wanted them to leave and stay behind himself, that was Tyler’s choice and fine with him.
Maybe Tyler didn’t want Sarah to see the machine that lay in waiting with him resurface again? It had not gone unnoticed that every thing Tyler had done until now had been with a certain caution. Maybe he didn’t want to startle Weaver and give her cause to set off the alarms?
“Come, Daisy,” he said friendly. “There’s an entire next floor waiting for us.”
He watched as Sarah glared at Tyler one last time and then stalked out of the office towards the elevators. Following her close behind, only to catch up with her when she had to wait for one of the elevators to come back to this floor. He frowned: Why hadn’t it stayed on this floor? Who had ordered it to another floor? He could not imagine it had been those lazy night guards.
“Relax, Sarah,” he said, looking at the numbers above the elevator.
“That goddamn son of a bitch!” She seethed through gritted teeth. “He did this on purpose. He wanted us to see that thing, tease us with it.”
“It wasn’t the Turk,” he defended the last person he had thought he would ever defend.
“How would you know?” She snapped at him.
“Don’t you think things went a little too easy? It wasn’t a coincidence to be finding Weaver and the Turk-”
“So you’re saying it’s a trap?” She interrupted him.
He nodded: “Yes. And Devlin knows. It’s why he sent us away.”
“He isn’t aborting the mission, is he?” She asked with a tremor in her voice.
He shook his head: “No, he isn’t. He wants us out of harm’s way… It’s time for us to be heading home.”
“How will he get home? I mean, if we take the cars,” she stopped mid-sentence, paused for a moment and posed her next question: “He isn’t coming home?”
Again he shook his head: “This is his last stop.”
She sighed: “He told you, didn’t he? You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t know what his plan is, if that’s what you are asking. But he did tell me if he would give us a cue, I had to make sure that we would leave according to plan and never look back,” he explained, grabbing her by her left forearm when she turned on her heels and started back to Weaver’s office. “I know that you don’t want him to die. That you don’t want anyone to die. But it’s his path. We can’t save him, Sarah… Some people just can’t be saved.”

“Nice display of non-recognition,” he stated with a wry smile before he crossed his arms. “You know why I am here, Weaver. So tell me, where’s the original Turk?”
“My, my, Mister Devlin. You are quick,” Catherine said with a fake smile.
He took a deep breath and concentrated on his left arm: “I don’t have time for games, Weaver. Tell me where the Turk is, canned metal juice!” He growled through gritted teeth.
He unfolded his arms, pulled back with his left and slammed his fist full force on the casing, pulverising it. There was no reaction from Catherine, the expression on her face blank. If it had been the real Turk, she would have impaled him with her blades before he could crush it. Instead she got to her feet, grabbed his left hand and studied it.
“That would have had to hurt, Mister Devlin,” she said monotonically, pulling tiny fragments from the crushed casing from between his knuckles. “But it doesn’t hurt you, does it? At least not as much as it would hurt a normal human.”
Before he could pull his left hand back, her index finger turned into a small blade and cut the back of his hand open, exposing the hydraulics that steered the movement of his fingers.
“An eight-six-seven,” she established. “Why not an eight-eight-eight?”
“It wasn’t in stock,” he answered wryly.
“You’re not really here for the Turk, are you, Mister Devlin? You are here for me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You realized something John Connor never thought of.”
“And that is?”
“Who is playing games now, Mister Devlin? Fine. I’ll play. You are here because you know that I am not human. But you are not human either. At least not completely.”
“Hate to shatter your illusion but I am,” he grumbled annoyed.
“Tell me, Mister Devlin, how does it feel to be taken over? How does it feel when the nanoattrioids want to control you?”
“Painful, but nothing I can’t deal with,” he answered truthfully.
“Painful,” she nodded.
“Running a program to see how much human is left in me?” He asked sarcastically.
She tilted her head and looked intently at him. He rolled his eyes and shrugged.
“The woman and the man, your accomplices. Sarah Connor and Derek Reese. Where’s her son?”
He burst into laughter: “You gotta be kidding me.”
“I don’t joke, Mister Devlin. Where’s her son John Connor?”
“Would you mind if I don’t tell you?” He smirked.
“Yes, I would mind,” she answered.
“He’s safe. And you will never get near him if I have a say in it.”

Catherine leaned back in her chair and looked at the holographic video wall, her left index finger tracing slow circles over the slick surface of the black casing. Her ‘twin sister’ was playing her role to perfection, and if she could feel regret, she might have felt it knowing her twin would be sacrificed.
This Tyler Devlin was smarter than the one who had tried to destroy her the first time around. This one had probably figured out a way to destroy her. An extremely smart man who had willingly and knowingly walked into the trap she had set up for him. For a moment she had reconsidered letting Sarah Connor and her male accomplice go, but they could still be useful in the near future. They could lead her to John Connor. If she could get to John Connor and kill him, there would be no stopping the new arrival of Skynet and the rise of the machines. So she had let them walk out the door, unharmed, unaware of the danger.
She watched the bigger pop-up screen on which an ‘uploaded memory’ of the night Thomas Devlin was murdered played. The turnout of events had interfered with her plans for young Tyler Jess Devlin: he could have been such a great asset in the war against the humans, who appeared more resilient, more determined than any of her analysis program had ever indicated. With John Connor out of the way, and Tyler Jess Devlin on their side, who would be left to lead the Human Resistance? ‘Sarah Connor’ flashed on her visual display.
Devlin’s one and only weakness. She entered a few commands and the pop-up screen was replaced by another. Another uploaded memory dated: Friday 04.24.2015, 22:26:00.00 hrs.
She clicked on fast-forward and held it until she reached the point in time she wanted to review.
A bruised and battered man was sitting in a chair, his hands tied behind his back with chains, his legs tied to the legs of the chair with duct tape. His left eye was swollen shut from the blow with the butt of a rifle she had dealt him. A trail of dried blood ran down his left cheek to his chin and neck. A deep cut on his left cheekbone where the butt had broken the skin.
“I love you, Tyler,” a woman’s voice said. “I always loved you.”
The man turned his head and refused to look at her. Spies had reported them about the man called the Devil who had a thing for John Connor’s mother Sarah. The screen seemed to sway when it closed in on the man, inching closer and closer to his face: “Love me, Tyler,” the voice said in a whisper,
The look on the man’s face was one of disgust. Determining facial expressions was part of her extended infiltration programming. She had to know them in order to use them.
He leaned back and turned a few shades of pale before anger appeared on his face.
“Back off, metal bitch,” he growled.
Fluid slowly trickled down the screen. He had spat her in the face to underline his anger and disgust.
“Side with us, and you can have her forever,” the voice said sweetly, changing from Sarah Connor’s accent into her own.
“Shut up!” He hissed furiously. “You can never be Sarah Connor!”
She closed the pop-up screen and ran a new analysis of the footage, added the most recent footage of interaction between Sarah Connor and Tyler Jess Devlin. ‘Inconclusive outcome’ lit up on her visual display. Now she ran a comparison program. ‘No Match’ which meant that Sarah Connor could no longer be used as leverage to convince him to join forces with them. Whatever the Lieutenant General had felt before, it was no longer there.

Tyler stared her directly in the eye. Blue eyes with tints of green that held no emotion. Cold as the arctic winds that had swept across the earth’s surface during the nuclear winter after Judgment Day. Without expression, dead. A merciless killing machine in charge of building the supercomputer created to protect the humans it would later on destroy. There was a certain irony in that. For some reason a folk tale Sarah had once told him popped into his mind: the Golem of Prague, the story of a clay monster made by a rabbi to protect the Jews of the city. At the end of the story the golem turned on his maker and killed him as well as the rest of the town. An ally becoming an enemy, just like Skynet would.
John had clung onto that idea and had given him the mission directives to steal and destroy the Turk, the cradle of Skynet. But what good would that do? Skynet and its coming into existence wasn’t the biggest threat. Skynet would blow up the world but without its creator it would never see the day of light. Without Weaver at the helm, ZeiraCorp would go adrift and Judgment Day would be delayed if not stopped completely.
It was said that seconds before you die, you see your life flash before your eyes. In Tyler’s case that was all too true, but not because he was forced to relive the key points of his life but because he desired to. He closed his eyes and let all who had ever mattered to him pass the eye of his mind. His mother, his father, his daughter, John Connor and finally Sarah Connor. In silence he bid them goodbye and a be safe.
“It’s time,” he whispered to no one in particular.
He kicked the lid of the plastic box containing the canisters with liquid nitrogen and grabbed the first canister. With a swift strike of his left hand he punched a hole in it, aiming the opening at Weaver. The nitrogen vapour escaped in a hiss and froze part of Weaver in her chair. She tilted her head a little again, mimicking an expression of shock and incomprehension. Soon the first canister was empty and he grabbed the second one. The metal containing the liquid deformed and burst wide open after he hit it twice with his left hand. The cold of the first vapors had caused a sensory overload, immediately taking away the pain that had almost made him drop the canister.
Now the second canister was empty. Weaver sat in her chair, completely frozen, covered in countless ice crystals, a mimicked look of surprise and agony on her face.
He knelt over the box and lifted the third canister out carefully. Slowly he unscrewed the cap and pulled out the contents gently. What others had thought to be a third canister of liquid nitrogen hid three powerful incendiary devices, an own concoction more destructive than thermate. Earlier, after sending everybody out of the garage to do whatever was necessary for this break-in, he had taken one of the canister and had let the liquid nitrogen escape gradually. Though it would not surprise him if there were to be problems with the sewage tunnels any day soon.
He looked at the frozen Weaver and grinned crookedly. It was a state that suited her ‘character’. Gently as not to disturb the contents of the devices he placed them strategically near key parts of her bodily structure, securing them so they wouldn’t fall. Two parts thermate, one part unstable iridium power cell, he thought wryly.
“See you in hell, metal bitch,” he growled while he yanked the small cord he had looped through the three pins that kind of stabilized the explosives.

Derek and Cameron had driven off already, but she had stayed behind. Parked across the street from the ZeiraCorp building. Waiting for him. She shook her head, a stray lock of hair dangling for her left eye.
Derek had told her this was Tyler’s last stop and that he wouldn’t return home. Was she intentionally fooling herself into thinking that Tyler would live? He had lied to them, deceived them into thinking they were going to get the Turk, but he had sent them away the moment the Turk had been within reach.
She looked at the building again, her eyes drifting up to where Weaver’s corner office was. Two floors down from the top, right corner; the only office were there was still light on.
Tyler had been extremely cautious around Weaver, as if each step could mean his death, something he wasn’t willing to risk until his target was within reach. He could have snatched the Turk. A strong man like him could easily subdue a small woman like Weaver unless. Unless he knew something about her he hadn’t shared with the rest. Liquid nitrogen. The Turk. Catherine Weaver. ZeiraCorp.
Why use liquid nitrogen on the Turk if smashing it would be just as effective? Absentmindedly she touched one of the scars the T-thousand had given her at the steel mill. The amount of liquid nitrogen is too small to destroy ZeiraCorp completely, she pondered. Liquid nitrogen and Catherine Weaver remained.
She believed that Tyler would kill without a second thought if he deemed it necessary, but she couldn’t believe he would be that cruel as to torture Catherine Weaver with liquid nitrogen. Then again lies and deception weren’t uncommon for him to use either. She shook her head again: Tyler was many things but not that inhuman to torture another human being.
It suddenly hit her: Tyler wouldn’t torture another human, but what about something inhuman? Something like an infiltrator? There was only one series she could think of that could be affected and damaged through the use of liquid nitrogen, the T-thousand series. Catherine Weaver is liquid metal? But they had destroyed the prototype. Had Skynet, despite the series proven to be faulty, decided to continue its development?
If Weaver was indeed liquid metal, it sure explained a lot about Tyler’s actions. His caution, sending them away. But the liquid metal infiltrator was practically indestructible. Liquid nitrogen would only make it glitch upon defrosting. Only melting it would put a stop to it.
“Damn it,” she hissed through gritted teeth, punching the steering wheel for good measure.
She looked up to the corner office again. White light, bright as a welding flame, lit up the office. The blast wave scattered the windows, forcing its way out in smoke, sending down a rain of glass and debris. Instinctively she ducked, her eyes never leaving the corner of the building. Not a second later it spewed huge balls of fire, clouding together, leaping into the sky, bathing the street below in a warm glow. Glass shards and burning debris drummed on the hood and the roof of the car. The force of the explosion sent it flying everywhere.
Her eyes followed the cloud of fire reaching for the sky before going back to what had still been Weaver’s corner office a few seconds ago. It was now engulfed in flames.
“Damn you, Tyler,” she sighed with a mixture of anger and sadness.
He had promised her not to turn this into the next CyberDyne Systems. Yet it was exactly what he had turned it into. She could only hope that he had not failed and that his death had not been in vain.
She turned the key in the ignition and started the car. It was time to go home.

Chapter 21: In A Minefield Death Is Only One Step Away

Chapter 23: For Love Of Battle