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Chapter Five: The Fault of None
Cameron's Relocation
"The Fault of None"
“John? What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing, I’ll never be afraid of anything again.”
John awoke with a start, his sheets drenched with sweat, and his mind racing as he remembered the dream that woke him. Except it wasn’t a dream, it was a memory, one of the happiest memories in his entire life: their first kiss. But it no longer brought him joy; this memory had been dragged screaming into his nightmares, a mocking reminder of what he had lost and may never possess again.
John buried his face in his hands and wept for what seemed like an eternity. By the time he finished, the sun had risen and Sarah had begun moving about the house, anxiously waiting for John to get out of bed. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, he could still smell her sweet odour on his mattress and, if he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her lying next to him.
He stroked the mattress, fooling himself into believing that it was her warmth he could feel and not that of the sun as it shone through the window. John laid his head upon the warm patch, continuing to caress the sheets, trying desperately to absorb her non-existent presence.
Sarah gently knocked on the door, received no reply, and so slowly turned the handle and entered. What she saw made her heart clench: John was lying on his side, clawing at the mattress with a madman’s manic ferocity.
“John?”
He neither heard nor cared and continued digging his nails into the mattress, slowly causing tears and rips as he tore through the sheets. John eventually began pounding the bed and started screaming in despair, the pain of loss proving too much for him to bear. Sarah rushed to his side and tried to calm her son, distraught by his crazed behaviour.
“John? Stop! John? JOHN! Stop this, now! Damn it, John. Please… just stop!”
Despite herself, Sarah felt tears of her own falling down her cheek. She grabbed John’s arms and held them in a death grip, but his persistence was beyond her ability to control, and he soon wrestled free of her restraints. He didn’t resume his attack on the mattress, however, and instead opted for hitting Sarah. His strikes were weak, the result of endless psychological torment; he had lost the will to do… anything. He wouldn’t even breathe if it wasn’t a natural reflex.
“John? C’mon now, stop! C’mon, please. Stop. Stop. Stop.”
John’s attacks grew weaker with each punch until he finally let go and slumped onto her shoulder, crying with renewed vigour and speaking for the first time in hours.
“I… I… I can’t Mom I… just… can’t… She’s… she’s… Mom she’s gone…! She’s really gone…”
“I know… I know… It’s okay, John… Everything’s going to be okay…”
But it wasn’t okay, she knew this. It would never be okay, not until he got the machine back. He would forever be broken, and may never recover. Sarah cradled her son, gently whispering comforting words into his ear, knowing full well that they would make no difference. He continued to sob hysterically as everything good in his life turned to dust; there would never be another sunrise for him, no reprieve from the pain.
Sarah sensed she was being watched and looked up to see Ethan standing there, his eyes bearing the subtle signs of false remorse. He folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, examining John carefully before speaking.
“Sarah, there’s a call for you, sounds pretty urgent.”
Sarah nodded; Derek no doubt. She planned to skin him alive when he finally showed up. His absence had made everything that little bit worse, and he was going to pay his due. Sarah carefully extricated herself from John, giving him a tender kiss on his brow before following Ethan into the kitchen and spotting the phone still attached to the wall.
“I thought you said I had a call?”
“I lied. We need to talk… about Derek.”
Sarah crossed her arms angrily and glared at Ethan for dragging her away from her grieving son.
“What about him?”
“I’m not usually one to jump to conclusions…”
John silently crept to his door, listening to every word with rapt attention.
“…but we need to consider the possibility that Derek is somehow involved with Cameron’s disappearance.”
Sarah sighed and ran her hand through her hair. She’d considered this before, but only fleetingly.
“Why would he hurt Cameron? His bitter feud with her ended weeks ago when he discovered it was you, not Cameron, who tortured him in 2027.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes at Sarah, annoyed at her inaccurate assignment of blame.
“That wasn’t me, remember? It was Kevin behind the wheel back then, I’m in charge now. Besides, that’s not what I was referring to. Derek, though over his sordid past, still considers John and Cameron’s relationship as wrong, and I believe that he will do anything to see it end.”
“But you said so yourself; Cameron is still alive, wherever she is.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t chained her up in a shipping crate or something. She could be half way to Greenland by now.”
Sarah nodded slowly; it would not be a stretch for Derek to do something like that, and it would explain his recent absence.
“Well, either way, we’ll have to wait until he gets home before we ask him.”
Ethan flexed his wrist slightly, summoning a small tubule from within his arm, a small flame lighting the end. Sarah stared at the weapon with sheer disconcertion, fearing what Ethan had in mind.
“I could bring him home.”
“No! Just leave things as they are. The last thing this family needs is everyone at each other’s throats.”
Ethan sighed and retracted the tubule, leaving a small cut on his wrist where it had pushed through from beneath.
“Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind.”
He turned to leave, but paused and looked back. Ethan opened his mouth and closed it again; he seemed to be considering something. After a few seconds of silence, Ethan locked eyes with Sarah and spoke his piece.
“I… know… that ever since the… merge… I’ve been a different person. My emotions, my… feelings have dulled somewhat…”
Ethan laughed at his own words, tasting the lies.
“...No! That’s an understatement… I can no longer feel certain… feelings… Remorse… regret… It’s like… when Kevin was erased… when he imprinted a part of himself onto me… he took my conscience with him… Cameron was, is, everything to me… and now she’s gone and I… Damn it!”
Sarah jumped back a few paces as Ethan drove his fist into the wall, leaving a gaping hole. He slowly removed his hand, staring at his bloodied knuckles and the small glint of chrome beneath.
“I can’t… feel… anything… I’ve shed not one single tear… felt not one moment of… sorrow… Just pain and anger… I’m not even sure if I can still… love her… as a sister I mean.”
Sarah took a tentative step forwards and retrieved the First Aid kit out of the cupboard.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Ethan waved away Sarah’s offer of aid and made to leave, but stopped once more.
“Because… I don’t know. I guess I just needed to vent, you know. We need to find her… we will find her… for John’s sake and mine.”
--
“That’s it? You’re just gonna let me go?”
“That’s the plan.”
Ellison unlocked the cuffs and took a step back, allowing Derek to get to his feet, rubbing his wrists.
“So you’re not going to cart me off to the gas chamber?”
“No, you’re doing good work. These machines need to be stopped in the here and now. I have no interest in the future. What will come, will come, nothing can change that. All I can hope to do is save as many lives as I can in this day and age. Go, return to the Connors, and give them my best.”
Derek eyed the agent suspiciously as he slowly made for the door, wary of being struck by a surprise attack, but he remained unhindered as he strode out into the garden and raced back to the Connor house.
Ellison opened his fridge and pulled out an evidence packet containing a set of broken implants, taken from the remains of Jason Corvain, a rather unusual cyborg. Ellison smiled down at these trinkets and saw his plan beginning to take form.
--
Derek stepped onto the threshold, seeing no one in either the living room or the kitchen.
“Hello, anyone here?”
Sarah entered the kitchen and glared at him, her eyes promising a serious earful. Ethan also emerged, his arms crossed and a suspicious glint in his eyes. Then John appeared, shocking everyone as he charged Derek and delivered a punch to his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Derek collapsed to the floor, caught completely by surprise. John delivered a vicious snap-kick to his face, knocking Derek on his back and began kicking him repeatedly until Sarah intervened and managed to drag a screaming John away from striking distance.
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?!! WHERE IS SHE, YOU EVIL TWISTED…?”
Derek gasped for breath as he tried in vain to understand what was happening and why John was attacking him.
“Where’s… who?”
John made a lunge towards Derek, slipping out of Sarah’s grip and charging towards his uncle, fist raised. Sarah turned to Ethan and gave him a look that screamed for help. Reluctantly, Ethan grabbed John by the shoulders and pulled him away.
“Where’s who? Who do you think? Cameron, what did you do with her? LET GO OF ME!!!”
“Not until you’ve calmed down.”
“I’ll be calm; I’ll be very calm once he tells me exactly where I can find my Cam!”
Derek staggered to his feet, slowly getting his breath back.
“I… I don’t… know anything… about that machine…”
John’s flailed even more upon hearing Derek’s remark.
“She. Is. Not. Just. A. Machine… She’s so much more than that.”
John began to cry once more, his head hung in resignation.
“Please tell me what you did to her. Give me that much at least.”
Derek clutched his stomach and leaned against the wall, his breathing still ragged.
“John… I swear to you: I have nothing to do with any of this. I don’t know where she is or what has happened to her.”
“But you must… you’re the only one… Who else would hurt her?”
“I recently had an encounter with one of these so-called Terminators… but it let me live, for reasons I have yet to understand.”
The memory flashed through Derek’s mind like a bolt of lightning.
“Ellison.”
“Who? Ellison? The FBI agent?”
“He captured me, that’s where I’ve been all this time. He told me he had a run-in with a machine, but it spared him. Sound like someone we know?”
John stared at the floor, his eyes darting from left to right.
“Cameron. Maybe, maybe she caught him spying on us at the beach and went to find out what he was up to. Once they were alone, he could’ve shocked her into standby and… Yes, it all makes sense now. He did it. That bastard took Cameron.”
Sarah slowly approached her son, who was no longer struggling against Ethan’s grip.
“John… you’re jumping to conclusions.”
Ethan finally let go of John, sensing that the danger had passed. John looked at everyone in turn before settling on Sarah, his face completely blank.
“Conclusions are all I have left.”
Next: Chapter Six: Human Error (Contains explicit content, Mature readers only.)
Previous: Chapter Four: Lamb to the Slaughter
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Veran |
Latest page update: made by Veran
, Aug 5 2008, 12:13 PM EDT
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Edited by Veran
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Keyword tags:
Cameron
Charley
Derek
Ellison
John
relocation
Sarah
Terminator
Time Travel
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