*WARNING!: This Fan Fiction Contains R-rated Language and Subject Matter.*
WILL THE REAL ALISON YOUNG PLEASE STAND UP?
Alison picked her way across the rubble-stroon landscape with panther-like stealth and agility. She didn't even have to think about her movements anymore, having learned from an early age that these skills meant one thing-- life; stumble, fall, and you died. Her parents had taught her well. They had had to after the war, after Judgment Day, when the machines took over. Her mother and father both served several tours of duty in Iraq in a special forces unit together before choosing completely different career paths when they got out. After eloping her mother had become a teacher, her father an engineer and architect. When she asked them why, both looked troubled and stated it was because both jobs had let them build rather than destroy. She hadn't understood their strange responses, but she had been only six at the time.She was eight when she killed her first animal. It was a small robin and it must have become confused and flown down into the tunnels her family hid within along with five other couples after the bombs dropped. She hadn't seen a real bird since she was about five. It was a rather pretty, amazingly healthy little robin, with bright red coloring, and had gotten its foot caught in the wire mesh of an air vent when Alison came upon it. She cupped it gently in her hand and carefully worked the foot out of the meshing. The bird immediately started squirming and struggling as soon as it was released, and Alison had held it a bit tighter in her fist. It pecked at her thumb, hard; the ungrateful thing! A small ribbon of blood trickled down her hand from the puncture, dripping on the concrete floor. Alison glared at the robin, and squeezed it. She heard a sharp snap and the bird fell limp in her hand. Instead of feeling sudden remorse, she had felt a kind of bubbling glee well up, and stifled a giggle-- served it right for pecking her! When Alison showed her mother the bird, now smeared with her blood, her mother did not smile, did not pat her on her head for being her precious angel, for making this wonderful discovery. No, instead she screamed and smacked her across the face. Her father wasn't any better. He yelled and ranted and sent her to bed without dinner. Alison had sat on her dirty mattress in an alcove and stared at her hand, reliving the sensation of the brittle bones popping, and the rapid thrumming of the bird's fearful heart going still. Alison stopped in her tracks, her plasma rifle lowered, the dry wind whipping about her long, brown hair as the childhood memories came flooding back. She smiled crookedly. If only John Connor were a small bird, so she could do the same to him. Unfortunately, he was a much tougher opponent, more like a hawk, but even hawks had their weaknesses. Alison was a child no more, and men had needs. Peering cautiously into the hazy dusk for signs of enemy movement, she stuck her hand into a random pile of scrap and junk, releasing a hidden lever. The scrap pile swung back by a hidden mechanism exposing a thick, steel reinforced, door beneath. It was covered in stealth jet tiles salvaged from a ruined Air Force base in the valley. A slit in the door opened. Alison leaned over, staring into the darkness."Flying monkeys," she softly replied, the password of the day. She'd give John credit for one thing. He had great taste in literature, even if these new codes were chosen to mock him. It was a shame he didn't have better taste in women. Alison inwardly chuckled at that. A latch was opened and the door, greased with oil, moved aside on nearly silent rollers. A familiar, scruffy face was staring up at her. Derek Reese smiled and backed down the ladder allowing her room to enter. As soon as she was through, Alison tripped another hidden lever and the door slid back and locked securely in place. She climbed down and stood next to Derek as he turned a key and typed in a code on small keypad device. A laser grid, a silken, red spider web, snapped into place in the opening they had just emerged from. Derek turned to Alison and slammed her up against the opposite wall, pinning her arms. They stared at each other silently and then he leaned in and they kissed passionately, like lovers at midnight. Alison bit into his lower lip and pulled it with her teeth and then released, smiling savagely. She playfully snapped at him with bared teeth. "Ow! Shit!," Derek exclaimed, putting his hand up to his bloodied lip. "What was that for?" "Making me go out on night patrol for the fourth straight rotation!," she snarled, smacking him in the chest. "Are you seriously trying to fuck up our plan or are you majorly stupid? I could wind up dead!" Derek gritted his teeth. "Keep your voice down!," he hissed.A grunt walked by, glanced at them, shaking his head and disappeared around a corner. "What the hell was his problem?," snarked Alison, nodding to where the grunt had just been."Half the squad knows about you and me." Derek chastised."Who cares? They're loyal to you." Alison raised an eyebrow. "And besides, you're bonking the best looking gal in the camp." She walked her fingers up Derek's chest. "It's good to be the king."Derek heaved a sigh. "Damn it, Alison, Mel Brooks quotes aside, you're also tight with John... remember? John? That probably doesn't sit well with my men." "Sit well? Sit well? We're working to axe Connor... all of us. And they're pissed because I... you know... have to juggle a few balls at once?" Alison's smile was pure evil. "Besides, it gives me more practice, and my baby loves those fringe benefits, don't you?"You're just too bad." Derek smirked. "I know," Alison replied like an innocent school girl. "That's why you love me." ------------------------
The lone private who had passed Derek and Alison a moment ago, a boyish looking man in his twenties, continued to walk down the concrete tunnel. He roguishly winked at a blonde, female soldier who was walking by in the opposite direction. She smiled back demurely, following him with her eyes. The man waited in the shadows until all signs of life were gone. His expressive and kindly face turned to a stoney, almost inhuman mask, started to shimmer and lose definition, his form melting like candle wax into a silvery mass. The T-1001 slithered gracefully across the floor and poured itself through a drainage grate.