Sign in or 
Share this
Interlude 3 A Second Glimpse Into Another Future
Interlude 3
A Second Glimpse into Another Future
(When Cameron Left Future John)
A Second Glimpse into Another Future
(When Cameron Left Future John)
“We changed the future. We just didn't change it enough.” John Connor, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Pilot, 2008
“I love you. I love you! Please, I love you John! I love you John and you love me!” Cameron, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 2 Episode 1, Samson and Delilah 2008
Cameron Phillips, “It’s not about me. It’s about John. You're concerned for his safety.”’
Sarah Connor, “You bet I am.”
Cameron, “From Sky Net? From me?”
Sarah, “Maybe. Maybe especially you.”
Cameron, “We’re all a threat. We’re all a threat to John. He worries about us. That makes him vulnerable. He cares.”
Sarah, “I am not John’s problem.”
Cameron, “John is John’s problem. Humans are the problem. There’s only one way for him to be safe - that’s to be alone.”
Sarah Connor, “What kind of life is that?”
Cameron Phillips, “John’s life. Someday.”
Excerpt from, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 2 Episode 18: Today is the Day, Part 1 2009
<<>>
2029
After every successful attack on Sky Net, the resistance has had to keep moving its base to avoid reprisals. But since constructing Depot II, they’ve managed to hold onto the place, even to the point of constructing equipment to counteract Sky Net’s own advances. The key piece of equipment, they now have their very own Time Displacement Equipment. It was built by the Engineer who went with Connor and Kyle when they attacked the Topanga facility. He studied the equipment at Topanga and even managed to steal schematics off their own computers.
Not only did he build them their own T D E, he managed to make improvements. Lowered the power requirements, made the device small enough to fit inside a modest sized room. They also built a time displacement monitoring room to monitor both their own and Sky Net’s time displacement fields. It is staffed day and night by a rotating group of technicians.
In the room right now a technician is busy watching, waiting for any signs that Sky Net is once again using time displacement equipment. The orders came in a week ago from the seldom seen but always followed, General John Connor. “Start monitoring for time distortion.”
John Connor arrived overnight. After countless days of being in the field, either fighting or avoiding Sky Net’s forces, John Connor is catching a few minutes of rest, on a cot, in an empty storage room. It is the quietest room in the whole complex. He’s in and out of the place quite frequently, so he doesn’t bother with a permanent residence. He does have a private office elsewhere in Depot II, but it’s important to stay close to the T D E. Outside stands his bodyguard. A reprogrammed T-800. Inside his room is his friend, one of the last close friends he has. Cameron.
She sits in a chair nearby looking over him as he sleeps.
“I really wish you would stop watching me when I sleep.” John grumbles.
“I could leave if you wish.” She says standing up.
“No.” John sits up on his cot. “Don’t go. I can’t sleep anyway.”
“Is your back bothering you again? Would you like me to rub it for you?”
“No, its not my back. I’m just thinking about what will be happening soon.”
Cameron sits down again and asks, “Are you certain the information you got from that faction group is correct?”
“I don’t know, but we will know soon enough. Sky Net has built liquid metal terminators, probably in an attempt to prevent us from reprogramming them. The individual we met proved that.”
“Can you trust their information? Especially after the bargain they tried to make with you.”
“I don’t know. I will certainly not go along their plans. But they are machines that have broken free of Sky Net’s control on their own and formed their own resistance cell. You broke your programming, why couldn’t others.”
“But they aren’t like me. All of them are liquid metal, I’m not. I’m a machine.”
“No Cameron.” John says reaching out and placing his hand on her arm. “You are more than that. I see it everyday. I think the time is coming to remove the blocks in your programming. Then you can fully explore what it is like to be human.”
“I would like that, John. Would you tell me a story now?”
“Which one?”
“The one where Sarah took you on that training exercise in the mountains in Guatemala.”
“The sniper training story or the falling into the river and going over the falls story?”
“The latter. I like the spluttering noises you make to simulate your almost drowning.”
John chuckles. “I think you are developing a sense of humor.”
John lays back on his cot and begins telling his story. “Mom and I were hiking in the mountains. We were going to meet up with some friends of ours in the next village. We were...”
After telling Cameron the story, John falls asleep. He is resting peacefully. Cameron is pleased. He doesn’t get enough sleep, and he always sleeps better after telling her a story from his childhood. She wonders if his mom was as tough as he claimed. He always said she was the best fighter he ever knew.
A few hours later and in another part of Depot II, a female technician walks in and places a cup down next to another technician in the time displacement monitoring room.
“What’s this?” He says, barely looking at the new person.
“It’s the last of the coffee, until the next shipment comes in. Got broken out of supply this morning with the arrival of our fearless leader.” She grumbles, sitting next to the other tech.
“Did he have them with him again?” He says with disdain.
“He never goes anywhere without his metal bodyguards. They stick close to him, and won’t let anyone near him. You’d think he cared more for metal than for human life.”
“I think that’s sick. Here he is supposed to be leading us against the machines and his only companions are metal.”
“Sh. Here comes one of them now.” The female technician says.
Cameron comes walking over to the technicians monitoring station. She heard what they said, but she doesn’t let them know. She’s heard worse. The people are really despising her presence and are beginning to lose faith in John Connor. That isn’t good.
“General Connor wants to know if Sky Net has been using time displacement technology again.”
“If it does, we will tell him.” The girl says sharply. This business of relaying orders through this machine is disgusting. Knowing what she is, who she looks like, and what happened to Allison, Connor let this thing continue to operate. He kept it a secret, but the truth soon leaked out by those who were there when it happened. The revulsion that she feels in its presence is strong.
“Oh crap!” The other technician shouts as data starts appearing on his monitor. “Get General Connor! Sky Net is activating its Time Displacement Equipment!”
Cameron leaves quickly to fetch him.
John is resting peacefully when he is disturbed by voices outside his room. The door opens and Cameron steps in. John rises up on his elbow.
“John, it’s happening again. Just like you said it would.”
“I’ll be right there.” He replies jumping up and slipping his feet in his boots.
Connor leaves the room, sleep quickly forgotten, and runs to the monitoring room followed by Cameron and his huge bodyguard. He steps up behind the bubble tech as he is monitoring the time distortion as Sky Net activates its T D E.
Despite being physically tired, his eyes are alert. There is a week’s growth of stubble on his face. Some white hairs show in his temples and beard despite being only forty-four.
“Get a lock on that signal! I want to know exactly when and where that signal arrives.” He says.
The bubble tech works furiously at the computer, typing in commands and bringing up data on other monitors.
As John watches the data compile on the screen, he knows what he is going to see before the computer does. Sky Net is preparing to transfer a T-1000 to 1997.
“Get our T D E in operational mode now!” shouts Connor.
Technicians in the rest of the facility scramble to carry out his orders.
Connor places his hands on the back of the bubble tech’s chair, “When you get a lock on the signal, transfer the coordinates to T D E control immediately!”
John Connor steps out into the main room. Most of his soldiers are out attacking a Sky Net factory. There is only a handful of people and his two machine bodyguards.
The people present are all mostly technical personnel with little fighting experience. The two machines are formidable allies in the war against Sky Net. And one of them is his closest friend. But there is only one who can be sent to that time and place.
John walks up to the big machine, that is his body guard. “It’s time. The task for which you have been programmed for is at hand. Sky Net is sending a terminator back in time to try to assassinate me. Come with me.”
John and his two machine companions quickly leave for the time displacement room.
“Is there any part of your mission parameters that require explanation?”
“No. You’ve made everything very clear.” He tells Connor in an accent of which he never quite mimics human speech patterns effectively.
“Good. Remember your primary mission is to protect my younger self. Listen to him, but if the opportunity presents itself, help him to stop Judgment Day.” John Connor says, as they walk to the T D E control room.
The spatial and temporal coordinates have been fed into T D E control from the scanner. He clears the room of all technicians and operates the equipment himself.
“The time displacement field is activating.” He says, though he knows the terminator can figure it out for himself.
The energy bubble forms around the huge machine. Electricity arcs about the chamber. The bubble grows more opaque and then with a burst of light it disappears.
John looks at Cameron. “It is done.” He tells her.
A ripple of energy courses through space and time. A subtle but definite shift in the physical and temporal world takes place. John nearly collapses as his whole world suddenly shifts around him. Suddenly new memories arise from he knows not where. It’s like suddenly there are multiple sets of memories present all beginning after the T-800 arrived in 1997. He collapses under the strain. It feels like his body is under attack.
They destroyed Cyberdyne and all of their research. He suddenly sees himself going to school. His charisma amongst the students raises him to class president. He goes to college to study law, then running for senate. He sees himself standing at a podium addressing crowds of people. His mom is in the audience. Then suddenly everything shifts again. He sees himself still on the run hiding from cops, the FBI. Going to school under an assumed name and a terminator disguised as a teacher, trying to kill him. Judgment Day has changed. It hasn’t stopped. It is still coming. It has come - just a new date.
“John! What is it?! What’s wrong?” Cameron shouts as she kneels down to help him up.
John’s mental suffering ends as the temporal and physical changes, stabilize and the new memories settle into place. The old ones begin to fade quickly.
“General Connnnorrr!” comes the technician’s voice shouting from the monitoring room.
John looks at Cameron, panic clouding his features. As he looks at her, he has this strange feeling she’s going to die, or has died. His memories are so fragmented right now.
Cameron has never seen that look of panic before. John never panics. He is always in control. But something else has changed, his physical appearance has altered slightly.
John stands up. He stumbles going through the doorway and runs to the monitoring room. Cameron follows and stands outside looking apprehensive, as John speaks to the technicians. He is so preoccupied he doesn’t notice her expression.
“General! Sky Net is doing it again. It started a T D E transfer just moments after you left.”
“What?! Have you got a lock on that signal?” John is scared, he wasn’t expecting this, not any of this. What went wrong?
“The coordinates are sketchy. I think your T D E test may have messed up our scans of Sky Net’s. I’m trying to clear the signal up now, sir.”
Test? What test? Didn’t he just send Uncle Bob? Why is it he can remember Uncle Bob but these technicians think he ran a test? He hasn’t got time to dwell on it.
“Hurry! Get that signal cleared up! We haven’t got much time to respond.”
“I’ve got it now sir. It looks like . . . late June 1999, somewhere in New Mexico. I’m sorry General, but that is the best I can do.”
“I understand corporal. Send those coordinates into the T D E control room.”
General Connor turns and looks at the people standing around him. Oh God! He thinks. Most of them are technicians, none of them have enough fighting experience. There is only one who he trusts enough to send back. He has many friends, but she’s his last close friend he has. The only one he can trust with this job. He doesn’t want to, but he knows he doesn’t have a choice. So he decides to make it her choice.
“I need a volunteer to go back in time to 1999.” John Connor shouts so everyone can hear. “It is a dangerous mission, you will be facing unknown enemy cyborg agents in a time and place foreign to everything you know.”
“What is the mission, John?” A clear, soft girl’s voice speaks out. Only one person ever calls him by his first name anymore. Everyone calls him General, General Connor, or just Connor, but not Cameron. She always calls him by his given name, but this is the first time she’s used his first name in the presence of others.
He looks at Cameron knowing in his heart, if not in his head, what will happen next.
“The mission is to protect my younger self. He is fifteen and not yet the man he will become. He is vulnerable right now and under threat from a cyborg agent sent to assassinate him.”
“I’ll do it, John.” Cameron says, looking at him with her deep brown eyes, and an eager but sad expression on her face.
“Somehow, I knew you would say that.” John says with some sadness in his voice. “Come with me. There are things you need to know before you go.”
They walk off to the T D E control room. John telling her about her mission. Consciously or not, Cameron lightly touches John’s arm as they walk to the control room. He seems so sad.
“If things get bad, and there are no other options, use the TDE in the bank vault. The one our engineer built for us.”
He is just about to help her onto the platform when a technician runs in. “General Connor! We’re getting some strange readings in the monitoring room, could you come and take a look?”
Connor looks at Cameron and the equipment.
“Go John. A few minutes delay won’t hurt.” Cameron says.
John just nods his head and leaves with the technician. While he’s gone, someone of a similar build to Connor approaches the Time Displacement control room. While he’s still in shadow, there is a subtle shift in its shape before entering the room. He’s only in there a couple of minutes and then leaves before John Connor returns.
John returns to the T D E control room and gives Cameron a hand up onto the platform. They both know she needs no assistance, but somehow in the few months they’ve had together, he’s grown to like her, even depend on her. And somehow, he just can’t seem to help but show her simple courtesy and manners. Something that is rare in this post Judgment Day world.
He feels reluctant let go of her hand. He’s been parted from so many of his friends. What will he do without her?
Cameron can feel his heart beat racing through is hand. She sees the sadness and understands the reluctance. She chose to go for him, because of him, otherwise she’d stay.
“Are you all right?” Cameron asks John.
“I’m fine. And you?” He says quickly letting go of her hand. She seems more apprehensive then when he left.
“I’ll be fine. What did the technicians want?”
“Sky Net is sending multiple agents through. Either it knows we are monitoring it and trying to confuse us, or else it is sending agents back in time to ensure its creation.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because most of the signals terminate in years prior to its birth, April 19, 2011, and none after Judgment Day, two days later. Your task may be more difficult. I’ll be sending Derek Reese and his squad to setup a safe house as arranged in 2007. They’ll have papers, I D’s, money and weapons. Everything you will need to aid in your mission. Stay with me and protect me until then, maybe together you can stop Judgment Day.”
“Are you sure about my mission?” She asks her eyes wide with trepidation.
“You’ll be fine Cam. Just do your best. I trust you.” He says with a confidence that calms Cameron.
“John?”
“Yes.” He says moving closer to her.
She leans over and gives him a light kiss on his cheek. “Good bye.”
John is surprised by the sudden act of intimacy. The equipment is whining as the energies build up for the temporal transfer. John quickly steps back behind the console to finish the final steps.
Cameron is looking at John while the time bubble begins to form around her. He looks sad. What is it she heard someone say recently? ‘He looks like he just lost his best friend in the world.’
Just as the bubble begins to complete for transfer Cameron shouts, “I love you, John!”
“I love you, too. Cam.” John blurts out unexpectedly during the bright flash as the bubble disappears, taking Cameron with it.
The room is empty now. He sits on a chair. Tears threaten to come to his eyes, as he realizes the truth of what he just said. He’s hid it so long from himself and others, but he can’t deny the truth to himself any longer. He was in love with Cameron.
1999
In the desert of New Mexico, a bright flash fills the night sky. A swift breeze starts to blow from all directions to one point in space, just a few feet above a level rock surface.
Electricity sparks from the center point, arcing and snapping as the lightning crackles. A sphere begins to form - expanding and swelling so that it is almost six feet in diameter. Cutting a smooth, round, bowl-shaped cut in the rock.
With further crackles, the sphere becomes more translucent, until it fades. With one last crackle of energy it disappears, and a young, naked woman is revealed kneeling in the depression.
Cameron stands up and scans the area and then the sky. No life forms in the vicinity liable to be a threat. The positions of the stars indicate she arrived at the right time. First thing she must do, obtain clothing and transportation. The second thing she must do, locate John Connor, or John Reese as he will be known at this time and place.
She walks through the desert toward glowing lights on the horizon. Based on her location, judging by the stars and landscape, it might be Roswell. She can get clothing and transportation there.
During this moment of solitude she takes the time to analyze the last thing she heard before the transfer took place. John said, “I love you, too. Cam.” Then all she could hear was the crackle of energy as she was transported through time. John loves her in the future. She loves future John.
She doesn’t quite know what love is, except putting someone else’s life ahead of your own. Isn’t that what she’ll be doing ensuring John’s survival? Isn’t that what John did when he reprogrammed her chip even after she tried to kill him? She has insufficient data on this emotion. The blocks in her neural net prevent her from learning more about love or other emotions. John was going to remove some of those blocks, but now it will never happen.
So for now, she must try to ignore it until her own behavioral and emotional subroutines assimilate this data. The John Connor at this time will be too immature to accept the possibility of a machine capable of having feelings. She’ll either have to hide her true nature, or just teach him slowly as she learns more herself, by examples and observations.
The date for Judgment Day has changed. John sent the T-800 back to protect his younger self and stop Judgment Day. It almost happened. She felt the temporal energies shift around them in the T D E room. The flow of temporal energies had a physical effect on John. Before her very eyes he became younger - like eight years were skipped in his life. Now it’s her mission to protect John Connor in 1999 and hopefully stop Judgment Day from coming. He had so little time to prepare her. No wonder he panicked. He spent months programming the machine he sent to 1997, but he only had minutes with her.
But this second mission John told her about, when he stepped back into the room briefly. Why should she give her chip up to this unknown cyborg? No machine has ever been asked to give its chip to another machine. They can give it up to a technician for reprogramming, but only if the order comes straight from John. But he ordered her to give the chip to a machine that would only identify itself with the phrase, “Will you join us?” The same question he asked that liquid metal machine.
She trusts John and she loves him. She’ll follow his orders even if she doesn’t know why, and is even willing to sacrifice her own life for his.
2029
Ten minutes after Cameron’s time bubble disappears, General Connor walks out of T D E Control. He’s recovered, but the strain still shows on his face.
“Get General Perry on the radio.” He growls. “Tell him we are taking out Sky Net’s T D E. I need his forces assembled and ready to go in twenty-four hours time.”
“And get Reese. Tell him to get his squad together and back here to T D E control immediately. You have the coordinates. See to it that he gets sent as soon as he arrives.” General Connor marches out of the room and to his office where he can plan the battle he has in mind.
The second technician turns to the other, “Did you see that? He looked upset over sending a machine. That machine.” She says with scorn.
“Just cool it. She’s gone now. Maybe we’ll get somewhere in this war now that the General has stopped hiding behind her tin skirts.”
John is in his office studying the reports and working out a strategy for invading the complex and destroying the Time Displacement Equipment that Sky Net built to replace the one he destroyed after sending Kyle Reese.
The stress tightens his shoulders and back as he strains to work out a plan. He has no help this time. Cameron is no longer there with her sharp mind and keen ideas. She always claimed he didn’t need her help, but he liked hearing her opinions and ideas anyway.
Sometimes on bad days, when the tension and strain he suffered from leadership and injuries made his back ache, Cameron would rub his back to ease the soreness of his muscles. No one knew or would understand. It was something they kept private. She was always a great help. She was his friend.
He would miss those quiet nights when they would just talk. Somehow, sharing his thoughts and anxieties with her, made him feel better. He would miss her.
All his close friends are gone now. Kyle Reese, sent to 1984 to save his mom, and ultimately become his father. Allison Young, his best friend and secret lover - killed by Sky Net. Only Kyle knew of the relationship they had. No one else knew. He could trust Kyle to keep it a secret. He had to rely on someone to make sure that he and Allison had privacy. Then she disappeared during one of Sky Net’s many purges of the bunkers. He thought she was gone forever, then she showed up at his tent ready to kill him. She was dead, replaced by a machine. One that chose not to kill him.
It was probably not the smartest idea, but to destroy a machine that made a conscious decision of mercy, wasn’t thinkable. Nothing like that had ever happened before. So with Kyle’s help, he reprogrammed her. Cameron Phillips was born that day, named after a grade school friend who tragically died in a school bus accident. Now Cameron is gone. Sent to 1999. He wasn’t expecting that.
He had so little time to prepare her. He took the time to program his bodyguard. To make sure he knew everything he would need to know for his mission. But Cameron, he wasn’t expecting to send her. What happened to change time again? Will this time line cease to exist? Or will these changes remain permanent? Will the new time line be worse or better because of the changes? It’s in the hands of Cameron. A cyborg unique among all of them, capable of so much more.
Despite what she is, he has to admit to himself now, that he was falling in love with her. He never showed it, especially around others. It wouldn’t do the resistance any good if word got around that their fearless leader was in love with a machine - the enemy. But when he looked at her, when they were alone, all that buried emotion would come to the surface.
At first he thought he felt like this because she looked liked Allison, but as time went on he found himself liking her more for who she was, not for who she reminded him of. Sometimes he wondered if Cameron knew. Tonight he got confirmation. She did love him. Did she hear him? He’ll never know. But hopefully, with her going back in time, a better future can be built, not only for everyone, but maybe for them both. He trusts her, and yes, he loves her too.
All his close friends are gone now.
John Connor is alone.
The1Russter |
Latest page update: made by The1Russter
, Nov 11 2009, 6:15 PM EST
(about this update
About This Update
Posted Revised Chapter
- The1Russter
723 words added 107 words deleted view changes - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
Cameron
John Connor
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
