Fic - The Butterfly Effect 6/9
Title: The Butterfly Effect (6/9)
Rating: Hard R: violence, sex, harsh language, you probably know the drill by now.
~ ~ ~
The Butterfly Effect 6/9
~ ~ ~
As soon as Sarah entered the room with Derek, Michael pushed away the glass Cameron was holding for him and struggled to sit up straighter in the bed. Without speaking, Cameron put her arms around him and lifted him bodily into a more upright position. It was only after she stepped back from the bed that she realized he was staring up at her in astonishment.
“Uh, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she smiled, completely oblivious to his reaction. “Would you like some chicken soup? It has excellent restorative powers, according to popular theory.”
“We don’t have any chicken soup, Cameron,” Sarah snapped impatiently, pulling a chair up to the side of the bed. When she saw Michael, she ran a hand through her tangled hair and made an effort to soften her tone. “How about oatmeal?”
Michael shrugged as effectively as he could with his right shoulder tightly bandaged and his left arm tethered to an IV. “Sure, oatmeal’s fine.” He leaned back, waiting until Cameron had left the room before he turned to Sarah. “Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe,” she said, not willing to be drawn on the specifics. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Zach?” The optimism on his face faded as soon as she shook her head, but he found himself unable to look away. “You’re really her, aren’t you? You’re really Sarah Connor.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
He laughed nervously, his words tumbling over themselves. “I thought I recognized John, back at the café, but I kept telling myself it was bullshit, that he would be older, but then you’re younger, too.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “I guess you weren’t exactly looking your best when you were arrested, and then the news reports switched to stock footage.” His eyes widened as he slowly made the connection. “Holy shit, did you jump?”
For a long moment she didn’t answer him. A glance at Derek saw him raise an eyebrow in a way that told her it was her call, and she came to her decision quickly after that.
“Yes. We jumped eight years.”
“Jesus.” The word escaped him in a breath. It had never been a game for him or Zach. They had always believed utterly in what they had chosen to do, but finally having confirmation of those beliefs made his heart race and his vision suddenly blur.
“Hey, take it easy.” Derek stepped forward, concerned by how abruptly the color had drained from his patient’s face. Michael nodded, his breathing ragged as tears brimmed in his eyes.
“There’s a group of us.” He licked his dry lips and tried to keep his hand from trembling as Sarah handed him the glass of water. “We met a few years back, through the forum, initially. I guess we’ve grown up together. We’d researched your case and Cyberdyne, and we knew that Judgment Day wasn’t a lie, that it was really going to happen.” He gave another awkward shrug. “We wanted to help.”
“Help how?” Ordinarily, she would’ve dismissed the notion out of hand, but Cameron’s data had already proven Michael and Zach’s worth to the efforts of the Resistance.
“I’m studying Quantum Mechanics at Caltech. I’m only in my second year but I’ve already had job offers from three major research firms across the country.”
“And Zach?” she prompted softly.
“He’s at med school. He’s specializing in pediatrics and immunology.” The tears that had been threatening to fall were now streaming unheeded down his face. “He figured, after the war, someone would need to look out for the kids. He’s been assisting with research projects, new drug trials. He’s made contacts in the pharmaceutical industry and they supply him with samples of patented and trial drugs.” He wiped his face with his left hand. “We have a stockpile.”
“You guys are fucking serious, aren’t you?” Derek’s initial skepticism was rapidly waning.
“Totally.” Michael managed a smile. “There were only eight of us at the start. All with different interests and skills. Four in the US, two in Britain, one in Australia and one in China. But we have about a hundred members now. Some are more involved than others, but we’re all getting ready.”
At no point did he speak with the exaggerated fervor of a cult member. If anything, his explanation was so lacking in sensation that it left Sarah no reason to doubt his claims.
“I had no idea it was John on the forum.” He shifted uncomfortably and peered down with a wince at his shoulder. “I guess fate has a funny way of fucking us all about sometimes.”
That surprised a wry laugh from her. “Yeah. I guess so.” She didn’t look at Derek this time. It was still her call to make. Leaning forwards in her chair, she took a deep breath and began to explain to Michael exactly how thoroughly fate had chosen to fuck with him and Zach.
It took her a while. He sat motionless, pale and silent as she told him about Kaliba and the research facility in Wyoming that had already been destroyed, and the one they thought was somewhere close to the coordinates he had given them. He listened to the scant details they had found regarding his and Zach’s part in the future resistance, and his mouth dropped open when she told him that Cameron was a machine. Even with the morphine in his system, he thought he should’ve figured that one out for himself.
When she had finally laid it all out for him, she sounded as weary as he felt, and he wondered at the burden she had carried for almost eighteen years now. He had questions; despite the pain of his injury and the exhaustion that wouldn’t let him think clearly, he had a thousand questions. But in the end, he only asked the one.
“Think you can find Zach?”
The look on his face told her to be honest with him.
“I don’t know. We’re gonna follow your coordinates, see what’s out there, but we just don’t know.”
That was enough for him and he closed his eyes, reassured. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice fading as he edged towards sleep. “Thank you.”
~ ~ ~
The T-888s at the Optima facility had worked tirelessly and without complaint for hours. Kristina took a step backwards to allow one of them to pass her with its load, and then peered into the room it had just left to evaluate their progress. They were on schedule, more or less. A problem with the cargo trucks had set them back slightly, but the equipment was largely dismantled and packaged, and two of the T-888s were already designing the welcome present she was planning to leave for the Connors.
She walked down the corridor, considering each room carefully before she opted for the most obvious tactic of selecting the one furthest from the entrance. Taking her PDA from her pocket, she tapped the central screen and studied the progress of the small red dot moving towards the complex. She estimated the operative was still an hour away, which left plenty of time for her to change into something a little more formal and grab herself something to eat.
~ ~ ~
The mood at the table was pensive. Sarah pushed her food around her plate with her fork; every bite she took tasted like sawdust. She glanced at John, who was eating but without his customary enthusiasm. By contrast, Derek cleared his plate with the methodical, auto-pilot ease of someone accustomed to taking a final meal before embarking on a potentially one-way mission. No-one was talking. Everything had already been said. They all looked up when the kitchen door opened, but Cameron was the quickest to move.
“You shouldn’t be out of bed.” Sarah hurriedly pulled another chair over to the table and Cameron guided Michael onto it.
“I…” He grabbed for the chair and sat down the instant before his legs collapsed from under him. “Yeah, maybe not.”
“You sure you’re gonna be okay on your own?” The effort of walking had left him sweating and breathing harshly, and Sarah was still hoping he might have a change of heart and say no, but he was already nodding. When they had had this discussion earlier, he had insisted that he could manage.
“First time I ever got shot,” he said quietly. “But I’ve been hurt worse. My, uh, my dad wasn’t too happy about having a queer for a son.” He tried to smile but it never reached his eyes, and he took a mouthful of the pasta that Derek had plated up for him instead.
“I support Gay Rights,” Cameron suddenly announced into the silence.
Sarah blinked slowly, Derek leaned back in his seat wondering exactly how this one was going to play out, and John almost choked on his spaghetti.
“You do?” John coughed again and then swallowed a gulp of water.
“I signed a petition.” Cameron’s face was flushed with something that resembled pride. “At school, there was a petition to allow Ruby Matheson and her girlfriend to go to the Prom. Didn’t you sign it, John?”
He shook his head. He had never even heard of Ruby Matheson. “No, I guess I missed out on that.”
Michael was laughing quietly. He knew now why Cameron lacked so many social graces, but she still amused the hell out of him. “Guess you could’ve taught my dad a thing or two, Cameron.”
“Yes.” She paused, taking the time to consider exactly what form those lessons might have taken, and he gave an involuntary shiver at the expression on her face. “Yes, I probably could have.”
“Cameron,” Sarah broke into the exchange before Cameron got the idea of asking Michael for his father’s current whereabouts. “Don’t you still have work to do on the perimeter?”
“Oh.” The machine smiled and nodded. “Yes. It should take me approximately forty-six minutes.”
“Fine, we should be good by then.”
John went out with her and Derek started to clear the table. Once her plate had been taken, Sarah turned to Michael.
“You ever fire a gun?”
“Once. After our house was broken into, we went to a range. We had a gun locked up in the bedroom, but Zach mustn’t have been able to get to it in time.”
She took her Glock from the back of her pants and set it on the table. “Okay, then I guess you’re overdue a refresher.”
Neither of them pointed out how inadequate one handgun would be in the event of a Kaliba attack. The perimeter Cameron was setting would be a complete one. She would arm the access gate as they left. If anyone approached the house, he would at least have a few minutes of advanced warning. He gripped the gun, feeling the pull on his shoulder as he forced his arm to move. He wouldn’t let them take him, and he realized that, if it came to it, one handgun would be perfectly adequate after all.
~ ~ ~
The list in Kristina’s hand contained twelve names. Zach only had ten fingers, so she had told the machine to start with his left hand and take its time. She had been surprised at how little screaming there had been.
“Okay.” She took a step closer to the young man in the chair and grinned when he flinched away from her. His cheek was warm and sticky beneath her hand. “I think that’s enough for now.” She folded the list into her jacket pocket - the names already deeply ingrained in her memory - and stroked his hair gently. “Give him some water and I’ll see you in an hour.”
The machine nodded and uncapped a bottle from the tray where it had laid its tools out. The sound of Zach coughing and retching faded when Kristina closed the door behind her.
She had instructed the machines to delay clearing her office until the last minute. The heat inside was smothering; she pulled her jacket off and threw it across the room. A crystal decanter went the same way, splintering into hundreds of pieces and leaving a satisfying dent in the wall.
Zach hadn’t told her a thing. In four hours he had barely said a word, and he had fainted twice, which had only eaten further into the time she had left. Kaliba desperately wanted those people on the list. It had been attempting to track them for years, but a promising lead at a psychiatrist’s practice had gone cold and Sydney Fields had vanished into thin air along with her sister. Zach and Michael were the first breakthrough they had had in months and their very first contact with any of the main players.
As Michael had been considered the priority target, it was his name they had been searching for, not realizing that the surname the couple shared had originally been Zach’s. To her, that seemed something of a schoolboy error, as did Kaliba’s decision to focus their efforts on Australia, based on nothing more than anecdotal information showing the couple had been living in Canberra when the bombs had dropped. Kristina was well aware how fickle and fluid the future was. The role she performed for Kaliba was one long manipulation of the butterfly effect, and accidentally finding the Trents was going to prove a perfect case in point.
The irony that Kaliba would probably never have found the Trents without the interference of the Connors had kept Kristina smiling despite the upheaval they had also caused. Executing Zach seemed wasteful to her, but Kaliba were not interested in any attempts to convert him to their cause and they had no need for his skills as a half-qualified pediatrician. Undermining and weakening the group of people he had managed to organize had been viewed as the preferred outcome. It was her familiarity with the two men that had ultimately won her the approval to conduct Zach’s interrogation, and she was beginning to feel the pressure.
An alert on her PDA put the trucks’ ETA at three hours, which meant she would be at her new site in less than twelve. The thought invigorated her and she checked her watch. It had only been thirty minutes. That was just too fucking bad for Zach, she decided, and crossed the room to pick up her jacket.
~ ~ ~
Having had the luxury of time in which to choose, John and Cameron had stolen a Jeep in far better condition than Sarah and Derek’s truck had been, and it had reached the edge of the desert without incident. Two hours later, as they made their way along yet another section of track that dipped into a clump of scrub oak and provided no easy route through, the engine overheated again and they had to stop.
Without waiting to be told, Cameron climbed from the back seat and lifted the truck’s hood as Sarah popped the lever. John stirred and mumbled in his sleep, but that was his only contribution to their latest delay. By Cameron’s estimate, they were still three and a half hours from Silver Needle, with no idea where the Kaliba facility was from there.
“Give it ten minutes,” Cameron announced when she returned to her seat.
Derek lowered his window, the familiar scents of the desert drifting into the truck and taking the edge off Sarah’s nerves. Their mission had nothing beside a vague location, a wing and a prayer. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of their meeting with Michael, and John’s presence in the back seat was making her chest so tight that it was hard for her to breathe. They were stronger as a team, she reminded herself. They had metal, a vast assortment of weapons, grenades, C4, and the element of surprise, no matter how diluted. Her chest still ached when she drew a breath. She checked her watch and then restarted the engine.
~ ~ ~
Zach closed his eyes as the young woman walked away from him. He wasn’t really sure what was happening anymore, but he knew that as long as he didn’t speak then everyone would be safe. Half of her questions he hadn’t understood. Some of the names that she had repeated over and over he hadn’t even recognized. When she had asked him about Sarah and John Connor he had still been alert enough to disguise his reaction. He had no idea how they were involved, but that was the point when he had stopped talking completely.
It wasn’t like it was in the movies. He hadn’t snarled his defiance and then worked to break free from the chair they had bound him to. He had been sick with fear and mostly only semi-coherent, and he hurt worse than he had ever believed possible. In the corner, making no attempt to lower their voices, the woman and the man were discussing his fate.
“Leaving him alive is contrary to our orders.” It was the first time he had heard the man speak.
The woman replied as if she was explaining something to a small child. “Oh, I don’t intend him to live for long.” She didn’t think Zach would even be found, not if everything went according to plan, but she liked to have contingencies in place. He was no great threat to Kaliba, so the tiny risk she was taking seemed well worthwhile. “I just want him to delay the Connors for long enough that none of them gets out of here.” She turned back to face Zach, and the blank look in her eyes was more terrifying than anything that had happened to him so far. “I don’t want him to be able to run.”
The man gave a curt nod. A quick flash of a blade, and the ropes around Zach’s ankles fell loose. He felt an unyielding grip take hold of his right leg, and realized what the man was about to do at the same time as he finally understood that what knelt at his side wasn’t a man at all. Then he heard the crack, and the shock of the pain made everything fade away.
~ ~ ~
With no street lights or headlights, night in the desert brought near-total darkness. In the front seat of the Jeep, Sarah clung onto the dash as Cameron drove. The machine had extinguished the truck’s high beams to stop them interfering with her infrared vision. She was managing to maintain a decent speed without hurtling them head-first into any of the huge boulders that littered the landscape, but the size of the obstacles they were so narrowly missing had not gone unnoticed by Sarah.
“How far?” Sarah was reluctant to speak in case Cameron decided to make eye contact when she answered. The handheld GPS Sarah had been tracking their route on was reasonably accurate, but she knew the machine was better.
“Five minutes. You might want to wake John.”
“I’m awake.” John’s protest was undermined slightly when he yawned halfway through it. “Where the hell are we?”
Outside his window, eerie shapes loomed out of the void; windswept trees, bizarre rock formations and cacti that were taller than he was. Another minute passed before anyone gave him an answer.
“We’re here.” Cameron slowed the Jeep to a stop. “Michael’s coordinates were quite precise.”
Sarah climbed from her seat and stretched her limbs with a murmur of relief. It was only when she played a flashlight carefully over their surroundings that she realized exactly how precise Michael’s coordinates had been.
“Jesus, Cameron.” The front bumper of the Jeep was an inch away from an immense tower of white rock which tapered into a slender point as it thrust skywards. In a contest, the Jeep would have lost, badly. She turned her head when she heard John approaching.
“Guess we know where it gets its name from.” He craned his head back to try to take in the scale of it.
“I guess so.”
Cameron had crossed to a small clearing, and was slowly turning three-sixty degrees as she scanned the immediate area. When she had finished, she walked further away from them and repeated the process. Sarah watched the machine for another couple of minutes before the cool air started to make her shiver and she went back to the truck.
“Thanks.” She pulled on the jacket Derek had handed to her and zipped it up tightly.
“Yeah,” he was rubbing his hands together, “wish I’d brought gloves.”
By the time Cameron returned, all three of them were back in the Jeep with the heater cranked up.
“Two miles south-south-west of here,” she said without preamble, “there is an east-west track that appears to be reasonably well-maintained.”
“You went that far?” Sarah’s pulse was already pounding along at double-speed.
“No, I went far enough that I could see the track. The human eye could not detect it from here, not even in the daylight. I could not see what it led to.”
“Any signs of security?”
“None that I could detect.”
Derek ran a hand across his jaw. “So, we just go to the track and then travel a distance in both directions?”
Cameron gave a nod. “Unless I can get a clearer view once we are closer.” She looked to Sarah for guidance, who in turn glanced at John and Derek.
“Yeah, go ahead,” Sarah said off their reactions. “We go slow, keep the lights off.” She heard Derek pump the shotgun and John slide the clip out from his Glock before slapping it back into place. Her Glock was already in her hand, and the Remington within easy reach in the footwell. As Cameron maneuvered slowly around the Needle and began to pick up speed, none of that felt like nearly enough.
~ ~ ~
A rustle off to the left sounded impossibly loud to Zach, but he knew that other senses compensated when one had been taken away. Before the woman had left, she had secured the blindfold into place herself, her expensive candy-apple-sweet perfume wafting over him and making him feel sick. As soon as her footsteps and then all the other noises had faded, he had started to count. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, tracking the time as it passed and taking his mind off the relentless pain in his hands and his leg. Although he had drifted between lucidity and unconsciousness, his numbers were high enough to tell him that at least an hour had gone by.
The air in the room was hot and still, and it was getting harder for him to draw a breath with the tape across his mouth. He fought to control the panic that threatened to pull him under again.
“I don’t need you to scream anymore,” she had told him after gagging him. She had spoken directly into his ear and afterwards kissed it gently.
He had only screamed once in all the time he had spent in that room. She must have known that if he heard anything other than the hard, heavy tread of the machines, the noise he would make would not be a scream for help, but a warning.
~ ~ ~
The signs that they were in the right place became more apparent as they left the Needle behind. They passed vast, circular hollows where the scrub had been scorched and the ground was still charred and barren. With increasing frequency, the coarse, sandy rock of the boulders bore blackened scars, and a number of them had been shattered as if caught between a massive hammer and anvil. The devastation was focused on one relatively small area; once they had driven through that, the desert landscape returned to normal.
“I wonder when they started to organize like this.” Sarah was staring out of the window. The pattern of destruction they had just witnessed suggested a lot of traffic had passed through the Kaliba TDE. “You think they can go forwards as well as back?” Kyle had told the police: nobody goes home, that his trip was one-way only. But the rules were constantly being rewritten, and the thought of Skynet opening up their time-travel in such a way was not a pleasant one.
“We used a machine built in 1963,” John reminded her quietly. “I guess if they can’t communicate with the future then they’ll be trying to fix that, especially after what we did at Deacon.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She didn’t sound very happy about that prospect.
“One thing at a time, mom.” He squeezed her hand and felt her return the pressure gently. “We’ll just add it onto the list for later.”
His refusal to dwell upon the seemingly insurmountable odds made her smile, and she leaned back in her seat as Cameron stopped the Jeep just before they hit the track. The machine climbed out and walked forwards, her assault rifle held at the ready as she scanned in both possible directions. Only a couple of minutes passed before she returned to the driver’s seat.
“There’s a low-level building one and a quarter miles east. The track also has fresh tire marks heading west. Two large cargo trucks and two smaller SUVs.” She caught Sarah’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Whatever was out there, I think it has already been removed.”
Sarah nodded; that was something they had all feared. “Let’s go make sure.”
~ ~ ~
They didn’t use the track. Even if the facility was deserted, advertizing their approach in such a blatant manner seemed ill-advised. Cutting a wide arc around the building, Cameron took them as close as she deemed safe and then stopped the truck in a well-concealed spot surrounded by rocks and creosote bushes. Without speaking, they divided bags and weapons between themselves.
“Stick together or split?” Derek hefted his small duffel bag over his shoulder and tucked his radio into his pants, leaving both hands free to hold the M-79.
“Stick together.” Sarah’s decision was immediate and delivered in a tone that did not invite debate. Dividing into smaller teams never seemed to end well for them.
Taking point, Cameron kept to the shadows as she forged an indirect path towards the front of the building. When she paused to scan, Sarah took out a pair of night-vision goggles and did likewise.
“Nothing,” she said, handing the goggles to Derek. “No obvious security, no lights, no sign of life, nothing. Fuck.” It had been a long trip for their only achievement to be causing Kaliba a slight inconvenience.
“If they moved on in a hurry, they might have gotten sloppy, left something behind.” John passed the goggles back to his mother and tried not to think what they would have to tell Michael when they got home.
“Quick sweep.” Derek looked at Sarah, who nodded and followed behind Cameron as soon as she set off moving again.
What seemed to pass for a front door had been left ajar, and the sight of it, even from a relatively safe distance, made the hairs stand up on the back of Sarah’s neck.
“I can’t detect any indication of wiring or explosives.” Cameron tilted her head to one side and closed her eyes. “One male voice, young. He sounds distressed.”
“Shit.” That changed everything. Sarah’s fingers clenched and unclenched around the Remington. “Shit.”
“It’s a fucking set-up, Sarah.” Derek was staring at the door as it slowly swung in the breeze, waiting for the monsters to appear.
“I know,” she whispered, “we all know it’s a fucking set-up.” Stating the obvious wasn’t helping. “Why leave him here otherwise? Hell, it might not even be Zach. It could be metal.”
“Mom, if it is him...”
“I know, John.” The longer this debate went on, the more dangerous the situation became. There were no good options, but when she looked at her son’s face she realized he was only considering one. With a sinking heart, she gestured at Cameron. “Go.”
As they moved steadily closer, Derek resumed his position beside Sarah. “Keep the machine with John,” he said in an undertone. “Whatever happens, he’s gonna be their target.”
She nodded, and nodded again when Cameron glanced back towards her. There was no need to reiterate what had just been decided; she knew that Cameron had heard everything.
It took them a while to reach the door, and the cries had tapered off into exhausted sobs. A narrow corridor stretched before them. It was dark, the electricity disconnected, and the heat was suffocating as soon as they stepped over the threshold. They could see four doors and then the corridor swung around to the right.
“He’s in the lower level, possibly a basement,” Cameron answered Sarah’s unspoken question.
“Always a fucking basement,” Derek muttered, and despite everything Sarah gave him a wry smile.
“Get in and out of these rooms as quick as we can. You two to search.” She pointed to Cameron and John. “We’ll keep watch. Prop the doors open.”
Every room had been stripped bare. Discarded wiring and dust-free areas suggested that large amounts of technical equipment had once occupied the majority of the floor space, but nothing useful had been left behind, and they made rapid progress with the sweep.
At no point had Cameron detected a heat signature behind the closed doors. Nothing was booby-trapped and nothing ambushed them. When they arrived at the junction of the corridor, Sarah was soaked through with sweat and her mouth was dry. Nothing should be this easy, nothing ever was.
~ ~ ~
TBC…
~ ~ ~