Fic - The Butterfly Effect 8/9
Title: The Butterfly Effect (8/9)
Rating: Hard R: violence, sex, harsh language, you probably know the drill by now.
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The Butterfly Effect 8/9
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Something dripped, wet and rhythmic, marking the seconds as they ticked by. Sarah opened her eyes with the sudden shock of knowing there was something she had to do. The world spun sickeningly. She shook her head, regretting it immediately as the dripping sound sped up; she put a hand to her scalp to pull it away slick with blood. She blinked, unable to figure out how she had gotten hurt or where she was or why everything looked so wrong.
“Oh God.” Another second passed, another drip of blood, and she had her answers. “John?” She was still upside down, hanging from her seatbelt. “John?” Her fingers fumbled with the fastening as she braced herself to drop. “Derek?” The driver’s seat was empty, and she could see Cameron’s body lying as still as death in a crumpled heap where the impact of the crash had thrown her. Sarah fervently hoped that meant that less than two minutes had passed and not that the cyborg was irreparably damaged. “Reese?”
The answering moan from the back was obscured by the crack and thud of Sarah dropping free from her belt. It hurt, but there was something out there and she was the only one moving. She reached a shaking hand to John’s throat. Half of his face was obscured by blood, but his pulse was strong. She snatched in a breath and grabbed hold of the Remington. As she did so, she could see Derek slowly beginning to try to shift from where he lay trapped beneath Zach’s weight. She couldn’t waste time helping him; she pushed on her door, giving herself something to hide behind as she crawled free from the wreckage. Within seconds, the metal sparked and creased inwards as a bullet glanced off it. She tried to track its trajectory to find their assailant.
“Fuck.”
Ducking back down behind the door, she sat with her back against it and fought to steady her breathing. The clouds had thinned to leave a three-quarter moon blazing light onto the clearing, but despite this the T-888 was making absolutely no attempt to conceal its approach. Torn, scorched skin hung in strips from its face, the metal of its skull gleaming beneath it. With one leg grotesquely twisted, it walked with a pronounced limp, dragging its ruined body inexorably closer. A pistol pointed outwards in the one hand that hadn’t been burned completely off. Cameron’s efforts with the M-79 in the stairwell and then the explosion had obviously taken their toll, but they hadn’t been enough to destroy it, and it was intent on completing its mission.
She pumped the Remington, trying desperately to remember how many shells were left in it. Her first shot flew wide, her position not allowing her to aim with any accuracy, and she looked around to try to find better cover. She knew she had to divert the machine’s attention away from the Jeep. She fired again, blasting its chest with enough force to make it stagger backwards, and without giving herself the opportunity for second thoughts she sprinted towards the rocks they had so nearly reached. A searing heat across her thigh told her she had not made it completely unscathed. Ignoring the pain, she watched as the T-888 cocked its head on one side to study the Jeep and then altered its course to head towards her.
Panting for breath, she wiped sweat and blood away from her face with the back of her hand as she tried to think. Although she now had what she wanted, she had no idea what to do next, and she could see the T-888 steadily closing the gap. She wanted to run, to draw it further into the desert, but with its mobility so impaired she was afraid it would decide to cut its losses and return to the Jeep to execute those inside.
A quick signal from a flashlight indicated that Derek was preparing to attack the machine from behind. Encouraged, she surrendered her cover and targeted the T-888 again. It fired the instant she did, and she slumped back onto the sand as fresh blood trickled down her arm. As far as strategies went, allowing the machine to keep shooting her wasn’t a particularly good one.
Derek had gained some ground, his flashlight flickering on and off briefly to prevent her from accidentally catching him in the cross-fire as he crawled into no-man’s-land. Its attention solely focused on the one target it could see, the T-888 continued to take halting steps. It broached the first outcrop of rocks, forcing her to scramble through a jumbled array of boulders and cacti whose needles scored her bare arms even as she tried to avoid them. She couldn’t simultaneously run and shoot and see where she was going; two bullets ricocheted off the rocks as the machine took full advantage of her predicament. Spinning, she tried to see where Derek was, failing but shooting anyway in the hope that the rocks would contain her attempt if her aim was off. She saw sparks fly from the machine’s skull, more flesh burning away, but the red light in its eyes was undimmed and it didn’t lose its momentum for a second.
Having apparently decided to abandon all sense of caution, Derek trained the full beam of his flashlight on the T-888. He was still some distance away and she barely heard his shouted warning of “Get down!”
The T-888 heard it clearly enough, turning around in a series of halting steps to face this new threat.
“Motherfucker,” she snarled through gritted teeth. She stepped out into the open, grabbed hold of a rock and launched it at the machine, forcing it to swivel back towards her and firing the Remington the instant it did. The thump of the M-79 sounded immediately afterwards, and she barely saw the T-888 split in half as she was thrown backwards by the blast. She landed heavily in the dirt, her head thudding against the ground and pitching everything into shades of grey.
When she managed to shake off the dizziness and prop herself up on her elbows, the T-888 was so close to her that she could see its horror-movie grin. It no longer had a weapon, but it was pulling itself along with its one remaining arm, circuitry trailing from its fractured abdomen and throwing blue sparks into the sand. Scrambling backwards, she tried to turn, to kick over onto her hands and knees, but the terror of reliving a recurring nightmare was making her limbs leaden, and she felt the heated metal of its fingers stroke against her boot and then reach for better purchase.
“No, no, no.” She kicked out, catching the thing in its face, throwing its head back and leaving a gap where four of its teeth had been. The blow didn’t stop it grinning or crawling. She could smell the sweet, meaty stink of its cooked flesh, and some calm, detached part of herself wondered what the hell they made them from as its fingers closed around her ankle.
It twisted its hand, bruising her skin against her bone, trying to pull her towards it. She reached out to grab something, anything that she could use as an anchor. Her fingers slipped from the first rock they touched, but she wrapped her arms around the trunk of a Joshua tree and clung onto it with a bitter determination that eighteen years of war had hammered into her psyche.
Even though it had left half of its body twitching uselessly in the dirt, the T-888 possessed a brutal strength, and she could feel the skin on her forearms shredding inch by inch as it continued to drag at her. She kicked out again, refusing to make anything easy for it, but it retaliated by wrenching hard on her leg, and she let out a hoarse cry, her fingers tearing from their hold. In one effortless motion, it flipped her over onto her front and moved its hand higher to grip her knee. She was trying to dig into the dirt as a last resort when she heard the screech of metal against metal and the machine suddenly jerked her leg to one side. Unable to see what it was doing, she sobbed roughly, lashing out with her unfettered leg to pound her boot against anything and everything she could reach. She didn’t know how long it took her to realize that there were hands on her shoulders, or to hear the voice telling her that she could stop.
“Sarah, easy. It’s just me.” Derek’s voice, his hands. “Cameron’s got it. Just try and stay still for a minute.”
She shook her head, unwilling to stay still when she could feel every joint of the machine’s fingers clamped around her leg.
“Get it off me.” The words came out in a half-strangled whisper. Derek quickly moved out of her line of vision, and there was a further series of jolts followed by a couple of terse instructions from Cameron.
Lying with her face pressed against the cool earth, Sarah forced herself to stop struggling. After a hiss of escaping pressure, the crushing sensation on her knee eased briefly before reestablishing itself with a vengeance as the T-888 rebelled even in its death throes.
“Almost there, Sarah.” Derek’s voice was strained with exertion. Sarah closed her eyes, waiting for the sound that would tell her they had removed its chip. A coyote yelped somewhere off to her left. Derek spat out an foul epithet beneath his breath and the machine finally powered down with a soft sigh that seemed completely incongruous for a monster that had come so close to killing them all.
As soon as its fingers fell loose, she tried to pull herself out from beneath its body. She could barely move. With her adrenaline rapidly fading, nothing seemed to be working very well, and the effort made her feel lightheaded.
“Cameron, get the other side,” Derek snapped, and seconds later the weight was lifted away.
The urge to curl up in a fetal ball and just close her eyes was almost overwhelming, but instead she allowed him to ease her onto her back and carefully sit her up. The machine was nowhere near her. Cameron had already dropped it into a twisted heap a safe distance away and was walking across to collect its lower half. Too exhausted to do anything to help, Sarah sagged against Derek, took a breath and wished the world would stop spinning.
“John’s okay,” he said, pre-empting her. She smiled, and he brushed the sweat-soaked hair away from her face. “You’re a fucking mess, as usual.”
“Mmm.” It wasn’t that bad, really. She ached everywhere and she could feel blood leaking from several wounds, but they were largely superficial, and she would absolutely be able to stand up after a few more minutes of sitting and not doing anything.
Cameron was spreading thermite liberally over and around the T-888. The powder crackled and sizzled as the white-hot flame ate into what remained of the machine’s flesh before starting to devour its skeleton.
Sarah stared at the face in the midst of the pyre. Its eyes stared blankly back. There was no sign of fear, no hint of remorse. There was nothing at all as the thermite melted its grin away.
~ ~ ~
The clearer skies had pushed the temperature even lower. Sarah tucked the blanket tighter around her son as he slept beside her. Other than the occasional mumble, he hadn’t stirred since Derek had sutured the laceration above his ear and given him a dose of Tylenol. He was concussed and covered in bruises but otherwise unscathed. She ran her hand through his hair and tried not to think how much of that outcome was due to luck as opposed to judgment.
“The Jeep will require quite a lot of work.”
She looked up, startled. She had no idea how long Cameron had been standing in front of her. What skin remained on the machine’s hands and face was covered in smudges of grease, and the tatters of her clothing were hidden beneath John’s jacket. She had righted the Jeep easily enough, but it had a blown-out rear tire, no glass in the windows, and an engine that was understandably reluctant to start.
“Can you fix it?” It was a long walk back out to a main road and none of them was in any condition to undertake it.
“Yes.” Cameron hesitated. “But you should find another vehicle as soon as possible. The bullet holes will alert the suspicions of the authorities.”
Not to mention the somewhat unorthodox method of air conditioning and the dents in the bodywork that none-too-subtly indicated it had been involved in a roll-over collision. Too weary for any attempt at sarcasm, Sarah merely nodded, and Cameron took that as leave to return to her task.
Leaning back against an unforgiving piece of rock, Sarah closed her eyes. Her head throbbed, keeping perfect synch with the heated pulse in her knee and her ankle and several places in between.
“So, Connor…”
She cranked one eye open as Derek drew her blanket away from her.
“Exactly how many times did you get shot?” He had already given her a quick once-over and the lightness of his tone spoke to the fact that he knew none of her injuries was serious.
“They’re just flesh wounds,” she muttered indignantly. “They’re hardly even bleeding.” That was a lie. The dressing he had thrown at her to wrap around her thigh already bore a deep patch of crimson. She quickly changed the subject. “Zach doing okay?”
“Yeah.” He pushed her slightly to one side to give himself room to work. “Well, he’s settled at least. Told me how to strap his hands and splint his leg properly. He reckons he knows a couple of ortho docs who might be able to see him when we get back.”
“Take some explaining,” Sarah said, trying not to wince as Derek cut into her combat pants and then wiped a medicated cloth around the oozing wound on her thigh.
“I know. He’s not sure he’ll need to get them involved. Just said it was a good thing he never wanted to be a surgeon.”
“Jesus.” The tears stinging her eyes had nothing to do with the alcohol biting into her injury. “He’s just a kid.”
“We were all just kids, Sarah.” He gave her a clean pad of gauze to press onto her leg and snipped the bandage away from her arm. “We all grew up with this.”
“Doesn’t make it right,” she whispered.
“No.” Another cloth brought more discomfort. He lifted it clear to give her a break for a few seconds and heard her take a couple of measured breaths. “No, it doesn’t make it right.”
He worked methodically to treat her wounds, managing to limit his reaction to no more than a sigh and a raised eyebrow when she admitted that a third bullet had ripped a hole in her left buttock.
“That one was earlier,” she added, by way of explanation. She didn’t want him to know she had almost forgotten about it because everything else hurt so damn much. “The machine from the entrance.”
He nodded, remembering how she had stumbled just before he had blasted the T-888 with the M-4A1.
“You should’ve told me,” he said mildly.
“Wasn’t really a good time.” She managed a smile, and he laughed quietly and shook his head.
It still wasn’t a good time, but maybe later, when they were home and relatively safe, they could resume their conversation about her tendency to throw herself into the line of fire. For now, it was easier not to dwell too much upon the three close calls he was going to have to suture up.
“Drop ’em and roll on your side, Connor.”
She pulled a face but did as he asked, stifling a groan as her pants snagged on the dried blood.
“Gonna make for an interesting scar.” His fingers were gentle as he probed the injury.
“Match the plasma burn on your ass.” This time the smile reached her eyes and he grinned with her.
“Better than matching sweaters, I guess.”
She considered that seriously for a second before nodding in agreement. “If that’s the alternative then, yeah, I’d rather get shot in the ass…”
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His Glock held firmly in one hand, Derek rested his other on Sarah’s shoulder as she lay with her head pillowed in his lap. Zach was stable, John was obediently waking up when Derek checked him on an hourly basis, and Sarah hadn’t moved a muscle since she had finally agreed that one person keeping watch was enough and then promptly fallen asleep.
Unwilling to advertize their location, they hadn’t risked lighting a fire, and Derek was glad of the blankets they had thought to pack. He could hear a faint banging as Cameron worked to repair the Jeep. With everything as under control as it was likely to get, he allowed his shoulders to drop a little and lifted his head to look at the sky.
He took a deep breath and blinked slowly. There was no light pollution in the desert. No smog blanketing the atmosphere because the world had been destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. There were just stars, millions of mesmerizing dots of light that always made him feel dizzy and incredibly peaceful all at the same time.
A slight rustle of clothing brought him back to reality and he lowered his gaze to see Cameron walking towards him.
“I started the engine.” Even though Cameron kept her voice low, Sarah jolted awake, and Derek moved his hand to give her space to sit up. Cameron was already beginning to gather bags and weapons together.
“We should try to dispose of the truck while it is still early and the roads are quiet,” she said, ever practical. A thought suddenly seemed to occur to her and she hesitated with her arms full of guns. “I think attempting to trade it in would be ill-advised…”
~ ~ ~
Using halting, painfully broken Spanish, Derek was just about able to explain to the elderly man on the roadside fruit stall that he was willing to pay an outrageous amount of cash in exchange for the man’s rusted flatbed truck. The man initially shook his head, gesticulating wildly at his stall and clearly of the opinion that Derek was quite mad. That opinion seemed to alter abruptly as soon as Derek pulled out a wad of bills and made it apparent that he wasn’t expecting any change. After a quick cellphone conversation with his wife, the man happily handed Derek a key on a gnarled keychain, two watermelons and a sack of peaches.
“Gracias.” Derek shook the man’s hand in both of his and smiled, slightly taken aback when the man kissed him on both cheeks. “Gracias.”
The truck spluttered to life at the first time of asking. Derek pulled slowly away from the stall and headed towards the derelict gas station where Cameron had parked the Jeep. It didn’t matter that he had walked four miles in the early morning sun and barely spoke a word of Spanish. His first attempt at securing a vehicle had been successful. But then they had spent the last forty-eight hours riding their luck. Winding the window down, he bit into a peach and took care to obey the speed limit as the gas station appeared on the horizon.
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Kristina’s new office was larger than her previous one, with windows running the length of two walls to provide her with a glorious, panoramic view of the desert and mountains. Tired and sticky with sweat from the journey, she had barely even noticed. She sat slumped in her ergonomic leather chair and reread the information Cain had sent through to her.
“Shit.”
For a while she didn’t know whether to launch something in a rage or just sit and cry, but her instinct for self-preservation ultimately came to the fore, and instead of doing either she began to work things through.
She had decided that honesty was the best policy and had already admitted to her superiors that Zach Trent had been left alive. A salvage team was en route to the Optima facility to comb the wreckage for remains, human or otherwise, but neither of the T-888s she had left there had managed to upload any data prior to their destruction, and both had chips designed to combust upon removal. She had no doubt that the mission she had designed had ended in abject failure, and her entreaties to take a team and attempt to track the Connors had received an immediate negative response.
Beyond her office door, she could hear the machines moving equipment into place. The TDE techs she had been tasked to work with prior to this disaster were due to arrive in the next few hours. She held her head in her hands and wondered whether her expertise in that field would be worth more to Kaliba than making an example of her as a warning to others.
~ ~ ~
Perching on the tailgate of the truck, Derek decided it might be a good idea to keep the battered old bone-shaker for future use. With a high arc of tarp covering its flatbed, it made for the perfect mobile field hospital, and he had driven it for hours across the state without anyone suspecting a thing.
If Cameron had been fit to drive, they wouldn’t have needed to stop for a rest break, but her endoskeleton was a little too obvious beneath the wounds on her face, so she was sitting in the back with the rest of the casualties. They had shared out fruit and painkillers, and everyone seemed to be reasonably comfortable. The sun was hot on the back of his neck, and as he watched Sarah carefully lick peach juice from her fingers he made a quick decision that it was time to get back on the road.
“Give Michael a call.” He passed a prepaid cell over to John. “We should be there in a couple of hours and he’s not gonna be expecting this truck.”
John nodded, but hesitated halfway through keying in the number. “What do I tell him about Zach?” Zach hadn’t been awake much, and, even asleep, his face was ashen and creased with pain.
“Tell him the truth,” Derek said as he fastened the tailgate into place. “Tell him he’s been badly hurt but he’s gonna be okay.”
“Yeah?” John let out a relieved breath. “You think so?”
Derek smiled. “Yeah, I think so.”
As John completed the phone number, Derek dropped the tarp back down and secured the two halves together. He hadn’t lied to John. He genuinely did believe that Zach would recover, but it was seeing how much that meant to his nephew that had actually made him smile.
~ ~ ~
Sarah heard the screen door of the porch rattle open and gingerly shifted aside to let Derek sit with her on the bottom step. The early heat of the morning had turned into a scorching afternoon, and even in the shade she could feel sweat trickling down the nape of her neck. She took the frosted bottle of beer he offered her and held it to her forehead with a grateful sigh.
“How’re they doing?”
He sat down and tapped his bottle to hers before taking a long drink.
“Sleeping, finally. I don’t think Michael’s slept since we left. They’re in John’s room. He crashed out on the sofa, which means the bathroom’s free.”
She nodded distractedly, drank her beer and watched Cameron walk by with a crate of C4.
“Sydney Fields is on that list,” she said, as a siren wailed somewhere in the city. “Those names are all Kaliba targets.”
Resting back on his elbows, he stretched his legs out and looked across at her. Her hair was clumped and matted with blood, her arms looked like someone had taken sandpaper to them, and he had no idea what had caused the bruising on her cheek.
“Sarah…” He shook his head, torn between admiration and despair. “I just put eighteen stitches in you, and you have a knee that, I’m guessing, isn’t bending too well. Drink your beer and then have a shower.” He smiled when she scowled at him. “Please.”
She ran her fingers through the condensation on the glass bottle. There was a reason she had only gotten as far as the porch, and he had hit on it without even trying. He studied her face for a few more seconds and then winced uneasily.
“Couldn’t make the steps, huh?”
She shook her head once.
“Want a hand?”
“I guess so.”
He set their bottles down, wrapped his arms around her and helped her stand up. It took her a minute to gain her balance as he positioned himself to take the weight of her bad leg.
“Were you gonna stay out here all night?”
She took a painful step. “Yeah, maybe.” A small smile. “I figured someone would find me eventually.”
He laughed and felt her fingers tighten around his as she took another step with him.
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TBC…
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