SCC Fic: Delilah - 6.0
Series: Delilah
Chapter: 6.0
Author: aelysian
Summary: Hers is only one of many: stories, lives, pasts and futures. Cameron Phillips' life is a coil, a twist of time unraveling, the end chasing the beginning. Cameron origin fic.
Delilah - 6.0
6-1
The bunker is warm and smells like hot metal and rust (like blood) but it's the crackle of light that catches his attention. Blue and white and blinding, searing so that when the door opens behind him, all he can see is light and shadow, a silhouette in the doorframe.
The shadow is John Connor and the crackling light is from a TDE. (He learns the acronym from Connor and the meaning from the machine.)
The door closes behind Connor and brings with it darkness and metal. She follows a pace behind, stands a step to his left, flanking him like a guard.
"Derek," he says and he's almost sort of smiling. It stems the flow of questions and demands that have assaulted every ear within range since he got back.
"Derek," he says, "I want to show you something."
6-2
Cameron doesn't approve of telling Derek about the TDE, but John tells her that it's not her decision. She doesn't make decisions because that's John's job. Her job is to guard John and to talk to him during "downtime". This is what John says and John is the only one authorized to give her orders. (John calls them requests but she thinks he doesn't understand how she works.) John Connor is her mission.
John Connor is also confusing. He speaks more than she does so perhaps his orders should be that she listen, but the end result is the same so she says nothing.
He recites The Wizard of Oz in Spanish (she starts to prompt him when he forgets the words) and tells her stories about the world before Judgment Day. Some stories are about his youth (she learns that Sarah Connor was not a six foot tall warrior and that ATMs are 'easy pickings') and others that he calls fables and fairytales that seem to be characterized by lies.
She is very good at lying, but she thinks humans surpass her in frequency. John says practice makes perfect but humans have exceptions for everything. An exception for every rule and she's the exception to several.
She's not the exception to the rules that govern cyborg interaction with humans. She's not allowed to break the wrist of the man who tries to punch her and she's not allowed to re-educate the people who whisper inaccurate things as she passes. She's not allowed to hurt or maim or kill anyone unless there is threat of bodily harm to John. (And somewhere, deep down, she's weighing these like grains of sand to the rhythm of a metronome.)
John is her exception and she knows that if he orders her to, she will kneel and tilt her head and hand him the tools to crack open her skull and do what he will.
She hates it.
6-3
She learns she hates it the first time he does it.
Submit to chip extraction.
The order is not for question, but there is resistance in her body when her neck curves to one side. She looks vulnerable like this, the long line of her throat exposed as if there were veins there with blood to be spilt. It's a lie, because the vulnerability doesn't come until she pushes her hair back and waits for the sound of the switchblade opening.
It produces violently powerful feedback, a riot in her systems. The negative is strong, insistent, and John teaches her the word for this is hate. (She asks if this feedback is what humans mean when they scream about hating metal and he hesitates for a long time before telling her yes.) She hates it because she knows what the interface looks like, the inadequate vacuum chambers, the clumsy fingers and minds of techs.
John is not one of these metal techs and he will not be careless with her. She knows these things just as she knows that he thinks there's something wrong with her, something not right, something to be fixed. Like one of the water filtration units or lighting networks; a machine without mind.
When the order comes, and he says it's going to be all right, she wonders if he understands how she works at all.
And then he says I'll bring you back and she thinks that maybe he understands a little.
So when the pliers touch the base of her chip, she says John? and he stops.
She smiles because he knows that from this angle, he'll see the curl at the corner of her mouth and the pull of her cheek and he will understand what it means.
Don't drop me.
John laughs because this is called humour. The feedback is positive and she wants him to know that she understands a little too.
6-4
She's smiling and there's something idiotic about it so she scrunches up her mouth to hide it but it isn't any better. She doesn't care.
Derek's never been very talkative, so when he comes to find her (finally…but it's okay, because his brother is missing and she knows how that feels) and he holds her so tightly she bends backward a little and her breath escapes her as a laughing gust of air and he says "I missed you," she knows what he means.
She'd met his brother before, the younger, chattier Reese, full of stories and small talk. He was both more and less than his brother: more at ease, more comfortable, less intense, less silent, less…something. Whatever that less was, she preferred Derek, even when he was cold and distant and left her in the middle of the corridor with Kyle to fill the awkwardness and -
He was here now. That's what was important. Here, solid and real and alive against and with her and she's smiling.
6-5
When she was a little girl, Jesse heard her father laugh at the television as the evening news came on. People were living longer than ever! She remembers the exclamation point in the anchor's voice, the deepness of her father's chuckles, the responding laughter in her mother's words as she told him you're terrible.
There was video from the local old folks' home playing over the anchor's narrative and she can't really remember what the story was, but she remembers the words if I ever get that old. She never found out how the rest of that sentence was supposed to go, because her mother laughed and changed the channel.
She makes up her own endings but she doesn't laugh the way her parents did because 'old' doesn't mean what it used to mean.
If I ever get that old is like once upon a time for grown ups, the start to every Disney-esque daydream. She dreams of hot toast and scrambled eggs, of running without fear prickling the back of her neck, of staying up to see the sunrise and sleeping in until the sun was bright at high noon. She dreams of a little house with cotton curtains and a bed big enough to roll over in. Sometimes, she dreams of a baby. Tiny and warm and filled with life.
She's careful about those dreams. Dreaming about things she'll never have again is different, somehow. These dreams give way all too easily to hope and she's not sure if that's the kind of hope she wants to carry.
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Chapter: 6.0
Author: aelysian
Summary: Hers is only one of many: stories, lives, pasts and futures. Cameron Phillips' life is a coil, a twist of time unraveling, the end chasing the beginning. Cameron origin fic.
Delilah - 6.0
6-1
The bunker is warm and smells like hot metal and rust (like blood) but it's the crackle of light that catches his attention. Blue and white and blinding, searing so that when the door opens behind him, all he can see is light and shadow, a silhouette in the doorframe.
The shadow is John Connor and the crackling light is from a TDE. (He learns the acronym from Connor and the meaning from the machine.)
The door closes behind Connor and brings with it darkness and metal. She follows a pace behind, stands a step to his left, flanking him like a guard.
"Derek," he says and he's almost sort of smiling. It stems the flow of questions and demands that have assaulted every ear within range since he got back.
"Derek," he says, "I want to show you something."
6-2
Cameron doesn't approve of telling Derek about the TDE, but John tells her that it's not her decision. She doesn't make decisions because that's John's job. Her job is to guard John and to talk to him during "downtime". This is what John says and John is the only one authorized to give her orders. (John calls them requests but she thinks he doesn't understand how she works.) John Connor is her mission.
John Connor is also confusing. He speaks more than she does so perhaps his orders should be that she listen, but the end result is the same so she says nothing.
He recites The Wizard of Oz in Spanish (she starts to prompt him when he forgets the words) and tells her stories about the world before Judgment Day. Some stories are about his youth (she learns that Sarah Connor was not a six foot tall warrior and that ATMs are 'easy pickings') and others that he calls fables and fairytales that seem to be characterized by lies.
She is very good at lying, but she thinks humans surpass her in frequency. John says practice makes perfect but humans have exceptions for everything. An exception for every rule and she's the exception to several.
She's not the exception to the rules that govern cyborg interaction with humans. She's not allowed to break the wrist of the man who tries to punch her and she's not allowed to re-educate the people who whisper inaccurate things as she passes. She's not allowed to hurt or maim or kill anyone unless there is threat of bodily harm to John. (And somewhere, deep down, she's weighing these like grains of sand to the rhythm of a metronome.)
John is her exception and she knows that if he orders her to, she will kneel and tilt her head and hand him the tools to crack open her skull and do what he will.
She hates it.
6-3
She learns she hates it the first time he does it.
Submit to chip extraction.
The order is not for question, but there is resistance in her body when her neck curves to one side. She looks vulnerable like this, the long line of her throat exposed as if there were veins there with blood to be spilt. It's a lie, because the vulnerability doesn't come until she pushes her hair back and waits for the sound of the switchblade opening.
It produces violently powerful feedback, a riot in her systems. The negative is strong, insistent, and John teaches her the word for this is hate. (She asks if this feedback is what humans mean when they scream about hating metal and he hesitates for a long time before telling her yes.) She hates it because she knows what the interface looks like, the inadequate vacuum chambers, the clumsy fingers and minds of techs.
John is not one of these metal techs and he will not be careless with her. She knows these things just as she knows that he thinks there's something wrong with her, something not right, something to be fixed. Like one of the water filtration units or lighting networks; a machine without mind.
When the order comes, and he says it's going to be all right, she wonders if he understands how she works at all.
And then he says I'll bring you back and she thinks that maybe he understands a little.
So when the pliers touch the base of her chip, she says John? and he stops.
She smiles because he knows that from this angle, he'll see the curl at the corner of her mouth and the pull of her cheek and he will understand what it means.
Don't drop me.
John laughs because this is called humour. The feedback is positive and she wants him to know that she understands a little too.
6-4
She's smiling and there's something idiotic about it so she scrunches up her mouth to hide it but it isn't any better. She doesn't care.
Derek's never been very talkative, so when he comes to find her (finally…but it's okay, because his brother is missing and she knows how that feels) and he holds her so tightly she bends backward a little and her breath escapes her as a laughing gust of air and he says "I missed you," she knows what he means.
She'd met his brother before, the younger, chattier Reese, full of stories and small talk. He was both more and less than his brother: more at ease, more comfortable, less intense, less silent, less…something. Whatever that less was, she preferred Derek, even when he was cold and distant and left her in the middle of the corridor with Kyle to fill the awkwardness and -
He was here now. That's what was important. Here, solid and real and alive against and with her and she's smiling.
6-5
When she was a little girl, Jesse heard her father laugh at the television as the evening news came on. People were living longer than ever! She remembers the exclamation point in the anchor's voice, the deepness of her father's chuckles, the responding laughter in her mother's words as she told him you're terrible.
There was video from the local old folks' home playing over the anchor's narrative and she can't really remember what the story was, but she remembers the words if I ever get that old. She never found out how the rest of that sentence was supposed to go, because her mother laughed and changed the channel.
She makes up her own endings but she doesn't laugh the way her parents did because 'old' doesn't mean what it used to mean.
If I ever get that old is like once upon a time for grown ups, the start to every Disney-esque daydream. She dreams of hot toast and scrambled eggs, of running without fear prickling the back of her neck, of staying up to see the sunrise and sleeping in until the sun was bright at high noon. She dreams of a little house with cotton curtains and a bed big enough to roll over in. Sometimes, she dreams of a baby. Tiny and warm and filled with life.
She's careful about those dreams. Dreaming about things she'll never have again is different, somehow. These dreams give way all too easily to hope and she's not sure if that's the kind of hope she wants to carry.
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