TSCC fanfiction: Chassis test.
CHASSIS TEST
With his mother and Derek out of the picture almost every day, John has been thoroughly enjoying his afternoons with Riley. Thanks to the three dots, he can enjoy the one thing he actually covets the most, and that’s not even the blonde. She’s a nice perk, but what he has always wanted is freedom. Another perfect day of doing whatever he wants is over and it’s time for bed.
After tumbling for about half an hour on the bed, he realizes his body feels warm and his throat dry. The initial symptoms of dehydration. Perhaps he has been enjoying his afternoons too much and forgetting to ingest the proper amount of liquids. He stands up and leaves his room to pay the fridge a visit, musing on the way downstairs about how funny it would be after everything he has gone through, for the future leader of humanity to die of dehydration in the middle of a densely populated area.
When he passes the living room, he notices Cameron is there watching the TV. Not paying much attention to the cyborg, John goes straight into the kitchen and pours a glass of orange juice. It’s until the juice has started flowing down his throat that his mind comes to the realization of what was actually on the TV. Naked people. Since the juice was already going down his throat, this results in him choking, which in turn leads to a hacking fit.
Luckily for him, Cameron is there in a blink to help him. Makes him wonder if he is too harsh with her for always stalking him everywhere, practically being his shadow. It’s after all her task to keep him safe, and apparently he does need to be protected from other things besides Terminators.
“Are you ok John?” She says in that flat voice of hers, all the while bending his torso forward and pounding lightly on his back.
“Yeah, it’s all better now.”
It’s obvious Cameron heard him, she has cyborg hearing after all, but it’s also obvious that she ignores him. She pulls him over and starts manhandling his head to check him up. When her hand reaches for his neck to check his vitals, he forcefully deflects it away.
John hisses at her almost instinctively. “I said I’m ok. Ok? Why do you always have to overdo things?”
“The safety of John Connor is paramount, and I am responsible for it.”
Once again, she has droned the same safety crap she does all the time. With those doe eyes. How can she look so alive, yet act and sound so dead. It ticks him off.
“Well it seems to me that you can do things outside of your mission quite well!”
The growling through his teeth further irritates his throat, and he has to make a pause to cough, which apparently just fuels his anger even more. “Like watching porn!” He finally spits, overly gesticulating with his hands to indicate the living room.
“I am exploring the functions of this body. The skin covering and chassis were designed with unique capabilities. The enhanced way they interact with each other is a breakthrough in Skynet designs.”
Not in the mood for a lesson on machine design, John finishes his juice quickly and makes his way out of the kitchen.
Just when he thinks he has escaped, Cameron’s voice carries over to him, haunting.
“I will require a partner to perform the rest of the tests; I have exhausted the ones that could be self-accomplished.”
“What?” He asks in a warning tone, the fire of his anger rekindled.
“I will require assistance.” Cameron simply paraphrases her sentence, making her thin grasp of human expressions obvious.
He rolls his eyes in frustration. “Why is this even relevant?”
“This information can be used for your understanding of reprogramming Terminators. It can improve your work in the future.”
At a loss of an argument against the ever-looming mission, he huffs and starts walking again toward the stairs. Again, before he can advance but a couple paces, he notices Cameron out of the corner of his eye walking to the front door.
“Where are you going?” He demands, frustrated at knowing that she has no business outside. Not when his mother and uncle are out, and she is supposed to stay in the house with him.
“To procure the assistance I require.”
“W-What?” John’s tongue stumbles all over his mouth, making him stutter. His eyes wide open are glued to hers, because did she just say that she is going to pick up some random guy on the street to get it on?
“Cameron, you’re joking right?”
The only answer he gets is a tilt of the head, which obviously means she isn’t. Then he chides himself for even thinking it, machines don’t know humor.
At the cold realization, John feels a hole growing in his chest, his stomach makes a turn and suddenly he feels sickened and as if all the blood has drained from his face. Before he can even understand why, he feels compelled to speak again. To stop her.
“You can’t leave me alone here. There’s no one else to protect me.” John hopes that he didn’t actually sound as hesitant as he heard in his own ears.
“I know. I made the proper calculations and determined my absence would be short, hence affecting your safety by a marginal one percent. My physical appearance and outer sexual characteristics have proved appealing to the opposite sex. This will result in a prompt acquisition of the assistance I require.”
A silence starts stretching between them, John is completely lost for words, and Cameron obviously sees no need in saying anything else.
After a moment, the silence is suddenly broken by her inexpressive voice. “Go to bed, you need to rest properly.” She then turns for the door and starts walking purposefully.
“Cameron!” John beckons, almost shouts. And somehow, it feels like his voice came from the bottom of his soul, lifting the sickness along with it. Just a moment ago he was about to reach the breaking point, and now it feels as if the simple act of choosing to stop her has made everything right again.
The cyborg stops, turns to look at him from above her shoulder and says nothing.
Now that he has her eyes fixed on him, that penetrating gaze, scrutinizing, expecting him to say something, his courage falters.
“Wait… I can, um… Let me help you.” He sputters incoherently, cursing his luck if Cameron decides to make him repeat that.
“Ok.” She says. Like it means nothing, like she wasn’t about to get it on with some other guy, or isn’t telling him to go up to who knows which base with her. It disturbs him, but at least she is staying now, and the sick feeling is gone.
“Stand behind me,” Cameron instructs.
John complies, feeling relieved. How bad can it be if she didn’t get naked right away? That’s something he was expecting to happen, she always goes straight to the point.
The machine girl tilts her head to one side, brushes her hair away and her hand lingers close to her neck. Then she traces a line with her dainty fingers, from the back of her ear all the way down to her shoulder, exposing it by pulling the fabric of her top.
“Kiss and nuzzle me,” she orders. The flat tone of her voice in sharp contrast to her outrageous demand.
Swallowing the recently formed lump in his throat, John gets close, thinking for an instant that it could have been hard to heed her orders. He realizes how wrong he was the very moment her scent trickles into his nose. Suddenly his surroundings start to fade; he has always been tempted by her, but never acted on it out of his sense of morality, of normalcy. She is a machine after all, metal, and he is the one born to fight them. So how could he do these kinds of things with her? There is nothing to worry about this time though; it’s for science, for learning purposes. Isn’t it?
John isn’t so sure now that her scent is starting to make his head spin, and when he takes a deep breath of her thick yet delicate smell, he knows he is about to stop caring. Tangling his hand in that thick mane of brown curls to keep it out of the way, John starts doing as he was instructed.
His lips travel slowly along her neckline. Planting light kisses, reveling on the sensation of her smooth, creamy skin. For a moment, he thinks of how unfair it is to compare against Riley who is but human. Cameron is perfect because she was made to be. Then again, don’t people get surgery or use all manner of chemical concoctions to achieve this kind of skin. The only difference is that his protector has the unfair advantage of having it since birth.
That thought makes him stop his ministrations, realizing how her skin is no more unnatural than people who use beauty products made his mind wander. For a brief unguarded moment, he entirely forgot what she is.
But what is she exactly? Are they really that different from humans? Isn’t the purpose of artificial intelligence to create something human-like in the first place? Isn’t Skynet’s purpose to create something so human, that the resistance would be unable to detect it until it is too late? So John has to ask himself; really, how different is she?
“You haven’t nuzzled me.” His philosophic moment cut short by her unusual reproach.
For some reason this time it doesn’t tick him off, he just smiles, embraces her closely and nuzzles her neck. Her smell filling his every breath, her soft skin caressing his face, her warmth spreading through his body. A wave of comfort washes over him, there is peace in this and he closes his eyes. Even if no one is ever safe, she has always meant that secure spot in his life. Cameron represents an anchor in the middle of the tempest that is his life.
John isn’t sure of just how much of his will still controls his actions when his hand sneaks up her side, and gently pushes Cameron’s jaw to turn her face towards his. She allows him, he knows it, because the thin girl in his arms has the strength to refuse him anything she so wishes to. He looks into her beautiful eyes for an instant, and even though there is no feeling, no expression there, he does see something evocative. John Connor sees himself reflected in them. He and only he fills those brown eyes, that engaging gaze, and for some reason he finds more meaning in that random fact, than any other thing currently in his life.
While he looks into her eyes, her stare doesn’t falter for a single instant, it doesn’t regret, it doesn’t reproach, and ultimately it doesn’t refuse. As he closes the gap between their faces to claim her lips, John realizes he will soon be craving that gaze of hers every day.
Lost in the softness of her mouth as it tenderly responds to his hungry kisses, John misses her hands homing into his own. The one he has on her jaw is pulled down, and then up below her shirt, tracing the skin of her cleavage. The one he is resting on her hip is pulled against her belly, pressing gently against it, and then carefully guided under the cloth of her jeans.
By the time he realizes, his fingertips are already touching the soft fabric of her underwear, and his body starts responding to that in autopilot. His hands start moving out of their own accord, gently prodding and squeezing the warm, supple flesh within their grasp.
At the first mew of pleasure that escapes her lips, John suddenly halts, and promptly removes his hands from her as if burnt. Cameron turns her whole body to face him, her gaze penetrating and inquisitive.
“Why did you stop? Did you find something displeasing about my body?”
The words take a while to take form in his mind, and after a couple breaths, he is able to talk.
“No, it’s just… I didn’t think you… I didn’t think you would do that.”
Her head tilts to one side, a light frown on her face. “Do what?”
His hand darts for the back of his head to rub it. Why does everything have to be said so clearly? Why does she have to make him so nervous?
“Um, you know, that… The um, moan?” Even though his voice is barely above a whisper, it manages to trail off at the last word. John is sure Cameron heard him well enough though.
“Did it displease you? Should I discontinue its use in future tests?”
A straight to the point offer with no effort to embellish the words, making the whole deal seem sterile and scientific. John feels like he has to get the hell out of there, but right now his curiosity weighs heavier, and he has to know if the whole thing meant anything to her.
“That’s exactly it, this is an experiment to you, and the sound you made, it sounded artificial. You didn’t really feel anything when you made it. Where did you get that from?”
“I felt John. I already stated I can feel.”
“You mean sensation?”
“Yes.” She deadpans, and that is exactly the answer he feared.
“That’s different,” he spits, perhaps sounding more hurtful than he initially meant. “I mean, if you don’t feel it, it’s odd that you decide to express it in such a deep way.”
“John, I can never feel like you do. But I can emulate it, the sound of pleasure I made was appropriate both in tone and intensity for the state of things at the time.”
“Emulate? Mimic?” He scoffs.
“No. Emulating is not the same as mimicking. I acquire knowledge and then apply it to my own personality template. The expressions I make are my own, and I used that one because it adequately fit the circumstances.”
John finds himself at a lack of words. Part contemplation, part self-loathing for believing in her, his silence extends for minutes. In the meantime, Cameron makes no move to leave. It seems as if she stands there waiting for the verdict of his judging.
Suddenly her hand extends towards him, but he captures it before it reaches for his face. The fact that she does not comprehend how deep she has hurt him, only pushing his resentment to further heights.
“Why do you stop me? Is my touch unpleasant to you?” She asks, intrigued and oblivious to the consequences of her actions.
“No. On the contrary, but you feel nothing about it, and that’s exactly why I never made a move on you, and why we should stop this right now.”
Cameron stares at him, but this time he could swear he sees intent, purpose, and even more intensity than usual behind her eyes. She doesn't remove her hand from his, and starts talking, never stopping her gazing into his eyes, even to blink.
“Your opinions are too biased, grounded into the human paradigm of things, full of bigotry. If I don’t feel like you do, then I don’t feel at all. But I do. I just cannot feel like you do because I don’t have an amygdala to take over my rational brain, which in response fills your system with endorphins.”
The argument does nothing to change his mind, each passing second he feels more and more compelled to walk away. “So you don’t feel then, at least not in a real way.”
“Reality is defined by the experiences your brain acquires from its environment. It’s real to me.”
At her declaration, John feels that his ideas start derailing from their original course. If it’s real to her, what claim can he make about it being false? On what basis? His preconception of things? The moment he shared with her minutes ago was as real as any he had with Riley. Her responses were, as she says, adequate. Is it so bad that she has control of her mind at every moment? Don’t people strive for the same control when they study meditation? Again, it would be just an unfair advantage Cameron has by being born with it. Most of everything, she said she felt it. What exactly did she feel?
He asks. He needs to know her answer, more than he needs anything else right now.
“Your feelings are derived from tastes. There’s logic behind the process, most of the time. Something you prefer, will elicit a positive response, a good feeling. The same principle applies to this body…
…I prefer your attention on me, rather than on Riley. I prefer your hands roaming my body, rather than hers. I prefer the presence of your touch rather than the absence of it…”
Since her eyes never leave his, it’s impossible to miss what happens right then. For an instant, a haunting blue glow pierces the penumbra that surrounds them, and just as fast as it came, it’s gone.
“I’m sorry; I can’t feel like you do John.” Cameron suddenly declares, not a change in her tone, no expression in her face. It’s then that she makes an effort to retrieve her hand, but in spite of her inexpressive ways, her utter difference to human beings in every way down to the basest, John finds himself unable to let her go.
Actually, he pulls her hand towards his face, to let her finish what she started. Her adaptability, he realizes, is something amazing. Cameron immediately starts gently stroking his face.
“Does this mean you consent to proceed with the testing?”
Blunt like a bludgeon. John feels yet another rush of heat go up his face, and he is pretty sure blushing will become a constant in his life as long as Cameron is close.
“Um… I guess so?” He replies nervously.
“Would you prefer to change location to your room?”
Yet again, she says it without inflection in her voice, and yet again, it still makes him blush more furiously than any time Riley made a show of pressing her buxom body against his.
Now though, that he has become more accepting, more open towards what she is and how her mind works, one doubt crawls up the back of his head. The nagging idea that sprouted this whole situation. That sickening feeling from before starts making its presence known again, but still he has to know.
“Cameron, if I didn’t do this, were you really going to…” His voice trails off. Throat closing with a lump, and in spite of barely having discovered he feels more for her than he cared to admit before, he dreads her answer. More than a trip-eight walking in on them right now, more than even his mother catching him in consort with the enemy, he dreads her answer.
Time is relative. Right now John Connor is experiencing the adrenaline-induced acceleration of his brain functions to the point that his perception of time suffers from it, and seconds appear to become minutes, hours even. Nothing but perception, delusion, but torture nonetheless. He feels as if Cameron is taking hours to respond, and it’s driving him mad.
“I fooled you again,” she deadpans, her head slightly tilted, her eyes looking intently at him.
Before his mind reaches any form of stability, Cameron grabs his hand. She then starts walking upstairs with one astonished John Connor in tow.