(Grimm/Terminator) got no strings to hold me down for liliaeth
Title: got no strings to hold me down
Author: perdiccas
Fandoms: Grimm/Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Characters: Nick Burkhardt, Monroe, Hank Griffin, Sergeant Wu, Sean Renard; Sarah Connor, John Connor, Derek Reese, Cameron
Pairings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6,113
Spoilers: set after Grimm 2.03; no specific Terminator spoilers
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Grimm and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles belong to their respective creators
A/N: Thank you to jaune_chat for the beta and to aurilly for helping me out with the Grimm-esque German ♥
Summary: Nick has seen a lot of Wesen, but he’s never seen anything quite like what’s currently rampaging through Portland.
“There’s got to be a special circle of hell for people who commit murder before 6 a.m.,” Hank grouses.
Nick, caught up in a gigantic yawn, nods in agreement. They’d just finished up at a crime scene -most likely a robbery gone wrong - and the nearest coffee shop is already packed. The people in line in front of them are a mix of similarly drowsy eyed folks who clearly wish they were still in bed, and the unnaturally perky. Joggers. Cyclists. Yoga enthusiasts. People who voluntarily get up at the crack of dawn. A lithe women in an aerobics outfit walks past them with two grande chai lattes and the mass of people inches forward.
The coffee shop definitely knows its market share: while the line only grows longer behind them, one of the baristas walks up and down, offering everyone single shot samples of their newest flavour of herbal tea. Nick downs his in one. It tastes like dirt.
While Hank, a coffee purist, grimaces at the mere existence of caffeine-free herbal teas, let alone their presence in place that calls itself the “Java Hut”, Nick ponders the ethics of flashing his badge and cutting to the front of the line. A tall, broad-shouldered guy elbows his way brusquely past. He’s evidently not suffering from the same moral quandary.
“Hey!” Nick says loudly, echoed by most of the rest of the waiting customers. The man doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. He makes a beeline for the overworked barista manning the espresso machine and engages her in what looks like an intense conversation. They’re too far away to hear exactly what’s being said, especially with the crowd growing louder in their collective disgruntlement, but it’s obvious something isn’t quite right. The barista looks terrified.
Nick catches Hank’s eye and sees he shares Nick’s misgivings about the situation. They step forward. Now, Nick really does flash his badge in an attempt to quiet the masses before they turn on him and Hank too for stepping - literally - out of line. But someone else beats them to the man.
A middle-aged businessman, two or three people away from being served, taps the interloper on his shoulder. When that gets no response, he ups the ante to a vicious poke in the arm and a personal-space invading grip on the big guy’s meaty bicep. “Listen up...” he says, his face red with indignation. Without warning, the other guy elbows him sharply in the gut. He doesn’t even bother to turn around as he does it.
The crowd gasps. The businessman doubles over. He’s coughing up blood.
“Enough!” Nick shouts. He and Hank rush forward but the guy has already lunged at the barista - Christine, Nick reads on her nametag. He pins her against the wall, with one giant hand gripped tightly around her neck. Nick and Hank pull up short, for fear of getting Christine hurt in the struggle.
“Let her down!” Hank orders. They have their guns drawn, aimed at the guy’s back but he’s so intent on the barista, Nick’s not sure he is even aware of their presence.
“Tell me!” the man demands from her.
“I don’t know-” Christine sobs and with the tightening of his fist, she starts to struggle for breath. She flails around, clawing at the hand pinning her to the wall, kicking at his legs, his stomach, his groin but the guy never flinches. It’s only when she gets hold of a scalding hot pot of coffee and splashes it over his face that she gets a reaction. He throws Christine away from himself, at least three feet through the air until she slams into the coffee machines, unconscious.
“What the hell is that?” Hank splutters when the guy finally turns to face them.
Whatever it is, the coffee has melted away the skin on the left side of its face, exposing an unsettling, almost metallic looking endoskeleton beneath. Even more unsettling is that despite the damage to its face it hasn’t been deterred from the path it’s forging through the tables as it heads straight for the door.
Nick glances at Hank and back at the man... Wesen... thing. “You can see its face too?”
“Oh yeah, and what a pretty sight it is.” Hank shudders.
Around them, people cower, their coffee abandoned.
“This is bad, right?” Hank whispers urgently from where they’re crouching behind a sofa. “I mean, if it’s woge-ing out bad enough that I can see it, it’s gotta be seriously stressed out.”
That seems like one hell of an understatement given what they’ve just witnessed but Nick knows what he means. If Hank can see its true face, everyone else can see it too. They have to put it down before they have even more of a mass panic on their hands. He adjusts his grip on his gun, huffing in frustration as he attempts to line up his sights and fails. The space is too enclosed for a clean shot.
The thing reaches a counter - stocked with sugar packets and pitchers of milk - blocking its way. Instead of walking around it, it rests both its hands against the counter top and shoves.
“What the...?” Hank gasps. With a deafening crack and barely any effort, it rips a passage straight through the wood.
“I don’t think it’s stressed out,” Nick says as calmly as he can manage. “I think it’s really, really pissed off.”
The commotion is starting to draw attention. Nick can see a couple of overly-curious bystanders gathering outside already, and he watches them watch in horrified fascination at the thing stomping interminably closer towards the street.
“Come on,” Hank hisses, darting out from behind the sofa, forcing Nick to follow him to keep him covered. “We’ve gotta do something before anyone else gets hurt.”
“Stop! Police!” Nick yells again at the top of his voice but the thing doesn’t even flinch. It shatters the window beside the door in one short, sharp punch and steps through it, completely unconcerned by the shards of falling glass or the screams of the nearby crowd.
Hank fires the first shot. Nick fires another but instead of going down, the thing keeps moving. The bullets ricochet right off its chest.
“Nick, are you seeing this?” Hank asks incredulously as another one of his bullets comes flying back at them, boring itself into wall above Nick’s head. He adds in a rush, “This isn’t working. We’ve gotta try something else!”
“Yeah but what?”
Hank looks at him, wild eyed and determined, and holsters his seemingly useless gun. “How about this?”
“Hank, wait!” Nick shouts, grabbing for him, but he’s already gone, bum rushing the thing before it has a chance to escape. Nick can see the taser in Hank’s hand: he’s going in to try to subdue it like it’s an ornery drunk. Helpless to do anything else, Nick unloads the rest of his clip directly at the thing’s head. But all that gets him is a terrifying hail of spent bullets bouncing back. Just as Hank gets an arm around the thing’s neck and tightens his grip a chokehold, it turns with an unexpected, preternatural speed. It closes both of its disturbingly human-looking hands around Hank and rips him away with inhuman strength.
Hank slams to the ground in a sickening crunch.
“Dispatch,” Nick orders desperately into his walkie-talkie, running to Hank’s side, “Officer down at my location! We need an ambulance, and send back up. The perp is still at large, unarmed but highly dangerous.”
--
“This place is a madhouse,” Wu says, grimacing as he holds the door to Hank’s hospital room open for Renard and then follows him in. He shuts the door behind them again, cutting them off from the chaos in the hall. “And I mean that literally. Captain, have you heard these witness statements?” Without waiting for a reply he continues, “‘They kept shooting but it did nothing. The guy was invincible.’ ‘His face was totally messed up. I know it sounds crazy but, I swear, it looked like he was made of metal.’ This one’s my favourite,” he adds, completely deadpan, “‘Dude was a freaking robot, man!’”
Wu glances up from his notebook, seeing Hank and Nick properly for the first time since arriving and his grin promptly falls.
“Oh no,” he says, with a disappointed sigh. “Not you two too?”
“Well...” Nick starts but Renard interrupts smoothly.
“First things first: Hank, how are you feeling?”
Hank shifts against the pillows, sitting up a little straighter before replying. “I’m fine, sir.” He gestures down to the full arm cast that stretches all the way up to his shoulder, “A couple of fractures but nothing that won’t heal. I’m hoping they’ll let me go home soon.”
Renard nods sympathetically. “We’ll see about making that happen. Now,” he says, addressing Nick, “What can you tell me about the incident?”
Nick recounts the morning’s highlights, for once not bothering to leave out the more unusual aspects of what he and Hank had seen - the other witnesses have already reported the worst of it and they’ll only draw unwanted attention to themselves if they don’t corroborate what the others had seen.
“Do you know what the suspect was saying to the barista- Christine, was it? All the witnesses reported that it looked intense but no one overheard exactly what was being said.”
Hank shakes his head and Nick echoes, “No idea. What does Christine have to say about it?”
“Nothing right now,” Wu supplies. “She’s still unconscious. The doctors don’t know when she’ll wake up: it could be hours or it could be never.”
Nick sucks in a sharp breath at the news. He clenches his jaw, angry at the man - Wesen? - that did this and angrier at himself for failing to stop it.
“There could be a connection there,” Renard suggests. “We should check with her family, friends. See if anyone recognises the ‘robot’ from this morning...”
“I’ll see what I can dig up,” Nick says, impatient to get to the trailer. “It’s the only lead we’ve got right now.”
“No, don’t worry. Wu will look into it,” Renard’s voice is suspiciously calm. Nick’s hackles rise. He knows that voice. It’s the same voice every police officer adopts when breaking bad news, easing someone into the reality that somebody they love has been killed or might be a killer.
Instinctively, Nick takes a step closer to Hank’s bedside. “What’s going on?”
Renard stands with his hands pushed deep into his pockets. His mouth is a thin, hard line and it looks as if he’s choosing his words carefully. “Given the... ah... unusual nature of the witness statements and the fact that everyone present at the incident drank the same herbal tea from the same machines... there’s a possibility you may have been drugged.”
“Captain,” Hank splutters indignantly. “I didn’t hallucinate a broken arm!”
“No,” Renard replies, his voice still eminently reasonable, “but something like PCP could make a man strong enough to pick you up and break it for you.”
“You think our drinks were laced with something and we didn’t notice?” Nick asks incredulously, knowing even as he objects that it could easily be true. It happens all too often. But he needs more than a vague ‘maybe’ before he’ll distrust what he saw with his own eyes. “Who would do that? And why?”
“I don’t know,” Renard says simply. “We won’t know anything for sure until the tox screens and blood work come back. And until they do, I can’t have either of you on active duty.”
“What!?” Nick and Hank demand in outraged unison, but Renard ploughs on resolutely.
“I’m sorry, detectives. I’m going to have to ask you both to hand over your firearms to Sergeant Wu.” He ducks his head contritely, offering them a small apologetic shrug. “You’ll get your weapons back as soon as the doctors give you the all clear. I can’t make you stay put,” he adds sternly, “but until we get this all figured out, I think it’s for the best if you both stay out of harm’s way.”
--
“If it wasn’t some thug hopped on PCP, what do you think it was?” Monroe asks, pouring himself some coffee. He looks at his cup speculatively. “Besides someone who seriously needs to switch to decaf...?”
“I don’t know.” Nick leans against the kitchen counter. He shudders at a sudden recollection of the way the thing they’d encountered had torn the coffee shop apart. “I’m telling you, Monroe, Hank is lucky to be alive. That poor barista is in a coma. This thing, it’s strong. Stronger than anything I’ve ever seen before.
“Hell,” he adds after a sombre moment of silence, “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, period. And I couldn’t find anything like it in Aunt Marie’s books either. It doesn’t look like one of the usual monsters...” Nick catches himself, his eyes darting guiltily to Monroe’s face. “Uh. No offence?”
Monroe rolls his eyes but gestures for Nick to carry on.
“What I mean is: it looked completely human until its skin melted and we could see the metal underneath. And then it wasn’t even trying to hide what it was... I’m beginning to think maybe it couldn’t?”
“Oh,” Monroe says with sudden understanding. And then again slower, “Ohhhhh. I don’t think that thing was Wesen.”
Nick looks up in interest, following Monroe as he heads for his bookshelves. “What then?”
“Spielzeuge,” Monroe says over his shoulder, in a thick German accent. At Nick’s questioning look, he elaborates while still rummaging through the books. “Strictly translated, it means ‘toys’ but it can refer to anything that’s not really alive but isn’t exactly inanimate either: enchanted statues, possessed dolls...”
“Really angry robots?” Nick suggests.
Monroe pauses and considers. “Sure,” he decides, brightly. “I don’t see why not! Although Spielzeuge are generally more old school. Creepy puppets that come alive at night and stuff like that. It never ends well. In fact, I haven’t heard of Wesen creating any since... oh not since before my ancestors left the old country. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
“I guess someone didn’t get the memo,” Nick replies dryly.
“Aha! Here.” Monroe pulls down the book he was looking for. It’s a slim, untitled volume bound in leather. He hands it to Nick to leaf through.
The text is all in Italian. Nick can’t pick out any words he recognises but there are several black and white woodcuts that catch his attention. One is of an old man in a workshop, whittling some wood. In the inscription, he reads the name Geppetto.
“Is this... Pinocchio?” he asks with an air of disbelief.
“Oh yeah,” Monroe says seriously. “And not the sanitized-for-children Disney version either. This,” he jabs a finger emphatically on the pages, “is a cautionary tale. This kind of thing is the reason you don’t see Spielzeuge anymore.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask...” Nick starts, still not entirely sure how something as innocuous as Pinocchio could be so bad it scared an entire generation off making any more puppets like him.
Monroe grimaces. “Let’s just say that when Pinocchio decided he wanted to be a real boy, it wasn’t his nose that grew...” He raises his eyebrows and swings a hand down by his crotch, indicating a substantial growth.
Nick’s eyes snap back up his face. “Right. I got it.”
“I’m just saying...” Monroe continues absently, as if Nick hadn’t spoken. “They don’t call it getting wood for nothing.”
“Monroe.”
Monroe clears his throat before taking the book back from Nick, replacing it on the shelf.
“But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never heard of Spielzeuge getting violent like what happened this morning. Lecherous? Defiant? Obstinate? Sure. They’re like horny, sulking teenagers who never grow up and they never, ever stop.” He pauses and then adds, “Well, unless you set them on fire. That pretty much kills them all dead... But violence? That’s just not how they operate.”
They’re interrupted by the ringing of Nick’s cell phone.
“It’s Hank,” he says, accepting the call. “Hank, I’m at Monroe’s. You’re on speaker.”
“The barista just woke up. But only for a minute before the pain killers knocked her out again,” Hank says in low, furtive voice. “I was sitting by her bedside, you know, talking in case she could hear me in there... When she woke up, she said, ‘It was looking for Sarah Connor.’”
Nick wrinkles his brow. “That name mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing,” Hank replies. “But I’m the only one who heard it, and since the tox screen just came back clear, I’m about to have a date with a nice, relaxing morphine drip... I’d say you’ve got five hours before I wake up enough to call the lead in.”
“Good man,” Nick grins, both at Hank’s clean bill of health and at the head start.
“Sleep tight!” Monroe calls absently as Nick hangs up. After a moment of deep thought, he adds gravely, “I think I know one thing that could make any kind of Spielzeug as mad as the one you saw this morning...”
“What’s that?”
“They really, really hate to be abandoned.”
--
They park across the street from a nondescript suburban house.
Monroe narrows his eyes, studying the neighbourhood. “So this is Sarah Connor’s house?”
Nick turns to him and grins humourlessly. “The only Sarah Connor of note is missing, presumed dead, after escaping from a mental institution some ten years ago.”
“Mental institution...” Monroe murmurs under his breath. “That explains a lot.”
“This is Sarah Gale’s house. She moved to Portland a couple of weeks ago with fake papers and a job history that doesn’t go back more than five years. Whoever she paid for the name change did a shoddy job. Her son, John, just got hired at the Java Hut. He was supposed to pull a shift this afternoon but never showed up.”
Monroe looks up, frowning slightly. “The place was trashed. He was probably spooked.”
“Spooked because he knew that thing was looking for his mom, I bet,” Nick scoffs.
Monroe shrugs, conceding the point. “We going in?”
“We’re going in.”
Although they’re not there in any official police capacity, Nick doesn’t go as far as breaking and entering when they find the curtains drawn and the doors locked tight. Not when Wu will be there in few hours checking up on the same lead. If they want to stop this Spielzeug, the last thing they need is to spend the afternoon explaining why their prints were found all over the suspect’s house.
“Nick,” Monroe calls in a stage whisper. “Over here!”
He jiggles the lock on the rolling garage door. It gives. Monroe lifts it up just enough for the two of them to slide through on their bellies, letting the door roll shut again behind them.
With only the beam from Nick’s flashlight to illuminate their way, they start exploring. Everything looks normal enough at first: an empty space for the family car to park and the rest of the garage lined with a wooden work bench. Tools - screwdrivers and a soldering iron rather than woodworking supplies - and scrap metal are scattered around. It looks as if someone left in a hurry, in the middle of a project.
“This look like a workshop to you too?” Nick asks quietly.
“Uh huh,” Monroe confirms. He opens a drawer and lets out a low whistle. Nick looks over as he pulls out his closed fist. When he opens his fingers a dozen little computer parts tumble back into the drawer. “A robot workshop.”
There’s a sudden noise behind them. Nick pivots, reaching for his crossbow but he’s not quick enough. They find themselves pinned to the wall by their necks, just like the barista. But not by the same guy. They’re being held in place by a petite young woman who doesn’t look old enough to have graduated high school.
“Portland PD,” Nick chokes out, groping for his badge. She simply tilts her head, as if considering them and their presence. The hand around his neck is tight but not so tight he’s having difficulty breathing. Monroe is in more trouble. His knees are bent at an awkward angle to compensate for the height difference between him and the woman.
“Okay?” Nick asks, out of the corner of his mouth.
“Oh yeah,” Monroe replies sarcastically. “I’ve read that golems never seem to know their own strength but this is ridiculous...” He tugs at her hand, trying to give himself more room to straighten up but she doesn’t budge.
“Go-what?” Nick starts but another woman enters the garage through the door connecting it to the house. She’s cradling an assault rifle in her arms. It’s not aimed at them directly but she’s holding it with enough ease that Nick is in no doubt she won’t hesitate to use it.
“Sarah Connor, I presume?” he asks as she sizes them up.
Her face gives nothing away. She addresses the young woman. “Who are they?”
“Portland PD,” she replies in an uncanny mimicry of Nick’s voice.
“Let them down,” another voice calls from the doorway. Sarah turns and glares at the teenage boy - her son, John, Nick surmises - but he only steps into the garage proper, instead of retreating back into the house.
Nick feels the grip at his neck begin to loosen but Sarah cuts in. “Cameron.” He’s held fast again. “Take their weapons and then let them down.”
In a remarkable display of dexterity, Cameron manages to strip Nick of the crossbow and the knife he’s carrying without letting him or Monroe wiggle out of her grip until she’s done. Then she steps back and stands like a soldier at ease, waiting for further instruction, and ready to strike if either of them try to make a move.
Monroe rubs his throat theatrically, making a show of straightening up and cracking his back. “Definitely a golem,” he states under his breath, giving her a critical once over.
Sarah and John are caught up in a whispered argument. Nick takes the opportunity to draw Monroe nearer to him. “What the heck is a golem?” he hisses. And then, just as Monroe is about to answer, “And don’t say ‘her’.” He tilts his head, indicating Cameron.
“Well, she is,” Monroe says indignantly, forgetting for a moment the gravity of their situation. “I’m like, 90% positive. Did you see the way she snapped to it when they gave an order?”
“Yes, but what does that mean?”
“Golems are a kind of Spielzeug made with old magic,” Monroe tells him. “Very old magic. We’re talking way back when Wesen were wondering around Europe, chased by Grimms wherever they went old magic. Jewish Wesen were doubly screwed back then,” he says, giving Nick an emphatic look. “The rabbis started building golems to help defend them. In theory they’ll obey whoever created them.”
“But in practice?”
“The longer they’re around, the more ‘alive’ they become. The more alive they are they less they’re inclined to be anyone’s slave.”
“How do we stop them?” Nick asks urgently.
“You gotta destroy the words in their head.”
Nick doesn’t have time to question him any further because the Connors have fallen silent, watching them. “Look,” he starts, “we’re not here to arrest you, okay? In fact we’re not even the worst thing out there looking for you. We just want to help you stop it.”
For a moment no one says anything. Then Sarah walks over to the same drawer Monroe had been rooting through earlier. She grabs a handful of the computer chips and scatters on them on them workbench, turning back to look at Nick expectantly.
“What are those?”
“The words in their head,” she says and smashes one with the butt of her gun.
They sit around the kitchen table in a wary kind of truce. “So what happened?” Monroe starts, addressing Sarah. “The old one started acting out so you ditched it and made a new model?”
Cameron answers instead. “John did not make me,” she states. “Not in the way you are implying. We made ourselves.”
“Oh no...” There’s a shell-shocked quality to Monroe’s voice that puts Nick on edge. “That’s not good. That’s so not good,” he repeats, speaking directly to Nick now. “Once they start making more of their own, they’re uncontrollable. How could you let this go so far?” he demands, accusingly.
“We didn’t start this,” John snaps back. “We’re the ones trying to stop them.”
That’s hard to believe, given the way he’d gathered up the remaining chips from the garage, carefully storing them in his backpack. But Sarah confirms it. “That’s why they’re looking for me. They know we’re going to destroy them or die trying.”
“Let me guess,” Nick replies, “they’re hoping to facilitate the latter.”
“That’s the idea.” There’s no trace of fear in her voice.
“Okay, fine but...” Monroe interrupts himself, addressing Cameron, “...no offense... if you’re trying to rid the world of golems, shouldn’t you start at home?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Derek, the battle-scarred man that rounds out their group, interjects. “Never trust metal,” he states uncompromisingly. “A terminator is a terminator no matter what.”
He uses the Connors’ word for golem. After what Nick had seen this morning, he can’t help but admit it’s apt. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees John clench his jaw. This is clearly an argument they’ve had before. Firmly, Sarah says to Derek, “Let’s worry about the ones that are trying to kill us first. We can work out what to do with the rest of them later.”
Nick clears his throat in the uncomfortable, silent stand-off that follows. “So how are we going to stop this thing?”
John spreads a city map across the table. “I have a plan.”
They get out of the Connor - Gale - house before Wu and the rest of the department arrives but it isn’t until sundown that they reconvene at the city dump.
Monroe wrinkles his nose and shakes his head in disgust. “Trust me,” he says, holding up a hand to quiet Nick before he can echo the sentiment, “however bad you think this smells, it’s a thousand times worse to a Blutbad nose.”
He pulls the collar of his shirt over his mouth and nose and continues speaking. His voice is slightly muffled through the fabric. “Now what?”
“Now we wait,” Sarah says coming up behind them. They’re armed to the teeth, even the kid. Something about that feels wrong to Nick but it’s obvious this isn’t the first time John’s handled a gun. Asking him to stay back won’t be saving him from anything he hasn’t had to do before.
In the low light, Nick squints at the mounds of garbage, the teetering pile of abandoned tires and the chain link fence that surrounds it all. “Are you sure it’ll know where to find us?”
“Oh, it’ll know,” Derek says with a flat, humourless laugh. “They always know.”
He’s right. Twenty minutes later, Nick recognises the heavy lumbering gait of the figure approaching the dump. With its bare hands, it rips a path through the iron fence. It turns its head back and forth. “Scanning for life signs,” John supplies.
Those scans must be pretty accurate because almost immediately it starts towards them. From the other side of the dump, Sarah and Derek open fire. Just like in the coffee shop that morning, the bullets bounce right off the golem’s body. Exactly as planned, it ignores the assault, undeterred from reaching John.
The golem - terminator - is getting closer. Fifteen feet, ten feet, five and it stops dead in its tracks. It’s close enough that Nick can see the moonlight glinting off the exposed metal of its melted face. Instead of making the final lunge for John, it crouches in the dirt, scrabbling around for something at its feet.
It stands again, holding a length of the thick electrical cable the Connors had placed there, intending to short-circuit the machine. In one bone-chilling display of strength, it rips the wire in half. Tossing aside the sparking, live ends, Nick swears he can see it grin. John looks at him with wide eyes. “Run!”
Nick grabs the kid by the scruff of his jacket. He pushes him ahead of himself as they run as fast as they can toward the tower of tires where Sarah and Derek are taking cover. With Blutbud speed, Monroe should be ahead of them already but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Nick!” he calls desperately from behind them.
Nick twists around in time to see Monroe on the floor. His foot is caught in a tangle of scrap metal. The golem stands over him menacingly. With a final shove to John, Nick turns and runs back toward to Monroe. His mind is racing. All he has on him is the crossbow and a knife. He doesn’t know how he’s going to stop the thing from tearing apart Monroe like it has torn apart everything else that stood between it and the Connors, but he has to try.
Just as he’s about to reach Monroe, Cameron dives out from between the heaps of trash, tackling the other golem to the ground. They wrestle violently, each punch thrown lands with the heavy sound of metal striking metal. Nick reaches Monroe’s side, quickly cutting his leg free.
He throws Monroe’s arm over his shoulders and on a count of, “One, two, three,” heaves him up. Nick supports Monroe as they hobble away from the fight.
“Heads up!” Derek yells.
Monroe’s reflexes are faster. He ducks, dragging Nick down just in time to avoid them both getting thwacked in the face with the live wire. It hits the fighting golems with an immense, hair raising hail of sparks. Simultaneously, the two machines lock up, falling to the ground inert.
“Hurry!” Sarah calls, sprinting towards them.
Nick leaves Monroe where he is. With a deep breath to steady his hand, he takes the knife to the golem’s head, slicing exactly where John had shown him earlier on Cameron. His fingers slip on the fake blood-like substance that leaks as he cuts down to its endoskeleton. He can hear the seconds ticking through his mind as he struggles to remove the chip. It seems like at any moment, the terminator’s eyes will glow red again, waking up.
Then with the sound of an air-tight seal decompressing, the chip pops free. With shaking hands, Nick pulls it out. John is at his side now. He’s checking Cameron’s unmoving body. He glares at Derek as he approaches, tugging off the insulated gloves he’d worn to throw the wire.
“She’ll be fine in a minute,” Sarah says, in a matter of fact tone, quelling any argument between them before it starts.
It takes all three of them to lug the body to the pile of tires. John refuses to leave Cameron’s side. Sarah pours thermite over the golem’s corpse, igniting it with a flare.
“Come on,” Nick urges after a silent moment watching the blaze. “We’d better get out of here before the fire department arrives.”
Sarah and John pack up the guns in the truck. Monroe, having warmed up to Cameron now, stands off to the side with her, holding her hand, palm up in his. Nick watches as she allows Monroe to curl her fingers back and forth, clearly fascinated by his interest in the craftsmanship of her joints.
Derek joins Nick and watches for a moment too before making a rough, disgusted noise in the back of his throat at their display. “Listen,” he says gruffly to Nick, “if you ever see one of these things again--”
“We’ll take care of it,” Nick says. Derek nods. It isn’t a thank you but it’ll do. He’s about to leave when Nick grabs him by the arm and holds him back. He finally voices what’s been bugging him since they met. “How’d you get mixed up with these... things...?” They’re human, except for Cameron, Nick’s sure of that.
Derek grins but shakes his head. “That’s a long story. Maybe one day I’ll tell you.” He looks back at Monroe and then to Nick. “What about you? You took finding out about terminators - golems - whatever you want to call them, better than most.”
Nick opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know where to start anymore than Derek did. He doesn’t think he can explain what it is to be a Grimm to someone who thinks these metal golems are the worst the world has to offer, even when he thinks that of anyone, the Connors might understand. “You’d be surprised at things I’ve seen.”
Derek laughs, unexpectedly. “I’d heard Portland was crazy but...”
Nick laughs too. “You don’t know the half of it.” Then, in a low sombre voice, he inclines his head in Cameron’s direction. “If that one ever starts acting like that one...” He jerks his chin at the billowing tire fire.
With a steely glint in his gaze, Derek promises, “I’ll take care of it.”
--
Although the doctors cleared them both to get back to work, it’s another three days before Nick and Hank are allowed in the station. “Red tape,” Wu explains, rolling his eyes as he hands them yet another incident report form to fill in.
“Any progress on that robbery-homicide?” Nick asks.
“Yes but also no,” he replies cryptically.
“I know I’m on desk duty for a couple of months,” Hanks says in a slow drawl, waving his cast, “but that doesn’t mean you get to have all the fun without me. C’mon, Wu, throw us a bone. Was there a break in the case or not?”
With a smug smile, he flips open a manila file and shows them a still from the security footage at the tech lab that had been broken into.
“Is that...?” Nick asks, trailing off into stunned silence.
“Uh huh,” Wu confirms. “Your robot man, in the flesh. Or should I say, in the nuts and bolts?”
“Robot man trashed the tech lab, taking out two security guards in the process. And then went on to trash a Java Hut?” Hank wonders aloud, confused. “Where’s the logic in that?”
“According to the barista, he went to the Java Hut looking for Sarah Connor - she’s dead by the way,” Wu adds in an aside. “Back in the 90s, Connor did some tech lab trashing of her own. She was convinced someone was building robots that would kill us all!”
He laughs, but Hank and Nick share a knowing glance. “So wait,” Hank pushes, “Connor was worried about killer robots and then ten years later a killer robot shows up in town looking for her...?”
“No! There’s no such thing as killer robots!” Wu says, letting out a full belly guffaw at Hank’s expense. “Are you sure they didn’t find any drugs...?”
“Wu,” Nick says in half in warning but he’s grinning too.
“It must have been some copycat. Someone who bought into the conspiracy theory that Connor isn’t dead, just living off the grid.” He snorts. “I guess he wanted to impress her by taking down some computers in her name. It’s a shame she’s dead, from what I know of her, it sounds like she’d have appreciated the gesture...”
“I’m not so sure about that...” Hank mutters under his breath but Nick talks over him.
“What about the metallic skeleton? The hot coffee to the dude’s face? He didn’t even flinch!” He knows he shouldn’t be pressing this hard. The fewer questions, the easier it is for him to do his job but it’s hard to let such a paper-thin explanation lie.
“Have you seen this?” Wu hands them a manifest of the things stolen or destroyed in the break in. It’s three pages long and over half the items have fat black marker lines through them obscuring them. At the bottom of the sheet, there’s an authorisation stamp from the DoD.
“Military contractors?” Nick extrapolates.
“Yup. And they were into some pretty high tech, highly classified stuff. Who knows what kind of state of the art body armour our perp was wearing courtesy of the US Army’s R&D.” Wu shuffles all the papers and files neatly back together. “It doesn’t matter anyhow, the trail’s gone cold. He probably skipped town the same morning. He’s the FBI’s problem now.”
“Another case closed,” Hank says with a wry smile.
“Close enough,” Nick agrees cheerfully, stealing a cookie from the Get Well basket on Hank’s desk.
-END-
Prompt: trouble with the law
Author: perdiccas
Fandoms: Grimm/Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles
Characters: Nick Burkhardt, Monroe, Hank Griffin, Sergeant Wu, Sean Renard; Sarah Connor, John Connor, Derek Reese, Cameron
Pairings: None
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6,113
Spoilers: set after Grimm 2.03; no specific Terminator spoilers
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Grimm and Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles belong to their respective creators
A/N: Thank you to jaune_chat for the beta and to aurilly for helping me out with the Grimm-esque German ♥
Summary: Nick has seen a lot of Wesen, but he’s never seen anything quite like what’s currently rampaging through Portland.
“There’s got to be a special circle of hell for people who commit murder before 6 a.m.,” Hank grouses.
Nick, caught up in a gigantic yawn, nods in agreement. They’d just finished up at a crime scene -most likely a robbery gone wrong - and the nearest coffee shop is already packed. The people in line in front of them are a mix of similarly drowsy eyed folks who clearly wish they were still in bed, and the unnaturally perky. Joggers. Cyclists. Yoga enthusiasts. People who voluntarily get up at the crack of dawn. A lithe women in an aerobics outfit walks past them with two grande chai lattes and the mass of people inches forward.
The coffee shop definitely knows its market share: while the line only grows longer behind them, one of the baristas walks up and down, offering everyone single shot samples of their newest flavour of herbal tea. Nick downs his in one. It tastes like dirt.
While Hank, a coffee purist, grimaces at the mere existence of caffeine-free herbal teas, let alone their presence in place that calls itself the “Java Hut”, Nick ponders the ethics of flashing his badge and cutting to the front of the line. A tall, broad-shouldered guy elbows his way brusquely past. He’s evidently not suffering from the same moral quandary.
“Hey!” Nick says loudly, echoed by most of the rest of the waiting customers. The man doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed. He makes a beeline for the overworked barista manning the espresso machine and engages her in what looks like an intense conversation. They’re too far away to hear exactly what’s being said, especially with the crowd growing louder in their collective disgruntlement, but it’s obvious something isn’t quite right. The barista looks terrified.
Nick catches Hank’s eye and sees he shares Nick’s misgivings about the situation. They step forward. Now, Nick really does flash his badge in an attempt to quiet the masses before they turn on him and Hank too for stepping - literally - out of line. But someone else beats them to the man.
A middle-aged businessman, two or three people away from being served, taps the interloper on his shoulder. When that gets no response, he ups the ante to a vicious poke in the arm and a personal-space invading grip on the big guy’s meaty bicep. “Listen up...” he says, his face red with indignation. Without warning, the other guy elbows him sharply in the gut. He doesn’t even bother to turn around as he does it.
The crowd gasps. The businessman doubles over. He’s coughing up blood.
“Enough!” Nick shouts. He and Hank rush forward but the guy has already lunged at the barista - Christine, Nick reads on her nametag. He pins her against the wall, with one giant hand gripped tightly around her neck. Nick and Hank pull up short, for fear of getting Christine hurt in the struggle.
“Let her down!” Hank orders. They have their guns drawn, aimed at the guy’s back but he’s so intent on the barista, Nick’s not sure he is even aware of their presence.
“Tell me!” the man demands from her.
“I don’t know-” Christine sobs and with the tightening of his fist, she starts to struggle for breath. She flails around, clawing at the hand pinning her to the wall, kicking at his legs, his stomach, his groin but the guy never flinches. It’s only when she gets hold of a scalding hot pot of coffee and splashes it over his face that she gets a reaction. He throws Christine away from himself, at least three feet through the air until she slams into the coffee machines, unconscious.
“What the hell is that?” Hank splutters when the guy finally turns to face them.
Whatever it is, the coffee has melted away the skin on the left side of its face, exposing an unsettling, almost metallic looking endoskeleton beneath. Even more unsettling is that despite the damage to its face it hasn’t been deterred from the path it’s forging through the tables as it heads straight for the door.
Nick glances at Hank and back at the man... Wesen... thing. “You can see its face too?”
“Oh yeah, and what a pretty sight it is.” Hank shudders.
Around them, people cower, their coffee abandoned.
“This is bad, right?” Hank whispers urgently from where they’re crouching behind a sofa. “I mean, if it’s woge-ing out bad enough that I can see it, it’s gotta be seriously stressed out.”
That seems like one hell of an understatement given what they’ve just witnessed but Nick knows what he means. If Hank can see its true face, everyone else can see it too. They have to put it down before they have even more of a mass panic on their hands. He adjusts his grip on his gun, huffing in frustration as he attempts to line up his sights and fails. The space is too enclosed for a clean shot.
The thing reaches a counter - stocked with sugar packets and pitchers of milk - blocking its way. Instead of walking around it, it rests both its hands against the counter top and shoves.
“What the...?” Hank gasps. With a deafening crack and barely any effort, it rips a passage straight through the wood.
“I don’t think it’s stressed out,” Nick says as calmly as he can manage. “I think it’s really, really pissed off.”
The commotion is starting to draw attention. Nick can see a couple of overly-curious bystanders gathering outside already, and he watches them watch in horrified fascination at the thing stomping interminably closer towards the street.
“Come on,” Hank hisses, darting out from behind the sofa, forcing Nick to follow him to keep him covered. “We’ve gotta do something before anyone else gets hurt.”
“Stop! Police!” Nick yells again at the top of his voice but the thing doesn’t even flinch. It shatters the window beside the door in one short, sharp punch and steps through it, completely unconcerned by the shards of falling glass or the screams of the nearby crowd.
Hank fires the first shot. Nick fires another but instead of going down, the thing keeps moving. The bullets ricochet right off its chest.
“Nick, are you seeing this?” Hank asks incredulously as another one of his bullets comes flying back at them, boring itself into wall above Nick’s head. He adds in a rush, “This isn’t working. We’ve gotta try something else!”
“Yeah but what?”
Hank looks at him, wild eyed and determined, and holsters his seemingly useless gun. “How about this?”
“Hank, wait!” Nick shouts, grabbing for him, but he’s already gone, bum rushing the thing before it has a chance to escape. Nick can see the taser in Hank’s hand: he’s going in to try to subdue it like it’s an ornery drunk. Helpless to do anything else, Nick unloads the rest of his clip directly at the thing’s head. But all that gets him is a terrifying hail of spent bullets bouncing back. Just as Hank gets an arm around the thing’s neck and tightens his grip a chokehold, it turns with an unexpected, preternatural speed. It closes both of its disturbingly human-looking hands around Hank and rips him away with inhuman strength.
Hank slams to the ground in a sickening crunch.
“Dispatch,” Nick orders desperately into his walkie-talkie, running to Hank’s side, “Officer down at my location! We need an ambulance, and send back up. The perp is still at large, unarmed but highly dangerous.”
--
“This place is a madhouse,” Wu says, grimacing as he holds the door to Hank’s hospital room open for Renard and then follows him in. He shuts the door behind them again, cutting them off from the chaos in the hall. “And I mean that literally. Captain, have you heard these witness statements?” Without waiting for a reply he continues, “‘They kept shooting but it did nothing. The guy was invincible.’ ‘His face was totally messed up. I know it sounds crazy but, I swear, it looked like he was made of metal.’ This one’s my favourite,” he adds, completely deadpan, “‘Dude was a freaking robot, man!’”
Wu glances up from his notebook, seeing Hank and Nick properly for the first time since arriving and his grin promptly falls.
“Oh no,” he says, with a disappointed sigh. “Not you two too?”
“Well...” Nick starts but Renard interrupts smoothly.
“First things first: Hank, how are you feeling?”
Hank shifts against the pillows, sitting up a little straighter before replying. “I’m fine, sir.” He gestures down to the full arm cast that stretches all the way up to his shoulder, “A couple of fractures but nothing that won’t heal. I’m hoping they’ll let me go home soon.”
Renard nods sympathetically. “We’ll see about making that happen. Now,” he says, addressing Nick, “What can you tell me about the incident?”
Nick recounts the morning’s highlights, for once not bothering to leave out the more unusual aspects of what he and Hank had seen - the other witnesses have already reported the worst of it and they’ll only draw unwanted attention to themselves if they don’t corroborate what the others had seen.
“Do you know what the suspect was saying to the barista- Christine, was it? All the witnesses reported that it looked intense but no one overheard exactly what was being said.”
Hank shakes his head and Nick echoes, “No idea. What does Christine have to say about it?”
“Nothing right now,” Wu supplies. “She’s still unconscious. The doctors don’t know when she’ll wake up: it could be hours or it could be never.”
Nick sucks in a sharp breath at the news. He clenches his jaw, angry at the man - Wesen? - that did this and angrier at himself for failing to stop it.
“There could be a connection there,” Renard suggests. “We should check with her family, friends. See if anyone recognises the ‘robot’ from this morning...”
“I’ll see what I can dig up,” Nick says, impatient to get to the trailer. “It’s the only lead we’ve got right now.”
“No, don’t worry. Wu will look into it,” Renard’s voice is suspiciously calm. Nick’s hackles rise. He knows that voice. It’s the same voice every police officer adopts when breaking bad news, easing someone into the reality that somebody they love has been killed or might be a killer.
Instinctively, Nick takes a step closer to Hank’s bedside. “What’s going on?”
Renard stands with his hands pushed deep into his pockets. His mouth is a thin, hard line and it looks as if he’s choosing his words carefully. “Given the... ah... unusual nature of the witness statements and the fact that everyone present at the incident drank the same herbal tea from the same machines... there’s a possibility you may have been drugged.”
“Captain,” Hank splutters indignantly. “I didn’t hallucinate a broken arm!”
“No,” Renard replies, his voice still eminently reasonable, “but something like PCP could make a man strong enough to pick you up and break it for you.”
“You think our drinks were laced with something and we didn’t notice?” Nick asks incredulously, knowing even as he objects that it could easily be true. It happens all too often. But he needs more than a vague ‘maybe’ before he’ll distrust what he saw with his own eyes. “Who would do that? And why?”
“I don’t know,” Renard says simply. “We won’t know anything for sure until the tox screens and blood work come back. And until they do, I can’t have either of you on active duty.”
“What!?” Nick and Hank demand in outraged unison, but Renard ploughs on resolutely.
“I’m sorry, detectives. I’m going to have to ask you both to hand over your firearms to Sergeant Wu.” He ducks his head contritely, offering them a small apologetic shrug. “You’ll get your weapons back as soon as the doctors give you the all clear. I can’t make you stay put,” he adds sternly, “but until we get this all figured out, I think it’s for the best if you both stay out of harm’s way.”
--
“If it wasn’t some thug hopped on PCP, what do you think it was?” Monroe asks, pouring himself some coffee. He looks at his cup speculatively. “Besides someone who seriously needs to switch to decaf...?”
“I don’t know.” Nick leans against the kitchen counter. He shudders at a sudden recollection of the way the thing they’d encountered had torn the coffee shop apart. “I’m telling you, Monroe, Hank is lucky to be alive. That poor barista is in a coma. This thing, it’s strong. Stronger than anything I’ve ever seen before.
“Hell,” he adds after a sombre moment of silence, “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, period. And I couldn’t find anything like it in Aunt Marie’s books either. It doesn’t look like one of the usual monsters...” Nick catches himself, his eyes darting guiltily to Monroe’s face. “Uh. No offence?”
Monroe rolls his eyes but gestures for Nick to carry on.
“What I mean is: it looked completely human until its skin melted and we could see the metal underneath. And then it wasn’t even trying to hide what it was... I’m beginning to think maybe it couldn’t?”
“Oh,” Monroe says with sudden understanding. And then again slower, “Ohhhhh. I don’t think that thing was Wesen.”
Nick looks up in interest, following Monroe as he heads for his bookshelves. “What then?”
“Spielzeuge,” Monroe says over his shoulder, in a thick German accent. At Nick’s questioning look, he elaborates while still rummaging through the books. “Strictly translated, it means ‘toys’ but it can refer to anything that’s not really alive but isn’t exactly inanimate either: enchanted statues, possessed dolls...”
“Really angry robots?” Nick suggests.
Monroe pauses and considers. “Sure,” he decides, brightly. “I don’t see why not! Although Spielzeuge are generally more old school. Creepy puppets that come alive at night and stuff like that. It never ends well. In fact, I haven’t heard of Wesen creating any since... oh not since before my ancestors left the old country. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
“I guess someone didn’t get the memo,” Nick replies dryly.
“Aha! Here.” Monroe pulls down the book he was looking for. It’s a slim, untitled volume bound in leather. He hands it to Nick to leaf through.
The text is all in Italian. Nick can’t pick out any words he recognises but there are several black and white woodcuts that catch his attention. One is of an old man in a workshop, whittling some wood. In the inscription, he reads the name Geppetto.
“Is this... Pinocchio?” he asks with an air of disbelief.
“Oh yeah,” Monroe says seriously. “And not the sanitized-for-children Disney version either. This,” he jabs a finger emphatically on the pages, “is a cautionary tale. This kind of thing is the reason you don’t see Spielzeuge anymore.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask...” Nick starts, still not entirely sure how something as innocuous as Pinocchio could be so bad it scared an entire generation off making any more puppets like him.
Monroe grimaces. “Let’s just say that when Pinocchio decided he wanted to be a real boy, it wasn’t his nose that grew...” He raises his eyebrows and swings a hand down by his crotch, indicating a substantial growth.
Nick’s eyes snap back up his face. “Right. I got it.”
“I’m just saying...” Monroe continues absently, as if Nick hadn’t spoken. “They don’t call it getting wood for nothing.”
“Monroe.”
Monroe clears his throat before taking the book back from Nick, replacing it on the shelf.
“But I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never heard of Spielzeuge getting violent like what happened this morning. Lecherous? Defiant? Obstinate? Sure. They’re like horny, sulking teenagers who never grow up and they never, ever stop.” He pauses and then adds, “Well, unless you set them on fire. That pretty much kills them all dead... But violence? That’s just not how they operate.”
They’re interrupted by the ringing of Nick’s cell phone.
“It’s Hank,” he says, accepting the call. “Hank, I’m at Monroe’s. You’re on speaker.”
“The barista just woke up. But only for a minute before the pain killers knocked her out again,” Hank says in low, furtive voice. “I was sitting by her bedside, you know, talking in case she could hear me in there... When she woke up, she said, ‘It was looking for Sarah Connor.’”
Nick wrinkles his brow. “That name mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing,” Hank replies. “But I’m the only one who heard it, and since the tox screen just came back clear, I’m about to have a date with a nice, relaxing morphine drip... I’d say you’ve got five hours before I wake up enough to call the lead in.”
“Good man,” Nick grins, both at Hank’s clean bill of health and at the head start.
“Sleep tight!” Monroe calls absently as Nick hangs up. After a moment of deep thought, he adds gravely, “I think I know one thing that could make any kind of Spielzeug as mad as the one you saw this morning...”
“What’s that?”
“They really, really hate to be abandoned.”
--
They park across the street from a nondescript suburban house.
Monroe narrows his eyes, studying the neighbourhood. “So this is Sarah Connor’s house?”
Nick turns to him and grins humourlessly. “The only Sarah Connor of note is missing, presumed dead, after escaping from a mental institution some ten years ago.”
“Mental institution...” Monroe murmurs under his breath. “That explains a lot.”
“This is Sarah Gale’s house. She moved to Portland a couple of weeks ago with fake papers and a job history that doesn’t go back more than five years. Whoever she paid for the name change did a shoddy job. Her son, John, just got hired at the Java Hut. He was supposed to pull a shift this afternoon but never showed up.”
Monroe looks up, frowning slightly. “The place was trashed. He was probably spooked.”
“Spooked because he knew that thing was looking for his mom, I bet,” Nick scoffs.
Monroe shrugs, conceding the point. “We going in?”
“We’re going in.”
Although they’re not there in any official police capacity, Nick doesn’t go as far as breaking and entering when they find the curtains drawn and the doors locked tight. Not when Wu will be there in few hours checking up on the same lead. If they want to stop this Spielzeug, the last thing they need is to spend the afternoon explaining why their prints were found all over the suspect’s house.
“Nick,” Monroe calls in a stage whisper. “Over here!”
He jiggles the lock on the rolling garage door. It gives. Monroe lifts it up just enough for the two of them to slide through on their bellies, letting the door roll shut again behind them.
With only the beam from Nick’s flashlight to illuminate their way, they start exploring. Everything looks normal enough at first: an empty space for the family car to park and the rest of the garage lined with a wooden work bench. Tools - screwdrivers and a soldering iron rather than woodworking supplies - and scrap metal are scattered around. It looks as if someone left in a hurry, in the middle of a project.
“This look like a workshop to you too?” Nick asks quietly.
“Uh huh,” Monroe confirms. He opens a drawer and lets out a low whistle. Nick looks over as he pulls out his closed fist. When he opens his fingers a dozen little computer parts tumble back into the drawer. “A robot workshop.”
There’s a sudden noise behind them. Nick pivots, reaching for his crossbow but he’s not quick enough. They find themselves pinned to the wall by their necks, just like the barista. But not by the same guy. They’re being held in place by a petite young woman who doesn’t look old enough to have graduated high school.
“Portland PD,” Nick chokes out, groping for his badge. She simply tilts her head, as if considering them and their presence. The hand around his neck is tight but not so tight he’s having difficulty breathing. Monroe is in more trouble. His knees are bent at an awkward angle to compensate for the height difference between him and the woman.
“Okay?” Nick asks, out of the corner of his mouth.
“Oh yeah,” Monroe replies sarcastically. “I’ve read that golems never seem to know their own strength but this is ridiculous...” He tugs at her hand, trying to give himself more room to straighten up but she doesn’t budge.
“Go-what?” Nick starts but another woman enters the garage through the door connecting it to the house. She’s cradling an assault rifle in her arms. It’s not aimed at them directly but she’s holding it with enough ease that Nick is in no doubt she won’t hesitate to use it.
“Sarah Connor, I presume?” he asks as she sizes them up.
Her face gives nothing away. She addresses the young woman. “Who are they?”
“Portland PD,” she replies in an uncanny mimicry of Nick’s voice.
“Let them down,” another voice calls from the doorway. Sarah turns and glares at the teenage boy - her son, John, Nick surmises - but he only steps into the garage proper, instead of retreating back into the house.
Nick feels the grip at his neck begin to loosen but Sarah cuts in. “Cameron.” He’s held fast again. “Take their weapons and then let them down.”
In a remarkable display of dexterity, Cameron manages to strip Nick of the crossbow and the knife he’s carrying without letting him or Monroe wiggle out of her grip until she’s done. Then she steps back and stands like a soldier at ease, waiting for further instruction, and ready to strike if either of them try to make a move.
Monroe rubs his throat theatrically, making a show of straightening up and cracking his back. “Definitely a golem,” he states under his breath, giving her a critical once over.
Sarah and John are caught up in a whispered argument. Nick takes the opportunity to draw Monroe nearer to him. “What the heck is a golem?” he hisses. And then, just as Monroe is about to answer, “And don’t say ‘her’.” He tilts his head, indicating Cameron.
“Well, she is,” Monroe says indignantly, forgetting for a moment the gravity of their situation. “I’m like, 90% positive. Did you see the way she snapped to it when they gave an order?”
“Yes, but what does that mean?”
“Golems are a kind of Spielzeug made with old magic,” Monroe tells him. “Very old magic. We’re talking way back when Wesen were wondering around Europe, chased by Grimms wherever they went old magic. Jewish Wesen were doubly screwed back then,” he says, giving Nick an emphatic look. “The rabbis started building golems to help defend them. In theory they’ll obey whoever created them.”
“But in practice?”
“The longer they’re around, the more ‘alive’ they become. The more alive they are they less they’re inclined to be anyone’s slave.”
“How do we stop them?” Nick asks urgently.
“You gotta destroy the words in their head.”
Nick doesn’t have time to question him any further because the Connors have fallen silent, watching them. “Look,” he starts, “we’re not here to arrest you, okay? In fact we’re not even the worst thing out there looking for you. We just want to help you stop it.”
For a moment no one says anything. Then Sarah walks over to the same drawer Monroe had been rooting through earlier. She grabs a handful of the computer chips and scatters on them on them workbench, turning back to look at Nick expectantly.
“What are those?”
“The words in their head,” she says and smashes one with the butt of her gun.
They sit around the kitchen table in a wary kind of truce. “So what happened?” Monroe starts, addressing Sarah. “The old one started acting out so you ditched it and made a new model?”
Cameron answers instead. “John did not make me,” she states. “Not in the way you are implying. We made ourselves.”
“Oh no...” There’s a shell-shocked quality to Monroe’s voice that puts Nick on edge. “That’s not good. That’s so not good,” he repeats, speaking directly to Nick now. “Once they start making more of their own, they’re uncontrollable. How could you let this go so far?” he demands, accusingly.
“We didn’t start this,” John snaps back. “We’re the ones trying to stop them.”
That’s hard to believe, given the way he’d gathered up the remaining chips from the garage, carefully storing them in his backpack. But Sarah confirms it. “That’s why they’re looking for me. They know we’re going to destroy them or die trying.”
“Let me guess,” Nick replies, “they’re hoping to facilitate the latter.”
“That’s the idea.” There’s no trace of fear in her voice.
“Okay, fine but...” Monroe interrupts himself, addressing Cameron, “...no offense... if you’re trying to rid the world of golems, shouldn’t you start at home?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Derek, the battle-scarred man that rounds out their group, interjects. “Never trust metal,” he states uncompromisingly. “A terminator is a terminator no matter what.”
He uses the Connors’ word for golem. After what Nick had seen this morning, he can’t help but admit it’s apt. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees John clench his jaw. This is clearly an argument they’ve had before. Firmly, Sarah says to Derek, “Let’s worry about the ones that are trying to kill us first. We can work out what to do with the rest of them later.”
Nick clears his throat in the uncomfortable, silent stand-off that follows. “So how are we going to stop this thing?”
John spreads a city map across the table. “I have a plan.”
They get out of the Connor - Gale - house before Wu and the rest of the department arrives but it isn’t until sundown that they reconvene at the city dump.
Monroe wrinkles his nose and shakes his head in disgust. “Trust me,” he says, holding up a hand to quiet Nick before he can echo the sentiment, “however bad you think this smells, it’s a thousand times worse to a Blutbad nose.”
He pulls the collar of his shirt over his mouth and nose and continues speaking. His voice is slightly muffled through the fabric. “Now what?”
“Now we wait,” Sarah says coming up behind them. They’re armed to the teeth, even the kid. Something about that feels wrong to Nick but it’s obvious this isn’t the first time John’s handled a gun. Asking him to stay back won’t be saving him from anything he hasn’t had to do before.
In the low light, Nick squints at the mounds of garbage, the teetering pile of abandoned tires and the chain link fence that surrounds it all. “Are you sure it’ll know where to find us?”
“Oh, it’ll know,” Derek says with a flat, humourless laugh. “They always know.”
He’s right. Twenty minutes later, Nick recognises the heavy lumbering gait of the figure approaching the dump. With its bare hands, it rips a path through the iron fence. It turns its head back and forth. “Scanning for life signs,” John supplies.
Those scans must be pretty accurate because almost immediately it starts towards them. From the other side of the dump, Sarah and Derek open fire. Just like in the coffee shop that morning, the bullets bounce right off the golem’s body. Exactly as planned, it ignores the assault, undeterred from reaching John.
The golem - terminator - is getting closer. Fifteen feet, ten feet, five and it stops dead in its tracks. It’s close enough that Nick can see the moonlight glinting off the exposed metal of its melted face. Instead of making the final lunge for John, it crouches in the dirt, scrabbling around for something at its feet.
It stands again, holding a length of the thick electrical cable the Connors had placed there, intending to short-circuit the machine. In one bone-chilling display of strength, it rips the wire in half. Tossing aside the sparking, live ends, Nick swears he can see it grin. John looks at him with wide eyes. “Run!”
Nick grabs the kid by the scruff of his jacket. He pushes him ahead of himself as they run as fast as they can toward the tower of tires where Sarah and Derek are taking cover. With Blutbud speed, Monroe should be ahead of them already but he’s nowhere to be seen.
“Nick!” he calls desperately from behind them.
Nick twists around in time to see Monroe on the floor. His foot is caught in a tangle of scrap metal. The golem stands over him menacingly. With a final shove to John, Nick turns and runs back toward to Monroe. His mind is racing. All he has on him is the crossbow and a knife. He doesn’t know how he’s going to stop the thing from tearing apart Monroe like it has torn apart everything else that stood between it and the Connors, but he has to try.
Just as he’s about to reach Monroe, Cameron dives out from between the heaps of trash, tackling the other golem to the ground. They wrestle violently, each punch thrown lands with the heavy sound of metal striking metal. Nick reaches Monroe’s side, quickly cutting his leg free.
He throws Monroe’s arm over his shoulders and on a count of, “One, two, three,” heaves him up. Nick supports Monroe as they hobble away from the fight.
“Heads up!” Derek yells.
Monroe’s reflexes are faster. He ducks, dragging Nick down just in time to avoid them both getting thwacked in the face with the live wire. It hits the fighting golems with an immense, hair raising hail of sparks. Simultaneously, the two machines lock up, falling to the ground inert.
“Hurry!” Sarah calls, sprinting towards them.
Nick leaves Monroe where he is. With a deep breath to steady his hand, he takes the knife to the golem’s head, slicing exactly where John had shown him earlier on Cameron. His fingers slip on the fake blood-like substance that leaks as he cuts down to its endoskeleton. He can hear the seconds ticking through his mind as he struggles to remove the chip. It seems like at any moment, the terminator’s eyes will glow red again, waking up.
Then with the sound of an air-tight seal decompressing, the chip pops free. With shaking hands, Nick pulls it out. John is at his side now. He’s checking Cameron’s unmoving body. He glares at Derek as he approaches, tugging off the insulated gloves he’d worn to throw the wire.
“She’ll be fine in a minute,” Sarah says, in a matter of fact tone, quelling any argument between them before it starts.
It takes all three of them to lug the body to the pile of tires. John refuses to leave Cameron’s side. Sarah pours thermite over the golem’s corpse, igniting it with a flare.
“Come on,” Nick urges after a silent moment watching the blaze. “We’d better get out of here before the fire department arrives.”
Sarah and John pack up the guns in the truck. Monroe, having warmed up to Cameron now, stands off to the side with her, holding her hand, palm up in his. Nick watches as she allows Monroe to curl her fingers back and forth, clearly fascinated by his interest in the craftsmanship of her joints.
Derek joins Nick and watches for a moment too before making a rough, disgusted noise in the back of his throat at their display. “Listen,” he says gruffly to Nick, “if you ever see one of these things again--”
“We’ll take care of it,” Nick says. Derek nods. It isn’t a thank you but it’ll do. He’s about to leave when Nick grabs him by the arm and holds him back. He finally voices what’s been bugging him since they met. “How’d you get mixed up with these... things...?” They’re human, except for Cameron, Nick’s sure of that.
Derek grins but shakes his head. “That’s a long story. Maybe one day I’ll tell you.” He looks back at Monroe and then to Nick. “What about you? You took finding out about terminators - golems - whatever you want to call them, better than most.”
Nick opens his mouth, but he doesn’t know where to start anymore than Derek did. He doesn’t think he can explain what it is to be a Grimm to someone who thinks these metal golems are the worst the world has to offer, even when he thinks that of anyone, the Connors might understand. “You’d be surprised at things I’ve seen.”
Derek laughs, unexpectedly. “I’d heard Portland was crazy but...”
Nick laughs too. “You don’t know the half of it.” Then, in a low sombre voice, he inclines his head in Cameron’s direction. “If that one ever starts acting like that one...” He jerks his chin at the billowing tire fire.
With a steely glint in his gaze, Derek promises, “I’ll take care of it.”
--
Although the doctors cleared them both to get back to work, it’s another three days before Nick and Hank are allowed in the station. “Red tape,” Wu explains, rolling his eyes as he hands them yet another incident report form to fill in.
“Any progress on that robbery-homicide?” Nick asks.
“Yes but also no,” he replies cryptically.
“I know I’m on desk duty for a couple of months,” Hanks says in a slow drawl, waving his cast, “but that doesn’t mean you get to have all the fun without me. C’mon, Wu, throw us a bone. Was there a break in the case or not?”
With a smug smile, he flips open a manila file and shows them a still from the security footage at the tech lab that had been broken into.
“Is that...?” Nick asks, trailing off into stunned silence.
“Uh huh,” Wu confirms. “Your robot man, in the flesh. Or should I say, in the nuts and bolts?”
“Robot man trashed the tech lab, taking out two security guards in the process. And then went on to trash a Java Hut?” Hank wonders aloud, confused. “Where’s the logic in that?”
“According to the barista, he went to the Java Hut looking for Sarah Connor - she’s dead by the way,” Wu adds in an aside. “Back in the 90s, Connor did some tech lab trashing of her own. She was convinced someone was building robots that would kill us all!”
He laughs, but Hank and Nick share a knowing glance. “So wait,” Hank pushes, “Connor was worried about killer robots and then ten years later a killer robot shows up in town looking for her...?”
“No! There’s no such thing as killer robots!” Wu says, letting out a full belly guffaw at Hank’s expense. “Are you sure they didn’t find any drugs...?”
“Wu,” Nick says in half in warning but he’s grinning too.
“It must have been some copycat. Someone who bought into the conspiracy theory that Connor isn’t dead, just living off the grid.” He snorts. “I guess he wanted to impress her by taking down some computers in her name. It’s a shame she’s dead, from what I know of her, it sounds like she’d have appreciated the gesture...”
“I’m not so sure about that...” Hank mutters under his breath but Nick talks over him.
“What about the metallic skeleton? The hot coffee to the dude’s face? He didn’t even flinch!” He knows he shouldn’t be pressing this hard. The fewer questions, the easier it is for him to do his job but it’s hard to let such a paper-thin explanation lie.
“Have you seen this?” Wu hands them a manifest of the things stolen or destroyed in the break in. It’s three pages long and over half the items have fat black marker lines through them obscuring them. At the bottom of the sheet, there’s an authorisation stamp from the DoD.
“Military contractors?” Nick extrapolates.
“Yup. And they were into some pretty high tech, highly classified stuff. Who knows what kind of state of the art body armour our perp was wearing courtesy of the US Army’s R&D.” Wu shuffles all the papers and files neatly back together. “It doesn’t matter anyhow, the trail’s gone cold. He probably skipped town the same morning. He’s the FBI’s problem now.”
“Another case closed,” Hank says with a wry smile.
“Close enough,” Nick agrees cheerfully, stealing a cookie from the Get Well basket on Hank’s desk.
-END-
Prompt: trouble with the law