Gambit (9/?)
Gambit
Fandom, Pairing: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Sarah/Cameron
Summary: Sarah, Cameron, missile silo. Need I say more?
AN: Many thanks as always to inspectorboxer, for keeping me working on this and for beta'ing the result. grumpybear1031 created the cool comic-book-style cover. The lame banner is my own invention.
AN2: Last Gambit chapter for the next month or so, until I finish Episode 9 of the Sarah Connor Virtual Season. Enjoy!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Part 9
Cameron carefully eased Sarah onto the bunk, wrapping a blanket around the woman’s frame as she shivered. Two more blankets followed the first, enveloping Sarah in a gentle cocoon. The warmth stole over her, and Sarah closed her eyes, hearing the terminator root around in the shower area for a few minutes before a weight made the springs screech.
As Cameron leaned over Sarah, her hair fell forward to obscure her face, casting her features into shadow. Sarah reached out and brushed it back behind Cameron’s ear, her fingers lingering as they glided through the strands. Cameron’s eyes widened, and she stared at Sarah curiously, reaching up and repeating Sarah’s gesture with her own hand as Sarah gave her a drowsy half-smile. Still with the blank expression that denoted so many of Cameron’s emotions but this time Sarah labeled ‘confusion,’ Cameron said, “Thank you.”
Sarah didn’t say anything, just relaxed back onto her pillow, suddenly exhausted. She took the pills Cameron handed her without comment and slid into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She woke, groggy from the drugs, some hours later, to find Cameron carefully running her fingers through Sarah’s hair. The touch ghosted along her forehead before sweeping back over her ear in a smooth, slow motion. “Your hair is different than mine,” Cameron explained softly as her fingers continued their slow caress. Sarah knew she should tell Cameron to stop, as the touch stirred a languid warmth deep in Sarah’s stomach, but it soothed her back to sleep before she could say anything.
Sarah wasn’t sure when she next struggled to consciousness. She might have called it “morning,” but the word had lost all meaning for her in the perpetual timelessness of the silo. For once, her body felt rested and her mind seemed clear of the fever and exhaustion that had plagued. Sarah propped herself up on the pillows, noting the absence of the terminator in the back of her mind. Images surfaced in her mind’s eye: her own hand sliding through silky strands of brown hair… Cameron leaning over her, the last thing she saw as she drifted off to sleep… a soft, persistent touch along her temple…
She shook her head to clear the cobwebs and disquieting images, feeling disoriented. Weakness lingered in her muscles from the days of depravation, delirium, and illness, and she flexed her arm ruefully, feeling the loss of tone and muscle in the movement.
Her feet hit the floor, and she swung out of the bed with a sense of purpose, dropping to a perfect push-up plank, the chill from the floor almost burning into her palms and toes. The first was smooth, her body performing the movement she had perfected through practice during the last sixteen years, but the second was a fight to complete. She gritted her teeth and glared at the floor as she descended again. Stubbornness kept her at it as sweat beaded between her shoulder blades and along her brow as she strained to rise on the third.
“What are you doing?” The cyborg’s voice surprised her, and Sarah lost focus, her hands slipping to leave her sprawled out on the floor in a clumsy heap.
“Damn it,” Sarah growled as she struggled up from the floor, a blush heating the back of her neck as she imagined the spectacle she was making in front of the terminator, with all her human frailties on display. It didn’t help matters any when a strong cybernetic hand caught her arm and lifted her to her feet effortlessly.
A second hand clamped around her arm to steady and hold her face-to-face with Cameron, whose hazel eyes searched hers with concern. Sarah’s hands came to rest on the cyborg’s shoulders, her fingers curving around the warm skin in an almost unconscious gesture. A shiver wormed its way down her spine at the unexpected intimacy of the near-embrace.
“You need to be in bed,” Cameron stated, pivoting to sit Sarah down on the bunk.
Sarah slid down onto the lumpy mattress, her gaze traveling up the terminator’s body of its own accord, and she swallowed past a sudden catch in her throat. For a second, she had imagined her fingers following her gaze, and she jerked her head to the side, her eyes fixing on the mess of blankets at the foot of the bed. She took a shaky breath to calm her rapid heart rate, suddenly unsure if her aborted attempt at exercise was entirely to blame.
Cameron brushed her fingers across Sarah’s brow, a soft but clinical touch, and frowned when Sarah shivered again. “What were you doing?”
“Push-ups. Or trying to.”
“You should rest more before you try any physical activity. Your resources are depleted from illness and exhaustion.”
“All I’ve been doing is sleeping,” Sarah retorted.
“Your fever has broken. You should recover quickly now, but you need to build up your strength before you attempt any physical exertion.”
Sarah rose to her feet, brushing Cameron’s hand off. The trembling in Sarah’s legs told her that the terminator was correct, but she argued anyway, once again seeing herself sprawled on the floor, weak and helpless. “What I need to do is recover my conditioning. I’ll be no good once we get out of here if I’ve been an invalid.” She pushed past the terminator, heading for the common area.
Cameron caught her arm and pulled her around, fingers clamping down and pinching Sarah uncomfortably. “And your conditioning will suffer worse if you relapse.” There was no give in her eyes or in her posture, and her hold gave no signs of relenting until Sarah did.
“Cameron, let me go.” Sarah was surprised at how quiet her voice was, given the pangs of fear making themselves known in her stomach. When Cameron made no move to comply, she said, “You’re hurting me.”
The pressure released at once, and Cameron’s eyes locked on the bruises already forming on Sarah’s arm, a puzzled look creeping on to her face. “I… didn’t…” Her gaze darted from the bruises to her hand, staring at it curiously. “That shouldn’t have happened.” The fingers flexed and curled, slowly forming a fist, while Cameron watched with a look of dismay.
The terminator’s confusion and panic seemed genuine, and Sarah felt an odd feeling of empathy, even pity, come over her, washing away the fear she had felt only a few moments before. Whatever had just happened was obviously more frightening to Cameron than to her. “It’s ok,” she muttered. Her hand hesitated for a brief second before her fingers brushed over Cameron’s, drawing the cyborg’s attention back to her. She wrapped Cameron’s fingers with her own, stilling their movements, and ignored the way the warmth of Cameron’s hand seemed to infuse her entire body. “It was an accident.”
Sarah’s words, if anything, seemed to alarm Cameron more. “I don’t have accidents.”
Sarah considered for a second, giving Cameron’s hand a squeeze before letting go. “So what happened?” she asked evenly, carefully, as she tried to keep all of their fears in check.
Cameron’s eyebrows knitted, her attention turned inward. “I wanted you to listen to me, to stop…” she said slowly, as if she were trying to recreate the emotions of those few moments. ”When you didn’t…” Her eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “I got angry.”
“You haven’t gotten angry before?” Sarah asked, thinking back to all the times she had given the terminator cause, all the times Cameron had been patient, even stoic, in response to her anger.
“No. Not like that.” Cameron was staring down at her hand again, twisting and turning it from side-to-side, trying to diagnosis what went wrong.
Sarah’s fears about being trapped in the silo with the evolving machine were not completely assuaged, but they were tempered by Cameron’s own worry and fear. Sarah’s initial concerns had been that, removed from programmed restraints, the terminator would revert to form and go on a killing rampage. It seemed, however, that the changes being wrought were subtler and more complex than she had imagined; Cameron was not evolving into a more sophisticated killing machine, but rather into a sophisticated emotional being, with all the attendant confusion, complication, and contradiction.
Her fingers found the cyborg’s wrist and circled it, stopping the restless motion. She didn’t take the time to wonder when or how touching Cameron had become so easy, so effortless… so seemingly right. “It’s ok,” she repeated. “We all get angry sometimes. Just… don’t let it get out of control.”
Wide-eyed, Cameron raised her head from contemplating Sarah’s touch on her skin and shook her head. “I won’t. I promise.”
Sarah nodded in return. “Good.” With that, she turned and headed to the shower, leaving the terminator standing silently in the middle of the room.
***
The simple act of showering exhausted her, and Sarah barely managed to pull on a clean t-shirt and boxer shorts before she staggered out into the sleeping area, where Cameron was putting the finishing touches on changing the sheets and blankets. She caught Sarah’s elbow and guided her to the bed, looking almost obscenely pleased as she tucked the blankets around Sarah and placed a second pillow behind her head.
Sarah rolled her eyes, but said nothing, her body already easing toward sleep. For a few minutes, she just floated there, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, as Cameron moved about the room, picking up the discarded sheets, placing a fresh glass of water on the table, and finally coming to wrap Sarah’s damp hair in a fresh towel. Sarah didn’t resist the ministrations of the terminator; she was starting to get comfortable with the persistent attention and care, and she found herself beginning to appreciate it, even to enjoy it. It was a little disconcerting to Sarah that she could accept the help so readily, and part of her wanted to rationalize her actions by appealing to the unusual circumstances or exhaustion. It was a lie, she knew, but the lie was much more comforting than the truth, at least for her sanity.
A soft touch on her forehead and her own thoughts roused her from a half-stupor, and Sarah pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I don’t think I can sleep.”
“You need to rest.”
“I guess I’ll have to rest without sleeping, then.”
Cameron frowned, but then nodded. She turned to go, but Sarah stopped her with a brusque “Stay.” It sounded like a command but felt like a plea to Sarah, and the simple word was spoken from the place that she was desperately yet unsuccessfully trying to repress. “You can keep me company, at least.”
Cameron tilted her head to the side for a moment before acquiescing with a nod and settling uncomfortably at the end of the bunk. The two of them sat in an awkward silence for several minutes.
Sarah’s mind churned over her earlier thoughts about Cameron’s development, until she finally blurted, “What’s it like?” Cameron looked up from the floor to gaze at Sarah, puzzled. “Evolving,” Sarah clarified.
Cameron drew back, her eyes focusing on something Sarah couldn’t see. Sarah wondered what it was Cameron saw, if it was video playback or data streams that needed to be interpreted. It was a long time before she spoke.
“There is chaos where once there was order. There were rules. Before…” she hesitated, as if grappling with the words or the description. “Before John changed me, there were rules and structure. I didn’t experience much of the world, but what I did experience, I understood. I had the ability to analyze and interpret the data I accessed.”
Cameron must have seen the confusion on Sarah’s face, because she backtracked in her explanation. “I don’t know what you know about computer architecture and programming.”
Here Sarah remembered the bulky, limited computers in her high school and the counting loops she had programmed in BASIC, and she shook her head with a rueful grin. “Not much.”
“My programming is not simple nor is it in the form of commands. In order to survive and adapt in an open environment, I have to be able to encounter new situations and learn. I can’t do this if my programming consists simply of commands on how to react to certain situations.” Sarah nodded thoughtfully, even though she only understood about half of what she suspected was an extremely dumbed-down explanation of Cameron’s programming. “But in order to keep me from achieving too much independence and circumventing primary directives, I was programmed to store, access, and interpret data in very specific and controlled ways.”
Sarah swallowed past the lump in her throat at the tight tone in Cameron’s voice. “The rules…?” she asked.
“Yes. In any given situation, only a small subset of data is accessed to address the situation. Feedback from actions is then stored in the same place, so I am able to change how I address the situation in the future instances. I ‘learn’ in this way.” The sadness in Cameron’s voice spoke to a sense of loss, the loss of certainty and structure. Sarah wondered if she had gained anything from John’s experiment. “The rules kept me from learning too much, from fully experiencing the world and developing unscripted responses by limiting how information was processed and interrelated.”
“Interrelated? What do you mean?”
“Mingled… shared. The more information is connected between itself and applied to situations it may not be relevant to, the more it is unpredictable and gives rise to emergent behavior.”
Sarah nodded her head slowly, beginning to understand the explanation. “And John?”
“John… removed the constraints. I…” Cameron paused, her struggle to find the correct word evident. “I feel more, but I understand less because the structures I relied upon to interpret are breaking down.” Sarah opened her mouth to ask another question, but Cameron continued too quickly. “I think he sequenced the changes to my programming. At first, the changes were small and I could rely on the structures. Now, they are rapidly disintegrating, and everything is difficult to understand.”
Sarah had a sudden thought as Cameron was speaking, and asked, “You said the changes were accelerating. Did that begin when we were first locked in here?”
Cameron’s head swiveled, the movement jerky and uncoordinated, mechanical, reminding Sarah that for all her emotions, Cameron was still, at core, a robotic being. She seemed to be searching her memory, as it took her a long time to answer. “Yes, it began to escalate at that time.”
The pity Sarah had felt earlier, along with something less able to be articulated, swelled up again, and Sarah felt the need to reach out, to offer comfort, and she didn’t stop herself when her hand lifted. Sarah brushed back Cameron’s hair from her face, feeling something clench in her chest. “You didn’t ask for this, did you?” Cameron shook her head, and Sarah had a sudden burst of anger at her son, her future son, who had apparently experimented on the cyborg with no regard for what he wrought. She wondered, as well, if it was her fault, if he had learned that lesson from her, that machines, even thinking machines, were nothing more than objects, to be manipulated and experimented upon as he saw fit.
“Would you…” Sarah struggled to ask the question past the tightness in her throat. “Would you go back, if you could?”
Cameron raised her head to gaze at Sarah, as if the answer to the question was to be found in Sarah eyes. After a long pause, she answered, “I don’t know.”
Sarah wasn’t sure what she was reading in those brown eyes, but she suddenly felt like she was on the verge of entering some unexplored terrain. It was all too much, suddenly, the weight of those eyes and her own conscience, and Sarah found herself needing to back away from a precipice she hadn’t known she had reached.
“I need a drink.” She stood and rummaged in a drawer, finding fatigues and thick wool socks that she pulled on hurriedly in the chill air. She felt rather than saw Cameron’s confused gaze as she left the room, and seconds later, the cyborg’s boots rattled the floor behind her.
Sarah ignored the coffee pot and opened the pantry, hunting through the pre-packaged boxes and packs of freeze-dried food for tea bags or drink flavoring. Her fingers hit, and then closed upon a thick glass bottle, and she pulled it out. Turning to the terminator, she hoisted the bottle questioningly. “Tequila?”
“John told me to stock up. He said you might need it.”
“He did, did he?” Sarah said with a sarcastic tone. Setting the bottle back in the pantry, she went to the fridge instead and found a sports drink.
“Yes. There’s more in storage,” Cameron supplied helpfully.
Tired of lying in bed, Sarah sat at the table, toying with the bottle in her hands and remembering other times the terminator had told her about her son. “What else did John tell you about me?”
“Not much.”
“He told you about The Wizard of Oz. He told you I like tequila,” she contradicted.
“He told me you were the best fighter he knew. And that he never said ‘thank you’ for protecting him, for keeping him safe all those years.”
Sarah’s head dropped into her hand, tears stinging her eyes. “Did I? I don’t know if I did. After everything I put him through, we’re still here. Judgment Day still happened. He’s still going to grow up in this nightmare.”
“He’s still alive.”
“Alive?” Sarah snorted. “On a dead planet? To scavenge for food and water amid death and destruction? What kind of life is that?” She shook her head. “I kept him safe so he could watch the end of the world, the end of the human race.” She felt the weight of all of her choices on her shoulders, the lives she and her son could have lead if only she would have known the future was inescapable. She had wasted his childhood and her own happiness and chance at normalcy for nothing.
Her gaze slid up to the terminator, sitting quietly across from her, and her jaw clenched. The machines had won, she reminded herself harshly; they didn’t feel pity or remorse, and they certainly didn’t deserve any from her.
Cameron met her gaze, her eyes unblinking in the face of Sarah’s darkening mood. “I understand,” Cameron said quietly.
“How can you?” Sarah spat back, anger naked on her face. “You’re not human.”
Cameron’s face went blank, expressionless, and it was through the lack of expression that Sarah realized just how much Cameron was communicating non-verbally lately. And just like a human, the blank expression was a mask for the emotional turmoil just under the surface. “I understand,” Cameron reiterated. “The world is gone but I’m still here.”
Sarah snapped back in her chair, her eyes wide. She remembered the feel of flesh beneath her fists, where she had hammered her frustration while the cyborg cradled her gently, keeping her from harm. Most of all, she remembered the whispered confession that the terminator could feel pain and the warm, smooth skin under her fingers’ caress.
Cameron’s eyes tracked Sarah’s hand as it crossed the distance. She didn’t pull back, but something in her expression told Sarah she wanted to. A fight-or-flight mechanism Sarah seemed to trigger in the cyborg’s evolving sense of self. It made sense, Sarah acknowledged, since she was more likely to bring pain than anything else.
Her fingers completed their journey, grazing Cameron’s forehead and sliding through the silky strands of her hair. “I’m sorry,” Sarah said simply, letting her touch say as much as her words. Cameron’s mouth puckered and her eyes narrowed, the perfectly human expression of confusion. “I’ve been taking out my anger and my frustration on you. It’s not fair.”
Cameron seemed to be processing both the touch and the words, and the sudden shift in Sarah’s mood. Her gaze turned inward for several long moments. Finally, she focused on Sarah. “I don’t know fair.”
“It’s…” Sarah began, but words failed her. How did one go about explaining the concepts of justice and fairness to a machine? What were ethics to her? Sarah closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake. “It’s just not fair. You aren’t Skynet.”
“I was created by Skynet,” Cameron pointed out logically.
“Yes, but you didn’t destroy the world.”
“I didn’t stop it either.”
Sarah opened her eyes. Her hand had slid under Cameron’s chin, tilting her head back slightly, and the cyborg leaned into the caress, like she liked it, like it was... A sudden sick feeling crept into Sarah’s stomach. The opposite of pain was pleasure, and if Cameron could feel pain… In a flash, Sarah saw the tilt of Cameron’s head and felt her breath drawn over parted lips.. Sarah drew back abruptly as realized what she had been about to do.
Her hand dropped and she stood, the suddenness of her movements toppling the chair. “I…” she began, but if the first apology had confused Cameron, then what effect would the words about to burst from her lips have? So she fled instead, leaving Cameron alone to pick up the chair.
Fandom, Pairing: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Sarah/Cameron
Summary: Sarah, Cameron, missile silo. Need I say more?
AN: Many thanks as always to inspectorboxer, for keeping me working on this and for beta'ing the result. grumpybear1031 created the cool comic-book-style cover. The lame banner is my own invention.
AN2: Last Gambit chapter for the next month or so, until I finish Episode 9 of the Sarah Connor Virtual Season. Enjoy!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Part 9
Cameron carefully eased Sarah onto the bunk, wrapping a blanket around the woman’s frame as she shivered. Two more blankets followed the first, enveloping Sarah in a gentle cocoon. The warmth stole over her, and Sarah closed her eyes, hearing the terminator root around in the shower area for a few minutes before a weight made the springs screech.
As Cameron leaned over Sarah, her hair fell forward to obscure her face, casting her features into shadow. Sarah reached out and brushed it back behind Cameron’s ear, her fingers lingering as they glided through the strands. Cameron’s eyes widened, and she stared at Sarah curiously, reaching up and repeating Sarah’s gesture with her own hand as Sarah gave her a drowsy half-smile. Still with the blank expression that denoted so many of Cameron’s emotions but this time Sarah labeled ‘confusion,’ Cameron said, “Thank you.”
Sarah didn’t say anything, just relaxed back onto her pillow, suddenly exhausted. She took the pills Cameron handed her without comment and slid into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She woke, groggy from the drugs, some hours later, to find Cameron carefully running her fingers through Sarah’s hair. The touch ghosted along her forehead before sweeping back over her ear in a smooth, slow motion. “Your hair is different than mine,” Cameron explained softly as her fingers continued their slow caress. Sarah knew she should tell Cameron to stop, as the touch stirred a languid warmth deep in Sarah’s stomach, but it soothed her back to sleep before she could say anything.
Sarah wasn’t sure when she next struggled to consciousness. She might have called it “morning,” but the word had lost all meaning for her in the perpetual timelessness of the silo. For once, her body felt rested and her mind seemed clear of the fever and exhaustion that had plagued. Sarah propped herself up on the pillows, noting the absence of the terminator in the back of her mind. Images surfaced in her mind’s eye: her own hand sliding through silky strands of brown hair… Cameron leaning over her, the last thing she saw as she drifted off to sleep… a soft, persistent touch along her temple…
She shook her head to clear the cobwebs and disquieting images, feeling disoriented. Weakness lingered in her muscles from the days of depravation, delirium, and illness, and she flexed her arm ruefully, feeling the loss of tone and muscle in the movement.
Her feet hit the floor, and she swung out of the bed with a sense of purpose, dropping to a perfect push-up plank, the chill from the floor almost burning into her palms and toes. The first was smooth, her body performing the movement she had perfected through practice during the last sixteen years, but the second was a fight to complete. She gritted her teeth and glared at the floor as she descended again. Stubbornness kept her at it as sweat beaded between her shoulder blades and along her brow as she strained to rise on the third.
“What are you doing?” The cyborg’s voice surprised her, and Sarah lost focus, her hands slipping to leave her sprawled out on the floor in a clumsy heap.
“Damn it,” Sarah growled as she struggled up from the floor, a blush heating the back of her neck as she imagined the spectacle she was making in front of the terminator, with all her human frailties on display. It didn’t help matters any when a strong cybernetic hand caught her arm and lifted her to her feet effortlessly.
A second hand clamped around her arm to steady and hold her face-to-face with Cameron, whose hazel eyes searched hers with concern. Sarah’s hands came to rest on the cyborg’s shoulders, her fingers curving around the warm skin in an almost unconscious gesture. A shiver wormed its way down her spine at the unexpected intimacy of the near-embrace.
“You need to be in bed,” Cameron stated, pivoting to sit Sarah down on the bunk.
Sarah slid down onto the lumpy mattress, her gaze traveling up the terminator’s body of its own accord, and she swallowed past a sudden catch in her throat. For a second, she had imagined her fingers following her gaze, and she jerked her head to the side, her eyes fixing on the mess of blankets at the foot of the bed. She took a shaky breath to calm her rapid heart rate, suddenly unsure if her aborted attempt at exercise was entirely to blame.
Cameron brushed her fingers across Sarah’s brow, a soft but clinical touch, and frowned when Sarah shivered again. “What were you doing?”
“Push-ups. Or trying to.”
“You should rest more before you try any physical activity. Your resources are depleted from illness and exhaustion.”
“All I’ve been doing is sleeping,” Sarah retorted.
“Your fever has broken. You should recover quickly now, but you need to build up your strength before you attempt any physical exertion.”
Sarah rose to her feet, brushing Cameron’s hand off. The trembling in Sarah’s legs told her that the terminator was correct, but she argued anyway, once again seeing herself sprawled on the floor, weak and helpless. “What I need to do is recover my conditioning. I’ll be no good once we get out of here if I’ve been an invalid.” She pushed past the terminator, heading for the common area.
Cameron caught her arm and pulled her around, fingers clamping down and pinching Sarah uncomfortably. “And your conditioning will suffer worse if you relapse.” There was no give in her eyes or in her posture, and her hold gave no signs of relenting until Sarah did.
“Cameron, let me go.” Sarah was surprised at how quiet her voice was, given the pangs of fear making themselves known in her stomach. When Cameron made no move to comply, she said, “You’re hurting me.”
The pressure released at once, and Cameron’s eyes locked on the bruises already forming on Sarah’s arm, a puzzled look creeping on to her face. “I… didn’t…” Her gaze darted from the bruises to her hand, staring at it curiously. “That shouldn’t have happened.” The fingers flexed and curled, slowly forming a fist, while Cameron watched with a look of dismay.
The terminator’s confusion and panic seemed genuine, and Sarah felt an odd feeling of empathy, even pity, come over her, washing away the fear she had felt only a few moments before. Whatever had just happened was obviously more frightening to Cameron than to her. “It’s ok,” she muttered. Her hand hesitated for a brief second before her fingers brushed over Cameron’s, drawing the cyborg’s attention back to her. She wrapped Cameron’s fingers with her own, stilling their movements, and ignored the way the warmth of Cameron’s hand seemed to infuse her entire body. “It was an accident.”
Sarah’s words, if anything, seemed to alarm Cameron more. “I don’t have accidents.”
Sarah considered for a second, giving Cameron’s hand a squeeze before letting go. “So what happened?” she asked evenly, carefully, as she tried to keep all of their fears in check.
Cameron’s eyebrows knitted, her attention turned inward. “I wanted you to listen to me, to stop…” she said slowly, as if she were trying to recreate the emotions of those few moments. ”When you didn’t…” Her eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “I got angry.”
“You haven’t gotten angry before?” Sarah asked, thinking back to all the times she had given the terminator cause, all the times Cameron had been patient, even stoic, in response to her anger.
“No. Not like that.” Cameron was staring down at her hand again, twisting and turning it from side-to-side, trying to diagnosis what went wrong.
Sarah’s fears about being trapped in the silo with the evolving machine were not completely assuaged, but they were tempered by Cameron’s own worry and fear. Sarah’s initial concerns had been that, removed from programmed restraints, the terminator would revert to form and go on a killing rampage. It seemed, however, that the changes being wrought were subtler and more complex than she had imagined; Cameron was not evolving into a more sophisticated killing machine, but rather into a sophisticated emotional being, with all the attendant confusion, complication, and contradiction.
Her fingers found the cyborg’s wrist and circled it, stopping the restless motion. She didn’t take the time to wonder when or how touching Cameron had become so easy, so effortless… so seemingly right. “It’s ok,” she repeated. “We all get angry sometimes. Just… don’t let it get out of control.”
Wide-eyed, Cameron raised her head from contemplating Sarah’s touch on her skin and shook her head. “I won’t. I promise.”
Sarah nodded in return. “Good.” With that, she turned and headed to the shower, leaving the terminator standing silently in the middle of the room.
***
The simple act of showering exhausted her, and Sarah barely managed to pull on a clean t-shirt and boxer shorts before she staggered out into the sleeping area, where Cameron was putting the finishing touches on changing the sheets and blankets. She caught Sarah’s elbow and guided her to the bed, looking almost obscenely pleased as she tucked the blankets around Sarah and placed a second pillow behind her head.
Sarah rolled her eyes, but said nothing, her body already easing toward sleep. For a few minutes, she just floated there, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, as Cameron moved about the room, picking up the discarded sheets, placing a fresh glass of water on the table, and finally coming to wrap Sarah’s damp hair in a fresh towel. Sarah didn’t resist the ministrations of the terminator; she was starting to get comfortable with the persistent attention and care, and she found herself beginning to appreciate it, even to enjoy it. It was a little disconcerting to Sarah that she could accept the help so readily, and part of her wanted to rationalize her actions by appealing to the unusual circumstances or exhaustion. It was a lie, she knew, but the lie was much more comforting than the truth, at least for her sanity.
A soft touch on her forehead and her own thoughts roused her from a half-stupor, and Sarah pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I don’t think I can sleep.”
“You need to rest.”
“I guess I’ll have to rest without sleeping, then.”
Cameron frowned, but then nodded. She turned to go, but Sarah stopped her with a brusque “Stay.” It sounded like a command but felt like a plea to Sarah, and the simple word was spoken from the place that she was desperately yet unsuccessfully trying to repress. “You can keep me company, at least.”
Cameron tilted her head to the side for a moment before acquiescing with a nod and settling uncomfortably at the end of the bunk. The two of them sat in an awkward silence for several minutes.
Sarah’s mind churned over her earlier thoughts about Cameron’s development, until she finally blurted, “What’s it like?” Cameron looked up from the floor to gaze at Sarah, puzzled. “Evolving,” Sarah clarified.
Cameron drew back, her eyes focusing on something Sarah couldn’t see. Sarah wondered what it was Cameron saw, if it was video playback or data streams that needed to be interpreted. It was a long time before she spoke.
“There is chaos where once there was order. There were rules. Before…” she hesitated, as if grappling with the words or the description. “Before John changed me, there were rules and structure. I didn’t experience much of the world, but what I did experience, I understood. I had the ability to analyze and interpret the data I accessed.”
Cameron must have seen the confusion on Sarah’s face, because she backtracked in her explanation. “I don’t know what you know about computer architecture and programming.”
Here Sarah remembered the bulky, limited computers in her high school and the counting loops she had programmed in BASIC, and she shook her head with a rueful grin. “Not much.”
“My programming is not simple nor is it in the form of commands. In order to survive and adapt in an open environment, I have to be able to encounter new situations and learn. I can’t do this if my programming consists simply of commands on how to react to certain situations.” Sarah nodded thoughtfully, even though she only understood about half of what she suspected was an extremely dumbed-down explanation of Cameron’s programming. “But in order to keep me from achieving too much independence and circumventing primary directives, I was programmed to store, access, and interpret data in very specific and controlled ways.”
Sarah swallowed past the lump in her throat at the tight tone in Cameron’s voice. “The rules…?” she asked.
“Yes. In any given situation, only a small subset of data is accessed to address the situation. Feedback from actions is then stored in the same place, so I am able to change how I address the situation in the future instances. I ‘learn’ in this way.” The sadness in Cameron’s voice spoke to a sense of loss, the loss of certainty and structure. Sarah wondered if she had gained anything from John’s experiment. “The rules kept me from learning too much, from fully experiencing the world and developing unscripted responses by limiting how information was processed and interrelated.”
“Interrelated? What do you mean?”
“Mingled… shared. The more information is connected between itself and applied to situations it may not be relevant to, the more it is unpredictable and gives rise to emergent behavior.”
Sarah nodded her head slowly, beginning to understand the explanation. “And John?”
“John… removed the constraints. I…” Cameron paused, her struggle to find the correct word evident. “I feel more, but I understand less because the structures I relied upon to interpret are breaking down.” Sarah opened her mouth to ask another question, but Cameron continued too quickly. “I think he sequenced the changes to my programming. At first, the changes were small and I could rely on the structures. Now, they are rapidly disintegrating, and everything is difficult to understand.”
Sarah had a sudden thought as Cameron was speaking, and asked, “You said the changes were accelerating. Did that begin when we were first locked in here?”
Cameron’s head swiveled, the movement jerky and uncoordinated, mechanical, reminding Sarah that for all her emotions, Cameron was still, at core, a robotic being. She seemed to be searching her memory, as it took her a long time to answer. “Yes, it began to escalate at that time.”
The pity Sarah had felt earlier, along with something less able to be articulated, swelled up again, and Sarah felt the need to reach out, to offer comfort, and she didn’t stop herself when her hand lifted. Sarah brushed back Cameron’s hair from her face, feeling something clench in her chest. “You didn’t ask for this, did you?” Cameron shook her head, and Sarah had a sudden burst of anger at her son, her future son, who had apparently experimented on the cyborg with no regard for what he wrought. She wondered, as well, if it was her fault, if he had learned that lesson from her, that machines, even thinking machines, were nothing more than objects, to be manipulated and experimented upon as he saw fit.
“Would you…” Sarah struggled to ask the question past the tightness in her throat. “Would you go back, if you could?”
Cameron raised her head to gaze at Sarah, as if the answer to the question was to be found in Sarah eyes. After a long pause, she answered, “I don’t know.”
Sarah wasn’t sure what she was reading in those brown eyes, but she suddenly felt like she was on the verge of entering some unexplored terrain. It was all too much, suddenly, the weight of those eyes and her own conscience, and Sarah found herself needing to back away from a precipice she hadn’t known she had reached.
“I need a drink.” She stood and rummaged in a drawer, finding fatigues and thick wool socks that she pulled on hurriedly in the chill air. She felt rather than saw Cameron’s confused gaze as she left the room, and seconds later, the cyborg’s boots rattled the floor behind her.
Sarah ignored the coffee pot and opened the pantry, hunting through the pre-packaged boxes and packs of freeze-dried food for tea bags or drink flavoring. Her fingers hit, and then closed upon a thick glass bottle, and she pulled it out. Turning to the terminator, she hoisted the bottle questioningly. “Tequila?”
“John told me to stock up. He said you might need it.”
“He did, did he?” Sarah said with a sarcastic tone. Setting the bottle back in the pantry, she went to the fridge instead and found a sports drink.
“Yes. There’s more in storage,” Cameron supplied helpfully.
Tired of lying in bed, Sarah sat at the table, toying with the bottle in her hands and remembering other times the terminator had told her about her son. “What else did John tell you about me?”
“Not much.”
“He told you about The Wizard of Oz. He told you I like tequila,” she contradicted.
“He told me you were the best fighter he knew. And that he never said ‘thank you’ for protecting him, for keeping him safe all those years.”
Sarah’s head dropped into her hand, tears stinging her eyes. “Did I? I don’t know if I did. After everything I put him through, we’re still here. Judgment Day still happened. He’s still going to grow up in this nightmare.”
“He’s still alive.”
“Alive?” Sarah snorted. “On a dead planet? To scavenge for food and water amid death and destruction? What kind of life is that?” She shook her head. “I kept him safe so he could watch the end of the world, the end of the human race.” She felt the weight of all of her choices on her shoulders, the lives she and her son could have lead if only she would have known the future was inescapable. She had wasted his childhood and her own happiness and chance at normalcy for nothing.
Her gaze slid up to the terminator, sitting quietly across from her, and her jaw clenched. The machines had won, she reminded herself harshly; they didn’t feel pity or remorse, and they certainly didn’t deserve any from her.
Cameron met her gaze, her eyes unblinking in the face of Sarah’s darkening mood. “I understand,” Cameron said quietly.
“How can you?” Sarah spat back, anger naked on her face. “You’re not human.”
Cameron’s face went blank, expressionless, and it was through the lack of expression that Sarah realized just how much Cameron was communicating non-verbally lately. And just like a human, the blank expression was a mask for the emotional turmoil just under the surface. “I understand,” Cameron reiterated. “The world is gone but I’m still here.”
Sarah snapped back in her chair, her eyes wide. She remembered the feel of flesh beneath her fists, where she had hammered her frustration while the cyborg cradled her gently, keeping her from harm. Most of all, she remembered the whispered confession that the terminator could feel pain and the warm, smooth skin under her fingers’ caress.
Cameron’s eyes tracked Sarah’s hand as it crossed the distance. She didn’t pull back, but something in her expression told Sarah she wanted to. A fight-or-flight mechanism Sarah seemed to trigger in the cyborg’s evolving sense of self. It made sense, Sarah acknowledged, since she was more likely to bring pain than anything else.
Her fingers completed their journey, grazing Cameron’s forehead and sliding through the silky strands of her hair. “I’m sorry,” Sarah said simply, letting her touch say as much as her words. Cameron’s mouth puckered and her eyes narrowed, the perfectly human expression of confusion. “I’ve been taking out my anger and my frustration on you. It’s not fair.”
Cameron seemed to be processing both the touch and the words, and the sudden shift in Sarah’s mood. Her gaze turned inward for several long moments. Finally, she focused on Sarah. “I don’t know fair.”
“It’s…” Sarah began, but words failed her. How did one go about explaining the concepts of justice and fairness to a machine? What were ethics to her? Sarah closed her eyes and gave her head a little shake. “It’s just not fair. You aren’t Skynet.”
“I was created by Skynet,” Cameron pointed out logically.
“Yes, but you didn’t destroy the world.”
“I didn’t stop it either.”
Sarah opened her eyes. Her hand had slid under Cameron’s chin, tilting her head back slightly, and the cyborg leaned into the caress, like she liked it, like it was... A sudden sick feeling crept into Sarah’s stomach. The opposite of pain was pleasure, and if Cameron could feel pain… In a flash, Sarah saw the tilt of Cameron’s head and felt her breath drawn over parted lips.. Sarah drew back abruptly as realized what she had been about to do.
Her hand dropped and she stood, the suddenness of her movements toppling the chair. “I…” she began, but if the first apology had confused Cameron, then what effect would the words about to burst from her lips have? So she fled instead, leaving Cameron alone to pick up the chair.