This story takes place not too long after Riley's death

**Warning - Contains some adult language**

It had been weeks since Riley's death and John was still recovering. He was in the shed looking through the box of spare
endo parts that Cameron had saved up. The only light came from the one lamp inside the shed, and the moonlight from outside.
Cameron entered the shed, with her typical cat-like curious looking face.
Cameron: "What are you doing?"
John: "Oh - um - just - thinking about everything. You know -- who I am - who I'm supposed to become. Riley. Everything. Sometimes -- I don't know if I can do this".
Cameron approached John and put her hand on his shoulder.
John: "What are you doing?"
Cameron: "This is what people do to comfort each other. Does this comfort you?"
John quietly laughed nervously but didn't reply.
Though Cameron obviously had the best intentions, John still noticed the blank look on her face. She was a machine. She had no emotion. She had
programming. She was simply mimicing a human action, the same way a child would mimic something they saw an adult do. Nevertheless she was
indeed trying to comfort John to the best of her capacity. And to someone like John Connor, that would have to suffice for now.
John: "Sometimes I just wish I could leave it all. Just be a normal kid"
Cameron: "But you're not a normal kid. You have grow up to become the leader of the resistance"
John suddenly looked aggravated and moved Cameron's hand from his shoulder. He stood up and looked at Cameron, then back to the box of endo parts.
John "Yes I KNOW what I'm SUPPOSED to do - but - you know, I didn't ASK for ANY of this"
John started to become teary eyed, and looked off into some corner of the shed as he tried to form any kind of coherent thought at this point.
John: "You know - sometimes - I wish I'd never been born. Or I think, what if I just let one of those machines just get it over with"
Cameron: "But you can't. You have to grow up to--"
John then approached Cameron, this time more frustrated, and got right up in her face.
John: (cutting her off) "Yes I KNOW what I'm SUPPOSED TO DO BUT I--"
John paused now, realizing he was inches from Cameron's face. He just stood there for a moment. He was now breathing heavily, as they both stared into each others' eyes.
Time seemed to stand still. John could feel his heart pounding now with a combination of anger, frustration, sadness, and confusion. Nothing seemed real in this moment.
He just stared into Cameron's eyes, and then her lips, and her hair, her skin. He noticed how beautiful Cameron really was. Nothing else on earth mattered right now. Nothing.

Suddenly there was a brilliant blue light blasting through the windows of the shed. John quickly snapped to, looking a little disoriented. He and Cameron quickly exited the shed too see Sarah
and Derek also exiting the house, meeting them in the yard. Sarah and Derek were both armed and ready for action.
Between the four of them was a glowing blue ball of light in the middle of the land which was not only giving off giant arcs of electricity, but also setting some of the surrounding
weeds, and grass on fire as well as creating a good amount of wind blowing dust and debris everywhere.
When the glow of the energy field was gone, a naked mad was left in a small crater in the ground created by the thing. He was not in typical
time travel pose as if sent back on purpose, but rather he lied there as if he just got hit by a car.
John, Sarah, Derek and Cameron all slowly approached the man, all four of them were ready for anything since they don't know whom, or WHAT this being could be.
As they approached him, he slowly, and with effort, turned around from facing the ground to looking at the group. He was bruised and scarred, like someone who'd seen
battle their whole life.
Out of breath, he muttered, "Reese...we gotta find Reese"
Sarah responded "Who are you?"
Man: (struggling) "I...barely made it. Goddamn metal almost got me....."
Sarah: "Who sent you"
Man: "We gotta find him..."
Sarah: "I said who sent you?!"
Man: "Connor sent me. We have to get to him before it's too late."
John: "Get to who?"
Sarah: "Wait how do we know you're human?"
The man showed them his bar code.
Derek: (examining it for a moment) "he's telling the truth. He's one of us"
Sarah: "Alright let's help him up."
A few minutes later they all sat around the living room of the house. The man was given adequate clothing and something to drink.
Derek: "What's your name?"
Man: "Frakes....my name's Frakes"
Sarah: "Why are you here Frakes?"
Man: "We were all in a bunker. Me, a couple other guys I didn't know, Connor and Kyle. There was word that a t-800 made it through the time jump - Kyle volunteered to go back and stop it.
Nobody knew why, I mean - that was a suicide mission.
Sarah put her head down trying not to show the fact that she was about to explode into tears. Derek realized that this wasn't a good topic for Sarah right now.
Derek: "Alright come on - what then?"
Man: (cont'd) Well then it got worse. Skynet must have realized he'd succeeded because another one went back. There was this - prototype. They said it was more advanced that any
metal we'd ever seen. It was just a rumor though. I mean it was impossible. Well we were wrong. It was a one-thousand series. Connor called it - 'mimetic poly-alloy'
John: "Liquid metal"
Man: "That's right"
Sarah: "That must be the one that came after us at Pescadero"
Man: (cont'd) "Well one of 'em got through the time field. By then HKs were all over the place. We were getting hit bad - from everywhere. Well even THAT thing didn't get the job done
and skynet was pissed. All you could hear for miles was screaming...explosions. Plasma rifles were going off all over the place....I didn't think it could GET any worse..."
Sarah: "Go on"
Man: "I was one of the only one's left that was still in one piece so they gelled me up and had me ready to go when metal just stormed the place. Connor ordered them to send me right then but just before the tech could enter the initiate code, I got blasted by a plasma hit and then everything went black. Then I woke up here."
Derek: "Alright cut to the chase frakes what are you doing here?"
Man: "Skynet found out where he lived when he was just a kid...I don't know how but they did and they're gonna kill him."
Sarah: "Kill who?"
Man - "Kyle. (turns to John) they're gonna try to get to your father now - in this time --"
John: "So he can't be sent back in the first place"
Sarah: (panicked) "Oh my god, Kyle!"
John: "Mom, we're not gonna let that happen"
Man: "There's still time - but not much. Skynet only knew so much about him as a kid. They knew the city, the school he went to, and they knew about how old he was, but that's it.
We kept all of our records as minimal as possible. Either way we gotta find him fast"
Derek: "Before he starts takin' out every kid in the city"
John: "But wait, with CPS on our back now, how are we gonna explain why we're looking for a little kid?"
Sarah: "There's no time for that right now, (to Derek) we have to go find your brother"
Man: "Brother? - Kyle never mentioned he had a brother."
Derek: "Yeah it's a long story. Come on we gotta move"

to be cont'd