This is a rough draft for a story I have been working on. This is only the first half of chapter 1:


==========Mexico (31 October 2008) (1930)==========
Why the hell did she do that? John Connor though as he sat across from his girlfriend, in the warm November air of Mexico, trying to get some tacos and a few burritos for dinner. She’s a machine… a machine and lays on the bed, he thought. He closed his eyes and rubbed the side of his head.

“What’s wrong, John?” Riley asked from across the table. She leaned forward on her elbows and edged her hand closer to his. She playfully tickled the top of his hand with her fingers. I know who he’s thinking about… just wait… she thought under the smile of her Jessie had told her would make her Mrs. John Connor.

“Nothing,” he said. Barely audible above the shouts and whoops from the roudy crowd getting ready for Dia De Los Muertos

She could tell he was lying. Get me to come to Mexico… thanks a lot, General. It doesn’t matter… tonight, the Honey Moon suite… then it’ll be official, she’ll be gone.

Behind the smile and the innocent, wide eyed stare she was giving him, Riley was positive he didn’t suspect a thing. What Jessie had told her about the future, how it had influenced him, scared her. She wanted to just go off, somewhere with Jessie, wait out Judgment Day, find a refuge. But if she couldn’t do that, this was the next best thing she had convinced herself.

“Uh,” she blurted out when a rowdy patron knocked the back of her chair. Her stomach hit the table and the two glasses of water shook, a bit from John’s still-full glass splashing onto the table. “Sorry…” she apologized sheepishly.

“Don’t worry about it. The guy’s a jerk,” he shrugged. She watched his eyes as they darted over towards the man who had bumped into her. She shivered at how cold they were. She’d noticed in the many months she’d been seeing him that it was like he could switch it on and off; his humanity.


Riley smiled, and John saw her and smiled back. He just doesn’t know why I’m smiling, she thought. And he didn’t. She;d seen him a few times, coming through the tunnels and helping to distribute food to the ‘tunnels rats.’ She spat at the term. They were all ‘tunnel rats’ in the future. She hadn’t been lucky enough to escape to the refugee centers Connor had set up in the Mid West. Skynet’s assault in ’23 had cut off Tech Com lines from the main Resistance forces gathering in Texas and across the Great Plains.

John looked back over and thanked the waitress for handing them some chips and dip and their plate of tacos. John graciously thanked her and asked for something in Spanish.

“What was that about?” Riley asked, cocking her head and giving him a goofy look.

“Hot sauce” he responded matter-of-fact. He took one of his chips and bit into it and chewed slowly. Riley could tell he was thinking of something…“You know they do this killer thanksgiving bouffet here.

Gee, wow… interesting, Riley thought. “I bet….” She responded, trying to sound somewhat interested. She could tell John wasn’t buying it.

“See, I’m telling you all sorts of good stuff.” He smiled, proud of himself.

Riley took a bite of her taco and chewed, and made sure to wipe away any left over food on her mouth. People in this time craved cleanliness. Half the people here wouldn’t have survived a day in post-JDay LA. People sucked. “I’m not trying to be your stalker or anything, I just think this is what we should be doing. Getting to know each other…” she offered and trailed off. She tried to sound like she was expecting to get John to open up. Eleven months and still his life was a complete mystery to her. His pre-Judgment Day life, that is.

“Well, I have a question for you. You said that uh, I have a tell. What is it?” He asked eagerly.

Riley thought about lying for a short, very short moment. Jessie had told her knowing when someone is lying is one of the most powerful weapons one can possess. And it’s even more powerful when the other doesn’t know you can tell.

She wanted to kick herself for mentioning it. But something inside of her wanted John to… she mentally shook her head. But the thought popped back up; she wanted him to genuinely like… maybe love her.

“Okay, promise not to obsesses over it or anything,” she said, emphasizing the last few words to stress how she’d come to know of his ability to obsesses over the smallest of things.

He was about to nod his head when there was a stuttering flash of light, then a bright, sustained flash, and a click. Riley knew the sound immediately. The digital cameras were insanely popular with the kids. John had rolled his eyes. There was always someone trying to photographs tourists and sell pictures.

The man, a Mexican of maybe forty, fifty years came up and grabbed a chair and swiveled it around so the back was facing the table. He leaned over towards Riley. He knew the women were more into ‘photo memories.’

“What a handsome couple, five dollars a photo memory… see, a beautiful shot, all digital and I can email it to your-”

“I think I have something in my teeth,” Riley said, interrupting him as she pretended to look at the photo. This was bad. She knew it was bad.

John sighed and started to reach into his jean pocket.

“I’ll, uh… give you five dollars and you delete it.”

The Mexican ‘photographer’ was about to agree when he tilted his head and narrowed his right eye. He then turned his head and narrowed his left eye, and a devious smile cracked on his lips..

“The young boy and… and mother who stayed in Vivian’s cabana,” he declared, shaking his finger at John.

“Thanks a lot,” John said, trying to hand the man some money.

He wouldn’t have it now. “John Connor… you’re Sarah Connor’s son.”

John shot a glance at Riley then looked back to the man. I am screwed, he thought. I need to take care of this… I can take care of this, he told himself.

The future General flashed a reassuring smile to his girlfriend.

“Ha… I’ll be right back,” he said, getting up and walking into the next room through a wall of decorative beads.

Immediately the man was inches from John’s chest, a wide grin on his face. A devious, devilish grin.

“I remember when the Connors left and I remember the stories told after you were gone.”

“You really mixed me up with someone else,” John shot back, trying to sound as forceful as he could.

“These are not pictures you want the authorities to see.”

John admitted the man held his ground.

“How much?”

“Everything you’ve got,” he snarled, pulling himself to his full height and jabbing his face toward John.

Just then Riley grabbed the camera, like a spooky ninja, she had appeared out of nowhere. She had it and grabbed the SD card out. A schuffle with the photographer pushed her and him into a table, forcing a couple to shoot up out of their seats and begin yelling for the restaurant manager.

Not good! John yelled to himself.

He saw Riley grab the card and drop the camera. She broke it as he reached out to grab her hand. “Come on, we gotta get out of here. Now!” He yelled. He’d already seen other patrons beginning to get up, and what looked like the manager rushing over from the kitchen, and a trio of cops starting to take interest.

He grabbed her hand and they started running, but he let go when they moved through the decorative beads. Knocking one person out of the way he made it past the cops sitting at the bar, still not really caring about what was going on. But John, feeling something was wrong, looked back.

He saw Riley being held by a police officer, whose face was frozen in an expression of annoyance. His eyes were dark and shallow, and he and John just looked at each other. John knew it was over. The officer knew he had them, and rushing after the Gringo, when the American would just come to him, was pointless.

Connor walked back in. Her couldn’t abandon her.


==========Mexico (1 November 2008) (1045)==========

Being John Connor meant one had to always be on alert, always watching. Even when sitting down, trying to eat tacos with a pretty girl, John Connor was assessing the situation; potential exits, potential enemies, who around him looked like to jump in on a fight, who had a concealed firearm? All these things John Connor worried about.

Being John Connor means a lot more than being lonely, John thought as he pretended to sleep. It means being a liar, he concluded. He dared himself to open his eyes just a little, just enough to see the prison guard talking with Riley, but still barely open so his eyelashes obscured his vision.

“This guy’s a real… creep,” he heard Riley say. “He’s been trying to put the moves on me all night.”

“But you two came in together,” John heard the Mexican guard respond in accented English.

Riley leaned in and said something, and John had to smile. It was a mental smile, of course. He had to play like he was sleeping. His hearing was focused on the sound he wanted to hear… and there it was, a jingle of the keys and then a metal click of the key going in. Adrenaline shooting through his body allowed him to shoot up and be on the guard in an instant.

His hand shot out and formed into a claw around the leather sash the officer wore. One pump, two, then three pumps of his arm and the officer was smashed, head first, three times into the jail cell bars.

Being John Connor he also noticed Riley didn’t flinch at his display of savagery and his attack on an officer of the law, only doing his job.

“Lo Siento, Senor,” he said. He knew that any apology would be inadequate. But it made him feel better. He knew this was all his fault, but felt the need to apologize, like it would make it better.

What did Cameron say to me? Being John Connor means I care? Scoffed John.

He fumbled quickly for the guard’s handcuffs, then heard gunshots. The call earlier, with his mom not putting in the safety code, Derek not answering… gunshots here. Cromartie.

“Riley… RILEY… listen to me. If you see daylight, you, you run. Understand? You run if you see daylight!” he yelled at her, grabbing her wrist. He ignored the guard pleading to be freed.

He ran out and jumped over a dead, or dying guard. He wasn’t sure. It was the same police officer who’d gotten Riley last night at the restaurant.

He saw a blur and then someone grabbed him. John spun around, his fist balled.

“John, John, JOHN! I’m here to help!”

It was Ellison, former Special Agent James Ellison.

John didn’t even bother to question him or stop running. He looked at Ellison, whose eyes dug into him; he was scared. They both were.

“Let’s go,” John said, his voice sounding calm but his body anything but.

He and Ellison ran outside, and as soon as he saw the daylight threw his hand up to sheidl his eyes and searched for Riley. He couldn’t let anything happen to her… he couldn’t find her. There, he saw her, running scared, her arms flailing by his side as she ran and staggered away at the same time.

“Riley!” He shouted. She couldn’t hear him. There were still cracks of gunfire from the jail. He heard a crack-crack. “Riley!” He yelled louder. He breathed out when he saw her slow down. She heard him. “Riley! Get in the card! Get in the car!” By now he was yelling right on top of her. He grabbed her around the waist and skidded her over to the car.

He jumped in after her into the passenger seat, his heart racing. He hadn’t been this scared, not with Cromartie, since he shot at him at school. But then he had had Cameron with him to protect him, even if he hadn’t known it.

“Oh God!” He heard Riley scream.

Ellison shot the car in reverse as Cromartie came out of the police station, a 9mm handgun in one hand and in the other an MP5.

“Stay down!” Ellison yelled as he continued driving the car in reverse. The bumps and potholes in the dirt road kept jumping the car. Bullets which would have hit him or John missed only because of the poor quality of the road throwing off Cromartie’s machine-aimed precision.

John felt himself thrown into the side of the door as Ellison twisted and spun the wheel, trying to keep his attention split between the machine aiming to kill them all, and the buildings behind him. The dirt and dust, being kicked up from the dry, hot road started getting in his eyes and into his lungs. Coughing, he spun the wheel and the car slid ninety degrees behind a building.

“Are you okay? Are you okay?!” John yelled to Riley, who he had been cover in the back seat. She nodded quickly. He could see the fear in her face. Damnit, why did I bring you hear? John asked himself.

Being John Connor meant you blamed yourself when others were put in danger. Or worse, when they died… so being John Connor was lonely. There were less people to get killed if you never had anyone.

He jumped back into the front see, eyeing a shotgun. Ellison jammed the stick into drive and hit the gas. Unfortunately, they drove right pass Cromartie, who now shot up the side of the car. Ping-ping-ping-ping was all John could hear. Between the gunshots, the radio listening to horribly bad music, and all the screaming, he couldn’t hear anything.

Riley began handing him shotgun shells when she yelped and told him there was something in the back seat.

“Stop the car, stop the car!” He yelled. He grabbed onto Ellison’s arm. “I said stop the car!”

“Alright,” the former special agent hissed. He turned the wheel to a side street, which ended up being a dead-end. Then he slammed on the breaks.

John shoved open the passenger door, ignoring the dust clogging his lungs and starting to burn his eyes.

He cocked the shotgun, and hearing the click of a shotgun shell loaded into the chamber, pressed the gun in tight to his shoulder. Riley was standing behind him, fidgeting with her hands. Ellison stood to the right side of the trunk, his finger on the release. John, taking command, nodded to Ellison to open the trunk.

The person who was in there surprised them all.

“Sarah Connor… James Ellison. I’m here to help,” he said, reaching down.

==========

He rented the honeymoon suite? Sarah asked herself, smirking, when she, John, Ellison, and Riley fell into the room, exhausted. She and Ellison went to one corner of the room, where the hot tub was (Sarah observed it was fairly grimy and dirty… not safe) and John and Riley were in the other room, separated by half a curtain.

“It was following me… watching me,” James Ellison said, looking down with his hands as he breathed in and out slowly. Years with the FBI, the massacre of the HRT, and this was the closest he felt to death. The machine had spared his life, had professed to ‘believe’ in him, and hoped he could lead the death dealer to the Connors. “It was watching me…” he repeated again, quietly.

Sarah stood unabashed and focused in front of the FBI G-Man, staring him down.

“And you thought it would be a good idea to come down here, to Mexico? What if you led him to John?”

James looked up. She can’t seriously be… I wasn’t the one in the trunk Connor! he wanted to yell at her.

“I wasn’t the one in the trunk.” He managed to say. He knew God wouldn’t want him to yell and curse at Sarah. She’d been through enough today, already. Forgiveness.


That was the difference between Man and Machine.

In the other room, John was telling Riley she needed to leave. That he would tell her everything, everything as soon as they got back to LA. He’d call he. He swore.

Sarah watched as he explained what to do. The way the sunlight was coming in from the windows gave her a silhouette as she faced the two teenagers; one the future leader of Mankind, the other a helpless young girl, a stupid girl who said she didn’t want to leave and run from John. Sarah almost, almost admired her dedication. But if it weren’t for the ill-mannered, blond-haired foster kid, her son wouldn’t be here now.

If it weren’t for her we wouldn’t have been robbed. Cromartie wouldn’t be hunting us… she thought. But she did smile as John took control of the situation, convinced Riley to leave. He told her to head east, to the bus stop. He, it, wouldn’t follow her there. It wasn’t what they did.

But they didn’t think things change.

==========

Riley Dawson, sixteen years old, blond haired, light green eyes, tunnel rat from the future, and whose favorite smoothie was peachy keen, stalked away from the Connors and the FBI man. She hadn’t waited for Derek and Cameron to meet the three others in the honeymoon suite.

She didn’t care now that the wind had kicked up, and that the blazing afternoon sun was beating down on her. She didn’t really care that her blond hair was dirty with the orange-red dust of the town, or that her clothes smelled of… whatever it was gunpowder smelled like.

I’ve been through worse, she told herself. And she had. Living off rats and trash, having to do… horrible things for others, to others, just to get a meal. Or what passed for a meal in the future. Those unlucky enough to be stuck in the tunnels, a meal was either rats, bugs, and trash. Anything except eating the dead was acceptable. That was still taboo. It was desecration.

She put her hand in her pocket and fingered the cash. About $250 and that was plenty to get her home.

I feel like a cheap hooker… he gives me cash to go away. Screw him. She bit down on her teeth and clenched her fist around the wads of bills still in her pocket. She wanted to go back and curse at the Great General Connor for treating her like some cheap… he could just toss her aside… he didn’t trust her with the truth.

He’d just explain to her that it was some crazy guy, maybe his dead dad got into some shady business, the guy was a hitman or something. Something crazy, ridiculous, and somewhat believable to the average girl… what some average blond bimbo would think is the truth.

She breathed in, letting the warm air bathe her lungs. Bad decision. The dust forced her into a coughing fit, which forced her to keel over and put her hands on her knees.

Two pairs of brown, worn leather cowboy boots were on the edge of her vision.

In the future, one had a sixth sense about dying. It was a feeling one got in the gut… when it wasn’t poisoning from radiation or chemicals. This was that feeling.

“Riley Dawson,” a monotone, hate-filled voice said.

If this was the end, she was…

She felt a tight grip on her throat.

Looking up she saw the smirk. “Riley Dawson. Friend of John Connor,” the man, the machine, who had tried to kill John maybe ten, fifteen minutes before stated. “Where is he?”

“I’ll never help you,” she sneered, narrowing her eyes defiantly. “I’ll never help you get near him.”

He, it, the machine smiled. With the sun beating down, the white from its perfect teeth glittered back at her. It was an evil smile. It was iconic. The smile was the same which was pasted on the skulls of the foot soldiers of Skynet. It was a smile demons smiled.

“We’ll see.”

===========

The town was deserted. Riley saw, out of the corner of her eye, a few people looking on from their windows. But everyone was barricaded within their own homes or had fled. The town, it was a ghost town. Fitting, for what day it was. The Day of the Dead. Riley didn’t know how many police officers had died. She saw four, maybe five. And she didn’t know how many others had died in the T-888’s shooting spree.

She known the man was a T-888 since John had been so afraid that day he, it, came to the house in LA. John had wanted to run. But I showed him I wasn’t afraid of them, she told herself. She thought she could have made John proud, but his thanks seemed so insincere at the time.

Riley had saved from a Triple Eight and… nothing really happened.

Now she was here in the center of the street with Cromartie’s hand on the back of her neck, pushing her forward. He had a pistol tucked into his pants, and an MP5K in his left hand, pointing at the sky.

Looking over at him, Riley didn’t understand why the machine was squinting. It wasn’t like sunlight affected their vision.

“You are very brave,” it said to her. He stopped and tightened his grip on the back of her neck. Flexing, he brought her around to face him. “The polite response is ‘thank you’, Ms. Dawson.”

“Go to hell,” the defiant teenager from the future screeched.

She swore she saw the machine sneer at her before it resumed walking, pushing her along.

“John Connor… is not so brave. He sends people to die for him. He sent you to die. He sent you to die while he runs away.”

Riley didn’t answer.

The machine stopped again and again made Riley face him. A look of disgust washed over his face before returning back to its blank, expressionless, default stare. Any sort of life… bastardization of life, Riley saw in that momentary flash from the machine’s face were gone now.

It cocked its head left, then right. “There is something about you Ms. Dawson… something different.”

“Yeah? What is that?” She asked. Her tone dared him to answer.

“You’re not afraid.” He declared with a vicious smile. He looked her over slowly, very slowly. “You’re different.” He tightened his grip on the back of her neck. Any more pressure and he’d break the vertebrae. “You know who I am.” Cromartie flashed his eyes. She stared at him, unblinking. “You are from the future.”

She didn’t respond. But she saw a smile on the machine’s face, a glare of pride in its otherwise dark, glassy, lifeless eyes.

Again, it cocked its head. “You are from the future,” it stated. It was a fact now.

Riley knew it had picked up on something. It picked up on some human tell. The machines were good at that.

The sun glittered on its white teeth again, and it smiled that evil smirk at her. “It’s doubtful John Connor knows of your origins. Let’s see if John Connor comes to rescue you.”

It sounded like it was almost taking… enjoyment out of taunting Riley like this. She knew it could have just killed her and mimicked her voice. Why was it doing this?


They walked through town. Like the outskirts, it was deserted. She and the machine saw James Ellison, and she wanted to scream. But she held herself back. This had to be a trick. No way Ellison would just walk through the street like that, so casual, get a medical kit, and walk back to the church. They had to be planning something.

Forward, the machine walked, pushing the girl in front of him. This was the closest and longest she’d ever gotten to a machine. There was the obvious exception. And this was the closest since 2026 when an squad of T-600 killed her friends.

They opened the doors, and Ellison was there, praying.

“Ms. Dawson, your services are no longer required. Thank you for your time…” Cromartie said. He spun her around and let her go, but had the muzzle of the MP5K buried in her stomach. A muffled crack, and a surge of heat tore through Riley’s stomach.

==========

“Riley? Riley!”

She looked up. She saw a line of blood on John Connor’s cheek. Squinting, she could tell it wasn’t his. It… was hers?

What’s going on? She wanted to ask. She tried to ask.

John was there, shouting at her, holding her hand. It hurt, he was holding it too tightly.

There was this strange, very strange sensation. It was a mix between a strong throb and a piercing feeling; like she’s been stuck with a large needle or something. Yes… that’s what it felt like. Like when she’d pricked herself with a needle a few weeks ago. Except it was much more intense. And the pain… it was in her stomach. Why would she feel a needle prick in her stomach?

Oh… she realized.

It didn’t shock her. The mixture of throbbing and piercing, the blood on John’s temple, why he was holding her head, the heavy eye lids, the inability to hear… Riley knew what these were signs of. In the tunnels and battlefields of the future, where men and women died every day, every hour, in an infinite number of ways, there were always constants as one approached death. And these things Riley felt, or didn’t feel, things she should feel, like her arms and legs, like her heartbeat, like the words John was yelling at her, they were signs of death.

John… I… she wanted to tell him something. She felt her lips moving. Her eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. John was shaking her now. She felt that. She wanted him to keep touching her. The machine was touching her. She didn’t want that.

She pushed Cameron away. She saw John snarl something at his machine protector.

She felt her lips moving, the afternoon sun fading, and felt a tear drop from John’s eyes onto her cheek. She smiled.

She knew he was sensing her death was imminent, and she was trying to mumble something. She could see him shaking. And he leaned down.

“John…” she said quietly. But she wasn’t sure if she said it. “I know… I know… the future, the machines, but I did this for you.” She felt the world slipping. “I love you John Connor.” She wasn’t sure if she said it, and she was even less sure if he heard it. His ear was still by her mouth. She didn’t feel any hand squeeze to acknowledge her confession that she loved him. But he hadn’t recoiled away, either. She said it again. Or at least, she thought she did. She wanted to know if John Connor, the great General, had heard her, had even loved her. If even more a minute, the savior of Mankind had been hers. She just wanted to know he heard her…