“Promise me you’ll never leave me.”
“I promise.”

John burst through the front door and took a moment to get his breath back before storming to his bedroom. She wasn’t there. He rushed to her room, but she wasn’t there either. Desperate, John threw open his mom’s door and couldn’t help but freeze for a moment as he took in the scene before him. Charley sat up and narrowed his eyes slightly at John, who seemed to have become a statue. Sarah also sat up, making sure she was adequately covered, and glared at the nonplussed teen.

“You never heard of knocking before entering?”

John croaked slightly before turning around and closing his eyes, but remaining where he stood.

“I uh… I didn’t… I thought Cameron might be in here.”

Sarah began gathering her clothes, slightly confused by his statement.

“Why would Cameron be in my room? Wasn’t she with you at the beach?”

John kept his eyes shut tight and increased his grip on the door knob.

“She was, but when I woke up she was… she was gone.”

“Gone? You sure she didn’t just disappear for a few minutes to get an ice cream cone or something?”

John gritted his teeth; he wasn’t in the mood for Sarah’s quips.

“I waited for half an hour, and then I searched the entire beach. If she was there I would’ve found her.”

Sarah finished dressing, as did Charley, and got out of bed.

“Did you try calling her on her cell phone?”

John finally turned around and faced Sarah, his arms crossed in annoyance.

“Of course I did. Used up all my credit trying to reach her.”

Sarah was starting to get a little concerned, not for Cameron; she could look after herself, but for John. He looked utterly forlorn; his entire body was covered in sweat and still had sand in his hair.

“Does she do this often, disappearing I mean?”

John turned to Charley and rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“Yeah, she gets a real kick out of torturing me. It’s her favourite past-time.”

John’s sarcasm was obvious, and just a little bit venomous. Though he knew little about John and Cameron’s relationship, Charley could see that the robot meant a great deal to his son-in-law. Sarah sat at her dressing table and ran a comb through her hair, watching John in the mirror.

“Have you spoken to Jas- Ethan? Maybe he’s seen her.”

“Seen who?”

John jumped out of his skin and spun around to see Ethan standing there, a look of mild curiosity on those hauntingly charming features. Ethan, as he called himself nowadays, used to be an I-950 called Jason until he was murdered by Cameron’s insane brother, Kevin. Jason did not die, however, and managed to invade Kevin’s chip, slowly taking over and eventually erasing Kevin’s persona. Though Kevin was gone, parts of his personality had imprinted onto Jason. Ever since then, Jason had started to exhibit mild psychopathic tendencies. Upon realising this; Jason decided that he was no longer the person he once was, and changed his name and demeanour. John could not forget the night Kevin tied him up and tortured him, and every time he looked at Ethan John was reminded of that terrible memory.

But none of that mattered right now. He needed to find Cameron, and he would need Ethan’s help in order to do so.

“What am I missing here? Who am I supposed to have seen?”

“Cameron… she’s disappeared. I was hoping you might’ve seen her.”

Ethan frowned slightly and shook his head.

“I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

He smiled slightly as he accessed his memory files of that day.

“She wanted to know if her bikini was, and I quote, tight.”

John couldn’t help but blush slightly and caught the look of slight confusion on Charley’s face as he slowly put two and two together. Ethan leaned back to look down the corridor, seeing no one.

“When was the last time you saw her? You two went to the beach, right?”

John ran his hand through his hair and sighed in frustration.

“Yes, we spent the night. But when I woke up this morning she was gone, and before you ask; yes, I have searched everywhere and I have tried calling her.”

Ethan put his hands up in mock surrender and took a step back.

“Okay, okay. Let’s just put our heads together and try to figure out what might’ve happened to her.”

--

God bless America and its abundance of mall carts, thought Derek, as Ellison collided with an unlucky shopper. Derek hurtled down the escalator, laughing to himself as Ellison extricated himself and followed suite. Despite facing possible incarceration and/or death, Derek couldn’t help but enjoy running from the FBI agent. It had been too long since he’d been in a good old fashioned race for his life. Ellison reached the bottom of the escalator and aimed his gun, causing a dozen shoppers to scream and duck, but not enough to give him a clean shot at Derek. Ellison growled in frustration and continued the pursuit, feeling his muscles beginning to ache; this was supposed to be his day off.

“Move! Move!”

He barged past several ignorant customers, earning snide rebukes from a number of them, and tore through the mall. Derek raced through a group of six year-olds who were gathered around a man in a dinosaur outfit. The dinosaur hopped out in front of him and held out his hands.

“Hoy, hoy, what’s the rush big fella, hehe?”

“Get out of my way.”

Derek barged past the entertainer, knocking him aside. The dinosaur staggered and gave Derek the finger, abandoning his bouncy demeanour.

“Hey, I’m trying to work here you…”

The dinosaur suddenly fell to the floor as Ellison tripped on his tail, landing in a heap next to him.

“Argh, what now? I’m trying to earn a living here man!”

Ellison got to his feet, looking back at the dinosaur.

“Try getting a real job you idiot!”

Derek managed to slip into an elevator and waved as he ascended to the top level. Ellison, though tired, was not going to give up that easily, and sprinted up three escalators, desperately trying to reach the top before his quarry. Damn he’s persistent, thought Derek, as he watched the agent shoulder past numerous shoppers. The glass door opened and Derek threw himself towards the exit, elbowing several bystanders. He raced past a bicycle store, determined to get out into the open and throw the agent off of his trail. Derek heard a shrill ringing sound and looked back in time to see Ellison riding a pink bike towards him. He couldn’t help but laugh before feeling the butt of Ellison’s gun, and then everything went dark.

--

Scanning… Scan complete: 0.0 submerged bodies in this sector…

“So much for that theory… Damn it, I was kinda hoping she’d drowned...”

John looked at Ethan with disbelief, prompting the cyborg to clarify his previous statement.

“No, I meant in regards to finding her… If she’d gone for a swim and gotten stuck somehow, we’d be able to locate and rescue her.”

John nodded slowly and returned his gaze to the water, hoping to see her bobbing around amongst the corals. Sarah and Charley joined them on the rocks, both looking apprehensive, which could only mean one thing.

“No sign of her?”

Sarah nodded and Charley scratched the back of his head nervously.

“We searched everywhere. She’s… She’s not here Johnny.”

John took a steadying breath and was suddenly struck by an idea.

“Wait! Didn’t you say once that Kevin could always locate Cameron, that he had some kind of ESP? Couldn’t you use that to find her?”

Ethan considered for a moment before answering.

“Yes… but it was an anomaly of sorts. I can’t just snap my fingers and instantly know where she is. But if I were to somehow integrate myself into the city’s surveillance systems, I might be able to find her.”

John let out a breath of relief. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

“We can plug your chip into the grid like we did with Cam and the traffic light. C’mon, let’s go.”

Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but seeing the look of resolve on John’s face, she decided to just follow suite.

--

Derek’s vision slowly returned to him, but remained blurry. He was sitting on a wooden chair, his arms cuffed behind his back. Derek shook his head, trying to clear his vision, but was met with a painful throb from where Ellison had pistol-whipped him. Regardless, he managed to ascertain that he was not in a cell, but was in fact, in a house.

Ellison came into the room and sat down opposite Derek, his gun resting on the arm of the chair.

“How’s your head?”

Derek grunted and leaned his head back, teeth gritted against the pain.

“Never better, not that you’d care.”

Ellison chuckled and took a small sip of tea before leaning forwards, his elbows resting on his knees.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Derek scanned the room, testing the strength of the cuffs; looking for possible escape routes should he manage to get free.

“That’s the question isn’t it? Did God send us here to suffer or were we always meant to be here?”

Ellison frowned at Derek’s answer; he hadn’t hit him that hard.

“That’s not what I meant. Do you know why you’re here instead of jail?”

Derek ceased his struggling and looked at Ellison directly.

“I’m guessing you’re afraid that, if you take me in, they’ll put me on a secure vehicle where I’ll be rescued again.”

Ellison couldn’t help but laugh and took another sip of his tea.

“True, true, but I also want to talk to you about certain things that would otherwise be considered unrelated to your crimes. Does the name Skynet mean anything to you?”

Derek simply stared, unwilling to answer the question.

“Okay, what about Judgment Day? Nuclear apocalypse? Machines versus humans in an epic battle for survival? Any of this sound familiar? What about robots from the future? Soldiers from the future? Does the name Kyle Reese ring any bells?”

Derek flushed and moved forward, making the chair scrape across the floor slightly.

“What the hell do you know about Kyle?”

Ellison was taken aback by Derek’s outburst; obviously he’d struck a nerve.

“Only what I’ve read from Sarah Connor’s case file: he was a soldier from the future, sent back to protect Connor from a machine he called the Terminator. He apparently died trying to fight the machine. Do you know this man?”

Derek leaned back and stared at the floor, avoiding eye contact.

“What does it matter? He’s dead.”

“It matters to me. Because, you see, I recently had an encounter with one of these so-called Terminators.”

Derek looked up and glared at him.

“If you had an encounter with a metal, you wouldn’t be sitting here sipping tea, your brains would be splattered all over the floor.”

“And they very nearly were, but it let me live, for reasons I have yet to understand.”

“Good for you, maybe next time you won’t be so lucky.”

“Maybe… C’mon man; tell me what it’s all about. Tell why these machines are here. Tell me what they want from us.”

“Aside from the destruction of all mankind?”

Ellison nodded expectantly. Derek sighed and figured he might as well start from the beginning.

“Alright, look; in several years time some guy is gonna create a machine that declares war on mankind. All of this will be bombed back to the Stone Age, and those left over will be forced to fight a long and bloody war against the machines. Somewhere down the line, Skynet developed time travel and started sending machines back in time to ensure its creation. Some of them stockpile supplies; others hunt down and kill people.”

“So there’s more than one of them out there.”

“A lot more, some of them are very good at blending in with other people.”

“Sarah said that they were after her son, why is that?”

“Because he’s the guy who leads us to victory. He’s the guy who taught humanity how to smash those metal fuckers all to hell.”

Ellison sat forward slightly.

“They are here because of him? He’s the reason the machines have killed all these people?”

“What? No!”

“But you said yourself; they came back to kill him. If he was dead, they wouldn’t need to come through time and do any of this.”

“Of course not, cos’ if John was dead we’d be royally screwed. And Skynet would just wipe us all out.”

Ellison placed his fingers together and leaned back, mumbling scripture to himself.

“And I heard as it were, the noise of thunder. And I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

Derek stared at him, wandering what the agent was getting at.

“There meant to be some point behind that drabble?”

“I’ve considered that passage many times since my encounter with the machine. And all the while, I think to myself; how can I stop these robots from destroying the here and now? And I think I finally have the answer.”

Derek didn’t like what Ellison was suggesting. There was something in his eyes that spoke of darkness to come; this was a man who had a plan of his own, but the nature of that plan remained murky at best.

--

John carefully reinserted Ethan’s violet chip, giving it a slight twist before screwing the shock dampener back in place. He and Sarah had taken Ethan’s CPU and broken into city hall where they inserted Ethan into the surveillance systems. It only took him twenty seconds to search every corner of Los Angeles for Cameron, which John thought was good as it implied that Ethan had found her.

Ethan twitched slightly and blinked, taking a moment to run a short diagnostic. John stood up impatiently and began pacing the length of Cameron’s bedroom, stopping when Ethan suddenly sat up.

“Well? Where is she?”

Ethan just sighed and stared at the floor, unable to look John in the eye. This was all John needed to become worried again, but though the answer was obvious, he still asked.

“Ethan! What is it? Where is she?”

“John… She’s no where.”

“What? No where… how can she be… Wait… No!”

John’s greatest fear struck him like a speeding truck. Ethan, having guessed what John was thinking, got to his feet and placed his hands on John’s shoulders.

“She’s not dead. Look at me! If she died I’d know instantly. She’s still alive. But she’s not in Los Angeles, she’s not in California, and she’s not on this continent.”

John looked up at Ethan, his face a mix of confusion and hope.

“But… where is she then?”

Ethan sighed again.

“I don’t know. But it’s safe to say that she’s not anywhere in the United States. I’m sorry, John. She could be anywhere in the world by now. We… may never find her.”

John shook his head in disbelief as the truth sank in.

Cam, where are you?


Next: Chapter Four: Lamb to the Slaughter
Previous: Chapter Two: Not My Future