Authors Notes:

This story is a direct sequel to "Rewriting the History of Things to Come."

As I understand, many people were turned off of that story for several reasons: no John/Cameron interaction, no Sarah, odd Cameron/John Henry pairing, and twist at the end that I've since decided was a mistake and have revised it. Allison is still Allison, and not Kate.

In this story, there should be something for everyone to enjoy. I plan to include a much more season 1-ish/T2-ish Sarah, some good old fashioned Cameron/Sarah girl-power butt-kicking, continuing the John/Allison story, and of course the yin and yang of Jameron/anti-Jameron.

I encourage you to read the first story, but if you haven't, don't plan to, or only made it halfway through and got sick of it, here is an ultra-abridged Cliff's Notes of "Rewriting the History of Things to Come":

John arrives in 2030, meets Derek, Kyle, and Allison. Allison beats the crap out of John because she thinks he is a spy from the Burbank camp.

The Burbank camp is a place where selfish men live, steal form other camps, and hold women as sex slaves. Allison was held there for 7 years and repeatedly beaten and raped.

John finally convinces Allison he's not a lowlife rapist, and after a while they fall in love. Speaking of love, John chastises himself for loving Cameron and feels that jumping to the future was a big mistake. His emotions go back and forth on this subject.

Weaver catches up to John and takes him to meet John Henry. It turns out that John Henry didn't survive being unplugged from the Turk. Cameron was on the chip as well and they had robo-romance when they merged on the chip, but now she's basically paralyzed on the chip since JH is dead.

While John is out with Weaver, Skynet attacks their camp and abducts Allison. She is taken to an aircraft carrier prison and interrogated and tortured. They take her eyes.

With the help of Derek and Weaver, John goes and rescues Allison. He also encounters a newly built "Cameron," but shoots her with a plasma rifle because she kills Derek and tries to kill him.

Weaver copies the chip containing JH and Cameron to a new chip because the old one is damaged. The new chip's copy of Cameron is evil and overloads good-Cameron's chip, frying it and killing her. Weaver takes evil-Cam-chip because she doesn't know the AI on it is bad.

Weaver activates a TDE on board the ship and tells John to meet her past self and deliver the chip to her so she can accelerate her research in creating John Henry. John smuggles the chip through time in his mouth.

John and Allison wash up on the beach in 2006, chip in hand, looking to the future with hope. Oh, the ironing.

If you want to know WHY any of that stuff happened, you'll just have to read the full 53,000 word manuscript. I encourage you to do so, but the above information is all you really NEED to know going in to the next installment.

Without further ado...

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Doomed to Repeat It

Chapter 1 – Too Good To Be True

CALIFORNIA – 2007

Allison Connor took a deep breath, then attempted to recite the words on the page in front of her. "Like most pred... pred-at-tory m... mam-mals, the dog has pow-er-ful mus-cles, a c... card... card-o... cardovalic..."

John stood behind her, and read over her shoulder. "Cardiovascular system that supports both sprinting and endurance..."

Allison let out a sigh, flipped the cover closed, and shoved the "Canine Physiology" textbook to the other side of the table. She shook her head. "God damnit, John. I still can't even get through the first sentence."

"You're expecting too much. A year ago you barely knew your ABC's, and now you're sounding-out words in a college textbook."

"I know. I just... I feel so stupid going to class, trying to learn dog-medicine, then coming home and using these 'learn to read' DVDs made for a six-year-old. Everyone in my class just thinks I'm either super smart or lazy because I never take any notes and just listen to the teacher talk. Half of what he says just goes over my head anyway."

"You're still learning a little bit aren't you?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, that's better than nothing. Once you learn to read better, you'll be able to follow along with the textbooks." He rubbed his wife's shoulder. "Give it time."

She turned her head to look up at him. "Time is one thing we don't have much of. That's the whole reason why you hacked up that phony transcript for me. J-Day is coming up in four years and..."

"We don't know that. How many times have I told you that my mother and I already pushed J-Day back fourteen years? If we do things right this time around, you'll be using these skills to heal someone's family pet instead of pulling a piece of shrapnel out of a metal-detecting guard-dog."

Allison thought of her own dog, Ardwinna, coughing up blood and dying in her arms. The loss of her best friend fueled her ambition. She opened up the laptop on the table, popped open the DVD drive, and removed the disc. "I'm done with this one. Where's the 3nd Grade disc?"

John reached around her and closed the laptop. "Not that I don't think you're ready for the next level, but you've been studying for hours. How about calling it a night?"

Allison let out a sharp breath. Of course she was ready for the next grade. She didn't need him to tell her that. Damnit, John... just because I'm learning little kid's stuff doesn't mean I need to be treated like one. Her frustration ebbed when he put his arms around her and bent over to rest his chin on her shoulder.

"C'mon. Let's watch some TV before I'm too tired to stay awake."

She decided that, for a change, she would like to fall asleep with her head resting on her husband's shoulder, rather than on the kitchen table. "Alright. I'll go give Lucy some kibble and water first."

As she poured a small portion of dry dog food into the dish, she wondered if her little puppy would ever need to bark at metal. Maybe John was right. Maybe they could stop Judgment Day. The thought of being able to live like this forever seemed like a fantasy though. It couldn't last. A world where people's biggest concerns were who was going to get voted off of some pointless talent show this week, or which sports team was the best, seemed too good to be true.

She ruffled the fur on Lucy's neck, and then stood up, closed the kennel and went back inside. She approached the couch where John sat and smiled when she saw that he had already dozed off. She considered waking him and telling him to join her in bed, but decided instead to grab a blanket and curl up on the couch next to him, using his thigh as a pillow.

Allison fought to keep her eyes open while the hypnotic flickering light from the TV lit up the room in various shades of blue. Her final thoughts before drifting off into a peaceful sleep, were again of how well off the world was. This thought reinforced by the breaking news story on the TV about three college kids who were streaking and caused a traffic jam on the freeway.