Before I get this started I'd like to take the opportunity to thank RosieMac and Kaotic2 for their continuing time and effort on helping me with this story; both of them have been nothing short of invaluable!

Enemy of My Enemy: Vanguard

Chapter One

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The thunderous, booming report echoed all around him, getting louder and feeling closer with each subsequent repetition. Each one rocked the ground underneath him and the very sound pounded into his skull, threatening to split his cranium in two and bore deep into his brain. Gunfire and explosions played before his unseeing eyes. Blurs of some far-off battle flashed through his consciousness.

"RPG… incoming!"

"Grenade…" He heard the dull crump of an egg-sized projectile leaving its launcher, and the muffled explosion two-thirds of a second later, followed by an eruption of dust and rock. That was all this stupid country was anyway: dust and rocks. He looked to the enemy's position as the cloud of dust and debris fell and started to settle. The target… was still alive? How was that possible?

"He's getting back up!"

"The hell… we need air support, now!" The words came out of his mouth but it didn't feel like he was saying them. It was all so… surreal. He watched as the target – well, both targets – stood upright in torn, burnt clothing, their skin blistered and charred, and aimed their weapons.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

He saw men fall all around him. One, two, three, four of them, cut down in an instant by gunfire more accurate than a Special Forces sniper. He rolled to his side and felt the snap of a bullet strike where he had just been moments ago. Fragments of rock erupted from the impact and peppered him, stinging his arm where they hit.

"Where the hell is our goddamn air support?"

The scene faded into blackness; the sounds of battle also subsided, ebbing away like the outgoing tide, replaced by a spinning, dizzying feeling of dread and nausea that bubbled its way up from his gut…

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Justin opened his eyes at the sound, his brain only just registering what that noise really was, and groaned at the blinding light that shone down on him. He closed his eyelids, counted down from ten, and then peeled them open once again. It was still glaring but once he'd prepared himself for it, it was a little more bearable. He tried to get up out of bed but the world spun around him, and he was more than a little unsteady on his feet. He took a step forward, slipped on an empty beer bottle on the polished wooden floor and stumbled. He barely caught himself a split second before toppling over completely and landing flat on his face. He noticed the clock next to his bed. 0730: way too early in the morning and he'd had nowhere near enough sleep. He fought the urge to just ignore whoever was knocking on the door and go back to sleep.

How much did I have to drink last night? He knew the answer was: a lot. He'd done what all young soldiers the world over, from the days of Alexander the Great and probably even before, had done when returning home from war: he'd went out and gotten shit-faced with his girlfriend and his army buddies. Unfortunately he was now paying the price for the endless amounts of beer, whiskey, and Jager-bombs – the latter of which felt like they were literally going off in his head. Worse still: he could barely remember the sex afterwards, when he and Jennifer got back home.

Groaning in post-inebriated, nauseous agony, he struggled his way into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and ambled his way down the stairs, clutching onto the bannister for dear life lest he trip in his stupor.

Too late, the door had already been answered. Jennifer stood there, looking no worse for wear, and much more presentable than him. He took a moment to stare at that ass and tried to remember some of the things they'd done last night, but nothing came to mind. All he could remember was the dream, the shooting, and the explosions. A voice cut off his train of thought, deep and flat.

"I'm looking for Second Lieutenant Justin Perry," the voice said, devoid of any kind of tone or inflection. Perry finished his descent down the wooden hill and stood behind Jennifer. He looked up at the source of the voice; a man in a black jacket, maybe five-eight, with black hair and a skin tone that indicating he was either Mexican or South American.

"I'm Perry," he said, trying to ignore the brass band playing in his head. He didn't recognise the man, at all, and he had no idea what he wanted. If this was some kind of sales pitch he could get lost; it was Saturday morning, for Christ's sake! "Who are you?"

His answer came not from words but in a single swift motion as the stranger at his door pulled a pistol out from the back of his jeans and aimed it squarely at his face. Bright light flashed from the muzzle, and then everything went dark and silent. He never heard the crack of the gunshot, the thud as he hit the floor, his girlfriend's screams, or the second shot that quieted them. Nor did he see the man casually place the gun back into the waistband of his jeans and walk calmly back to his car.

Sarah Connor stared at the door in grim anticipation. Father Armando Bonilla had confirmed that he'd passed on her message to her son John and his cyborg protector Cameron, but now he'd also delivered a message from them. "She is coming." She knew very well what that meant. Any second now the alarms would sound, followed by gunfire and screaming from dying guards. Flashes of the police station in 1984 came to mind: would Cameron slaughter these prison guards like sheep, mowing them down mercilessly to get to her cell? Sarah didn't want all those deaths on her conscience. Much as John hated the idea of people dying for him, Sarah knew that sadly, a lot of people back then had died for her – and also for him, by extension. Seventeen police officers killed, including Lieutenant Traxler and his partner who'd looked after her when they'd all thought Kyle Reese was crazy.

The T-800 that had been after her had torn apart the police station and destroyed seventeen families that day. Would Cameron do that too, or would she be more like the other one: all kneecappings and shots to the ass? Sadly, she'd seen Cameron's take on the value of human life that didn't have the name 'Connor' attached, and she had a pretty good idea which way Cameron would swing.

"When she comes," Sarah said to Father Bonilla as she stood up and faced the door to her cell, "stay in here. Stay here if you want to live." She curled her fists into balls and started to breathe quicker, getting more blood and oxygen to pump around her body quicker. She knew the moment that door opened and Cameron appeared it would be a mad dash to get out of there, and she'd need every ounce of strength and speed she could muster.

John Connor sat anxiously in the passenger seat, nervous sweat rolling down his back and sticking the black leather of his jacket to the back of his neck. He felt his heart already racing in anticipation as Cameron drove through the relatively light, mid-afternoon traffic. He kept his face forward, looking out the windshield as they sped towards the prison, but every now and then he'd shift his gaze and look to Cameron. Her stoic, neutral expression betrayed no emotion whatsoever to the outside observer. Although John couldn't see anything on her face, he knew there was more going on in that chip of hers than she let on.

He thought back to earlier on, the evening before when James Ellison had found them, how she'd reacted to his question. 'Will you join us?' What the hell was that supposed to mean? Who was this Catherine Weaver, and how did she know Cameron? She must know what Cameron was, but then did that make her friend or foe? The one thing John hated more than his fate, he decided, was not knowing. Secrets and lies had nearly torn his family apart, had almost cost him his life and Cameron's, and now had his mother in jail. He decided he didn't want to be in the dark any more. They were going to have to be straight with each other from now on if this was going to work.

"What did Ellison mean," he turned to Cameron, "when he asked if you'd join them?"

"Nothing." She replied too quickly, her face remained as neutral as ever but her eyes flicked too rapidly away from John back to the road, and he noticed the tone in her voice. It wasn't the same as whenever they usually spoke, not that they'd done much talking over the past few months, he thought to his regret, but enough that he noticed the slight insistent edge in her reply. It meant something, John knew that.

John wasn't satisfied with her answer, and pressed it further. "It's gotta mean something: 'Will you join us?'"

"It doesn't mean anything," Cameron said, not looking at John as she answered, keeping her eyes firmly on the road and gripping the steering wheel just a little bit tighter, pushing on the gas pedal just a little bit harder. "We'll reach the LA County Jail in four minutes," she added, intent on changing the subject. "I'll get Sarah: you stay in the car."

"I know," John sighed. "Stay out of danger: I'm too important." He noticed how she'd steered them away from Ellison's cryptic message, but he figured he could get her to talk later, once they were safely away from the area. He was determined he wouldn't let it go, though. Whatever it meant, it was important: big enough to have clearly upset her earlier, despite her denying she could feel upset, and big enough for her to change her mind about getting his mother out of jail. What, he wondered, could change her mind so suddenly, so completely like that?

Before he could think it through any further the LA County lockup came into view: a massive concrete penitentiary surrounded by high chain link fences topped with razor wire. "Just drive up to the main entrance," he said. She stopped the car just inside the turning to the jail, and kept the engine running. "Be careful," he told her as he handed her the shotgun, looking at her face for any hint of what was going on in her head. Illogical, he knew as soon as the words had come out of his mouth: if Cromartie could wipe out a twenty-man FBI Hostage Rescue Team then Cameron could certainly handle a bunch of pot-bellied, clock-watching prison guards.

Cameron said nothing and took the gun. She reached for the door handle but paused as she noticed something, a car across the street, parked. The engine was off but there were three men inside. She zoomed in on them, automatically altering her vision for long distance viewing, and the car became much closer, much more defined. She spotted a pair of binoculars on the man in the passenger seat, and recognised the barrel of an M4 carbine sticking out from the rear window – the man handling it failing to keep it completely out of sight.

She turned her head in the car and scanned the rest of the area, looking for any other threats. She looked up at the buildings opposite the jail, on the other side of the road, and quickly found what she was looking for: a man with a rifle and scope lay prone on the roof of a laundromat; and another man fifty metres down the road by a bus stop, in a simple brown leather jacket and jeans. She watched him and made a number of observations: in the sixty seconds she'd watched him for, he'd never moved once. His arms remained by his side, fingers unmoving. He never blinked and his mouth never moved, and despite being the only person at the bus stop, he'd chosen to ignore the empty seats and remain standing, his gaze aimed directly at the prison.

Sarah waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened. No alarm sounded, no shots were fired. "Did she say when?" she asked the Father, who simply shrugged in ignorance. There was no way Cameron would have kept him privy to the details of whatever she had planned.

"They said soon, that's all I know," Bonilla told her, equally confused. Sarah stared at the door, wondering what if anything would appear on the other side. Maybe, she thought. Maybe I was wrong about Cameron? Maybe Cameron had opted for stealth over brute force? It wouldn't be the first time. Sarah conjured up a mental image of a naked prison guard, unconscious and beaten, tied up in a utility closet somewhere with a gag in his or her mouth. Would Cameron arrive at any moment with a set of keys, come to 'transfer' her to 'another cell?'

Finally, she heard sounds on the other end of the door. Someone was stood outside, and they were fiddling with the lock. Sarah prepared to burst out of there, and resolved herself to give Cameron a severe chewing out later on for letting John talk her into such a stupid rescue stunt. They could've been in Mexico by now, safe from the FBI and the police, instead of risking themselves here. No, Cameron was going to listen while she gave the tin miss a piece of her damn mind.

"We have to go," Cameron said to John. She threw the shotgun onto the back seat, put the car into reverse, and backed out of the prison entrance. She ignored John's protests as she checked the mirrors and put the car into drive again, pulling onto the main road and accelerating as quickly as she could up to the speed limit.

"What the hell?" John looked at her, aghast.

"The prison was under surveillance," Cameron replied. "Three men in a car opposite the entrance, a sniper on the roof of the laundromat, and a T-Triple-Eight at the bus stop." Their truck had tinted windows so the sniper couldn't identify them but they would have been targeted the moment they stepped out.

"I didn't see any of that," John said truthfully. He'd been so focused on getting his mother out of prison he hadn't even thought about anything else. "Wait!" he turned to her, something horrible creeping to mind from the past. "We can't just leave her there: they'll kill her."

Cameron, however, knew better. "If they were going to kill her they would have done so: they were waiting for us." Her answer did nothing to ease John's concerns though, and she could see that he needed reassuring. "We won't leave her," she promised him.

To John, however, it certainly felt like they were doing just that, but he knew she was right. "Kaliba?" he gulped, even more nervous now than he'd been five minutes ago.

"Kaliba," she nodded. Cameron was careful not to betray anything on her mind. Things had changed again; her plans had to be altered. It was a hindrance to her mission, to what she knew minutes ago she'd had to do. Until James Ellison had relayed his message to her from Catherine Weaver her intention had been to leave the United States with John, escape the authorities and to better protect him.

Sarah's own message relayed through the chola was clear in her mind. Don't think about me, don't come for me. Just go. You are to make sure that he does. Sarah had entrusted John to her, and she had planned for them to drive south to Mexico, until Ellison had intervened and rapidly changed her plan with four little words. Now, with the jail under Kaliba surveillance, her priority had changed again. She knew that wasn't right: her priority was and would always be John. Her mission remained the same, but how she would carry it out had been in constant flux over the past twenty-four hours. Despite the disruption to her plan, Cameron was relieved she wouldn't have to implement it; she knew what John's reaction would have been.

The door started to swing open and Sarah glared and took a step forward. "I told you to run…" she trailed off as the door opened fully to reveal not Cameron with a gun or in a guard's uniform, but Agent Auldridge, the funny boy, in his suit and flanked by a pair of actual prison guards – neither was Cameron, Sarah noted, not sure whether to be relieved or dismayed. She settled on relieved; unless Cameron was actually a shape shifter like the T-1000, and had forgotten to tell them, there was no possible way any of them could be her.

"Told who to run?" Auldridge asked Sarah, curiosity clear on his face. Was she expecting someone else? He turned to Father Bonilla. "Are you two done?" he asked. He really didn't like it when priests and lawyers came in to speak to prisoners: she could have told him anything, including the whereabouts of her son John and his friend Cameron.

Bonilla looked to Sarah and she nodded. "We're done," she said, and the priest was escorted away by one of the guards and disappeared from sight. The other guard remained, however, and locked the door behind the agent, sealing him in the room with Sarah.

"You're brave," Sarah said to him. "You've read my file; you know what I can do."

Auldridge, however, didn't seem particularly intimidated by her. Yes, he'd read everything about her, and he had no doubts that in a fight she could snap his neck like a twig, but that wasn't going to happen. He pointed up to the camera in the top corner of the room. "I don't doubt you could beat me to death without breaking a sweat, Ms Connor," he said, his voice full of polite dismissal. "But the second you did there'd be guards in here with Tasers and cans of mace." He gestured to the table in the centre of the room. "Shall we?"

Compliantly, Sarah sat herself down at the table, and Agent Auldridge lowered himself into the seat opposite. He placed a file on the table and opened it, taking out a document and handing it to Sarah.

"I'm here to do you a deal," he said to Sarah before she had a chance to read what was in the document. "We're charging you with the murder of Miles Dyson in 1997 and armed robbery in 1999. The murder alone could get you the needle, but nobody wants that." He saw the doubt on Sarah's face and assumed she'd resigned herself to execution. He'd also seen the look on her face as he'd walked into the room, as if she'd been expecting someone else, perhaps a rescue attempt? Strangely, she looked more relieved now than she did when she might have thought she was being rescued, if that's what she'd thought was going on.

"You said something about a deal?" she asked, watching him like a hawk.

"Yes. I want you to confess to the felony-murder of Miles Dyson and the armed robbery. Save the time and expense of a trial and we'll drop the other charges, of which you can see there are many, and we'll talk the judge into a lesser sentence."

That caught Sarah's attention. What the hell kind of lesser sentence could there be for the supposed murder she'd purportedly carried out? "Like what?" she asked, not really caring but she needed to pass the time somehow.

"Twenty-five to life," Auldridge replied. Sensing that she failed to see the lure of such a sentence, he continued. "But we'll drop the charges against your son." He handed her a second document, this one with John's name on it. The list of charges against John was almost as long as hers: assisting in breaking a convicted felon out of a psychiatric institution, accessory to murder, accessory to criminal destruction of property – namely, Cyberdyne and the bank - accessory to armed robbery, and aiding and abetting a known terrorist.

"You'll drop the charges against John?" she asked, the doubt she felt about his offer evident in her voice.

"And the Phillips girl," Auldridge added. "They were just minors at the time and the government doesn't care too much about their charges compared to yours. Sign the confession and we'll drop the charges against them: they'll be free to go. I won't even ask about how none of you seem to have aged: that can be your little secret."

Sarah smiled knowingly; there was no way his offer was genuine. Even if it was, no judge would just let John off the hook so easily. But if John and Cameron weren't breaking her out, then it meant Cameron must have done what she'd asked, and she'd gotten John the hell out. Hopefully they were down in Mexico, or on a plane to somewhere else. Cameron had always talked about Canada, and it was the less obvious choice for them to go to. Hell, she didn't care where they went as long as it was far, far away, where neither the authorities nor machines could get to them.

"Why not," Sarah shrugged her shoulders. It didn't matter any more. She'd either get life without parole, or death. She wasn't sure which she preferred, if she was brutally honest with herself. It didn't really matter: life or death, this would all be gone in a few years, including her. But even her own life didn't matter to Sarah any more. As long as John was safe and Cameron kept him out of harm's way, she didn't care what happened to her. Sarah found herself actually glad that John had Cameron with him. She could keep him safe, and also he wouldn't be alone. She remembered her talk a few weeks ago, where the cyborg had claimed that the only way for John to be safe, truly safe, was to be alone. She still didn't think it was any sort of life, and she didn't like how John responded to the machine. She could see right through John's attempts to bond with Riley Dawson, and to push Cameron away. He'd been fixated on the machine since the moment they'd met. A mother knows. She shivered at the thought of what might happen between them now that it would only be the two of them for the foreseeable future – until the bombs dropped and all this was a wasteland. But it was the only way to keep John safe.

Not caring what happened to her, Sarah picked up the pen and signed the confession before handing it back to Auldridge, who put it back in his file and stood up. "Thank you, Sarah," he nodded to her gratefully. "I'll get this to the judge first thing tomorrow morning. They'll want to hear you make a formal guilty plea, of course, but that can wait for now."

She looked up to him as the door opened and the guard came in, put her arms behind her back and cuffed her hands together before starting to lead her out of the room. "What about John?" she asked, turning around to face him again and ignoring the guard's attempts to nudge her forward.

Auldridge shrugged. "As far as I'm concerned he's not a bother to us any more." With that, Sarah allowed herself to be pushed out of the room and led back to her cell. As soon as she was back in and her cuffs released she lay down on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling for several minutes before closing her eyes and resigning herself to her fate. Hopefully it didn't matter whether the charges against John would be dropped or not; with any luck he was long gone and all this was just a moot point. She could only hope.

"Look after him, Cameron." She prayed to any number of deities that she didn't really believe in that the machine would keep him safe.

The prison rapidly disappeared behind them and Cameron drove on a random route, taking left and right turns with no discernible pattern. A mile and a half away from the prison she turned left off the main road. At the next corner she turned left as well, carefully watching her mirrors to see if any cars were following her. She took a third and fourth left, completing a three-hundred and sixty degree circuit around the block before pulling back onto the main road. A vehicle following them around one corner could be dismissed as coincidence. Two was unlikely but possible. If anyone had followed them around three corners, Cameron knew they would have been after them and would have sped away in an attempt to lose their pursuers, but there was nobody following them. She continued on her way, watching closely the other cars on the road, searching for any vehicles that remained two or three places behind, or stayed driving in the same direction as them. She repeated the round-the-block procedure several times in an attempt to detect anyone following them.

Finally, John broke the silence. He didn't ask what they were going to do now; that could wait until they were in the clear. He didn't ask when they would rescue his mom, as it wouldn't be today and with armed, terminator surveillance watching the prison, they would need to come up with another plan. There was something, however, that still weighed heavily on his mind, and he wanted an answer.

"I want to know," he said, calmly but firmly to her, "what did Ellison mean when he said: 'Will you join us?'"

Cameron's reaction wasn't what he'd expected, not by a long shot. Instead of tightening her grip on the wheel or avoiding eye contact, she looked straight at him and smiled. "It doesn't matter any more," she told him. This time, however, she could smile genuinely, reassuring both him and herself. Things had changed, and the message was now irrelevant.

"The chip is too badly damaged," John Henry said to Catherine Weaver as he looked down at the burnt, half-melted Central Processing Unit. It had been treated with a layer of phosphorous that had ignited on contact with oxygen in the air, rendering it little more than a tiny paperweight. John Henry looked down at the CPU in wonder. He knew that a chip like this once controlled the body he now used. He found it fascinating that a computer so small could contain a mind, when the hardware that comprised him was so large in comparison and required a mass of server farms for him to be aware, to be conscious.

"Can you read anything from it?" Weaver asked. She hadn't foreseen that the chip would burn. It had flared so brilliantly, burned so intensely she'd had to drop it, almost losing a small portion of herself to the sheer heat it emanated. It had been short lived and cooled fast, apparently devastating the chip.

"It's unlikely," John Henry replied.

"We'll have to find a way to extract chips without igniting them in future," Weaver said to him. Where one T-888 came from, more would follow. "We need to know what we're up against." She had another issue that needed addressing, and turned to James Ellison, who had been standing in patient silence behind her. "I want you to go back to John Connor, tell him again that I'd like to meet him, and please repeat the message to his cyborg."

Ellison shook his head slowly. Not at the instruction he was given, but rather at the absurdity of it all. John Connor's cyborg, or any cyborg, for that matter. A year ago he'd locked up Dr Silberman in Pescadero for ranting about the machines, Sarah Connor, and the end of the world. Now he himself was up to his neck in it all, and Weaver… how the hell was she so calm about all of this? For her it was just business as usual. He still had his reservations about it all, about John Henry. Was he helping to bring Skynet into the world, or was he trying to teach what could become Skynet about the value of human life? Was he helping to prevent Sarah's nightmares from coming true by playing with and talking to John Henry? The AI definitely didn't seem to be hostile. He was more like a child, filled with wonder at the world. Everything was interesting to him. He couldn't imagine John Henry lashing out, getting angry and trying to kill millions of people, could he?

"I doubt they're there," Ellison said back to Weaver. "They probably left five minutes after I did. One thing I do know about them: they don't like to stay in one place for long."

Weaver couldn't fault that logic. She knew little of John Connor but the tactic Ellison had just described made sense; it would make it more difficult for either the police or terminators to track them down. And for her, she noted. Their habits made it difficult to find them. She took out her cell phone and dialled the number for the motel John and his cyborg had been staying at. She'd had the number all along but believed it more likely to gain their cooperation by sending a familiar face – Ellison. That hadn't worked, clearly, and now she was going to have to be more direct. She waited as the phone rang.

"Apache Motel…"

"Put me through to Room 236," Weaver said to the clerk on the phone.

"Sorry, Room 236 is vacant."

She'd believed Ellison's theory but she'd had to investigate, just in case. Still there was a chance. "I'm looking for the young couple who stayed there last night," she added. "Did they say where they were going?"

"They used automated check out…" Weaver pressed the cancel button and ended the call, not interested in anything else the person might have had to say.

"Try tracing their cell phones," Ellison said to John Henry. He'd found Sarah's number before so it shouldn't be difficult for him. On the screen behind him a list of phone numbers appeared. The former agent recognised what it was: an itemised phone bill detailing the numbers, dates, times and durations of all outgoing and incoming calls. He was surprised at how many there were for someone who had been in hiding. "Which ones did she call most?"

John Henry quickly reorganised the list and showed the top three cell numbers. "These three numbers account for seventy-two percent of all calls made and received by Sarah Connor's phone," he added.

"One of those will be John," Ellison said. Both Weaver and John Henry realised what he was doing now, and the latter traced the locations of those three numbers.

"Two of them are in the same location, moving on Highway 14," John Henry announced, "six miles south of Palmdale."

"That'll be them," Ellison agreed. Weaver allowed herself a small smile. She hadn't thought of checking Sarah's cell phone records. It was useful to have a former FBI agent working for her.

"Go back to them," she instructed Ellison. "Tell John I want to speak to him and his cyborg." She had plans for John Connor's machine, and for John as well – though those plans were less immediate than the ones she had for the TOK model.

"Sure," he said with little enthusiasm: he was beginning to feel more like Weaver's errand boy rather than the head of security he officially was, or John Henry's mentor, that he actually was. It was already well into the late afternoon and it'd been a stressful couple of days, what with Savannah's 'kidnapping', and following John and Cameron around last night. He hadn't exactly had a warm reception from either of them before; he'd upset Cameron somehow – and since she was a machine he hadn't even thought that possible, but he'd managed it, and he wasn't looking forward that much to seeing them again, in case they decided he was a threat and chose to do something about it. Still, he'd try.

He turned and started to walk out of the room, when Weaver stopped him. "Remember to repeat my offer again," she reminded him.

"'Will you join us?' I remember," he said. He left the room, took the elevator up to the first basement and got out. He walked into the corridor ahead and took the second door on the left, emerging into the underground employee parking lot. He unlocked his silver Mercedes and got in, started the engine, and was on his way. Judging by their last encounter he didn't expect them to be very happy to see him again.

The engine chugged and spluttered as the car began to lose power and slow down, much to the anger of the driver. It decelerated from sixty… fifty… then down to thirty and lower as the car, starved of fuel, started to fail. "Come on, not now," Lauren Fields pleaded to the car as if it were a sentient being. She jammed her foot on the gas and was rewarded with a strained roar from the engine and a fraction more momentum. "Yes!" she cried out and slapped the dashboard in delight as the car picked up speed.

Thirty-two… thirty-five… forty… forty-five… Lauren couldn't help the look of glee on her face, even though she knew such a victory was temporary. She looked over her shoulder to the tiny mass bundled in blankets behind her, secured snugly into a cradle strapped tight to the rear seat. As safe as any baby could be, given the circumstances; which was hardly safe at all.

Lauren looked down at the roadmap perched on her lap and kept her foot on the gas, trying to feed enough of the last drops of fuel into the engine to keep it going. Looking at the map they only had five miles to go until they reached the next gas station. She could make five miles on fumes.

The car lurched and lost power, reminding her that both she and the car had been running on fumes for several miles already. "No!" she screamed in frustration as the engine stalled and died. The car rolled to a stop on the dirt road bisecting a massive cornfield. Swearing and cursing the car, she turned the key again. The engine struggled and Lauren stamped her foot down on the gas, hoping to put some life back into the car. It didn't work. She tried once more with the same result before she gave up and pushed her door open. No good. She knew that wherever they were going it would have to be on foot.

Her seatbelt detached with a quiet click and she was out of the car in an instant. She pulled out the revolver, pushed aside the rotating cylinder, and checked all chambers were loaded. The moon was three-quarters full so despite being in the dead of night she had just enough light to check it. In one smooth, practised motion she slid the gun back in the waistband of her cargo pants. The barrel dug into her right ass cheek and the handle into the small of her back, and not for the first time she wished she'd bought a holster for the thing.

She opened the rear passenger door just behind where she'd sat seconds ago, and quickly undid the buckles that held little Sydney in place. She picked up her little sister and held her close to her chest with her left arm. With her right she picked up her rucksack, complete with food for herself and formula for her sister.

Headlights lit up in the distance, maybe a mile away and getting closer. Dread filled Lauren from head to toe and she nearly burst into tears. Don't these things ever quit? She already knew the answer to that, as had been explained so thoroughly by Sarah and Cameron – she wished she had a machine of her own at that moment, instead of just a handgun and a bag of baby formula. Lauren quickly disappeared into the cornfield and ran as fast as her weighed down body could carry her through the rows and rows of corn that were thankfully taller than her. She ran in zigzag patterns, dashing straight ahead for ten or fifteen feet then changing direction like a hare trying to escape a fox. Except she knew this fox would never get tired, never change its mind and go after another target, and would never give up the chase.

She didn't know how far she'd covered before she heard the sounds of the car pulling up, probably next to where hers had ran out of gas and broken down. She slowed her pace down to a walk. She knew how good those things' hearing was and she didn't want it to be able to home in on the rustling from her bulling her way through cornrows. Lauren stopped for a moment to catch her breath and listen out for the machine. She wondered for a moment if she should just stay where she was: if she was quiet enough then maybe the machine wouldn't find them; maybe it'd assume she'd gone through the field and would run out the other side in a futile pursuit.

That's not how they work; an inner voice that sounded a hell of a lot like Sarah said to her. She knew she couldn't just huddle there and hope it'd go away, she needed to escape, to get Sydney out of there.

In that moment Sydney cried out, screaming and wailing. Lauren's hand snapped up and covered her little sister's mouth, stifling her cry. "Shit!" There was no way the machine wouldn't have heard that. It's almost a cliché, she thought; a crying baby giving them away, like the plot of a bad horror movie. She shrugged off the pack, pulled out her revolver and ran. It didn't matter which direction, she just picked one at random and sprinted with everything she had. Her legs burned from the effort as she pushed herself as hard as she could go, ignoring the fact that within seconds her lungs were on fire. None of that counted; she just held Sydney tight to her and smashed her way between the giant stalks of corn. It didn't matter the noise she made: Sydney had already given them away and now speed was more important than stealth.

She sprinted as fast and as hard as she could, faster than she'd ever moved before, fear and adrenaline pushing her beyond her normal limits. She had to get out of there, had to save Sydney. Through the rustling and cracking of corn stalks she could hear more noise behind her as the machine ploughed through the same plants, literally breaking several of them in half with sheer momentum.

A second later something stung her in the back, followed an instant after by a loud crack, and she lost her balance. Somehow she managed to keep hold of Sydney on the way down, and turn herself so she landed on her side. Lauren tried to get back up but white hot pain tore through her back and her stomach. She instinctively reached back and felt where the pain was coming from, and when she brought her hand back it was slick and covered in blood. In the darkness, illuminated only by the moon shining high in the sky, the blood looked black, almost like oil. She could feel warmth and wetness on both her back and her stomach, and she didn't need to look down to realise the bullet had gone straight through.

Stomping footsteps grew closer and Lauren raised the revolver. Even that was a struggle. She felt cold and the gun felt heavy in her shaking hand, and she knew she was going into shock. Corn stalks rustled and moved aside a few feet away, revealing the shape of the machine that was almost on them. Lauren knew it was useless to try and crawl away; she wouldn't make it three feet before it got to them. She couldn't escape and there was nowhere to hide Sydney. She only had one choice. With a redoubled effort she raised the gun again and pointed it at the approaching shape. She fired, once; twice… she kept pulling the trigger, grimacing at the loud report that battered her ears, until the gun clicked empty.

Still the shape continued inexorably toward them. Lauren struggled to reach into her pocket for more rounds, but it was too late.

The terminator – in the guise of a tall, muscular, bearded man in his forties – appeared through the nearest row of corn, weapon in hand. Out of options, Lauren curled up into a ball around Sydney, instinctively shielding her sister with her own body. She sobbed quietly and closed her eyes, not wanting to see what was about to happen. Sydney cried again as blood from the exit wound flowed onto her, covering the infant. In her mind's eye she could picture the machine stood over them, pointing its own gun down at her.

She felt the shots before she heard them. Hot metal ripped through her body and shredded her insides into mincemeat. She groaned in agony, somehow still conscious. She felt a boot push her shoulder, forcing her onto her back, and the contact of the dirt on her wounds added to the pain. She wasn't sure how she was still alive. She tried to move but to no avail, and she briefly wondered, in her shock-induced semi-stupor, if one had hit her spine. She opened her eyes to see the terminator, its weapon aimed straight at her. Once again she screwed her eyes shut. Another shot rang out and something warm and wet spattered Lauren in the face. It took a second for her to realise she wasn't dead. The bullet hadn't hit her, and Sydney was now silent. But that meant…

It hit her like a freight train. Even if she could have moved a muscle, Lauren wouldn't have dared look down at what was left of her sister. She tried to scream out in anguish but all that came was a strained gurgle as blood started to pool in the bottom of her lungs. She opened her eyes again and found her vision was blurry and obscured by red viscera clinging to her eyelids. The machine was now crouched over her and placed its fingers on her carotid artery.

She could almost read its mind: it was checking her vitals to see if she would survive her injuries or not. She didn't care. She'd lost her sister, her mom and her dad. Nothing mattered any more. The machine rose back up off its haunches, holstered its gun, and started to turn away.

"H… hey!" she croaked pathetically, struggling to raise her head to look at the thing that had murdered her sister. She hated it even more, that it was just going to leave her there to suffer – even if she survived, she'd have to live with the loss of Sydney. "Kill me," she pleaded with the machine. "Please… ki… kill… me. I've got… nothing… left."

The machine turned around to face her, but made no move to come back towards her. "You're not the target," it said to her, both face and voice blank and devoid of any emotion. If it was happy about killing her sister then it showed no outward sign of it.

Bastard. But then, she realised, she was never the target: it was all about Sydney, it always had been. She wasn't even important enough to finish off. She could imagine what it was thinking: she'd be dead soon enough anyway. Even with proper medical treatment she figured her chances would be slim. Her sister – the poor, innocent target of the machine – was dead, and terminating her would be a waste of time and/or ammunition.

"You'll expire in ten to fifteen minutes," the machine informed her as it walked away, leaving Lauren Fields sobbing, bleeding to death and cradling the remains of her baby sister – a child targeted because of a freak mutation that rendered her immune to some bioweapon in the future. And she'd failed to keep her safe. Ten to fifteen minutes, Lauren repeated the machine's words in her head as anguished tears flowed freely from her eyes. It was ten to fifteen minutes too long.