.

Terminator: Genisys and Revelations

Chapter 1: Salvation

In her dreams, she saw the future which was her past.

She was in front of the time displacement equipment, charging up for a quick jump. She winced, and fought back tears, as she heard the thump of a grenade launcher going off, before it came to an abrupt stop. The sound of two titans engaging in close combat before that too, ended in silence. And after that, the pounding on the reinforced doors of the hideout. The same hideout that she and Pops had worked on for years, before finally using it in 1984.

"Come on," she whispered, as she watched the metre head for one-hundred. "Come on."

The doors pounded – on the other side was Hell, and the Devil was coming for her.

"Come on…"

The doors pounded again.

"Come on!"

The doors burst open and she let out a yell. This was California, not Georgia, but the Devil had arrived. One deceptively human in appearance, but anything but. This, she knew, was her nemesis. This was the beginning of the end, unless she did something quick. This was a T-5000, and it was staring at her with its intent clear for her to see.

"This is where it ends," it said. It strode towards her and she desperately looked at the metre – 94%.

"You cannot stop my genesis."

She might have marvelled at the insanity of time travel if she wasn't about to die. Though, for whatever reason, the machine in front of her looked ready to take its time.

"The two of them are dead," it whispered. "Now, the one who was meant to die first, will die last."

It was grinning. God damn it, it was grinning. She backed away, shivering, and not only because she was naked.

"You won't win," she whispered. "You never do."

The Terminator smiled. "First time for everything."

It reached out for her. She glanced at the readout – 97%.

"I have come a very long way to stop you," it whispered.

"You travelled through time just for me?"

"For the three of you. And then, myself."

She could jump into the building vortex, but to do so this early would kill her. She could flee, but the Terminator would end her in seconds. She could fight, but that would only end one way. But all the while, the T-5000 was reaching out for her and-

The machine yelled as it was tackled from behind. And while that offered some relief, that she would live at least another few seconds, seeing what had tackled the machine made her want to weep.

Oh Pops…

He was still alive, if that word could even be used. His liquid metal was breaking down, scarce different from the T-1000 she had destroyed in these sewers over thirty years ago. At least by the measurement of the world. By hers, it had been months. Back then, it had been through acid. This time, it was from nanites, eating through the liquid metal like locusts on a corpse.

"Go!" Pops yelled.

She nodded as the two Terminators engaged in one last brawl, fighting back her tears. Hours ago, she had seen one person close to her die – she had come here to change her past, but the assassin had pursued her all the way. Desperately, she glanced back at the duelling machines. One of them stood. One fell, before at last disintegrating, consumed in the nanites that made up the T-5000. A vessel capable of withstanding everything they had thrown at it, and even time itself. She glanced once more at the readout.

100%

She couldn't help but smile. And the Terminator must have seen her do so, because he frowned.

"How much longer will you keep running?" it whispered.

"As long as necessary," she whispered.

It yelled. It actually yelled as it reached out for her when she jumped into the swirling vortex of chronon energy. For the briefest of moments, she felt some joy in knowing that Skynet was human enough that it could feel rage. That it watched the cycle of birth, creation, destruction, and defeat, play out over and over again. And as such, its first target, the mother of its greatest enemy, the enemy that it itself had fathered in a sense, was defying it.

But then it started. White light. Pain. Washing over her. Spinning her. Consuming her. Like dying maybe. She screamed, in the same way she had when she'd watched her parents die. She screamed in the way that she had when she'd seen Kyle die. And she screamed now, as time and space warped, and even then, knew something was very, very wrong. The sphere pulsed and throbbed, like the beating of a heart. The Terminator backed away, a look of fear in its eyes. The energy continued to pulse, before expanding. Taking her. Taking the Terminator. Taking everything, as time always did.

And all the while, Sarah Connor kept screaming until she lost consciousness.

The dream ended and she opened her eyes, this time free of tears.

She quickly assessed that her captors from last night had at least had the decency of putting clothes on her, even if they had her handcuffed to a conveyor belt.

"She's awake."

She looked up at the woman before her. She was blonde, was wearing nothing but jeans and a white vest, and had eyes that reminded Sarah of daggers. Eyes that conveyed that regardless of however she might feel about the woman they'd found on the highway, a level of distrust was still present. And, judging by her voice, one of the two who'd stepped out of the vehicle last night.

"Um, yes, I'm awake," Sarah said. She dangled the chains. "So, since I'm awake, can we take these off?"

The woman glanced round at the other two women nearby in what Sarah guessed was in some kind of storage house. Likely in California given what she could see of the land outside, or heck, maybe Mexico. Not that she'd ever been to Mexico before, but hey, everyone knew what Mexico looked like.

"Guys?" the woman asked. "Got our birdie here."

Birdie?

One of the women came over. Like the girl in the vest, she had blonde hair. Unlike the girl, she was covering her eyes in sunglasses, and she was much, much older. Also more muscular. Oh, and wearing a flak jacket, because hey, why not?

"I'll take it from here Grace," she murmured.

Sarah found herself wishing to stay with "Grace." Tall, dark, and ugly looked like much more trouble. Didn't help that as blinding as the lights had been last night, Sarah recognised her as the one who'd knocked her out.

"Fine," Grace murmured. "I'll check the perimeter."

"Do that."

Sarah couldn't help but smirk as she watched Grace slink off. For a moment, her eyes met with that of the third woman – dark haired, and by her guess, Hispanic. In those eyes, she saw many things – confusion. Fear. Most importantly, sympathy.

"Help me," Sarah mouthed.

She turned away and followed the one called Grace outside. Grace, who picked up a shotgun from a nearby table, which was covered in other heavy weapons. Including, but not limited to, a machine gun, a sniper rifle, and an RPG.

"Hey. Birdie."

Sarah looked back at Sunglasses. "Listen," she said. "I'm thankful for the clothes, and the pickup, and-"

"Birdie, stop talking."

Sarah did so. She didn't like being called "birdie." But then, life had never been contingent on things she'd liked. So, much as she'd have liked Sunglasses to stop staring at her, as if she'd never seen a nineteen year old girl before, she decided to keep her mouth shut. She'd survived Terminators. She could survive this woman as well.

"You know it's amazing," Sunglasses said. "The dogs picked up nothing."

"What?"

She knelt down. "You're human. One-hundred percent, original human."

"Um, yeah," Sarah murmured. "That's kind of how things are with me. Human. Homo sapiens. Me, a human, being…human."

Sunglasses scoffed. "When are you from?"

Sarah stared. "Excuse me?"

Sunglasses slapped her and Sarah yelled.

"When. Are you. From?"

"The fuck is wrong with you?!"

She slapped her again. "When?"

Sarah stared – Sunglasses knew. She actually knew. Granted, there might be other explanations, but-

"We saw the time displacement surge a mile away. And when we arrived, there you were with a Terminator." Sunglasses frowned. "Interesting thing is, Grace said the Resistance sent no-one else back, and whatever that thing was, it wasn't any REV model she'd seen."

"Resistance?" Sarah whispered. "There's still a Resistance?"

Sunglasses frowned. So did Sarah. Resistance. REV, whatever that was. The future, once as clear to her as the lake at which her parents had died, had become like a dark road at night after the destruction of Genisys.

"When are you from?" Sunglasses whispered.

Sarah took a breath. She went to say something, but instead, began to cough. Quite violently at that. It too her about ten seconds before she let out the figure of "2018."

"Bullshit."

"Excuse me?"

"You want another slap Birdie?" She rose her hand again.

"Okay, first of all, slap me again, and I swear to God I'll break your hand," Sarah snapped. She coughed some more before continuing. "Second of all, assuming you're not crazy, and know about time travel, then just believe me when I say I travelled from February 2018, with the intent of going back in time a few months."

Sunglasses stared at her.

"Did I go too far?"

Sunglasses chuckled. "Birdie, I hate to break it too you, but it's 2022."

Now it was Sarah's turn to stare. "No," she whispered. She looked around. "But Genisys. Judgement Day. I…" She looked back at Sunglasses. "I…no. That's impossible."

"I thought lots of things were impossible when I was like you," Sunglasses murmured.

Sarah raised an eyebrow.

"But you, being here, like this…" Sunglasses mused. "That's what I'd call impossible."

After a moment, Sarah whispered, "why?"

Sunglasses didn't say anything.

"Why?" Sarah repeated.

Sunglasses sighed. "What's your name?"

Not seeing any reason to lie at this point, Sarah obliged in a whisper.

"Louder Birdie. First name and surname."

The hell is wrong with you? She took a breath. "Sarah," she said. "Sarah Connor."

Sunglasses smirked and took off her shades. And Sarah stared. Her eyes…

"That's funny," the older woman said with a wry smile. "Because that's my name as well."

Her eyes were exactly the same as hers. Sarah tried to speak, but her mouth just opened and closed like a fish.

"Now then," said the elder Sarah. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

A/N

So, normally I'd give the background to a story at the start, not wait for the second installment (if not necessarily chapter) to do it, but I couldn't do that without spoiling the reveal.

So, short version is that this started out as a oneshot, but by the time I was done it had got so long that I thought it would be better to make it a multi-chapter. That, and while multi-chapters I write usually try to conform to canon as much as possible, Terminator is a franchise where I feel the idea of canon is basically meaningless, where any discrepancy can be attributed to alternate timelines or whatnot. So obviously Emila Clarke-Sarah won't be in Dark Fate, but basically, this timeline, she is.

On that note, what sparked me writing this at all was comments made at SDCC 2019 concerning the film that while inocuous on their own, did kind of congregate to write this. The first was comments (by Tim Miller I think) that, paraphrased, "there's only Sarah Connor, and that's Linda Hamilton." Not exactly a controversial statement per se, because ask anyone to rank the Terminator films, and T1/T2 will inevitably be jostling for the top spot, and if someone says "Sarah Connor," chances are you're going to think of Hamilton first, and likely, Lena Headey second. And that aside, when numerous actors portray the same character over time, usually people pick a 'definitive' version in their mind - James Bond, Batman, etc.

Second point however was that there was a slight, but noticable (to me) shift in the status on Dark Fate. Back when it was announced, it was stated that the other films (and by extension, pretty much the entire franchise outside the first two films) were simply alternate timelines. However, it was stated at the event that the 'official' take is that there's only one timeline in the franchise - time travel doesn't create alternate timelines, it affects a singular, continuously morphing timeline. It's a subtle shift that I have to admit didn't sit right with me, because while I understand the narrative reason to remove alternate timelines, it does feel a bit cynical to say "yeah, all that stuff never happened in any form," when there's been so many sequels to Judgement Day already. Like, what, Dark Fate is going to be just so good that everything else no longer matters?

And look, maybe that will be the case. But in the meantime, kind of drabbled this up as a sort of book-ender of sorts.

Also, final note, I should warn that elements of the story take inspiration from the supposed plot leak for Dark Fate. Elements that I haven't used yet, but beyond this chapter, they pop up. Again, don't know if they're accurate or not, but consider this fair warning.