The twisted trusses of melted, blackened steel rose like grotesque, bald tree stumps stretching high into a night sky so clouded and thick, that not a single star shone through and what little horizon was discernible was illuminated only by the occasional gout of flame. Debris exploded into the air, as concussive missiles launched from nowhere buried themselves deep into the scorched mud and detonated with a rolling bang, like the clap of thunder following lightning.

Over the barrages, the steady thumping of heavy artillery provided the bass notes of a symphony of offensive death, that included the chattering wails of anti-personnel weaponry that could rend a man's skeleton of its flesh and muscle in a single sweep. Powerful tunnels of blinding light scanned the scarred landscape, as the deafening roar of turbine engines marked Hunter-Killers as they powered overhead and unleashed sporadic destruction from chin-mounted auto-cannons.

Derek Reese, acting Commanding Officer of the Fighting New Mexico 24th felt his legs buckle as the cratered ground underneath his boots heaved and shuddered under the impact of withering missile fire. Throwing his arms out in a doomed bid to keep his balance, the fresh-faced youngster fell forwards, his rifle and forearms disappearing into a thick quagmire of mud and brown water that he resisted only until a screeching Hunter-Killer's wild firing overhead brought his body and face firmly down to meet the sludge.

Motionless, the Corporal patiently waited for the automated flying machine to continue its killing further north, raising his head slightly as the whine of its oversized turbine engines faded to be replaced by the loud thundering of artillery, which seemed the only sound powerful enough to break through the tinnitus that had virtually deafened him. For several moments Reese could no more remember his own name, than he could recall his mission or the reason he was slinking between the shattered city husks of a civilisation all but made extinct.

Derek spluttered as he felt a powerful hand grab him by the scruff of his uniform's neck and pull the dazed young man up from the mud. Fumbling with a rifle now slick with sludge and water, he broke free of the hold and rolled to meet the soft ground with his back. His jaw set tightly Reese brought the muzzle of the weapon to bare, knowing that he would have only a single chance to destroy the metal bastard that had given him a helping hand.

Desperate eyes glanced first at the rifle which spat not a single bullet in his defence, even as he squeezed the trigger for a second time, and then at the decidedly tan-coloured face staring back at him without a hint of steel malice, and more than a little amusement.

"The Mark Seven Infantry Pulse Rifle is a fine weapon Corporal!" The voice boomed with mocking and the slightest edge of command authority. "It'll fire in temperatures as low as minus fifteen degrees Celsius and in excess of fifty! It has a stock made of solid composite plastic that'll take a Chrome Job's lickin' and keep on tickin'. What it is not, however, is your mother. By the looks of it that weapon's been fired fewer times than I think you'd like to admit to me or your mother. Your real one."

Wiping the perspiration from his eyes Reese suppressed the urge to sigh as his gaze settled on the man bearing the epaulettes of a Captain looming over him. He was a good deal older than Derek, sporting a week's worth of stubble and a decade's worth of cuts and pockmarks in his flesh. The armour he wore was only superficially similar to the Corporal's - of the same original manufacture but customised and repaired many times over.

Struggling to his feet Reese offered the older man a textbook salute while making an effort to clear some of the mud from his tunic sleeves. Receiving an incredulous look the Captain responded with a sloppy salute of his own. "My mother's dead sir," He replied with a nervous shrug.

The Officer's chapped lips twisted into a grin, a gauntleted hand slapping Reese square in the back with considerable force. "Unless the constant battle, killing and survival have finally caught up with me and sent me off the deep end you look fairly alive to me, Corporal. What is this, fourth run out?"

"Third mission sir," Derek replied, wincing as a particularly close missile impact rained earth and dirty water down on the two men. "Passing out from Odessa Bunker to Serenity Point; intelligence monkeys have wind that those metal bastards know where Serenity Point is and are planning a bloodbath. I was supposed to reach SP and prepare to evacuate."

"It's been a long time since I was young enough to feel nerves son," The Captain said evenly, "But it seems to me that Command is asking you green caps to save the world with a week's fire training and some plastic chest armour. EVAC mission on your third trip out? I'd heard casualties were hitting us in deployments but I'd no idea we were sending out the babes … Where's the rest of your squad?"

Reese's dirty features twisted to form a scowl, his fingers still wiping away the slick mud from his rifle in an attempt to clear the jam. "No squad sir," He replied with his gaze fixed on the firing chamber as he pushed out a thick glob of dirt. "Command said no cover available in this sector - too hot to move in reinforcements--"

"Too hot?" The officer boomed as the sky around him lit up with a half-dozen blossoming explosions. "They send a green cap to carry out an EVAC on his third combat mission, on his own, because the sector's too hot? What the fuck are those brass monkeys up to? What the fuck is John Connor up to!"

Both men sprawled as the ground shuddered under another barrage of impact fire. Shouldering his rifle the grizzled officer grumbled and turned his attention back to his young charge. "Seems like you'll need some help Corporal - Serenity Point you say?"

Derek nodded, his fingers gripping the barrel of his rifle nervously. "Serenity Point sir."

"Name's Razak," the Captain muttered back as he broke into a crouched run behind a shattered and twisted frame of metal jutting out over the bleak landscape. Risking a glance over the shattered ridge the officer nodded in satisfaction and gestured for Reese to follow.

...

...

Derek's eyelids parted slightly and immediately regretted opening, as the bright beams of a sun shining through a window, without curtains drawn, flooded his vision and brought a hand up to shield his face. Swallowing against a throat drier than the empty whiskey bottle standing watch on the night stand, the second surviving relative of the future saviour of mankind sat up slowly, the pounding of blood through his temples limiting any thought beyond the need to empty his bladder. Ignoring the whiff of alcohol that rose from his sweat-stained T-shirt and jogging bottoms, he pulled the door handle open roughly.

Leaning over the sink with his arms splayed, Derek fixed his bloodshot gaze on the unkempt, unshaven face staring back from the bathroom mirror. A sardonic smile appeared on the reflection as he recalled the dreams that visited him since his return to the past, without a single day's respite or failure. Dreams that had never haunted his sleep even when that sleep was taken in a flooded foxhole, with the drone of Hunter-Killers overhead, and Chrome Jobs on foot - miles between the isolated underground bunkers that future-humanity called home.

Even though the threats facing him, and by extension the Connor Family were a bare percentage of the accumulated future might of the armies of Skynet that he had faced, fought and survived for a decade there was no denying that never before had Reese's sanity so threatened to desert him. Now, when there was a chance to relax - for no matter how short a time - when there were moments he could pretend that Judgement Day and the effective extinction of Mankind could be avoided, hopelessness never seemed to hold such dominion over him.

Adjusting the shower temperature and peeling his T-shirt overhead his eyes settled on the mass of raised, crumpled scar tissue that marked the bullet wound that had so very nearly killed him. Pressing a finger against the wound he noted an absence of the feeling of pressure - the nerves that carried all sensations destroyed; torn apart by the single bullet of a thousand successfully dodged that on darker nights, in darker dreams he wished had given him the peace he longed for.

Climbing into the shower and feeling the near-scalding water wash away the regrets and overindulgences of the night before, Derek stretched out against the wall and shook his head ruefully.

He needed a drink.

...

...

"You're wrong John; Bromine is a Group Seven element, in the Halogen Family. Atomic Number 35, the only non-metallic element existing in a liquid state at room temperature. It is a reddish-brown colour and--"

Although his eyes didn't leave the textbook he was studying, John's left hand rose upwards to cut off the Chemistry lecture that wasn't requested or required. "I know that," He interrupted with an irritated sigh, moving quickly before the confused look on his pseudo-sister's face erupted into more questioning. Closing the textbook, he dropped the pen to the paper and turned to face his inquisitor.

"Define average for me."

The beautiful, almost doll-like features of the Terminator-turned-protector known as Cameron focused, her head cocked slightly as if accessing information not immediately at hand. Lips slightly apart, eyes unfocused as though staring through the dining table and not simply at it. "Average, Noun and Adjective; a quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates an arithmetic mean."

The robotic monologue faded to be replaced by a warm inflection. "Her golf average is in the 90s. My brother's average in science has gone from B to C this semester."

"Right," John enthused whilst suppressing the discomfort he always felt with the Terminator's ability to switch effortlessly, between the emotionless automata he best remembered in the T-101 and the soft tones of a teenage girl, who should know nothing about robots from the future, or sentient computers, or the end of all things. "Since you know everything there is to know about Chemistry - more than the greatest minds of this time - scoring high on a High School science test isn't one of your priorities."

"Since I'm destined to be the saviour of all mankind," He continued with a deliberate infusion of resignation and sarcasm, "The same test is pretty irrelevant to me. All it would achieve is bringing scrutiny that can be avoided. If we can avoid attention, we can avoid some problems."

Leaning backwards, John steeled himself for the deluge of where, why and when that was sure to follow. It was with no small amount of surprise, that he heard Cameron thank him for explaining, watching her amend her answer to be similarly incorrect, before closing the jotter and offering him a disarmingly beautiful smile.

He suppressed the urge to sigh - Cybernetic organisms indeed.

...

...

Sarah tucked a handful of her raven locks back behind an ear, her lips fluttering as she blew a lungful of air out in exasperation. Glancing up from the bed she sat cross-legged upon, her eyes fell on the few items in the Spartan room apart from the bed; the secure gun crate underneath, and the file boxes full of the hundreds of pieces of paper and photos taken from the Resistance Safe House that posed another fifty questions for each one it answered.

As December had drawn in she'd suggested to John they relocate to one of the numerous holiday chalets available in the north of the country for a few days - as much to give them respite from their constant vigilance, as to throw Cromartie and whomever else sought them out off the Connor trail, although the response had been lukewarm. Of course when it came to protecting the boy who would become the man who would prevent the absolute extinction of humanity, there was no respite, no break or holiday.

Sarah felt that the illusion of respite was the next best thing, however and with John and Cameron's High School entering a one-off winter shut-down to allow for planned expansion and renovation there seemed no real reason not to. The chilling snow and ice that covered the region and the way a person's breathe floated like mist into the frozen sky, was as far-removed from the sandy heat of New Mexico as one could get.

Whether she could convince anyone to go was another matter entirely.

She would relished the change, although lately John seemed more relaxed and even Derek - from what little Sarah had seen of him in the last few days - had managed to keep his perquisite antagonistic relationship with Cameron calm, or calmer. There was only one person that seemed unchanged - their Terminator turned Princess-Protector.

Trust was something Sarah was no longer sure she could believe in. Of course she trusted her son - there was simply too much together that could not be destroyed, or corrupted or simply ignored to do otherwise. Even so, what trust could exist in a world where creatures of metal ignored the very wall of reality - time itself - and freely crossed history wearing deceiving masks of flesh? How could anyone be expected to trust when these merciless killers could take any guise and appearance?

The Metal Princess was an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, wrapped in a paradox. Fundamentally the enemy - a machine-agent of Skynet designed to aid it in the annihilation of the Human Race and with every facet of her body and programming optimised to deliver death and murder. A machine-agent that had managed to lose its reprogrammed purpose, hunting her son for a second time and so carry out the bidding of Skynet, despite the future John Connor's best efforts and contingency plans.

It had only been the kindness, and faith of her son in the present that prevented all thoughts of Cameron being in the past tense. Despite this Sarah could not ignore that the Tin Miss had saved their lives on countless occasions; had battled Terminator units far stronger and more insidious than the original T-101 - defeated once and befriended once - that would undoubtedly have ended the survival hopes of the Human Race, years before their ultimate test.

When Cameron had first entered their lives, she was considerably easier for Sarah to understand. Her mannerisms always divided into two types - of the original Terminator persona, emotionless, cold and unwavering. Utterly loyal to the programming and the mission. Occasionally flashes of simulated smiles and nonsense sound bites mixed with pleasantries that would give the surface appearance of Humanity. Easy to differentiate and oppose.

Ignoring the uncomfortable images of her son forced to kill to defend her, Sarah knew the incident involving the Break-in, that had seen Cameron disabled by nothing less than a car bomb had fundamentally changed the Terminator. Whether chip damage, or a combination of other factors the line between her two behaviours had become blurred, meshed. It was no longer easy at all to see a Terminator masquerading as a young girl, and it became possible to imagine and see a psychopathic young girl. A vital difference, for one was a robot pretending to be Human, and the other …

Shaking the thoughts from her head physically, Sarah's attention returned to the open box and the contents sprawled across her bed covers. Target suggestions, tactical reports and a hundred photos formed a chaotic pattern of which any component could signal a weakness in Skynet, or a deadly component that might take their lives in return for interference.

Casting a glance at the digital clock methodically counting down the few hours of the evening remaining, Sarah pulled the file box up from the carpet, and began to sweep the intelligence back into hiding for however long she could stomach relaxing without the accompanying guilt overwhelming her, and driving the woman back to sift through a thousand sheets of paper.

Amongst the ruffled single-sheets her gaze settled on a thick manuscript of a dozen pages stapled together. Conspicuous by its thickness and type face compared to the handwritten scribbles that constituted most of the intelligence at hand, Sarah placed it in her lap.

A faded monotone logo pulled at her attention and though badly copied and smudged, Sarah could identify it as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her stomach knotted in apprehension, for the mother-turned-soldier did not need John, or anyone else versed in the modern age of technology to tell her the name of MIT was synonymous with progress and discovery - label words for Skynet and the future apocalypse she sought to avoid. The Department of Computer Sciences identifier seemed to explain the reason for the document's interest to the resistance, without much more introduction.

Green eyes traversed the document as quickly as she could understand it - glossing over the names of River Tam, Caroline Young, Aluko Sonne and a number of others who were credited as a group for "A Discourse on the nature and concept of Advanced Electronic Awareness (AEA)," as the document identified itself. Sarah's lips echoed the words softly as she struggled to comprehend just what the information on these pages meant in relation to their fight, and by proxy the fight of all the Free Earth to survive.

" … The capacity of the Human Brain as a computational medium is unrivalled by anything yet created in the modern scientific world. It is the most capable and reliable evaluator of abstract information ever perceived. Where a computer can, nowadays, perform calculations well outside the Human capacity to manually achieve it operates in a strict world of binary - one and zero, black or white. While processor speeds increase and Operations Per Second (OPS) double with every passing year we simply make the answers to our calculations faster in their arrival. Our computers do not become more intelligent."

Sarah frowned, trying to discern the relevant from the waffling and scientific indulgence of a group of youngsters with a flair for science, and tedious delivery.

"… It is a widely accepted scientific consensus that the next great breakthrough in computational speeds and capability will come with the first systems that imitate the Human Brain, and its capacity to think beyond simple facts to arrive at an abstract, or unexpected conclusion. This author sees evidence of this in former and current generations of automated Chess Computers, such as the Deep Blue.

"These machines break the fundamental rule of our current computer law - that they can create new data from previously absorbed information; that their source codes are not inviolable but constantly modified and improved and that also, paradoxically for a computer, can make errors with flawless information as a side-effect of the learning process as Humans are wont to do …"

Sarah felt the very blood in her veins slow to a crawl as the discourse began to refer to events that were very probably the vital building blocks of the Machines' victory over Man. Flashes of the Turk, of Andy and his death, of her own hands as they destroyed the young man's possessions and home, shortly before his very life itself was burned to nothing tore through her consciousness. Dropping the document to the bed she pushed up to standing and massaged her forehead with both hands - it being all she could do to resist tearing the paper apart.

Her son's voice reverberated from downstairs, breaking the internal monologue. "Mom! Do you want to burn something in the oven and then order Pizza, or just skip straight to the Pizza?"

Sarah felt her tension ease slightly, a small smile playing on her face. The document would have to be read, whether it made her uncomfortable or not. Skynet did not baulk from the business of ending humanity, and so the mother of the boy who represented the future would not refuse to read a couple of sheets of paper, irrespective of how damning they might end up being.

The matter at hand now however, was forcing her son to sit through a deliberately failed cooking attempt in punishment for forgetting that irrespective of his eventual position as Supreme Allied Commander of the Free Earth Forces, he would not be allowed to talk to his mother like that.

...

...

The dining room table was the centre of a four-point star of people surrounding grease-stained, flip-top pizza boxes spread haphazardly across the stained wood; in front of each a creased paper plate and an empty glass. Filtering in from an empty Living Room the mindless chatter of the television kept a silence from descending to become uncomfortable. Sarah suppressed the urge to grimace as she took another bite of the remains of the slice on her plate, noting absent-mindedly at how quickly it went from piping-hot to nauseatingly cold.

"How's School?" She attempted nonchalantly. The raised eyebrow from her single son suggested that her attempt at idle conversation was obviously forced. Shrugging his shoulders and swigging the last of the bubbling cola from the bottle, John wiped the foam and crust crumbs from the corners of his mouth. "The usual. Hours of lectures, follow-up assessments, long-winded essays and then repeat until golden brown."

"It was very educational," Cameron added almost eagerly. "Today I learned about Venezuela."

Sarah's forehead frowned as she nodded, her eyes shifting between her single child and his "sister". "That's good to hear," She added focusing on John. "Just remember to keep up appearances. If we don't go looking for trouble, hopefully it'll take longer to come looking for us."

Glancing down at the pizza and shaking her head slightly the raven-haired woman pushed the paper plate away. "That might be easier said than done to be honest. It's been months since the Air Force Chess Tournament and Andy - The Turk's trail has gone cold and the more time that passes the more likely it is we'll never see it again."

Finishing the beer at hand and reaching for an unopened bottle Derek effortlessly removed the cap with a hiss and took a gulp. He scratched at the stubble shadowing his chin and placed the bottle down on the tabletop with a thump. "There's no reason to think it's even in the country any more. It's been months - Hell, it could be anywhere in the world by now. We've lost it."

"There's been absolutely no mention of anything like The Turk on-line," John added with a shake of his head and a frown of his own. "Shipping records, special insurance claims - If the Turk had been taken anywhere outside the U.S. or Canada there'd be some mention of it somewhere if not in name. It's still in North America. I'm sure of it.

"I've been working on a search algorithm - something for the internet. I'm only in the preliminary design stage but if it works out it'll be able to search mail and freight company records, government contractor databases, IT specialist agencies - anything that might provide a service, or produce something that would be of use to the people who have The Turk. We might not be able to find the computer itself, but we might be able to find the people who are servicing or maintaining it. It's a very sophisticated piece of equipment and it has a lot of specialised requirements."

A self-confessed woman of action, Sarah pushed the technical details and limitations to the side. "How long before you think it'll be ready to search?"

John sighed, scratching at the back of his head with the top of the empty bottle held in his hand. "Difficult to say Mom - It's something I'm doing in what spare time I have. School takes up most of the day and then I've got dozens of Hard Drives to search through manually. Throw in weapon training and the occasional day off and it's not at the top of my priorities."

"Do the best you can," She answered after a moment's hesitation. Sarah resisted the urge to press John to complete it quickly. The slightest hint of irritation in his voice served as a reminder of the pressure the young salvation of the Human Race was under. In recent weeks he had not so much accepted but adapted to resign himself to his assigned fate as the Supreme Commander of mankind's freedom and she had been loathe to pile more burdens on him. He needed a rest like everyone else at the table.

Sarah's eyes glanced over towards Cameron - almost everyone at the table, she amended. The sophisticated killing machine fashioned in the form of a striking young woman sat stiffly in the chair. Her back ramrod-straight, hands palm-down upon her thighs and eyes fixed on the pizza slice sitting upon her plate with only a single bite mark to spoil its completeness. The only glass at the table untouched and still quietly hissing with carbonated bubbles.

She waited for the Terminator to add her opinion to the mix - as she was oft to do in discussions regarding the mission or security. After several moments of silence save for the television's discount offer on a brand new GMC Pick-up Truck, Sarah took matters into her own hand. "What's your take on this?"

Cameron still did not look up from the table and it was at this point the older woman felt the familiar uneasiness rise in the deepest pit of her stomach - a twisting sense of fear regarding all things with sentience and metal. She opened her mouth to ask again when the guttural tone of Derek cut through the Terminator's daydream and brought her sharp blue eyes level with the group's. "Hey toaster - you going to contribute something, anything? Were you even listening?"

Sarah braced herself for the entire conversation to be replayed with the unnerving accuracy of each of their voices mimicked perfectly by the young woman. Instead her forehead creased to form a frown at the look of confusion in the machine's blue eyes. "I wasn't paying attention."

Sarah quickly moved in to cut off the harsh words certain to come from Reese's opening mouth. They were certain not to be helpful or useful to the debate at hand. "John wants to design a search algorithm for the internet that might track down The Turk based on the type of service and equipment its owners might use or contract in."

Cameron nodded "Thank you for explaining." She turned towards the future leader of the Free Earth and offered the slightest smile which Sarah reconciled with the twisting of her stomach - so perfect, so genuine and warm; so surely replicated and mimicked. Software and programming, not real feeling. "I think it's a good idea, John."

Blue eyes switched their gaze to the mother of the saviour - the smile instantly dissolving into the blank, doll-like expression that had become the virtual trademark of the entire line of Human-mimicking Terminators. "I would like to do something too."

Derek scoffed and gulped down the remains of the beer in the brown glass bottle. "How about you start on stripping down the rifles? I've been asking you to calibrate the sniper scope for weeks now. You're supposed to be our resident authority on killing and you've hardly picked up a weapon in days."

The Terminator showed no signs of acknowledging Reece. "The Parents and Pupils Association are holding auditions for this year's musical production. I would like to try out."

Although Sarah's mouth opened slightly in shock, her conscious mind saw the myriad reactions around the dinning table and the dichotomy of their fragile alliance. Almost immediately Derek had thrown the empty bottle to the floor to shatter loudly - rising to his feet quickly and jabbing a finger angrily in the direction of Cameron. Her son, John, his face painted with surprise quickly cocked his head to the side and allowed the briefest smirk to shine through. Tearing a section of crust from the remains of his slice he chewed on the pizza and reclined in his chair.

"Don't be ridiculous!" Derek spat. "You're a mechanical assassin designed from the bolts upwards for murder and espionage … Why am I even trying to explain? You're a Terminator. A toaster. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard and I've travelled through time!"

"I don't see the problem," John replied with total opposition to Reese in tone and idea. "Mom, you're always banging on about being normal well this is a perfect chance to show just that. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but our lack of participation in anything extra-curricular, your failure to show at a single Parent-Teacher meeting and our total isolation from friends or neighbours is going to become an issue soon.

"It's a small-time musical for old ladies and over-bearing parents who want their children to become stars. It's months away anyway. Something tells me Cromartie isn't scouring the local theatres and productions in case we're hiding away in a production of Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat."

"John!" Derek almost shouted, with as close to a look of horror as a man as war-weary and jaded as the former/current Commanding Officer of the Free Earth Forces could show. "You can't be serious! She was trying to murder you practically yesterday and now you want to entertain her dream simulations of Broadway? This is madness! Sarah - tell me you're not going to go along with this robot's charade?"

Sarah wasn't sure what to think. So many issues, questions and thoughts fought inside her mind for dominance. She would be a liar if she'd pretended her initial reaction wasn't virtually the same as Derek's - The very idea of a Terminator indulging in what could only be described as a hobby that didn't involve murder, or deception seemed as alien as the concept that sentient machines from the future might one day travel back to the past, to threaten the future of Humanity.

And yet that was unequivocal fact.

Still, John's words rang true. In an effort to make their family seem as humdrum and boring as possible she had gone too far to one extreme. Instead of appearing painfully Middle-American, the Connors appeared introverts, hermit-like and venturing out of their "cave" only when absolutely forced. Cameron was a deadly expert of combat and capable of surviving injuries and incidents that would leave a person broken in half, so she was more than capable of looking after herself. A small part of her was thankful it was not John asking for the same permission.

It suddenly dawned on Sarah that the motives for the request might be far simpler, and more mechanical in nature. Perhaps a suspicion of a sleeper agent in the school, or the young woman positioning herself so as to better aid the success of their operation. Sarah fixed her gaze on the deceptively fragile face opposite. "Why?"

Cameron's blue eyes fixed on their opposite number and seemed as real and clear to Sarah as any other pair born from a womb, and not grafted from vats of bubbling amino acids and machinery that frequently haunted her restless sleep. She suppressed the shiver that threatened to run from the top of her spine to the very soles of her feet, at the thought of just how Skynet might appropriate something as integral to a person as their eyes for its endless production line of automated murderers.

One of which wanted permission - apparently her permission - to audition for a play. Learning of the apocalypse which threatened the very survival of the Human Race all those years ago, was not the biggest surprise to yet fall upon her lap.

"I would like to dance," The lithe young woman replied as if that alone constituted the entirety of her argument. Cameron did not break her glance towards the matriarch of the Connor family, even as Derek threatened to destroy the kitchen by way of the enormous pressure differential building within his skull. Flesh tinged bright red with a scarlet fury, he took hold of the chair in front and sent it crashing to the tiled floor - throwing his hands upwards in exasperation.

"She wants to dance!" He exclaimed loudly but not with the same disbelieving look that had crossed John and Sarah's face for he alone had seen the Terminator dance before. When only the rustling garden hedge and the crickets chirping outside had disturbed the total silence of the house, in the early hours of the morning Derek had cast his watchful eye through the slightest crack between Cameron's room's door and its frame to see the artificial assassin in a breathtaking display of poise and elegance.

Impossibly balanced on a single foot and stretched outwards more resembling a ribbon billowing in a headwind than a person. The soothing strings of a half-dozen violins and their accompanying sections of the classical music drifting gently around her from the dresser setting a backdrop that Derek had not seen since before the bombs, and the machines, and the tanks and the death camps and the despair.

He had not seen such dancing since before the end of the world.

For a moment he was a slave to the sight - unable to move or think but rooted to the spot in fond remembrance for a certain woman - a young girl - who had moved with similar grace and beauty and who had captured a teenage Derek's heart so many years ago. The name still passed his lips in the few dreams that did not force him to awake with a cry on his lips and the sweat-soaked bed sheets of blind panic. Miranda - her name had been Miranda.

Then it had struck him like a hail of bullets in the chest, to tear apart his heart and spill his blood to the ashen floor. Miranda had died in the first wave of nuclear Armageddon that Skynet unleashed on the world. She was spared much of the suffering of others as her home, her street, her suburb and the entire city of Santa Fe was consumed by a multi-megaton fireball. Roasting flesh from the bone and tearing concrete from steel in a blinding flash, as the very air itself was set aflame.

It had struck him like a hail of bullets, as he watched Cameron recreate the scenes he had originally witnessed - snatched through furtive glances, through the streaky window pane of the heavy door to the dance studio of a school that had been vaporised before he had been given the chance to graduate. Derek had come to realise that for all he had done - to help Sarah, and John and the future of Mankind that it none of it might have made the slightest difference.

For all the tormented man knew, a young Derek Reese would still grow only a few more years before an impromptu game of catch with his older brother would be interrupted, by the appearance of a mushroom cloud billowing over the horizon. The capital city of New Mexico wiped from the face of the Earth. For all the war-weary veteran knew his childhood sweetheart, Miranda, would still be reduced to her constituent atoms and scattered on a radioactive wind. He could not stand the mockery.

Sarah felt the tension and fury radiating from the brother of her long-lost love as an almost palpable heat, which threatened to burn each of them. If the truth was known, then she was almost grateful that the chief voice of opposition had come from Derek and not herself - his reaction allowed her to push thoughts of the scientific paper regarding artificial intelligence she had begun to read, and now desperately wanted to continue, to the back of her mind. She absolutely refused her subconscious' attempt to hold Cameron as the evidence to the research paper's valid points.

"I agree with John," Sarah said finally, as the casting voter without election hoping her voice sounded convinced enough even if she was not. "The enemy is still out there, not around this table. Anything that might keep us in the mainstream - keep us as uninteresting as middle-America is useful …"

,

Her last few words trailed off slightly, as she watched Derek turn and storm from the kitchen without bothering to explain. The loud slam of the front door being virtually torn from its hinges made it clear that the discussion was over.

"The auditions are tomorrow," Cameron added as if she had been deactivated for the entirety of the war of words and noticed nothing peculiar, or confrontational. "I need a parental signature. Will you take me to the auditions?"

"Sure," Sarah offered absent-mindedly, as she collected the plates from the table and unceremoniously tipped them into the sink. Brushing a raven lock back behind her ear, the older woman leaned over the counter and granted herself the luxury of a long, drawn-out sigh. Although she had never doubted the resistance they offered against the machines and never accepted the possibility of their defeat, moments like these caused her to wonder whether Skynet really had such a hard time in exterminating all who opposed it.

...

...

The Moon played with the shadows cast through the narrow gaps in the curtains of the various rooms of the house, throwing her pale light long and sometimes wide so that abstract shapes stretched out far. The slightest hum of the refrigerator provided the lowest bass notes of a soundtrack to the night, supplemented by the rhythmic ticking of the clocks of the hallway and living room, out of step with each other by the slightest moment.

They produced a staggered beat that would otherwise go unnoticed by the slumbering mother and son on the floor above.

A single pale hand swept out from the darkness of the corner of the hallway, where the Moon's light could not reach and snatched the small timepiece from its tabletop. Running a finger upon the polished oak casing of the clock, Cameron brought it up to the side of her head and listened to the endless ticking. Moments stretched to minutes and fully twenty five of them elapsed with the clock to her ear, before the Terminator lowered her hand and carefully opened the small access door.

The multitude of intricate brass cogwheels and silver discs revealed ranged from the small to the tiny. Cameron cocked her head slightly - allowing herself to appreciate the unity that each of the small components achieved as a single function. Each of the spinning wheels and springs were insignificant when removed from the machinery of the clock - they would easily be lost, or broken or forgotten.

Likewise any one of the insignificant parts removed would bring the entire system to a halt, and make every other component not just insignificant but useless.

As a creation of other machines, Cameron had more in common with the clock she held in her hand than the man who had reprogrammed her in the future - now sleeping soundly upstairs as a boy, decades before their first ever meeting should have occurred, or the mother of that boy. Sarah was the mother of John - Was this clock in some way a distant relative?

She did not have enough data, or experience, to know the answer and focused on the task at hand. Identifying a small silver spring, coiled too tightly around an axle that was no longer than the fingernail of her forefinger, Cameron reached in without even stopping the clock itself. Displaying a deftness disturbingly unnatural at avoiding the running components, she carefully loosened the spring until her auditory processor confirmed the smaller clock was now running in perfect unison with the larger.

Satisfied with her repair, she poised to pull her hand out from the innards of the clock. Cameron found that her thumb and forefinger would not move and remained pressed together, around the whirring cogwheels and spinning discs. Cocking her head to the side in confusion, the compact Terminator concentrated on the simple task but found that even with conscious effort, she could not separate her fingers and could not pull her hand free without disembowelling the timepiece and destroying it utterly.

Her dilemma was not long in being solved as her forefinger, thumb as well as each remaining finger spread outwards and arched in an irresistible spasm which overcame the toughness of the oak, tearing the brass and silver from each other. The pieces fell to the carpet with a pitter-patter, not unlike raindrops from a leaking gutter. The clock face itself fell forward, shattering on the hard floor in a scattering of jagged glass and screws. The frame of the body, minus the front and back, was left hanging on her wrist like an oversized bracelet.

As suddenly as the loss of control had been, Cameron felt her fingers form a fist at her prompting and then relaxing. Bringing the palm up for inspection, she ignored the multiple cuts from the glass fragments and examined the fundamental components of the limb, in electromagnetic frequencies beyond any mere Human eye's ability to see. Her brow furrowed as no immediate problem or obvious malfunction appeared and indeed, there seemed no difference between the phantom hand and its opposite number on any level.

Glancing down at the debris Cameron decided on a firm course of action. She would need to clean the floor - John always dressed before breakfast, but Sarah often went immediately to the kitchen barefoot after she woke and could be injured.

That was unacceptable.

...

...

Sarah opened a single eye hesitantly as she stirred from another troubled, restless but nonetheless precious few hours of sleep. She felt strands of her fair fixed to her features by the sheen of sweat - generated by terrifying dreams she confided to no one, irritate and tickle her forehead.

Pulling a hand from under the pillow to scratch at the damp skin, she was not even slightly surprised when the cold metal of a gun barrel, not the sharp edge of her fingernail relieved the itch. Opening her eyes fully despite the sting of her tiredness, she brought the chipped, scratched weapon down to rest on the mattress and absent-mindedly set the safety on.

Throwing the thick duvet back, Sarah swung her legs over the edge of the bed and took as a deep a breath as her lungs would hold, before exhaling loudly. Glancing at the bedside radio-come-clock and noting the unhelpful quadruple zero flashing endlessly on its LED screen, she climbed to her feet and snatched the dark blue dressing gown from the single hook on the back of the open door.

She preferred to sleep with it open.

Pulling the satin tie loosely around her waist, Sarah ran a hand through her sleep-tussled hair and made her way downstairs. Pausing in the hallway, she glanced at the tabletop clock - or where it had stood ever since they had made this house their "home" - but saw the antique timepiece nowhere. She shrugged her shoulders, deftly avoiding the damp bathroom towel dumped in the doorway of the kitchen.

Rolling her eyes and snatching it from the floor, she was able to tell instantly that it was later than eight in the morning - a glance at the bread crusts, butter smears and the refrigerator's vegetable drawer covering the kitchen counters the second clear sign John had already been and gone.

Even after all that had happened - With Kyle, with the original T-101 first sent to kill and then sent to protect her and with the postponement but not the avoidance of Judgement Day. With time travel and the threat of cancer, not to mention their killer-turned-bodyguard-turned-budding actress - there would still be rare moments like this scene of domestic mess. Scenes which reminded Sarah that while John was destined to lead the Free Earth Forces, and battle for all their survival as Commander-in-Chief of Mankind, for now he was still her son, and her baby.

Pulling the last two slices of bread from the crumpled bag on the counter - heels, no less - and rescuing the very last tomato languishing on its own, in the vegetable drawer dumped on the tabletop, she set about salvaging a sandwich from the mess.

The pale, partially translucent flesh of the wrist offered little resistance to the bare razor blade, as it drew a deep line precisely down from under the palm to the midway point between the hand and the crook of the elbow. Following in a wake in the same way a ship's propeller might disturb and tear at the water it cut through, a thin trickle of red quickly doubled to spill over the sides of the cut and form droplets of blood, which slid across, and down the arm to draw an uneven, bizarre grid.

Cameron plucked the narrow screwdriver from the pitted, oily workbench with her free hand without pausing to glance at the weeping self-inflicted wound. She set about pulling and spreading the two large flaps of flesh, which acted as grotesque double-doors to the internal machinery of the hand. Obscured by very real snaking veins and soft tissue, very real metal nonetheless glinted under the light of the tilted desk lamp. As if to highlight the entire point of the exercise, her hand flexed and curled in involuntary spasm.

Five large actuator cylinders were arranged in a concentric ring around the arm's main endoskeleton - one for each finger and the thumb - and were joined by an array of servos, coordinator units, coolant pumps, power shunts and a dozen devices far more advanced than the most cutting-edge equivalents of the day.

Placing the bloodied screwdriver back on the bench she selected a narrow, crook-ended implement terminating in a sharp point. Part of a set of dental tools she had taken from the surgery of the Doctor they had met briefly, under the illusion he had been responsible for the robbery of the house and whose car door she had removed from the rest of the body with a single limb, using this hand no less.

She held the tool in the air, as she reviewed the information required to diagnose and if necessary repair each of the actuators in turn. Her brow furrowed as she found no return on the information. Blue eyes narrowed in concentration as Cameron delved into the huge amount of data which constituted her equivalent of the Human memory, which operated at speeds far beyond even the most intelligent men and women who had ever lived.

Receiving the same blank response she hesitated. Bringing the tool closer, so that it hovered only a few centimetres from the endoskeleton but found that she could not recall how to proceed.

She pushed the top of the tool into the first actuator without any of the grace or ease at which she had manipulated the clock, the night before this morning. A loud whirring sound filled the dusty garage as her index finger flinched violently backwards to press against her palm. She twisted the tool to the left roughly, watching the actuator responsible for controlling the finger begin to vibrate - the sensors within the endoskeleton transmitting the intense vibrations as considerable pain. Pulling the dental instrument free and letting it drop to the desk, Cameron felt the pain subside and watched her hand return to rest.

Flexing the fingers several times, the lithe Terminator folded the flaps of flesh back together and retrieved a staple gun from beside the tools she had collected for the task at hand. With brutal speed and effectiveness Cameron delivered six staples to close the wound roughly and pulled on a purple fingerless glove long enough to reach her elbow and cover the entry site.

Unable to explain the lapse, she was almost thankful for the reminder of her internal chronometer that she would need to leave in the next four minutes and forty-nine seconds to reach her Audition, at the designated time of zero-nine-forty-five.

Turning the desk lamp off the young woman exited the stuffy, dusty garage to find Sarah and left the droplets of blood upon the stained bench and the red-tipped dental tools, as a silent testament to the ultimate in Do-It-Yourself field medicine and field engineering.

...

...

Derek could feel the heat of the explosion warm the flesh of his face, even as he felt himself propelled from the soft mud of the ground and into the air itself. The brown of the crater-marked battlefield and the grey of the never-ending storms in the sky alternated, as he felt his body tumble several times over before crashing back to earth under the universal law of gravity. Pulling his face from the freezing mud long enough to clear his lungs with a rapid series of wheezing coughs, the young man flopped onto his back and blinked the dizziness away.

"That's the first time I've ever seen someone spot a landmine and set it off at the same time!" A gnarled voice mocked as a shadow loomed over him. Feeling a powerful hand clamp on his wrist and haul him to standing, the stunned young corporal feared momentarily that his gaze would soon be matched by the soulless, red glare of one of a thousand of Skynet's metal agents of the Armageddon.

"Drink this," Razak grunted as he thrust a dented, pockmarked canteen into the younger man's chest. "Whole area's littered with proximity sensor mines from the Defence of New Santa Fe. Damn things are getting a little unstable in their old age, still have more than enough to blow your legs halfway to Skynet and back."

Derek nodded dumbly, his senses slowly returning as he swigged from the bottle and almost retched. An intense burning sensation raced from his tongue to his teeth, tonsils and down to his stomach. Resisting the urge to gag the youngster found the fortitude to swallow and the aloofness not to clench his jaw at the fire in his belly. He quickly handed the canteen back to the Captain who winked and took a thirsty gulp without so much as a twitch in reaction.

"They still send you rookies out with distilled water, huh?" The veteran asked rhetorically with a grin. "I hear they get that from the cooling towers at the nuke plant …"

Screwing the top on the dented container and pushing it back into his pack, the Captain flipped the small sunshade-visor mounted along the top of his faceplate down, giving the ageing range finder and tactical display a few moments longer than it should really take to activate. Dark brown eyes narrowed as the device scanned the rolling crater-topped, mud-slick hills, which stretched out before them.

Short shining bars entered on three sides of the display to form triangles, identifying threats in the form of roving Hunter-Killers marshalling the skies above and the colossal bodies of Centurion Tanks, crunching through the rubble-strewn ruins of Human civilisation in the valleys below.

"Another glorious day in the Free Earth Forces!" Razak concluded with an enthusiastic nod at the dangers that lay between them and Serenity Point. "Ready to save the day son?"

Derek coughed before replying, to make sure his voice had recovered from the alcohol or jet fuel-based pick-me-up and nodded.

Testing the capacity of his pulse rifle's magazine Razak climbed to his feet and darted out from the outcrop of rock. "On the bounce Reese!"

There was very little remaining of the town of some twenty seven thousand people, that had once straddled the line between Espanosa and Serenity Counties in southern New Mexico. Sufficiently backwater and Middle America to avoid annihilation in Skynet's initial strike against its creators and masters, it had the dubious good fortune to have its people slaughtered and its streets and homes smashed and burned by more conventional means of warfare. It had been here that the first of the Terminator armies had converged; T-2 and T-3 automated protectors-turned-killers, that had once formed part of the United States Army Automated Combat Forces Santa Fe.

It had been here that the New Mexico National Guard met them in battle, in only the loosest possible definition of the word - armed with nothing boasting more stopping power than rifles and civil control equipment, against machines designed from their very blueprints and from the very dreams of their creators now turned to nightmares, to be the most deadly combat force imaginable.

The town had burned and died in a single afternoon.

Two figures barely visible in the dull urban grey scale and daubed green colour schemes of their armour's camouflage, darted between the twisted ruin of what had once been a bustling, burgeoning place to live. Rounding the crumbling brick and mortar of what had once been the corner of the community's Presbyterian Church; Derek threw himself flat up against the charred wall and glanced upwards, at the cross still perched precariously on the remains of the steeple. Crooked, cracked but nonetheless standing.

Catching the source of the younger man's gaze Razak shook his head. "I suppose we have our answer as to whether he hears your prayers."

Derek opened his mouth to reply when the slightest thump of a foot against the rubble of the devastation surrounding caused his head to snap around, as if able to see through the brick and mortar. Gesturing with a hand, and feeling this palms grow sweaty as they gripped his rifle tightly, the corporal took a handful of careful steps forward - his forefinger curling inside the trigger guard and poised to unleash as much electromagnetic death as the burst limiter of the weapon would allow, the moment the glint of metal caught his eye.

Almost out of sight Razak ducked under the low wall and took up an identical position, so that both were ready to strike through the ruined semicircle which saw the four feet high wall bottom out to the ground, before rising again and provided an excellent kill zone as well as a position for cover. Mouthing the worlds silently, the Captain counted down from three.

Both rifle muzzles swung out in unison at the end of the short count, as if wielded by one person though two sets of eyes scanned for their target. There was no skulking machine monster to be found however - no glinting endoskeleton bearing a grotesque grin of teeth in a metallic jaw under burning red eyes. Instead of a glare that reflected the soulless nature of the machine construct, tiny orbs of blue regarded Derek and Razak with terror and fear.

Reese lowered his rifle in disbelief as he focused on the tiny form of a young girl, stood atop a mound of broken masonry and concrete as if a bizarre work of pre-war art on the subject of suffering. Barely three feet in height her skin was a pasty white where it was not hidden by the dirty, torn rags, which passed as clothing and the weeping, scarred welts which pockmarked her translucent flesh. A scraggly mess of blonde hair framed a face smudged with dirt, filth and fear.

Razak was slower to lower his rifle as if he had only just decided that the tiny child could not be a new and even more insidious infiltrator of Humanity - after all, what could be more innocent than the sight that met his aged eyes? What would be a more trusting form than this? Dropping the muzzle of his weapon, the Captain passed a silent curse at the capacity of the Machines to sow confusion, manipulation and throw the most core fundamentals of a person out the window.

Handing off his weapon to the corporal Razak climbed over the embankment and stooped down to his knees in front of the little girl - pulling off his helmet and setting it down on the blasted soil. "School got out fifteen years ago, Missy. Where are you supposed to be?"

The girl did not open her mouth to speak but instead extended a tiny arm out and pointed towards the three remaining walls, of what had once been a smaller building in the larger Church compound. The Captain's face set grimly as he spied the twisting, snaking scars and welts, which spiralled around the pointing arm, and the filth which when added left little exposed unblemished flesh.

Both men followed their new-found charge through a narrow section of collapsed corridor, supported only by the few rusting steel beams, which had not yet been bent or sheared in two by the weight of the lopsided concrete walls bearing down on them. Derek's nostrils flared as the pungent odour of rusting metal mingled with the after-taste of sulphur and carbon in the air. Somewhat distracted he did not realise that Razak had stopped until several feet in front of the veteran. Even as he glanced to see the girl still ahead, did a new and stomach-churning aroma waft to his senses.

The stench of death.

His eyes reluctantly followed his nose and fixed on two bodies - or the bloated remains of such lying up against the remains of a ceiling support and badly decomposed. Derek was able to tell one was male, the other female but precious few other details given the rotting that had set in. Shouldering his rifle he watched the young girl gingerly step through the congealed mess which surrounded the pair, standing between them so that his attention was drawn to the fact that both of the bodies seemed to be holding hands.

"What do you think, rookie?" Razak asked after a while.

"He's armed," Reese replied with a gesture. "Old hunting rifle - one shot per load; useless against the metal. I'm not a doctor but these two have been here for a while and they've got what look like bullet holes in their chests. Not a lot - probably not enough to kill them where the stood."

The Captain nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. "Not a lot of folk left in the Badlands nowadays. They've all either found their way underground to us, or they've found their way across the Styx and into the Underworld. Girl won't be long behind I'm sad to say."

Catching the sudden shock and inquisition on the younger man's face, Razak offered Derek only the slightest shrug. "She's got burns all over her body - if there's more a classic example of radiation poisoning then I haven't seen it. Probably Tac-Nukes - limited yield portable weapons - used for "precision" destruction on a small to medium scale. Not too long ago."

"Serenity Bunker is the Medevac point for the whole sector - they've got triage facilities, even a surgical bay. They might be able to do something for her sir; we can't leave her like this."

Razak nodded, removing his side arm from its thigh-mounted holster and clicking the safety off. "I have no intention of leaving her like this, corporal."

Derek was across the short distance between them in a moment, positioning himself to stand between the girl who had not yet moved a muscle but continued to stare at the two men. His superior and saviour who had apparently chosen now to lose his mind completely, "You can't be serious … Sir! She's just a girl! She's just a girl!"

Without warning Razak's gauntleted fist lashed out to take a hold of Reese by the top of his chest armour plating, bringing the young man forwards off the blasted soil to come face-to-face. The corporal struggled, but with his entire bodyweight being limply held by the straps of his armour, he was powerless to resist.

"Look at the facts rookie," The Captain began with a hiss. "We're only two men moving through territory crawling with the enemy on the land and in the sky. We're putting foot to ass to get to Serenity Point in time, to ensure our mission is evacuation and not a fighting withdrawal. That complex has the only Orthopaedic Surgeon and his specialist team this side of the ruins of Santa Fe, as well as an Aladdin's Cave of drugs and medical supplies, which will take time to get to safety.

"You know as well as I do that this little girl is waiting for the ferryman across the black river. Even if she stood a chance with the right treatment, she'd slow us down and only make sure that we've got a third pair of eyes to see SP burn under a metal wave, whenever we eventually arrived. This is war, Son - I don't like it and I know you don't like it but here's the truth - we don't need to like it. If we take her with us we're signing the death warrants of thirty people at least and hundreds more, with the loss of the skills of the people in that bunker."

Razak dropped Derek to the ground and took a step back. "I'm not asking you to do this rookie. I'm not even asking you to accept it needs to be done. I just need you to accept that there's nothing you can do to change it.

"I had three little girls before the war," The Captain added almost as an afterthought. He did not further explain, but Reese could feel the angry fists of his temper hammering against the walls of inevitability regarding their situation. He had seen victims of radiation poisoning before and it was true enough that this little girl seemed doomed at the cellular level; Slowly being undone by an invisible killer, possibly deployed years before she had even been born.

They could not simply leave her here to continue to wait by the corpses of what were presumably her parents. That would be no better than the metal monsters who had taken them from her in the first place, and presumably deployed the weapons that had sealed her fate. With a long drawn-out sigh, he could almost taste the bitter irony that the machines were immensely talented in forcing Mankind to continually strip itself of the only difference between them - the capacity to feel, not simulate.

Slowly drawing his own side arm from its holster Derek shook his head and held the weapon behind his back. Crossing over towards the little girl, he stooped over on bent knees and brushed some of the grimy hair from her dirty features. "Do you have any toys you like to play with?"

The little girl nodded, again pointing a scarred hand towards the way.

"Why don't you show me your toys?" Derek asked as soothingly as the turmoil and emotion swirling within him would allow. As the youngster nodded and toddled off around an outcrop of smashed masonry, the corporal directed a glance back at his Captain and offered the slightest shrug of his shoulders.

"You had three little girls," Derek said simply with a nod.

As he rounded one of the dozen ruined walls which once divided the Church compound, he considered the pointlessness of it all - of everything they were fighting for. He battled alongside hundreds of thousands throughout the post-apocalyptic world for the survival of the species and yet so routinely, they actively participated in the deaths of not only their own, but children - the epitome of the future and the hope of Mankind.

His rational mind repeated Razak's mantra. That when Skynet was vanquished and Humanity emerged from its hardened shelters and sewer-cities, to rebuild a new world and a new era of peace, then all this will have been worthwhile but now, during the battle for the chance to build that new world, there could be no compassion for those less fortunate save the compassion to end their misery. There could be no hesitation in dedicating all resources to the fight for survival - if it were lost, then nobody would live to remember those sacrificed to restore all that had been lost.

Derek felt the hot sting of tears irritating the skin on his features, as he watched the little girl pluck the remains of a stuffed animal from cracked faded-blue plastic box hidden amidst the rubble. Missing its left paw and right leg, the Teddy Bear was in a sorry condition of filth and decay. Its fur long stained grey by the dust and choking debris that marked this ruin as a child's playground and home, it stared out at the remains of the post-nuclear horror with a single remaining button-eye.

As if somehow aware of what was to come to pass the little girl kept her back presented to Derek - dunking the head of the Teddy Bear into a stagnant pool of dusty water and rubbing the fur with a silver brush - minus its bristles - also taken from this simple blue box that seemed to hold the last shattered remnants of innocence; of fun and play and the only way to forget the horror and death that surrounded.

Raising the barrel of his side arm Reese steadied an aim that struggled to rely on eyes half-blinded by the tears which ran freely down his cheeks. His reddening eyes glanced at the reflection of the water which had now stilled in the puddle aside the little girl, catching the distorted image of what seemed a small smile on her lips. Taking a deep breath Derek's forefinger snaked behind the trigger guard and squeezed.

Razak glanced up from his position sitting upon the edge of a ruined wall, as the young corporal reappeared with the little girl scooped up in his arms and for the briefest moment - for the slightest second before reality took hold of the Captain and demanded he accept the illusion as just that - he was able to pretend she was sleeping. Standing silently Razak watched Reese place her between the remains of her parents, face cradled in so it tucked under her mother's arm.

Feeling a reassuring hand on his shoulder, Derek stood up and brought his pulse rifle back to bare from his shoulder.

Maybe one day they would meet again when he took his own trip across the Styx.

...

...

Derek pulled himself forward with the aid of the steering wheel and twisted his head from left to right, as he tried to alleviate the cramp in his neck and shoulder. Stifling a yawn and running a hand through sleep-tussled hair, he blinked back the sting of the sunshine glaring through the windscreen. Glancing at his watch he collapsed back into the seat and sighed.

It had not taken long to remember the events of the previous night and almost as quickly as if it had happened a moment ago, the same anger began to boil in his veins. In terms of the street light-lit flashback he had dreamed, while the nocturnal world turned outside the entire situation seemed a farce - a joke that only Derek thought in poor taste. He had spent a decade fighting for the survival of Mankind and those long years he had seen comrades killed, and he had seen those that deserved to live put to death, by machines and by men like him.

He had taken their future from the future of Humanity, all in the name of survival, of winning the war against Skynet so men like him could retire to oblivion and death and leave a new peace for the next generation. When he had agreed to return to the past - before the death and chaos - it was not to watch those that should best understand what was at stake, Sarah and John, tolerate and encourage one of Skynet's finest constructs in its mockery of everything he had fought and sacrificed for.

Derek had been captured by the machines in the past and now the future, and been made to pay a heavy price for it. Unspeakable torture of the body and mind - terrible medicines and equipment designed to make him scream in agony and cry in desperation, for release or relief so that he would slip and give away a single piece of information that would better help the extinction effort. Despite how close he came in his darkest moments to breaking, to telling the unflinching red eyes in a black room anything they wanted to know, he had been rescued in the same way he had been captured.

Beaten, bleeding but defiant.

There had been others that had broken - some quickly others after torture lasting months, or even years but the fact remained that the soldiers and even civilians who made up the Free Earth Forces, knew precisely what was at stake should even a single piece of intelligence be gleaned by the machines to something they did not understand or know. Each understood the importance of resistance even if they could not offer it for long.

The machines had no concept of it - they obeyed their programming and if that programming was modified they would implement their new instructions immediately, without considering the ramifications. Nothing epitomised that more than the metal pretender that went by the name of Cameron Philips.

Every child born was a blank slate - without a purpose or a function and free to ultimately pursue anything - for good or for bad - in their future. As adults they were capable of analysing the evidence and then disregarding them and pursuing an illogical course of action, against what they knew to be the truth, or the bare facts. Even if a person spent the majority of their entire life living in a particular way, with a particular outlook to the point where they felt obligated to act in the same way they could rebel against the status quo and change anything and everything.

Cameron was the antithesis to this Human ideal. Constructed for the single purpose of bringing death in a more efficient, more devastating manner by dressing murder in the skin of an innocent. Equipped with the most sophisticated tools necessary to gain trust and then use it, to end the trustee. Everything that motivated the Terminator had been in the pursuit of the destruction of Mankind.

Enter the Supreme Commander of the Free Earth Forces of some twenty years from now - John Connor - and this agent of the Skynet Apocalypse was a dedicated member of the Resistance with the flick of a switch and the flushing of a memory chip. With the alteration of a handful of ones and zeroes Cameron was converted from Enemy to Friend, the perfect example of Man's folly in his creativity to the ultimate proof of his adaptability - No interrogation, no torture, no intervention.

No starvation, no cell and no abuse. With a screwdriver and a hammer she was instantly a fresh member of the armies of Man.

As if being expected - and ordered - to accept this Wolf's return to the flock was not galling enough Derek now watched the deceptively fragile-looking Cybernetic Girl indulge in dancing and reading and gardening. What was a bitter pill to swallow had grown to choke his throat and bring him to his knees for breath. How could John - His John Connor of the future, of the Commander of all fates - not see what he was doing in placing his faith in a machine over his own men?

How could the John of this day not be persuaded? Derek's pleadings had fallen on deaf young ears. Even Sarah who stood as the only other person aside Reese to experience the first-hand horrors of their kind, had turned away from his hard line.

He scratched at the stubble about his face, and grunted with irritation and despair. They had already seen the foolishness in trying to defeat machine with machine. They had already seen the result of one man trying to best Skynet itself, in the realm of programming - when the alterations made to Cameron's programming by the future John Connor were undone and the Terminator returned to her core directive - her undeniable reason to be and sole purpose for existence.

As if a pyramid of examples of the reasons why Cameron would prove their undoing, built but visible only to Derek the tolerance and encouragement of those that should know better were, for him, impossible to comprehend. When the girl's rampage had been brought to a halt, with no less than two roaring trucks pinning her in place and when her chip had been levered from her metal skull and the threat finally dealt with, John had proceeded just like his alter-ego of the future to trust his heart, not his eyes or his common sense and restored Cameron to life.

Where he would expect Sarah to step in and remind, if not force her son to realise just how much of his soul he was committing to a machine that had moments earlier set out to kill him, instead she offered a token protest.

Derek banged his fist against the dashboard, struggling to understand. Was it him instead? Along the way had he become a relic? A dinosaur of a war that not even yet begun but was already over in the conventional sense? Perhaps everything he had done was for nothing. All the pain and suffering, all the fighting and all the killing - of those that deserved to die by his hand and those that did not - were irrelevant.

Derek knew he could not accept that. The veteran had seen too much - done too much - to go back now. Too much blood and screaming; too much weeping and dying. The cycle of Man to Machine to Man, or Woman, would end. He could not fight this war again.

He could not do this all again.

A high pitched squeak of laughter pulled his gaze through the window and to the short boy in bright orange shorts and jumper, wheeling and ducking in the long grass of his front garden with a joyful giggle and a broad smile on his lips. For the briefest moment their gazes met, before the boy's attention was seized by a deflated football propped up against a rock. Having no understanding of sentient machines, or Armageddon, or the fact that the man parked aside their garden was he himself from decades in the future, the young Derek Reese resumed his search for fun.