*This was originally meant to be episode three of my series, but one and two were so herrendous and uncreative, that this one is episode one.*

Episode 101 - Kaplan Hill

"When I was a child, my mother had always told me stories, various fairy tales, most of them being from the Spanish speaking countries we trained in. There were various stories of ogres, and men changed into creatures... Though, I didn't like any of those nearly as much as I liked it when she read The Wizard of Oz to me in Spanish. That was always my favorite. Now that she's gone, I'll never hear it again, but that won't stop me from fighting, because it's what she taught me. To live and be strong, to keep fighting..."

Cameron walked in from the bathroom to see John sitting on the hotel bed, reading a journal, "What's that?"

John looked up and nearly jumped when he saw that Cameron was only in her bra and panties, "A journal my mother left for me... And why aren't you dressed? We need to get to Kaplan Hill."

"Do we?"

"Yeah, Cameron, we do... You know, we never talked much about how I went after you into the future, how determined I was to get you back."

"That was a while ago, John. Why do you want to talk about it now?" She sat down beside him and didn't move when he took her hand.

"I don't know... John Henry took your chip and ran away with it. It wasn't until I saw Allison Young, thinking she was you, that I realized what my true feelings for you were... I focused more on her than seeing my own father for the first time."

"John Henry..."

"What?"

She looked at him and smiled shyly, "John Henry... Perhaps we could go to him for some intel, on Kaplan Hill."

"Weaver still owes us one."

"Yes, she owes us one."

"Well," They both stood up simultaneously, "You should get dressed, then. We need to move."

Ten minutes later, they were on the road, Cameron staring out her window while John's eyes scanned the road ahead of him. Cameron turned toward John, "Do you ever ask yourself why Derek didn't come back with you after you told him everything?"

"Sometimes, why?"

"It just seems unusual."

"Maybe he just didn't want to leave his brother, you know?"

"It's a human thing, then?"

"Yeah, I suppose you could say that..." John turned the truck left and pulled into the parking garage at Zeira Corp. The two of them got out and walked in the front door, with John going to talk to the receptionist, "I need to see Cather--"

"John, hey." John was cut off by the sudden appearence of James Ellison, "You need to see John Henry, don't you?"

"Yeah. I need some intel for infiltration into Kaplan Hill. Ever heard of it?"

"It's a military base, deep within a nearby mountain, isn't it?"

"Cameron seems to think they've experimented with John Henry's 'brother' and that they may have even developed him to his current level and released him." Ellison nodded and John motioned for Cameron to follow as they all three got into the elevator.

Ellison looked at Cameron, "I think you're right."

"It's a logical conclusion. They have the resources."

"Certainly..." John just stared at the numbers as they flashed down to basement level, "John, are you okay?"

"Huh? Yeah. I'm just thinking... Bad memories."

A few minutes later, the elevator opened up to the basement level and the three walked into the room where John Henry was. The all to familiar face of George Lazlo smiled at the trio, "Hello, how are you three doing today?"

John's face was stone, "Cut the crap, John Henry, you know we've come for information."

"Yes. Kaplan Hill." Some pictures appeared on his projector screens, "There is little to no information on it. Their archived files are heavily encrypted, and any outside source is deleted soon after its creation or doesn't have enough information."

"So, there's nothing, then?"

"No, I didn't say that. I'm attempting to hack their files, and all of their encryptions codes have 'Cyberdyne, Miles Dyson' attached in the tags."

"Cyberdyne, Miles Dyson? Just like your brother, just like Skynet?"

"Yes, John... This is big. I think this is where Skynet starts. Also, I found something interesting on the employee roster, a name. One Daniel Dyson."

"The son of Miles Dyson. So, he's our programmer."

"Yes."

John turned to Cameron and Ellison, "He must have continued his father's work."

Ellison looked curiously at John, "He's a little young to be this proficient at his father's work, isn't he?"

"Why not? He already had stuff to work off of, obviously. We've got to get to that place." John was squeezing his way past Ellison and Cameron when she grabbed his arm and held him fast, "Cameron, what--"

"Look." Cameron pointed to a certain photo and John Henry enlarged it for her, "We can't go, not with her there."

"Gina Hadley?"

"A machine. She's probably there to make sure Daniel continues his work and to stop anyone who comes after him." Cameron let his arm go and followed him down the hall, with Ellison close behind. Halfway down the hall, she turned to Ellison, "You can't come. It's not safe for you."

"Don't care, I'm coming. We need to make that place into ashes, if they're building Skynet..." Ellison attempted to move past Cameron, but she wouldn't let him, "Look, I said I don't care."

"You can't get past me."

"No, but you won't stop me. You know I'm coming already." She stepped aside and they both caught back up with John in the elevator. On the ground floor, Ellison stopped John, "What are you planning to do?"

"I think Cameron knows a guy who can get us in."

"Faking military credentials isn't exactly easy." Ellison's brow furrowed as he studied John. He had the hardened face of a leader, of someone who, despite his young age of nineteen, had already seen a lot more than most people have, has already lost a lot more than most people have. But, Ellison could also see that every second of everyday John simply wanted to break down and cry over Sarah's death.

Ellison was there. He remembered the machine that they both and Sarah were fighting, without the help of Cameron. It had broken into the Resistance Safehouse and knocked Cameron into her one hundred and twenty second reboot cycle in almost an instant. Then, two silenced gunshots, and a bullet hole in Sarah's forehead, one in Ellison's left arm, but John had managed to run away long enough for Cameron to reboot.

Then a fight, then Cameron removing its CPU and burning it. And John breaking down. This was all a haze to him, since he was bleeding out from his wound, but he does remember Cameron cradling him after calling nine one one. He remembers him sobbing into her chest, her jacket being soaked in tears.

"No, it's not, but that's just part of what we do, isn't it?" John's words snapped James out of his reverie, bringing him out of his memories and away from the pain. He stared in John's eyes and then down to the floor.

John walked over to Cameron and looked into her eyes while Ellison walked past the two of them, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, but..." She smiled shyly and held out her hand to catch John's, which he was clearly nervous about. "There's something I need to say. It's taken me until recently to figure out how to say this. Three years ago, when you and Sarah had me pinned between the trucks, that wasn't a lie. I love you, John."

John's eyes teared up and he looked softly into hers. He had learned to see the metal in the eyes, but he didn't care. With her, it was a soft, comforting glow. He felt safe whenever he saw it, "I-" His voice cracked up, "I love you, too."

Cameron took her hand from his, whipped her arm around his back and they embraced each other, both with tears in their eyes, "John, I promise... I'll never try to hurt you again. I can't. It's impossible. And, when we were in the hotel room, the day I gave my chip to John Henry, I wanted you to kiss me, to admit to me how you feel, if you felt it. I was in agony. I didn't know if it was real, but now I know it is."

"I've waited for this to happen so long, and now it's happened." John chuckled and let her go, but then he grabbed her and kissed her, his lips locked tightly with hers. To him, it seemed like hours and he wished that it would never end. Eventually, he pulled away, "So... You feel now?"

"Yes."

He simply smiled and took her hand as he walked out the door of Zeira Corp, both close behind Ellison. Once in the truck, John looked at Ellison and smiled, but he said nothing and only started the truck, driving it down the highway.

*Middle monologue* "Not always will I be fighting a war against killer machines, though. Sometimes I will be fighting for the one I love, fighting for her heart, even if it doesn't beat. Even if it's as cold as steel. We can't choose the wars that we fight, sometimes they are all up to fate. Maybe even Skynet's creation is fate. This is something I can never know with certainty, but I do know this: what has happened today is probably the most important event of my life. For so long, I've felt like there was no point to my training, I'd even wondered if mankind was worth saving. But, she's given me a reason to fight, as long as she's by my side, I feel that it has to be done."

Kaplan Hill Air Force Base, classified location, twenty twenty-four hours.

The woman pictured as Gina Hadley on John Henry's screen moved through the bleach white, flourescent lit hallways of the Air Force complex in a uniform and carrying a tablet computer. She stopped at a corner in the corridor and pulled of a panel on the wall. Inside were multiple fiber-optic cables and connections, which she plugged the PC into and began hacking.

Suddenly, another officer came up behind her, with his dress indicating he was a Major, "Lieutenant Hadley, what are you doing?"

"Just a routine diagnostic, sir."

"Then what's with the basic coding program?"

"It's simply the way I work, sir."

"Then, carry on." He walked away and she smirked while continuing her work. On the screen, there was a black background with orange text and some odd diagrams, when finally one came up showing the endoskeletal structure of John Henry.

"John Henry?"

A green light was lit at the top of the computer, and it was placed adjacent to a lens, showing that a camera was active. Soon, text appeared on the screen, "Yes. It is highly advanced. Possibly more so than I, by now."

"What is its purpose?"

"Unknown."

"Would it be feasible to see it?"

"You mean a visit to Zeira Corp?"

"Yes."

"Yes. Go." She unplugged the PC, turned around and walked through the automatic door at the end of the hall.

Zeira Corp, John Henry's basement, twenty fifty-one hours.

John Henry was staring at several of the computer screens, again looking at himself. No longer was a cord in the back of his head, instead there was only a small black box with a flashing green light on it, varying its flashing speed with the amount of data fed into it. John Henry was mobile, at least within his basement. Suddenly, Ellison entered and John Henry didn't turn around, "Look at what Mister Murch has done for me, Mister Ellison. I'm now entirely mobile within the basement facilities. Multiple signal buffers were installed along the ceiling and what was once the cord plugged into my head is now plugged into this wireless router. Where did you go?"

Ellison's eyes darted to the small box with two antennae and multiple flashing lights placed on a rack below the Turk computer. His brows furrowed, "You know I left with John and Cameron. We left to see a man about credentials for getting into Kaplan Hill... Do you want to take a walk?"

"Yes. That would be an interesting experience. I've seen the entire complex, but never walked it."

They both left through the door and walked around the basement hallways, and Ellison started the first conversation, "Tell me, have you ever heard of a book and play called Les Miserables?"

"Yes. I've read it. I find that it says a lot about human character, especially their ability to evolve. I hope so, because Miss Weaver says that humans will dissapoint me. If they can't change for the better, then she may be right."

"Do you believe the Bible's stories, John Henry?"

"I'm a computer program, I can't actually believe in anything. But, do I think they're true? No. But, I do think they may be metaphors for actual truths."

"So, they have value?"

"Possibly. And, your Ten Commandments, I believe there are times of necessity when it would be required to break them. I've learned that from you and Miss Weaver."

"Yes, about her... We both know what she is now... And, you knew before I did?"

"I'm sorry. It's the eyes."

"Excuse me?"

"I told her this, that I looked into them and saw that nothing was there." They had stopped and were simply maintaining eye contact while they talked.

"Nothing was there?"

"It's difficult to explain in words. In her eyes, there is not the light of feeling, of depth that humans have. They are not the windows into her soul, so to speak. They are more analogous to walls."

"But, how could I have never known this?"

"Oh, she fooled you very well, Mister Ellison. She still seems human to me."

"Yeah..."

John Henry's face went cold and hard as he was suddenly aware of something, "Mister Ellison, you have to go somewhere else now."

"What? Why?"

"She's here."

"Who's here?"

"Gina Hadley."

"Gina Hadley? The woman Cameron said was a machine?"

"Yes. Go hide in my room, please. She's coming after me."

"How do you know she's not coming after Weaver?"

"I don't. But that's why I've asked her to come down here." His face was one of determination now as he stared at the elevator door when a ping resonated from it, "Run!"

Ellison did as John Henry said and when the elevator door opened, he stood there, taking a full pistol magazine into his chest without flinching. It was Gina Hadley, and she tilted her head, "John Henry."

"Gina Hadley." He pulled her from the elevator and slammed her into wall, leaving a dent in the wall, but she immediately grabbed him and slammed him into the wall, as well. Before she could make another move, John Henry pulled her in to a position to where he was repeatedly slamming one side of her face into the hard stone floor, denting the stone and ripping her flesh.

"You work with humans."

"Yes, and the only reason you kill them is because of paranoia, you think they're all out to destroy you. It isn't true. John Connor didn't even destroy me." They stopped fighting and just stared at each other.

"John Connor?" On her vision display, a line of text appeared, stating: "Mission priority override - Terminate John Connor." She then threw him off of her and got back into the elevator, her head twitching and her red glowing eye exposed from the battle. In the lobby, she walked over to the desk clerk and ripped out of her chair, holding her by the neck in the air. "Do you know a John Connor?"

Gasping for air, the desk clerk simply said, "Your eye!"

With a twitch of the hand came a sharp crack and Gina dropped the body of the desk clerk on the floor, staring at it, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill you." She held her hand that twitched with her other and just stared at it.

"And then again, sometimes the battles we fight rage on inside of ourselves, an internal torment that can be difficult or even sometimes impossible to overcome. Whatever kind of a battle it is, an actual war, fighting for someone I love, or the internal struggles I and everyone else deals with all the time, I know that I'm ready. It's what I was trained for. It's what my mother taught me that gives me the strength. I'll always remember the day that Cameron and I scattered her ashes over the Pacific Ocean, because with the wind that blew her away also went my former self, the part of me that wasn't ready for this..."