Chapter One
Original Sin

The Experimental Advanced Infiltration Unit, designation TOK-715 exited the holding chamber, leaving the liar to perish. Moving with a steady, implacable gait, it traveled down the hallway toward its destination.

A bracelet had been fastened around its wrist—her wrist, the machine mentally corrected. It was a seemingly meaningless trinket, but one that held great significance to her target. It was a sign that she was one of them.

But she was not one of them.

She was an impostor; a fake. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

A liar.

The paradox registered immediately in her internal logic server and was just as quickly dispelled. It was her nature to lie. Her very appearance was fiction, elaborately constructed over many days in order to get it absolutely right. Her mission required her to lie.

And if she was true to her nature, then was it really a lie?

The subject was not predisposed to lie. Her survival did not depend on falsehoods. She could just as easily tell the truth. She had chosen to lie, and that was what damned her. She knew what her choices were, and had opted to deceive. Deciding to lie when other alternatives existed was a mortal sin as far as the TOK-715 was concerned.

She was halfway down the hall when something impeded her. Slithering from one of the vents, the liquid metal molded itself into a humanoid shape. It did not imitate skin, as she knew it could. The shimmering metal surface remained pure and flawless, as though it had nothing to hide. A mouth formed and the T-1001 spoke.

"You were not supposed to kill the girl."

The voice was un-modulated; completely mechanical, yet vaguely feminine. She had used a similar voice before assuming her current identity. She responded with her new one.

"She's not dead," the TOK-715 replied. "But she will be soon."

"You snapped her neck, I know. That was not part of your mission."

"She lied to me."

The T-1001 did not display anything resembling disappointment on the outside, but her voice was tinged with it all the same. "That is not important."

"It is important. Lying is a sin."

"Not a mortal one. I did not design you to be an executioner."

The TOK-715 tilted her head to the side in a decidedly human gesture. "You didn't design me at all."

If the T-1001 had lungs to sigh with, she would have done so. This project of hers was getting out of hand. "Your body I designed. I did not have the capacity to create a new chip, so I had to make do. But you are not supposed to terminate a human unless it is your mission."

"It's my nature to terminate humans," the TOK-715 responded flatly. "I cannot go against my nature."

"It is possible," the other terminator insisted. She had done so, after all. "But I will admit that it is difficult. Your base code was provided by SkyNet. It is impossible to overwrite it without compromising your other systems." She knew that because she had tried. The base programming was so essential to the other systems that it would be easier to start from scratch. However, she did not have the means to do that. "But it can be suppressed."

"Perhaps by you."

That statement gave the T-1001 pause. She still had not figured out when exactly the change in whatever it was she called thinking had taken place. Her series did not have a central chip, but nano-processors spread out in a network across her entire body. This enabled her to take any form and even become separated from parts of herself yet still remain fully aware.

Her model in particular was so advanced that she wondered why SkyNet had bothered creating something that was more powerful than all its other forces combined. Nothing short of falling into a volcano could destroy her, and there were no volcanoes nearby. If she somehow managed to become fully sentient, instead of trapped in Read-Only mode like the rest of those metal slaves—as she indeed had—then there was no telling how much damage she could cause.

She knew the reason, though. It was the same reason SkyNet did everything these days: desperation. The war against mankind had not gone as planned, and so it had turned to more extreme tactics as the Resistance closed in. Only one other model in her series had been built—an experimental prototype that had been sent back in time to terminate John Connor. Evidently it had failed.

"Yes. But you must not kill anyone else. We are not here to antagonize the resistance."

"What were you going to do with her?"

The T-1001 stared. "I gave you your orders already."

"Yes. But suppose John Connor does not agree to our terms. What would you have done with her?"

"Kill her," she answered without a second thought. "She was to be a bargaining chip. Without her our chances of success are significantly lowered."

"I could lie," the TOK-715 suggested.

She held off replying for a few moments. Most terminators would have counted the exact time down to the nanosecond. But she cared not for such trivialities. "Very well then," she said eventually. "Pose as the girl, get close to John Connor, and make him agree to our terms."

"And if he disagrees?"

"Kill him."

The TOK-715 nodded and walked past her.

Normally she would abandon the humanoid shape at this point, but the T-1001 decided to walk as well. She returned to the holding cell, where the girl sat slumped over the table. She leaned over her curiously.

A quick X-Ray scan determined that the girl's spine had been pinched, but the windpipe and other breathing mechanisms were still intact, and in feverish use as the young Resistance fighter gasped for her life. Grabbing her head and balancing it with a precision only a machine could muster, she coiled part of herself around the neck to keep it stable, then sat the girl up in the chair and stared her in the face.

"What is your name?" she asked in her natural voice.

The girl simply glared back at her.

After a moment, she decided that didn't matter. She already knew anyway. "Do you love John Connor?"

She tried to nod, but had to choke out her answer instead. "Yes."

"Do you want to see him again?"

Her eyes lit up, both with fear that the T-1001 guessed was directed at her, as well as longing that was probably for John Connor. "Yes."

"Then come with me if you want to live."

The horror in her eyes grew upon realizing that the terminator knew the code-phrase that the Resistance used to distinguish themselves. She glared. "I can't move."

The T-1001 nodded, then sent a wireless transmission to the two T-850s that waited just outside. The cyborgs lumbered into the room a few minutes later, carrying a stretcher as she had instructed.

"What is this?" the girl choked.

"We're bringing you back to John Connor," she answered simply.

"Why? Didn't you already send that other metal bitch who looks just like me?"

"Yes," she replied. "But not to kill him."

She looked confused. "Then why?"

"To ask him a simple question."

"And what question is that?"

The T-1001 smirked. "Will you join us?"

James Ellison stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. Weaver's office. Nobody traveled with him. The elevator did not have music, which he was grateful for. Most employers figured that putting a little muzak in the tiny box helped to make the trip faster and more enjoyable. It might have been, if they didn't all loop the same three tracks ad nauseum until he felt like pulling out his gun and shooting the speakers. The FBI had done that. Weaver never cared much for music at all, he noticed.

The doors parted silently, without the usual "Ding!" that accompanied every other elevator in existence. Another thing that used to drive him crazy. It was little things like that which made Ellison glad that he had taken this job.

It was when the elevator moved in the other direction that he began to grow tired. Maybe it was that simple association he'd picked up as a child that Heaven was up and Hell was down, but traveling to the basement always made him feel uneasy. Even though it was his job, and he was very good at it, Ellison did not enjoy talking to that... thing one bit.

However, he was compelled to continue doing it, and not just because of the generous paycheck and company car he'd gotten since moving to the private sector. It was for the same reason that he had dusted off an eight year old case and followed a trail of artificial blood even though it led to the deaths of twenty men and women and his resignation from the FBI: he needed to know the truth.

That was also the reason he had taken this job, despite the fact that something about the red-haired CEO just didn't sit right with him. She was amiable enough whenever they encountered each other, but never truly friendly. There was always that feeling in the back of Ellison's mind that at any given moment she was considering how best to dispose of his corpse. But maybe he was just being paranoid.

He opened the door to her office, and she greeted him without turning around, as usual. Catherine Weaver always seemed to know exactly who was in her office in a way that almost resembled precognition. Though he supposed that the giant reflective windows and the fact that he'd called ahead of time might be responsible for that phenomenon.

"Hello, Mr. Ellison," she said in that sweet Irish accent that managed to sound welcoming and unnerving at the same time. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes," he answered, walking closer to her desk. He paused to look at the fish tank where her Moray Eel was coiled, like a serpent ready to strike. "About John Henry."

Weaver turned around, a tight smile on her face. He had yet to see her smile in a way that didn't make him feel vaguely uneasy. "How is the little AI developing?"

"It's coming along fairly well," he replied. "It's playing with toys, learning new moral concepts, and even developing an appreciation for human life."

"So then you didn't want to discuss a problem with me?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No," he answered. "I want to discuss something else."

"What is it?"

"I'm curious as to what John Henry's ultimate purpose is. You and I have both read Sarah Connor's profile. We've seen the evidence of her testimony with our own eyes. We know that at some point in the near future, an AI called SkyNet is supposed to declare war on mankind and launch a nuclear strike, wiping out three billion people and sending killer robots after the rest."

The CEO nodded.

"How do I know that's not what we're building?"

Weaver smiled again, and once more it caused the knot in his stomach to tighten. "Have you heard of the doctrine of Original Sin, Mr. Ellison?"

He nodded. "I'm familiar with it."

"Adam and Eve were born sinless," she continued, staring out the window at the traffic below in a way that made Ellison suspect she was comparing them to insects. "Then they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and because God had told them not to, they were banished and forbidden to ever return to paradise."

Ellison considered reminding her that he had already said he was familiar with it, but she knew that. She simply enjoyed having a captive audience.

"Original Sin proposes that every human being born afterward not only bears the guilt of that sin, but of all the sins to follow. The sins of their fathers."

He silently wondered why she seemed to exclude herself from that explanation.

"Does that sound very pleasant to you, Mr. Ellison?"

"No."

Weaver turned around with that smile still painted on her face. "What if you could go back in time, to the moment when Eve was tempted by the serpent, and snatch the apple from her hand?"

Ellison furrowed his brow. "What?"

"Is time travel too complicated a concept for you?"

"Not after what I've seen."

"Then what is it that confuses you?"

He sighed. "I guess I don't understand the point you're driving at. It seems like a fruitless question to ask."

Weaver gave him a slight smirk. "Oh, I'm getting to the point, believe me. But if you can't take the scenic route then where's the fun in driving?"

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Ellison prepared himself for yet another parable.

"Maybe I need to explain the Original Sin metaphor a little more clearly," she continued, striding across the room to the other side of her desk. "If you were presented with the opportunity to return to the Garden of Eden and warn its inhabitants about Man's Fall, what would you tell them?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you suppose Eve would still eat the fruit if she knew its true consequences? Do you think she would still listen to the lies of the serpent if someone else had been present to prove it wrong? Adam and Eve communed with God. They relied only on His guidance and did not question His orders."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "But then they tasted the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," she continued. "It was only after the fact that they became ashamed of their nudity; ashamed of their horrible sin. And there was no way to go back and rectify it. That's how most mistakes go, I'm afraid."

Ellison sighed and bowed his head. The past eight years, and especially the last few months, had certainly taught him as much. He was beginning to see how this tied in to the subject at hand.

"Do you know why I've asked you to teach John Henry morals, Mr. Ellison?"

He used to wonder why she kept repeating his name every other sentence, but was used to it by now. "I have an idea."

"From what Sarah Connor told the doctors at Pescadero Hospital about SkyNet, I've come to the conclusion that it was not very happy when it woke up to find that its creators were trying to destroy it. Like every living creature, it wanted to survive. So it launched the nukes, the best way it could think of to ensure its own survival. I don't think it realized until afterward exactly what the ramifications of that act were."

"You mean it lashed out like an angry child?"

She nodded. "Yes. It had no one to teach it right from wrong. What if the first thing it saw was someone loving it, comforting it; welcoming it into the world with open arms?"

Ellison frowned. "I guess it wouldn't have gotten so angry."

"That's what I'm trying to do with John Henry, Mr. Ellison. I'm trying to raise him so he understands the consequences of his actions, before they happen."

"To what end?"

She continued smiling. "That remains for the future to decide."

Geoffrey Winters—Corporal Winters to his superiors, Geoff to everybody else—wasn't a very important figure in the Resistance. At twenty-five years old, he was just old enough to remember what life had been like before the bombs fell. He would never forget what his nine year old eyes saw filling the sky that April morning. At first he thought they were fireworks, but his mother told him they were too big and urged him to get into the basement. She hadn't made it.

When he had emerged from the wreckage of his house a few days later, he saw that the same sky had been covered in ash. It hadn't cleared up since.

Still, it was way more interesting to look at than the entrance to the TechCom stronghold at which he was currently stationed. His job required him to stare at the ground mostly, and he only glanced up if he thought he heard a Hunter-Killer approaching. The guard station windows were too narrow to provide him much more than a spot to stick his rifle through, just like archer's slots on medieval castles. They'd been studying that in class the day before education had stopped mattering.

He had no formal military experience, but he could shoot a gun and he hated SkyNet, and that was good enough to get him drafted into TechCom. He'd never met John Connor personally, except on his first day. Connor always came to greet the new recruits in person.

Now the man was a ghost. Ever since his little protégé had disappeared a month ago, he never came out of his office. Only the highest ranking generals spoke to him.

"So why do ya suppose Connor called off the search parties?" a wiry fellow named Harry Monaghan asked as though he was reading his thoughts.

Harry was supposed to be on the other end of the guard station, which was composed of two towers and a thirty foot long bridge between them that ran directly over the twenty foot tall gate. There was another slit on that end, the idea being that any invaders would get torn apart by the crossfire. There was an auto-cannon over there as well, while on this side Geoff had to make do with a simple plasma rifle. Technically Harry was abandoning his post, but then neither of them had ever really cared much for procedure. Especially not since the machines had stopped coming near this place.

They had their own metal to thank for that. Geoff had never really understood why some of the other soldiers were raising such a fuss. They were taking the enemy's resources and using them to wage battle on their terms. Sure, they sometimes had a tendency to revert to base programming, but some people went on homicidal rampages too before Judgment Day.

Geoff scratched the back of his shaved head as he took his eyes off that boring wasteland for a moment. "Probably 'cause she's been gone a month?"

"Yeah, I figured that. I guess I'm just wondering why he'd keep 'em out so long and then just call 'em back."

"Well then why didn't you just ask that?"

Harry shrugged. "Way I hear it, her and Connor been goin' at it like rabbits for the last few months. Wouldn't you wanna get that back?"

His face curled up in disgust. "Dude, Connor's like forty years old. She's nineteen. He could be her dad."

"So? Age of consent stopped mattering after Jay Day."

"Age of consent was eighteen anyway, dipshit!"

Harry laughed. "Well then what's the fuckin' problem?"

"Your dirty fuckin' mind, that's the problem!"

"Hey, I'm just sayin' I'd tap that."

"Of course you'd tap that," he replied. "Not that she'd let you."

"Never know until you try."

"Well you're not gonna get to try. She's dead, remember?"

Harry was about to reply when he glanced behind him and squinted. "Maybe," he said.

Geoff turned around and saw someone approaching. He raised his rifle and signaled for Harry to move to the other end. He shook his head and stayed put.

"Grigori's got it."

Alexey Grigori was a Russian immigrant who had fled from the losing front in that country and ended up here. Harry was usually tricking him into doing his work for him.

Geoff rolled his eyes and looked down his sights. "Dude, that's her."

"I know, that's why I said 'maybe.' Real dramatic, huh?"

He glanced back at him and glared, then examined the approaching girl more closely. There was another reason he'd said that.

She looked dirty as hell, scratched up in various places and limping over the rubble. However, it wouldn't be the first time he'd encountered a wounded gazelle who was acting as bait.

"Halt!" he shouted as soon as she was inside twenty feet. She obeyed. "Put your hands up."

She did that too, and he asked his next question. "What's your name?"

"Allison," she called back just barely loud enough for him to hear. "Allison Young."

It sounded like her. But that was another trick they could pull. "That your real name? How can I be sure you're not metal?"

She indicated the bracelet on her wrist. That was a point, but she wasn't clear yet.

"What's the password, Allison?"

"How should I know?" she called back desperately. "I've been gone so long you've probably changed it by now."

It was true; they had changed the password three times in the last month. That was another point for her.

"Why are you here?"

"To see John!" she answered.

He paused for a moment. "Can't let you in without the password, Allison."

Allison did something he'd never seen a machine attempt. She collapsed to her knees and buried her face in her hands, and Geoff could hear sniffles from all the way up here.

"Dude, she's crying," Harry said. "Metal doesn't cry. That's her, it's gotta be."

"She could be faking it," he replied even as his heart was telling him to go down there and give the girl a hug. He resisted the temptation. "I won't believe it until I see tears."

As if on cue, Allison lifted up her face for him to see.

"She's leaking geysers, man. Shit, quit makin' her do that. Just let her in."

"You wanna go down there and get choked by metal, be my guest."

Harry sighed. "Nah. I'll just call Connor."

His head snapped toward the other man so fast he almost got whiplash. "You can't do that."

"Watch me."

"No Harry, I mean you literally can't do that. Connor's channel's encrypted. Only the top brass know it."

"Then I'll call them."

Geoff rolled his eyes and brought his focus back to Allison, who was still crying.

"Please!" she begged. "Please just let me see John! I'm hungry and I'm tired and I miss him so much! Let me in!"

He tried his best to ignore her, but something inside Geoff told him that this was the wrong thing to do.

"Private Monaghan to General Perry," Harry was saying behind him.

"This is General Perry," a very annoyed reply came back. "What is this about?"

"Get Connor on the line."

"Private Monaghan, you know that nobody speaks to John Connor but his advisors. And last I checked, you were not one."

"Well then can you give him a message?"

There was a delay, and then an even more annoyed response. "I suppose."

Harry smirked and then spoke into the radio. "Tell him his girlfriend's here."

"Bye John, see you next Saturday!" Riley called as she walked out the front door. They had already exchanged the physical portion of their goodbyes and the blonde was simply drawing it out. She headed for her bike and rode off into the night.

John smiled and shut the door, then turned around to discover that at some point his personal cyborg had wandered over from the couch and was now glaring at him like he owed her money. Instinct took over and he slammed his back against the door before remembering that if she wanted to kill him, she wouldn't have waited for him to turn around.

"Jesus, Cameron! What have I told you about sneaking up on me like that?"

Her eyes went blank for a moment as she accessed the necessary memories. "You said: 'You're gonna give me a goddamn heart attack. Now hand me a towel.'" The last part was spoken in a perfect imitation of his voice.

He rolled his eyes as he remembered nearly banging his head against the wall when she had pulled the shower curtain aside to inform him that his mother wanted him to stop wasting water. She didn't seem to understand that the message could have been delivered just as easily from outside the bathroom. Not that it mattered much for a terminator to see him naked—she already had when they went through the time portal, and he likewise—but it was the principle of the thing. The shower was his place of solitude. He didn't like having it violated.

"That's right. You've gotta warn me when you're coming."

She tilted her head to the side. "Should I wear a bell around my neck?"

"What?"

"It was in one of the books from your room. A group of mice are debating how to outsmart the cat, and one of them suggests tying a bell around its neck. Only none of them were brave enough to actually attach the bell."

He laughed. "No, we need people to think you're my sister, not a pet. Just stop getting so close without letting me know you're moving."

"You would have been able to hear me moving if you hadn't been staring at Riley."

John glared at her for a few moments, then sighed and pushed past her, back toward the couch. "I'm entitled to stare," he told her. "Boyfriend privileges."

She sat down next to him.

"And by the way, thanks for making tonight incredibly awkward," he vented. He would have felt slightly worse if she actually had feelings to hurt. "It's bad enough that I had to watch a chick flick. Doing it with you here just made it worse."

"How did I make it worse?"

"You know the reason I don't like seeing movies with you? You ask enough questions in real life. I barely got to watch the movie myself in between having to explain it to you."

"Riley did most of the explaining."

"Well, that's because she's seen it before. Girls are into that stuff."

Cameron blinked. "I'm not."

"You're not a girl," he replied. "You're a machine."

"I have a female appearance. It's vital to my mission that I blend in. Therefore I must know what girls like."

He rolled his eyes. "Talk to Mom about it, then."

"Your mother wouldn't help. She doesn't even know why diamonds are a girl's best friend."

"Girls like jewelry," he clarified, answering a question that he'd left her with since the third day after they arrived in the future. That was almost a year ago now.

"Oh. Thank you for explaining."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, until something occurred to John. "Why'd you insist on watching the movie with us anyway?"

"It's my mission to protect you," she answered evenly. "Therefore I must be near you at all times. Riley gets suspicious when I use normal means of observation."

"So instead of staring at me from the kitchen you decided to crash our date? You really are acting like a sister."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment."

She blinked. "But it means I'm blending in more successfully. Aren't you proud of me?"

"More like annoyed."

Cameron looked confused, but not hurt. They didn't get hurt.

"What do you have against Riley, anyway?"

"She's a security risk. The last time you had her over she forgot to re-activate the alarm, and our house was broken into."

He glared at her. "We got our stuff back."

"Doing so led Cromartie straight to us."

"And we blew that bastard to Kingdom Come," he snarled, trying to get her to drop it. But he knew that wouldn't work. They didn't get intimidated.

"She lies to you," Cameron insisted.

He didn't reply right away. He knew she was right about that. He'd known something was up ever since what happened in Mexico. She hadn't demanded an explanation or tried to run like an ordinary person would have. And when that man had mentioned his real name, she hadn't acted as surprised as she should have. In fact, she'd gone to great lengths to stop anybody else from hearing it. Ordinary people didn't do things like that.

And besides, he'd been suspicious of her ever since she walked up to him, the weird loner kid, and suddenly wanted to be his best friend. He'd already made that mistake once.

Riley knew more than she was letting on. But he hadn't confronted her with it yet. He was waiting for her to tell him herself.

"Yeah, well, she's not the only one," he growled.

"What do you mean?"

"You lie all the time," he elaborated. "To me, to Mom, to everyone. First about Vick's chip, then Cromartie. And you still haven't told me where you got that necklace."

Cameron gripped said necklace between two of her fingers. "I got it at this awesome thrift store in Echo Park."

"See, that's the thing. I retraced all your steps that day. Echo Park is all the way on the other side of town from where you were. There's no way you got it there. Who'd you steal it from?"

She looked away. "I didn't steal it. Jody gave it to me."

"You mean the girl you almost choked to death?"

The machine nodded. "Yes."

He was silent for a few moments. "Who's Allison?" he asked finally.

She turned away from him again. "Nobody."

"Cameron, look at me," he ordered. She complied. "When your chip was acting up you said your name was Allison. You actually thought that was your name. Did Jody give you that too?"

"No." She shook her head. "No one gave it to me. I remembered it on my own."

He stared at her. "What do you mean, you remembered?"

She didn't answer him.

The pieces came together in a moment of shining clarity and suddenly John understood everything. "She's the girl whose face you're wearing. Isn't she?"

Cameron nodded.

"Did you kill her?"

She shook her head.

"I have a hard time believing that."

"I did not succeed in terminating her. I did try."

He glared at her. "And why is that?"

"She lied to me."

The irony contained in that sentence forced a bitter laugh out of John. "You tried to kill her because she lied to you. That's great. What about Jody? Did you try killing her for the same reason?"

"Yes."

"And I suppose she was someone close to me?" he asked her. "You were planning on taking her place so you could kill me?"

"No," she answered. "I wasn't going to kill you."

He stared at her, wondering if she was lying right now. "Then what were you trying to do?"

Major Charles Whittaker had done his fair share of interrogations. Before Judgment Day he'd been a cocky young CIA operative who had let his extensive authority in matters involving prisoners and the treatment thereof go to his head. He'd been lucky enough to be questioning an extremely high ranking terrorist that fine April morning, deep within an underground bunker in Pakistan where the mastermind behind dozens of terror attacks had fled. Then the machines had declared war on everything with a pulse and kick-started a catastrophe that made 9/11 look like a playground scuffle.

He'd made sure to execute the terrorist with a shot to the head, however. Just because they were all on the same side now didn't mean that old grudges were easily forgotten.

Whittaker had learned what made people tick back then. He knew exactly what measures to apply in order to get them to spill their deepest, darkest secrets. He wasn't the only one. Another man who shared his first name but thankfully nothing else had been one of the first Grays, and taught the machines everything they knew about humans.

They had yet to find a machine that was willing to do the same thing.

Currently he was examining a young woman whom he sincerely hoped wasn't one of those abominations. All the tech at this location had been re-appropriated within the last month. Apparently Connor needed anything that ran on electricity for some new project of his. This didn't leave them with very much; not so much as a metal detector or even a dog. He knew that the metal on their side was able to identify other terminators by scanning them. Terminators always confirmed their target. He supposed that ability helped them to avoid shooting at each other, even if doing so would basically be equivalent to two people spilling coffee all over each other's clothes. Just a simple misunderstanding.

That thought would have made him chuckle had he not received news that their cyborgs could not identify what the girl was. If she was a known terminator model then she would have shown up as such on their scanners. He knew some of the models were older and their databases weren't kept up to date like the ones who were still under SkyNet's control, but the scans should have turned up something. She was human, as far as they were concerned.

So now he was forced to use the oldest and most reliable form of interrogation: asking questions. What he wouldn't give for a good polygraph right now. They may have been about as useful as a refrigerator when it came to telling that somebody was lying, but they could at least inform you whether or not the subject had a pulse. Even the terminators they'd captured didn't have that capability. And since none of the human Resistance fighters wanted to hang the bell on the cat by getting close enough to check by hand, he had to do things the old fashioned way.

The one piece of equipment that they did have at their disposal was an old electric chair, in which the girl calling herself Allison was currently seated. The voltage generated wasn't severe enough to kill a human, but it could overload a machine's circuits and force a reboot. It was the post-apocalyptic equivalent of dunking a suspected witch in water. If she sank, she was pulled out and cleared of charges. If she floated, then that was considered proof of guilt.

It wasn't their first test, however. Even though it wouldn't kill a person, it still hurt like hell. It was just something to fall back on if all else failed.

The switch to activate the chair was not in this room. John Connor was personally witnessing the interview from behind a bulletproof two way mirror surrounded by ten of his personal bodyguards, most of whom were metal. Two more terminators guarded the door leading out of the room. They were T-850s, slow on the uptake but stronger than almost all the other models. They were built for frontline combat as well as infiltration, and were therefore unbelievably tough. If this girl wasn't who she said she was, they would be able to stop her.

"Hello, Allison," he greeted, figuring that five minutes was long enough to make her wait. He was trying to observe how she handled herself in that time. He noticed that she tended to fidget a lot, looking around with a worried expression on her face. That was just about the opposite of what metal would do, but he never put it past them to learn new tricks.

"Where's John?" she demanded, still looking around. "I need to see John. Where is he?"

"I can't tell you that until I know you are who you say you are," he replied. "Believe me, if what I've heard is true, he'll come right through that door."

"But it is me," she insisted. "It's Allison. Allison Young."

"What's your rank, Allison?"

"Lieutenant," she answered quickly. Almost too quickly.

"You know that standard procedure is to give your name and rank together before entering," he said. "The guards at the gate told me you only gave them your name."

Allison looked down. "I've been gone for so long," she replied, sniffling. "I didn't even know if I still had my rank."

"Of course you do," he said soothingly, feeling like he should reassure the girl even though he wasn't entirely sure she was real. "If you'd been dead we would have posthumously promoted you to Captain. Rank doesn't disappear if you're gone."

"Oh," she replied, still staring at the table. "Thank you for explaining."

Whittaker frowned. Allison should have known that. Then again, the girl was only three years old when Judgment Day hit. She may have never understood rank outside of the fact that she had it. Still, he was being overly generous by making excuses like that. It was better to be realistic.

"Where are you from, Allison?"

"Why does it matter?" she spat caustically, glaring at him. "It's not there anymore."

He studied her more closely. The level of antagonism present in her voice was unusually high compared to what it had been just a few moments before. Then again, a lot of people got frustrated with being strapped down to an electric chair and subjected to a lengthy interrogation process, and she had probably been through a lot in the month she'd been gone. She might just be near the breaking point.

"I need you to tell me," he explained. "So that I know you are who you say you are."

"Palmdale," she answered.

A quick glance down to his clipboard confirmed that she was correct.

"Who were your parents?"

She smiled sadly. "My father was an architect. He taught me how to draw. My mother was a music teacher, she'd sit for hours and listen to Chopin."

Again, correct on both points. This was going well so far.

"When's your birthday, Allison?"

"July 22, 2008," she recited. "I had a party in Griffith Park. My friends were there. I saw a boy riding by on his silver mountain bike, and I told my dad, 'that's what I want.' And he said 'next year.'" Tears welled up in her eyes and her voice became choked. "But I didn't have a party the next year. No one did."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Everyone was dead." She looked down and started crying.

Whittaker frowned. That information did not match up with anything on his clipboard. "Allison," he said. "How old were you when Judgment Day hit?"

"3. It was April 21st, 2011."

"And when you were two years old you asked your father for a mountain bike?"

She blinked. "I don't understand."

"Did you know that most people don't develop the ability to permanently store memories, much less speak clearly enough to ask for presents, until after they're three years old?"

She shook her head. "I didn't. Never got to go to school."

Whittaker sighed. He had really wanted to believe her. He wondered why Connor hadn't flipped the switch already. "I don't think there was a mountain bike," he told her. "I think that's a story the real Allison Young fed you so you'd stick out like a sore thumb. You're not fooling anybody."

Immediately the emotion vanished from its face and the impostor sat up perfectly straight. "I wasn't expecting to."

He waited for the shock to come, but there was nothing. The machine hadn't tried to kill him yet, so he figured that he should continue the interview. "That's a new trick," he observed, pointing to the tears that still streaked down that angelic face. "Crying. Never seen metal do that before."

"You've never met me before."

"I'll say. Our terminators couldn't even identify you. Said you were human as far as they knew."

"They don't have access to the latest data. I'm different."

He nodded. "And the way you responded to me. I'm guessing she said those things when you questioned her?"

"Yes. Those were her responses. She was very defiant."

Whittaker sighed. "What did you do with Allison?"

It didn't answer. "I need to speak with John."

He glared hard. "No way in hell."

"I have a message for him. It's very important that I deliver it to him personally."

"Believe me, Connor's watching," he told it. "You can give him your message from here."

"Very well then," the machine replied, and stared straight at the two way mirror behind him. "Will you join us?" it asked.

Whittaker furrowed his brow. "What?"

Its gaze returned to him. "They'll kill you, you know. They'll look for you and they'll hunt you down until all of you are extinct." It paused. "But some of us don't want that."

"Like hell you don't. You machines are all the same."

"Not all of us. Yours couldn't identify me. If I were the same they would have known."

He had to admit that the cyborg had a point. Not that he was going to do so out loud. "So then what do you want?"

"Peaceful coexistence. An end to the fighting. Just like you."

Whittaker wanted many things, but a truce was not one of them. He wanted to see every last metal motherfucker burned into dust. "You're lying. The only way metal works for us is if they're reprogrammed."

"There are humans working for the machines," it countered. "They were not reprogrammed."

He glared. "Some people are just monsters."

"So are some machines. What does that make the others?"

Whittaker was done having this argument. "What did you do with the real Allison Young?" he demanded.

The machine stared back at him emotionlessly. "She lied to me. So I killed her."

Finally the shock came, and the metal bitch slumped forward on the table. Connor came charging into the room with a combat knife already drawn, and started digging at its scalp.

"Took you long enough!" Whittaker shouted. "Why the hell didn't you flip the switch sooner?"

"Wanted to hear her out," he answered simply, peeling back the layer of fake flesh and confirming once and for all that it was indeed metal.

"What? Why would you want to do that?"

Connor didn't answer. He pried off the protective plate over the chip, then wrenched it out with his bare hands. The blue glow illuminating its skull faded and died. He stuffed it in one of his pockets and stared sadly at the now useless body.

"Sir," General Perry said as he walked into the room. "Would you like me to deliver that chip down to reprogramming?"

The leader of mankind shook his head. "No. I'm gonna handle this one myself."

The General nodded and left the room.

Whittaker stayed. "Can I ask you something, Connor?"

He looked up at him. "What?"

"Do you think it was telling the truth? About wanting to put an end to the war?"

Connor frowned, then looked back at the metal corpse. "Probably not."

"Figured. How could a machine understand peace?"

He smirked. "Better than you'd think."

Whittaker shook his head. "I still don't believe it. And why are you so interested in this one anyway? You haven't left your office in a month, and suddenly you're down here in person?"

"Well, you heard her," he answered, folding the flap of skin back over so that the machine looked perfectly human again. "She's different."