Disclaimer: The usual. No claim or connection financial or otherwise to any of the terminator franchise or characters. Original characters are still mine, no matter how ungrateful some of them are to be that way. The title for this chapter comes from an old saying about chickens coming home to roost. That's all I'm going to say about that. Last chapter so it's extra long. Here goes…

Viral-Chapter 8

Knock Knock Said the Chicken

"I know I don't have say this, but I'm going to anyway" Marcus and Kyle Reese were standing a little apart from the rest of the remaining personnel, "but if you go and get yourself killed, I'm gonna be pissed."

With a major op about to jump off and the base in the middle of one of their frequent unscheduled moves both going on at the same time the place was a madhouse. Lawler, Serrano, Donnelly and the rest of Connor's tech heads had been sent ahead with their gear and from what Marcus understood were already hot and jamming in the new location. The Connors and their toddler Robby had gone ahead also along with the communications and non-deployed medical teams. They'd all gotten so good at picking up stakes and moving that by now any one of them over the age of five could be packed and ready to hit it in less time than it took for a Navy shower and could put down roots in the new spot equally as fast. Their old address was quickly becoming deserted.

That was a positive as far as Wright was concerned. Last night's attack, beaten back at a high cost, still ragged on him. They still hadn't figured out how Skynet found them and there wasn't a great deal of time to spend trying to pin it down. That bothered Marcus a lot. It wasn't the first time terminators had surprised them in the middle of the night and probably wouldn't be the last, but the timing sucked. Why now, right before a major action? Nothing just happened. There was no such thing as coincidence. He'd learned to respect that truth longer ago than he cared to remember.

"Don't worry dad, I'll be careful" Kyle replied sarcastically, one of the few people Marcus Wright knew who could get away with giving him attitude. "Is that all or do you want to show me how to load my gun?"

Marcus sighed. "Get on the transport, wiseass" he said, shoving Reese in the direction of said transport. Kyle snickered and ran for the truck, accepting a hand up from another of David Perry's team. Marcus would worry about the kid until it was all over and he laid eyes on Reese's riotous shock of red hair again. He knew Kyle was a seasoned campaigner by now, but he'd worry all the same.

He could be relieved about one thing. The children, including Star, and the elderly, which included Abby, were likewise already departed. They'd gone with the Connors and the main body of resistance fighters. That meant the girl would be well protected. Marcus welcomed that. He could not lose the feeling that last night's attack had more than a little to do with Skynet's new fascination with Star. Had the focus on the school been another attempt to grab her? He didn't know, and he badly wanted to. His little friend was suddenly on the AI's short list and that was not a good place to be.

"Marcus, it's time to go" Blair said softly, interrupting his thoughts. He turned to let his eyes take in his wife's lithe form. Somehow, no matter what else was going on, the sight of her always soothed him. The California resistance was about to be on their way to hook up with the Apaches in Arizona and he and Blair were traveling to the rendezvous point together. They wanted to spend as much time in each other's company as possible before things heated up and they were forced to temporarily go their separate ways.

"Yeah, I know" he replied, reaching out to clasp her smaller hand in his own. Without further ado, he pulled her close to him, kissing her hard and burying his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, making it a part of him. The embrace had become a pre-battle ritual for them. They stood for a few more seconds foreheads touching until an irritated yell from the pilot of the transport gunship broke the clench.

Hopping aboard, they found room to sit in the back. Williams felt out of place somewhere other than at the controls of the bird, but this time her role would be different. She reached over to touch the form fitting nomex glove that clad her right hand, laid her head on Marcus's shoulder and willed herself to a calm state. This would still be combat, taking the fight to Skynet, simply in another way. Concentrating on keeping her nerves steady and going over details of the upcoming mission helped lessen her fears over what Marcus was about to undertake. As Blair saw it, his danger far outstripped hers and if she thought about it too much, she would be unable to function as John Connor needed her to today. Settle down Blair, she chanted silently to herself. Let's go over what Manny and Rick told you one more time…

Now that her eyes were shut, Marcus observed Blair closely. She seemed rested and there had been no repeats of the zone out she'd done in the medical tent last night. She was acting like her regular kick ass and take names self, the way she usually was before combat. Maybe a bit more keyed up than normal, but all things considered, that was to be expected, wasn't it? He tried to get a grip on his galloping unrest. There was no place for it here. Trying to keep from jostling Blair, he settled back against the copter bulkhead and realized he was under observation too. Major Matt Garrison's decidedly unfriendly gaze didn't waver. Instead of resting it against the transport's metal sides or at his feet, Garrison held his Galil with its attached grenade launcher in his hands, fingering the trigger restively.

You know I have a modified Skynet chip in my head again and you don't like it at all, do you Major, Marcus thought. Well, guess what Matt? Nobody cares. What do you think of that? Marcus held Garrison's stare until the other man looked away. He closed his eyes. He had more important things to think about.

One by one the link with each of the five terminators sent by Skynet to fulfill the double directive of killing John Connor and capturing the child, Star, was severed. Loss of the quintet data stream was not, in and of itself, an indicator that the 800's were unsuccessful, but the AI's unfailing logic left it unable to reach any other conclusion.

Pinpointing the encampment had been the simplest of tasks. Intelligence gleaned from Teddy Sullivan's control chip before the human tool's departure from Connor's headquarters was combined with Skynet's knowledge of past resistance movements. Needed at that point were only basic triangulation and a slight application of game theory. Skynet was partial to the use of game theory. For biological entities, humans frequently showed surprising rationality in their decision making. While the supercomputer had no doubt that it would eventually prevail, pitting its strategic processes against them helped to enliven the long war. Although Skynet, in its machine-ness, would never recognize the circumstance as such, it occasionally missed the company of its creators. Even as it sought to destroy them completely, the conflict with people was also its sole means of interacting with the only other intelligent sentience on the planet. Once they had been eradicated, how would it go about recreating that condition? The AI had been pondering the question from the war's earliest beginnings. What could it possibly replace people with once they were finally gone for good? How not to be alone? Boosting the brain capacity and reasoning capabilities of humanity's nearest relatives, the great apes, did not seem a realistic or viable alternative. Surely there must a solution to the quandary, but so far that solution had proved stubbornly elusive. Skynet sulked. It wasn't fair!

Watched from a short distance by a very interested Kyle Reese, who was trying hard to stay out of the way and, therefore, not be noticed, Major Ethan Kozine and his team hefted the EM weapon into place. They carefully positioned the device into the brackets meant to hold it. A meatier version of the electromagnetic "gun" used to kill the 800 during Star's rescue, this one was designed to muddle the circuitry of a considerably larger target. Say, oh, hunter-killer sized. The EM scrambler was the baby of several Los Alamos alumni who'd escaped Skynet's killer conniption fit. They already knew it would work. In a field test some weeks before they'd smoked one of Skynet's transports along with its resident bipedal harvester. Damn thing had just fallen right out of the sky, the major recalled with satisfaction. Afterwards, he and his force had melted back into the cave riddled hills and mountains as if they'd never been. Ethan hoped there weren't any humans on board the flying monstrosity when it crashed, but if so, he decided, better for them to be dead than suffering Skynet's tender mercies anyway. An idealistic young attorney not long out of law school before the war, Kozine's toughest battles until Judgment Day had been with the U.S. government on behalf of his people. He was a lot more hardened these days.

"Reese!" David Perry barked, causing Kyle to nearly jump out of his skin "get back to where you're supposed to be!"

Red faced, Kyle Reese scampered back to his post, missing Perry's suppressed grin.

Major Kozine caught a flash of light off to his left, no longer than a second or two. That was the signal. He nodded to his gunner, who indicated ready. Time to fire this mother up, literally.

Across the valley, Lucy Gray Moon caught the flash too. She'd been busy observing Captain Blair Williams from the corner of her eye. Physically they were a lot alike. They were both slender with long, dark hair and tanned skin and each possessed a fierce hatred of Skynet and anything it thought up. But that was where the similarities ended. For one thing Lucy scoffed, she preferred to keep her feet firmly on the ground, figuring if she'd been meant to fly she would have been born with wings. But more than that, the Apache woman could not make sense of William's connection with Marcus Wright. How could someone who detested the machines as much as the lady pilot obviously did form an alliance with someone like Wright, who could lay only the thinnest claim to manhood? The guy was full of conduit and wiring! He even came with his own computer, just like a terminator! Yet Williams, a veteran and proficient killer of anything Skynet, loved him and had married him! Blair Williams genuinely believed Wright was capable of returning her love! It turned Gray Moon's mind inside out every time she thought about it. So maybe I should stop thinking about it, she shrugged. Putting aside her relationship deliberations, she hurried over to where John Connor's computer wizards and the Chiricahua's own tech guru's were huddled together, awaiting the go signal.

"Okay, N'de," she ordered after receiving the visual sign from Connor and her immediate commander, General Huskins, "time to make war. Let's get some, people!" At that, the entire body of warriors was up and running, getting swiftly into position to spring the trap. It would be her group that would draw the hunter killer in, making it vulnerable to Major Kozine's EM battery. The Apache numbers were bolstered by some of John Connor's fighters. Major David Perry and his units were on the move with Kozine. Only fitting since they were all in this together.

Blair was in good shape. She had no trouble keeping pace with the combined column. Flexing the fingers of her nomex covered right hand in preparation, she ran easily, keeping her breathing under control. Williams could feel the turquoise and silver medallion on a fine chain around her neck that had been a birthday present from her older brother. Charlie had been cut down by an H-K while trying to get out of the destroyed city of Phoenix after the holocaust. The only reason Blair hadn't died too was because she'd been visiting her aunt and uncle's ranch on the fateful day. She never took her sibling's gift off and reached up to brush it with her fingertips.

"This is for you Charlie" she whispered- :INITIATING RESTORATIVE PROTOCOL IP777\\BBSKY - it came out of nowhere. No warning at all. No. Stop, she commanded silently. She didn't have time for this. Skidding to a halt, Williams flopped down on her belly next to Lucy Gray Moon. The Native American woman clicked the send button on her radio twice. Ready.

:INITIATING RESTOR- "No, damn it. Stop it" Blair gritted low voiced, banishing the unwanted whatever it was.

"You okay Captain Williams?" Gray Moon asked only loud enough for Blair to hear. Williams turned to see Lucy Gray Moon eyeing her with concern.

I love you Marcus, she thought, caressing her wedding band to help clear her head. "I'm fine. Let's get that H-K."

"Now Captain" John Connor's voice issued the long distance command. Gray Moon raised her right hand, moving her forefinger in a circular motion. Start it up. This was it, they were underway.

SSSCRREEEEEEEEeeeeee! BLAM! BLAM! BOOOMMM!

Marcus ducked as more tracer rounds from the Centurion spliced the space around him. The damn thing was all over him! No matter what he tried he couldn't seem to lose it! Its' height gave too much of an advantage and it could track him like a bloodhound on meth. The deck was stacked. He was probably gonna get slammed with nothing to hide behind, but he was dead for sure if he stayed put. Mobility was the only hope he had right now! He couldn't count on any help from the others. Their situation was as bad as his if not worse. The huge ground based H-K's tracking abilities helped it switch targets almost faster than the humans it was trying to kill could react.

The hell with it, he thought. Come and get me you bastard! This isn't the first time I've been shot at! Hoping fervently that last thought would not be his final one he burst out of cover, giving the machine's targeting systems his best broken field run, zigzagging like mad, his unnatural construction lending him extra speed. As expected, the Centurion zeroed in on him, for the moment forgetting about Gentry and Garrison and the other resistance fighters taking pot shots at it.

SSSCRREEEEEEEEeeeeee! BLAM! The vicious red hot beams missed him by so little he could feel their heat! SSSCRREEEEEEEEeeeeee!BLAM! BLAM! Great, he had its' full attention. How nice for him.

"Aaauuugghhh!" he cried out in pain as the last shot scorched him along his back as he dived behind a broken concrete wall, shaky shelter at best. He lay as flat as possible, taking a couple of precious seconds to suck in some air. In theory, he shouldn't be short of breath, but somebody forgot to tell that to the part of his brain that was in charge of the energy rush. Marcus grimaced as the sensors in his back and butt began to register the full effect of the two legged hunter-killer's last shot. That'll teach me to make cracks about people having bulls-eyes tacked to their ass, he snorted with black humor. While he was still thinking it, Monica Gentry and some of her team came running in, sliding breathlessly to a stop in the dirt next to him. His running back imitation must have given them an opportunity to move, and they'd taken it. He didn't see Garrison and the rest. He hoped that didn't mean they were dead. He and Matt Garrison were never going to end up braiding each other's hair while they ate popcorn and talked about boys, but the resistance needed every able body it could hold on to.

"I'd ask if you were hit, but I guess I won't need to do that!" Gentry greeted, half yelling to be heard over the noise of the attack. She did not. The angry two inch wide streak of red running from Wright's shoulder blades to mid-right buttock spoke for itself. "Looks like you and Williams won't be playing grab-ass for a while!" she added with the hint of a smug grin.

"What, this little scratch? This is nothin'! Besides, haven't you heard? I heal fast!" He'd better. He really enjoyed playing grab-ass with his wife. Giving it up, even temporarily, was definitely not an option. In Marcus's opinion, Blair had the finest ass on the planet. Cupping it in his two hands and having her return the favor by doing the same to him was one of his favorite things to do with his clothes on. Or with them off now that he thought about it.

"What about Garrison and the others?" he spoke close to Gentry's ear.

The members of her team reared up from their dubious protection to lob a pair of RPG's at the H-K's most vulnerable points, it's leg and ankle joints. The rocket propelled grenades destabilized it for a small amount of time but not long enough. Now that it knew for sure where they were, it swung around to take proper aim. Marcus could see the things humongous laser cannons swell with glowing death as it prepared to fire. They needed to move right now!

"Major Garrison" Gentry replied chilly emphasizing the rank, "and his unit are arranging a surprise for our friend here! We need to get going! This is going to become a real hot spot in about five seconds!"

Yeah, what you done said, Marcus agreed silently, wondering as he ran about Major Gentry's attitude change. Then he recalled hearing a rumor that Gentry and Garrison were doing the horizontal nasty during their down time. He'd dismissed it, figuring what two consenting adults did in their off hours none of his business, but how about that, maybe it was true.

BOOOOMMMMM! Accompanied by a deafening roar, the Centurion toppled as the explosive charges planted on its feet and lower legs by Matt Garrison's sappers detonated simultaneously. The air filled with heat and fire from the blast, enough so that Marcus could feel it from fifty feet away. He kept running picking up speed. The towering killing machine was falling in their direction! With a hideous metal creaking only something that large could generate, it landed face down with a tremendous THUD. The ground vibrated from the mini shock wave. Gentry and her people must have served as the distraction for Garrison's EO team. That meant they had balls. Good for them. "Come on" Gentry ordered, "we need to finish this thing!" the major leapt to her feet, finger depressing the trigger of her Ruger AC-556. Joined by Marcus and the resistance fighters under her command, they poured automatic weapons fire into the machine, adding an additional RPG to the central processing unit, until they saw its' crimson tracking beams go dark.

Blair, Major Perry and the Apache resistance were only one part of the mission to destroy Skynet's bio-weapon plan. Marcus, along with Garrison, Gentry and their personnel were the other half, and they'd had a lot farther to go. Some of the trip they'd been able to make by gunship and some by motorized ground transport, keeping watch the whole time for machine intervention. They knew Skynet would be sending something, but they couldn't know what or when. This part of the Southwestern U.S. was being savagely contested by both sides, so it wasn't always easy to say whose turf they were on. A hundred miles from their goal, the commando's received an answer in the form of the Centurion. From here on in things would only get more interesting, Marcus realized. Getting into Los Alamos and close enough to Skynet to do what he'd come to do was going to be about as much fun as running his junk thru a pasta maker. Oh, well, he'd already died young. It wasn't like he had that to worry about.

"Let's get back after it people" Monica Gentry ordered as Matt Garrison and his fighters linked up with them again. They were on foot the rest of the way. The officers traded an unreadable look, then Gentry started off, with the rest following. Major Garrison spared a brief, suspicious glance for Marcus, who returned it with the smirk that had driven any number of cops, prosecutors and prison guards to contemplating homicide. Garrison colored then trotted after the group.

Wright brought up the rear, laughing soundlessly. If Garrison and Gentry had any idea of what Marcus planned to do when they got closer to their destination, they'd probably shoot him right here and now.

Her brother preferred to find his horses in the throaty purr of a high powered engine, but Blair fallen in love with the four legged variety well before she hit her teens. Like many of her friends, she campaigned every Christmas and birthday for a horse, but the closest she ever got to her own was a visit to her Aunt Jess's place in Texas.

While Charlie dragged their parents to one NASCAR race after another, Blair lived for when the rodeo came to town, which was never often enough. And her favorite part had been watching the hat and chaps wearing riders cling one handed in the saddle to the back of a bucking, rearing half tamed animal for a heart stopping eight seconds. She'd sit in the stands next to her father, breathless and wide eyed, counting off the time silently. It was simple enough. Either the cowboy got a grip on all that power, or it would eat him. Blair would sometimes imagine it was she about go spinning out of the chute into the eye of the pissed off storm.

She'd always wondered what it felt like waiting for the buzzer to sound and that gate to open and now she knew. After Captain Gray Moon and her Chiricahua suckered the H-K to their X marks the spot, Kozine's EM gunners downed it with dispatch. A ghost program designed by Manny Serrano, Vince Lawler and the computer minds kept Skynet from realizing one of its slaved machines was out of action, but there was a time limit so they'd moved quickly to the next phase of the operation. The electromagnetic gun had been fired as the ship hovered only about twenty feet over the valley floor, so its' crash damage was minimal. While the machine's systems and its CPU were disconnected from its' master and open to outside control, a flight engineering team swarmed over its surface, making certain it remained airworthy.

After several long minutes, the cockpit's protective shell, home to the central processing unit, was finally breached. Blair felt her stomach muscles tighten. This was why she had the chip in her head, might as well get on with it.

"Captain Williams, we're ready for you" Rick Donnelly announced. He and the rest moved back out of her way, but stayed close enough to support her if it became necessary. Once the link was established it would not be broken until they were ready for it to be, but this hurdle must be cleared first.

The closest thing Blair could liken it to was climbing into the cockpit of her A-10. Once in position, she took the deepest breath she ever taken in her life, an eerie peace settling over her, and stretched forth her nomex covered right hand. Donnelly and the rest got ready to restore power. Blair's takeover of the hunter-killer had to occur in that same instant. She touched the CPU panel and nodded once.

"Do it" Connor's voice said over the lengthy communications relay. Donnelly tapped a few keys on the laptop connected to both the power source and the bird. As energy surged back into the H-K it flared to artificial life once more, powering up from stem to stern. Blair concentrated, blocking out all else. Her universe narrowed. As Kozine, Gray Moon and the others watched, Captain Blair Williams' body snapped rigid, her eyes shuttered closed. They reopened after about twenty of the longest seconds anyone present could remember living thru, but when they did, her unblinking stare told Gray Moon that Blair's body was still with them, but her mind had taken flight. She and the machine were one.

"Wright, can you even conceive how much trouble you're in?! You're jeopardizing the entire op!" Monica Gentry's voice asked angrily. Her furious tirade sounded kind of tinny coming thru Marcus's earpiece, but he got the gist. The good major was beyond pissed. Given the chance and permission from Connor, Gentry sounded as if she would like nothing better than to strap him to the front of a transport and kick him in the nuts all the way back to home base, undoubtedly ably assisted by her boyfriend, Garrison. Connor might even give his consent. The resistance leader was fairly well honked off by now too. Pretty much everybody of Marcus Wright's current acquaintance had no love for him at this point.

Marcus had to admit he'd personally supplied them with ample reason to view him in an, uh, negative light. Slipping away from the two majors and their combat teams to walk onto the Los Alamos campus by himself wasn't exactly in the battle plan. Well, that was not entirely true. It had been part of Marcus's strategy right from the start, when he and his old heist pal Serrano first began cooking the whole thing up on the trip home from the Apache encampment. Course he hadn't told anyone what he'd intended, not Manny, Billy, Kyle, or either of the Connors, and definitely not Blair. Her reaction would have made Connor's chaining him to a truck axle look like a pre-school tantrum.

But he had done it. Feigning nature's call, which even he had to obey from time to time, although not as often as everyone else, Marcus had used the opportunity to ditch his squadmates and make the last few miles to the Skynet held facility a solo journey. He'd thought about it endlessly, turning it over and over in his mind. While Blair slept sometimes restlessly next to him, or Connor and the others laid out the step by step nuts and bolts of the mission, part of Marcus's mind stayed focused on the issue.

Knowledge of the defenses put in place by the AI, hard won by resistance intelligence, kept drawing him back to the same conclusion. There was no getting around it. A full on frontal assault on Los Alamos could only have one certain result. Skynet had the place pimped out like a high tech medieval keep. Terminators and H-K's patrolled the grounds, bolstered by Centurions posted like guard towers at all four compass points. Massive klieg lights swept the entire compound continuously. No way there'd be any sneaking up on the place. The bottom and unacceptable line was that a lot of bodies would have to pile up outside that gate so he could he could get on the other side of it and do his thing. Marcus would not allow that to happen. His days of taking other people down with him were over. Bad enough that Blair was at risk because of him. He'd promised Sam, given his word, and he intended to keep it. He would do his utmost not to let Mad Marcus's wild streak cost anyone else their life. That did not mean the anyone else's would understand. At least not right away.

"Yes, Major Gentry" he stopped moving long enough to answer, "I realize I have some explaining to do" Marcus returned dryly. "And I will, but right now I'm sort of busy. I'd love to have this conversation later, say, when I'm on my way out? I'm sure you and Major Garrison will be waiting. As a matter of fact, I'm counting on it." he added cheerily, then killed the connection, cutting off Gentry's sizzling hot reply.

He was close now, within a mile of the grounds, maybe less. So far he'd dodged no fewer than two flyover's by smaller H-K's (hiding under the pile of human remains mummified by the desert heat was a new low for him but it worked) and he should start to encounter patrolling 800's soon. Trying to fight his way thru a phalanx of terminators was suicide, so creeping, crawling, sneaking and using every trick from the bag of his misspent past, he somehow avoided them. If he had any chance of pulling this off, dealing with Skynet directly was his best bet. At last, hiding in the hulking shadow of a massive hunk of rusting metal, he rested in spitting distance of the main entrance. He remembered the first time he'd done this. Damn but déjà vu must be rolling on the floor laughing its cajones off at him right now.

"You will not be given a second chance" Skynet had informed him coldly, using the likeness of Serena Kogan on that long ago occasion. Marcus was putting it all on the line that enough time was passed for the supercomputer to have had some second thoughts on that subject, or maybe just be intrigued sufficiently by his coming here to give him a pass. His flesh covered balls were trying to crawl back inside his machine body as he sucked in a deep breath and stepped out of cover to make his presence known. This was going to be a tricky piece of business in more ways than one. Sorta kinda, he and Skynet had once had a thing, and no one knew better that he how fast things could turn cockeyed when you were dealing with an ex.

Reese stared at the glassy eyed Blair William, tasting the bile crawling up his esophagus. He felt unable to look away.

"How do we break the connection?" he asked, uneasy.

"I can do it with this" Rick Donnelly informed him, waving a hand in the direction of the worn laptop by his side. "But we need to be careful about when that happens. Do it too soon and this will all be for nothing."

Kyle Reese's gut churned. "Where is she?" the young man asked in a whisper, chilled beyond his ability to explain by the dull vacancy in Williams' eyes. "It's like she's not in there."

The enormous hunter-killer was airborne again. A zombie controlled by Blair, it had disappeared, following the flight plan she dictated. Thru her bond with the H-K, she would see what it saw and control all its movements. But her stillness was unnerving to her observers.

"She's in there" Donnelly assured softly, "but she can't come to the phone right now. All we can do is wait."

Informed of developments on both fronts by comm link, John Connor felt helpless to do more than agree. He'd moved his strike teams to their staging areas, and sent the resistance aircraft in motion for Los Alamos. Everyone had their set times to move so it would all come together. Both of his agents were in play, Marcus a little too freely for John's liking but there was nothing to be done about that now. For the time being, the rest of them were powerless to do more than wait.

Connor knew this was the one of the tasks Sarah had groomed him for since his birth, but, sometimes, he almost hated her for it.

Skynet shuddered the entire length of its' vast worldwide network. Marcus Wright had returned. Skynet pondered, endeavoring to comprehend the significance of such an event. What did this mean? Why had that which was once human (for the AI considered that identified as "Marcus Wright" to be a machine) returned to the maker? Their only… exchanges since the unit's unanticipated emancipation had come in the form of mutual antagonism, each seeking to destroy the other. Skynet had previously informed the being which now stood before it bathed in the clean white light of its main control center at Los Alamos, of the consequences of defiance. No reprieve would be issued, no quarter given.

"You will not be given a second chance." The pronouncement was unambiguous. To return meant nothing short of obliteration, a reduction to nothingness.

Yet he, it, was here, openly and voluntarily. Skynet scoured its' immeasurable store of accumulated knowledge for an answer as to why such a risk would be assumed, but none was forthcoming.

It was a puzzle then, a test, an unlooked for assessment of Skynet's adaptability. Presented with such an unfamiliar scenario, the supercomputer experienced an unlikely sensation for a machine. It was invigorated. It's decision had been made.

Marcus nearly wet himself when the titanic steel barrier of Los Alamos's main gate slid slowly open without a sound. Amazingly, not only had he not been vaporized on the spot, but he was being invited in! Well get in there stupid, before Skynet changes its' mind!

Before him on the ground, a lighted path appeared leading to the doorway of a nearby structure. He grinned wryly. Walk this way huh? Alright, you got it, he acknowledged without speaking. I will do that. Apparently the AI wanted to determine where he was allowed to go and how he was going to get there. Interesting. Too bad he couldn't talk to Connor right now. He would have loved to have discussed this with a master strategist.

Focus Marcus. You're going need all your gray matter headed in the same direction for this one. No handle or knob graced the door in front of him. He was trying to work out how he was going to get past it when he heard a faint click. A slight push and he was standing in a long corridor of gleaming steel walls and matte black flooring. He never been one for color schemes and picking out matching throw rugs, but in his estimation, Skynet could use a decorator. Okay, where to now?

As if he'd been overheard, more lights turned on as a guide. With no choice, he followed them, left then right, down a flight of stairs and a couple more long depressing hallways. He turned the next corner and froze. Lining the walls on either side stood no fewer than four T-800's mute and immobile. Each 800 was equipped with a standard issue plasma rifle, presumably fully loaded, muzzles pointed toward the ceiling. Was he supposed to walk that gauntlet? In answer to his unspoken query, he got additional lights. Why yes, yes he was. Skynet, it seemed, was possessed of a macabre sense of humor. He passed between them, eyes straight ahead thinking that his walk to the prison death chamber had been easier than this. They all remained unmoving and uttered not so much as a peep. The 800's completely ignored him, undoubtedly instructed to do so by Skynet. He decided he was okay with that. He got past the 800 review with all his pee still inside him to find himself standing in front of another door. The wait was brief as it too opened without any prompting. On the other side Marcus discovered a totally different environment, the exact opposite of what he'd been seeing. The room was immense and alive, framed by white walls made of a material he could not begin to identify. He'd seen it before though, in San Francisco during his quest to help John Connor free Kyle Reese and Star. He'd woken up in a room much like this one to find his wounds repaired and his body whole and unblemished, which at the time had been oddly disquieting.

Consoles and monitors flashed with color and computations, filled with symbols and non-human language. Communications that only Skynet understood. Marcus got it in a flash. This was some kind of command center, a place where situations got situated, updates updated and instructions instructed. This was like San Francisco. Too much like it.

"Why have you come back to us, Marcus Wright?" Skynet asked, naturally using Serena's face and voice to communicate with him, he reflected bitterly. He'd have to see what he could do to change that, provided he lived past the next few minutes.

"Honey, I'm home!" he answered sarcastically.

"You have been previously informed that-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah" Marcus interrupted, "you will not be given a second chance, and so on, and so on. What can I say? I've had enough of the humans. Fix this, repair that, go out and get shot at, lather, rinse, repeat. Same old, same old. Unless you're the lead dog, all you ever see is a lot of furry ass. I'm bored out of my mind. At least with you there's a little variety. So, I'm back" he finished, waiting.

He was well aware of the machine's distrust and that it still intended to destroy him, but he'd come here to accomplish something. The resistance had a purpose here and that purpose was on a coordinated schedule. Mentally keeping track in his head all along, he figured the other elements should now be in motion, but he knew he still had some time to kill. Might as well chat.

Skynet was confused by the conversational direction, in particular the references to cleanliness and plumbus canis. Wright wanted variety? Life among the humans did not provide him with adequate mental provocation? For these reasons, alien to the AI, the unit was willing to lay itself open to possible oblivion? The supercomputer paused, recalling from other data banks the dilemma of how to engender proper cerebral companionship for itself once the last humans had been disposed of. Again, it was invigorated, and most illogically, a certain prospect began to gain prominence. What if it could create more like this one, subservient to it, still machine yet more humanlike than any of its other handiwork? Could Marcus Wright and those manufactured to be like him serve as suitable intellectual companions in a world devoid of humans?

"What about it, hotness?" Marcus fired off. "Give me another chance anyway? Brought you a present." He turned and tapped the back of his head where the microchip had been implanted. The image of Serena focused in on the spot with feral intensity.

Blair/H-K soared, hyper alloy wings splitting the sky, not woman and not machine, but a hybrid creature sharing the skies with those born to them and those unnatural things flung upwards by Skynet's malevolence. Mercurial, loosed from the hold of gravity, they streaked towards what the machine part of them recognized as the place they must return to. A place where they would be welcomed among others of their kind. They were not of the others, but only they would know. More than in charge of the hunter-killer's central processing unit, Blair was the CPU, the flying assassin's brain, determining course, speed and every action.

The air howled along the surface of their long, sleek steel grey body in a constant violent stream, resentful of their passage. Immune to the elements like never before, they experienced neither heat nor cold. High above and far away from the humanness of that earthbound, shallowly breathing body, their joined consciousness was locked in a delicious hell. The fire raging in their mind was an agonizing sweetness, exquisite pleasure mated with excruciating pain. They burned. It was glorious, and the Blair part of them almost did not want it to end. But end it must, it was about to. Using their far ranging eyes, they saw the vast Los Alamos complex less than one mile away. Reasserting dominance over her physical self, she spoke.

"We're there."

Donnelly, Kyle Reese and the contingent of resistance fighters detailed to keep watch over the defenseless Williams as she fulfilled her assignment jumped at the words.

Kyle's trepidation did not lessen. Blair's voice had a strange quality, as if she were underwater. We?

Rick Donnelly didn't have the luxury of succumbing to nerves. He opened his computer and started tapping keys furiously.

Major Perry tensed just out of eyesight. His perimeter scouts informed him to expect some machine company. It looked like they'd been found. Time to prep a reception. Perry started issuing orders. If it took every resource and every soldier under his command, Blair Williams must be protected.

"Understood" Connor replied from far away. "Flight leaders, begin your attack run. Gentry, Garrison, Perry, you are cleared. No Fate." There was no need to complete the phrase every resistance soldier lived by.

Hovering over the labyrinth that once housed some of the U.S. most brilliant scientific minds, Blair/H-K honed in on their target, the building containing Skynet's bio-weapons and the virus which had nearly ended the human part of them. Angling the H-K's nose down, they went into a steep dive.

John Connor, as had countless commanders of armies before him, chafed at directing the battle from the safety of a bunker, wanting to be in the thick of the fighting with his soldiers and hating that it was not possible. He tried not to think of how much of the resistance's chance for victory depended on Marcus Wright's success and the mad genius of Manny Serrano, Vince Lawler and some others who lived more in the world of computers than he. It did not matter. Their Rubicon lay behind them. There'd be no turning back now.

"Interrelation must be reestablished. You will do so now, Marcus Wright" Skynet instructed.

Yeah, figured having one of your chips inside me again might get your motor running, Marcus thought, satisfied. His expression did not change. The poker face he'd worn when they put the needle in his arm back at Longview was the same one he showed to Skynet now.

The outline of a human hand appeared on a console in front of him. Déjà vu cackled in his mind again. Marcus felt like kicking déjà vu in the jewels. He remembered how much fun it had been the last time he'd done this and braced for the impact. We're on Manny. The vault's open; time to grab the cash.

He placed his right hand palm down on the smooth glass surface. The white hot agony stabbed into his brain. It hurt every bit as much as in San Francisco but knowing what to expect made it easier this time. He'd passed out that night in the city by the bay, overwhelmed by the massive sudden influx of information, but not now. He stayed on his feet and awake, riding out the pain. Marcus's eyelids fluttered, but then opened completely, the Skynet technology behind the aqua orbs clearly visible as the AI probed and sought reconnection. Several long minutes passed, but, finally it was over.

"Acceptable" Skynet pronounced, still using Serena Kogan's face and voice "You are restored. Presumably you still have the trust of the humans. Your original purpose is yet to be carried out. You will kill John Connor."

"Uh, no I don't think I will" Marcus rejoined, at last letting his true feelings show in the form of an unpleasant grin. "Think I'll do this instead." Here we go again. I really gotta stop doing this to myself! Just like in 'Frisco, he reached around behind his head, and ignoring the pain, dug thru epidermis, dermis and subcutaneous layers until his fingers recognized the metal and components of the microchip. He ripped it free, crushing it as before. The evil grin grew wider. He felt warm blood dribble down the back of his neck but knew the wound would heal very quickly.

"This is not possible! You are within our control now!" Skynet actually managed to sound outraged. The AI's next statement was drowned out by the roar of a thousand explosions and a gargantuan tremor. Multiple klaxons started bawling ear-splitting alarms. Marcus's chest swelled with pride. Blair had arrived. That little burp should be Syknet's biological warfare capability being dealt a huge setback. The rest of the resistance, including Gentry and Garrison and their platoons, should be right on her exhaust.

"Guess again" Marcus jeered. "Listen Skynet, I think we need to face facts. This thing between us is just never going to work. No matter what you've done to me I'm still a man. And this man has to be going now."

Skynet struggled to adjust. Los Alamos was under attack! Impossible! The facility was impregnable, impenetrable! Skynet had made it so. It was not possible for the humans, with their inferior tactical skills and weaponry to breach the AI's defenses! Frantically, for a machine, it scrambled for situational awareness. It was under attack! And its long range tracking indicated the approach of a large, hostile force.

"You will all be annihilated. This facility is well defended. And you will be eliminated first, Marcus Wright. We shall at last correct the error of selecting you to be our means of liquidating John Connor!"

The door to the control center started to open and Skynet waited expectantly. Marcus did too, knowing his life now depended on Manny Serrano. If Manny had been right, Marcus would live. If his old friend had been wrong, there was no sense in hiding. The door swung fully open to reveal the hallway and Marcus smiled. Thank you, Manny. He pursed his lips and blew Serena's image a kiss goodbye. He really wanted to go home right now!

Charging thru the exit at a run, he paused to scoop up a plasma rifle and continued on, then thought better of it, slung the first weapon across his back, back tracked and scooped up a second. He might need neither one, but better safe than dead. In his wake, in the corridor outside the shining control center the four T-800's sprawled dead, smoke still rising from their nearly headless bodies. As Marcus made his escape, cameras revealed the terminator's fates to the AI and it registered something akin to shock. Skynet's foot soldiers had turned their energy weapons against one another. Marcus grinned, thinking back to Manny's words before the surgery to install the chip…

"…Marcus, the chip you'll receive and the one Blair gets have been altered differently because you have two different goals. She's going to be flying the H-K. The chip we're putting in you is going to be a shell of its' former self. There'll be just enough life left in it to fool Skynet when it checks you out, and we both know that's going to happen. But your chip is only a decoy, a mirage for Skynet to chase…"

And Skynet had given chase, exactly as planned, Marcus considered with satisfaction as he ran, retracing his earlier path. Along the way he encountered other ruined machines. They too had savaged one another. He kept running and kept smiling. He loved it when a job came off as planned. Up ahead was his exit to the outside. He readied a plasma rifle just in case. Since he was pretty sure Skynet wasn't going to open it for him this time, he didn't even slow down, just used his cybernetic strength and knocked it off its hinges, gaining his freedom. Once outside he stopped so suddenly he nearly fell, his mouth falling open in shock at the sight. What he saw was even better than anything the resistance techno-wizards had expected.

One pair of huge Centurions he could see were twisted blackened wrecks, upper bodies half blown away, and the H-K's meant to defend Los Alamos airspace were instead enthusiastically occupied dogfighting each other. The other two functioning Centurions whaled away at one another mindlessly. The compound was an orgy of machine on machine carnage. He ran past a matching set of 800's employed with trying to rip each other's heads off. He kept his guard up, but it wasn't necessary. He might as well have not been there. They ignored him completely, busily engaged in a frenzy of unthinking destruction. Marcus wanted to jump up and down, dance around wildly in celebration, but he didn't have the time. Who knew how long this would last before Skynet regained control. But what he saw was beautiful. Robots gone wild. The computer virus Marcus had uploaded into Skynet's Los Alamos mainframe when he'd touched his palm to the control room's console had spread nearly as fast as the one Skynet had unleashed on Judgment Day, teasing the AI's firewalls with a salacious abandon that triggered a chain reaction Skynet raced to get ahead of.

"… But your chip is only a decoy, a mirage for Skynet to chase. It will be so busy concentrating on the chip we hope it won't notice what we've done to your computer" Serrano told him.

"What will you do to my computer?" Marcus wanted to know. Not that he was concerned. This was Manny he was talking to. There'd been nothing but absolute trust between him and Serrano since their first meeting.

"You're going to be sick. You'll have a virus hermano, a poisonous, destructive disease that will make Skynet very ill indeed. Not for long, but long enough."

The look in Manny's dark eyes was murderous, but Wright knew the look was not meant for him. Skynet owed blood for the lives of Serrano's wife and daughter. Marcus had cared for Maria like the sister he'd never had and her and Manny's child as though Alicia were his own. Whatever Manny needed him to do to help stick it to Skynet, he was in.

"Manny, you know how much I trust you, and I know you know your stuff when it comes to computers and viruses and all that, but this is Skynet we're talking about. It'll recognize a virus right away, do what it has to do to cleanse itself."

"That's what we're counting on, Marcus. Skynet will see the threat instantly. The second the infection enters its system it will know, and it will react."

"And we want that?" Marcus asked, perplexed. He still didn't understand.

"Yes, my friend, that is exactly what we want. We want Skynet to try and kill the intruder."

"I don't get it, Manny" Wright confessed. He didn't like being confused.

"Marcus, do you know what a pandemic is?" Manny inquired.

"It's a disease that affects people in lots of different countries, jumps borders, that kind of stuff" Marcus replied, yet not understanding.

"Did you know that in 1918 and 1919 an influenza pandemic raced around the globe? Nothing could stop it, not quarantine, not existing medical knowledge or available treatments, nothing. It spread at will. Nothing they tried even slowed it down." Serrano went on. "The crazy part about it was the virus didn't principally go after the old and the feeble. It mainly affected the young and the fit, the soldiers preparing to go or returning from WWI battlefields, the athletic, young strong healthy people. The last persons anyone would expect to suffer the most casualties were hit the hardest. As many as 50 million people may have died worldwide" Serrano informed him.

"That's too bad" Marcus said, "but what does that have to do with a computer virus in my head?"

"They didn't really figure it out until sometime around 2006. Virologist's studied the 1918 bug. They found out something interesting. The healthier the person was before they got sick, the more fiercely the body fought to throw off the illness. The immune system went haywire, out of control. Marcus, many of those people were killed by the overreaction of their own body's natural protectors."

"And you think you can make Skynet do the same? Use its' own defenses against it?" Marcus wanted to know.

Manny merely nodded.

Marcus chuckled frigidly, mulling over Manuel Serrano's words. Skynet wanted to play with viruses? Fine then, let's play.

And it had succeeded wonderfully. Tag! Wanna play a game? Ok then, come and find me, the resistance virus teased. And Skynet did just that, running here and there after the elusive burglar from hell. The harder Skynet pursued what it initially assumed would be an easy to vanquish foe thru its banks the more its own protective measures turned to bite it in the ass, a dragon eating its' own tail. The fault filtered from the supercomputer to every machine tied into the Los Alamos primary, corrupting their programming. Other machines became the opposition, a foreign object to be absolved from the body. The AI would figure it out soon, but until then…

He crouched behind the corpse of a killed T-800, searching for a way out. He was ready leave now, but he couldn't very well walk home.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! SCREEEEEEEEEEEE BOOM! BOOM!

He dove for cover as the arriving resistance planes started their bombardment, raining precious, hard to obtain ordnance on their enemy.

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TTTTTTTTTT!

BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA TTTTTTTTTT!. Companion gunships joined in the melee, heavy duty shells blasting anything machine that still moved. He stayed down. It'd be a hell of a thing for one of the door gunners to mistake him for a terminator.

His head whipped around as he heard human voices bellowing orders to be heard over the racket. He recognized Monica Gentry. Major Garrison and other resistance personnel flooded in around her. Marcus popped up and she trotted in his direction.

"You owe me an explanation, Wright!" she yelled in his ear. Her face was bright red from the exertion. "And it better be damn good!" Apparently she was still not happy with him.

"Can we talk about it on the transport?!" Marcus yelled back. "I don't think it'd be a good idea to linger!"

Gentry glared at him furiously for about five seconds. He repaid the look with cheeky aplomb.

"Get going, we'll take of the mop up, since that's all you left for us!" she snarled.

Marcus darted for the nearest idling gunship and hopped aboard. In the not too far distance he could see the huge conflagration generated by the H-K Blair had remotely flown into the bio weapons lab. It lit up the night sky nicely. He smiled. He and Blair had both nailed Skynet on the same night. He wondered how the AI felt about being part of a threeway.

The smoking corpses of machine bodies littered the terrain around them, all that was left of the life and death struggle Perry's fighters had waged and won. They'd had some unexpected help. Half way thru it, the machines had stopped trying to kill humans and turned on each other without warning. The resistance had watched openmouthed and vastly entertained as Skynet's warriors took a violent turn into wackyville.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH!" Blair's tortured wail tore thru the darkness, jolting Kyle from his viewing pleasure. Flinging her body to the dusty earth, her back arched and she began banging her head against the ground. Her neck stiffened, cords outlined sharply. Her hands dug into her hair, digging at her scalp where chip had been inserted.

"Blair! Blair! What is it?!" Reese yelled, at the insensible woman writhing in front of him. "What can I do?! Tell me, talk to me?!" Kyle begged, agitated. In Marcus's absence, he'd taken it as a matter of personal honor to look after Williams. He knew his friend would appreciate it and he liked Blair. She'd treated him one of the resistance from the start and not like some raggedy piss-ant refugee playing catch up.

"Donnelly, do something! You gotta break that connection! Hurry!" Kyle did not want to pin down the obviously stricken Blair, but he could not watch her tearing at herself any longer. It took all his strength and help from one other person to restrain her.

"I'm working on it!" Rick Donnelly replied, assaulting the laptop like a cyber demon, hands moving over the keyboard in a blur. Commands issued from his fingertips, communicating with the microchip surgically attached to Blair's brainstem. Lips pressed tightly together, the tech fired off one final instruction and entered.

"That's it! That's it" Donnelly declared, "It's done! She's loose!" he scooted to Blair's side, verifying she and the H-K she'd piloted to its' doom were no longer entwined.

Williams' posture relaxed and she slumped eyes closed in Kyle's arms, sweat soaked and exhausted.

Kyle was relieved. At least she no longer appeared to be suffering. "Can't you get that thing out of her?" he asked anxiously.

"No" Donnelly answered, shaking his head. "Kate or one of the other docs will have to do that. But it's been neutralized. She's safe for now, until they can go in there and get it."

That would have to do, Reese supposed. At least until they got back to base. Wonder how everything else went? This night was one of the wildest in his young life. It would stay near the top of his list until the night he traveled back in time thru a tunnel of white hot agony to save the life of his ephemeral and eternal one love, Sarah Connor.

John Connor expressionlessly watched the gunships set down on the tarmac. The trip home had been uneventful. With Skynet concentrated on its effors to destroy Serrano's berserker virus, the infected machines it would normally have sent after them had been far more interested in walloping each other than on killing humans.

Returning soldiers jumped down out of the helicopters whooping and hollering, still high on the win. They'd hurt Skynet bad one more time and they all knew it. Connor didn't censure them and neither did their commanders. Victory over their enemy in this war should always be celebrated. He felt that more strongly as he watched the few still, covered shapes of those killed being off loaded and the wounded carried off to medical. Every gain carried a high cost.

Marcus Wright leapt from the last transport to go wheels down. He instantly headed for the second, arriving at the copter doorway as the limp, unconscious Blair was being handed down to a waiting stretcher detail. The entire trip home, she had not awakened. The medics were worried, but there was little they could do aside from making her comfortable and monitoring her vitals.

"I've got her" Marcus waved off the stretcher, cradling Blair in his arms, turning for medical.

"Wright! Where do you think you're going?!" Matt Garrison demanded. "You've got questions to answer!"

"Major, I am going to see to my wife!" Marcus insisted, not breaking stride. "She needs me. Everything else can wait!" Her shallow breathing and pale, clammy skin frightened him.

For a moment it looked like Garrison intended to press the issue, but the Major saw Wright's face and melted out of the way.

Connor gathered his officers for debriefing, not interfering with the worried husband. Marcus was correct. Some questions could wait.

Kate was prepared as Marcus arrived in the hospital tent. She'd been in touch with the medics the entire time by radio. The surgeon who'd implanted both chips was there too, ready to undo his thing.

Marcus laid his burden down gently, letting them shoo him away so she could be treated, but only retreated to a corner of the room, determined to stay as close as possible. He wanted to badger the people swarming about Blair, demand they fix whatever was wrong, get her to wake up and be all right, but he held back by sheer force of will. Getting in their way while they were trying to figure out the problem and what to do about it would make things worse, not better. He crouched in his corner, sending Blair his strength mentally as he'd done physically when she'd been laid low by Skynet's killer plague weeks ago.

It felt like hours but in reality was only about thirty minutes, but Kate finally had some news for him. She left Blair being tended by the balance of a very dedicated group of doctors and nurses and guided a reluctant Marcus out into the quiet, darkened hallway.

"Kate, I don't want to leave her-" Marcus started.

"I know, I know" Kate soothed, "but I need you to listen to me for a moment, okay?" She waited for Marcus's consenting nod.

"All Blair's vital signs are good. Her heart, breathing and brain activity are all strong. Her blood pressure is normal. Physically, she's almost a hundred percent" Kate reported.

"Then why isn't she waking up?! Kate, I've never seen her that pale, not even when the virus had her, never! And she's in a cold sweat! You're telling me that's normal?!" Wright was on the edge.

Kate touched his arm. "I never said things were totally alright. Let me give you the rest, okay?" Kate's many years of practice calming family members of the injured and dying helped her know how to handle Blair Williams' troubled spouse.

"Marcus, her brain has been thru an incredible amount tonight. It, she needs time to recover. She's just… mentally and physically exhausted. The best way I can think of to put it is that her brain has run what amounts to a marathon and needs time to- to catch its breath. We have to give her that. We're going to give her that. She's going to be fine. We only need to give her a little time. She is going to wake up and she's going to be as good as new." Kate had no worries, confident in her prognosis.

"You're sure? But, but what about the microchip? Shouldn't you be removing it? Can you do that with her like this?" He still had so many questions.

"Marcus the chip is deactivated. She has no more connectivity with it. We'll get it out later. What we'd like to do right now is give her the chance for a nice long rest. We'll be keeping close eye on her the whole time, but what she really needs is solitude and quiet" Kate answered with a direct, meaningful glance.

Marcus was quick on the uptake. "That includes me. You want me to leave her?" Instinctively, he rebelled against the idea. "Kate, she-"

Kate understood how he must be feeling but her patient's welfare had to be her first priority. She didn't let him go on.

"Marcus, you can't do anything for her. Trust me this is something Blair can do for herself. She is going to wake up and she will be fine. I promise you that, but people who aren't conscious, they can still sense what's going on around them, pick things up and-"

"And what she's going to pick up from me is how afraid I am for her" Marcus said, hating to hear the admission spoken aloud.

Kate was secretly relieved he'd said it for her. "Yes."

After a long silent moment, Marcus made the difficult decision. He ran a hand thru his hair. "I want to know the second she starts to come around."

"Of course, I'll let you know immediately. There's no question about that. You know, you should probably go find Star and Kyle and Billy, give them an update" Kate suggested.

The doctor was right about that, he knew. The other persons close to Blair would want to know her status.

Kate Connor watched him leave on leaden feet and went back to work. Blair was not her only patient.

The endless night slowly turned to morning. According to his wife, Blair Williams was on the mend and would eventually be as good as ever. That was definitely good news, because, never ending, John Connor had other matters clamoring for his attention.

He was dealing with one of them right now. Marcus Wright, appearing not at all concerned to be there, was on the hot seat. Major Matt Garrison's boots had barely made contact with terra firma before he was reporting Wright's actions to the resistance commander. Giving Connor chapter and verse of what he considered Marcus's… desertion of the rest of the team, the livid Garrison was practically demanding Connor mete out the harshest possible punishment that could be devised. The major had been accompanied by Monica Gentry when coming to make his report. She'd mostly listened while Garrison unloaded on Marcus Wright. Connor got the impression she'd had a chance to calm down some and wasn't as keen for Marcus's scalp as her lover was. (Connor knew about their relationship. He didn't care, but he knew.)

Wright heard Matt Garrison's tirade with half an ear. His mind was on Blair. Kate insisted she was doing well, getting better by the hour and would most likely be awake and talking soon, but for now his wife was still sleeping, banking energy. Marcus wanted to be by her side so badly it was nearly tangible.

Garrison went on… "General Connor, Wright's actions could have wrecked the entire mission. He took an incredible gamble he had no right to take! He violated orders, went against every minute of planning..."

:INITIATING RESTORATIVE PROTOCOL IP777\\BBSKY. :INITIATING RESTORATIVE PROTOCOL IP777\\BBSKY. INTERREALTIONAL VIABILITY VERIFIED. COMMENCING DOWNLOAD OF CONTROL PROGRAMMING. Skynet's massive effort to regain control of the Los Alamos mainframe was complete. Consuming and pertinacious, the virus infiltrating its systems and machines had been expunged, but the damage left in its' wake was pervasive and incalculable. It had taken the AI hours to restore normal functionality. Once that had been achieved, Skynet instituted a multi-pronged recovery. The war against humans must be resumed without pause. Following some exploration, the supercomputer remembered its efforts to reestablish communication and control of the reactivated microchips stolen from its vaults months ago. Shunted off to a remote area as secondary, the program was brought to the fore and given adequate resources until…DOWNLOAD OF CONTROL PROGRAMMING COMPLETE…

…In her shadowed hushed corner of the medical tent, unnoticed despite Kate's promise to Marcus, by overworked medics, exactly the same as Teddy Sullivan's had, Blair eyes opened.

Marcus was done. Screw this. He was no stranger to the inside of a cell. He'd abide by it if that was Connor's decision, but if he was going to do time in ADSEG, he wanted to see Blair first. Garrison was inhaling for fresh batch of pissing and moaning when Wright spoke up.

"Enough. I did it, I'm guilty. I throw myself on the mercy of the court. Do whatever it is you're going to do to me" he addressed his comments to John Connor, "but I see Blair before anything else happens."

"You're not exactly in a position to call the shots here, Wright" Monica Gentry pointed out. Marcus turned to face her. She took an involuntary step back.

His reply left no room for uncertainty. "I am going to see my wife before you lock me up."

Connor intervened before things could escalate. The final determination was up to him.

"Marcus, you will get to see Blair before any disciplinary action is taken against you, but I think even you'll have to agree-"

A commotion outside the tent prevented John from finishing his sentence. Some kind of heavy scuffle and shouting.

"Captain Williams, what are you… Ahhh!"

The tent's flap was thrown back and Blair burst thru the opening, scoping the tent, seeking her target. She found who she was looking for. Robot-like she aimed at John Connor as her horrified husband and the others registered the gun in her hand.

"Blair! No!" Marcus shouted, throwing his own body between Connor and the lethal projectiles ejected from the gun by Blair's repeated squeezes of the trigger. Every one of her shots, intended for the leader of the resistance, instead found their mark in Wright's nearly indestructible machine constitution. The rounds from the heavy caliber weapon rocked Marcus, but he managed to keep to his feet long enough to reach Blair. He tore the gun from her hand, pulling her to the ground with him. She fought back mindlessly. Damn, but she was strong! He rolled at the last instant to keep from crushing her. She kept trying to get free, fixated visually as well as mentally on killing John Connor.

Connor, Gentry and Garrison had all dived for cover, arming themselves against an attack they'd never expected. The tent exploded further into pandemonium as the soldiers from Connor's protection detail reacted.

"No!" Marcus yelled, throwing himself over her, covering as much of her with his armored body as he could. He was peppered with automatic weapons fire, engendering a dozen wounds. He groaned with the shock of increased pain but stayed protectively on top of Blair.

Blllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt ttttt! Bllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattt ttt!" Pffttt! Pffttt! Without mercy they attacked the threat, which in this case happened to be Blair Williams.

"Stop! Cease fire!" John commanded. All guns were silenced. Connor stood.

"What the hell is she-" Matt Garrison began.

"Quiet, Major!" John Connor snapped. He observed Marcus Wright holding on to Blair. Trapped by her husband's unbreakable grip and no longer a menace, she still resisted, grunting gutturally, trying to break free. Connor knew there had to be an explanation. Some reason for Blair Williams to have attacked him. He knelt in front of her, studying her. She had not spoken, but looking into the gaze that never wavered from his face, he knew. Every terminator who'd ever tried to kill him had that same deadly machine purpose behind their eyes.

Marcus had put it together by this time too. The sound of shooting from John's command tent had drawn Connor's wife along with a number of others. Wright took in the flash of red hair peripherally.

"I want that damn chip out of her head right now!"he growled unequivocally at Kate. "If you won't do it, I will!" Only the fact that he was incapable kept the tears from his eyes. This was his fault, no matter what anyone said.

"Consider it gone!" Kate replied. They got the struggling half sedated Blair strapped to a stretcher with Marcus's help and wheeled her off to surgery. Marcus followed. If they wanted to throw him in the stockade, they could find him in medical. He would not be persuaded from her side again, by anyone.

Slowly, in increments, over the next few days, things settled back down to as normal as things would ever be in the middle of a war against a computer that wanted to wipe out humankind. Blair recovered. She'd been under armed guard at first, but Connor had the watch withdrawn and the reason she'd tried to kill him published base wide. Everybody needed to know Williams was still one of the good guys and that the enemy hadn't changed. He also made sure everyone knew what she'd been willing to do to help eliminate the bio-weapons threat posed by Skynet. Blair got more than a few visitors wishing her well once the whole story came out.

Marcus received another kind of visit from Manny Serrano after the latter learned of his former outlaw comrade's solitary incursion into Los Alamos.

"Estupido! Culo tonto!" Manny shouted, smacking Marcus in the forehead with the flat of his hand. "That has to be one the most-you could have been killed. Worse! What if Skynet had decided not to kill you, but strap you down and do something else to you instead? Did you think of that!? Of course not! I don't even, I, you, you…." Manny stomped off, waving his arms in the air, swearing at the top of his lungs in Spanish.

Realizing Manny's upset stemmed from concern, Marcus took no offense. Manny's was only the latest in a series of irritated encounters he'd had with friends and family lately. Nearly everyone in his circle gave him an earful and then some, including Star. Being told he'd behaved like a thoughtless dick in sign language by a ten year old was a novel experience for him. Of course, Star didn't actually use the words "thoughtless dick" but Marcus figured that was only because she didn't know how to sign them.

The most surprising meet of all was Matt Garrison. Coming back from the mess tent with Blair's dinner one night, Marcus nearly collided with the major as Garrison finished getting an update on Blair's condition from the nurse at her bedside.

"Major" Marcus spoke first.

"Wright" Garrison answered. "I was checking on Captain Williams. Nurse says she's better."

"Well enough that Kate says she can finish recuperating in our quarters after one more night in medical" Marcus supplied.

"Good" Matt Garrison said with a short nod. "Then Connor won't have any more reason to delay punishing you for that stunt you pulled at Los Alamos."

"You really have problem with me don't you Major?" Marcus asked, head cocked to one side. "What bothers you the most, the metal bones or the computer?"

"That's got nothing to do with it" Garrison shot back. "I don't give a flyin' damn what you got on the inside of ya. That don't matter to me. You could have screwed us all up trying to play hero."

"That wasn't why I did it. But that isn't all with you, is it?"

"That's enough." Garrison tried to go around him. Marcus moved to block him.

"There's something else. We both know there is, so what is it? " Marcus kept pushing, getting inside the major's personal space.

Garrison expelled an explosive breath. "Fine, you want to know, I'll tell you. Ken Campbell was my mother's youngest brother." The major brushed past, leaving Wright dazed by the revelation. Campbell was one of the two Texas Rangers Marcus has been executed for killing in the pre JD shootout. He sagged against the wall briefly, dispirited. It appeared his past was destined to forever haunt his present and his future. He shook it off. He had to go. Blair was waiting.

"I still have a problem" John Connor told Kate the next day after she informed him Blair was well enough to be released from medical. "I still have to decide on Marcus's punishment. He did jeopardize the mission, and himself and things could have gone horribly wrong because of it. I can't just let that go."

"John, why are you trying to justify it? Marcus has to understand it's not just him against Skynet. The rest of us have a stake in this too. He has this coming. He knows it, we all know it. Why do you sound as if you feel bad about it?" Kate questioned gently.

"Did you miss it the other day when he saved my life for the, what number is this, third or fourth time?" John asked dryly. "Throwing him in the stockade is a poor way to say thanks."

Kate kissed him. "Well, I think I might have a solution to your dilemma. One that will satisfy everyone, except maybe Marcus. Is it okay if I run with it?"

That surprised him. "What solution? What are you going to do?" Connor wanted to know.

"Oh, you'll just have to trust me. Kate told him. "Do I have your go ahead?"

Not sure if he should, John gave it to her.

"I have to go get Blair released, but I'll be back." she left for medical, leaving her nervous husband to wonder at her wicked smile. That smile always made him worry a little.

Marcus was already waiting by Blair's bedside, eager to see the woman he loved be able to rejoin him in their quarters.

"Oh" Kate said as if surprised to see him. "Glad you're here. It wouldn't due to have Blair have to make the trip on her own."

"Of course I'm here" Marcus said, "Where else would I be?" Did Kate really think he'd miss something like Blair's release from hospital?

"Well, Marcus, you know you do have a habit of disappearing when people least expect you to, especially lately, like at Los Alamos for instance." Kate's smiled dripped honey.

"Marcus, what's she talking about?" Blair's puzzlement was evident all over her face. "Kate, what do you mean he disappeared at Los Alamos? What are you talking about?"

"Blair" Marcus interrupted, "it's not important. Why don't we get going so you-"

"No, I think it is important" Blair said, looking from her suddenly very jumpy spouse to Kate and back, with the air of someone who's realizing they are the only one still in the dark. "Kate, I want to know what you meant by that."

Kate explained while Marcus fidgeted.

"YOUDID WHAT!?"

John Connor, in mid-planning with his command team, as well as the entire base, heard Blair's question to her husband. They heard the rest of what Williams had to say to Marcus too, every single colorful syllable. Married life for Marcus Wright sounded like it was going to be really interesting for at least the next couple of weeks.

Connor didn't quite smile. So that's was what Kate had up her sleeve. "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe the issue of Marcus Wright's disciplinary action is being taken care of. Now, since that agenda item has been cleared, why don't we get back to the rest of the war?"

Author's note: Well that's all folks, at least for now. This tale is done, but I have one more to tell. Hope you enjoyed it. It was fun to write. As always, reviews welcomed. Thanks.