T2 - 03 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Times of Trouble

by Russell Blackford

  It looked like the two who'd stepped from the Hummer had waited for everything else to happen before they made their entrance. John caught a glance from Sarah, who smiled with the faintest trace of cynicism. She'd noticed the small touch of drama. One of the two was a tall, lean white man, perhaps in his fifties, his head almost totally bald and his shoulders stooped. He had big, veiny, powerful-looking hands, and thick wrists protruding from the sleeves of his coat. General Connor walked over and shook hands with him, clapping him on the shoulder. "Good to see you, Isaac."

  "You're welcome," the man—Isaac—said. "The news overnight isn't so great...but it's always good to see you here."

  General Connor nodded. "Brief us on the way to the base."

  "I'll do that. You know I'm in your comer—whatever happens."

  "Well, I wouldn't have thought any different, but you can't be too sure."

  "Don't worry about that. You won't find any trouble now you're home.. .not in that way, at least. We're all with you one hundred and fifty percent."

  The other person who'd gotten out was a woman. John took several seconds to recognize her. She also offered her hand to General Connor, who shook it very gently and respectfully. "I'm so sorry for everything," he said. "I wish we had Carlo with us."

  She kissed him on the cheek, then drew back. "Carlo was a good boy. He fought well, and he was always loyal, even when he had his own ideas. You know that, don't you?"

  "Of course I do, Gabriela." The General's eyes held hers, but his head was bowed, just slightly.

  "That's all that matters now. I'm proud of him."

  "With plenty of reason, Gabriela."

  "Don't blame yourself. Please. I don't blame you. I never blamed you for anything."

  By now, it had dawned on John. This was Gabriela Tejada. Her son, Carlo, had been among those who'd gone with them to Madrid. He'd fought well there, but never made it as far as the mountains and the final raid. They'd had to fight their way through an army of H-Ks and endos just to get that far, and that was when Carlo had been killed.

  "Thank you for that," General Connor said. "It means more than I can say."

  "Bah, it shouldn't even be an issue."

  "It's been one in my mind. There's only you and Cecilia left. And I need to put her in danger, too."

  "Every day we survive in this world is a bonus. We've done better than most. Don't try to protect us. Don't even think about that. The Tejadas have always been fighters, John. You couldn't hold us back—not even if you tried."

  "All right."

  Gabriela was almost six feet tall, with a strong, deeply lined face and long gray hair falling past her shoulders. In his own world, John had known her when he was growing up, when she'd been in her thirties and forties. Her children had been teenagers at that time, just a bit older than John. In that world, Gabriela had shown a glorious smile; now, in this reality, she'd grown old. Her teeth were broken and discolored, some of them missing. She must have been nearly eighty, but she still looked like she could hold her own in a fight. The Gabriela he'd known had seemed feminine enough, despite her large build, but this Gabriela carried herself almost like a man...and not some frail old guy of eighty.

  "Let's get back to the base," Isaac said. "We've got a lot to talk about."

  General Connor nodded. "That we have." He stood, with both hands on his laser rifle. He looked more than ever like a man no one ought to mess with. He was the determined type. Sooner or later he'd get what he wanted.

  Sarah had seen death assume her own form and face, when the T-1000 Terminator that she'd fought in 1994 had imitated her appearance. Before then and after, she'd come close to death many times. Again and again, she'd had to absorb concepts that had stretched her understanding—from that day many years ago when she'd met Kyle Reese, back in 1984. He'd told her about Skynet, Judgment Day, the dark future that awaited mankind. At first, she'd thought he was mad, but she'd soon found out otherwise. The reality of facing a Terminator, an implacable enemy set on her destruction, had changed her mind.

  She wondered, at times, whether there was any limit to what life was going to demand of her. How much could she bear? How many new ideas must she understand? Since that first encounter with a Terminator, it was as if her ordinary shallow life had opened up like a door at the rear of a cave, to reveal an unseen world behind everything she'd seen and done, and known. But that was not the end of it. Behind that door was another. Then another. It seemed she could never find certainty, never know just where she stood.

  Now, they wanted even more of her. More worlds, more layers of reality, more concepts. It was almost more than she could bear.

  Yet, she had to. Painful as it was, she needed to understand.

  The man who was her son—though years older than her—made quick introductions. The big bald man who'd met them was Colonel Isaac Zell. He'd fought in Colorado, like almost every other able-bodied fighter, though some had been left behind to defend the Resistance bases. He'd been back in New York for only two weeks, and he now commanded the whole East Coast division of the Resistance. This was a man that General Connor seriously needed to have on his side, and to talk things out with.

  In more ways than one, the General was Sarah's creation. Despite the age difference, she had given him birth. Then the years she'd spent training and teaching him had molded the man's personality.

  In years actually lived, Sarah was still only thirty-seven, whereas General Connor was forty-four. They were from different worlds, but she actually was his mother. She was the very same woman who had given him birth, back in 1985. Up to the age of twenty-nine—back in 1994, again, when she'd fought the T-1000 in a running battle through the streets and factories of Los Angeles—there had been just the one Sarah: a woman with a single set of experiences. All her memories to that point were the same as those of the Sarah Connor who'd lived in this world and survived Judgment Day, the woman whom General Connor had known as his mother during the years from 1994 to 2012.

  That Sarah Connor had been killed in a street battle with H-Ks and other machines in Buenos Aires, seventeen years in the past. But she was me, Sarah thought. If you go back far enough in time, we join up. Play the tape backwards, and we're the same person.

  She could see that Gabriela found it hard, as well; probably, everyone did. Gabriela looked back and forward between General Connor and sixteen-year-old John, as if comparing them, or comparing them both with some mental image of the General when he'd been John's age. They all had to get used to the fact that General Connor was not like some older relative of John's. He wasn't even a sort of cross-time counterpart. He was actually the very same person, just as Sarah was the very same person as the woman they'd all known, who had died in 2012.

  In Sarah's reality, there had been a lot of talk about human cloning, making a genetic copy of someone. As far as their genes went, the clone would be a younger version of the original. But the relationship between Sarah and that dead woman, heroine of the Resistance, was much closer than that. So was that between John and General Connor. Only one John Connor had been born back in February 1985. Their worlds had not diverged until May 1994. Right up until then, there had been just the one person, with the same experiences and memories. When the timelines split, it was as if John himself had split in two.

  After a moment of hesitation, Gabriela hugged Sarah, who froze up at the touch of this strange old woman...who was the same woman as she'd last seen back in 1997, just after Judgment Day had failed to happen in her world. Then Sarah lost her reserve, and hugged back tightly. Once again, this Gabriela was her old friend, with all the same memories, right up to...up to 1994, she realized. She'd last seen Gabriela in 1997, but reality had split in two even before that, the day of the raid on Cyberdyne. All their experience even for those three years from 1994 to 1997 must be slightly different. Still, they really did know each other. Each had memories from Sarah's earliest times in Argentina.

  "It's good to see you," Sarah said, not trying to be e
nthusiastic, just hoping that what she said was sincere. She had to accept these people. There was no use in doing it any other way. She had adapted to so much, surely she could manage this one small thing. In fact, this was the easy part. There was much worse that she still had to adapt to.

  Anton and Jade wanted to return to their world, to yet another timeline, to continue the war against Skynet. But Sarah was tired of it all. Again, it was like a cave, with a door in the back, then a door behind the door. Then another door, behind that. Did it ever end? What were they achieving, in battle after battle with Skynet, fighting it across time, and across these different universes? She wondered how it could ever end except in a final victory for the war computer. Why go on? What was the point? She knew she mustn't think that way, that it betrayed everything she'd tried to do all her adult life. But the thought brought her close to despair.

  "I'm glad we meet at last," Gabriela said. "It is strange for me, but I understand what has happened. We still have many memories together."

  "Just what I was thinking," Sarah said.

  "I suppose it is only natural." They stepped apart, giving smiles that were sincere, however puzzled and restrained. Gabriela looked toward the Humvee that she'd arrived in with Isaac. "Come, we need to act quickly. This cannot wait."

  "Yeah, don't I know it."

  "There is someone else for you to meet."

  "Where? Here in New York?"

  "Yes, back at the base. Come, come, let's all get back. John"—she obviously meant Big John, General Connor, for she glanced his way—"you come with me and Isaac. We need to talk. Now who else?"

  John could almost handle the idea that he and the General were the same person, or at least they were both the survivors of the one person who'd existed before May 1994. Maybe that person didn't exist anymore—he couldn't work that one out—but each of them could claim to be his continuation. He survived in both of them. Both of them had his memories.

  Actually, that could have been really creepy. If there'd been anything deeply embarrassing that he could remember from before he'd split off from General Connor at the age of nine—that might have made things worse between him and the General. But it wasn't really like that. Most of his early memories involved hanging around in the mountains of Central America, or in the Salceda camp in the Low Desert in California, learning engines, driving and flying, how to blow stuff up—and a host of other practical skills.

  He guessed he'd been a brat during his last months in California, when his mom had been locked away in Pescadero, and the bottom had seemed to fall out of his world, but he forgave himself for that. What had he been supposed to do? He'd grown up believing in Sarah and her story. His whole life had been built around it, everything he'd been or seen or done. Then the adult world had told him it was all lies, or a delusion, that his mom was some kind of psycho-crazy, that she was a whacko. He'd had every right to be disturbed by it. No one who knew the full story could blame him for that. He didn't blame himself. No, there was nothing he couldn't forgive himself for, or that he couldn't stand Big John knowing.

  The General and Sarah piled into the back seat of the Humvee that Gabriela and Isaac had arrived in. John considered squeezing in the back, too, not wanting to miss whatever discussion they might have on the way to the base, but then decided against it. Jade and Anton exchanged silent glances. By now, John could usually tell when they were subvocalizing to each other through their throat mikes. "Well go with the crate," Anton said. The Specialists retrieved their laser rifles, then leapt in easy, fluid motions onto the flatbed of the truck. Jade's movements were so graceful, it seemed to make perfect sense when she suddenly became a blur, running or leaping faster than the eye could follow. When Anton did it, it was even more impressive in a way—not because he was as fast as Jade. He wasn't, not quite. It was because such speed and precision seemed unnatural for such a large, heavily built man.

  John followed Anton and Jade, who helped him up effortlessly, one taking each of his arms. The three of them sat up the front of the flatbed, backs against the driver's cabin, legs stretched out, guns at the ready. The Humvee with General Connor and the others started up. Leaving the other vehicles and J fighters to guard the Hercules and the Black Hawk, the Humvee drove off, followed by the truck with John and the Specialists in the back, then the other flatbed truck—some of the Spaniards and Canadians had piled onto it. And then another Humvee. The four vehicles drove in a column on dusty, bumpy, obstacle-filled roads.

  Jade sat in the middle, John trying not to press too close to her, feeling pleased to be with her, yet awkward about it. "So..." he said. "What's the next step?"

  "I do not think General Connor has a choice," Jade said. "It may be distasteful, but he will have to use the remaining Terminators." She meant the ones they had captured in Colorado, the T-799s and T-800s that hadn't yet been "born" from their pods.

  "That's what I figure."

  "He has almost run out of human fighters. He'll have to rely on machines."

  "Some people aren't going to like that."

  "I know, John. I understand how they feel. Really I do."

  "Back in 1994," John said, "we destroyed the Terminator that the General sent back. We wanted to get rid of any technology at all that could be used to develop Skynet. The chip in its head might have been used like that. I didn't want to, but it was right. It could have gotten in the wrong hands. I know that Rosanna Monk invented Skynet anyway—in your world..."

  "But you had to try to stop it?"

  "We had to. Mom was right about that. And it almost worked. Even in your world, it took years for Rosanna to invent Skynet over again. It's the same this time. We'll have to get rid of the Terminators. They're just too dangerous. It's not what they can do...it's what someone might do with the technology. I trust Big John, of course."

  "I suppose you should. He is you, after all."

  "He's me after a lot of experiences. I trust the others, too, like Gabriela. But what happens when they're gone? Someone could use it the wrong way. I guess we can never be sure they won't, but we need to make it as hard as we can."

  "Do you want to destroy the Terminators now?" Anton said, breaking in without warning.

  "I don't know. I didn't say that." He tried to focus his thoughts. "But if we go on using Skynet's machines, when does it stop? Maybe down the line someone might build Skynet all over again."

  He knew that things had worked differently in this world. In 1994, Big John and Sarah hadn't raided Cyberdyne; they'd fled to Argentina, without destroying the T-1000, and they'd taken the T-800 with them. They'd used it to help until it was destroyed in battle. General Connor had that experience. From where he was coming from, Terminators could be controlled, at least for a while.

  "You're right," Jade said, to his surprise. "We have to draw a line."

  "Yeah, but how?"

  "Perhaps there is no right answer, but lines have to get drawn. That is how the world keeps working."

  That wasn't very satisfying. "I'll think about it," he said. "I don't know if anyone will listen to me, anyway."

  "Maybe they will, maybe not. I am interested in what you think."

  Why should you be? he wondered. His brainpower was nothing to hers. Why would she care what he thought, or what any of them thought, except Anton. The two of them probably had it all worked out.

  They rode in silence for about two miles, as the truck bumped on broken terrain, jarring them with its hard suspension. They got past the rusted out car hulks on the streets by driving on footpaths, through gaps, or across spaces that must once have been parks, plazas, or where buildings had stood prior to the explosions of Judgment Day.

  Isaac's Humvee turned sharply left into a group of buildings that remained standing in a hollow, shattered state, then drove into a tunnel that led downwards on a 30° incline. As the truck followed, with John in the back, it bumped hard at the tunnel entrance, then drove for another fifty yards before turning a hairpin corner. After two more sharp turn
s and steeply-sloping ramps, the Humvee parked against a concrete wall just back from a point where the tunnel became too narrow for vehicles to continue. There was a circular space cut out of the tunnel's walls, wide enough to turn, then the tunnel closed into a narrow gap where only two adults could pass abreast.

  As John climbed down from the back, another two well-armed men stepped forward from farther inside the tunnel, accompanied by another dog. One of the men had lost a leg, and walked painfully, using a wooden crutch. Again, General Connor bent down to pat the dog, then shook hands with each of the men. As he shook hands with the General, the one-legged guy used his upper arm to hold the crutch close to his body.

  Anton, Jade, and a few others shifted the heavy crate with the T-1000. Isaac led them all down three flights of worn concrete stairs, then pointed out a corner of the stairwell where other gear was stowed. "Leave the crate here," he said. "It'll be safe. We keep this area under guard, day and night." They camouflaged it under some wooden boxes, a folded tarpaulin, and a pile of well-worn, crumpled military uniforms.

  "It could be very important," Jade said. "It may turn out to be crucial."

  "I know that." Isaac sounded slightly offended. "Our main quarters are down two more levels. If you're coming to the meeting, follow me." "Right," Anton said. "Time to make decisions." "Yeah," Sarah said. There was a touch of weariness, even despair, in her voice. "Let's hope none of us live to regret them."

  SIX

  NEW YORK CITY SEPTEMBER 5, 2029

  General Connor's militia had constructed its New York base in the partially collapsed spaces of what had once been a huge underground parking garage, with tunnels connecting it to other caverns and gaps where human beings could hide or store supplies. With Skynet's machines still hunting down their prey, no location above ground was safe—even these quarters were not completely safe from attack by H-Ks, endos, Terminators, and the rest of Skynet's armory. By any decent standards used in America before Judgment Day, it was a disgrace to live here—dark, cold, dirty, primitive—but it was better than taking chances on the surface.