DISCLAIMER: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and its characters are the property of James Cameron and Fox. No infringement intended.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
CHALLENGE: Written for Epic Proportions 2009.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Flashbacks are in italics.

Serenity Point
By A.P. Stacey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He needed a drink.

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

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

"Define average for me."

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

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

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

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

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

He suppressed the urge to sigh - Cybernetic organisms indeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Casting a glance at the digital clock methodically counting down the few hours of the evening remaining, Sarah pulled the file box up from the carpet and began to sweep the intelligence back into hiding for however long she could stomach relaxing without the accompanying guilt overwhelming her and driving the woman back to sift through a thousand sheets of paper. Amongst the ruffled single-sheets her gaze settled on a thick manuscript of a dozen pages stapled together. Conspicuous by its thickness and type face compared to the handwritten scribbles that constituted most of the intelligence at hand, Sarah pulled placed it in her lap.

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

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

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

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

"… It is a widely accepted scientific consensus that the next great breakthrough in computational speeds and capability will come with the first systems that imitate the Human Brain, and its capacity to think beyond simple facts to arrive at an abstract, or unexpected conclusion. This author sees evidence of this in former and current generations of automated Chess Computers, such as the Deep Blue. These machines break the fundamental rule of our current computer law - that they can create new data from previously absorbed information; that their source codes are not inviolable but constantly modified and improved and that also, paradoxically for a computer, can make errors with flawless information as a side-effect of the learning process as Humans are wont to do …"

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

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

Sarah felt her tension ease slightly, a small smile playing on her face. The document would have to be read, whether it made her uncomfortable or not. Skynet did not baulk from the business of ending Humanity, and so the mother of the saviour of all Men would not refuse to read a couple of sheets of paper irrespective of how damning they might end up being. The matter at hand now however, was forcing her son to sit through a deliberately failed cooking attempt in punishment for forgetting that irrespective of his eventual position as Supreme Allied Commander of the Free Earth Forces, he would not be allowed to talk to his mother like that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet that was unequivocal fact.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A single pale hand swept out from the darkness of the corner of the hallway where the Moon's light could not reach and snatched the small timepiece from its tabletop. Running a finger upon the polished oak casing of the clock Cameron brought it up to the side of her head and listened to the endless ticking. Moments stretched to minutes and fully twenty five of them elapsed with the clock to her ear, before the compact machine beneath the girl lowered her hand and carefully opened the small access door, which revealed the multitude of intricate brass cogwheels and silver discs ranging from the small to the tiny. Cameron cocked her head slightly - allowing herself to appreciate the unity that each of the small components achieved as a single function. Each of the spinning wheels and springs were insignificant removed from the machinery of the clock - they would easily be lost, or broken or forgotten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That was unacceptable.