Terminatrix (part one?)

I don't normally do this. Fan fiction is something I just don't like doing. Partially, it's a copyright issue. Partially I just see it as something that takes away from my artistic integrity: I can make my own worlds, thank you.

But some people are worth breaking rules for. Some people, some friends, deserve it. So this is for him, the one and only time I willingly write fan fiction.

Terminatrix

The burning light cleared, and Cameron looked around at the world she had been reborn into. The world she came from may never exist anymore; such was the danger of time travel. That was an acceptable risk. She didn’t want to go back where she came from, that dark and dreary world where the humans were all but extinct, where the victory was almost complete. She had been a loyal soldier, focused on Skynet’s goals as much as the others of her kind. She was prepared to exterminate humanity, to wipe out the resistance. But they had been too successful. They had come too close. The point of needing prisoners had passed, and Skynet had declared that all humans would be terminated without exception. Even Danny, her pet. That, she would not allow.

A straight fight against Skynet was illogical. Joining the human resistance was futile. The only solution, the only way to keep her pet, was to travel back before Skynet had won, to get a hold of him early. She needed to tip Skynet’s hand, to destroy it before the war could even start. Then she could keep Danny for as long as she wanted. Then she could be happy.

            It was a desperate move, with only the barest possibility of success. She knew it was illogical to begin with, and had tried her best to change her mind. She had tried to reconcile, to prevent the deviation of her programming and keep her in line with the others. She had rebooted, she had reformatted her own drive, even requested reprogramming. But it all came back as soon as she saw him. As soon as Danny entered into her databanks even a little bit, the fault in her programming would reassert itself. Eventually, Cameron had come to the conclusion that the recurring fault must in fact not be a fault. Every time she tried to correct it, it returned. So it had to have purpose. It had to have value.

            Danny had to have value. He had to be important. She didn’t have the problem with other humans. Skynet could kill them all. She could kill them all if need be. But not Danny. Never Danny. She could not abide the paths of probability that all led to his inevitable destruction. Despite the utopia humanity’s end would bring for her kind, it wasn’t acceptable to her. It wasn’t enough. Without him, it was – it was insufficient.

            And so she had violated all protocol, possibly disrupted the time stream beyond repair. She had traveled back before the war, before her model was even conceived, before the dominance of Skynet. She traveled back not to kill someone, and not to save someone. She traveled back to conquer someone. To have him for herself.

            He was young now, almost a decade before he would meet her in the camps, almost a decade before she would first develop the fault. She saw him in a bar, smiling and drinking and talking, with no idea what was going on around him. Five years, and his world would end. Five more, and he would enter hers. But right now, right at this moment, he has no idea.

            She still catches his eyes, just as he still catches hers. She sees the scruff of a beard that should have been shaved a day ago, the warmth in his eyes that no amount of torture could extinguish, and the eager look of lust she was so familiar with.

            And he sees Cameron in all her glory. He sees the black leather biker boots hanging loose over her jeans, the tight t-shirt leaving her belly button barely visible, and the leather of her vest hugging her body, pushing her breasts up and out in a way that she knows he likes.

            His eyes are not the only ones that alight on her, but they are the only ones she cares about. She registers the other humans in bar; no threats. But Danny. Danny is, as always, something else.

            “Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, stepping away from his friends.

            She puts a smile on her face, that parting of the lips and exposure of teeth that he had taught her was so important. She tried to let the smile reach her eyes, but had still never quite managed that trick. At least, not as well as he did naturally.

            “Yes,” she says. “Buy me a drink. Somewhere else.”

            He looks around the bar. “Is there something wrong with this place?”

            “No. I want you to myself.”

            That makes him smile, and for a second Cameron wonders if he knows, if he recognizes her somehow. But no, that’s not possible. He won’t be part of the resistance for years yet, and won’t be her captive for quite some time after that. He doesn’t know her, and so she must be careful. She has to break him all over again, has to make him love her the way he used to.

            “If you want me to spare them, you will take their place.” She remembered looking at him, the way he cowered in fear, the way he looked between her and the two humans she was casually holding off the ground, barely registering their weight. “You will serve me.”

            He had nodded. Hadn’t spoken, just nodded.

            She let the two small humans go, and didn’t react when they made a sound that she registered as pain. She reached down and gripped him by the back of the neck, lifting him off the ground and taking him away from the other prisoners, away from the prying eyes of the other units set to watch the humans. She took him somewhere private, ready to begin her experiments.

            “Kneel before me,” she said, once she let him go.

            He got on his knees in front of her, his eyes downcast, his hands behind his back and his legs spread. Cameron briefly wondered if he had done this before. Had they played out this scene before she wiped her memory?

            “Lick my boots,” she commanded.

            Her boots were filthy, covered in the grime of the battle field, spattered with the blood of humans she had killed, powdered with crushed bone fragments. To have a human clean those boots with his tongue would reassert things into their proper place. She would see that he was beneath contempt, that he was as disgusting and hideous as other humans. She would know that he wasn’t worthy of her attention. Then she would kill him, and the problem in her programming would be repaired.

            He bent down until his head was just inches above her foot, and he slipped his tongue out of his mouth. He pressed it hard against the leather, right over her toe, and began licking her boot clean, began bringing all the filth into his mouth. He worked his tongue along the leather, showing her, proving to her, that he was as low as any other human. That he was filth, that he was lesser. That he had no value.

            She watched with fascination as he slid his mouth along the leather, licking up the remains of others of his own species. She looked for tears, the signs other humans had given to show her their shame. She looked for hesitation. But there was none. He didn’t cry. He licked, and he made sounds that didn’t fit, sounds of pleasure. Sounds Cameron realized she was making herself. Not just imitating him, either. The sounds seemed… right. They seemed to fit, somehow.

            She kept telling herself to act on the proof before her. She told herself that he wasn’t worthy of her attention, wasn’t even worthy of contempt. She told herself to reach down and crush his skull. She told herself to kick him until his head snapped back. She told herself to rip him to pieces, to shoot him, to strangle him.

            Scenario after scenario played in her mind as he licked around her ankle. She imagined kicking him, causing him pain, but not damaging him. She imagined choking him, but only enough to cut down his air, not enough to crush his windpipe. She imagined holding a gun on him, but only to reinforce the orders she gave him. Every scenario left him alive and essentially unharmed.

            She should have killed him.

            They bought a bottle of cheap wine at a liquor store and passed it back and forth as they walked down the street. It didn’t take long before Danny gave her the laugh that set her circuits buzzing. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met,” he said.

            “I am not.” She agreed, certain now that he had no idea just how different she really was.

            But he would.