Fic- Breaking Point 3/8
Mar. 4th, 2010 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cj2017Title: Breaking Point (3/8)
Rating: Hard R: violence, sex, harsh language, you probably know the drill by now.
Word Count: 35,000 all told. This part 4,200.
Disclaimer: No one seems to want these guys at the moment, so I guess they’re ours to play with. I have shamelessly pinched/cannibalised a little of the show’s dialogue.
~ ~ ~
Breaking Point 3/8
~ ~ ~
Standing on the porch, Sarah watched the sun rise slowly over the peaks. The sky was cloudless and she was freezing cold, a bitter wind making her eyes water and her vision blur. She wiped the tears away and drew in a frigid breath at the sudden clarity of the mountains. This had become something of a ritual, this early morning vigil. She told herself that it was a way of tracking the days as they passed, but more than that it was a way of reassuring herself that even in the harshest of environments life was able to endure. She was always awake early here, but her sleep was the soundest it had been in months.
The tread of Cameron’s boots was loud in the stillness and, with some reluctance, Sarah turned away from the mountains to watch the machine stomp snow from her feet.
“I prefer the desert,” Cameron stated curtly. “Sand is far easier to patrol in than snow.” She looked up at Sarah, her expression miserable. “I sink.”
“Yeah, I noticed that yesterday.”
Something they had never considered was the ability of a machine to move through deep snow. Although Cameron’s endoskeleton was undoubtedly lighter than that of a T-888, her weight had still hampered her progress during their reconnaissance mission.
“On the plus side…” Sarah tried not to smile as Cameron finished with her boots and moved on to brushing her pants off. “It means Derek is probably right about Deacon not having any Triple-8s on staff.”
The manufacturing at the plant seemed to be focused on aeronautical designs, with the HK prototype taking center stage. Kaliba already had a T-888 design that they were apparently satisfied with, and Derek had confirmed that none of the automated processes were creating endos.
“They wouldn’t be very efficient during the winter,” Cameron agreed, tucking her hands beneath her armpits in a strangely human gesture.
Sarah watched her curiously. “Do you actually feel the cold?”
“No,” she answered straight away, and then reconsidered. “I sense the external temperature and my systems adjust to function efficiently at extremes of hot or cold.” A pause and she raised a hand to her face. “But the skin on my lips is cracked.”
This time Sarah couldn’t help but smile. Her own lips had been chapped since they had arrived, but Cameron actually sounded offended by this breach of her artificially created and maintained perfection.
“Here.” Pressing a lip balm into Cameron’s palm, Sarah walked past her and back into the cabin.
With a puzzled look, Cameron uncapped the thin tube and sniffed experimentally at the clear gel. It smelled sweetly of strawberry flavoring. When she rubbed it across her lips, they felt better immediately. She smiled brightly. Humans created and used an awful lot of unnecessary gadgets, but occasionally Cameron had to admit that she was pleasantly surprised by their inventiveness.
~ ~ ~
Sarah had cleaned, checked and loaded most of the weapons by the time John stumbled bleary-eyed into the kitchen.
“Hey.” He blinked in the sunlight. “You sleep at all?”
“Some.” Placing the Remington on the table, she began to work a cloth over it. “Enough.”
He pulled up a chair beside her and poured himself a cup of coffee. “What time we heading out?”
“Fifteen hundred hours. Gives us two hours to get to the logging track and makes sure it’ll be at least dusk when we hit it.”
Calling the disused route, strewn with rock and tree-stumps, a track was being quite creative, but they had managed to make adequate progress down it on the previous day. Probably due to Deacon’s presence in the area, the forest closest to the plant had been completely abandoned by any local industrial concern, which would enable them to leave the truck well hidden and make the vast majority of their approach under the cover of the dense pines.
“Then all we need is Derek to let us in when we knock.”
She pumped the Remington once and smiled at the sound. “Yeah, well, that’s the plan…”
~ ~ ~
“Back in an hour.”
Derek acknowledged Jenkins with a nod and leaned back easily in his chair. When the door shut, he tracked Jenkins’ progress down the corridor. The man’s route was always predictable and took exactly one hour, but Derek knew this was not the time to fall victim to complacency. Still keeping an eye on the monitors, he dropped to his knees and unzipped the small duffel bag he had brought on shift with him. For the first six shifts, the bag had been searched, the driver dutifully emptying out sandwiches, a Thermos and a paperback book. For the last four, the bag had remained untouched and Derek had finally been confident enough to fill the hidden pocket at its base with the extra weight of a Glock, duct tape and a two way radio that was high-spec enough to allow for an encryption facility.
Tucking the Glock into the back of his pants, he pulled his jacket down to cover it and then thumbed the button on the radio.
“One hour. How far out are you?”
When Sarah answered, she sounded breathless and he could hear the effort it was taking to carry heavy bags through the snow. “We’ll be there. One hour.”
He left the channel open, but this wasn’t the time for small-talk. On the monitors, Jenkins swiped his card to gain access to the factory and completed a visual check of the panel controlling the automated system. Satisfied with his findings, he logged his details and then exited the area. Derek knew without looking at his watch that he had another fifty minutes to wait.
~ ~ ~
For someone who had just been hit on the forehead with a handgun, Jenkins seemed to take an age to drop. The metal opened a neat gash just above his left eyebrow, blood spurting immediately and then settling into a thick flow down his face. He wavered, dazed eyes meeting Derek’s, before his legs buckled and he crumpled to the floor.
Wasting no further time, Derek hauled Jenkins onto his front and secured his wrists and ankles together with tape. More tape across his mouth muffled his guttural snoring. A quick search produced a Beretta, a cellphone, and his security card. Derek pocketed the card carefully; Jenkins had authorization to access areas for which Derek had never been given clearance. It took some effort to cram the unconscious man into the chair’s space beneath the desk. Derek wiped blood from his hands, panting heavily as he studied the bank of monitors.
The corridors were empty. The men from the research labs were now safely ensconced in their living quarters and Dyson was the only one who ever accessed the facility during the night. It took eight key strokes to disable the security cameras – turning the screens gray and white and freezing the cameras on their mountings. With a final check of his watch, Derek pulled out his Glock, opened the door, and stepped out into the corridor. The entrance he needed to be at was no more than five minutes’ walk away.
~ ~ ~
They didn’t need to knock. Exactly one hour after their first contact, Derek swiped his stolen card, opened the door designated D2, and stepped back to allow Sarah, John and Cameron across the threshold.
“Right on time,” he murmured, easing one of the duffel bags from Sarah’s shoulder. The fact that she let him spoke of how difficult the hike had been.
“Yeah…” Her face was flushed. Snow covered her hood and the droplets of ice gathered on her hairline were melting quickly in the warmer air. “...Well, we do our best.” She gave him the briefest of smiles. “All set?”
“All set. The lab’s this way.”
They followed him down the corridor and Sarah was immediately grateful that every noise they made was muffled somewhat by the dull roar of the air conditioning. Taking point alongside Derek, Cameron scanned the way ahead, searching for signs of body heat and finding nothing. At the door to the research laboratory, Derek hesitated, his card poised in the security reader until Cameron nodded.
“Clear.”
The panel flashed green and the lock clicked open. John pushed the door gently to reveal an impressive array of computer equipment and a server tower through which everything was networked.
“Got everything you need?” Sarah was trying not to study her son’s face too intently, trying not to let him know that she was memorizing every part of it.
“I got it, mom, we’ll be fine.”
She pulled him into a hug, felt his arms tighten around her, and, for one fleeting moment, considered just aborting everything and getting out while that was still an option.
“Go,” she whispered, choking on the word. “We’ll see you back there.”
He nodded, already unzipping his bag and moving across to the first desk.
“Cameron.” Sarah’s tone stopped Cameron in her tracks and the machine turned to face her. “You remember.”
“Yes. I remember.” Cameron glanced at John. “I promise.”
With a nod, Sarah dismissed her and turned to Derek. “Lead the way.”
~ ~ ~
The virus was a devious one. Sitting at the computer, John watched as it wormed its way into program after program, corrupting them from the inside and rendering every piece of data useless before spreading its tendrils ever wider. Images and text flashed across the screen: an endoskeleton with arms and legs outstretched like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, an official document stating the U.S. Military’s interest in fully automated missile systems and fighter jets that required no humans to pilot them. The virus ate into every file. By the time the blueprints appeared, Cameron had abandoned her post by the door and was standing over John’s shoulder. The HK drone was easily identifiable, but there were larger designs, fearsome tank-like machines with caterpillar treads and vast arrays of weaponry.
“Skynet has those in the future. They developed them in 2016.”
John tore his eyes from the screen and looked up at her. “So what are they doing trying to build them in 2009?”
“If you had the designs and the time-displacement equipment at your disposal, would you wait until 2016?” She made her point sound perfectly reasonable.
“So they’re sending the knowledge back through and developing their weapons ready for Judgment Day?”
“Yes. It makes sense.” A pause as she gave John the opportunity to catch up. “As soon as Skynet infiltrates the necessary military systems, all their machines are in place, ready for the war.”
“Jesus.” John watched another blueprint disappear beneath a rush of binary code. “Motherfuckers don’t play fair, do they?”
“No.” Cameron seemed to consider that concept for the first time. “The motherfuckers don’t play fair.”
~ ~ ~
Sarah carefully attached the block of C4 to the barrel bearing the legend flammable in large capital letters. Handing the wiring and the charges to Derek, she rolled a second barrel over and repeated the process.
“Their fault for leaving jet fuel lying around,” she said with a shrug, but she smiled at Derek’s quiet laugh.
The aerial-HK towered above them, their flashlights glinting off its massive wing-span. This version was at least twice the size of the one they had seen take flight in Charm Acres. A further block of C4 was secured to its central body. She checked her watch quickly. The factory and the test spaces were all wired, leaving only the coltan store outstanding. John had confirmed he had successfully uploaded the virus and that they were making good progress towards the truck, which had allowed Sarah to breathe a little more easily. Hefting her bag over her shoulder, she let Derek lead the way back into the corridor.
~ ~ ~
The noise was persistent and irritating, and Danny Dyson shut the shower off with a hiss of annoyance. After spending his entire day sitting at a computer, his evening shower was a well-deserved indulgence and about the only luxury his current living quarters had to offer. Which meant that the person phoning him had better have a very good reason for doing so.
“Dyson.” He kept his voice neutral; the call was from an outside line.
“Mr. Dyson.” The accent on the other end had been made even more pronounced by the man’s obvious trepidation. “I’m afraid we have a problem and, well, we have identified yourselves as the source.”
“Explain.”
The man swallowed audibly and Dyson pictured him running a finger beneath his too-tight collar in the manner beloved of all movie directors as a visual shortcut to indicate extreme stress.
“A virus, Mr. Dyson.” A pause, and Dyson closed his eyes, suddenly afraid of what was to follow. “We’ve lost everything.”
“You traced it here?” Dyson’s voice was as hard as steel.
“Yes. It attacked your main server. We have reports of data failure from all our subsidiaries.”
“Thank you for bringing it to my attention.” Dyson was already reaching for clothes. He terminated the connection and began to dress. It was only as an afterthought that he looked up. There was no light on the security camera mounted in the corner of his living room and it didn’t swivel to track him as he moved. He pulled a Beretta from his drawer and checked its clip. If the security system had been disabled to allow the computers to be hacked, that gave him two places to start looking.
~ ~ ~
John sank down into the cold leather seat of the Jeep, grateful to be out of the driving snow and the cruel bite of the wind. The engine started at the second attempt, the wheels spinning wildly on the fresh snow before gaining the necessary traction to start the truck moving. He tried to keep watch as Cameron drove, to make sure that no-one was in pursuit, but his eyes were closing despite his efforts, and at her quiet suggestion that he could sleep he gave in and allowed himself to rest.
On the way back to the truck, the weather had closed in, adding a good hour onto the walk. Hiking through the blizzard had quickly sapped the remainder of John’s strength. Cameron had done her best, carrying his bag but stopping short of offering him any actual physical assistance. She had seen the determination etched fiercely across his face, recognized it as the same expression his mother often wore, and sensibly opted simply to reduce her own pace. He was dozing now, a flush of pink on his cheeks and nose from the burn of the wind. She hoped he would stay asleep until they had cleared the forest. If he did, it would take him longer to realize that they had spent hours floundering through the snow, but that at no point had they heard any explosions coming from the facility.
~ ~ ~
In the end it had been an easy decision. Logic dictated that restoring the security cameras would allow him to pinpoint the location of any intruders. That had come with the added bonus of finding Pete Jenkins, nursing a headache but otherwise unharmed.
Dyson watched the two figures moving efficiently through the coltan store. He swore vehemently when one of them turned and unwittingly allowed the camera to capture her face.
“Sub-basement A,” he said, his voice betraying nothing. “As soon as we have them, get Carey in.”
~ ~ ~
The thud was muted, followed by a grunt and the slither of cloth onto concrete. In the middle of cutting a piece of tape, Sarah recognized the pattern of sounds immediately and swapped the knife she was holding for her Glock. All around her, metal towered in neat rows, labeled and sorted by size and weight and providing excellent cover for whoever was now in the aisles with them. Moving to her left, towards the source of the noise, she was painfully aware that the rustle of her thick ski coat and pants might as well have been a bell around her neck. She made no attempt to contact Derek; he had either been the one to fall or he was now doing exactly as she was and would meet her halfway.
The blow came out of nowhere. Pain, sharp and sickening, exploded in the back of her head and she slumped to her knees, the gun dropping from her fingers. Booted feet kicked it away, beyond her reach. The stack of metal she had fallen beside kept her propped up and she leaned heavily against it, her eyes half-lidded, her breathing harsh in the silence. Dimly, she sensed the man move closer, and allowed her shoulders to drop a little more. His breath brushed her cheek, his hand reaching for her, and she caught hold of his wrist, pulling him forwards. Off balance, he slammed into the metal head-first. A fresh wound opened on his forehead and he let out a yell of anger.
“You fucking bitch.”
He whipped around with surprising agility and Sarah took the full force of his punch on her right cheek. Blood oozed into her mouth where her teeth had snapped against soft flesh and she spat it onto the floor. The man’s boot thumped squarely into the center of her back, forcing her face down onto the concrete.
“Stay the fuck still,” a voice hissed directly into her ear. His hands were rough on hers as he hitched her sleeves up and bound her wrists with tape.
Too dazed to offer any further resistance, she fought to keep her feet beneath her when he wadded the hood of her jacket in his fist and used it to pull her up. He dragged her to the door, where Derek lay breathing noisily in an insensible heap and Danny Dyson waited with an inscrutable expression on his face.
Dyson stepped forward to meet her. Without speaking, he back-handed her, catching her on the same swollen side of her face. The grip on her jacket was the only thing that kept her upright. Blood bubbled down her chin and she raised her head slowly, bracing herself for another blow. Taking a step back, Dyson narrowed his eyes as if contemplating what to do next. Sarah wasn’t fooled for a second. She knew the man standing behind her was Zoe’s father, and she knew that there was only one reason he hadn’t killed her and Derek outright.
“Take them to Sub C.” Dyson might have looked like his father but his voice held none of Miles’ humility or warmth. “Carey’s on his way.”
~ ~ ~
“Strip.”
Rubbing her newly-freed wrists, Sarah stared incredulously at Jenkins.
“No.”
“Strip him. Then yourself. The only other option is me doing it for you.” His teeth flashed white in the dim light as he grinned.
Sub-basement C was an empty storage room. The reason it was empty was the freezing damp patches which spread up from the floor and which had never been cost-effective to repair. Even fully-dressed, Sarah could feel the chill seeping in through the concrete to numb her toes.
Derek moaned when she unzipped his jacket, his eyes opening a crack, but he made no attempt either to resist or to help her as she undressed him. When he was left in only his jeans and a T-shirt, Jenkins ordered her to stop.
“Now you.”
She gave him a look that would have scared him had he not been pointing a gun directly at her head. Without allowing him the satisfaction of seeing her hesitate, she took off her jacket, waterproof pants, boots, and the two thick sweaters that had only just been enough to keep her warm. Goosebumps rose immediately on her bare arms and she hugged them across her chest, trying to press the thin cotton of her tank top closer to herself.
“Anything else?” Her voice was as cold as the room.
He looked her up and down, moving the flashlight slowly over the length of her body. He shook his head.
“Naw, that’ll do.” A rattle as he held up a pair of handcuffs. “Turn around.” He secured them tightly around her wrists before moving over to Derek. “The fuck is this?” He was staring at the barcode tattoo on Derek’s forearm.
Sarah shrugged. “Fuck if I know,” she said in a fair imitation of Jenkins’ grammar and inflection.
He traced the barcode with his finger, and then pulled out a PDA and took a photograph of the tattoo.
“Not gonna make this easy, are you?” After handcuffing Derek and checking the quality of the image, he stood up.
“I hope not.” She smiled pleasantly.
Bundling their clothes together, he tucked them under one arm, his gun never wavering. “You got balls, lady, I’ll give you that.”
The door slammed shut behind him.
~ ~ ~
“Derek?” He didn’t answer her. Ignoring the freezing moisture seeping in through her combat pants, Sarah persevered with her struggle to bring her cuffed hands in front of herself. It always hurt, the metal carving into her wrists as she strained, but she had had a lot of opportunities to perfect her technique and it didn’t take her long. “Reese?”
She heard him cough quietly as she crossed the short distance between them and dropped to her knees at his side.
“Sarah?” Her name was more of a groan than anything recognizable as speech.
“Lie still.” She put her hand on his shoulder, her fingers already stiff and white with the cold. “You’ve been out a while.”
“Didn’t go so well, huh?” He was trying to look around himself, only now beginning to appreciate the gravity of their situation.
“No. It didn’t go so well.”
“John?”
“He’s not here.” She was certain of that for one obvious reason: “We’re still alive.”
Derek followed her logic without difficulty. “Yeah.” His eyes closed. “Thank fuck for that,” he said emphatically, and felt the gentle pressure of her hand on his arm. She knew his gratitude was for her son’s relative safety and not the fact that they had been given a temporary stay of execution.
“Where did he hit you?” Her hand moved to his head, searching over his scalp until she found a large swelling. Nothing shifted as she probed the area, but he grunted in pain and the warmth of his blood covered her fingertips.
“Your bedside manner sucks, Connor,” he muttered, without any real malice.
“Good thing you have such a thick head.” She was using her palm to put pressure on the bleeding.
He looked up at her, but the lighting and the angle was all wrong and he couldn’t see her face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
She laughed quietly. “No, probably not.” A pause as she shifted her position slightly. “Couple of bruises, that’s all.”
“Jenkins?”
“Jenkins and Dyson.” He made a noise of surprise. “Yeah, seems Danny Dyson may be holding a grudge and John uploading a virus into his research probably hasn’t helped much.”
“That boy of yours will go far.”
He sensed rather than saw her smile. “I think so.”
They sat without speaking for a while and she thought he had dozed off when he suddenly shivered.
“Fucking freezing in here.”
“I know.” She could feel the fine tremors coursing through him, and tried to think what to do for the best. She had never had much medical training, all of her knowledge being empirical, but she didn’t need to be an expert to know that hypothermia and a concussion would be a dangerous combination. “I guess they figure we’re less likely to make a run for it now they’ve taken most of our clothes. Can you sit up?”
With his hands bound behind him, he struggled to gain any leverage, but she gripped beneath his arms to lift him and together they managed to push to the wall.
“Here, go forward a little.” Easing herself behind him, she looped her handcuffed wrists over his chest and encouraged him to rest back against her. “Better?”
“Yeah.” He was taking deep, slow breaths, trying to stop himself from vomiting.
She had no way to gauge the time, Jenkins having taken her watch from her, but eventually their shared heat worked to chase away a little of the cold.
“You sleep if you want to,” she whispered, her mouth close to his ear.
He shook his head, but his breathing gradually evened out. She tightened her arms around him. Outside the basement door, she could hear the occasional bang or metallic clank as heavy objects were moved. She wondered what Dyson’s contingency plans were and whether they would involve the wholesale destruction that had been favored at the desert warehouse. Her head ached dully but she forced herself to keep her eyes open. It wouldn’t be long before they came for them.
~ ~ ~
TBC…
~ ~ ~
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Date: 2010-03-04 06:31 pm (UTC)WTFS, DANNY.
FUTURE JOHN IS VERY UNHAPPY
... YOU CAN"T LEAVE IT THERE, CJ, YOU JUST CAN"T
NGGGGHHHHHHH?!!
Re: ...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Date: 2010-03-05 10:38 am (UTC)I did warn the missus that, if she heard a distant pop some time yesterday, it'd probably be your head exploding ;-)
I think one cliffhanger out of three parts, so far, is quite good going for me, really...
Re: ...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Date: 2010-03-05 01:07 pm (UTC)Yes, yes, I know, but, sigh... the last time around I had work that prevented me from reading until there were 2-3 chapters out already!! THIS. IS PAINFUL. I LOVE IT. BUT, YES! PAAAAAIN >_O
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-04 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 10:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 10:46 am (UTC)I read a lot TTSCC fics, but yours - they not good, they great. They so ... right I guess. Just as screenplays - ready and wait to be shot. Pleas, don`t live it :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 03:50 am (UTC)LOL. My mind's eye instantly picture this! So very Cameron. :D
(grr... you and your excruciating cliffhangers. ;) )
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 10:42 am (UTC)I do love writing Cam. Plus, I figured, if she doesn't swim, then she's unlikely to be able to ski either!
One! One cliffhanger! C'mon, it'd be no fun at all without a little bit of tension ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-05 01:03 pm (UTC)CRIESSSS
(Ok, I actually agree with you, BUT...!! YOU KNOW WHAT WE MEAN!! D:::)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-06 03:58 am (UTC)Cliffhanger < Fun
...And isn't there some clause in the Geneva Convention or some other treaty that defines Sarah Connor cliffhangers as cruel and unusual punishment. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-03-06 09:24 am (UTC)*Thumbs through copy of Geneva Convention*... um... nope, that's not in there ;-) Update tomorrow. I promise.