Art/Fic: Angels in the Architecture 2/3

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I don't know about God or heaven, but I do believe that someone or something wants this world to burn.

- Sarah Connor


Part Two:
MARCH, 2027
RESISTANCE BUNKER, FORMER CITY OF LOS ANGELES

The future stank. On a good day it stank of mildew, rot, and the smell of unwashed humans. On a bad day is smelled of things a whole lot worse. This bunker looked and smelled no different than the dozens of others that John had seen since arriving in this time.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place, Connor?” asked Kyle Reese.

When John replied, he looked over Kyle’s shoulder to Derek Reese. John was still unnerved by Kyle, this father who looked only a few years older than himself. He didn’t know if he could afford to alter his world view to include this man who had been dead since before he was born. On the other hand, with his uncle, he had already swum that river. “She will be here. “

“I thank you for the vote of confidence, Mr. Connor,” said the metal wearing the shape of Catherine Weaver as she emerged from the shadows. Immediately the Resistance fighters trained their guns on her and the two large men flanking her on either side.

“You told me that things are worse. That this world is worse,” John challenged. “Why should I believe you?”

“Hello, John.” Cameron’s voice sounded from behind Weaver. John kept his eyes locked on Weaver’s, so he could pretend, just for a minute, that the familiar voice wasn’t coming from John Henry’s body. “I was privy to all resistance activities when I was last in this time frame. I’ve compared that information to current data we have acquired. Skynet has vastly more physical resources. There are approximately 42% fewer humans alive now. Extrapolating from my test samples, at least 39% of people currently living in this area have acquired NU-AIDS, and will be dead in seven to twelve months.”

Kyle swore under his breath. John could see that neither he nor Derek had realized how far Skynet’s new biological attack had spread.

The deeper tones of John Henry added, “With numbers depleted this far, it is likely that the Resistance will collapse in North America within months, and across the world within a year.”

Weaver swayed a step closer. “You are facing extinction, Mr. Connor. If we work together, we have the means to set things right.”

“Is this all because I jumped here with you?”

Weaver’s face arranged itself into a look of amusement. “You are unique, John Connor, a paradox by your very creation, but it’s not all about you. This is not simply a fight between man and machine. The real damage was done much earlier. You and my John Henry must jump back together to set things right.”

“How can I do that? In this timeline, my father has not gone back. I can’t even exist now. Won’t the past be changed as well?”

“As I said, you are unique. Chosen, if you will. You exist outside the normal rules of linear time. A great deal of power and will was expended to ensure your very birth. It doesn’t matter what has happened to create this version of now. You are tethered to your own past alone. I can transport you back to any point along that paradox line I choose.”

“Where do you want to send him?” asked Derek.

Cameron, wearing the face used by too many others, spoke to John, “To 1999, to before we first met.”

“We will accompany you, your sister and I," John Henry continued, “travelling surrounded by your living flesh.”

“The hell you will...” Derek protested.

“You misunderstand, Mr. Reese,” Weaver said advancing again to cup John’s face in her hand. “This boy will not be harmed in any way.”

John jerked his head out of her grasp but didn’t give her the satisfaction of retreating. “Think of this reality as a catastrophic failure, John. There is a virus in the system. We are going to root it out and reboot.” He felt relieved as she stepped back out of his personal space and gestured her other companion forward.

All eyes focused on the quiet man as he pushed off from his position leaning against the grimy cement wall and straightened to his full height. Damn. They don’t grow them that big anymore, thought John. The stranger ran his fingers through a mop of silver and brown curls, pushing it back from his lined face. A tracery of long healed scars wrapped around his neck and travelled up his face.

He favored one leg as he approached, hand outstretched to a surprised John. People rarely shook hands anymore. Derek maintained his aim on Weaver, but Kyle shifted to cover the stranger. The older man’s face spread into a small smile as he waited, hand extended, scar tissue tugging at one side warping his smile's symmetry. John clasped the much larger hand.

“It’s nice to finally meet you. Cameron has told me a lot about you. I hear that you are the future messiah. I’m Sam Winchester. I used to be the antichrist.”

**************************
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1999
WEST FORK, NEBRASKA,

Watching yourself walk down the street was a fairly freaky experience, John decided. John knew that this was himself walking toward the side entrance of Highland High School, but perspective made it strange, like hearing his own recorded voice. Do I really walk like that? Was my hair really that long in the back?

They were parked in the far corner of the lot inconspicuous amid the frequent comings and goings of parents dropping off teens and the older, luckier students arriving in their own cars.

Sam unfolded himself from the car and swung a backpack onto one shoulder. After some dispute, they’d agreed that Sam would blend most effectively with the waves of Nebraska teens funneling into the school. Dean watched Sam closely as he timed his approach to match his target. Sam opened the door for John’s twin and followed him into the building.

John sat through three minutes of Dean’s nervous drumming on the wheel before Sam emerged through a different exit and cut across the parking lot toward them.

“Well?” Dean asked as his brother settled into the Impala.

“He sounds the same and, besides the hair, he looks identical. So unless he’s got an identical twin, I’d say that’s proof.”

Dean contemplated his hands on the steering wheel for one long moment. “Ok. I guess I’m in. But I want to get this job done before dad is due back next week. And some time ‘fore that I need to figure out what to tell him about why we’re not where he left us.”

The school bell rang, and the last few stragglers either started to walk faster or not, depending on their personal investment in school. With traffic thinned, it was time to go. Dean eased out of his spot.

“Where to now?” Dean asked.

“I need to pick up something at my house,” John said, “but first I need to check on someone.”

John leaned against the front seat and directed for the short drive from the school to the center of town, a few doors down the street from a diner.

“I don’t want to run into my mom at home. She works here as a waitress. I think she was on the morning shift this week, but it’s been awhile. I need you to make sure. She’s brunette, lean, wearing a nametag that says ‘Sarah’.”

“I’ll do it. Sam walks in they’ll wonder why little baby’s skipping school.” Dean opened his door.

“Jerk.” Sam was stung both by the comment and the fact that their father had pulled Sam out of his last school early, only to plant them in motel hicksville when he took off on a solo hunt a few days later.

John reached out to grip Dean’s shoulder. “Be careful. She’s got paranoia honed to a science. She’s always on the lookout for Terminators or the law. Don’t set off her radar, OK.”

Dean pulled away and tugged his leather jacket into place. “No worries, man,” Dean said flashing a bright smile. “I grew up in diners. I never met a waitress I couldn’t have eating out of the palm of my hand.” With that, he sauntered away.

John slumped back in the seat. “We’re doomed aren’t we?”

Sam just shrugged. After a long silence he asked, “That stuff you told us. The private stuff. How did you find that out? I mean, I haven’t told anyone. Not Dean, not my father, not anyone. And you knew my full name before I told you, too.”

John looked uncomfortable and remained silent.

“You met us, didn’t you? In the future, I mean.”

“I met you, Sam. When you told me I should go to you and Dean for help, you said I would need some information to convince you.”

Sam thought on this for a minute. “Just me? Is Dean dead in this future world of yours?”

“Maybe,” John replied honestly. “I don’t know. Almost everyone in America alive right now is dead then. Humans are an endangered species in the future.”

That effectively ended the conversation. John sat lost in his thoughts of 2027, and Sam contemplated a world without Dean.

“Hey, girls,” Dean said as he leaned in the open window and handed out coffees. “You all look like someone ran over your dog. Drink up. God knows we need the caffeine.” He slid into the driver’s seat and started in on a takeout container of cherry pie. Pointing his plastic fork at John, he grinned around pie and said, “You never mentioned how hot your mom is, dude!”

“Dean, you didn’t!” exclaimed Sam. “Tell me you did not try to pick up his mother.”

“Hey! What do you take me for? I did not try to pick up John’s mom. I was just …friendly, you know. I didn’t want to act like no robot or fed, so I figured it was best to just be my charming self. Act natural-like.” He replied to Sam who was shaking his head, and then to no one in particular, “Damn, this is good pie!”

**************************
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1999
WEST FORK, NEBRASKA,

The drive was empty when they drove past the little ranch-style house. Dean swung around the block to park, and the brothers followed John through the trees bordering the church graveyard bordering the small neat backyard. John took the magnetic keybox from under the air-conditioning unit where Charley Dixon stashed it, and let them in through the back door.

John’s room was at the back of the house, and Sam ducked into it with him. Dean leaned in for a look and then carried on to the front of the house to scout for the best lookout position.

It wasn’t a rich home, but it was better than most of the places that Dean had grown up in. He circled the living room, pausing at the photos. In the largest, a man stood leaning close to Sarah, his face turned towards her, his other arm slung around a shaggy-haired John. They were all smiling.

Dean ran his fingertips over the glass. They looked so happy. He remembered this feeling, the feeling of home being a place not a person. He wished he had something to remind him other than faded and worn memories. If wishes were horses. Moving away from the photos and his thoughts, he found a place to wait where he could view the street and the drive easily.

In his old room, John turned slowly, taking it all in. It felt so strange, like he was sleepwalking. This had been the closest thing he had experienced to the kind of home he’d seen on all those TV shows while growing up in low rent apartments, old motels, and squats. This was his first long term home base Post Uncle Bob. He had let himself believe that he could stay here, if not indefinitely, at least until he choose to leave. Like the man said, you can’t come home again.

He opened his closet and quickly sorted out some clothes, choosing the least favored, the most easily missed, and stuffed them into a borrowed pack. Then he lay on the floor and reached far under his bed, tugging a laptop through a slit in the fabric bottom to his boxspring.

“One of the students at my school fancied himself a master gamer,” he explained to Sam. “More money than brains in that whole family. When this computer turned into a paperweight, overrun by viruses, he talked his parents into a newer, faster one. I traded him some info he wanted on three of his favorite games for this thing, cleaned it out, souped it up and it’s back in business.”

“If you didn’t steal it, why are you hiding it like a stash of skin mags.”

John snorted out a small laugh, “Same reason, I hid my porn. I really didn’t want my mom stumbling across it when I wasn’t home.” He started talking in a different cadence that Sam assumed was like Sarah. “ ‘No computers, John. We can’t afford to have you hacking, John.’ She tattooed that and a bunch of other Connor Family Rules on the back of my eyeballs." Sam could hear the capital letters.

“But it’s a tool, you see, a tool for survival. I couldn’t go without one of these anymore than Sarah could give up her weapons.”

Sam smiled. “Dean sleeps every night with that huge-ass knife under his pillow.”

John laughed. “My mother sleeps on her whole fucking arsenal. Maybe they’re meant for each other, after all.”

“If you take this now, aren’t you, um younger-you, gonna notice that it’s gone?” Sam asked.

“I didn’t get it out that often. It was just nice to know that it was there. Insurance. When I finally found that it was gone, I though mom found it. Thought I was in deep shit. But she never said anything. We’re real good at not talking about stuff. Had lots of practice. I thought for a long time that this was one of the reason she got freaked enough to leave."

Dean rushed through the door, and whispered urgently, “Someone’s here. Guy in a uniform. Black pickup truck.”

“That’s Charley. I’ll distract him,” John said quietly as he found and pulled a ballcap low over his eyes, flipping the hood of his jacket atop that. Other than the hair, he hadn’t changed all that much since this time. “You go out the back door.”

He handed the laptop to Sam, and shouldered the bag filled with clothes. John stepped out into the hall, making sure to be noisy. He could hear Charley’s off key singing start in the kitchen.

“Hey Charley, that you?”

“John, what are you still doing home? You sick?”

John stepped into the kitchen and his heart froze. Charley was young. Charley was alive.

He made himself cross the room and grab an apple and drink to stuff in his pack, trying to act like any teen reluctantly on his way to school. “I slept in this morning. Teachers are probably just showing movies ‘cause exams are starting anyway. Don’t tell mom, ok?”

Charley ran his hand through his hair and smiled at the boy, “Ok, just this once, but you better get a move on.” Charley knew how strict Sarah could be with John. He could afford to cut the kid a little slack.

On impulse John darted forward to hug Charley. “You’re the best, man.” He forced himself to let go far earlier than he wanted. “See you tonight.”

Then John escaped. He heard Charley wishing him a good day as he closed the front door. Goodbye, Charley.

He walked quickly up the block willing himself not to break into a run. Around the corner, the Impala was waiting engine rumbling. John swiped his face with his sleeve before sliding in next to Dean.

Dean studied him intently. “Was that your stepdad?”

“Sort of…almost.” John said quietly. “I wanted him to be.”

“He died,” Dean said, a statement, not a question.

“Ya. Not now though. About ten years from now.” Saving me. Sam reached over the seat and clasped John’s shoulder.

Dean’s face mirrored John’s pain, but he didn’t break his gaze. “If we do this thing, does he live?”

“Him, my uncle. If this works out, who knows, maybe the whole damned world!”

“Well then, if we are going to save the world, we better get a move on. Point the way, Johnny-boy.” Dean flashed John a grin, put the car in gear, and flipped on the tape player. AC/DC drifted through the neighborhood as they pulled away.

**************************

FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1999
WYOMING


“Come on, Dean. John and I could take turns, and we could be there a lot faster,” Sam argued.

“Um, let me think about that for a minute,” Dean drawled. “No.”

“You’ve been teaching me for months. I can do this.”

“That was back roads, in daylight. And we don’t know exactly where in Los Angeles we need to go. It’s a pretty big fuckin’ place. So, again, no” Dean said as he pulled into a motel parking lot.

“You’d put saving the world on hold, just so you don’t risk the car.”

“Damn straight!” Dean agreed hauling himself out of the car. Sam flipped the finger at his back, as the older Winchester entered the office.

After letting them into their room, Dean kicked off his boots and collapsed face first on the shabby, circa 1980 bedspread of the closest double bed. “Go do your brain boy stuff, kids.” He flicked one hand at John and Sam and mumbled into the pillow, “Don’t forget to salt the room, Sammy.”

Sam made sure to give Dean’s duffle a good kick on the way to the scratched laminate table, where he dumped the electronic store bags. Then the salt lines were laid with the care of long practice, even if done with more noise than needed.

By the time he returned to the table, John had wires and tools spread out around the laptop. Sam watched fascinated, anger slipping away, as John deftly cobbled together an interface for the chip. The youngest Winchester had never known anyone that was this comfortable with computers. His dad, whose idea of a database was his journal, a newspaper, and his network of fellow hunters, told Sam that they had neither the money nor the space for such things. Dean was no help since his only use for computers was to surf porn sites.

As interesting as it was, not having anything to do himself eventually got to Sam.

“This could take awhile,” John said quietly when Sam’s bouncing leg vibrated the table again.

“Sorry, dude.” Sam pushed up from the table and riffled through Dean’s bag looking for his stash of extra cash. Bingo! Dean didn’t stir on the bed.

“I’ll snag us something to eat. Back in a few.”

He pushed the door shut with his foot upon his return, balancing drinks and take out bags. John was still hunched over the computer.

Ignoring the burger and Coke Sam placed beside him, John typed rapidly on the keys, read, and typed again, the tension draining out of his face as he went. With a smile, he looked up, “There’s someone I would like you to meet. Sam, say hello to Cameron.”

“Um…hi, Cameron. Nice to meet you,” Sam said self-consciously. He dropped the fry heading for his mouth when a tinny female voice replied from the laptop’s small speakers.

“It is nice to meet you again, Sam Winchester. You sound different. You must not have obtained your adult tonal range yet.”

“Can she see me too?” Sam whispered.

John laughed at the other boy’s discomfort. “No. I don’t have a camera hooked up, but she can hear you.”

“Even if you whisper,” said the computer generated voice.

“Cameron, it’s good to hear you again.”

“Did you miss me, John?”

“Ya, missed you bunches, Cam,” John teased. “Is John Henry still in there with you?”

The voice that replied was male. “I am here, John Conner. Your sister has a run a diagnostic, and I appear to be intact. However, this system is very confining. Could you please connect us to the internet?”

The joviality of a moment ago was gone. John said cautiously, “I don’t think that would be wise. The connection is crappy dial up. You wouldn’t have the speed to avoid detection if someone out there is looking for you.” From his expression, Sam suspected John was holding something back.

“What smells good?” Dean rolled to sit up and scrubbed his hand across his face. Sam timed his toss so the takeout bag hit Dean mid-chest as he was stretching. Score Dean caught it as the sack was tumbling to the floor and dug inside. “Hope you got something good, jerk. None of that healthy frufru crap. Oh, come to pappa!” He unwrapped and bit into a thick cheeseburger, moaning his appreciation.

“You two need some privacy? Cause John and I can step out for awhile.”

Dean’s eloquent reply was a raised middle finger. Around another mouthful, he mumbled, “So, what‘s the plan?” He leaned over Sam to snag a drink and took a loud sip. “Did robo-girl boot up alright?”

“Yes I did, Dean Winchester. Thank you for asking.”

Dean coughed, Coke squirting out his nose, as he jumped back from the table. After recovering Dean pulled out his best smile, “Hello, darling. Do we know each other?”

Sam scribbled on a piece of motel stationary and held it up in Dean’s face, SHE CAN’T SEE YOU DICK-HEAD!

“I have an extensive file on you, but we have never actually met.”

“Files, eh? Then you can probably see that I’m the older, better-looking brother.”

“I see that your features are regular and symmetrical, conforming well to current Western standards of beauty…”

“Ha! She called you pretty,” Sam interjected with glee, making kissy faces as he rocked back in his chair.

“…but other than as predictors of health, I find such details irrelevant.”

“Oh, pretty-pretty-princess is shot down! Ow!” Sam picked himself up from the floor where he had landed when Dean pushed his chair past the balancing point.

John smiled as he asked, “What’s next, Cameron?”

“Our first priority is to launch John Henry to track and destroy the other artificial intelligence. For that we will need a much more powerful computer than this laptop. There are a few supercomputers in North America with the required hardware that are not in military facilities. However, they will still be guarded and are used around the clock.”

The Winchesters exchanged a look. Breaking into computer labs was not part of their training. Give them a nice morgue or mausoleum, and they felt right at home.

“The original me will arrive in this time tomorrow. We should locate her. Her assistance will greatly increase the chances that neither you nor the Winchester brothers are harmed. Based on our current location we could reach her in 13 hours.”

“Cameron, does it make any difference if we do this now or tomorrow?” Dean asked.

“I will still be able to direct you, no matter when we start.”

“Ok, then. I’m going back to bed. John, you and graceful here can flip to see who gets the couch.”

“What? Why don’t we go now!”

“Sammy, I’ve gotten like three hours sleep since Thursday morning. You two haven’t done much better. If we are going to be any use after driving over a 1000 freakin’ miles, we should crash for awhile now, shit, shower, and shave in the morning and be on the road by daylight.”

Dean wandered off to the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later in his underwear and shirt. After double checking the wards and getting his knife, he crawled under the covers of his bed and was lightly snoring moments later.

John pulled the bedspread and a pillow from the other bed and threw it on the couch. “I’ll sleep here. I don’t mind. It’s better than I’ve had in weeks anyway.”

“Are you going to shut down the computer?” Sam said on his way to the bathroom.

“No. It seems kinda cruel, you know? Let them stay up. Cameron can keep an ear open and wake us up for 4 a.m.” John smiled to himself at the idea of a Terminator alarm clock. He turned off the lights and settled down to sleep.

“John Connor, would you like to hear a song or a bed time story. Savannah Weaver says they help her sleep.”

Thanks for comparing me to a six year old girl, but what the hell . “I’ll take the story, John Henry.”

“Once upon a time there was magical kingdom ruled by a kind king and his beautiful flame-haired queen. They ruled wisely for many years, but alas while travelling, the king was killed…” John eyes slid closed and he drifted off to sleep.


Part Three