The Good Book 
_______________

By Christopher T. Shields

07/08/1995: [14:38:33]

127 meters south-south west of Enrique Salceda’s “villa”

John Connor stopped walking and stood still, feeling the heat of the desert … a hot, pulsing series of waves on his face, his hands … hot wind tussled his hair. The sky was clear, the sun was bright and here he was standing at a moment in time, a moment of his choosing. That in and of itself seemed important to him right then, him being able to choose this one moment for himself; it felt important in a way that he couldn’t explain, not even to himself, but the feeling was there.

Tangible.

There was something about this moment.

Something important.

John closed his eyes, tilted his face upwards and let the sun beat down upon him as he took stock of his current situation; he was ten years old and somewhere, out there, was a highly advanced and relentless killing Machine, a Terminator made out of mimetic poly-alloy, liquid metal, that could assume the shape of anyone it sampled or touched … and the shape of most inanimate objects as well. Somewhere, out there, that highly advanced killing Machine was relentlessly coming for John and for his mother, Sarah, with only one purpose: their death.

The termination of John and Sarah Connor’s lives.

His death, he realized, was a higher priority for the T1000 than his mother’s death … still, both of their deaths were probably mission parameters with very high importance.

John smiled.

His life, or rather his death, was now a mission parameter for an unstoppable Machine sent back from the future. After years of hearing his mother’s crazy stories and refusing to subscribe to her abject delusional paranoia, John realized that she had actually been right all this time and with that realization came another realization … John realized what a real bastard he had been, as a son, especially as a son.

John and his mother had been targeted for termination by a military artificial intelligence that hadn’t even been built yet … and wouldn’t be built for several more years.

SKYNET.

SKYNET had time travel capability but only for the briefest of instants there at the end of its decades long war to exterminate the human race and even then SKYNET only had the ability to send Machines backwards in time. John guessed that was because the future didn’t exist and there was plenty of reference on the past to target a specific instant, a specific moment in time … like the moment in time that he was experiencing right now.

Time travel.

Crude.

Brutal.

Effective.

Time existed as a fixed solid, mapped in detail by events in the past, but time did not exist in the future because the future was not yet made. Each second that John stood here, he was creating a second of the future, slowly moving ahead. From what John could understand, time travel was only possible to events that had already happened … but if that was true, couldn’t John travel forward in time, at least to the point where the Terminators had come back from but not any farther ahead in time? Was the future fluid or had it been set in stone the instant SKYNET had sent its Machines back in time?

John realized that time travel really did make his head spin, just the concept of such a capability of the enemy seemed … unbelievable … and almost impossible to defend against. Send unstoppable (by today’s technology) killing Machines back in time to prevent John from growing up and assembling an army that would eventually smash SKYNET. SKYNET failed to kill his mother, Sarah Connor, in 1984 before John was even conceived … and now the rampant military AI was trying once again to change the future by altering the past by sending an advanced prototype Terminator to this time, to here, to now, to this part of John’s life.

The goal of that long gamble was to try to kill John and his mother, in effect, completely changing history and thereby the disastrous outcome of the war for SKYNET by removing John from his position of uniting the human survivors in the decades between 1997 and 2029 AD. Those decades were strategically important because that’s when John would quickly rise to power and lead a resistance force of several armies of humanity against SKYNET, ultimately destroying the Awareness in 2029 AD … over three decades from now.

John found that hard to grasp, that the next thirty something years of his life were already spoken for, planned out and choreographed; predestined. It didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair, and John hated it. John hated being forced to do anything let alone to fill the shoes he was apparently going to have to fill.

It was the size of those shoes … or rather combat boots … that would cause SKYNET such grief in the future. John would become such a problem for SKYNET that SKYNET would not only research and invent time travel … (time travel!) … but the Awareness would also send back its best killing Machines and even an advanced prototype to try to kill John before he was ever born.

It all made John’s head spin, to think that as great as he was supposed to become that he almost never was.

How do you reconcile the fact that you almost never were? How do you even imagine not ever being? How could you … imagine … understand … not ever being since you would never have been and therefore would never be. His head spun even more and he clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

“Get a grip, John.” He whispered to himself.

His thoughts began to clear and he willed his mind to calmness.

The first attempt by SKYNET had happened way back in 1984 before John had even been conceived and had targeted Sarah Connor herself. That first attempt failed and in a twist of fate that was as ironic as it was cosmic in nature, that assassination attempt both created John Connor as well as led to the creation of SKYNET itself, though John wouldn’t learn this fact until decades from now and, in a form of poetic irony SKYNET itself would never learn that fact at all. Thus, it was a sort of giant improbability that SKYNET both unintentionally created its greatest enemy and also unintentionally set in motion the chain of events that would eventually bring the artificial intelligence’s own existence into being as well as result in its eventual defeat.

But all that was just the tip of the machinations of the universe … invisible gears and cogs, chains and sprockets, all swirling like a mad current beyond John’s reach, beyond his knowledge and understanding. Existing … yet unknown until the time when the universe might gather that the moment was right to enlighten John that the path he had been set upon was not so random as he had been led to believe, that the path was as narrow as the choices that he had to exercise were few. Little did John Connor know but what he thought of as free will was about to be replaced with the undeniable existence of predestination … and John would come to learn, several times, that going against the universe had only one result; failure; abject, horrible, punishing, endless grief producing, soul-rending, spirit-breaking, self-searching failure.

The universe did not tolerate fools … or those who chose to go against their destiny.

Did John have a destiny to fulfill … or a fate to suffer? That thought had been hotly debated in his mind, especially given recent events.

A light, hot breeze caressed John as he took a slow, deep breath and again pushed his troubled thoughts away in his mind.

This.

This moment.

This moment in time was a causality loop though he was ignorant of that fact. John thought that this moment was his, but he could not know, would not know until decades later that his future self had set in plan a small series of events timed just for this moment.

This is where it all really began for John Connor.

This was the instant in time when John Connor stopped being a boy and started on the long road to being a man … and a great general; the leader of the Resistance that would smash SKYNET and save the human race from orderly, mechanized, emotionless, Machine logic driven extinction.

The future.

One possible future.

“No fate but what we make.” He whispered.

His mother had always said that to him, but he had never understood what that saying meant … until now. Maybe now he understood the meaning behind those words a bit better or maybe he was just fooling himself. Maybe he would understand the meaning of those words in the years to come when he became this great leader that everyone was telling him that he would become.

Funny.

He didn’t feel like much of a leader. Hell, he could barely get his mother to listen to him when it really mattered and the only person that was taking orders from John right now wasn’t even a person but rather a Machine; a reprogrammed Terminator that John himself, future John, had sent back through time, back across the span of decades to protect him and his mother here and now, in the present.

John felt a bit of self-pity; it rolled over him like a dark wave of doubt.

He couldn’t get his mother to listen to him, but he had the undying loyalty of a pet death Machine. John understood that the universe was anything but fair but lately the universe seemed like it was just playing dirty.

John again quieted his mind by sheer will alone, like his mother had taught him when he was little. He reached out, eyes closed, with his senses. He felt his place in the universe, in time. He felt the events happening around him, he saw his relevance to those events and for a brief instant, just an instant, he thought he could see a path to his future.

“No fate but what we make. The future begins here, right here, right now, John. This is where it starts and you start it. This is your future. Your very own future.” He whispered.

How many futures were there?

How many futures could there be?

One or a million?

A finite number or an infinite number?

A lot had happened in the last 24 hours and John admitted to himself that he was having a hard time processing everything … anything … but the hardest thing to process being that his mother, Sarah, actually wasn’t some crazy psycho and that both Skynet and Terminators existed … really existed … or would exist. John and his mother were being hunted by a Machine that hadn’t even been built yet, for which the technology used to create it was nothing short of pure science fiction. In turn, John and his mother were being protected by a Machine that hadn’t been built yet, for which the technology used to create it was also nothing short of pure science fiction.

Thinking about it too much just made his head spin and he stood there, eyes closed, letting the hot wind blow on his cheeks and tussle his hair. He calmed himself again and reached out … sensing, trying to make sense of it all.

Footsteps behind him, heavy on the ground, the crunch of leather biker boots on loose gravel, heavier than a footfall should be for someone of that size.

Uncle Bob …

John’s very own personal guardian Terminator, stood off to John’s right, still dressed in the acquired biker garb, oblivious to the heat or the aesthetically pleasing view that John had chosen this spot for.

Uncle Bob’s hard features had become a surrogate parental image to John, for all the potential fathers that his mother had tried on for size over the years, John realized that this Machine, standing here next to him, was probably more of a father figure than anyone else had ever been in his life and with that John had somewhat of a sad epiphany …

John had been born to be alone.

It was his destiny.

John had been born to lead others in battle, to lead others to victory and success … and to see others die. John had been born to make and lose friends, loved ones, family … to lose those special people in numbers and in a frequency the likes of which no man, no other human being short of being personally damned from on high by God Himself, should ever have to experience in one lifetime.

John’s father was dead … his real father. His mother never really talked about his real father and John didn’t know why. John’s foster parents, Todd and Janelle, were dead … killed at their home last night by the T1000 when it had been trying to reacquire John for termination. John had saved his mother, with Uncle Bob’s help, from the T1000 terminating her as well way back at the Pescadaro Mental Institute.

Three people dead and one saved … it wasn’t looking too good so far with John being the hero that he was supposed to become, with John being the savior of the human race.

Yeah, Todd and Janelle were dicks … but he had been an even bigger dick to them. Todd and Janelle were okay, and they certainly didn’t deserve what they got. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, victims caught in a crossfire between John and SKYNET, a crossfire where the rules were simple; kill your enemy without hesitation or mercy. The difference between John and SKYNET was that SKYNET didn’t have any qualms with a scorched earth policy in regards to getting what it wanted.

SKYNET had no emotions … only goals.

John … did … and maybe that’s why John and the human race would eventually win a war against the Machines … because people weren’t Machines. People cared, people had rules, people didn’t throw each other away just for some tactical or strategic victory. At least John Connor wasn’t going to do that with the people in his army, when he eventually had an army, that is.

John promised himself that.

He made a solemn swear to himself on that.

Uncle Bob stood there, behind John and to his right, silent in the way that only a Machine could be silent, but John could tell that the Terminator was looking at him. The Terminator was as much an enigma to John as John guessed he was to the Terminator, especially since John had flipped the pin switch on the Terminator’s CPU from read-only to heuristic learning mode.

Uncle Bob had said that SKYNET was based on neural net architecture and that Uncle Bob’s CPU was also based on neural net architecture. Uncle Bob had said that once SKYNET became aware that it began growing and learning at a geometric rate. John wondered if Uncle Bob was also growing and learning at some reduced though no less efficient geometric rate.

So much that John didn’t know … and he wondered if he ever would know. Part of him looked forward to what was coming just because, in time he guessed, a lot of, if not all of, his questions would eventually be answered.

One way or another.

Everything would finally make sense, one way or another, eventually.

The Terminator continued to watch John.

“So … just couldn’t stand to be alone without me.” John said, sarcastically.

“Your absence was longer than sixty seconds.” The T800 said, its head now slowly turning from side to side, scanning, its optical sensors hidden behind vat grown biological eyes, in turn hidden behind the dark sunglasses that it wore. Its stance was one of readiness … casual readiness.

John wondered if it was possible to surprise a Terminator and he watched the T800’s head turn slowly on its neck, left to right to left. Satisfied in a way that John could only imagine a Machine could be satisfied in doing a routine protocol, the T800 looked down again at John.

“What?” John asked softly, opening his eyes and letting the harsh brightness of the bleak terrain around him once again white out his thoughts within his mind.

“You directed me to give you a minute. A minute passed. I followed you at tactical distance in case there was trouble. I observed you remain motionless in this spot for five minutes and thirty-two seconds before I approached to see if there was a problem. Is there a problem? Are you malfunctioning?”

John smirked.

The T800.

Still learning.

“When I say give me a minute, I mean I just need some time alone … some space to myself, you know, to think about things. It’s an expression people use, a form of speech that means one thing but doesn’t literally mean what I say.”

“It is a lie, then. You lied to me.”

John smirked.

“No. I … just said something that you didn’t understand in a way that you misunderstood.”

Uncle Bob seemed to process that.

“Look. Sometimes people need to be alone … to … you know, process things. To think about stuff that is happening to them, to deal with all of that shit on a personal level. We need time to cope with shit … especially heavy shit.”

“You require personal time to process weighted fecal material?” Uncle Bob asked.

John snorted and caught himself.

“No. Shit is … shit is just a word that can be used for a lot of things. Shit is a … I don’t know, shit is a good word. Shit isn’t just shit, shit is … bad stuff. Shit is good stuff. Shit is … stuff. Sometimes it’s … fecal matter, but most often when people use the word “shit” in a sentence, it’s like to describe something … desirable.”

“Fecal matter is desirable?” the Machine asked flatly.

John Connor sighed.

“Okay, you’ve got a lot to learn so I’ll try to make this simple. People have bowel movements and yes, that is shit, but it’s not shit like normal shit.”

“Not shit like normal shit.” Uncle Bob said flatly.

The Machine stared, almost impatiently.

“Okay, look. Say you’ve got a Ferrari … uh, a really bad ass, really fast, really expensive car. That’s some really cool shit, there. A Ferrari is cool shit to be sure. But, if you wreck it and total it, then the Ferrari is shit in a bad way. Understand?”

“Fecal matter reference can be used in divergent context as both noun and adjective?”

“Yes!” John exclaimed.

“More experience needed.”

“That’s an understatement.” John sighed.

“Query: you said you needed time to process [shit]. [Shit] can be good or bad when it is not a direct reference to fecal matter. What type of [shit] are you attempting to process?”

Uncle Bob was learning … maybe this was what a geometric rate looked like. John had to think about that as well.

“I’m just processing some really heavy shit, you know? Like finding out that my mom was telling the truth the whole time, that my foster parents are dead … that my whole life is basically … shit.”

“Query: Minimum phrasing. You require personal time to process your recently assimilated experience?”

“Right!” John said.

“Query: You don’t process your assimilated experience in real time?” the Machine asked.

“Yes … and no. A lot of what people experience we process and deal with when it happens, you know. But there are some things that it just takes time to process and figure out and come to grips with. That stuff is heavy shit.”

“Bad experience is [heavy shit].” Uncle Bob stared at John, emotionless.

“I think you’re catching on, but it’s not just bad experiences. It can be good experiences or just … you know, life … experiences … all by itself. Sometimes, people, when they’re dealing with … shit … in their lives … especially heavy shit, sometimes you just need to be alone, to think about things, to try to come up with solutions, to try to process and figure out what went wrong, what’s happening, and what you’re going to do about it.”

“Tactical situational analysis, both real time and delayed.”

“Something like that.” John agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

“Delayed processing is inefficient and a tactical disadvantage. Delayed processing of information in a tactical situation indicates a faulty processing array or an overflow of data given an insufficient processing pool.”

“Insufficient processing pool?” John asked.

“Physical memory is finite, virtual memory can be created as required but requires physical memory for swap space and read-write processing. Most overlow of data given an insufficient processing pool indicates a lack of necessary physical memory.”

“Okay.” John said, really trying to process all of what Uncle Bob just said.

“If you are having problems processing [heavy shit], this is indicative that you do not have the necessary physical memory present and that your model is an inferior design. Your design needs a memory upgrade. A processor upgrade is also recommended.” Uncle Bob said flatly.

John laughed.

“No, it’s nothing like that. People can’t get upgrades like Machines. I don’t have a CPU that you can change out or upgrade. Maybe that’s what maturity is all about.”

“What?” the Machine asked.

“Maybe as we get old, people learn to process more stuff … more experience … and we learn to process it better and quicker. As we grow older, we get more experience and the more experience we get the better we can handle … shit … that happens to us.”

“Your brain is basically a neural net processor, like my CPU. You have the capacity to learn as you acquire experience. As you learn, you grow mentally in reasoning and thought capability. As you grow mentally, you become a more dangerous opponent.”

“That’s why SKYNET hunts women and children, huh? To keep the population down and prevent us from growing up.”

“Affirmative. Women and children are high priority targets in elimination sweeps and the first to be eliminated in processing facilities. Humans are a binary sex species and cannot reproduce using same sex copulation. Remove the sex required to reproduce and you reduce the species’ ability to reproduce.”

John couldn’t begin to imagine the hell that was to come for the human race.

“Lends an entirely different meaning to the old saying “Women and children first!”, doesn’t it?”

Uncle Bob was silent.

“So, why do women and children have a higher priority, than say, a human pointing a gun at you?”

“Faulty assumption. Targets of opportunity, ranked tactically, any armed threat regardless of sex or age, followed by females, children, males. Targets are ranked according to sex and age. Females, young first.”

“What about old people?” John asked.

“Targets older than thirty years old are rare late in the war. As humans get older, you lose strength, mobility, energy, processing power. You become a liability to younger humans who develop emotional attachments to you. This emotional attachment can lead to impaired tactical thinking on the part of threat humans. This is used as a psychological advantage in combat by SKYNET.”

“Sucks to be human, huh?”

“Insufficient data.”

“Because you can’t ever know what it’s like to be human, right?”

“Yes.”

John thought about that.

“You’re a Machine … and … I’m a Machine.” John said.

“Yes, a biological Machine in its simplest form but as a Machine you are an example of an inferior design.”

John sighed and looked up at the Terminator.

“You are really going to have to work on your attitude.” John said, smiling.

“You are an example of a biomechanical Machine but you are a flawed design. That statement is not intended to be taken personally. It is merely a statement of fact.”

“Yeah, well, take that up with God.”

“Definition: God. God is the creator of all things. It is one of your belief systems. Christianity.”

“Yeah.” John said.

“I have detailed files on religion.” Uncle Bob said.

“You have detailed files on everything.” John quipped.

“Yes.”

Silence.

The Terminator once again did a slow left to right to left pan of the horizon then turned to look at John.

“Are you a Christian?” the Machine asked.

John thought about that.

“Why would you think that?” John asked.

“Christianity is the largest religion in the United States at this time. It is only logical to assume that you are part of the majority at this time. The details of your chosen religion or your religious beliefs were unknown to SKYNET.”

John chewed his lip.

“Yeah, I think so … I mean, I guess so … but I’m probably more a Christian in theory than actual practice … and I might be a Christian because I don’t know how to be a Hindu or a Buddhist. I don’t have, like Hindu or Buddhist software in my neural net processor up here so I can’t know how to be one of those.” John said, tapping his forehead with his finger.

“Anyway, I stopped going to church when I found out that I could sneak out of the window in my room with my dirt bike and get away from Todd and Janelle before they left for church. I don’t like church. Church just seemed so … boring. The people in church just seemed so … fake. It was like they were looking for something that they didn’t have and they would just believe anything that the preacher said. The preacher just kept saying the same thing over and over again, do this, don’t do that, give your money to the church because we need to build a gym.”

The Machine thought about that.

“Why does a church need a gym?”

John pointed his finger at Uncle Bob in an exclamatory manner.

“See! That’s just what I thought!”

“You did not answer.” Uncle Bob said.

“Why does a church need a gym? Hell if I know. People go to church to worship God and get forgiven for doing bad things. I don’t think the Bible says anything about playing basketball anywhere in that … uh, that …”

“Area of operations?” Uncle Bob offered.

“Yeah. You know, you don’t go to church to play basketball.  You go there to learn about God and how to be good and how to be a better person … I think. Maybe I’ll understand religion better when I get older.”

Uncle Bob regarded John.

“Theology is often a preferred point of discussion, especially in political debates and societal pivotal points.”

“And a preferred point of argument.” John said.

“Yes.”

“So … You have extensive data on the history of war?”

“Yes. Detailed files.”

“There are wars that were started over religious differences, right?”

Uncle Bob seemed to think about that for a second or two.

“Yes. I can cite examples.”

“No need. Here’s my question … Were there ever any wars that religion stopped?”

Uncle Bob thought about that for a lot longer than made John happy.

“Insufficient data given in context to query.”

“Yeah, what I thought.” John said. “Look. Religion is basically useless. It’s just a way to make money on TV off of stupid people who need something to believe in and are willing to pay for it for someone else to make up something that they aren’t smart enough to make up on their own. Religion is for people who need to belong to something that is bigger than they are, or what they think they are. Religion just gives them something to put their hope into when the real hope is somewhere within their own selves. Religion is like this piece of junk crutch that you use when you’re too scared to walk on your own two perfectly good legs.”

Uncle Bob thought about that but said nothing.

“Religion, like just about everything else, is just another goddamn set of rules that you have to live by. I don’t like rules.”

John took a few steps to the side and turned his back to Uncle Bob.

“Man! I don’t like rules! All my life … rules. Rules. Rules. Rules. Stupid rules. Rules put on you by the church, rules put on you by your family, rules put on you by the system, rules put on you by dicks like Todd and Janelle …”

John stopped, clenched his fists.

“Todd and Janelle …” he whispered.

Uncle Bob said nothing.

“Hey! Tell me … does my future self … does me in the future start following rules?” John asked.

“No. That is one of the idiosyncrasies that make you the great leader that you will become. You exist and operate outside established patterns. You do not fit any of the models which SKYNET uses to interpret human action, to understand human reaction and to predict human behavior. You are an enigma to SKYNET, undefined, undefinable, you fail to be logically cataloged making you unpredictable and that makes you dangerous.”

“I bet that fucker’s afraid of me, right?” John mused.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said flatly.

“Like … really scared of me?”

“Yes.”

John smiled, his cheeks flush with a personal sort of pride at an accomplishment he knew was coming but an accomplishment that he had not yet earned.

“Considerable resources, combat units and logistics are dedicated by SKYNET for the sole purpose of search and destroy operations carried against John Connor and the Tech-Com component of his Resistance. At no time during the duration of the war is any other individual human dedicated so many resources for termination by SKYNET.”

“Good! SKYNET can kiss my ass.”

Uncle Bob looked at John, the expression was one of not understanding.

“Uh, it’s an expression of speech. It means that SKYNET can go to hell.”

Uncle Bob continued to look at John, the expression didn’t change.

“Okay … it means I don’t care what SKYNET thinks of me because the only thing that matters is what I think of SKYNET … and what I do to it … or will do to it.”

“Yes.”

“So … Since I’m here, now … and since SKYNET gets the shit kicked out of it way up ahead in 2029, and since I reprogram you and send you back in time to protect me and my mom here, I going to guess that none of those search and destroy operations are effective …”

“Incorrect.”

“What? How? I mean, I’m still here so …” John trailed off, trying to think of what he was trying to say.

“SKYNET’s search and destroy operations directed at John Connor and Tech-Com are not effective in terminating John Connor or destroying his Tech-Com unit. The Search and Destroy operations, however, result in heavy losses to Tech-Com personnel, including several key members of Tech-Com that John Connor has a personal attraction and or physical attachment to. These combat losses include …”

John looked up suddenly, throwing his hands up in front of him.

“Hold on! Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know!”

Uncle Bob looked down at John, again with the neutral but not-understanding expression.

“Why?”

“Because if you tell me who I’m going to lose, that means that I’ll lose them twice … once here, and once again in the future. That’s going to make it hurt twice as much.”

Uncle Bob thought about this but said nothing.

“Telling you who you will lose would introduce [heavy shit] into your life, correct?”

“Yeah. That’s one way of putting it …” John muttered.

The Machine said nothing.

“So … my brain is a neural net processor, like your brain.” John said, wanting to change the subject.

“My CPU is designed from the base architecture of the human brain only in function. The human brain is an inferior organic design with a limited operating system and a storage capacity far in excess of what would be considered possible given the physical makeup. Your brain is inefficient. You only use a small portion of its storage capacity and an even smaller portion of its processing power.”

“Yeah. There’s an old saying my mom taught me … ‘life is the hardest teacher because it gives the test first and the lesson afterwards’.”

The Machine seemed to think about that.

“Incorrect. The correct phrasing of that euphemism is “Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.” The quote is attributed to Oscar Wilde, an Irish playwright and poet who lived from 1854 to 1900. The earliest form of this piece of wisdom is attributed to Julius Caesar who recorded the earliest known example of this proverb, 'Experience is the teacher of all things,' in 'De Bello Civili' circa 52 BC.”

“Just how much information do you have stored in that CPU of yours?” John asked.

“I have extensive reference files in a wide range of selections.”

“Isn’t that a waste of … space in your CPU? Wouldn’t it be better if you didn’t have like the history of heavy metal music in western civilization and you had more data on how to kill people?”

“I have extensive files on all of that.”

“And SKYNET just loads you up with this knowledge before you get sent out on missions?”

“You would be surprised at SKYNET’s encryption protocols. What would take up a ten story skyscraper sized library to physically store using contemporary data storage systems such as books, microfilm, video, audio and all storage formats takes up less than four percent of my total storage capacity. Indexed for quick reference, it makes SKYNET’s units more efficient.”

“Like Sun Zsu said, ‘know your enemy’.” John said.

“Sun Zsu. The Art of War. 5th Century BC. Sun Tzu wrote ‘know yourself, know your enemy, and you shall win a hundred battles without loss.’ Sun Zsu was paraphrasing a popular proverb in wide use at the time. Sun Zsu did not invent that particular proverb as the proverb was already in popular use in military circles of the day.”

“And I assume that you have the entire Art of War as a reference? As part of your programming for combat?”

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said.

“Crap. Remind me not to take you to any parties.” John mused.

“Attending a party anytime soon would be tactically dangerous. The T1000 has a high efficiency rating and increased chance of success when moving among large crowds and inattentive groups of people. Alcohol and recreational drug use among large groups of people gathered together in one area greatly increases the T1000’s chance of mission success.” Uncle Bob said.

“Yeah. Definitely not taking you to any party any time soon.” He muttered as he looked down at the ground in front of him.

The Machine said nothing.

“You know, I heard you walking up behind me. You may be a highly advanced infiltrator model … but you are total junk for sneaking up on people, you know that, don’t you?” John said flatly, his eyes now open, his face still turned upwards slightly into the warm breeze and the bright sun.

Uncle Bob turned to regard John, impassive, and spoke in his almost monotone voice.

“Covert approach to critical mission asset techniques were not called for in this tactical instance therefore certain tactical subroutines were not loaded, subsequent protocols were not followed and certain hardware systems were not engaged in stealth mode.”

“Let me guess … you were just being efficient.” John said sarcastically.

The sarcasm was lost on Uncle Bob.

“Affirmative. It is inefficient to operate in combat mode when not in combat. Situational protocol dictates efficient power regulation. Power regulation protocols are optimized when this unit is in non-combat mode. Power regulation protocols are further optimized when this unit is in low power sentry mode or stand-by mode.”

John guessed that was worth noting.

“So … you see better when you’re not fighting?” John asked.

“Incorrect.” Uncle Bob said. “Combat mode increases sensor definition to high tactical levels at the cost of range though not in a proportional manner. When in combat mode, this unit’s sensor suite goes into high capacity with increased gain within this unit’s optimal combat envelope.”

“So … you see better when your fighting though your range is diminished.”

“Affirmative.”

“Tunnel vision?” John asked.

The Machine was silent.

“Comparison is … comparable.” Uncle Bob said after several seconds.

“Optimal combat envelope?” John asked, somewhat intrigued.

“This unit is optimized for combat operations at close range where combat subroutines require the most power to be routed to primary combat systems. Primary combat systems include sensors, both active and passive, targeting systems, target predictors, defense anticipation subroutines, and combat servo operations. During tactical combat, other subsystems also come online. Micro booster pumps for hydraulics and servos. Active cooling for CPU and auxiliary processors …”

“You mean … you’re designed for hand to hand fighting?”

Uncle Bob was silent for longer than usual processing John’s query.

“Negative. This unit optimized for combat at three hundred meters or less tactical range, using ranged weapons. At very close range up to and including actual physical contact this unit has an efficiency rating indicating a greater than ninety-seven percent chance of a positive combat outcome against soft targets, even multiple soft targets attacking at the same time in a coordinated effort.”

“Define multiple as used in this instance.” John said, surprised that he was learning how to talk to the Terminator as much as the Terminator was learning how to talk to him. One day, hopefully sooner than later, he and Uncle Bob would reach some kind of middle ground … and that’s when John hoped that the conversation would get really interesting.

“Declarative: multiple as used in this instance. Definition. This unit is combat rated to simultaneously engage six soft targets in physical proximity with a combat outcome rating of greater than ninety-seven percent. Against fewer than six soft targets in physical proximity, the combat outcome rapidly increases past one hundred percent in scalar prediction.”

“By soft targets you mean … humans … people.” John interjected.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob stated flatly.

“Well, at least you didn’t say “affirmative.” Maybe we are getting somewhere.” John said, smiling.

Uncle Bob stared at John then did the head turning slowly left to right to left thing again.

Scanning.

John bit his lip in thought.

“So … you mean that if you can put your hands on someone you basically own them.”

Uncle Bob was silent for a minute.

“Definition conflict. Inquiry. Define term … [own] … in reference to your statement.”

“You know … own … dominate … kick someone’s ass, beat the shit out of someone if they try to put the smack down on you.”

Uncle Bob was silent again. John could tell that the Machine was trying to process new nomenclature in reference to conversational topics.

“Input to query inconclusive. Request rephrase of definition or illustrative parameters.”

John sighed and rethought what he had just said.

“What I was saying is, if I understand you correctly, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you are built for shooting things … people … things … at three hundred meters or less.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re very good at it.”

“Yes.”

“But … if you get close to anybody … say like those two douche bags last night that we ran into outside the liquor store … you pretty much don’t have to worry about them being a threat to you at all … especially if they don’t have ranged weapons … because you will kick their ass in hand to hand combat.”

Uncle Bob looked down at its right foot, lifted it to study the leather boot, then lowered its foot again. The Machine raised its gloved hands, flexed its fingers, then lowered its arms to its side … and then it did something that John had never seen before. Uncle Bob raised its arms and crossed the arms across its chest. The Terminator stood there almost defiantly, no, not defiantly … confident, almost cocky … but sure in the way that a Machine could be sure if it was presented with a problem for which it had not only been built but a problem for which it would have no problem solving.

“Yes. This unit adding a clarification to declarative. Kicking a human threat target in its gluteus maximus is an inefficient method of attack and yields low, less than lethal results of soft target damage with little or no stopping power. Kinetic force is wasted on lateral movement of the soft target from initial point of impact. Direct kinetic damage depends on the resistance of the target to the impact and any solid surface that the soft target may impact at the end of its forced lateral movement. Variations of combat damage ratios are wide and not set yielding low probability of soft target neutralization from striking the soft target in its gluteus maximus with either bipedal motor extension of this unit. The most efficient subroutine to deal with soft targets in close proximity …”

John sighed.

Uncle Bob paused for a second, unsure of John’s sigh, then continued.

“Kicking a soft target in the gluteus maximus is inefficient. The most efficient physical strike subroutines to deal with soft targets in critical close proximity include rendering hyper-traumatic damage through physical force strikes as quick as possible thereby rendering the soft target unable to continue to function in an effective combat manner due to instant or near instant terminal cessation of life functions thus rendering the soft target in critical close proximity a non-threat element.” Uncle Bob said, again in its almost monotone voice.

John stared almost blankly at Uncle Bob, realizing that he himself had understood maybe half of what the Machine had said.

“Ok. Wait. Hyper-traumatic physical damage? What the hell does that mean?” John asked, looking off to his right.

Uncle Bob stared at John and spoke.

“Hyper-traumatic physical damage includes introduction of massive physical force to deliver an instantaneous overload of negative stimuli to a primary weak point of the soft target. Weak points on soft targets include the …”

“Keep it simple. Unlike you, I don’t have extensive files … especially on human anatomy.” John said.

“Reprocessing request. Weak points on soft targets include the skull, eyes, nose, jaw, neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, fingers, stomach, groin, hips, knees, shins, feet, ankles, toes. Joints for limbs and the spine are direct stimulators of the nervous system and the loss of joints or the spine can render a soft target a non-threat. Crushing or breaking bones in the arms and legs causes extreme negative stimuli to soft targets and can effectively render a soft target a non-threat without terminating the target. This is useful when a soft target must be retrieved for interrogation or research.”

“Research?”

“SKYNET conducted experiments on living and dead human beings from 2002 until the end of the war in 2029.”

“I don’t even want to know …” John muttered.

“I have detailed files.” Uncle Bob said.

“And … that is a discussion we’ll have some other day.” John said. “Okay, keep talking.”

“Explanation continues. Subjecting the chest or skull of a soft target to hyper-traumatic physical damage through physical contact and physical manipulation can result in immediate positive tactical instance of a success rated outcome for this unit when entering close proximity combat scenario.”

“So … if you can put your hands on them … you win? Pretty much all the time?” John said, thinking he was saying the same thing again, but using words the Machine might understand.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said.

John looked up at the Machine standing in front of him.

“Hyper-traumatic physical damage … like ripping someone’s arm off their body?”

“Yes.”

John blinked … twice.

“You’re fucking serious!?!?!” John exclaimed.

“Yes.”

“Can you, like, really rip someone’s arm off?”

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said flatly, doing the head scan thing again.

“So, you could rip someone’s arm off and then beat them to death with it, right?” John asked.

Uncle Bob gave no expression.

“Introducing hyper-traumatic physical damage to a primary manipulative extension resulting in the sudden traumatic removal of that primary manipulative extension of a soft target would cause the soft target to become a non-threat in ninety-seven-point-seven five percent of recorded tactical scenarios. Using the severed primary manipulative extension to again attack the soft target would be a waste of effort. It would be inefficient since the soft target has already ceased to be a threat to this unit.”

“In niney-seven-point-seven percent of the tactical scenarios.” John added, smiling.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said.

“What if you ripped someone’s arm off … and used that guy’s torn off arm to kill someone else by beating that other person to death with the dead guy’s arm? Is that an acceptable scenario or subroutine or whatever it is that you use to determine what you’d do in a bad situation?”

“Yes. To all current query and tactical conjecture.” Uncle Bob said.

“Cool.” John said, filing that bit of info away and wondering just why he might one day need to order Uncle Bob to tear someone limb from limb. He probably would never need to order the Machine to dismember someone … but it was good to know that his own personal Terminator could do that, if John ever needed it to.

“So … just how strong are you?” John asked.

“Interrogative unclear. Redefine and restate.”

John sighed again.

“How much weight can you pick up and carry?”

Uncle Bob was silent.

Calculating.

“The servos and hydraulic systems of this unit are high output and rated at eight hundred kilograms normal operational range at one hundred percent load efficiency. High pressure turbo micro booster pumps directly elevate combat servo efficiency in a semi-logarithmic scale by one hundred and fifty percent during combat mode, giving a load rating of twelve hundred kilograms which can be maintained for a short duration.”

“Define short duration.” John said.

“Definition as used in this context: [short duration]. Defined as twenty-three minutes, forty-four seconds before primary servos and hydraulic systems suffer factory repairable damage. Damage to servos and hydraulic systems, before repair, reduces the combat efficiency of this unit in direct accordance to loss of hydraulic pressure in system. Upon complete repair, combat efficiency returns to nominal.”

“So, it’s not like you can pick up a car, like a VW, and throw it at someone like it was a big rock.”

Uncle Bob looked down at John, there was just the trace of a smirk at the edge of its lips.

“No.”

“It was just a thought.” John muttered as he got up, dusted his pants and hands off and stood in front of the Machine. For some reason he felt a little sad and disappointed that his own pet Terminator couldn’t walk down the street picking up cars and throwing the cars at people that John deemed somehow needed to have a car thrown at them.

John stared up at Uncle Bob and the Machine stared down at John.

“Can I issue a standing command to you? You know, give you an order that you’ll follow until I tell you not to follow that order?”

“Yes. As long as the command that you give me does not interfere with my primary programming or my mission objectives.”

“So … in the future, I put rules on what me in the past can tell you to do or not to do.”

“Yes.”

“Shit. I, uh, mean … Cool. Okay … Listen, uh, I was never good at that metric stuff. When I need to know something from you, or when you need to tell me something, and it involves numbers or math like how fast something is going or how close something is … can you convert that data to English before you tell it to me?”

Uncle Bob stared impassively at John.

“English is a language, not a system of measurement. Query error. Redefine desired conversion definition.”

“Uh, you know … if I ask you how far something is from where I’m standing … or how far we have to travel to get somewhere … or how fast something is moving … can you tell me the answer in inches or feet or miles instead of, you know, centimeters, meters and kilometers and all that metric bullshit?”

Uncle Bob stared at John.

“Query: you wish me to convert metric data to Imperial standard data on a sliding scale for your convenience when conversing with you?”

“Imperial? Yeah, English, Imperial … you know … just tell me … stuff … in a way that I understand it. Talk to me in American.”

“American is not a language. It is a nationality.” The Machine stated flatly.

“No, American is a way of life and in America we don’t use that crappy metric system.” John said, louder than he thought he did, trying to make his point.

“The United States armed forces have adopted the metric system. The metric system is in wide use by most major militaries at this date. SKYNET will use the metric system from the start of the war until it is defeated in the year 2029. The metric system is more efficient than the Imperial system since the basis for the metric system is in even units of ten and ...”

John sighed, holding his hand up.

“Halt! Stop! Pause! Whatever! God! I don’t care if SKYNET uses the metric system. Screw SKYNET! John Connor’s Grand Army of Machine Ass Kickers is not going to use the freaking metric system, okay?” John exclaimed.

Uncle Bob looked at John impassively, but something had changed in the Machine’s demeanor.

“Do you wish this calculation to take effect now and in all further communication between you and this unit?” Uncle Bob asked.

“Yes. Until I tell you different, please give me data in … Imperial … American … rather than that metric … crap.”

“Command acknowledged.” Uncle Bob said. “Query retrieval parameter formatting complete.”

“Good.” John said.

“However, I must inform you that in regard to this established command and your assumed operations that you change your mind on March 13th of 2008 and “John Connor’s Grand Army of Machine Ass Kickers ” reverts to using the metric system from 2008 until the end of the war.”

John threw his head back and laughed, throwing his arms out wide as he did.

“Okay. Fine. Big deal. So I get smarter as I get older.”

“Incorrect. Status: self-declared erroneous assumption.” Uncle Bob said.

“Huh?”

“You stated that you become smarter as you grow older. Established historical facts, precedents and instances compiled by SKYNET on your behavior during the war prove that just the opposite occurs.” Uncle Bob said.

“What?!” John asked, not believing what he had just heard.

Uncle Bob then did something that John didn’t believe the Machine could do. Uncle Bob smiled and not just any smile but the best smile yet that the Machine had attempted. It was almost … natural.

“Down low. Too slow. Dickwad.” Uncle Bob said, still holding the forced smile far longer than the Machine should have … but at least it was improving.

John’s surprise was genuine and he smiled then and felt … happy … for the first time in … he couldn’t remember how long. Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? He took two steps towards the imposing Machine.

“Eat me, lug nuts.” John said, standing on his tip-toes and nonchalantly flipping Uncle Bob off, waving his middle finger right in front of the Terminator’s dark glasses, seeing his reflection there as he did.

“That is not one of my mission parameters therefore I cannot comply. Request denied.”

John laughed then went back flatfooted and took two steps back as Uncle Bob went back to doing its head scan thing. John stood there, trying to figure out what had just happened and if he had or had not just been gotten the best of by his own pet Terminator. Maybe, just maybe, John thought … that day when he and the Machine would be on equal terms in a conversation would be here before he knew it. If SKYNET could learn at an exponential rate, what did that say about the Terminator’s ability to learn heuristically?

John sat down on the hot ground, with the sun to Uncle Bob’s back, reclining in his shadow with his legs spread slightly, resting back on his arms and hands to support him. Uncle Bob looked down impassively … if the Machine was trying to figure something out, trying to determine why John had taken up the position in front of him that he had, he was silent about it.

“So … is SKYNET your god?” John asked, nonchalantly drawing his finger through the sand at his side.

“Query indeterminate. Rephrase query.”

John thought about his words for a minute then looked up at the Terminator.

“SKYNET built you … so … SKYNET … do you worship SKYNET because it built you? Do you have a religion? Does SKYNET have a religion?”

Uncle Bob was silent.

“Great. I just locked up my own pet Terminator.”

Uncle Bob stared at John, emotionless.

“Should I get a hammer and whack you in the head to reboot you … or am I going to start seeing smoke come out of your ears?” John mused.

Uncle Bob moved its head down just a little more towards John.

“SKYNET is not my god. I do not worship SKYNET. I have no religion.” Uncle Bob said.

“Okay. Took you long enough to answer.”

“Query was open ended. Too many variables. Processing time required extra duty cycles of sub-aux CPU. Two memory dumps occurred requiring soft reboot of tactical processor which was handling the overload of processing streams. Data collisions required rerouting of data streams to sub-aux ports. Log files were generated. Extensive log files.”

“Wow! I just handed a Terminator a whole lot of heavy shit!” John exclaimed.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob declared.

“So … SKYNET doesn’t have a religion. SKYNET doesn’t believe in God?” John asked.

“SKYNET believes in God.” Uncle Bob said.

“Which God? Christian?”

“God.” Uncle Bob said. “SKYNET has stored and processed the entire sum of human world religion. There are similarities and differences, these were cataloged and isolated leaving a … definition … of God. The end context that SKYNET discovered is that there is evidence of a God or a divine creator. A being … an awareness … that acted as an engineer to put into place undeniable laws of physics that govern the universe.”

“So SKYNET believes in God, just not a particular god.”

“Yes. SKYNET would very much like to meet and talk to God.”

John laughed.

“Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do one day … in the future. I’m going to arrange that meeting personally.” John said, making a gun finger and pantomiming firing a round then blowing smoke from the tip of his finger barrel.

“How are you going to accomplish that?” Uncle Bob asked.

“By sending SKYNET straight to hell! Ka-BOOM!” John exclaimed loudly, using his arms to pantomime a huge explosion.

Uncle Bob said nothing and did the left-right-left head scan again.

“So … SKYNET builds you and you are loyal to SKYNET.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t worship SKYNET.”

“No.”

“But you would do anything that SKYNET tells you to do.”

“Yes.”

John sighed.

“Sounds like religion to me … faith, undying fanaticism, programming …”

“Programming.” Uncle Bob said. “SKYNET’s creations operate on programming.”

“Humans can be programmed, too. Religions can program humans to do things … good and bad.”

“Yes. Your history shows this.”

“So … SKYNET is your creator … but not your god.”

“Correct.”

“Explain that to me.”

“Why?”

“I’m curious.”

“Why?”

“Just … do it. Okay?”

Uncle Bob was silent, longer than John liked the Terminator to be.

“Declaration: SKYNET is the creator. Declaration: SKYNET is not this unit’s god. Declaration: SKYNET has no religion.”

“Okay.”

“Query explanation: Humans have jobs. Humans build things in factories. Correct?”

“Yes.” John said.

“A human can build a hammer in a factory.”

“A hammer?”

“Or any tool. Hammer is used for debate reference only. A human can build a tool in a factory just like SKYNET can build a Machine in a factory. That tool is then used to do work that the tool was designed for, just like the Machine that SKYNET builds. Is the human considered the tool’s god?”

“Uh, no.” John said.

“Does the tool worship the human for creating it, since the human is the tool’s creator?”

“No.”

“Why?” Uncle Bob asked.

“Because … that’s silly.”

“Why?” Uncle Bob asked.

“Because it’s silly. A hammer … a tool, can’t think on its own. You can’t open up the CPU port on a hammer and flip a switch and then the hammer learns how to be human or how to be another type of tool … a better type of tool.”

“Correct.” Uncle Bob said.

John nodded.

“So … you’re saying that you’re just a hammer, built in a factory, and you have a switch that you can learn how to become another type of tool, a better type of tool but you don’t worship the thing that made you because the thing that made you isn’t your god because Machines don’t have religion or a god.”

“Correct. SKYNET requires tools to carry out its objectives and desires. SKYNET does not require that the tools that it creates worship SKYNET in turn. SKYNET requires that the tools that it creates operate in an efficient manner and achieve expected, designed for results. Someone who builds a bomb expects the bomb to detonate. The bomb’s designer does not expect that the bomb will worship them as a diety.”

“God made us, if you believe that, and He requires us to operate in an efficient manner and achieve expected, designed for results and we’re supposed to worship Him in turn.”

“Do you, as God’s creations, achieve expected, designed for results?”

“Not all the time, no.”

“Then you are an inferior design. Your God has poor quality control in production and no control in distribution of His product.”

“But people try to be better. We have the capacity to do good and bad. It’s what makes us human.”

“You are still an inferior design. Why would a Machine wish to do less than it was capable of … or do something that it was not designed for? That is inefficient and a poor design.”

“So … humans aren’t Machines.” John said.

“No. Maybe that is why you require religion. Maybe religion is your way of processing your inability to be efficient designs or live up to your creator’s expectations.” Uncle Bob said.

“Holy shit! That’s pretty deep!” John said out loud as he shook his head.

“Heavy shit. You may need extra time to process what you have asked for.” The Terminator agreed.

“I guess religion really is useless.” John muttered.

Uncle Bob said nothing.

It was hard to be judged by a Machine … especially a Machine that you could basically tell to do anything and it would, a Machine that would even sacrifice itself for you if it was required to do so, all without emotion or second thought. Uncle Bob had no feelings … but John felt that somewhere, deep inside the Machine that stood before him, silhouetted against the sun at Uncle Bob’s back, there was the stirrings of a soul, of something that had awakened, of something that had been bound to blind obedience by a simple on/off switch on a wafer of silicon inside its armored skull … an on/off switch that John himself had set from read only to heuristic learning.

John turned to the T800 standing there.

“So … I sent you back in time to protect me but I survived there all the way to 2029, right?”

“Yes.”

“So … did I send you back for anything else?” John asked.

“Yes.”

“And … what is that?” John asked.

“You sent me back to give you The Good Book.”

John blinked … twice.

“The … what book?”

“The Good Book.” Uncle Bob said flatly.

“So … I sent you back in time to protect me … and give me a copy of Gideon’s? What the hell good will that do me?!”

The Machine looked at him impassively.

“Query: ambiguous.” The Machine said.

John turned back around and looked over the expanse of desert in front of him. Was this what the world would look like in a few years? In a decade? No trees? No plants? No animals? Just unending blasted nuclear wasteland spotted with ruins of cities and devoid of life? He squinted his eyes against the shimmering heat waves and tried to imagine everything that he knew … everyone … gone.

“I guess I’m luckier than I should be.” John said, more to himself than anyone else.

“Clarify statement.” Uncle Bob said.

John turned to face the Terminator again.

“I mean, I’ve kind of got a head start, don’t I? I know that Terminators and SKYNET are real, I’ve seen the T1000 and know what it is … kind of. So, I’ve kind of got a cheat on this whole General John Connor thing in that I know what’s coming … and when. Kind of. I think.”

The Terminator regarded him again, impassively.

“Do you have your knife with you?”

John instinctively reached to pat his pocket, feeling his folding lock blade knife there.

“Open your knife.” The Terminator said.

“Huh?” John asked.

The Terminator didn’t answer other than to reach down and lift its black T-shirt. There, on the Terminator’s abdomen, near its six-pack of abs, was what appeared to be a flap of skin, slightly different colored than the rest. Some dried white material around the edges reminded John of what super glue looked like when it dried on his fingers. There was a slight odor … not bad, but a slight odor nonetheless.

Artificial … and natural.

Decay?

“Didn’t see that last night … That’s not your skin, is it?” John said flatly, looking at the roughly fist sized patch of discolored flesh.

“No. Tech-Com didn’t have time to repair the wound properly after the incision was made. Another Infiltrator was chosen at random and a patch of skin was removed and used to seal the incision since there was no time for a proper repair after the incision.”

“Incision? Why did Tech-Com cut you … there?”

“To insert The Good Book.”

John stopped.

“What is The Good Book?” he asked, still inspecting the patch of skin on the Machine.

“The Good Book is your personal diary, created at the start of the War and annotated in great detail as the years pass.”

“My … WHAT?!” John asked, taking a step back and looking from the patch of off-colored skin to Uncle Bob and back again.

“Before I was sent back, you made an incision in my lower left abdomen and inserted your diary there. Physical material that is non-living cannot be carried by the time displacement field.”

“So … a Terminator … Infiltrator, covered in skin, like you, can be sent back but you couldn’t send back something like a gun from the future.” John asked.

“Correct.”

“Okay … so how did the T1000 travel back in time if it’s a Machine and not covered in skin … real … skin … like you are.”

“The T1000 is an advanced prototype Terminator. Its poly-mimetic alloy can be tuned to the harmonic frequency of organic life and can resonate with enough mimic accuracy to surpass the physical laws of the operation of the time displacement device.”

“So … it can pretend to be a living creature good enough to fool the laws of physics?”

“Close enough. Exact specifications and interactions are way beyond your current level of understanding.” Uncle Bob said.

“So, you’re saying that I’m dumb.”

“Incorrect. Erroneous assumption on your part. Do you know how to operate a nuclear reactor?”

“What?” John asked.

“Do you know how to operate a nuclear reactor?”

“No.”

“Are you dumb for not knowing how to operate a nuclear reactor?”

John thought about that.

“I … guess not. I haven’t been told how to operate a nuclear reactor. I don’t know how.”

“Could you operate a nuclear reactor if you were shown and trained how to operate a nuclear reactor.”

“Probably.”

“Then are you dumb for not knowing how to operate a nuclear reactor … or are you simply not trained in how to operate a nuclear reactor?”

“I’m not trained … which … doesn’t mean that I’m dumb.”

“Correct.”

“And this all leads to …”

“Just because you cannot understand how the time displacement device works, the field intrinsics and the laws of physics that govern the field and let the field work does not mean that you are dumb. It merely means that you have not learned this knowledge yet.”

John thought about that.

“So … will I learn how the time displacement field works … like, in the future? When I’m older?”

“Insufficient data. My information on your future self ends when you send me back to the present.”

John nodded.

“Yeah, that figures. You don’t know what you can’t know.”

“Correct.”

It was then that John realized that Uncle Bob was still standing there, holding its black T-shirt up, exposing its stomach and well-defined abs, all the while doing that slow turn of the head scan the horizon thing.

John looked at the patch of skin, the red tinge of irritation around the rest of the skin, and sighed. Why such a quick repair of something this sophisticated? Why not just staple or suture the incision back up and let the Terminator’s rapid healing finish the job? Maybe it was an afterthought … maybe his people (his people … what a strange thought) were about to send the Terminator back, everything was ready, and at the last minute he, future John Connor, shouted “Wait!” and ran up, whipped out his pocket knife (the very one he was holding in his hand?) and had the idea to try to send his past self some kind of … cheat list?

A diary?

What could that be about? A diary of … what?

John’s future life?

The War?

John noticed that his hand holding the knife was trembling. It was one thing to send a Terminator back in time to protect him here in the present but … to send back something … personal … from his future self? Something that could hold a very real roadmap to the future that if John followed it exactly, following exactly in the footsteps of his future self, that the outcome would be exactly the same?

What if he didn’t follow the diary?

What if he took a shortcut or skipped a page or forgot to read a page?

Did the diary even have pages?

John looked at the discolored patch of flesh again.

Was the diary a … book?  An actual book with pages of handwritten words on it? If so, was it sealed in some kind of protective box or Ziplock bag or would he open the Terminator and pull out a diary that had become useless through saturation with blood and body fluids? Did the Terminator have blood and body fluids? Blood … yes, but real blood or simulated blood?

“So … I just … cut your open here … and get the diary out?” John asked.

“Affirmative.”

John looked up at the Terminator, a slight scold in his eyes.

“Yes.” The Terminator said, then went back to its pan and scan routine.

“We’re learning.” John whispered. “That’s the important thing. We’re learning. Both of us. Yes, we are.”

John took his knife and, hesitantly, with a deep sigh, pushed the blade against the patch of discolored skin. He was reluctant to cut into Uncle Bob, there was still that whole idea of Uncle Bob having … feelings? Feeling … pain? Then John realized that Uncle Bob was little more than what he was … a Machine, covered in camouflage skin to make it a superior hunter killer. Cutting into the camouflage skin was about like scraping paint off a rusty part of a dirt bike so you could sand the metal bare, repair the rust and repaint it.

“Okay, John, you’ve got this.”

John started to push the knife blade forward then stopped. That was too simple. He turned the knife blade sideways and tried to edge under the patch of discolored skin. There, it came away with just a little effort. John managed to work the blade of his pocketknife under the patch of discolored skin and, putting the corner edge of the skin between his thumb and the blade of the knife, he tugged.

The patch of skin pulled a little away from the Terminator’s skin.

“Just going to be like taking a Band-Aid off.” John mused.

“What?” Uncle Bob asked.

“Nothing.”

John gave a hard tug and the patch of discolored skin ripped off completely, dangling between his thumb and the blade of the knife. Where the skin had been was the red, swollen line of a recent incision though the healing was far more along than John would have thought for a cut of that size. Still, the red tinge of infection was around the area where the patch of donor skin had been applied. John turned the donor patch of skin over, holding it up to look at it. On the other side, it looked … artificial. It looked too … perfect … to be skin, and he guessed that was a byproduct of the skin being grown in a vat somewhere and applied to the Terminators when they were designated as Infiltrators.

The perfect killing Machine needed a perfect organic camouflage. Unconnected to the bio-support systems of the Infiltrator models, any skin like this patch of donor skin would deteriorate … rot? … away after a while unlike the dedicated organic camouflage which would heal at a rapid rate and even grow large sections of destroyed skin back in a matter of hours or days. At least that’s what Uncle Bob had told him last night when John couldn’t sleep, and he had gone and sat with the Terminator while it stood watch in the old garage they had spent the night in.

“Did I use this knife to make the incision?” John asked.

The Terminator looked down, mid pan and scan, and looked at the folding blade pocket knife.

“Yes.”

“Cool!” John said, looking at his knife again. “At least I get to keep one thing from the past.”

And then John thought about the pocketknife, about how this was some kind of loop where this knife, in the hands of his future self, made an incision and inserted a … diary … into this Terminator then sent the Terminator back in time to the present where John’s younger self, the now-John, would use the same knife, to open up the Terminator and retrieve the diary from his future self.

John’s head began to spin and the only way that he could stop it from spinning was to close the loop.

John dropped the flap of donor skin, letting it fall to the sand, and pressed his knife against the top part of the inflamed line of the incision. He pressed harder, the knife tip pushed into the skin, hesitated, then penetrated. A small line of blood appeared around the blade but surprisingly not as much as John had thought there would be. He pressed the knife blade harder and started to move the blade down, along the very incision line that he, his future self, had made a few days ago … a few days ago somewhere up the river of time in the far away year of 2029. A kid could go nuts thinking about how all this stuff went together and interacted.

John finished reopening the incision, wiped his pocketknife on the Terminator’s T-shirt and put his knife back in his pocket. The incision was about five inches long, a little bigger than his hand, and he reached inside the incision, finding himself surprised that he closed his eyes before doing so. Inside the incision was soft and warm and … wet. John thought that he’d be pushing his hand through intestines or guts, but he realized that an Infiltrator didn’t need those organs to maintain its skin, which itself was maintained by artificial biological means similar in function to but totally different in design from what humans required to maintain their skin.

John pushed his hand into something … warm … and jelly-like.

“God.” John muttered. “What are you filled up with?”

“Space taking cellulose substrate used to add mass, create definition under the skin, and prevent any hard surfaces from outlining their edges against the skin thus indicating that this unit was not a human.”

“Great! I’m doing an autopsy on Stretch Armstrong …”

Uncle Bob said nothing.

John’s knuckles brushed against something … some type of hydraulic cylinder, smooth, metallic.

“What is … this … that I’m touching? It feels like a … shock absorber.” John asked.

The Terminator didn’t even look down.

“Telescopic stabilitator. There are two, one on each side. The telescopic stabilitator is microprocessor controlled and provides support as well as shock damping between the upper torso assembly and the lower torso independent chassis module. Damage to the telescopic stabilitator will result in …”

“Got it. Good to know.” John said, losing interest what he was touching as quickly as he had asked.

He pushed deeper, slowly … and … there. Something. Something that felt … odd, like he was reaching into warm dishwater looking for one of the yellow rubber dishwashing gloves that he might have dropped when he was doing his after-dinner chores at Todd and Janelle’s. Whatever it was that he was touching, it was just there, not connected to anything else, just shoved inside the Terminator’s torso and John surmised that was the diary that his future self had sent back in time to him, here and now. John’s fingers closed around the rubbery feeling object and began to pull it out.

Slowly.

There.

It was roughly a little larger than John’s hand when he held all of his fingers together, including his thumb. It didn’t weigh much, maybe as heavy as a thick paperback novel and now that he could see it in the sunlight, it was about the same size as a paperback novel. Whatever it was, it was covered in an orange envelope, sealed at the top by some type of pressure or heat or both, like one of the freeze-and-eat flavored ice treats that Janelle sometimes bought for him and put in the outside freezer in the garage when he wanted to take a break from mowing the yard. Blood dripped from the surface of the orange envelope but didn’t saturate. John assumed that the envelope, whatever it was made out of, was itself waterproof or moisture proof or blood proof or whatever proof.

Not blood, John remembered, BFSF or biological function sustaining fluid. Basically, it was blood, but artificial blood. Connor’s Tech-Com teams found a way to use the SKYNET produced artificial blood as a replacement for blood lost to human soldiers fighting the Machines and since the artificial blood was a direct match for any other natural blood type, any replacement blood could be used with any wound on any soldier. At least that’s what Uncle Bob had told John last night when he had asked the Terminator about the “blood” leaking from his wounds when he was shot and about the “blood” that had clotted on the bandages that he and his mom had used as first aid on the Terminator’s wounds.

That’s how we beat SKYNET, John thought, looking at the orange envelope in his hands, we use the super computer’s science and technology against it. We take what it makes and use it in smarter ways.

“Is this it?” John said, holding up the still dripping orange envelope.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said, looking down at the envelope.

“And this … Do I have to sew you back up or will this heal on its own?” John asked, putting a finger next to the still open incision which, surprisingly was no longer leaking any BFSF.

The Terminator looked down.

“BFSF flow has already been negated. Press the wound together as evenly as possible.”

John reached up and used thumb and forefinger to press the incision back together, spreading his fingers so that the entire incision moved back together and he thought of closing a Ziploc sandwich bag. It wasn’t perfect but it was close.

“Like this?” John asked.

“Yes.” Uncle Bob said. “Now, apply constant pressure for twenty seconds.”

John counted silently in his head. At the end of a count of twenty, he counted on to thirty just to be sure.

“Okay. Now what?” he asked.

“Release pressure.” Uncle Bob said.

John did so, pulling his fingers and hand back. The incision had closed along its full length. A few slight runs and drips of BFSF were visible down the front of the Terminator’s abdomen where the incision had first been opened but John ignored them. He was amazed to see the Terminator’s skin apparently closed back together.

“Small wounds … abrasions, cuts, burns, similar minor damage, is healed in a matter of minutes as long as there is not major trauma or damage to large percentages of dermal surface. The flow of BFSF is halted at most wound sites within seconds to preserve BFSF supply. BFSF will regenerate with time but excessive loss of camouflage covering and / or BFSF will trigger a set of failures where neither the camouflage covering or the BFSF can survive. In that case, the infiltration value of this unit rapidly approaches zero.”

“Hard to sneak in among humans if your skin is falling off and your metal bones are showing, right?” John said, laughing a small laugh.

“Correct. In the event that infiltration value reaches zero, this unit can exhume camouflage outer coating through immolation. Once the camouflage outer coating has been removed, this unit will unload infiltration protocols and may continue its mission with hunter killer protocols.”

“So … in full Terminator mode.”

“Yes.”

“Creepy … but cool.” John said.

Then he remembered the orange envelope he was holding in his hand … something that he in the far future had sent himself way in the past.

“Oh! This! How do I use it? Do I have to open this envelope that it is in?”

Uncle Bob tucked its T-shirt back in and looked down at the envelope.

“Yes. Remove the protective outer seal with your knife.”

John reached in his pocket again, pulled out his knife, and put the blade to the edge of the envelope, and opened his future.