Terminator from going through time he would have prevented all this from happening. If Cyberdyne hadn't gotten that chip, they never would have been able to build Skynet in the first place.
Of course, then he wouldn't exist, but so what? Several billion other people would continue to live. If that wasn't worth dying for, what was?
He could see the Skynet scientists working frantically to make the time displacement device work and he willed them to fail. He saw the naked Terminator step up onto the platform.
'Shit!' he said, and rose from his place. With one shot he took out the heavily armed Terminator and began to zigzag his way through the complex. Two of its brethren turned toward him and began to fire. All around John his own troops moved in, throwing their own lives away in an attempt to save his. Even as he ran he could feel himself going pale. He wasn't worthy of this much sacrifice; no one was.
'Spare the scientists!' he shouted.
There was a blinding flare of light and the Terminator was gone.
and how close it had come. Behind his eyelids he registered the flare that told that the T-1000 was gone. A beautiful young woman stepped onto the platform. John recognized her and took aim. She turned toward him and smiled. He fired and the flare of time displacement blinded him once again. John turned away, and someone knocked him to the floor and fired over his head.
John could feel the heat of a near miss on his arm and smell the scorched fabric of his sleeve.
'Sorry, sir. Are you all right?'
John looked up at the soldier, blinking as multicolored spots danced in his vision. After a moment he saw the soldier's face and gasped. It was Kyle!
'Yes!' he snapped, and slid away. John picked up his weapon and moved forward. Unable to avoid the shudder that racked his thin frame.
Ahead of them, the last Terminator turned its weapon on the Luddite scientists who stood waiting for death. From every part of the lab, resistance fighters fired, destroying the Terminator before it could kill the humans.
John moved forward, terribly aware of Kyle at his back. He stopped before the two men and one woman who had betrayed humanity. They looked at him with contempt.
'We've won,' the woman said. She licked her lips nervously and attempted a smirk.
One of the men turned toward the machine, diving toward the keyboard. John shot him in the leg and the man fell screaming.
His two companions jerked and moved away from him. John reached out and grabbed the woman's arm, yanking her off balance and shoving her behind him. Then he thrust the plasma rifle's barrel up under the chin of the remaining male. Two of John's soldiers dragged the wounded scientist away from the console.
'You haven't won,' John said between his teeth. The Luddite choked and raised his head as Connor pressed a little harder.
John gestured with his head for more of his people to take charge of the scientist. He turned to the woman, who looked back at him defiantly. 'And you're not going to win,' he finished.
'Oh, yes we will.' She sneered. 'In a few moments you will disappear.' She snapped her fingers. 'Like that!'
'And why is that?' he asked. He felt as if he was reciting lines in a play. Not even a very good play.
'Because that Terminator is going to kill your mother!' She glared at the soldiers surrounding her. 'Your precious Sarah Connor! And there's nothing you can do to stop it!'
John looked at her, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He wanted to pulverize this woman, to break her bones and reduce her to a weeping pile of jelly. It was rare for him in these later years to feel this much emotion, this much pure hate. It almost felt good.
Slowly he reined it in.
Still looking at her, he said, 'I need a volunteer!' And as John had known would happen, Kyle stepped forward without hesitation.
'I'll go,' he said.
John looked at him. 'You might not make it,' he warned.
Reese shrugged. 'We'll never know if we don't try, sir.' He nodded. 'I want to do it.'
The male scientist snorted in contempt. 'You'll never figure out how this machine works. Not in time.'
'Oh, I don't know about that,' Snog said. He breezed up to the console and stretched his knuckles like a pianist about to play a sonata; then he sat down in one of their vacated chairs.
This was the one place in which they'd cheated. John had told Snog and his group that they had intel that Skynet was working on a time machine and had assigned them to see if they could learn anything about it. Just that, a mere hint. But the techies had run with it and they'd followed almost every step of this team's progress. Snog probably knew as much about this machine as the Skynet team did.
'What date did you say, John?' Snog asked over his shoulder.
Not taking his eyes off the scientists, John told him, enjoying their disconcerted expressions. He glanced over at Kyle Reese.
'You'll have to go through naked,' he said. 'And it's going to be a one-way trip. We'll be destroying this after you've gone through.'
Reese nodded, then he began to strip. 'Weapons?' he asked.
'Only flesh can go through,' Snog said. 'Or items encased in living flesh. So unless you can fit a plasma rifle up your own ass, you're on your own, buddy.'
John stepped closer to Reese, leaning toward him so that the others wouldn't hear. 'I have a message I want you to give my mother,' he said. 'Thank you, Sarah,' he began.
* * *
In the darkness at the far edge of the factory, Sarah waited, the dormant Terminator by her side. Her vision grew blurry as she watched her son telling Kyle what to do. Giving him the precious message that had sustained her in her loneliness for so many years. She caught her breath in a sob, then dashed the tears from her eyes, and swallowing hard, waited for her part in this drama to begin.
The machine began to whine. John made Reese repeat the message, then nodded. 'Remember,' he said, 'we have no fate but that we make for ourselves.'
Reese looked at him as if in wonder and nodded. John held out his hand and the young soldier took it, lifting his chin in pride.
'Time!' Snog called out.
Reese looked at him, then climbed up onto the platform.
'Luck, man,' Snog called out.
John closed his eyes, saw the brightness of time displacement, and when he opened them his father was gone. He took a deep breath, and when he'd finished letting it out his mother was standing beside him.
He looked down at her. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.
John placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.
Sarah laid her head against his chest for a moment, then sighed and pulled away. She tipped her head toward the Terminator beside her.
'Snog,' John said, looking at the Terminator who would become Uncle Bob, his savior from the T-1000. 'How do I do this?'
* * *
When it was gone Sarah touched John's shoulder and he looked down at her. 'John,' she said, her voice heavy with unshed tears, 'we have to go. This place must have a failsafe.'
He nodded and turned to lead the way.
'Sir?' a soldier said. 'What do we do about them?' She tipped her head toward the Luddite scientists.
John's lips thinned and he reached for his sidearm.
'Allow me,' Sarah said in a voice like the hiss of a knife sliding from its sheath. Before anyone could move, she took aim and shot; the scientists fell like puppets whose strings had been cut.
