In front of an abandoned warehouse, somewhere on the outskirts of Los Angeles, a fire blazed in an old oil drum. Standing beside it, a large caliber weapon resting on her shoulder, a young woman barely a day over eighteen stood guard.
Sarah Connor looked away from the slender figure and back to her son. A wistful smile on her beautiful face, she tucked a blanket under his chin and brushed her lips across his, then she stood and quietly walked away. Her limbs were heavy, her head foggy. But she couldn't rest yet. More than sleep, she needed answers. And there was only one person who could provide them.
She called herself Cameron. Tall and slim, with a pretty face and baby doll eyes that played on Sarah's emotions, she looked about as threatening as a mouse. But she was a Terminator, a machined designed for death; reprogrammed and sent back in time to protect John from yet another future threat.
Sarah approached her quietly. She got within a few feet before the young woman turned and looked at her.
"Sarah Connor. Is something wrong?" She blinked, looking nothing more than a harmless teenager. "You should be asleep. Humans require sleep."
"I thought we might talk," Sarah said. She came to the woman's side and hugged herself tight. It was a chilly night, and her waitress uniform, especially the short skirt worn over cheap pantyhose, did nothing to keep it out. "Now that I've calmed down a little." She smiled. John was always on her to watch her temper.
Cameron said nothing. She turned back to watch the empty landscape. What she was waiting for Sarah couldn't figure out. They were in the middle of nowhere; even she, a mere human, would see anyone coming from miles off.
She waited quietly, watching Cameron. "So, John tells me you can eat. Is that true? I don't know how much you know about us, but the last machine we encountered was definitely not that good."
"I am more advanced," Cameron said. "Model TOK715."
Sarah frowned. "And that means what exactly?"
Cameron looked at her, eyelids fluttering. It reminded Sarah of the light on a computer's hard drive; almost as if the woman were searching through her CPU for an answer a simple human like Sarah could understand.
"I am more human," she said finally.
Sarah bobbed her head. It wasn't a very descriptive answer, but she got the point. "What else can you do? Can you sleep?"
Cameron hesitated. "Not as you would define it, but I can go into stand-by mode."
Sarah glanced back at John. "So if you can eat, then that means--" She laughed. What a silly conversation to be having with someone, even a machine. "That means you can, um, relieve yourself?" Cameron stared. "Piss, I mean. Can you piss?"
"I can. I can also--"
Sarah held up a hand before she could finish. She took a deep breath, her mind reeling. She had thought the last machines were advanced, but this one was so far beyond them that it was a little scary. "Jesus," she breathed.
She stepped closer to Cameron, not wanting John to hear this part in case he was pretending to be asleep again. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but are you...working down there?" Her eyes flicked down to Cameron's crotch. "Or is it just for show?"
"Fully functional," Cameron said. "If necessary I can engage in sexual intercourse, though any pleasure on my part will come from sensations stimulated by my CPU." She stared ahead, blinking once every few seconds.
Sarah laughed nervously. "Well, that's very interesting." She cleared her throat. "So would you actually--? I mean, do you just--? No, forget it. I don't want to know."
Sarah shook her head, trying to digest everything she'd just learned.
"So I guess they don't have vibrators where you come from," she said, trying to break the tension with a little humor. "You know, because they have Terminators that look like you--"
