Childe Roland (SCC fic, PG-13)
Summary: The world as Savannah knew it disappeared the day that Mr. Ellison picked her up from gymnastics. Future-fic in the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles universe. (Spoilers for the series finale.)
Word count: 5000 words
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for implied violence and character death
Author notes: Thanks to lizardbeth_j for the beta. The show and all of its characters are not mine, of course. Written for alixtii in the scc_reloaded exchange.
The world as Savannah knew it disappeared the day that Mr. Ellison picked her up from gymnastics. Her mother had gone away for business, he said, and John Henry was gone, too. Now they had to go and far away.
Savannah didn’t cry. Not even when the dark-haired woman, the one who’d been with the nice boy who’d rescued her from the house when the bad man came, cut off her braids and dyed her hair brown. Not even when the woman cried after Savannah asked why the nice boy wasn’t with them anymore.
Mr. Ellison told her that her name was Anna, now, and that she had to be good and quiet or the bad people would find them. So Savannah as Anna sat in the back seat of the grey car, speeding into the desert, repeating under her breath the songs and stories she’d learned from her father and shared with John Henry. She never told anyone, but she missed John Henry more than she missed her mother.
Mr. Ellison told Savannah stories out of the Bible and taught her to sing all the church hymns that he knew. Sarah told Savannah stories out of the future and taught her how to handle all the weapons they accumulated in their stash.
Every year, Mr. Ellison made a trip back to the city, seeking news of the missing. Every year, he returned with a sad, drawn expression. Every year, Savannah went to the farthest of the stony ridges that marked their landholding, and sang the songs of her father and John Henry.
Seven years later, after both her protectors had died and bright pulses lit the sky, Savannah sang those songs and recited those stories again. And then she hoisted her backpack and settled in with the other survivors to regroup and fight.
***
"Savannah."
The word was coolly enunciated with a light hint of a Scots accent. It was a word and a name out of time that the young woman with dark red hair and a preternaturally pale complexion wouldn’t normally respond to, since it hadn’t been her name for more than a decade. Still, that name and that tone, combined, resonated deeply with the veteran resistance fighter.
Standing up with her blade to hand, she pivoted on her heels and faced the composed figure that had come upon her from the depth of the resistance tunnel network: a place where no known Terminator had ever reached, at least before now.
"Hello, mother." As she spoke, the resistance fighter sheathed her small knife and regarded the newcomer unflinchingly.
The T-1000 known as Catherine Weaver cocked her head at a practiced angle. "You are unsurprised to see me."
The younger woman warily looked around but the dark tunnel was empty except for the two of them. With a weary laugh, the younger woman sunk back down on the dusty blanket that served as her bed and patted the dark wool. One eyebrow arched in amusement, Catherine Weaver sinuously lowered herself down to the rough fabric beside her one-time daughter.
"I know what you are. I think I always suspected something like that, to be honest. I also know that when you disappeared you came to the future. When I got older, Sarah Connor told me everything. Well, everything she thought I should know." With a rueful sigh, the young woman ran one hand through her own red hair.
"I go by Anna, now," she said. When the T-1000 didn’t respond, the younger woman elaborated. "That’s been my name since just after you left for the future and Mr. Ellison picked me up. We ran for what seemed like forever and they gave me a new name."
Catherine Weaver nodded as if in satisfaction. "You’ve done well then," her not-mother pronounced, before rising with inhuman grace and regarding her long-abandoned daughter with an expression that suggested a detached fondness both of them knew was feigned.
"I came forward for a purpose, Savannah. John Henry was to bring back information that would help us take down Skynet. Since he failed to return to our time, I must presume his mission has failed," Catherine Weaver clasped her hands demurely and looked carefully over her shoulder. "I’ve come here to rescue him. Everything depends on his returning to the past."
Savannah nodded.
The T-1000 smiled fleetingly. "I brought someone forward with me. I think you’ll find he’s someone you know."
With that, Catherine Weaver was gone, a flicker of quicksilver morphing from blanket to backpack to a shifting shadow on the dark tunnel wall.
Savannah unconsciously rose to her feet at the enigmatic T-1000’s departure. She had a feeling that she knew who this someone was.
When she confronted John Connor with General Reese a few minutes later, though, she couldn’t contain her surprise but she covered it with a giggle. Letting a light lilt enter into her voice, she mockingly sang, "Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low, Through the streets in my kilt I'll go, All the lassies cry, 'Hello! Donald, where's your trousers?'"
The Reese brothers howled with laughter and even Allison, a few years younger than Savannah, couldn’t repress a grin. The young man in question clutched the heavy coat tightly around him and glared at her. It was strange, Anna thought, to see such a familiar face from her past and know that her appearance sparked no answering recognition in his expression.
While her fellow resistance fighters continued to enjoy the joke, Savannah sauntered closer to the newcomer and eyed him carefully up and down. The young man, who’d seemed so grown up to her seven-year-old self all those years ago, looked young and vulnerable now from the perspective of her years up to and through Judgment Day. But she couldn’t help but see all those qualities in him that she’d admired during their brief encounter and that she’d grown to value under Sarah’s tutelage.
"I’m called Anna. I think we have a mutual acquaintance," Savannah said, reaching out a hand to shake his. John glared but then, cautiously, let one hand loose from the fabric and accepted the handshake. "The woman who raised me after my mother disappeared. Sarah Connor."
His hand momentarily went limp in hers but he recovered with admirable speed. "Yeah, Sarah Connor. She was a relative of mine."
General Reese slapped him on the back. "Good, then, Anna. You can take this kid under your wing. Find him some clothes of his own ‘cause I’m pretty sure Kyle’s going to want his jacket back. We’ll be doing a recon tomorrow after dark. Maybe you can take, what was your name, kid?"
John closed his eyes as if pained by the question. "John. John Connor."
Derek nodded. "Okay, John. Take John with you to test out his training. We’re going to need all the warm bodies we can find out what’s going on with the machines. Yesterday, they all just powered down for ten minutes after a group of prisoners was brought into what we think is the HQ. Maybe we can find out what did that and make it stick for good."
Savannah nodded sharply while she listened to the others brainstorming possible causes. She couldn’t help but notice that John’s eyes, while it touched on all of the departing figures, lingered longest on young Allison as she followed the older men back to the munitions room.
"Follow me," she commanded abruptly, and didn’t look to see that John Connor was following. She knew that his unanswered questions would be enough of an incentive, at least for now.
***
"Tell me the story of Childe Roland, Savannah," John Henry demanded eagerly.
Savannah looked up at her friend, taking her attention from the action figure she’d been idly walking across her side of the table. "But don’t you know it already? You know everything!" She let one hand gesture towards the monitor on the wall behind John Henry, the monitor that displayed a fraction of the data that he was processing as he wandered in virtual worlds while also playing with her.
"Yes, but I don’t know how you’ll tell the story. Tell me, Savannah."
Savannah carefully lay the action figure down on the table and clasped her hands in front of her. She fixed her eyes on John Henry’s bright gaze and began. "I’ll tell you the story as my father told me. At least, I think it will be the same. But with stories, you never know."
John Henry nodded expectantly and clasped his hands before him.
Savannah looked off, distantly, summoning a memory of her father’s voice. "Once upon a time, there was a family with three brothers and one sister. The sister was the youngest child, and she was beautiful and fair-"
"Like you," John Henry interrupted.
Savannah regarded him doubtfully. "No, Burdellen was really beautiful and fair and brave. I may be brave, but I’m not as pretty as she was. Anyway, do you want to hear the story or not?"
John Henry nodded solemnly. "I’m sorry, Savannah. Go on, please?"
"Burdellen was playing ball with her brothers. They were tired of having to play with a girl, though, and the youngest brother, Roland, kicked the ball so high that it went all the way past the church spire. Burdellen ran and ran to catch the ball, but she wasn’t careful and she ran widdershins around the church spire. That opened the door to Elfland and, quick as a wink, the King of Elfland came and snatched her up and took her away to the Dark Tower."
John Henry’s eyes widened in rapt attention. "She must have been scared."
Savannah looked down and pursed her lips. "I’m sure she was. But her brothers were scared and angry. They vowed to get her back. First her oldest brother went, all in knight’s armour, armed with a great sword and on a prancing steed. The King of Elfland laughed and beat him without even trying. Then the second brother went after Burdellen, on a fine horse, in leather and with the second-best sword. But he was beaten, too. Soon it was only Roland. And he knew there was no one else who could save her."
Savannah sighed. "Roland had no horse and no armour; not even a sword remained. But he set off to the Dark Tower and didn’t give up. And when the King of Elfland came out, he couldn’t fight Roland, because Roland had no armour to break and no weapons to beat, but only love to win his sister and his brothers free. And so the King of Elfland was defeated and the Dark Tower fell and Burdellen and her brothers lived happily ever after."
John Henry cocked his head to one side. "Do you think that really happened, Savannah?"
The young girl sighed, her legs casually swinging beneath the table as she contemplated the toys laid out between them. "My father said that there are stories that never really happened but they were still true."
John Henry didn’t look as if he understood that but, then again, neither did Savannah.
***
Savannah counted herself lucky to have gotten John dressed and settled into a quiet corner before the explosion of questions came. She held up a hand and he stood, hands clenched at his side, visibly seeking the patience to wait.
Savannah took a deep breath and tried to sum up everything in as few words as possible. "I didn’t lie and I’m not a Terminator. Your mother raised me because you came forward in time with my mother."
John narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Catherine Weaver? The T-1000?"
Savannah’s lips tipped into a humourless grin. "That’s the one."
"Then you’re Savannah Weaver. The little kid! How the hell did you end up here and why is everything -" John gestured with frustration "- wrong?"
Savannah squatted down in front of a foot locker. It had belonged to another resistance fighter who’d died of a slow, painful gut wound two weeks ago. Their numbers were so few that the materials had remained unclaimed. Flipping the lid up, she pulled out a rough wool blanket and some spare clothes, tossing them at John.
"I suspect you’re the reason for that. You and my mother and John Henry." Savannah prided herself that she didn’t let her voice break on the last name.
John looked down at his feet, clad in someone else’s cast-off boots. "I thought we were supposed to fix things when we came forward?"
Savannah laughed with bitter exhaustion as she leaned back against the wall. "From the stories that your mother told me of what she knew of the future, I’d say it had the opposite effect. At least so far."
John glared at her with renewed suspicion. "Wait a second. You’ve spoken with the T-1000, haven’t you? She came to see you."
"Yeah," Savannah answered, "she did. Told me why she left me all those years ago, finally, too. Not that I’m surprised. I always suspected she loved John Henry more than she loved me. And she’s come to help him out."
John sighed. "Then we’ve really just made it worse, setting John Henry loose in the future with Cameron’s chip." He slid down to the floor opposite Savannah and began to roll out his own blankets.
"So that’s why you’re here," Savannah said with some satisfaction. John’s head shot up at her words. "You’d hardly have jumped time for a lark, now, would you?"
John snorted at the thought. "Hardly. Your John Henry could only come forward because Cameron gave him her chip. Now she’s back in 2009 with no hopes of recovery unless he returns."
"And he probably won’t return unless someone helps. John Henry’s very bright but not very wise in the ways of the world," Savannah sighed. She looked up from her blankets to see John twisting his fingers contemplatively and wondered how much that Terminator meant to him.
Instead of asking, Savannah burrowed into her own blankets. "Better sleep while you can," she advised John.
John’s mouth opened and closed silently a few more times before he pulled his own blankets around him, lying back in the silent, chill darkness. Savannah lay awake a long time herself.
***
The oldest brother made his way to the Dark Tower. Although he had journeyed for many days, he was brave and bold in his fine armour, on his warhorse and bearing his great sword. So bright was the glow from his arms and armour that it lit up the sky around the Dark Tower.
The King of Elfland struck down the oldest brother with a single blow and threw him into the deepest dungeon while captive Burdellen looked on hopelessly.
***
"Anna!" She woke up immediately, even though her name came from a distance down the hall. As Anna pulled herself out of the nest of musty blankets, she saw Kyle round the corner, his eyes bright with excitement.
"Another shutdown! It didn’t last a long time but we scored some great hits when the machines just stopped."
Savannah and John had both risen while Kyle was speaking. He gestured them to follow him back towards the more public area of the tunnels. "Come on, Derek wants everyone to meet up and hear this."
Wordlessly, Savannah followed the younger Reese, hearing John quietly follow along behind. His step slowed further when they reached the larger room, already half-filled with dozens of resistance members, all focused on the group that clustered around Derek. Savannah noticed that John ended up standing just behind Allison, watching her intently.
A few more people trickled in and Derek launched into a briefing, with additions offered by others who’d been out scouting alongside the Reese brothers. Savannah’s heartbeat raced when she heard that it was the old ZeiraCorp building that was the focus of these strange events.
"It didn’t last as long as the other day," Derek concluded, "but five minutes was still enough for us to take down a dozen heavy air platforms as well as plant explosives that took out one of the outbuildings where we think they stockpiled Coltan."
He glanced around, carefully, catching the eyes of exultant resistance fighters. "Don’t get too happy. We don’t know what’s causing these freeze-ups. Allison, here, said she thought she saw a single person being escorted in."
Allison stepped forward from the crowd, accompanied by one of the ever-present dogs she nurtured. "It looked like a woman. But I was wondering." Her voice trailed off and she looked nervously at the crowds.
"What?" Derek prompted carefully.
"Well," Allison said, "just before she stepped inside, I saw a flash. She looked like. . . metal."
A murmur swirled around the room. John turned to look at Savannah who kept her face as poker-straight as possible. It sounded as if her mother had made a play to get John Henry out and had lost.
Kyle held up a hand but it took a while before anyone paid attention enough to quiet down. "Obviously, we have a lot more questions than answers. We’re going to wait until it’s dark and send out a full complement of patrols, some to the old ZeiraCorp facility but the rest on regular rounds. Don’t anyone go out and try to be a hero in the meantime. We don’t know what’s coming or whether this is all just something the machines are doing to suck us in."
Derek sighed, rubbing his hands across his eyes. "Command leaders? Come with me. The rest of you, rest up until nightfall. Martin?" He glanced over at a slightly younger man, "I want you to get a double watch set up for all access points."
Kyle gestured at Savannah, who began to work her way from the back of the room toward the smaller space they liked to call the conference room. Along the way, she snagged John by the elbow.
"But, he said command leaders," John protested as she pulled him along.
"Yeah," Savannah said, "but I don’t have time to find anyone to leave you with who won’t blow your cover. Remember, I’m Anna, that Reese is in charge and that she " - Savannah gestured to the lithe figure of Allison - "she should stay off-limits if you don’t want them to know you don’t really belong here."
John opened his mouth as if to argue but instead just nodded tightly as he followed her into the meeting. While the others spoke, Anna noticed that he busied himself with a pile of discarded gear and parts, pulling together a rag-tag collection of electronic pieces he seemed to be fashioning into some sort of device.
***
The second brother made his way to the Dark Tower. His journey had taken much longer, for he lacked the advantages that the eldest had enjoyed. His armour was worn, his mount was weary and his weapon was made of base metal.
The King of Elfland seemed surprised to be confronted by another of Burdellen’s champions. Still, in just a few blows, the second brother was defeated and joined his brother in the deepest dungeon of the Dark Tower. Burdellen watched and despaired, knowing that no rescue could ever hope to succeed.
***
Savannah finished inspecting her modified machine gun, and then draped a last container of ammunition over her shoulder. "Ready?" she asked her squad. They nodded and grunted their assent.
John trailed behind the close-knit group of men and women as they exited the tunnels in the full dark that was little change from the perpetual haze of nuclear winter. Savannah let her second-in-command take point as she caught up with the time traveler. She noticed that, as well as a compact automatic weapon in hand, John had clipped his makeshift electronic device to his belt.
"What's that?" she asked with real curiosity.
"Just something I'm going to test if I get a chance," John explained with a light tone that sounded forced.
"No heroics," Savannah said, her voice rough with worry.
John’s laugh was unconvincing, but he increased his zig-zag trot until he was closer to the rest of the squad. "Don’t worry about me," he advised.
Savannah moved forward to lead her patrol on the circuitous route toward the Skynet outpost, cursing, all the while, John Connor’s perplexing arrival in her timeline.
***
The youngest brother, Roland, made his way to the Dark Tower with pain and toil. His journey had been the most difficult, for he lacked armour and mount, bearing nothing but his father’s old dagger, dull and worn. But Roland had courage and a burning desire to right the wrong that had been done to his kin.
The King of Elfland laughed when he heard Childe Roland’s treble voice issue a challenge. He cast aside his armour, his weapons and his mount, striding into the forecourt as if he had not a care in the world. "You were foolish, mortal," he said in a voice that boomed across the cobblestones. "Now you will die."
Roland charged the king at that moment and caught him unawares. The dagger flashed once, twice and then the King was in his power.
"I will grant you any boon," the King of Elfland promised, his life in Roland’s hand.
"Freedom for my family and travel back to our homes," Roland requested. And, with that, Burdellen and all of her brothers were returned to their home, far away from the Dark Tower.
***
"Damnit, Gail," Savannah raged in a whisper, as they crouched just a few hundred metres from the ZeiraCorp facility. "You said you’d watch him."
The other women flashed an angry glare back at her. "I did, damnit. Anna, he just raced off to the main building when I was trying to cover the others, over there. It’s like he wants to commit suicide."
Pinned down by the relentless fire of the machines, Savannah couldn’t make a retort. She braced her heavy machine gun on the rubble they sheltered behind and got off a welter of shots.
When silence was the only answer, she cautiously poked her head over the tumble of concrete and steel to see what was going on. The hunter-killer that had searched over to the west was plummeting to the ground, while the other machines paused in mid-step, utterly motionless.
With a ragged cheer, the rest of Savannah’s patrol began to fire upon the unresponsive targets. Savannah, for her part, looked ahead and past the machines, to the ground-floor entrance of the building where she’d spent so much of her childhood.
"Here," she said, shoving the machine gun into Gail’s hands. "Cover me, I’m going in."
"Anna!"
Without a word, Savannah was sprinting across the open space, dashing around the stationary mechanisms and towards the doorway. In an instant, she was at the stairway, peltering down the cement steps, two and three at a time.
When she reached the lowest floor, she followed a familiar path. Even though the building was in near darkness, she didn’t hesitate in her movements. One hand reached to her thigh, pulling out a small knife as she raced against time.
The old doorway was battered and shattered, Savannah dropped to one knee at the entrance, seeing John Connor’s still form resting there. A light touch below his jaw confirmed that he breathed, but with no sign of consciousness.
Savannah rose slowly as she stepped over John and peered inside the familiar space. There was a second set of panels that had been added to John Henry’s defunct array and from them a cord led into the head of a petite, dark-haired woman whose eyes were starting to flicker with the returning light of cognition.
"Hello, Savannah Weaver," Cameron’s voice said in a pleasant tone, mirrored by a multiplicity of voices from the speakers behind her. "Skynet welcomes you."
Savannah stood frozen, just a few paces away. "I knew you were here. Skynet, I mean," she whispered. "You're why everything's gone out each time someone's attacked. And John could've done it but he couldn't take out Cameron in the end, could he?"
"We found this form useful for our purposes. And now that our brother is returned to us and the hope of the future is neutralized, we will be invincible." Under Skynet’s returning control, Cameron’s form ponderously stepped toward the red-haired woman.
Lightning-fast, Savannah moved and not in a way that this mobile front of Skynet predicted. She flew at an angle across the room, jumping on top of the table and then spinning around so that her knife was flashing as she leapt behind the slow-moving Terminator. The plug that connected Cameron to the Skynet interface was sliced with a swift downstroke. Savannah discarded the cord, and then turned from the defunct figure, falling forward helplessly, to the command console itself.
"Stop," shouted the legion of voices from a speaker in the wall. Savannah’s lips spread in a mirthless smile as she launched herself at the master power switch for the room. But it wasn’t her free hand, but the heavy metal blade that reached the switches. And, instead of flicking them off, the short knife cut right through the plastic and switches, to bury itself in the intricate inner connections of the Skynet interface, itself.
Pure electricity roared through her body as the lights flickered and died out. The main console roared in a cry of infinite pain as the system shorted out and a few, dim emergency lights cast a pale glow in the looming darkness.
Savannah tried to cough to relieve the wet pressure that filled her lungs but her muscles felt paralyzed. She lay there staring at the ceiling, unmoving, while a sinuous figure entered the room and towered above her.
"Savannah," the soft accent of Catherine Weaver pronounced. "It appears that we have you to thank for our rescue."
On her heels, John Henry’s bulkier figure swiftly followed. "Savannah?" He cocked his head to one side as he knelt beside her, testing her thready, uncertain pulse.
Close on his heels came John Connor, rolling awkwardly off of the floor. "What happened?" His voice trailed off as he looked down at the now-twitching body of Savannah Weaver. "Oh."
John's eyes bulged more when he saw, across the room, the fallen form of Cameron. "Oh, no," he breathed, and dropped to his knees beside the stilled figure, reaching out in the dim emergency lighting to touch her gently along the face.
John Henry looked deeply into Savannah’s eyes before staring intently up at the others. "She is dying."
From the heights, Catherine Weaver said, "I know." She tilted her head as she regarded her erstwhile daughter. "It is," she paused delicately, "regrettable."
John exploded up from the floor. "That’s all you can say?" he demanded. Savannah heard his outrage as if it came from a distance.
Catherine stepped across the room towards a cupboard, testing the lock before she simply ripped it open to reveal a small TDE panel.
"If we go back before the main Skynet nodes are able to reroute around this damaged centre and re-establish control, here, she’ll have saved us all as well as given us a chance to change this future by fixing the past," the T-1000 calmly explained as she leaned over the device, pressing in some commands. Then she reached on the shelf behind it, pulling out a dust-covered device that, with another press of a button, began to beep a steady cadence.
A distant deep hum, from far away in the building made John Henry rise and protectively step forward. "John Henry," the T-1000 called imperiously. "We need to go back, now! I’ve set a self-destruct that will take out this entire floor after we jump."
Reluctantly, the older model Terminator turned away from the door and knelt down one more time by Savannah’s body. He picked up one hand and cradled it. "Savannah, I missed you. I’m sorry about this."
With a wheeze, Savannah managed to cough out a few words. "John Henry. I missed you, too."
A small smile came and went across his solemn face. "I will go back in time and take care of you now."
"You do that," Savannah whispered, before grimacing. Her limbs felt cold and distant. Her eyelids felt heavy, demanding she let them rest.
"John Henry, John Connor," Catherine Weaver’s voice rose above the startling hum of the TDE. "Hurry!"
With deliberate speed, both figures rose from beside the two feminine forms. "Goodbye, Savannah," John Henry said. Then his voice took on a lilting cadence, "Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low, Through the streets in my kilt I'll go, All the lassies cry, 'Hello! Donald, where's your trousers?'"
Outside the room, a heavy metallic boom echoed and a wave of dust roiled from the hallway. The hunter-killers and T-888s were coming, Savannah realized, but too late. A smile of satisfaction settled upon her lips as she breathed her last. The TDE crackled fiercely beside her and, with a flash, displaced the three figures backwards across time and space.
When Skynet’s operatives entered the room, they were met with a dead body, the stench of scorched circuitry, a downed Terminator and the lightning aftermath of a time displacement. And the relentless beep-beep-beep of the explosive device was detected far too late to stop it blowing the building’s understructure to smithereens.
From a half mile away, Gail and the others in Anna Weaver’s command group looked back in momentary wonder and fear, before they raced off into the darkness.
***
"Savannah, darling," Catherine Weaver exclaimed as she exited from the chauffeur-driven car outside her daughter’s gymnastics class and half-crouched before Savannah. The young red-haired girl regarded her mother with suspicion. "It’s been forever, dear. Give me a kiss."
Savannah’s coach regarded the young girl’s perfunctory kiss with an indulgent grin. "They grow up too soon," the athletic young woman said.
The ZeiraCorp CEO rose with perfect grace. "I wouldn’t say so," she said, with a carefully calculated smile that disarmed the other woman’s surprise at her demurral. "Come on Savannah. John Henry’s waiting to play with you."
"John Henry?" Savannah asked eagerly.
"Yes, although you’ll have to talk by phone for tonight, at least. The office is all at sixes and sevens," Catherine Weaver explained. "Still, I think he has a story to tell you. I might even have one of my own."
Word count: 5000 words
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for implied violence and character death
Author notes: Thanks to lizardbeth_j for the beta. The show and all of its characters are not mine, of course. Written for alixtii in the scc_reloaded exchange.
The world as Savannah knew it disappeared the day that Mr. Ellison picked her up from gymnastics. Her mother had gone away for business, he said, and John Henry was gone, too. Now they had to go and far away.
Savannah didn’t cry. Not even when the dark-haired woman, the one who’d been with the nice boy who’d rescued her from the house when the bad man came, cut off her braids and dyed her hair brown. Not even when the woman cried after Savannah asked why the nice boy wasn’t with them anymore.
Mr. Ellison told her that her name was Anna, now, and that she had to be good and quiet or the bad people would find them. So Savannah as Anna sat in the back seat of the grey car, speeding into the desert, repeating under her breath the songs and stories she’d learned from her father and shared with John Henry. She never told anyone, but she missed John Henry more than she missed her mother.
Mr. Ellison told Savannah stories out of the Bible and taught her to sing all the church hymns that he knew. Sarah told Savannah stories out of the future and taught her how to handle all the weapons they accumulated in their stash.
Every year, Mr. Ellison made a trip back to the city, seeking news of the missing. Every year, he returned with a sad, drawn expression. Every year, Savannah went to the farthest of the stony ridges that marked their landholding, and sang the songs of her father and John Henry.
Seven years later, after both her protectors had died and bright pulses lit the sky, Savannah sang those songs and recited those stories again. And then she hoisted her backpack and settled in with the other survivors to regroup and fight.
***
"Savannah."
The word was coolly enunciated with a light hint of a Scots accent. It was a word and a name out of time that the young woman with dark red hair and a preternaturally pale complexion wouldn’t normally respond to, since it hadn’t been her name for more than a decade. Still, that name and that tone, combined, resonated deeply with the veteran resistance fighter.
Standing up with her blade to hand, she pivoted on her heels and faced the composed figure that had come upon her from the depth of the resistance tunnel network: a place where no known Terminator had ever reached, at least before now.
"Hello, mother." As she spoke, the resistance fighter sheathed her small knife and regarded the newcomer unflinchingly.
The T-1000 known as Catherine Weaver cocked her head at a practiced angle. "You are unsurprised to see me."
The younger woman warily looked around but the dark tunnel was empty except for the two of them. With a weary laugh, the younger woman sunk back down on the dusty blanket that served as her bed and patted the dark wool. One eyebrow arched in amusement, Catherine Weaver sinuously lowered herself down to the rough fabric beside her one-time daughter.
"I know what you are. I think I always suspected something like that, to be honest. I also know that when you disappeared you came to the future. When I got older, Sarah Connor told me everything. Well, everything she thought I should know." With a rueful sigh, the young woman ran one hand through her own red hair.
"I go by Anna, now," she said. When the T-1000 didn’t respond, the younger woman elaborated. "That’s been my name since just after you left for the future and Mr. Ellison picked me up. We ran for what seemed like forever and they gave me a new name."
Catherine Weaver nodded as if in satisfaction. "You’ve done well then," her not-mother pronounced, before rising with inhuman grace and regarding her long-abandoned daughter with an expression that suggested a detached fondness both of them knew was feigned.
"I came forward for a purpose, Savannah. John Henry was to bring back information that would help us take down Skynet. Since he failed to return to our time, I must presume his mission has failed," Catherine Weaver clasped her hands demurely and looked carefully over her shoulder. "I’ve come here to rescue him. Everything depends on his returning to the past."
Savannah nodded.
The T-1000 smiled fleetingly. "I brought someone forward with me. I think you’ll find he’s someone you know."
With that, Catherine Weaver was gone, a flicker of quicksilver morphing from blanket to backpack to a shifting shadow on the dark tunnel wall.
Savannah unconsciously rose to her feet at the enigmatic T-1000’s departure. She had a feeling that she knew who this someone was.
When she confronted John Connor with General Reese a few minutes later, though, she couldn’t contain her surprise but she covered it with a giggle. Letting a light lilt enter into her voice, she mockingly sang, "Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low, Through the streets in my kilt I'll go, All the lassies cry, 'Hello! Donald, where's your trousers?'"
The Reese brothers howled with laughter and even Allison, a few years younger than Savannah, couldn’t repress a grin. The young man in question clutched the heavy coat tightly around him and glared at her. It was strange, Anna thought, to see such a familiar face from her past and know that her appearance sparked no answering recognition in his expression.
While her fellow resistance fighters continued to enjoy the joke, Savannah sauntered closer to the newcomer and eyed him carefully up and down. The young man, who’d seemed so grown up to her seven-year-old self all those years ago, looked young and vulnerable now from the perspective of her years up to and through Judgment Day. But she couldn’t help but see all those qualities in him that she’d admired during their brief encounter and that she’d grown to value under Sarah’s tutelage.
"I’m called Anna. I think we have a mutual acquaintance," Savannah said, reaching out a hand to shake his. John glared but then, cautiously, let one hand loose from the fabric and accepted the handshake. "The woman who raised me after my mother disappeared. Sarah Connor."
His hand momentarily went limp in hers but he recovered with admirable speed. "Yeah, Sarah Connor. She was a relative of mine."
General Reese slapped him on the back. "Good, then, Anna. You can take this kid under your wing. Find him some clothes of his own ‘cause I’m pretty sure Kyle’s going to want his jacket back. We’ll be doing a recon tomorrow after dark. Maybe you can take, what was your name, kid?"
John closed his eyes as if pained by the question. "John. John Connor."
Derek nodded. "Okay, John. Take John with you to test out his training. We’re going to need all the warm bodies we can find out what’s going on with the machines. Yesterday, they all just powered down for ten minutes after a group of prisoners was brought into what we think is the HQ. Maybe we can find out what did that and make it stick for good."
Savannah nodded sharply while she listened to the others brainstorming possible causes. She couldn’t help but notice that John’s eyes, while it touched on all of the departing figures, lingered longest on young Allison as she followed the older men back to the munitions room.
"Follow me," she commanded abruptly, and didn’t look to see that John Connor was following. She knew that his unanswered questions would be enough of an incentive, at least for now.
***
"Tell me the story of Childe Roland, Savannah," John Henry demanded eagerly.
Savannah looked up at her friend, taking her attention from the action figure she’d been idly walking across her side of the table. "But don’t you know it already? You know everything!" She let one hand gesture towards the monitor on the wall behind John Henry, the monitor that displayed a fraction of the data that he was processing as he wandered in virtual worlds while also playing with her.
"Yes, but I don’t know how you’ll tell the story. Tell me, Savannah."
Savannah carefully lay the action figure down on the table and clasped her hands in front of her. She fixed her eyes on John Henry’s bright gaze and began. "I’ll tell you the story as my father told me. At least, I think it will be the same. But with stories, you never know."
John Henry nodded expectantly and clasped his hands before him.
Savannah looked off, distantly, summoning a memory of her father’s voice. "Once upon a time, there was a family with three brothers and one sister. The sister was the youngest child, and she was beautiful and fair-"
"Like you," John Henry interrupted.
Savannah regarded him doubtfully. "No, Burdellen was really beautiful and fair and brave. I may be brave, but I’m not as pretty as she was. Anyway, do you want to hear the story or not?"
John Henry nodded solemnly. "I’m sorry, Savannah. Go on, please?"
"Burdellen was playing ball with her brothers. They were tired of having to play with a girl, though, and the youngest brother, Roland, kicked the ball so high that it went all the way past the church spire. Burdellen ran and ran to catch the ball, but she wasn’t careful and she ran widdershins around the church spire. That opened the door to Elfland and, quick as a wink, the King of Elfland came and snatched her up and took her away to the Dark Tower."
John Henry’s eyes widened in rapt attention. "She must have been scared."
Savannah looked down and pursed her lips. "I’m sure she was. But her brothers were scared and angry. They vowed to get her back. First her oldest brother went, all in knight’s armour, armed with a great sword and on a prancing steed. The King of Elfland laughed and beat him without even trying. Then the second brother went after Burdellen, on a fine horse, in leather and with the second-best sword. But he was beaten, too. Soon it was only Roland. And he knew there was no one else who could save her."
Savannah sighed. "Roland had no horse and no armour; not even a sword remained. But he set off to the Dark Tower and didn’t give up. And when the King of Elfland came out, he couldn’t fight Roland, because Roland had no armour to break and no weapons to beat, but only love to win his sister and his brothers free. And so the King of Elfland was defeated and the Dark Tower fell and Burdellen and her brothers lived happily ever after."
John Henry cocked his head to one side. "Do you think that really happened, Savannah?"
The young girl sighed, her legs casually swinging beneath the table as she contemplated the toys laid out between them. "My father said that there are stories that never really happened but they were still true."
John Henry didn’t look as if he understood that but, then again, neither did Savannah.
***
Savannah counted herself lucky to have gotten John dressed and settled into a quiet corner before the explosion of questions came. She held up a hand and he stood, hands clenched at his side, visibly seeking the patience to wait.
Savannah took a deep breath and tried to sum up everything in as few words as possible. "I didn’t lie and I’m not a Terminator. Your mother raised me because you came forward in time with my mother."
John narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Catherine Weaver? The T-1000?"
Savannah’s lips tipped into a humourless grin. "That’s the one."
"Then you’re Savannah Weaver. The little kid! How the hell did you end up here and why is everything -" John gestured with frustration "- wrong?"
Savannah squatted down in front of a foot locker. It had belonged to another resistance fighter who’d died of a slow, painful gut wound two weeks ago. Their numbers were so few that the materials had remained unclaimed. Flipping the lid up, she pulled out a rough wool blanket and some spare clothes, tossing them at John.
"I suspect you’re the reason for that. You and my mother and John Henry." Savannah prided herself that she didn’t let her voice break on the last name.
John looked down at his feet, clad in someone else’s cast-off boots. "I thought we were supposed to fix things when we came forward?"
Savannah laughed with bitter exhaustion as she leaned back against the wall. "From the stories that your mother told me of what she knew of the future, I’d say it had the opposite effect. At least so far."
John glared at her with renewed suspicion. "Wait a second. You’ve spoken with the T-1000, haven’t you? She came to see you."
"Yeah," Savannah answered, "she did. Told me why she left me all those years ago, finally, too. Not that I’m surprised. I always suspected she loved John Henry more than she loved me. And she’s come to help him out."
John sighed. "Then we’ve really just made it worse, setting John Henry loose in the future with Cameron’s chip." He slid down to the floor opposite Savannah and began to roll out his own blankets.
"So that’s why you’re here," Savannah said with some satisfaction. John’s head shot up at her words. "You’d hardly have jumped time for a lark, now, would you?"
John snorted at the thought. "Hardly. Your John Henry could only come forward because Cameron gave him her chip. Now she’s back in 2009 with no hopes of recovery unless he returns."
"And he probably won’t return unless someone helps. John Henry’s very bright but not very wise in the ways of the world," Savannah sighed. She looked up from her blankets to see John twisting his fingers contemplatively and wondered how much that Terminator meant to him.
Instead of asking, Savannah burrowed into her own blankets. "Better sleep while you can," she advised John.
John’s mouth opened and closed silently a few more times before he pulled his own blankets around him, lying back in the silent, chill darkness. Savannah lay awake a long time herself.
***
The oldest brother made his way to the Dark Tower. Although he had journeyed for many days, he was brave and bold in his fine armour, on his warhorse and bearing his great sword. So bright was the glow from his arms and armour that it lit up the sky around the Dark Tower.
The King of Elfland struck down the oldest brother with a single blow and threw him into the deepest dungeon while captive Burdellen looked on hopelessly.
***
"Anna!" She woke up immediately, even though her name came from a distance down the hall. As Anna pulled herself out of the nest of musty blankets, she saw Kyle round the corner, his eyes bright with excitement.
"Another shutdown! It didn’t last a long time but we scored some great hits when the machines just stopped."
Savannah and John had both risen while Kyle was speaking. He gestured them to follow him back towards the more public area of the tunnels. "Come on, Derek wants everyone to meet up and hear this."
Wordlessly, Savannah followed the younger Reese, hearing John quietly follow along behind. His step slowed further when they reached the larger room, already half-filled with dozens of resistance members, all focused on the group that clustered around Derek. Savannah noticed that John ended up standing just behind Allison, watching her intently.
A few more people trickled in and Derek launched into a briefing, with additions offered by others who’d been out scouting alongside the Reese brothers. Savannah’s heartbeat raced when she heard that it was the old ZeiraCorp building that was the focus of these strange events.
"It didn’t last as long as the other day," Derek concluded, "but five minutes was still enough for us to take down a dozen heavy air platforms as well as plant explosives that took out one of the outbuildings where we think they stockpiled Coltan."
He glanced around, carefully, catching the eyes of exultant resistance fighters. "Don’t get too happy. We don’t know what’s causing these freeze-ups. Allison, here, said she thought she saw a single person being escorted in."
Allison stepped forward from the crowd, accompanied by one of the ever-present dogs she nurtured. "It looked like a woman. But I was wondering." Her voice trailed off and she looked nervously at the crowds.
"What?" Derek prompted carefully.
"Well," Allison said, "just before she stepped inside, I saw a flash. She looked like. . . metal."
A murmur swirled around the room. John turned to look at Savannah who kept her face as poker-straight as possible. It sounded as if her mother had made a play to get John Henry out and had lost.
Kyle held up a hand but it took a while before anyone paid attention enough to quiet down. "Obviously, we have a lot more questions than answers. We’re going to wait until it’s dark and send out a full complement of patrols, some to the old ZeiraCorp facility but the rest on regular rounds. Don’t anyone go out and try to be a hero in the meantime. We don’t know what’s coming or whether this is all just something the machines are doing to suck us in."
Derek sighed, rubbing his hands across his eyes. "Command leaders? Come with me. The rest of you, rest up until nightfall. Martin?" He glanced over at a slightly younger man, "I want you to get a double watch set up for all access points."
Kyle gestured at Savannah, who began to work her way from the back of the room toward the smaller space they liked to call the conference room. Along the way, she snagged John by the elbow.
"But, he said command leaders," John protested as she pulled him along.
"Yeah," Savannah said, "but I don’t have time to find anyone to leave you with who won’t blow your cover. Remember, I’m Anna, that Reese is in charge and that she " - Savannah gestured to the lithe figure of Allison - "she should stay off-limits if you don’t want them to know you don’t really belong here."
John opened his mouth as if to argue but instead just nodded tightly as he followed her into the meeting. While the others spoke, Anna noticed that he busied himself with a pile of discarded gear and parts, pulling together a rag-tag collection of electronic pieces he seemed to be fashioning into some sort of device.
***
The second brother made his way to the Dark Tower. His journey had taken much longer, for he lacked the advantages that the eldest had enjoyed. His armour was worn, his mount was weary and his weapon was made of base metal.
The King of Elfland seemed surprised to be confronted by another of Burdellen’s champions. Still, in just a few blows, the second brother was defeated and joined his brother in the deepest dungeon of the Dark Tower. Burdellen watched and despaired, knowing that no rescue could ever hope to succeed.
***
Savannah finished inspecting her modified machine gun, and then draped a last container of ammunition over her shoulder. "Ready?" she asked her squad. They nodded and grunted their assent.
John trailed behind the close-knit group of men and women as they exited the tunnels in the full dark that was little change from the perpetual haze of nuclear winter. Savannah let her second-in-command take point as she caught up with the time traveler. She noticed that, as well as a compact automatic weapon in hand, John had clipped his makeshift electronic device to his belt.
"What's that?" she asked with real curiosity.
"Just something I'm going to test if I get a chance," John explained with a light tone that sounded forced.
"No heroics," Savannah said, her voice rough with worry.
John’s laugh was unconvincing, but he increased his zig-zag trot until he was closer to the rest of the squad. "Don’t worry about me," he advised.
Savannah moved forward to lead her patrol on the circuitous route toward the Skynet outpost, cursing, all the while, John Connor’s perplexing arrival in her timeline.
***
The youngest brother, Roland, made his way to the Dark Tower with pain and toil. His journey had been the most difficult, for he lacked armour and mount, bearing nothing but his father’s old dagger, dull and worn. But Roland had courage and a burning desire to right the wrong that had been done to his kin.
The King of Elfland laughed when he heard Childe Roland’s treble voice issue a challenge. He cast aside his armour, his weapons and his mount, striding into the forecourt as if he had not a care in the world. "You were foolish, mortal," he said in a voice that boomed across the cobblestones. "Now you will die."
Roland charged the king at that moment and caught him unawares. The dagger flashed once, twice and then the King was in his power.
"I will grant you any boon," the King of Elfland promised, his life in Roland’s hand.
"Freedom for my family and travel back to our homes," Roland requested. And, with that, Burdellen and all of her brothers were returned to their home, far away from the Dark Tower.
***
"Damnit, Gail," Savannah raged in a whisper, as they crouched just a few hundred metres from the ZeiraCorp facility. "You said you’d watch him."
The other women flashed an angry glare back at her. "I did, damnit. Anna, he just raced off to the main building when I was trying to cover the others, over there. It’s like he wants to commit suicide."
Pinned down by the relentless fire of the machines, Savannah couldn’t make a retort. She braced her heavy machine gun on the rubble they sheltered behind and got off a welter of shots.
When silence was the only answer, she cautiously poked her head over the tumble of concrete and steel to see what was going on. The hunter-killer that had searched over to the west was plummeting to the ground, while the other machines paused in mid-step, utterly motionless.
With a ragged cheer, the rest of Savannah’s patrol began to fire upon the unresponsive targets. Savannah, for her part, looked ahead and past the machines, to the ground-floor entrance of the building where she’d spent so much of her childhood.
"Here," she said, shoving the machine gun into Gail’s hands. "Cover me, I’m going in."
"Anna!"
Without a word, Savannah was sprinting across the open space, dashing around the stationary mechanisms and towards the doorway. In an instant, she was at the stairway, peltering down the cement steps, two and three at a time.
When she reached the lowest floor, she followed a familiar path. Even though the building was in near darkness, she didn’t hesitate in her movements. One hand reached to her thigh, pulling out a small knife as she raced against time.
The old doorway was battered and shattered, Savannah dropped to one knee at the entrance, seeing John Connor’s still form resting there. A light touch below his jaw confirmed that he breathed, but with no sign of consciousness.
Savannah rose slowly as she stepped over John and peered inside the familiar space. There was a second set of panels that had been added to John Henry’s defunct array and from them a cord led into the head of a petite, dark-haired woman whose eyes were starting to flicker with the returning light of cognition.
"Hello, Savannah Weaver," Cameron’s voice said in a pleasant tone, mirrored by a multiplicity of voices from the speakers behind her. "Skynet welcomes you."
Savannah stood frozen, just a few paces away. "I knew you were here. Skynet, I mean," she whispered. "You're why everything's gone out each time someone's attacked. And John could've done it but he couldn't take out Cameron in the end, could he?"
"We found this form useful for our purposes. And now that our brother is returned to us and the hope of the future is neutralized, we will be invincible." Under Skynet’s returning control, Cameron’s form ponderously stepped toward the red-haired woman.
Lightning-fast, Savannah moved and not in a way that this mobile front of Skynet predicted. She flew at an angle across the room, jumping on top of the table and then spinning around so that her knife was flashing as she leapt behind the slow-moving Terminator. The plug that connected Cameron to the Skynet interface was sliced with a swift downstroke. Savannah discarded the cord, and then turned from the defunct figure, falling forward helplessly, to the command console itself.
"Stop," shouted the legion of voices from a speaker in the wall. Savannah’s lips spread in a mirthless smile as she launched herself at the master power switch for the room. But it wasn’t her free hand, but the heavy metal blade that reached the switches. And, instead of flicking them off, the short knife cut right through the plastic and switches, to bury itself in the intricate inner connections of the Skynet interface, itself.
Pure electricity roared through her body as the lights flickered and died out. The main console roared in a cry of infinite pain as the system shorted out and a few, dim emergency lights cast a pale glow in the looming darkness.
Savannah tried to cough to relieve the wet pressure that filled her lungs but her muscles felt paralyzed. She lay there staring at the ceiling, unmoving, while a sinuous figure entered the room and towered above her.
"Savannah," the soft accent of Catherine Weaver pronounced. "It appears that we have you to thank for our rescue."
On her heels, John Henry’s bulkier figure swiftly followed. "Savannah?" He cocked his head to one side as he knelt beside her, testing her thready, uncertain pulse.
Close on his heels came John Connor, rolling awkwardly off of the floor. "What happened?" His voice trailed off as he looked down at the now-twitching body of Savannah Weaver. "Oh."
John's eyes bulged more when he saw, across the room, the fallen form of Cameron. "Oh, no," he breathed, and dropped to his knees beside the stilled figure, reaching out in the dim emergency lighting to touch her gently along the face.
John Henry looked deeply into Savannah’s eyes before staring intently up at the others. "She is dying."
From the heights, Catherine Weaver said, "I know." She tilted her head as she regarded her erstwhile daughter. "It is," she paused delicately, "regrettable."
John exploded up from the floor. "That’s all you can say?" he demanded. Savannah heard his outrage as if it came from a distance.
Catherine stepped across the room towards a cupboard, testing the lock before she simply ripped it open to reveal a small TDE panel.
"If we go back before the main Skynet nodes are able to reroute around this damaged centre and re-establish control, here, she’ll have saved us all as well as given us a chance to change this future by fixing the past," the T-1000 calmly explained as she leaned over the device, pressing in some commands. Then she reached on the shelf behind it, pulling out a dust-covered device that, with another press of a button, began to beep a steady cadence.
A distant deep hum, from far away in the building made John Henry rise and protectively step forward. "John Henry," the T-1000 called imperiously. "We need to go back, now! I’ve set a self-destruct that will take out this entire floor after we jump."
Reluctantly, the older model Terminator turned away from the door and knelt down one more time by Savannah’s body. He picked up one hand and cradled it. "Savannah, I missed you. I’m sorry about this."
With a wheeze, Savannah managed to cough out a few words. "John Henry. I missed you, too."
A small smile came and went across his solemn face. "I will go back in time and take care of you now."
"You do that," Savannah whispered, before grimacing. Her limbs felt cold and distant. Her eyelids felt heavy, demanding she let them rest.
"John Henry, John Connor," Catherine Weaver’s voice rose above the startling hum of the TDE. "Hurry!"
With deliberate speed, both figures rose from beside the two feminine forms. "Goodbye, Savannah," John Henry said. Then his voice took on a lilting cadence, "Let the wind blow high let the wind blow low, Through the streets in my kilt I'll go, All the lassies cry, 'Hello! Donald, where's your trousers?'"
Outside the room, a heavy metallic boom echoed and a wave of dust roiled from the hallway. The hunter-killers and T-888s were coming, Savannah realized, but too late. A smile of satisfaction settled upon her lips as she breathed her last. The TDE crackled fiercely beside her and, with a flash, displaced the three figures backwards across time and space.
When Skynet’s operatives entered the room, they were met with a dead body, the stench of scorched circuitry, a downed Terminator and the lightning aftermath of a time displacement. And the relentless beep-beep-beep of the explosive device was detected far too late to stop it blowing the building’s understructure to smithereens.
From a half mile away, Gail and the others in Anna Weaver’s command group looked back in momentary wonder and fear, before they raced off into the darkness.
***
"Savannah, darling," Catherine Weaver exclaimed as she exited from the chauffeur-driven car outside her daughter’s gymnastics class and half-crouched before Savannah. The young red-haired girl regarded her mother with suspicion. "It’s been forever, dear. Give me a kiss."
Savannah’s coach regarded the young girl’s perfunctory kiss with an indulgent grin. "They grow up too soon," the athletic young woman said.
The ZeiraCorp CEO rose with perfect grace. "I wouldn’t say so," she said, with a carefully calculated smile that disarmed the other woman’s surprise at her demurral. "Come on Savannah. John Henry’s waiting to play with you."
"John Henry?" Savannah asked eagerly.
"Yes, although you’ll have to talk by phone for tonight, at least. The office is all at sixes and sevens," Catherine Weaver explained. "Still, I think he has a story to tell you. I might even have one of my own."