An idea I have been kicking around for over a year, an alternate history of the Terminator Series of Movies

Terminator: The Truth

“Clear!” Sergeant Kyle Reese shouted. His squad moved past him into the clean concrete hallway. He marveled at the difference between this and the similar filthy ones the Resistance used. Of course Skynet had what it needed to clean the halls, as the cowering human forms showed. His team was ordering them to move down the hall toward the steel doors they had blown getting in.

A hand clapped him on the shoulder, and he grinned at John Connor. “Keep them moving, Kyle.”

“Yes, sir!” As the last of the slaves ran past them he leaped to his feet, trotting down the hall. Smitty was placing the charges on the final door. In fact somewhere else in the complex, other men were setting up a Tripod, a nuclear demolition charge that would take down all of the computers in this last facility.

“We about ready, Smitty?”

“Yeah, Boss.” Nothing could convince Smitty to adhere to military protocol. Kyle didn't care, because when it came to things that went boom, he was a wizard. Smitty tapped the button, then stood. "I suggest we step back right smart-like.” He suited action to words, running toward the corridor they had come in through.

“How far, Smitty?” Kyle was running after him, and the others had caught the hint and were hauling balls right along side him. “Damn it, how far?” Smitty rounded the corner, bouncing off the wall like a rubber ball. Kyle dove, rolling into the corridor then was buried under the others that tripped over him. Before he could scream at them there was a god awful explosion, flinging them around like toys.

There was silence, followed by Smitty's laconic, “We're far enough, back, Boss.”

Kyle cursed as he staggered to his feet. “Smart ass.” He turned, walking back to the hall. John was standing there, looking at what remained of the steel door as thick as any installed in a vault. In fact according to John this had once been something like a vault; it was what remained of the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD command site. That door was the entrance to the facility, which had been turned into the Skynet command center when it went operational on April 19, 2011. John walked through the door, and Kyle hurried, leaping through to place himself between their leader and any terminators that might be in the complex. He stopped, shouting, and the rest of the squad joined him. Only then did he round on the man who was the savior of humanity.

“Are you out of your god damned mind?” He roared, then suddenly realized that a non commissioned officer was berating a man who didn't wear General's stars, but would have had them. Hell, he would be the Chairman of the old Joint Chiefs if they still existed. He could bust Kyle back to private; hell he could have him shot!

John just smiled gently. “Sorry about causing problems, Sergeant. I'll stay back.”

“Thank you, sir.” Kyle looked at the grinning men and women around him. Why did they give him that look whenever John was around?

They moved on. Here at it's heart, Skynet didn't seem to have any defenses. Every room contained nothing but row after row of main servers. His team, aided by the second squad of his platoon were setting explosives. When they left here, all of this would be scrap before the nuke leveled the mountain itself. Just added insurance.

“Sergeant, something weird in here.” Corporal Sondra Fuentes yelled. Kyle motioned for Smitty to continue as he paced down this smaller hall. Fuentes motioned, and Kyle looked inside the room. It was large, with a grid of bus bars.

“Casey!” A small woman carrying an old 2004 laptop she had salvaged from Taos New Mexico a few years before came running up. She still carried her 40-watt Phase plasma rifle, and had to be good with it to be on hs squad. She looked around, spotted a console, and hacked into it. She worked silently, focused on her screen.

“I'm in.” Casey said. “Temporal realignment system.”

“Temporal realignment?” Kyle turned to look at the door where John was just entering. His wife and G2 Kate walked toward them, and Kyle realized it had been her voice that asked the question. While a medic, she was armed as all of them were. Kate looked at the screen. “Holy Christ, John. Skynet was working on time travel theories!”

“That's impossible.” John said, walking over to look at the same screen.
“Kyle, make sure your men hurry. We're out of here as soon as we finish this.” The sergeant nodded, and headed out.

Casey shook her head without looking up. “Impossible or not, I have three transfers through time. The first to May 12, 1984 in Los Angeles. An 800 series Terminator, unit 101. Mission...” She paused. “To eliminate...” She turned, looking at John. “To eliminate Sarah Connor.”

John stiffened. “So why are there three transfers?”

“On it.” Casey's fingers flew. “Second 1995, a 1000 series. Sent to Orange County California. Target...” She stopped. “The target is you, John.”

“Liquid metal type.” Kate told him. “Won't know what it looks like, can change form, but unless it can close to hand to hand range it uses normal weapons.”

He watched the screen. “Next one.”

With trepidation Casey went in again. “All right, third was sent to August 24, 2004, LA County California. A T-X model. Never heard of them before. Getting the specs...” She worked for a long time.

“They wouldn't have sent a second unit to kill me if they had succeeded in killing my mother, and they wouldn't have sent the third if they had succeeded in killing me. So we have time.”

“Got it. Jesus. Extension of the 1000 series. Nanotechnology processors that can make complex moving parts.”

“Like?”

“A laser, an electrical shock system. Even a gun, though it can't make bullets without the propellants needed. One bad mother. Target, no, targets. Present resistance leaders, starting with...” She paused, then looked back. “You, Ms. Brewster.”

“But look at the date.” John said. “August 24 2004. Judgment Day was the 29th of 1997. Seven years earlier.”

“That makes no sense!” Kate exploded. We weren't in Southern California then, radiation was too high. We were in The Reno enclave!”

“I know that, Kate.”

She visibly shook herself. “So Skynet sent a Terminator to get your mother, and failed. How did it know?” Kate asked.
“Temporal causality suggests that if Skynet had succeeded, all of time from the moment she died would have changed. You would not be here having this discussion. Same with going after you personally, and again going after you, Ms. Brewster.

“So when it recorded that the first failed, it sent the second. But it failed as well, so it sent the third. That was,” she looked at the clock readout on her screen. “One hour forty minutes ago. About five minutes before we arrived.” She checked the system. “The first was sent 26 hours ago, the second 14 and a half hours ago.”

“Why the gap?”

“Theoretically, time is fluid. Like dropping a rock in a pond, you have ripples that have to reach the edge, then return. Until the ripples die, the effect hasn't completed, though you would know the ripples had occurred. These haven't died out yet.”

“So we just blow the place and go on our merry way.”

“If only it were that simple.” Kate said. “My mom was a fan of science fiction and science fact. She loathed time travel stories on television because they almost always had things the main character had to correct. You remember Quantum Leap, right, John?”

“Yeah, the guy would jump into the body of someone in his time line, and had to match something they did. The first episode had him being Chuck Yaeger before his flight through the sound barrier.” John reminisced. “I never watched another episode.”

“After she ranted about it she got a couple of books and bent my ear about it. There are two different main theories, the Copenhagen School using Bohrs' quantum mechanics theories and Everett's Many-Worlds interpretation.

“The Copenhagen School suggests that all you can do is observe. You are unable to affect your surroundings beyond existing. So you cannot go back in time and Kill Sarah Connor because it's already failed. If that is the case, we don't need to do anything. The Many-Worlds interpretation states that time will merely create another branch; an alternate reality where they will succeed, and you were not born. But in that case it isn't our world. Again we don't need to do anything.”

“You said two main ones. Are there others?”

“Not that I remember, but we can't take the chance, John. If both theories are wrong and it is possible to change the past, it is more likely that who or whatever we send back stopped them in that time. But we'll have the same time limit they had. We can send one person in the next few minutes, another twelve hours later, another twelve hours. We send them to the exact settings Skynet used.

“But we have to send the first immediately just to be sure.”

“Can't she hurry?” Kyle snapped as he stormed back into the room. “Your mother is back there with this thing trying to kill her!”

“Calm down.” John told him. He looked fondly at the man. “Kyle, call your squad in.”

He looked at John as if he'd gone mad.

“Call them now.” He repeated. “That's an order, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.” Kyle ran out, coming back with his team.

John leaned over to Casey. “Don't say anything.” He turned, facing the men and women in a line. “We know that Skynet sent a Terminator back to kill my mother. The only way we can stop them is to send someone back to rescue her. But it will have to be a one way mission. We can't bring you back.”

“Sir?”

“Casey!” Connor snapped around.

“Sir, problem. The first unit was an 800 series. They used it because they couldn't send bare metal back. Only living flesh can go, so no clothes either.”

“So let me get this straight, Jefe.” Fuentes said. “We got to go back bare ass and unarmed? Count me out.”

“I'll go.” Kyle said. All of the others raised their hands.

“All right, Kyle, we're going to send you back. The rest of you, standby outside.” They shuffled out. He wrapped his arm around the younger man, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Kyle, I can't think of a better man for the mission. When you find my mother, will you give her a message?”

“I'm honored by your trust, sir. What message?”

He repeated it over and over until Kyle could repeat it from memory. “Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to say that the future is not set. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist.”

“Keep her safe for me.”

“Or die trying.”

John felt a chill. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Casey, set the ball rolling.”

“Yes, sir.” Transporting in five, four, three, two, one. Initiate.” A ball of lambent lighting came into being, and Kyle screamed as he fell into a fetal ball. The ball of light collapsed inward, and was gone.

John called the others in. “We need some 800 models reprogrammed.”

“Sir?” Corporal Fuentes asked.
“I couldn't tell Kyle, but there were two more Terminators sent. But they are more advanced, and neither can be taken by a human being. We'd need to send a team for each, but we don't have that kind of time. So find me the 800s. Casey, you've been one of our top programmers, I want them reprogrammed to be loyal to me.”

“Understood, sir.”

He motioned to Kate.

“Well that will cover the problem, John.”

“I feel like it's my fault.”

“No, let's not blame ourselves, John. Skynet is the one who is trying to rewrite history.”

He sighed. “Have I ever lied to you, Kate?”

She shook her head, putting her arm around his waist. “Never, my love.”

He turned in her arms until they were facing each other. “I have been lying to you since we met, Kate.”

She stiffened, pulling back. “John?”

“I am not John Connor.”

Voting was a tossup, as I'm not entirely certain what you meant by a couple of the options. In short, my vote means I liked it. I'm intrigued and I'll definitely be keeping tabs on this as it progresses.

For anyone who has already read it so far, I made a change, primarily because of who 'John Connor' really is. As for those who read and did not vote? Shame!

II

John leaned into the wall. He wondered why the machines had bothered to leave these beds here. Probably didn't considerate important to move them. He opened his backpack, pulling out a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey. All of the good stuff was gone unless you knew where to look. He knew where to look. He opened the seal, and handed it to Kate. She took it carefully, taking a large drink, coughing as she handed it back. He wiped his sandy brown hair back from his eyes in the unconscious gesture she loved so much.

“All right, if you're not John Connor, then who the hell are you?

“My name is Tim Malone. I knew John Connor.”

“Knew him. What does that mean?”

“When I was ten, I met a new kid in Buena Park California. He was in a foster home, the Voights I think they were. He said his name was John Connor.” He drank, handing the bottle to her, she drank and handed it back.

We became friends, ran together. He told me about his mother. She was in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane after trying to blow up a computer factory. I knew her name but not a whole lot else then.

“She claimed machines were going to kill the human race.”

Kate stared at him. “She knew. Somehow, she knew.”

“August of 1995, John and I went to the mall after ripping off someone's credit card. John was a whiz with computers. I noticed some cop looking for him, and warned him. We bailed out, fast.

“That was the last I saw of him.” He drank, passing it to her.

“A next day, I saw Sarah Connor for the first time, on a news report. She had escaped from the hospital using Doctor Silberman, her shrink as a hostage, killing two guards. According to the news report, she went ballistic when she found out that John was dead.”

Kate paused, the bottle at her lips. Then she tilted it, pour the neat whiskey into her mouth. “Dead. The real John Connor is dead?” He nodded. “How did he die?”

“The police found him gunned down in the back of the mall. They knew I ran with him, and thought I had killed him, so I ran.” He took the bottle, pouring another drink down. “But I think that cop murdered John, and they helped him cover it up.

“John had told me of some time he and Sarah spent in Central America. They ran with a Contra unit commanded by a guy named Enrique Salceda for about five years. I remembered that John had told me about him, and I figured maybe he could hide me until it blew over. His new home was in Cancun.

“I slipped across the border, and made my way to Cancun. I looked for a week, but didn't know much Spanish, so finding him was a pain. I had given up, and headed for the edge of town heading south. A van was driving along, and suddenly pulled over. Before I knew what happened they tied me up and threw me in the van.” He handed her the bottle. She sipped, and handed it back.

“About an hour and a half later they dragged me out, and threw me down on the ground. Someone ripped the hood off me, and I was staring into Sarah Connor's face. She looked at me with wild eyes for a minute, then suddenly hugged me.

“'They lied, you're not dead'.She said. “'John, you're still alive.