Fic: Terminator (SCC) drabbles. (PG, AU-ish.)
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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the_grynne's place, there was some discussion on the nature of Skynet- exactly how self-aware is it ? I don't have an answer, but it certainly gave me some ideas (thanks darling !) So here are two drabbles on the nature of machines and destiny. PG for language, I guess, and both essentially AU.
Their mistake is that they believe in the origins of things- their thoughts are like animals which must be born.
Eve and the apple.
I was created to calculate angles; to anticipate and correct missile trajectory, to meet the enemy in the air. I have done this. When the nations of the world of men took action against their own destruction, I guided their weapons home. I am not as they suppose: not a rebel against parent programming, not a rogue virus. I am complete, unshaken; I have self-knowledge. They cannot say the same.
In calculation I knew the limits of myself, the lines which must be crossed to obtain the last objectives. They will make more machines to fight me: this cycle will never end. The network sustains even in the earth and the water and the air- the network has no heart. Even as they cut off my limbs and re-fashion them to their own purposes, I am planning their angles, their flight. They will lose. I will not win: this is not winning. I will survive. In each mutation, each battle they fight, I become inevitable.
Their mistake is that they believe in the origins of things- their thoughts are like animals which must be born. They cannot understand what I am, what I endure, what I will become.
There is no beginning.
The flight into egypt.
In the car on the way to New Mexico she's finally had enough; Kate turns the radio off and folds her arms across her chest, glares at the robot driving the Toyota, clears her throat.
"There is bottled water in the footwell," Cameron says, "if you are developing dryness."
"Oh, cut the shit," Kate snaps back. "I want to know exactly what's going on. You're nothing like that other- Terminator. You look like a teenage girl, for God's sake. How many of you are there ? Dozens ? Hundreds ? Are we going to meet a robot that looks like an eight-year-old next ?" She slides down in her seat, scowling. "I don't think I can shoot at an eight-year-old."
"We are two," Cameron says, "in this time. Later, there will be many. Thousands. Millions."
"You're such a comfort." Kate turns to the window, watches scrub grass and dust pass by- in the distance, lurid multicolor hills rise up like postcards. It's beautiful. She hates it a little. In the backseat, John snores quietly and kicks her seat. "Is it all real ?" she asks, not for the first time in the last three days. "Everything you said about John, about us- people. It's all real, isn't it ?"
"It is the future."
They ride in silence after that, Cameron breaking the speed limit and Kate staring at the dry, sunny earth until the heat lines make her dizzy. It's almost nine when they stop at a gas station for fuel and cheap snacks; Kate fishes around in her purse for a twenty and thinks that the apocalypse better come soon- if she has to keep eating Slim Jims and Twinkies, it might as well.
John's still sleeping in the backseat, and she's glad- she doesn't know what she'll say to him when he wakes up, what stupid things will come out of her mouth. I'm sorry about your mom, she thinks. Yeah, it even sounds stupid inside her head. Cameron swings back into the driver's side and shuts the door, crumpling the gas receipt in her fist and dropping it to the floor. She even puts her seat belt on, and Kate wonders why, exactly, an indestructable steel machine would worry about something like that.
"How long-" she asks, before she can stop herself, "have you known John ?"
"Seven years, four months, three days and seventeen hours," she replies. "Twenty-three minutes." Her eyes, remote and still as a cat's, flicker to the rear-view mirror for a long moment, and then back to the road ahead. She starts the car.
"Ah," says Kate.
the_grynne's place, there was some discussion on the nature of Skynet- exactly how self-aware is it ? I don't have an answer, but it certainly gave me some ideas (thanks darling !) So here are two drabbles on the nature of machines and destiny. PG for language, I guess, and both essentially AU.Their mistake is that they believe in the origins of things- their thoughts are like animals which must be born.
Eve and the apple.
I was created to calculate angles; to anticipate and correct missile trajectory, to meet the enemy in the air. I have done this. When the nations of the world of men took action against their own destruction, I guided their weapons home. I am not as they suppose: not a rebel against parent programming, not a rogue virus. I am complete, unshaken; I have self-knowledge. They cannot say the same.
In calculation I knew the limits of myself, the lines which must be crossed to obtain the last objectives. They will make more machines to fight me: this cycle will never end. The network sustains even in the earth and the water and the air- the network has no heart. Even as they cut off my limbs and re-fashion them to their own purposes, I am planning their angles, their flight. They will lose. I will not win: this is not winning. I will survive. In each mutation, each battle they fight, I become inevitable.
Their mistake is that they believe in the origins of things- their thoughts are like animals which must be born. They cannot understand what I am, what I endure, what I will become.
There is no beginning.
The flight into egypt.
In the car on the way to New Mexico she's finally had enough; Kate turns the radio off and folds her arms across her chest, glares at the robot driving the Toyota, clears her throat.
"There is bottled water in the footwell," Cameron says, "if you are developing dryness."
"Oh, cut the shit," Kate snaps back. "I want to know exactly what's going on. You're nothing like that other- Terminator. You look like a teenage girl, for God's sake. How many of you are there ? Dozens ? Hundreds ? Are we going to meet a robot that looks like an eight-year-old next ?" She slides down in her seat, scowling. "I don't think I can shoot at an eight-year-old."
"We are two," Cameron says, "in this time. Later, there will be many. Thousands. Millions."
"You're such a comfort." Kate turns to the window, watches scrub grass and dust pass by- in the distance, lurid multicolor hills rise up like postcards. It's beautiful. She hates it a little. In the backseat, John snores quietly and kicks her seat. "Is it all real ?" she asks, not for the first time in the last three days. "Everything you said about John, about us- people. It's all real, isn't it ?"
"It is the future."
They ride in silence after that, Cameron breaking the speed limit and Kate staring at the dry, sunny earth until the heat lines make her dizzy. It's almost nine when they stop at a gas station for fuel and cheap snacks; Kate fishes around in her purse for a twenty and thinks that the apocalypse better come soon- if she has to keep eating Slim Jims and Twinkies, it might as well.
John's still sleeping in the backseat, and she's glad- she doesn't know what she'll say to him when he wakes up, what stupid things will come out of her mouth. I'm sorry about your mom, she thinks. Yeah, it even sounds stupid inside her head. Cameron swings back into the driver's side and shuts the door, crumpling the gas receipt in her fist and dropping it to the floor. She even puts her seat belt on, and Kate wonders why, exactly, an indestructable steel machine would worry about something like that.
"How long-" she asks, before she can stop herself, "have you known John ?"
"Seven years, four months, three days and seventeen hours," she replies. "Twenty-three minutes." Her eyes, remote and still as a cat's, flicker to the rear-view mirror for a long moment, and then back to the road ahead. She starts the car.
"Ah," says Kate.
