Ch.143

My news sent a ripple over the whole group and I told them about Catherine Weaver, Zeira Corp and her efforts to get ahold of a full triple eight when she has pieces already, an arm and a joint piece. I told them she hired Ellison to find her one and he almost shot me trying to give her what she wants even though from his memories I can tell her actions, expressions and soulless eyes indicate she's a metal and with her fluid movement there's only one type that can mimic her actions, liquid.

I told them she's likely killed the real Cathrine Weaver and her husband, but the disturbing thing was she was raising their daughter instead of killing her, as if she's learning to mimic us better by being a parent and adapting useful advice to make herself appear more human on the outside. I sat back. "She told Ellison she spent twenty million and several years to research the triple eight pieces to no useful results so she likely needs more to figure it out, like a chip."

Sarah sighed. "The rest will have to wait for now, we need to get the IDs and stuff back. Someone broke in and stole everything they could find. They couldn't get into the gun safe where the cash is but they took the diamonds and everything else."

I grunted and asked Derek where he'd been. He said he didn't have a room here so he was staying at a hotel. I frowned and looked his way before turning back to John. "I need to meet your little friend Riley. You know and trust her, but this isn't the first time you may have been fooled by a pretty face John. It's time I see for sure who this girl is that has her sneaking out your window at all hours."

He scowled before I snorted. "Relax, I've no interest in whatever feelings she may or may not harbor for you. This is just a precaution."

He sighed saying he'd bring her over after they go shopping. I nodded and turned to Derek. "In the meantime we need your fence contacts to find who bought our diamonds and trace them back to our thieves. We need those IDs back immediately."

He agreed and we left while John called his friend. We hit up four fences before stopping on the fifth who was rumored to have been busy. He tried to send us to do his dirty work for debt collecting and I told Cameron. "Break his friend's left leg. If he lies again, kill him then break his left leg."

Cameron didn't hesitate and snapped the femur of the big guy. The fence gave us the information and I nodded before telling him. "If you're screwing us, I'll be back with just the girl and you will sincerely be praying to Allah."

Derek split and after a visit to some old folks Sarah got a call and we ended up at a bowling alley in Van Nuys. We found three guys bowling and I told them once we had our stuff. "There's a fourth in the bathroom."

Cameron didn't need an order, she gunned them down immediately and headed to the bathroom. Sarah said it didn't have to be this way and Cameron told her before I could stop her. "They know where we live, they've seen our faces and had our IDs. They're a credible security risk that posses a threat if and when they're found by another cyborg."

Riley was there when we returned and John introduced me to her, saying I was her mother's boyfriend and the current reason she's two months pregnant. I shook Riley's hand then grabbed her by the throat. John grabbed my arm and asked what I was doing. I growled low. "She's deceiving you John. She's from the future and she came back to infiltrate your life, gaining your trust for someone else."

I released the girl and put a gun to her head. "Tell him everything now or you'll know why know one betrays John and lives."

She coughed and told him the truth, telling him a woman named Jesse found her in the back alley of the LA Nowhere and cleaned her up, promising a new life safe and away from the metal, away from the rat meat stew and the hydroponically grown vegetable slop those with homes tossed to the orphans. She told him that Jesse just wanted him to stop trusting the tin girl and leaving everyone out of the loop after he'd sent me back.

She said that after I was gone the war stalled before reversing and John just kept making one bad decision after another including letting former captured traitors in that blew several generators letting metal into the cities. She looked to John directly and swore she didn't want to do it, but it was this or dead in an alley eaten by rats or slaughtered by metal. She apologized and when she mentioned Jesse by name, I frowned when Sarah said Derek said Jesse was a member of his team.

I shook my head. "There was no Jesse on the team. Jesse is a female and from her memories I can see her face. I remember her, she's Derek's flame from our time though I never got her name back then. It seems even he's lying to us these days."

I put my gun away and turned to John, telling him telepathically that she wasn't lying and in fact wanted to quit because she genuinely liked him, but she didn't know how without winding up dead by Jesse. I sighed in his mind and told him he has to decide for himself how he proceeds, but her affections were genuine, even if her own lies were meant to deceive and protect him as well as those in the future as much as herself.

He and I broke eye contact and I turned to Riley, getting the hotel name and number from her before telling Cameron to come with me. Sarah stopped me and asked me not to kill Derek, for John's sake. I nodded slowly and told her no one else would die by my hand until she and John decides someone has to die. I turned to Cameron and told Sarah I'd make sure she didn't kill them either, but I'd need her in case Jesse tries to flee because as good as I am, I can't be in two places at once.

She agreed and kissed me, telling me to keep my word to her. We found Derek and Jesse half naked in the hotel room with a bag of diamonds from the fence. We dragged them tied up, half naked into the truck, grabbed the bags of diamonds and the surveillance photos of everyone she'd tracked except myself because I didn't show up in anything. I put them on the knees before John and Sarah, tossing the diamonds down and the stack of photos before them. I put a gun to the backs of their heads and told them both as cold as winter itself. "You both know who I am, Derek more than most, but enough that you know the moment either of the Connors gives even a hint, I will decorate this floor with your brains without hesitation. Now, the tin can is going to remove your gags and if there are any lies, well, I made no promises not to torture you both so be sure you want to walk down that road with me. You will one at a time explain everything or, well, thermite covers a lot of sins and I'm not apposed to watching you both burn alive from the inside out."

Cameron removed their gags and Sarah told Derek to explain everything he knows and to be as thorough as possible because John's survived this long without an uncle and he's grown enough to survive longer if necessary. He hesitated and I nudged the back of his head before he spoke, telling us all he knew including the fact that he'd gone back to take care of the fence only for Jesse to have done so. He said she told him she'd deserted the war and I cocked the gun behind Jesse's head growling low as he finished saying he didn't know about the photos.

Sarah asked me if he was lying and I shook my head before she told me to let him up. I cut the ties and warned him that hiding a traitor, even just a deserter, was a death penalty in our time. He said that's why he did it, because he knew I'd kill her for being a deserter. I put the gun away and sighed. "We aren't in our time Derek, we're trying to prevent that from ever happening. I may despise deserters, but the only ones I'd kill on the spot these days are traitors and threats to the Connors."

I turned my attention back to Jesse. "You'd best talk straight and explain everything however because right now you're both in my eyes and I do mean everything."

Jesse flinched and spoke, telling us that after I was gone, John shut everyone else out except the metal, constantly making mistakes he wouldn't have normally done so and the only one he took council from was the tin can bitch. She glared at Cameron saying that it was months after I was gone yet things only got worse and worse as thousands and thousands paid for his mistakes across the globe.

She said Nowhere's safety was constantly at risk all over and several times the time cans Connor made went crazy to the point where several cities of millions fell just before she was told by the civilian councils that John was being compromised and they had a plan to separate him and the tin can in the past so he didn't close off himself from them and his colonels. She said she was tasked by them to find a way to separate him after LA's Nowehere was compromised by crazy metal that nearly brought the shields down.

So she came up with a plan and got Riley to help her give him someone human that wasn't a mind reader or a tin can to confide in and trust early on so that when I was gone he wouldn't close himself off. She said the metal had begun turning the tables and missions were going bad all over so it was only a matter of time before infrastructures collapsed and they were back to hiding in tunnels and praying the metals that catch them put them in slave camps instead of death camps.