Messiah

"Con-nor! Con-nor! Con-nor!"

They were doing the chant, Thomas reflected. Two syllables. "Con" and "nor," accenting both. In an underground carpark in Washington, hundreds of people were chanting the surname of a man named John. A man who was general of the Resistance, the saviour of mankind, the messiah, according to some, and as far as Thomas was concerned, arguably with good reason.

"Con-nor! Con-nor! Con-nor!"

But did they have to shout so loud? He was over fifty years old, and after thirty years of war against Skynet, he wasn't getting any younger, nor were his ear drums getting any better. In the carpark, people kept shouting. And in what had once been a maintenance room for a company named Aesix, he tried to continue his work.

"Con-nor! Con-nor! Con-nor!"

I know guys, great. Just helped liberate another work camp outside Washington. He grit his teeth and after a quick glance at his project, returned to his computer screen. Isn't the first time that happened.

He saw green code, he saw red code, he saw blue code. All of it doing its own thing, all of it kicking his arse. He leant forward, resting his mouth on his chin. In his old life (well, lives), he'd been a hacker and computer programmer, and now, in the brave new world that had such terrible things in it, both had served him well. People fought, he hacked, he kept himself alive. But this thing…this was starting to be too much, even for him.

"What do you say Blinky?" He looked at his pet. "Think I should call it quits?"

The white stuffed rabbit stared back at him.

"Eh, what do you know?"

He went back to typing. People didn't keep pets. Either they were dogs, and kept as secure as possible, or they were eaten. So, using a fork, he put some cooked rat inside his mouth and went back to typing.

And typing.

And more typing.

So much typing that he didn't hear the footsteps coming down the hallway.

So much typing that he didn't hear the door open.

So much, that he didn't even become aware of the intruder until they put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hi Thomas."

"Gah!" He leapt to his feet, scrambling to pick up a pulse pistol. At this close range, it wouldn't do much against a Terminator, but-

Oh shit.

It wasn't a Terminator. It was John Connor. He was pointing a pistol in the face of the leader of the Resistance.

"Going to shoot me soldier?"

"Oh shit, I…" Thomas tossed the pistol aside, knocking Blinky off his perch. "I'm so sorry sir, I…"

John smiled, which was kind of terrifying in of itself. John Connor almost never smiled. He had "a look," and that included a scarred face, steely eyes, and constant stoicism. Seeing him now, as he went to pick up Blinky, Thomas wasn't sure which was the illusion. And which was more terrifying.

"Still following the white rabbit I see," John said, as he put Blinky back on his perch.

"Sir?"

"White rabbit."

Thomas looked at him.

"Alice in Wonderland?"

Thomas stared at him.

"I can lend you a copy if you want."

"No sir, that'll be fine sir."

"Oh." John's smile faded. "Fair enough."

Fair enough. Thomas glanced at Blinky. The white rabbit stared back at him.

Does he know?

He didn't ask Blinky that, because Blinky was a rabbit, and rabbits didn't speak. But if Blinky had been self-aware, and capable of speech, it might have blurted out to the saviour of mankind that Thomas Anderson kept a white rabbit at his desk as a means of connection to his old life. When he'd been told to find a white rabbit and found himself on the cusp of…well, something different.

"You alright Thomas?"

He blinked. "Sir?"

"Little paler than usual."

He shrugged, and sat back down in his chair. "Don't get out much sir."

"Yeah? Well, consider yourself lucky."

I do, he reflected, but he knew better than to say that. John Connor had turned forty years old today. He knew that in the old days, John had taken a more active role in the war against Skynet, but as the Resistance swelled, as Skynet realized it had a chain of command, he'd gone into isolation. It served the myth, Thomas reflected, but he also guessed that hiding in the shadows was a way of cultivating a following. Let John Connor be this shadowy figure that everyone looked up to, emerging only for gatherings such as this. And considering what Skynet was now using against the Resistance, even that might have become too risky.

"Anyway," John said. "How's the project going?"

Thomas grunted.

"Elaborate, soldier."

Thomas looked back at the general. He was back into his steely-eyed phase.

"Well?"

He gestured to the computer. "Poorly, sir. This tech is…"

"Is?"

"It's as advanced as the hardware it came in." He swivelled around on his chair and gestured to what lay on the table beside them. "I mean…seriously. Just look at it."

John walked over, hands in his pockets, a look on his face that was part contempt, part something else. "I've looked at it for longer than you can imagine Thomas."

The hacker didn't say anything. He just got up to his feet and looked over the specimen.

A Terminator.

Its full designation was Cyberdyne Systems T-800 Model 146. On July 21, 2025, it had integrated itself into a TechCom unit, posing as a helpless civilian, and had been led back to their base. Once inside, it had killed its squad, and half the people inside the base before it was finally brought down. On explicit orders from General Connor itself, the survivours had managed to get its body loaded onto a truck and bugged out before a pair of Hunter Killers arrived and bombarded the site from above. A week had passed since then before it had been delivered to this site in Washington, its CPU separated from its body. And now, on his second day into the project, Thomas was still trying to reprogram it.

At first, he'd called it a "she." Model 146 was female, and much as he loathed to admit it, not bad to look at, even with the plastic draped over its body. But he'd reminded himself it was an "it." It would always be "it," as would Skynet. As would its death machines. As would every Terminator, no matter how human they looked. Even with its exoskeleton showing in parts where pulse rifles had cut through the epidermis, it still looked human.

"Thomas?"

"Hmm?" He looked over at John, away from his test subject.

"Thomas, I need this done, okay? The future of the Resistance will depend on it."

Thomas scoffed. "Don't suppose you could tell me how?"

He patted the hacker on the shoulder. "Just get it done." He headed for the door.

"How do you know?" Thomas asked.

John looked back at him. "Excuse me?"

"How do you know?" he repeated.

"Know what?"

"How do you know the things you do?"

John sighed. "Thomas…"

"It's like you know everything Skynet's going to do before it does. The HK's. The Terminators. Heck, you even said that by 2024, Skynet would have Terminators with fully organic skin rather than the rubber crap the T-600s used, and you were right. Heck, you even knew that we had to use dogs to stop them." He took a breath. "Seriously sir, are you…"

John smirked. "The messiah?"

"I've known only one person in my life who called himself a messiah sir."

"And?"

"And he's probably dead. You're nothing like him. And unlike him, the stuff you say comes true. So…"

"Don't suppose you'd care to tell me about this man?"

Thomas looked at Blinky. "No. I wouldn't."

He didn't want to tell John. He didn't want to tell anyone. He didn't want to say how for years, convinced that there was more to life than a 9-5 job, he'd gone onto the darknet. Contacted an anarchist named Morpheus, who proclaimed himself the saviour of mankind from a system called the Matrix. He'd bought into it. He'd followed the white rabbit. Gone to a night club. Nearly fallen off a building before federal authorities had caught him and taken to a site outside Washington. Where they'd given him the opportunity to help them bring a terrorist to justice in exchange for a clean slate.

He'd given him the finger. In response, the world had given him a bomb. Because that day had been August 29th, 1997, and Washington D.C. had met the same fate as every major city in the country. He'd reflected in the hours that followed, as he'd been left alone in that cell, that if Morpheus had been right, then his "system of control," his "Matrix," had probably been destroyed in the fire. Also that Morpheus, Trinity, and whoever else he'd called to his side as well were probably dead as well. Heck, he might have been the one to set off the bomb itself. Only turned out it wasn't just one bomb, it was thousands. Nuclear armageddon. He'd been let go to fend for himself, and somehow, been able to survive. Starvation. Dehydration. Later, autonomous drones that were herding the survivours into camps for orderly disposal.

He'd survived. He'd written code to improve the HK's efficiency and been allowed to stay alive while the people around him died. Then, the camp had been liberated, and he found himself a new employer. Not a 9 to 5 job, but a 24/7 one, under the command of John Connor.

Sometimes, he wondered if John knew. That he'd spent the last fifteen years trying to make up for what he'd done. Given how much John seemed to know about everything, it wouldn't surprise him.

"Well then," John said. "You won't tell me about your messiah, so I won't tell you how I am, or aren't, the messiah."

Thomas sat back down. "Figures. Mary's your mother."

"Excuse me?"

"Everyone knows the name of Sarah Connor, but you never talk about your dad. Some people say you're the product of immaculate conception."

"Oh, I had a father," John murmured. He walked up beside Thomas. "Question is, can you do this?"

Thomas grunted something.

"Sorry?"

"Why?" he asked. He looked at John. "Why do we need to do this?

John said nothing. He just looked away, taking an interest in a "Hang in There Kitty!" poster that had seen better days.

"John?" Thomas took a breath. "Sir?"

"Thomas, for better or worse, you're the best hacker I have." He looked back at him. "I know after the Nebuchadnezzar-"

"Don't," Thomas pleaded.

"I know that was difficult for you."

"Sir, this has nothing to do with that."

John didn't look convinced. Thomas wasn't sure if he was convinced himself.

USS Nebuchadnezzar. A frigate that had survived the bombs, and was still operating in the year 2024. Operating not really as a ship of war but a mobile listening station down the east coast. He'd been assigned to it, as had a man named Joseph Reagan. A code cipher who was even better at listening in on Skynet than Thomas was. A man who'd complain about everything, but was damn good at making moonshine. A man who Thomas had broken bread with. Drunk together with. Even smelt the man's bad breath after drinking his own brew. Only Joseph Reagan wasn't a man, he was an infiltrator – one of the new line that they'd heard rumours about from the mainland.

Thomas hadn't been there when it had happened. From what he'd heard, Joseph's contact, a man named "Smith," wasn't an agent operating from within a camp, it was Skynet himself. He'd been sending information from the Neb to its enemy. At the drop of a hat, Joseph Reagan had turned from smart-arse hacker to stony, silent killing machine. What followed was a rampage throughout the frigate that resulted in the deaths of half its skeleton crew before finally being brought down by an experimental lightning rifle. And before they'd had time to breathe, they had to fight off a horde of Sentinels. Squid-like aquatic machines that the Terminator must have called in once its cover was blown.

And he'd hid. He'd hid from the Terminator, he'd hid from the Sentinels, and he'd only got out of hiding to board a lifeboat as they watched the Nebuchadnezzar go down into the ocean. Taking the bodies of the Terminator and over twenty crewmen with it. And now, a year later, he was in proximity to another one of those killing machines. Asked to get it to switch sides, just in the opposite direction.

"Fine," John said. "It has nothing to do with the Neb. But it needs to be done."

"Why?"

"Because I said so." He headed for the exit. "Get to it Thomas."

He went for the door.

"What if I say no?"

John looked back at him. Thomas folded his arms.

"What if I say no?" he repeated. "What if I told you to use another programmer?"

"As I said, Thomas, you're the best hacker we've got. And like it or not, that puts you in a position of responsibility."

"Yeah, I know." He leant back in his chair. "Responsibility. Yes sir, I know you about responsibility, you've had it for decades now."

"I've had it my whole life."

Thomas stared at him – he could tell that John meant every word of what he just said.

"Do it Thomas," John said. "Because four, five years from now, the future of the Resistance is going to depend on our ability to reprogram one of these things, and in hours, not days." He looked at the Terminator, and when he spoke, Thomas got the sense it was less to his subordinate, and more to himself. "Skynet's going to keep sending them. Over, and over, and over. And that means we need some of them on our side." He looked back at Thomas. "Am I clear?"

Thomas remained silent.

"Am I clear, Thomas? Or do I need to tell everyone what you did at Camp Twelve-Forty?"

Thomas turned even paler than normal. "How did you-"

John gave him a dark smile, walked over, and patted him on the shoulder. "I know a lot of things Thomas. About the past, as well as the future." He got back up. "And some things in the past can't be changed."

"Some things?" Thomas murmured.

"Some things," John said. He headed for the door. "Now get to it, Neo."

He headed out. Leaving Thomas Anderson alone with a rabbit, a Terminator, and more questions than he could count.

That General John Connor knew his older hacker alias was just one of them.

A/N

Idea for this came from a comment I read in regards to Terminator: Genisys, namely the suggestion that given how people look up to John like he's the messiah, the idea was nicked from The Matrix, given the reverence given to characters like Neo and Morpheus by the people of Zion. That, and the whole "The One"/man vs. machine" thing going on.

Truth be told, it's technically possible, but I don't think there's much to that idea. Both Terminator and The Matrix use the trope of "man vs. machine," and it's a trope that predates both the better half of a century - I, Robot was published in 1950 as a response to the trope. But even then, the idea of John being treated like a messiah has already been explored in stuff like Dawn of Fate and tie-in material for Salvation, so if anything, Genisys likely just rolled with it.

Still, gave me the idea to drabble this up.