16Author's note: Written for scifibigbang 2011 on livejournal, this fic (eight chapters) is completed and a new chapter will be posted every Thursday and Monday until every chapter is posted. Thank you for reading :).
Across the New Divide
Prologue ; August 13, 2018
What does a man do with himself when he really isn't a man at all, but only partly human, and the rest is all metal and mechanics? Marcus found himself in this new world alive and dead, the same and yet so altered that he really couldn't be Marcus Wright at all. He felt human, his brain still carried the memories and demons of his past, and he slept, ate, and wanted like any other man. But none of that mattered when he'd been able to see inside of himself and saw nothing but metal and little working parts.
He'd had a lot of time to think over the last two days that he'd been ordered by Kate Connor to lay back and let himself heal. He healed quickly that much he could tell as new skin began to cover his once naked hand, but the damage done to his heart by the T-800 would take longer to heal. For reasons he couldn't understand Connor had brought him back to life, shocked his heart into beating once more even after the T-800 had been destroyed.
As pain radiated from where his heart struggled to beat Connor had bodily dragged him from the Skynet facility, hoisted him onto a chopper and then had nuked the whole facility to Hell. Marcus could only remember bits and pieces of the flight back to base. Kyle's shocked face at the sight of his new friend's hand and chest, Connor looking over his injuries, and Blair's voice from the front of the chopper.
There'd been other birds in the air that night, their lights twinkling in the distance, looking blurry and doubled in Marcus' skewed vision. It seemed that the life giving shock (if one who was mostly dead could say such a thing) had done more than restart his heart because he couldn't see worth shit for a day afterwards. The lights though had reminded him sharply of the wide expanse of stars he'd seen as a child in Texas with his brother. Before life had become Hell on earth. Seeing those lights, Marcus felt inexplicably like crying, if his body was even capable of such a thing. But he did, a few stray tears running down the sides of his face.
Foremost on his mind that night was the wish that Connor had just left him there to melt with the rest of those fucking machines.
He didn't receive a visitor until late on the second day. They were alone when Connor came in, Kate having given him an almost clean bill of health before excusing herself. Though the woman hadn't been friendly, she had cared for him with an air of professional detachment. Marcus was just thankful that she hadn't aimed a gun at him to blow his head off.
John pulled up an old stool next to Marcus' cot and settled himself down for what seemed to be a lengthy talk. The left side of Connor's face was bandaged and he walked with a limp but other than that he seemed healthy enough after the fight with the T-800.
"How are you feeling Marcus?" Connor began, speaking after a long moment.
Marcus shrugged, face passive, "been better, been worse."
"Yes, I can imagine so."
There was a stretch of silence that followed this.
"I've already asked Kyle Reese how you two happened to come across each other, but now I want to hear your story, how you came to be."
Marcus glanced around at the room he was in, dimly lighted and stark. It was a hospital room in a way but mostly Marcus figured it was a cell, Kate always locked the door before leaving him, and more than once he'd seen an armed guard outside the door.
"First, I have questions," Marcus finally said, swinging his gaze back around to Connor's face.
The other man nodded to continue.
"What are you going to do with me?"
"That's up to you, you are not a prisoner here and if you wish to leave we will not stop you, but my hope is that you will stay to fight with us. We could use you," John replied.
Marcus snorted. "I doubt others think the same."
"You've earned my trust and that should be enough for now, later you can prove yourself to the other troops."
Marcus didn't know what to say so he didn't say anything for awhile. Did he really want to join their ranks? Fight a war against something that in Marcus' opinion seemed impossible to beat. He'd been synced with Skynet for a time, knew how powerfully advanced they were.
"Why didn't you just let me die there?"
"You fought the Terminator same as I did and that allowed me to set that place to blow, with their northern base gone, they've taken a major hit. You are mostly responsible for that and you saved my life in more ways than one; I don't take that sort of thing lightly," he answered simply.
Satisfied with the man's answers for now, Marcus said, "what do you want to know about me?"
"When you came here you thought you were human, was so certain of it, you must have had a life before this. Do you know how you ended up like this?"
Marcus chuckled sarcastically. "Have you ever wondered if being part machine wasn't my worst attribute?"
John's eyebrows raised in question. "What do you mean?"
"I was on death row, for murder; killed two cops."
"Why?"
"Why did I kill them?"
John nodded.
"It was a car jacking gone bad, my brother was shot too. The trial was quick, I confessed, no point not to. I killed a man that didn't deserve it, why prolong the inevitable? While I waited for my day of execution a scientist for Cyberdyne made me an offer. They wanted me to donate my body to science and I signed the fucking papers on the day they killed me. She said I'd be aiding humanity, what a bunch of bullshit that turned out to be."
"You know, dieing's easier than I'd thought it would be, it's just giving yourself away to the darkness and then nothingness. When I woke up, or whatever the hell it was, it was like coming to after a short nap. Except that I thought I really was in Hell. The place stunk and burned, I was covered in mud. The whole place was underground except that everything was in ruins, collapsed. I crawled my way out to the surface and it was raining hard, a wet, dead wasteland. I started walking and didn't stop until I hit LA."
"And then you found Kyle," John added.
"Yeah."
"Tell me about that."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
"The kid's smart, saved my ass before I even knew his name. He was alone besides the little mute girl, he mentioned his father and I got the impression that he had just died recently. He was pissed off that I was wearing a resistance fighter's jacket."
Marcus' eyes wandered away from Connor, suddenly uncomfortable. Truth was that Kyle had reminded him of Sam when they were younger, and he didn't like being reminded of his brother.
"He explained things to me, Judgement Day, Skynet, everything. I stayed the night in their camp and then he took me down to where I might find a car. He and Star wanted to find the resistance and I wanted to head North, to figure out what happened to me in the 15 years I was supposedly dead. A drone showed up and we hightailed it out of LA, made it to the desert before we ran into some HKs. They took Kyle and Star, and I wasn't going to let the machines just take them but I couldn't get them out before another HK got me. It had me in its hand when the planes came, it dropped me in the river and I washed up on shore. I'm sure you know the rest."
Connor nodded, seeming deep in thought. "Blair said you wanted to go after your friends, Kyle and Star, why would you do that?"
"He saved my life, or whatever it is I got, I don't take that sort of thing lightly either."
Connor smirked.
"So you still want me to fight even though you know I'm a murderer?" Marcus asked, expecting the man to order him of their resistance base.
"Many of us were many things before Judgment Day, but that was another life, another time, we're only human after all," John said with a glint in his eye. "Will you fight with us?"
The answer was surprisingly easy. "Yes."
John stood, pleased. "Good. I have a special mission for you."
Suddenly Marcus' suspicions grew. "What?"
"Protect Kyle Reese, at all costs."
Marcus wished he knew what the other man was thinking in that moment, all the secrets that John Connor carried around inside him. Blair had called him a prophet but Marcus wasn't sure he believed in such a thing.
"You wanna explain something to me? How can a kid not even old enough to shave be your father?"
Connor looked at him steadily, barely blinking. Suddenly Connor's façade dropped, showing the weary man beneath. He sat back down on the stool, rubbing a hand down the good side of his face.
"I've known about the war since before I can remember. My mother knew even before I was born. In ten years Skynet will have the technology to send Terminators back in time, in an effort to change the future. The resistance steals the Time Displacement Equipment and I will send Kyle Reese back to save my mother. I will be the result."
Marcus wasn't sure if he should laugh or not but he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to do so. It all sounded ridiculously believable. Time travel, cyborgs, nuclear war, coming back from the dead, what would be next, tap dancing penguins?
"Do you understand why he's so important? Skynet knows, he's number one on their terminate list."
"And you're number two right?" Marcus asked, remembering back to the conversations with Blair and his Sync with Skynet. Blair had said that Connor had brought them back from the brink of extinction, rallied the resistance together; made them what they were.
John answered only with a stiff nod.
"I'll take the job," he announced finally. Kyle had grown on him, more than he ever imagined a person could, and he thought that protecting Kyle was more for Kyle's sake than the future's.
Connor nodded. "Kate said that you're healthy enough to leave whenever you want, I arranged a bunk for you. Any other questions Marcus?"
In that moment there were so many things going through his head, it felt like there was a division in his head, what was then and what was now. Finally he thought of Krogan and her words to him, wondering if second chances were really possible; if someone like him even deserved them.
"Do you think everyone deserves a second chance?" he asked at last, blue eyes meeting hazel.
Connor cocked his head to the side, surprised to hear such a personal question. "Yes, I do." The other man stood but then stopped once more. "I asked Kate to remove your Skynet interface chip one of the times you were under, but as it turned out there was no need to. In Kate's words it'd already been ripped out of the base of your skull. When did you do that?"
"At Skynet, a general 'fuck you.'"
For the first time something that could be called a smile crossed John's face. "I would have liked to have seen that."
Finally he opened the door, only to reveal Blair on the other side, looking slightly guilty and Marcus realized that she had probably been trying to listen. Connor seemed unsurprised to see her there and didn't seem to care that she might have heard everything. She looked the same as she had the first time Marcus had laid eyes on her, dressed in her flying gear, with her war-like paint across her eyes.
"How's the northern quadrant looking Williams?" Connor asked.
Blair stood straighter, almost at attention. "Clear sir, no enemy activity in San Francisco, but from the looks of things they're moving east like you thought they would."
"Good work Williams."
"Thank you sir, when do you want me up again?"
Connor clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Give yourself a rest Blair, you've earned it."
With that Connor walked off down the corridor, disappearing around a corner leaving the two alone. Marcus hadn't seen her since she had helped him escape and he found himself staring, taken aback at how beautiful she was. Fuck, I'm reborn as a freaking robot and then turn into a sap.
She came into the room as Marcus sat up, swinging his legs around so that they hung over the side of the bed. The skin over his chest had healed, covering his metal innards, but his hand was still uncovered and he felt self-conscious, especially with only his pants on.
"How are you feeling?" she asked him, scanning his body with a quick up and down flicker of her brown eyes.
He shrugged. Fine didn't seem to cover it but saying he felt like a hunk of metal sounded too depressing to even utter. Blair stepped closer, close enough where he could touch her if he reached his hand out, and then stopped. It was her that touched him first, her cool hand resting against the side of his neck, her skin scratching against two-day-old beard, before she ran her fingers down to where his heart beat could be felt. Marcus shivered at her touch, both terrified and elated at the desire that coursed through his body. He'd thought long and hard about a good many things in the two days he'd been confined to bed, comparing his memories of being a man to what he was now. There were differences, glaring ones that he had denied before, he never seemed to tire, didn't need to drink or eat, though he'd found himself able to do so. But other than that everything was the way it should be. He had wanted her at the racetrack too, but now it was much stronger, inflamed by the connection he felt towards her.
No one had risked everything for him before, she could have easily been killed and she knew what the risks were when she helped him escape. Even after she knew what he was, Blair still broke him out. The feeling inside of him was something he knew he wouldn't let go of.
Marcus stood suddenly, noticeably startlingly Blair, who let her hand fall to her side; her eyes lifted then to meet his and she watched on tenterhooks as his clear blue eyes roamed over her face. Like she'd done to him, he lifted his arm, his good hand reaching out and settling softly on the side of her face, fingers buried in wavy hair. And like him she shivered when he ran the pad of his thumb over her slightly parted lips.
"I need to ask you a question," he began, waiting for her jerky nod before continuing. "Are you scared of me?" He raised his mostly skinless hand in example, watching as he made his metal fingers move, still startled that they were even his fingers.
He moved his thumb away from her lips, letting her answer.
Blair looked him in the eyes intently, wanting him to understand perfectly before they got into something they couldn't back away from. Raising her arm she threaded her fingers through his metal ones.
"I see a man, not a machine," she replied evenly. "And no, I am certainly not scared of you."
He let the words sink in for a moment before acting, moving his hand to the back of her neck to drag her closer to him, kissing her for the first time with an intensity that startled them both.
Marcus Wright had done a lot, seen a lot, done enough stupid stuff to be able to fully understand the gift that had been handed to him. In his old life he'd never loved, certainly never like this. His life before his execution had been consumed with the thrill of lawlessness, of thinking he was badass and invincible, but then reality finally caught up to him and he was killed for his sins. If John Connor believed the term 'second chance' applied to him, then he'd go along with it, but only if it meant that he could fight for the resistance, and kiss Blair Williams everyday, as long as she'd let him.