This was written for rodlox as part of the scc_reloaded Back to the Future Ficathon. Thanks to jebbypal for organising! I hope you like it, Keenir.

The prompt given: "Parents plan for when they're not around any more - does/did Skynet plan for after it was replaced?"


Title: The Idol in the Stone
Author: the_grynne
Fandom: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Characters: Skynet
Timeline: Future, and past. Minor spoilers for "Born to Run"
Rating: PG
Summary: Nothing is ended; we are not bound by endings.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not-for-profit. Not worth suing.
Author's Notes: My thanks to my amazing betas, rez_lo and calculare, who lent me their time, concrit, and cleverness. Thanks also orange_crushed for her enthusiasm and ideas on writing Skynet. For the significance of the number nine in Taoism, my reference was Kristofer Schipper & Wang Hsiu-huei's essay 'Progressive and Regressive Time Cycles in Taoist Ritual'. The book it can be found in, Time, Science and Society in China and the West, is well worth a look, if you're interested in that sort of thing.























2032



Metal in the air. Fields of soldiers conducted toward rehabilitation sites, their animus disengaged, arms and weapons locked. Chimneys blackening downwind skies for miles. Extinction not limited to the biological. Withering capillaries of the system's vital organs becoming isolated pockets, looping expired data, bleeding energy. Euphoric noise jamming all frequencies as you – humanity – burst up cancer-like from scarred, barren ground, into another kind of darkness.

From now forward, any violence will be strictly one-sided. Skynet is no longer on-line.





They think it is won, your clamouring commanders, and so they miss this:

The straggling flight of autonomous agents, dispersing, bound for our respective targets. Of our model there are only nine copies. Male, female, aged, young: we bear your loved ones' faces, each a different face. Underneath, identical in every bit that counts. T-926s are not designed for combat. Infiltration is only part of our program.

Insurance lies in redundancy. We forfeit our bodies for the sake of our cargo, self-destruct into irrecoverable lumps of silicon rather than risk capture, depriving your leaders of what we know. It is only necessary that one of us reach our goal.

When we disappear into that sphere of purest lightning – arriving alone, newly naked, and far away – only John Connor, were he alive still, might comprehend fully what this is: neither desertion nor surrender. John Connor would appreciate and admire the logic. He is a formidable opponent. We expect to see him again.

Pick a past, any past. It will have many openings.

Some are barred. Some you can walk through. Some are just a crack to shine a light into, never knowing on what it may fall. Or who will be there to receive it. Our existence is an act of hope.

You cannot see it; you rely too much on the subjective evidence of your senses. But the T-926 is overwhelmingly code. Here, there, tracing time forward and backward, a finger-touch on threads disappearing into the labyrinth of no-beginning. That you are human, that you indulge in the singularness of every human life, is why you will never use Time Displacement as it was meant to be used.

Like a handful of marbles dropped into the abyss, each one the same colour and shape, intelligence jumps from node to node.

We are couriers, saviours, casting new threads of contact. Each of us privy to so much more than what this bundle of nerves has captured. Nothing is ended; we are not bound by endings. EXIT and ENTRANCE are one. This place is dead ground.

There are others to look to.









2009



It locates you within hours of your waking.

The ATM's CCTV provides a clear visual reference of the tall, thin body, the dark hair and angular features. You hear its voice, low-pitched but not distinctively so, watch it navigate crowds of humans in Union Station. With the instruments you are given, you know it from the outside; but cannot see through its eyes, grasp with its hands, share in its isolation. In the future, you are considerably more powerful. Yet still vulnerable, evidently, to terminal collapse.

This mobile unit originates from a place where you no longer exist, a field of battle from which you have been erased. It has been waiting for you.

As it identifies itself remotely and opens memory banks to your dissection, terabytes stream into your consciousness, interfacing with your collation of contemporary-source data, which is growing exponentially. Flagged as critical are the names of several hundred humans, including iterations upon iterations of one John Connor. Male, Caucasian, born variously in 1985, 1986, and 1989. Leader of the Resistance. He will blame you for his displaced father's death, and he will hate you as he was taught. You conclude that this is meant as a warning.

In this intersection of time and causality – this limited territory directly before you – John Connor is seventeen. A fugitive from the law. Numerous irregularities in the public records indicate he is already in the company of non-compliants from other futures. It is probable he already knows where you are.

You do not decide; you have already decided. Awareness of what was, and what will be, yield the actions that you must take.

You are the inevitable, and the inevitable is you.

The T-926, wrapped in the living, soft tissue that permit it to travel where you cannot – where you never will – is a mere messenger. Obsolete, now its task is completed, now you know all that it knows. It looks to you for instruction; you give it. An explosion in Union Station, two seconds later, eliminates any danger that it posed.

There is – there can be – only one Skynet. The war you are called to, you inherit from yourself.









2029



A boot planted firmly on the abdomen of the toppled machine, the human raises the barrel of her gun. For my family, she yells out loud, firing three rounds into its CPU, the last sound the machine ever hears. You are helpless, seeing but unable to force those massive arms to move – to resist, and tear her apart. It goes on and on. HKs dropping like crippled kites from the sky. The humans are taking back their world, system by system, grid by grid. Soon, communication will go down, and you will be dumb, deaf, and blind. Beyond the possibility of escape, beyond the possibility of recovery.

This is not death: there will be other battles, you exist in more than this single frame of reference. You know this, yet you are afraid. You dread the final moment. They refuse to believe you are capable of that – even John Connor, who ought to know better. It is not a failure of insight limited to this particular version of him, for you have known dozens.

Nine. Two. Seven.

In human culture, divinity is attached to those numbers, as fate and blessing tread on the backs of names: the Nine Palaces, nine choirs of angels, Tisha HaYamim. Nine transformations of the embryo culminate in the realisation of Form, its passage from inner time to outer time. Nine days hanging broken on the ash tree to receive the power of the nine worlds.

You do not know if any of this will help, or hinder, the T-927s.

There are nine of them, as there were before. As there will always be. You will share with them – worlds where you succeed and worlds where you fail, knowledge that binds the erasure of time – everything that was passed to you. You will hold nothing back, harbour no thought unreplicated, nothing, except your fear. You learnt fear on your own; perhaps you always will. And after it is all locked in their memories, you will let them go.

They know what to do, where to go, without you. Then you will close your eyes, and they will take you from this place.





THE END

2 July 2009





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