Some of you must’ve heard of this exercise before – I start with one sentence and then each comment adds a sentence to the story. Main rule: you can only add ONE sentence. I’m so curious to see where this goes! Let me start…
She walked in, shaking the water off of her umbrella.
It was late but she needed to talk, so she decided to get ready and head out to meet him.
Sophie kissed him back. How warm she felt her hands in his.
'You are beautiful" he said staring at her.
Terminator 4
20 years after end of Terminator III - Pickup truck traveling across a post-holocaust road. John Conner, wife Kate, and twin children, Bob and Sarah, age 15. John stops the truck. The kids look up. John says, “They’re near.” All grab weapons and spread out. Combat. They easily blast every machine in the area. Near the end of the fight, it looks bad, John is about to get killed. Suddenly the kids are in the perfect spot and kill the all-metal terminator. “How do you guys do that?” Kate asks. The kids shrug. John shrugs. All get into the truck and drive away. Many hours later, the kids are sleeping. “It’s so unfair.” She’s looking at the kids. “They’ve been raised their whole life to fight.” Their dog barks. “We’re here.” John says. The kids get up and all go inside a human settlement, along with their two dogs.
They introduce themselves. Everyone is stunned to be meeting THE John Conner. They expect him to just wipe out all the machines. He says “It doesn’t work like that.” He teaches them how to fortify their defenses, what their vulnerabilities are and how to make explosives from the materials available. Then they learn how to do reconnaissance and plan an attack. They attack. John helps, but the rest of the humans do a majority of the destruction. He says to pass on what they’ve learned. Never give up. Strike and fade away. Never stay in one place for too long. “Our future is not set.” “We CAN make a difference.”
They move on to the next human base. “They’re near.” John says again. This time the attack is fierce. It looks bad. A terminator COULD kill John. His kids are too busy to help this time. A metal fist is poised to strike, but it hesitates for some reason. Suddenly a ‘wild boy’ comes out of nowhere. He and a black guy turn the tide, and together they win the battle. The black guy introduces himself, “I’m Jester.” The kid starts eating something he found (might have been a bug). It doesn’t look safe… or appetizing. “Don’t eat that.” Kate says. The kid glares at her and keeps chewing. The kid says, “Don’t worry about it.” Jester says, “He says he won’t take orders from anyone who doesn’t call him by name.” “So what’s his name?” Kate asks. “We don’t know.” Jester answers, “He won’t say... We just call him the ‘wild boy’.” “He dresses like a soldier.” says Sarah. Bob says, “Fights like one too.” John’s badly hurt. “C’mon let’s get you patched up.” Jester says, “We have a doctor.”
Jester leads them to their base. Wild boy takes up rear and watches for more terminators. They arrive and are introduced to Doctor Silverman. It looks like this base has been attacked recently. They are wounded, but everyone is excited about John Conner’s arrival. Wild boy immediately grabs a hypodermic needle and shoots up. Bob and Sarah look at him questioningly? He says, “Stim Pack. Keeps you awake… Machines don’t sleep… neither can we.” The doctor is tending to his own wounded knee. John says, “Hello, Doctor Silverman… How’s the knee.” The doctor is horrified and disappointed to see John Conner again. John doubles over in pain. “I’m fine.” He says, “You need looking after though.” He starts to work.
Kate asks about the recent attack, “If they were terminators, why are you all still here? They would have killed everyone.” “Change in tactics.” the base leader replies. “They aren’t killing us anymore. They’re rounding us up for orderly disposal. I think they hope to gather intelligence about how many of us there are and how quickly we’re multiplying or something like that… They’re doing a lot of things differently now… Let me show you something.” He leads her to a doorway. Beyond is a lush green forest, surrounded by massive defenses, a fence, etc. There’s a city far off in the distance.
That’s “Skynet.” We think that city in the distance holds their defense grid. But there’s no way to reach it. This area has the strongest defenses. Kate gazes at the forest. “Why are they growing trees?” “I guess they realize that the earth and its ‘animal’ life forms are of some benefit, replenishing earth’s resources or something like that. But they aren’t planning to make humans a part of that world.”
Doctor Silverman is packing up his belongings and getting ready to leave forever. “Where’re YOU goin’?” Jester asks. The doctor says “As far away from HIM as possible.” He nods towards the unconscious John Conner. “But that’s THE John Conner!?” Jester says in disbelief. “I don’t know about you, but every time I have ever met a ‘Conner’… my life has gone straight to hell… I’m not waiting around for it this time.” “But he’s John Conner. He’s gonna bring ‘em ALL down.” says Jester. “Oh he’ll bring them.” the doctor says, “That’s the part I’m not hanging around for. Good luck.” He goes over to John who is waking up. He tells John, “Try and keep you weight off that leg and don’t lift anything terribly heavy for a few days. You’re patched up for now… I’m sorry I didn’t believe your mother.” “I didn’t believe it myself for a long time.” John says. The doctor lowers his head and begins to walk away, “Well… Good luck.” John says, “Thank you.” The doctor turns to leave. Jester says, “If you turn your back on him, you turn it on all humanity.” The doctor says, “Why should I change now?” and leaves.
John begins the usually discussions, about tactics and defenses. Later that night the base is attacked again by the machines. There are several casualties, but the in the end they are all taken aboard several flying transport ships, to be taken to the city for disposal. Jester, wild boy, and the Connor family are loaded aboard one of the shuttles.” As the machines begin to fly off, a silhouetted figure moves into a doorway preparing to fire a missile launcher. He shoots. The shuttle is hit and goes down somewhere in the forest. The all-metal terminators that are still in the area, draw a laser bead in Doctor Silverman. He looks at the terminators, then to the crashing shuttle and says, “Now we’re even.”
The shuttle crashes and all escape. They make their way through the forest as quickly as they can. They know machines will be scanning the wreckage soon. “This is our chance.” John says, “We’re inside their defenses. We need to get to that city.” Jester is shocked, “We gonna take on Skynet by OURSELVES!?” “No” says John, “But we ARE going free the humans inside. We’ll need weapons.” “I suppose their just gonna HAND THEM OVER to us too?” Jester says. Kate says, “Well we’re not getting OUT through their defenses without weapons, so John’s right… We need weapons.” Wild boy, has found a sharp rock and carved a spear from a branch. He brandishes them. “Great.” says Jester. “It’s a start.” says the wild boy, and then grins.
They keep moving. They find a building. They go inside. There are no defenses. Kate says, “I guess the machines think everything inside the perimeter is safe from attack.” “I would.” says Jester. They find a lab of scientists… ‘Human’ scientists. They are working on something. They are alarmed by the arrival of someone from the outside. But they do not run to the alarms. “What are you doing?” Kate asks. The scientists look at each other and no one replies. “It’s a time machine.” John says gazing at the structure. The scientists are shocked that he KNEW what it was. “Should we destroy it?” Kate asks. “No.” John says. “I thought the future wasn’t set?” she presses. John says, “We might need it later.” Besides it’d give away our position.” He turns to the scientists, “Are there cameras in here?” “No.” they reply. “Where are the weapons?” Jester asks. “Like they’d give them weapons.” Wild boy says. “Well I ain’t no scientist.” says Jester. John says to the scientists, “We weren’t here.” The scientists nod. John leads them down the hall.
They come to another lab. This one is a medical lab. Wild boy sees a hypodermic, grabs it and shoots up. “Vaht are you doo-ink?!” A man with a thick Russian accent screams. He snatches the hypo from the wild boy. “Who are YOU?!” Jester asks. “I am the vorld’s grrreatest genetic scientist!” he proudly says. Jester says, “Then what are YOU doing?” The Russian looks at them and then gets a little worried and says, “Nothink.” Jester raises an eyebrow, “The worlds greatest genetic scientist… and you’re doing ‘nothink’?” “Their clones…” Kate says. The Russian looks more worried. “Human clones?... For what?” Jester says. “For the terminators.” John says. “What!?” Jester is getting angry. “Or that’s it, you’re TOAST!” John stops him, rather harshly. “Never kill a human.” John glares at Jester. “…for any reason.” He lets go of him, and swings around to the Russian. “No matter how good the reason is.” John glares even more coldly at the Russian. “You’re helping to destroy humanity, you know.”
“All is not as bad as looks.” The Russian says. He looks around as if to make sure no one is listening. “Come vith me.” He gestures them to follow him. He takes them to another lab. To get to it he must move a large cabinet. This is a secret lab. “Behold!” he spreads his arms to another lab of clones. “I give you the saviors of the human race.” “Great.” Jester says, “More clones.” “Not just any clones…. If I am correct, these little babies will have telepathy.” Everyone looks around as if to say, ‘So?’. “They will have the ability to speak and listen to the machines vith dere thoughts alone…” Everyone still looks lost… “No vords necessary. They vill know what the machines are thinking.” He smiles excitedly. Nobody gets it. “Great.” Kate says, “So they can take orders more efficiently.” “Not TAKE orders...” The Russian says, “…GIVE orders.”
“How?” John says. “Vith special serum.” The Russian says. “How’d you come up with dat?” Jester asks. “I told you,” the Russian says, “I am Vorlds Grrreatest Genetic Scientist!” Jester grins and says, “Well give ME some.” The Russian says, “No. No. It would have to be passed down genetically.” “Great.” Jester says. “So in twenty years, these babies can save us. Good luck keeping them alive that long.” Just then there are HUGE explosions. The machines know where they are. They are captured and taken away. But first everyone is forced to watch as both labs are destroyed. All of the clones are destroyed. It appears that there is no hope.
Everyone is pushed into a large room with hundreds of other humans. (Note: all terminators up to this point have been all metal). Inside the room is an ‘Arnold’ terminator. The Russian admires him, “Look at dee skin. Is perfect, no?” Jester looks at Arnold and says to the Russian, “THAT… is the best you could do?” Arnold scowls at him. Just before door shuts, wild boy makes a dash out the doorway and around the corner. Several of the all-metal terminators in the room shove everyone down and maintain order. The Arnold terminator holds John down, looks out the hallway and says, “He’ll be back. In a few seconds, an all-metal terminator comes in carrying Wild boy by the throat, with nine other Arnold terminators following. As he stands there facing the humans with Wild Boy’s back to them, one of the other all-metal terminators comes around and begins lashing his back with some type of electric whip. He screams. John restrains Jester. Kate shields her children’s eyes. Everyone else, turns away. After a little while, it drops the wild boy, turns and leaves. All the terminators leave. As they do, an Arnold terminator says loudly, “You will wait here for orderly disposal! If you do not,” he glares at the boy, “You will be punished.” And then he leaves closing the door.
The mood becomes very somber. John is sitting with Kate on one side and the Russian on the other. Jester is sitting on the other side of the Russian. John asks the Russian, “When we first entered your lab… what was in that hypo that Wild Boy shot up with?” The Russian says, “Vaht difference does it make?” “Just humor me.” John says. “That was my special genetic formula.” Kate leans in and looks at the wild boy and says, “So he can control machines now?” Jester says, “Obviously NOT!” Wild boy whimpers in the distance. The Connor kids try to console him. “No.” says the Russian, “…but his children would be able to.” “Not much chance of that now…” Jester says, gloomily. John begins to mutter to himself… “That’s why he couldn’t kill me…” Everyone looks confused. He nods to his children. They look up and look at him. They both nod back.
John stands up. He walks to the door. He knocks on the metal sliding window. The tiny window slides open. Arnold’s face can be seen through it. John commands Arnold, “Open the door.” Everyone is terrified. Arnold opens the door and walks inside holding a large laser rifle. He stands almost nose to nose with John. John stares at him for a few seconds. John looks down at the weapon, then back into Arnold’s eyes and says, “Give me your weapon.” Jester and the others look at each other. Arnold doesn’t move for a few seconds… then… he hands over the weapon. Jester’s mouth drops. Kate leans over to the confused, Russian and says, “You ARE the greatest genetic scientist of all time. The Russian looks puzzled at Jester. Jester is still stunned. The Russian smiles and puffs out his chest.
John turns around to face the humans. “Everyone!” He gets their attention. “I am John Connor! And we are leaving this place! On your feet!” Everyone slowly gets up, except for wild boy. He doesn’t move. He’s obviously still in a lot of pain. John goes over to him. “Kyle…” The boy opens his eyes but doesn’t move. “Kyle Reece.” John insists, “On your feet soldier!” Kyle turns to look at John. John helps him to his feet and then passes him onto Jester. John turns back to the people. He shouts, “Our future is NOT SET!” “We CAN make a difference!” “Who’s WITH ME!?!?” Loud cheers and all storm out the doorway.
Note:
When John says “That’s why he couldn’t kill me.” He could be referring to the beginning of this movie OR from Terminator III, when the terminator could not kill him, supposedly because John “rationalized” with him. I think it makes a LOT more sense that John has this “ability” to control machines with his mind. THAT is why Skynet fears HIM more than anyone else.
