⚝──⭒─What We Make For Ourselves─⭒──⚝

Chapter 6: Def Leppard

Reyna observes her surroundings. Her time-traveling had burnt a hole through a metal fence topped with barbed wire. The fence surrounded a large, two-story sandstone building with the blue and white symbol of the local police gleaming proudly in the moonlight.

Porcaria. Silent alarms must be going off inside, no doubt. Reyna throws a stone at one of the windows, hoping to cause a distraction and sneak in simultaneously. Nothing, not even a dent. Bullet-proof windows, of course.

Reyna takes cover behind the front entrance as it swings open.

"Hands up!" A female police officer threatens in the night sky. She loosens her weaver stance when she realizes no one was there to threaten.

Without missing a beat, Reyna slips inside and begins to close the door, then stops. If she closes it, she could lock the officer outside, but the officer would be able to call for help. Reyna would have to lock the officer inside and disarm her.

As soon as the officer shuts the door behind her, Reyna lunges, knocking the officer to the tile floor. Reyna winces as the officer's head hits the tile floor with a sickening crack. She didn't mean to take her out, but she had to get the job done.

Nevertheless, Reyna dons the officer's clothes, shoes, and bulletproof vest. She hooks the officer's pistol and extra bullets to her belt. For extra precaution, Reyna hides the officer in a nearby janitorial closet.

First, Reyna heads to the surveillance room, which was across from the closet. Dozens of screens display camera feeds from several rooms. With a few buttons and the click of a mouse, Reyna puts the cameras on a loop, replaying the quiet night two hours prior to her arrival.

Next, she steps into an elevator and heads to the top floor of the building. Maybe there were files and recent sightings of John. It would be easier to track him down from there. Reyna's hand rests on her pistol even though she was probably the only conscious person in the building. When the elevator reaches the top, a room full of computers and desks waits patiently for her. She sits at the first computer she sees and wiggles the mouse.

Good evening, Wallace Jones. The screen glares back at Reyna with its brightest setting. She actually had to shield her eyes from the glare. Please enter your password to proceed.

Reyna punches Wallace's desk, leaving a shallow dent on its polished exterior. What was she expecting, an unlocked computer at her disposal? She shakes her head and types in the most commonly used passwords.

password123. Access denied.

wallacejones#1. Access denied.

wallacejonespassword#123. Access denied. You have one last attempt before system shutdown.

Reyna overturns Wallace's keyboard out of frustration, gritting her teeth. No, her mission couldn't end here, not when it just started. She needed to know John's whereabouts.

Out of the corner of her eye, she notices rough handwriting scrawled on the bottom of Wallace's  keyboard. She studies it and gasps.

Computer Login: D3f_L3pp@rd

There were more passwords and logins underneath the computer login. Wallace had written all his passwords on the bottom of the keyboard! So much for a police officer. She punches in his login. She was in, finally.

She clicks on The National Registration Database, what she assumed to be the computer's program for record searching. It prompts Reyna with another password. She glances at the bottom of the keyboard and types in the corresponding password. In, again.

Reyna types 'John Connor' in the search bar. She groans when the computer displays thirty-seven other John Connors. She refined the search to his birthday: February 28, 1985. Only one John Connor pulls up. She clicks on his profile.

Though he didn't have an official portrait, a recent snapshot from a security camera made up for it with its grainy quality, so she couldn't see what her General looked like when he was younger.

She skims over his past charges: vandalism, shoplifting, trespassing, nothing major except for breaking and entering into Cyberdyne Systems ten years ago. She scrolls past slow-motion recordings of him on his motorcycle, entering and exiting freeways, walking down the streets, and purchasing items from gas stations, mostly with his head low. Reyna selects the most recent recording of him, which shows him on his motorcycle entering a freeway. The recording was too blurry for her to read the sign to his right. She refines the quality of the recording, even slowing it down for her to read the sign:

 Welcome to New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment!

She looks at the time it was recorded. 10:32 P.M. The clock on the computer read 10:47 P.M.

Reyna wipes the computer clean of her record-surfing and heads for the armory, which she had passed by on her way to the office. A regular pistol wouldn't terminate a Terminator. She selects a rifle, strapping it across her back, along with its corresponding ammunition. Reyna exits out the back entrance of the station, where rows of police cars were lined up neatly. She climbs into the first car and scrounges around the glove compartment for any spare keys. Her hand wraps around the keys and another pistol, which she straps to her thigh. As she closes the compartment, something else rattles inside. She pulls out a pair of aviator glasses, which she happily puts on despite the lack of sunlight. Reyna jams the keys into the ignition and pulls out of the station.