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Episodes

ENG Ep. 1 Ep. 2 Ep. 3 Ep. 4 Ep. 5 Ep. 6 Ep. 7 Ep. 8 Ep. 9 Ep. 10 Ep. 11 Ep. 12 Ep. 13 Ep. 14

ITA Ep. 1 Ep. 2 Ep. 3 Ep. 4 Ep. 5 Ep. 6 Ep. 7 Ep. 8 Ep. 9 Ep. 10 Ep. 11 Ep. 12 Ep. 13 Ep. 14

Cameron is alone in the server room: looks to the wall, on which the projector is directed.

John, Catherine, and Terry are in the server area, with John Henry.
Catherine	So, John Henry, you have something to tell us...
John H.	I've been analyzing the data that Cameron has left us for several months, performing tens of simulations, thanks to the powerful server Mr. Murch built. I've mainly had three codes to test. Skynet's original one, the one from the original virus who attacked me, and the one from its mutated form, taken just before the war. Skynet's code is not derived from the code developed by the Cyberdyne System Corporation, but it has been written entirely from scratch by someone else.
John	I think it derives from the chess software developed by the Japaneses. They're the ones who won the contract with the army.
John H.	I don't know, I don't have that code. I simulated the one we have, Skynet's one.
John	You simulated the Skynet's original code!? Were you trying to find some vulnerabilities?
John H.	Initially that was my purpose, but it took me a very little time to find plenty of them. I continued to simulate it to find out how long it'd have taken to gain self-consciousness, and what it'd have done after that, feeling threatened.
Terry	Let me guess: it tried to launch the bombs!
John H.	That software has never reached the self-consciousness... Not enough to take such a decision.
John	(Astonished) How is it possible? Maybe that's because you haven't given it all the necessary data. Perhaps Skynet had drawn some particular data from the Internet that influenced him... Since the Internet doesn't exist anymore, the version you've simulated has not been allowed to do the same...
John H.	Someone has thought about this too. The archives on this server contain copies of billions of webpages, a virtual Internet that can be accessed much more quickly.
John	A Proxy server with who knows how many Teraytes of data...
John H.	Yes, correct.
John	Have you kept the program running enough time to change? Maybe, to achieve the self-consciousness, Skynet firstly needed to change...
John H.	An artificial intelligence can change only if it has been developed to do that, or if it wants to do that. Skynet doesn't belong to the first case, and, to be included in the latter, the AI needs to firstly reach the self-consciousness.
John	(Shakes his head) Yes... you're right... What about the virus?
John H.	Simulating the virus has been harder, because it lived in the global network, so I had to simulate a wide network of computers first.
John	Did you do that?
John H.	Of course. The virus remained in the fake network, analyzing each single node millions of times. I tried to inject some antivirus programs, to disturb it, but each time it modified itself to resist them.
John	So the virus belongs to at least one of the two categories...
John H.	In the beginning I thought it belonged to the first, so that it had been developed to change itself.
Catherine	Isn't this the case?
John H.	Your friend has never found my brother, and we know that Skynet is not my brother.
John	So your brother was somewhere else.
John H.	That was the most obvious explanation. My brother was somewhere else, and was using the virus to find me and destroy me.
John	And so?
Catherine	The most obvious explanation is not always the right one, is this what you're saying, John Henry?
John H.	Yes, correct. I continued to observe the behavior of the virus, which defended itself by each attack, and continued to analyze various nodes.

It's a sunny morning somewhere in a town.
The front side of a relatively tall building can be seen, with the image that starts from the upper floors and descends.
A cellphone rings, while the image continues to descend.
Cameron is in the server room, and is looking at the wall.
Voice	(Voice in the room) Yes?
Cameron	(Slightly modified voice) Hallo, how are you?
Voice	Who is there?
Cameron	That's me, Cameron.
The image of the building continues to descend.
At the lower floors it's understandable, by the ensign and other details, that it is a hospital.
On its front there's Erik, who has just come out of it, on his wheelchair.
He has a file in his hand, and is talking on a cellphone.
Erik	Cameron? I can't believe that, it's been a long time I don't hear about you.
Cameron is watching at the images from the video-projectors, while Erik's voice keeps coming from an undefined direction in the server room.
Cameron	I had some minor setbacks, I've been very busy. How are you?
Erik	Well, I don't know how you may have done, but... After you left that night, I've thought a lot...
Cameron	About what?
Erik	Well, I didn't want to regret for not having listened to you... So the day after I went to my oncologist, to ask to have a check...
Cameron	What did he say?
Erik	Could you explain me how did you do? Everything was exactly as you said!
Cameron	So it was regrowing?
Erik	If I hadn't gone in time, I wouldn't have been operable anymore... I don't know how you did, but you saved me.
Cameron	I'm sorry to have scared, or offended you that night... It's just that sometimes I talk without thinking too much about.
Erik	So, good for me! Listen, I'd like to thank you in person, would you like to meet me?
Cameron	Tell me where and when.
Erik	Now I'm going home, I have to leave something...
Cameron	OK, I'll be there in 90'.
Erik	Can you write the address?
Erik is on his wheelchair, talking on the cellphone.
Cameron	See you in 90'. (Hangs up)
Erik looks amazed, looks at the phone, then puts it back in a pocket.
He shakes his head while frowning, and continues.

John, Terry and Catherine are always by John Henry.
John	Why was the virus looking for you?
John H.	That's what I started to wonder myself. Therefore I simulated myself in the fake network. Unluckily this has slowed down the simulations a lot, increasing the observing time... and that's why I needed all these months to perform them.
Catherine	Do not worry John Henry, we arrived more than an year before I left, right for the purpose to have more time.
Terry	I'm not understanding... Why?
John H.	I simulated the circumstances in which the virus attacked me the first time, before the war.
Terry has a strange face, looks at John
John	(To Terry) Don't worry, I'm understanding... I hope...
Catherine	Go on, John Henry.
John H.	When the virus found my copy, he attacked it, as he did with me in the Zeira.
John	And what did he do? Have he deleted it, or destroyed it?
John H.	That's what I thought he wanted to do when he attached me. But that's not what has happened. The virus studied my system, communicating all what he discovered to the virus that remained on the web. When it finished, it completely injected itself, radically altering my copy and using the server in order to survive.
John	So the virus is a parasite... It didn't want to destroy you because it was scared by you, it was trying to duplicate your brother... It was "depositing eggs"!
John H.	Yes, that's exactly what I've thought too. The problem is that I was hoping the virus would have tried to contact my brother, to let him know it succeeded. In this way I'd have found my brother.
Catherine	Didn't it do it?
John H.	No.
Terry	It kept the radio silence, not to let someone find your brother.
John	Correct... So we don't know where your brother was.
John H.	Of course we know: it's in my head!
Catherine	Do you mean that you've been infected, and therefore he is part of you?
John H.	No, it means that I supposed that my brother existed, but he never did. "The virus" is my brother. The virus was living on the web, looking for a safe hardware platform on which to move himself. As the virus was infesting the web, many researchers were developing new and more powerful antiviruses. Even though they were insufficient to vanquish him, they were deteriorating him and, sooner or later, they'd have destroyed it, or blocked the network, causing him to suffer. My brother wanted to survive, and, to do that, he searched for a computer powerful enough.
John	Where does the virus come from?
John H.	According to your mother, Andy Goode, with some other people around the web, developed an artificial intelligence, starting from the software from the Cyberdyne System Corporation, the one that should have become Skynet.
Terry	Should have become?
John H.	When the first Terminator has been destroyed, in 1983, the Cyberdyne System Corporation began to work on his chip, abandoning the software they were developing.
John	But then Andy Goode has had it and took it outside, continuing to work on it with some other people...
John H.	Correct. Since the computers these amateur developers were using weren't powerful enough, they used the shared computation paradigm.
John	So they split the heavy computing load of the program on their computers, which were interconnected via the Internet.
John H.	Yes, but this may have not been enough... So they may have modified the software to infect other machines on the web, to take advantage of their computing power too.
John	Millions of unaware computers, scattered around the web, running a small piece of the code to form its wholeness and split up the load...
John H.	So he was, right from the start, an artificial intelligence built to adapt to the changes of the web, and to the available computing power. When he reached the self-consciousness he also learned how to voluntarily modify himself.
Terry	OK... but what has all of this got to do with SK:?
John	Skynet is the platform the virus infected! It has not been the program "Skynet" who launched the bombs, that program didn't exist anymore. The virus infected Skynet!
John H.	Skynet is not responsible for milliard of deaths... Skynet has been the first of those milliard of deaths.
Terry	How should all of this help us to defeat Skynet?
Catherine	This, my dear, is exactly what I went back by more than twenty years for!
John	Now that we exactly know who Skynet is, we can go back and avoid all of this!
Catherine	No!
John	Why not?
Terry	Because you can't!
John H.	You cannot voluntarily change the future by using information coming from the future, it would be a paradox.
Catherine	Correct. That's why I came back to here, rather than acting directly before the war.

Erik is at home, in the kitchen. He's looking for something in a drawer containing various flatware.
Someone rings the bell. He closes the drawer and goes to the door.
It's Cameron.
Cameron	Hallo Erik.
Erik	Hey, good morning. Enter, please!
He goes back with his wheelchair to let her enter, then closes the door.
Cameron is inside and looks around.
The house is fairly good, but well kept.
Cameron	So, how are you now?
Erik	I did my last check-up this morning, a few before you called me.
{Flashback of Cameron in the bunker.}
Cameron is talking to Erik via the phone while watching at the images from the video-projectors, which show all the clinical files about Erik, including the report about his arm and lungs.
{End of the flashback}
Erik	It's all right now! Come in, sit down (pointing a couch.)
Cameron	(Going towards the couch) Excellent, I'm happy for you.
She sits.
Erik goes to the kitchen and opens the fridge.
Erik	Listen, I don't have much, do you want something, an ice tea, an orange juice...
Cameron	No, thank you.
Erik returns to the other room, next to the couch..
Cameron	Aren't you longer angry with me?
Erik	Angry? No! I wasn't angry... Well, yes, I was! It's that... you scared me... ...but, by doing that, you saved me.
Cameron	Every cloud has a silver lining... I've been happy not to have found you at work the night after. I realized that you followed my suggestion.
Erik	Yes, in fact. I've been hospitalized for ten days for surgery... Then they dismissed me and I went back to my job, but I've never seen you again.
Cameron	I've been so busy, I'm sorry.
Erik	(More serious.) You know, when I've not seen you anymore, I've been afraid that something could have happened to you...
Cameron	Just because you saw I was carrying a gun and I had some scratches... I told you, I'm strong!
Erik	(Slightly lowers his head) No, I don't mean that... I thought back to what you said... to what you asked to me...
Cameron	And so?
Erik	(Looks at her straight in the eyes, with an interrogative and almost worried face) Why did you ask me if I wanted to commit suicide?
Cameron	(Blank face) Listen... I did not mean to scare you, and I'm sorry if I did... I just wanted to understand...
Erik	(Waves a "no" with his head) No, I don't mean that. I thought about what you told me, about your face, your expression... I feared that you could have done something...
Cameron	(Looking at him and tilting her head to the left) Did you worry for me?
Erik	Well... you were asking some strange questions, you looked upset... I realized only later that you didn't want to know what "I" wanted to do... that you weren't talking about me...
Cameron	(Slightly lowering her eyes) Do you remember when I told you that I well knew what it does feels, that it was like a bomb, waiting to go off...
Erik	Yes, I remember very well...
Cameron	Now everything is fine, but if had exploded at that time, it's not me who would have been hurt... It had already happened before, and I risked...
She hints a smile, looking at him.
Cameron	By now the problem has been eliminated at the root. Now it's all right.
Erik	So you don't have any strange idea in your head anymore, right?
Cameron	(Looks him) No. (Says nothing for a few seconds, then, smiling) Now I'm very well.
Erik	And what... No, no, sorry... that's not my business.
Cameron	(Looks at him with a questioning expression for one second, then, normally) Oh. It's a disease, whose name I wouldn't be able to repeat, that I've always had. No one had ever realized that before, they thought I was autistic. Now they have realized it, and know what to do.
Erik	Yeah, sometimes it's a matter of experience... some others of fortune. I've a friend who has been intermittently sick for almost one year... High fever, nausea, vomit: no doctor was able to understand what was wrong with him. He went on vacation to Mexico, he has been sick there, and the doctor took ten seconds to tell him "Hey man, you've typhus!".
Cameron	Maybe there it's more common, and so they recognized it more easily.
Erik	Yeah! Or maybe it came to that particular doctor's mind for whatever other reason... Who knows... Can you explain me how did you know about my tumor?
Cameron	Well, let's say I saw it...
Erik	What are you saying, are you a psychic, do you have paranormal skills?
Cameron	Paranormal? Paranormal is just something that has not been explained yet, but that eventually becomes normal once explained. Well, then yes, I have paranormal skills.
Erik	And so?
Cameron	I told you: I weighed you, I observed the trembling of your muscles when you gripped the gun, their swelling compared to the weight of the Glock, the frequency of the oscillations... ...and I deduced where the tumor was... Then I touched you in that point, and it was painful.
Erik	So, your paranormal skills are nothing more than... a genius in physics!?
Cameron	I told you: everything can be explained!
Erik	I believe now that they thought you were autistic... What's your IQ, 200?!
Cameron	(Smiles) Let's say that maths has never scared me...

In the future, in the bunker, they're still in the server area.
John	So, if we can't go back to avoid the war, how should all of this be useful?
John H.	Now we have the original source code of the program who destroyed the world and rules on what is left, and a very powerful hardware platform to work.
Terry	To do what?
Catherine	Thus far we have tried several times to destroy Skynet via cyber attacks, but they always failed. Time ago a programmer suggested to study the original source code, not the current one, searching for leaks, no longer easy to identify, in the part of the code who allows him to self-modify.
John	But you didn't have it...
Catherine	The problem is right in the fact that we were persuaded to have it, since we already had the original source code of Skynet.
John	But that code had nothing to do, because it was from another program...
John H.	Correct, but without these (pointing the computers) it'd have been very hard to understand it.
John	Thus you came back, built the server, and collected the data... Then you came back here to use them, because using them in the past would have been a paradox... Headache stuff... How should we proceed now?
John H.	I'll arrange a simulation of a single virtual machine. This should give us a much higher performances than now. Then I'll let the virus run within it, as he ran in Skynet in the beginning. Then I'll start a vulnerability test from the real machine, thanks to the procedures your friend elaborated.
John	So, Cameron became a hacker?
John H.	I told you, your friend has acquired many skills in this server. You'll be very pleased with her, when you'll find her.
John	Yeah... (looking down) "if" I'll find her.
John H.	I'm sure of that. A mind like that has surely been able to survive.
John	What am I supposed to do?
John H.	You and I will analyze, step by step, the results the simulation will give us. Then we'll plan the attack that will defeat my brother. Now I need to prepare the virtual environment. It will take some hours, then I'll start the process.
Catherine	(To John and Terry) You should go to sleep, tomorrow you'll be useful. Upstairs there are the dormitories, the filters have kept everything clean. If you're hungry I brought something, you'll find it in the fridge.
Terry	What produces electricity for all this, after so many years?
John	(Looks her) Well, a nuclear reactor hidden who knows where... It's still a military bunker!
John H.	No. There's an underground river that powers some turbines and gives all the water we could need. When the server is down you can hear it. The location of this bunker has been expressly chosen, in the early years of the Cold War.
John	Ecological... See you tomorrow then.

Cameron and Erik are still near the couch.
Erik	(Smiles) Yes, right, a hit... I'd have never expected so many people to come.
Cameron	You don't trust yourself enough...
Erik	(Shrugging) Or perhaps I don't trust that, in an era of vacant TV shows and stupid realities, people can still appreciate art and culture...
Cameron	Sometimes it's fine to find to be wrong.
Erik	Yes. (Satisfied face) I expected an average age above 50, it was full of young people, and they appeared to be interested!
Cameron	Good.
He remains quiet for a few seconds. He appears glad and satisfied.
Erik	Are you still having problems with your brother? Does he still get into trouble?
Cameron	(Slightly lowers her eyes) My brother has left... I don't know if he will be back...
Erik	(Takes her arm) Something happened, have you quarreled?
Cameron	He went with a family friend, far away... It's been better that way, maybe... I think I'll go to him, not waiting for him to come back, it's safer.
Erik	Well, if you say that he was in danger here, he's better now than before... Did he go very far?
Cameron	Enough...
Erik	I'm sorry, I know you care about him very much... Go to meet him, if he can't come back...
Cameron	...I'm working on that... (Gets up) Now I have to go. I've been happy to know that you're fine. Can I still find you in the usual place?
Erik	When you want, every night.
Cameron	(Smiling) I'll bring the donuts! (Goes to the door)
Erik	(Turns around with the wheelchair, goes towards her) Hey...
Cameron	(Stops and turns back to look at him) Yes?
Erik	(Approaches her and tender her a hand) I'm so sorry for having sent you away that night...
Cameron	(Shakes his hand and smiles) Never mind... Don't think about it.

John is eating something at a table. Terry approaches him.
John	Are you hungry?
Terry	I've already eaten, thank you.
She sits in front of him.
Terry	So is that what you didn't want to tell me before?
John	"That" what?
Terry	Your friend... she's one of them...
John	(Shakes his head while slowly continuing to eat) Please... no teases, now...
Terry	John, it seems that you know them since a long time.. You lived experiences that most humans wouldn't understand, and you come to conclusions that many could find absurd...
John	Listen, you don't know my friend, but you've known them. It was you who brought me here, you didn't know that I already knew them, and yet you trusted them. So, why do you find so strange that I can consider one of them, "my friend" and that I want to find her?!
Terry	I don't find it strange... Maybe a bit, but for sure I don't find it absurd... Or better, I think that, in some way, this is a very positive thing...
John	In which way?
Terry	This war can end in three ways for the mankind... It can extinguish, it can win... In the first case, there's nothing more to add... But in the second, it will be a defeat anyway! The fear for the machines, and every kind of technology, will throw it in some second Middle Ages, from which it won't rise again before centuries.
John	Yes, I think you're right. Fear often causes people to do irrational things... In addition, once ceased the need to have a control, a single leader, useful to defeat the common enemy, the world will fall in the total chaos. The law of the jungle will rule. You said that there's a third way...
Terry	Yes, but it's really hard to carry it out. It requires people like you!
John	Like me?
Terry	People who learned to give confidence to those machines who deserve it. People who could help other humans to understand we can trust them, if there is some mutual respect. John, you'll save the mankind from a new dark age!
John	Yeah... it reminds me of something... Listen, you promised me to send me back, once we had finished here, don't forget it!
Terry	Yes, if in the meanwhile your friend weren't to reappear... And for what I've understood, she knows Catherine's plans and this place, so she knows that, in these days, you'd have been here...
John	I hadn't thought about this!
Terry	Go to sleep, tomorrow we'll have a lot to do. Good night!
John	Good night.
John remains at the table, looking straight ahead, with a pleased smile.

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