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On the road to Anaheim, the mood in the Nissan Pathfinder is decidedly uneven. John Connor, still fresh off a disastrous confrontation with Juanita Salceda, is mentally stuck on her family's compound. His mother, Sarah, and current-girlfriend-fated-wife, Kate Parker, are there too, but having a much better time.
"I wish we could have stayed longer," Kate says. "The Salcedas seem like nice people."
"They are," Sarah replies. "They took me and John in when we really needed it. Treated us like family."
John winces. Sarah misses it, her eyes on the road, but he catches Kate watching him in the rearview mirror. She smacks the back of his chair.
"Hey, pull in here."
He looks around and spots an ABC gas station directly to his right.
"Why?"
"We need gas."
"We're half-full."
"It's another 200 miles to Disney, and most of that is highway. Based on the Pathfinder's MPG, we need a full tank."
"Makes sense to me," says Sarah. "This thing's a goddamn gas guzzler."
"Okay, okay." John pulls over.
Kate gets out of the car along with him. "Gonna get some food."
He nods. She pecks him on the cheek and heads inside the adjacent convenience store. John watches until the door swings shut behind her, then gets to filling the tank.
Sarah's shadow falls upon him. "What's wrong?"
"Huh?"
"You've been quiet since Calexico."
The tank is full. John replaces the nozzle and sighs. "Am I a dick?"
"What?"
"Am I a dick?"
Sarah sucks her teeth. "This is about Juanita, isn't it?"
"You should have seen the look on her face. She hates me."
"She doesn't hate you. She's just... hurting."
"I never wanted to hurt anybody."
"There's nothing you could have said that would have made that girl feel better." Sarah shakes her head.
John leans back on the driver's side door. "I could have said it differently."
"John, I've known some dicks in my time." Sarah settles in next to him. "I've even been the dick."
"You have?" He peers at her from the corner of his eye.
"You know I never loved any of the men after your father. Well, some of the smarter ones figured it out too." She gently touches his shoulder. "It's never fun to break someone's heart. But they deserve the truth. And that's what you gave Juanita. Maybe you could have been more gentle, but what's past is past. Don't tear yourself up about it."
He brings his hand to hers. "Thanks, Mom."
Kate emerges from the convenience store, a bulging plastic bag on her arm and an oversized plastic cup in hand. She waves it in front of John. It sloshes and rattles with ice. She smiles.
"Got you a Coke."
Weakly, he smiles back.
"I don't deserve you."
He embraces her. She wraps her free arm around his shoulders but blinks rapidly, bewildered. Softly she says, "It's just a Coke..."
"Let's go to Disneyland," he mumbles into her neck.
"Okay, sweetheart." She pats him on the back. "Let's go to Disneyland."
Roughly three hours later, deep into the night, they reach the park. An archway beckons them inside. Above it, a plaque reads, "HERE YOU LEAVE TODAY AND ENTER THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY, TOMORROW, AND FANTASY."
"Not on my fucking watch," says Sarah. She stomps through. John and Kate follow.
In the middle of Main Street, U.S.A., past the brightly lit Americana, Kate is the first to spot Sleeping Beauty's castle.
"Look at it." She shakes John by the arm. "Look at it!"
He looks. It's unreal, like a toy made life-size. An expensive toy.
"You want a picture?" he asks.
"Sure."
Reaching into his bag, he pulls out his Polaroid camera and points it at the castle. "Get in there."
Kate smiles broadly and runs into frame. She throws her hands up in the air.
"That's perfect," John says. He snaps the picture and plucks it out the slot. Kate bounces back over to him, her eyes full of wonder.
"Where are we going now?"
"Tomorrowland." Sarah bursts in with an unfolded map. "See here?" She points to a circular building. "Innoventions. 'Featuring exhibits by HP, Pioneer, and Rife Motors.'"
John and Kate exchange a glance.
"But Mom..."
"But nothing. We're here for a reason. Now come on." She heads down Main Street, U.S.A., cutting through crowds with purpose.
"Stay here," John says to Kate. He chases after his mother and, catching up to her, pulls her aside.
"Mom."
"What is it, John? You want to ride Space Mountain and buy Mickey Mouse ears and eat cotton candy?"
"Well... yeah. But I don't have to do all that. Just let me take Kate to the Haunted Mansion. Please."
Sarah looks at him and, slowly, her face softens. "Okay, John. You can have your fun." She hands him the map.
"Wait, for real?"
"Just make sure you're done in time for Innoventions."
John takes the map with a resounding "Yes!" and runs back to Kate, waving it over his head. "We're going to the Haunted Mansion!"
Kate screams with delight.
Once they make it to New Orleans Square, John has a pretty good idea where they're going. Straight on through until they hit the spooky house. He folds the map, tucks it into his bag, and takes Kate's hand. Sarah lingers a few steps behind, like a dutiful sentry... or a reluctant chaperone. He's not sure which.
The Haunted Mansion is a classic Southern manor, with white columns on its face and wrought-iron balconies. It looks well-maintained, but eerie under the light of its many lanterns.
"No turning back now," John says. "You ready?"
"I'm ready," Kate replies.
Together they step onto the porch. Through the open door and past the foyer, they enter the art gallery, which turns into a stretching room.
"Far out!" says John.
They're released through a wall into the ride proper. The carriages, known as "Doom Buggies," roll up. John surveys one.
"Think we can all fit?"
"All squished together?" asks Sarah. "No thank you." She slides into a buggy by herself so John and Kate can share one.
The safety bars come down and the ride starts to move. Disembodied voices cry for help as they pass. A medium calls upon the spirits from her crystal ball. In a ballroom, ghostly apparitions dance.
"Hold me, I'm scared," John lies. Kate eyes him skeptically, but puts her arms around him anyway.
"You're the best," she whispers.
"Nah," he says. "I just wanna do right by you."
When they leave the mansion, it's arm-in-arm, in agreement that they'd just witnessed something very cool. Sarah follows silently. John glances over his shoulder at her.
"How'd you like it, Mom?"
"It was... harmless."
"Harmless," says John. "I'll take it."
"I guess we should be getting to Tomorrowland, huh?" Kate asks reluctantly.
John sighs. "Yeah, I guess." He pulls the map out of his bag and hands it back to his mother. With a curt nod, she unfolds it and heads back in the direction of Main Street, U.S.A.
"Not for nothing," says John, "but why'd you cave so fast? That's not like you."
Sarah doesn't answer.
"Mom? Did you hear--?"
"I wanted to take your father here."
John stops in his tracks. "You did?"
"I thought we could eat hot dogs and ride the tea cups." Her hands tighten around the map. John walks up to her and puts a hand on her back. She looks at him like it's a shock.
"Would you settle for a ride with your son and daughter-to-be?"
The corner of her mouth twitches.
Appropriately located in Fantasyland, the Mad Tea Party cups spin on a series of turntables. Seated across from each other, John and Sarah wrestle over the wheel in the middle of their cup, trying to control the direction and speed.
"You can't win, kid," she says. And she's right. Her arms are way more toned than his.
"But I have a secret weapon," John retorts. "Kate! Help me out!"
Immediately, Kate puts her hands on the wheel and jerks it in the same direction as John.
"That's just cheating!" says Sarah.
"I like to call it 'teamwork,'" John replies.
"Yeah, yeah." She joins them.
They turn the wheel as fast as they can, making the cup spin in kind. John and Kate bump up against each other and laugh. It proves infectious. Sarah laughs too. Like, really laughs. It's such a rare sight that John would reach for his camera, if he didn't want to miss a second of it.
All three of them are a little dizzy when they get off the ride. John assumes that's why Sarah drapes her arms over him and Kate, to hold herself up. But then she says, "I love you kids."
"Both of us...?" asks Kate.
"Of course both of you. That's why I have to protect you." She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice is grave. "We have to go to Tomorrowland."
"I know, Mom," John says. "But can you just do one thing for me?" He holds up the Polaroid camera and points it in their direction. "Say cheese?"
She doesn't, but she smiles along with him and Kate, and that's good enough.
An eccentric robot scientist ushers guests inside Innoventions. It's really just an animatronic, more annoying than apocalyptic, and John is thankful to get away from it. A rotating platform sends everyone into the Home of Tomorrow, where pianos play themselves, doors open by fingerprint, and all TVs play the Disney Channel.
"Ridiculous," Sarah grumbles.
"Relax, Mom," says John.
"Don't tell me to relax," she snaps. "There's not going to be a home of tomorrow if we let corporate monsters like Rife go unchecked. Let's get out of here. This is a waste of time."
"It'll look weird if we break off too soon. Just... hang tight for a bit."
Eventually, the crowd starts to thin. John, Sarah, and Kate slip out through the back of the exhibit and up a flight of stairs.
"So where is this tinker toy?" he asks.
"I'm guessing over there." Kate points across the way, to Rife Motors' TINK Theater.
"No way they actually called it that." John smirks.
"It's not funny, John," says Sarah.
"It's a little funny," he replies. In fact, it might be the least intimidating name for something that could spell humanity's doom.
"Come on." She leads them to the theater. The outer walls are decorated with blueprint drawings and a timeline of development.
"Hey, look at this." Kate walks John down the timeline. "Rife's been developing robots since the 80s."
"Yeah, but it looks like they got a real leg up in 1996," John says. He points at the accompanying image. It actually looks like a humanoid, unlike the bipedal computers pictured before it.
"You're right," says Kate. "I wonder what happened."
John ponders this, but not for very long. The theater doors open, and his mother crowds them both inside, derailing his train of thought.
"Hey, hey, Mom, I'm going, I'm going!"
"Move faster," she says. "We want good seats."
The front row isn't a good spot for three wanted fugitives. Instead, they sit a few rows back, just close enough to see the woman on stage clearly. She's dressed casually and wearing a toothy grin.
"Hello!" she says. "Welcome to the show! I'm Tabitha Whitney, and you lucky folks are going to be some of the first to witness Rife Motors' newest and greatest invention. That's right, let's give a big round of applause to the Technically Innovative Neuromorphic Kinetic unit, also known as TINK!"
From stage left, a robot lumbers to Whitney's side. It's about her height, approximately five feet, if John had to guess. Slick chrome casing hides its innards, accented by teal blue shoulder and knee pads. Red eyes glow softly behind a black visor.
Someone tried to make a Terminator marketable.
"TINK is a mechanical marvel more than twenty years in the making," says Tabitha Whitney. "Its older brothers, the R-units, walked so it could run, at 6 miles per hour no less!" A hearty chuckle is met by excited murmurs from the audience.
John scoffs. Big deal. A robot that can run. He's seen one of those before. And it went a hell of a lot faster than 6 miles per hour.
"In addition to facial and voice recognition, TINK can interpret movement, posture, and gestures. This allows it to interact with humans in ways never seen before." Whitney extends a hand towards TINK. TINK shakes it, the movement stilted and slow.
Mouths drop, most in awe, but three in horror. Kate reaches for John's hand and squeezes. He squeezes back. Sarah clenches her fists on her thighs. All three of them are dumbstruck.
"Twenty TINK units currently exist, with more in production," Tabitha Whitney says.
John finds his voice. "Oh shit..."
A heavy silence blankets the trio as they leave TINK Theater. It grows more impenetrable with each second. John looks from one woman to the other. Kate's wringing her hands anxiously, while Sarah's hiding her rage behind a deep frown. He wants to comfort them. He'd say it's not so bad, but it's pretty bad.
It's Kate who speaks first. "What do we do now?"
"We have to burn this place to the ground," Sarah murmurs.
"Mom no," John says through gritted teeth. "Do you realize where we are? We're at fucking Disneyland. The Happiest Place on Earth? You really think we can get away with blowing shit up?"
"That thing needs to be destroyed."
"We know where that thing is. It's not gonna hurt anyone. It's a show pony. What we need to figure out is where the hell the other nineteen are."
Sarah puts her head in her hands and lets out a deep sigh. "You're right. You're right."
"I think we should go to Detroit," says Kate.
"Detroit?" asks John.
"They don't call it the Motor City for nothing."
"Then you think--"
"We storm Rife headquarters."
John feels the need to temper expectations. "There's no guarantee the other TINK units will be there."
"Maybe not," says Kate. "But even if they aren't, we'll be able to gather intel, maybe find out how they got that 'leg up' in 1996."
"I like it," says Sarah.
The quiet tension gives way to soft anticipation. They leave Tomorrowland and march towards their next mission. Heading back down Main Street, U.S.A., John notices Kate fall behind. He turns to check on her, and sees she's taking one last look at Sleeping Beauty's Castle.
"I'm sorry," he says.
She gives him a doe-eyed stare. "For what?"
"Sorry I couldn't just give you a normal night at Disney."
"John, I had fun."
"Yeah, it's always fun until the robots show up."
"Hey." She takes his hands in hers. "I'd rather fight robots with you than see Disneyland with anyone else."
"Kate..."
They kiss. It would be the perfect time for some fireworks, but life isn't perfect. It doesn't make the moment any less precious.
"Maybe we could come back some day?" Kate asks hopefully.
"We can bring the kids," John says.
"And tell them how we got Grandma to laugh on the teacups."
"It's a deal."
They smile at one another. Kate nods, and John knows she is ready. Time to go be freedom fighters together. Hand-in-hand, arms swinging, they walk away, as lovers and soldiers.