An Unlikely Hero and an Inconvenient Truth

An Unlikely Hero and an Inconvenient Truth

Sarah Connor grew up with an unfortunate name.

Her father, Steve Connor, was a lifelong Terminator superfan. He had DVD (and his original VHS) copies of all the movies, the director’s commentary, an unopened box of Terminator 2 action figures “for investment purposes,” and a custom ringtone that blared “I’ll be back!” at inappropriate moments, such as funerals or staff meetings.

Steve desperately wanted a son so he could name him after his cinematic idol: John Connor, future leader of the human resistance. When the son never materialized — thanks partly to his wife’s declaration that one screaming baby was more than enough — he had to adjust his plans. Surprisingly, his wife insisted the baby’s name be “Sarah,” because it was classic, timeless, and sounded nice with their last name. Steve nearly wept with joy.

“Like Sarah Connor,” he whispered, and his wife immediately regretted everything.

From that day forward, the name haunted Sarah.

The teasing started in kindergarten.

“Where’s your robot friend?”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing sunglasses?”

“Say ‘Come with me if you want to live!’”

By middle school, it wasn’t just classmates. A substitute teacher once asked her to sign his lunchbox. In college, a guy used the pickup line, So… are you from the future? Because you’ve just terminated my loneliness. (She terminated the conversation instead.)

By thirty, Sarah had stopped explaining her name. She had settled into a quiet life as an assistant librarian in the small town of Redwood Junction, where nothing more dangerous than a squirrel invasion had ever happened.

Her hobbies were simple:

Drinking tea out of mugs shaped like famous authors’ heads.

Collecting “quiet” signs in different languages.

Talking to her cat, Hemingway, who pretended not to care.

It was, in short, a perfectly boring life.

Until the Tuesday evening in October when everything changed.

Sarah was just locking the library’s front doors when the man appeared.

He was tall, rugged, good-looking, and covered in soot, as though he’d just escaped a barbecue that had gone very, very wrong. His tactical vest had scorch marks, his hair was wild, and his eyes darted like he expected ninjas to drop from the ceiling.

“Sarah Connor?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes. “Original. Let me guess — you’ve been sent from the future to warn me about the robots?”

“Yes!” he said, gripping the doorframe. “Finally. Someone who gets it.”

“Wait, what?”

He glanced over his shoulder. “They’re coming. We don’t have much time.”

Sarah crossed her arms. “Buddy, I don’t know what LARP you’re playing, but—”

The streetlights went out, and then came the sound. It wasn’t footsteps or wheels. It was a deep, steady hum, like a swarm of angry bees.

The man grabbed her wrist. “Inside. Now.”

Sarah should have screamed, run, or at least called 911. Instead, she followed him back into the library because, frankly, she wanted to see where this was going.

They crouched behind the circulation desk. The hum grew louder, and then, with a faint whoosh, something entered through the front door.

It looked vaguely human, if humans were made of stainless steel, had glowing red eyes, and walked like their knees had been installed by someone incorrectly following IKEA instructions. Its voice was metallic and oddly polite:

“SARAH CONNOR DETECTED. PLEASE REMAIN STILL FOR YOUR IMMINENT REMOVAL.”

Sarah blinked. “Did that toaster just threaten me?”

The man whispered, “It’s an infiltration unit. Very dangerous.”

“It just asked me to remain still. That’s kind of nice.”

The machine stepped forward, scanning the shelves. Its head swiveled. “COMMENCE TERMINATION.”

“Oh, okay, never mind,” Sarah said.

What followed was a very undignified chase through the stacks.

Sarah and the man ran. The robot clanked after them, occasionally pausing to shush itself when its footsteps echoed too loudly.

They turned down the biography aisle. Sarah yanked a ladder in the robot’s path. The robot briefly tripped before standing up and muttering, “OBSTRUCTION REMOVED.”

They cut through Children’s Fiction, where Sarah grabbed an oversized Curious George plush and threw it at the machine. It batted the monkey aside.

“Do you have a plan?” Sarah hissed at the man.

“Yes!” he panted. “Step one: Don’t die. Step two: Figure out step two.”

“That’s… not encouraging.”

They burst into the staff room. Sarah slammed the door, shoved a filing cabinet in front of it, and locked eyes with the stranger.

“Okay,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Name’s Cole,” he replied. “I’m from… a different time.”

“Like, the future?”

“Yeah.”

“Great. And what’s the deal with that?” She jabbed a finger toward the door.

Cole’s expression darkened. “It’s a TX-900 unit. Sent back to eliminate you before you—”

“Before I what?”

“—lead the resistance.”

Sarah laughed. Hard. “You’ve clearly got the wrong Sarah Connor.” I work in a library. The only resistance I lead is against overdue books.”

Cole shook his head. “You don’t know it yet. But you’re important.”

She groaned. “Please tell me this isn’t one of those chosen one things.”

“It’s exactly one of those things.”

The TX-900 began pounding on the staff room door. The filing cabinet shuddered.

Sarah glanced around for a weapon. The options were grim:

A stapler.

A half-empty coffee pot.

A decorative globe.

She grabbed the globe. “If I’m going to fight a killer robot, I’m at least going to do it geographically informed.”

The pounding stopped. Cole frowned. “That’s not good.”

A sharp crash came from above, as the ceiling tiles gave way. The TX-900 dropped into the room like an evil chandelier.

Sarah swung the globe. It bounced off the machine’s head with a hollow bonk. The robot paused, clearly offended.

“GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE NOT RELEVANT TO CURRENT OBJECTIVE.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sarah muttered.

The fight that followed was, by all accounts, ridiculous.

Cole tried to wrestle the machine with a mop handle. Sarah hurled mugs, binders, and, at one point, a massive thersaurs. The TX-900 advanced, announcing every step like a deranged GPS: “TURN LEFT. TERMINATE. TURN RIGHT. TERMINATE.”

“Good grief, can’t it say something else? Maybe ‘exterminate?’” she muttered.

Cole glanced at her. “Did you say something?”

“Sorry, no wrong story.” She answered as she continued looking for a weapon. “Where’s the good Doctor when you need him?”

“Who?” whispered Cole.

“Exactly,” replied Sarah as she spotted the breaker panel.

“Cole!” she shouted. “Robots run on electricity, right?”

“Uh… maybe?”

“That’s good enough!”

She darted past the TX-900, flipped the main breaker, and plunged the library into darkness.

Nothing happened to the robot.

“Sarah Connor, stop running. You can not escape your doom.”

Sarah stood in front of the machine. She was tired of the whole ridiculous situation. She picked up a heavy book on logic, preparing to hurl it at the machine.

A thought came to her.

“If you destroy me, you alter the future. But if you alter the future, you have no reason to destroy me. Which means you can’t destroy me. But if you can’t destroy me, you alter the future again, which means….”

Silence descended on the room.

“ERROR. TEMPORAL PARADOX. SHUTTING DOWN TO AVOID UNIVERSE COLLAPSE,” the robot finally proclaimed. It fell silent and all its lights went out.

Sarah leaned against the wall, panting. “So… is it dead?”

Cole knelt beside the smoking chassis. “It’s not functional.”

She stared at him. “You know, I was having a very nice evening before you and your murder blender showed up.”

Cole stood, brushing dust off his vest. “I’m sorry. But this was inevitable.”

“In what universe is this inevitable?”

He hesitated, then handed her a small, scorched scrap of paper. Two words were written in blocky handwriting:

“YOU MATTER.”

Sarah stared at it. “That’s… vague.”

“It’s the truth,” Cole said. “Maybe an inconvenient one, you are important, and whether you like it or not, the fight’s coming.”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m not a fighter. I’m a librarian. I enforce silence and recommend paperbacks.”

Cole smiled faintly. “You just took down a TX-900 with a casual loop paradox. You’ll do fine.”

He left before she could argue.

The next morning, the library board asked about the damage. Sarah told them it was “an… electrical issue” and suggested investing in robot insurance. They did not take her seriously.

Life went back to almost normal. But sometimes, late at night, she’d hear that low mechanical hum in the distance, and she’d find herself gripping the logic book she kept by her bed.

Because the inconvenient truth was this: she wasn’t just a Sarah Connor. She was the Sarah Connor.

And apparently, that came with overtime.