Chapter Summaries

William explained Umbrella’s power to Kellit and arranged for him to contact the resistance leader, while Cortana infiltrated the Artificial Intelligence and found its central core and Time Machine. William ordered his troops toward the Time Machine near Los Angeles, hoping to destroy it and meet John Connor.

• William told Kellit that Umbrella’s forces answered only to him and that he wanted to meet the resistance leader for information about the Artificial Intelligence.
• Kellit agreed to report the encounter to his superiors, and William directed him to Lieutenant Colonel Hudson to arrange contact with the resistance.
• John placed Cortana’s chip in the Central Control Console, and Cortana entered the Artificial Intelligence’s system while Serena explained why it would not detect her immediately.
• Cortana found the locations of the Artificial Intelligence’s central core in Colorado and the Time Machine near Los Angeles, then shared their coordinates.
• William ordered Serena to send the troops from the Concentration Camp to destroy the Time Machine and recover the Artificial Intelligence’s data, saying he expected to meet John Connor there.

William led John Connor, Kellit, and the Imperial Guards through the mountains northeast of Los Angeles to meet the Resistance leader. After John tested their strength with hidden defenses, he met William and acknowledged that Skynet could not match his army.

• William sent Imperial Guards and Shark Company to escort the concentration camp prisoners to Boulder City, while the Terminator-armored troops waited for orders to attack Skynet's central hub.
• William and Kesha led John, Kellit, and hundreds of Imperial Guards toward Los Angeles, defeating the Terminators they encountered along the way.
• Kellit guided William's force through the forest to a Resistance hideout, where concealed soldiers and unmanned turrets aimed at them.
• William ordered Mylon to confront a Resistance officer and warned John Connor that resistance would only make matters worse.
• John Connor emerged from the cave, greeted William, and said that seeing his army made him understand why Skynet was no match for him.

William told John Connor that he knew Skynet’s Time Machine and central core locations and planned to destroy both. He explained that John’s existence depended on the time-travel events that led to Skynet’s creation, leaving John to consider whether destroying the Time Machine would erase him.

• William asked John Connor whether destroying Skynet’s Time Machine would make John disappear, and John invited him into the Resistance base to talk.
• William entered the base with Carl, while John and Mylon stayed outside and Kesha descended after deactivating her Biological Field.
• John Connor asked William and Carl to remove their helmets, then questioned how William knew about Skynet’s Time Machine and John’s background.
• William showed John Serena’s chip and explained that Umbrella’s AI had helped him locate the Time Machine and Skynet’s central core, which he planned to attack that night.
• William named Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese as John’s parents and described how Kyle’s trip to the past, the T-800’s remains, and Skynet’s creation formed the time-travel paradox behind John’s existence.

William explained that John Connor and Skynet were bound to disappear without each other, but John agreed to lead the Resistance in destroying Skynet even if it cost him his life. William and the assembled forces set out for Skynet’s Time Machine, leaving the story as their operation began.

• William told John Connor that he and Skynet depended on each other, and John accepted that destroying Skynet might mean his own death.
• John asked to lead the Resistance alongside William’s troops in the operation to destroy Skynet, and William agreed.
• William left the Underground Base with Carl and Serena, then explained that Skynet’s Time Machine likely opened a passage to a parallel universe rather than returning to the past.
• John Connor led armed Resistance members out of the cave as vehicles emerged from a concealed mountain gate.
• William ordered the Imperial Guard and Resistance to advance toward downtown Los Angeles, with John and Mylon leading, Carl watching for threats, and Kesha creating a Bio-Shield.

William led an assault on Skynet’s pyramid in Los Angeles while John Connor and most of the Custodes stayed beneath Keisha’s Bio-Shield. After cutting through Skynet’s defenders, William reached the sealed entrance and prepared to enter the structure containing the Time Machine.

• Serena reported that Skynet’s forces across and beyond Los Angeles were converging on William’s position, so William ordered Keisha to expand the Bio-Shield.
• William sent John Connor and Mylon with six hundred Custodes to clear Los Angeles, while Carl led two hundred Custodes with William toward the pyramid to recover Skynet’s Time Machine technology.
• John Connor kept the Resistance troops under Keisha’s shield as William and Carl’s force advanced, destroying Terminators with their weapons and Serena-controlled Floating Guns.
• A Custodes sergeant split a T-47 with his Chainsword, while William and Carl used their Beam Sabers to destroy nearby Skynet machines.
• At the pyramid’s sealed gate, William ordered Custodes to use corrosive-acid explosives, which burned an entryway through the metal.

William led Carl and two hundred Imperial Guards into Skynet’s pyramid facility to reach the Control Room and Time Machine. They fought the Terminators inside, and Carl destroyed the giant T-Meg with an electromagnetic sniper shot while William rushed ahead to the Central Control Console.

• William and the Imperial Guards entered the pyramid through a gate corroded by acid made by 049.
• Serena identified the route to the Control Room and warned William about the Terminators defending the facility.
• William’s group encountered T-850s, T-900s, and the enormous T-Meg, which William recognized as a powerful memory-metal guardian.
• William ordered Carl to target T-Meg and the Imperial Guards to cover her as they opened fire on the Terminators.
• William vanished to reach the Central Control Console before Skynet could erase its data.
• Carl fired her Electromagnetic Sniper Rifle through T-Meg, causing the metal spider to stop and explode.

William fought and destroyed Skynet’s experimental T-2000, then reached the Control Room to copy data about the Time Machine. He ordered the Terminator Imperial Guard to teleport to Skynet’s core as Carl led the remaining troops toward him.

• Carl killed Tmeg with a single shot and rallied the Imperial Guards to finish off the remaining T-850s and T-900s.
• Serena warned William about an unknown Terminator with powerful magnetic force, which the system identified as an experimental T-2000.
• William used Super Speed, Beam Sabers, and Plasma Grenades to destroy the T-2000 before forcing open the Control Room doors.
• William placed Serena’s chip on a processor so she could copy Skynet’s Time Machine data.
• William ordered the Command Center to send the Terminator Imperial Guard to Skynet’s core using Individual Teleportation.

William coordinated the assault on Skynet’s central core, then led Carl and the Custodians to destroy the Time Machine beneath the pyramid. The explosions devastated the facility and nearby Terminators while Keisha’s Bio-Shield protected the assembled fighters.

• The Terminator Custodians reached Skynet’s central core, and Serena reported that she had copied everything and that Skynet was displaying fear and anger.
• William met Carl and the Custodians, then led them to plant more than ten high-yield Plasma Bombs around the Time Machine.
• William gathered the resistance fighters and Custodians inside Keisha’s barrier and told Keisha to shrink it around them.
• The Plasma Bombs destroyed the pyramid facility, and their chain reactions triggered a second, more powerful explosion that engulfed nearby Terminators.
• Keisha’s Bio-Shield protected everyone inside, and the resistance fighters cheered at the close-range explosion.

William and his forces were transported from the Resistance universe back to Hafa after destroying Skynet, and the dimensional passage closed behind them. As William prepared to resume life aboard the Invincible, Serena and Keisha both invited him to dinner and began arguing over who was copying whom.

• William delayed the system's teleportation long enough to consider John Connor's uncertain future, then ordered the transfer to begin.
• The system transported William and the people from Terminator: Resistance to Hafa, where Serena confirmed that the dimensional passage had closed.
• William attributed the sudden return to a human-friendly anomaly and ordered Umbrella personnel to lower their alert level, return to the Invincible, and leave a small monitoring team behind.
• John, Carl, Mylon, Robert, Hudson, Hicks, and Prus led their forces back to the Invincible while technicians and armed personnel stayed to monitor the passage.
• William asked the system whether his subordinates would notice the arrival of 1.5 billion people, and the system assured him their memories and identities would seem natural.
• Serena and Keisha both offered to take William to dinner, then accused each other of copying them.

Kesha and Serena argued over rewards after helping William, who promised Kesha a future reward and took Serena to Halifax City. After directing Serena to upload Skynet’s research and asking Rebecca to study its Living Skin and TX technology, William reached Rebecca’s office in the Hive.

• Kesha and Serena each claimed credit for helping William, and William promised Kesha a reward but declined to take her to dinner.
• William left the Endless with Serena and ordered her to upload Skynet’s technical documents, restricting access to the Time Machine data.
• Serena told William that Dr. Chambers was still working in the Hive, and William asked her to have the doctor examine Skynet’s Living Skin and TX technology.
• William and Serena flew to Umbrella General Hospital and entered the Hive beneath it.
• William dismissed their security escort and went with Serena to Rebecca’s office, where Rebecca opened the door.

William asked Rebecca whether Umbrella could create a human using its Living Skin technology and an AI inside a mechanical skeleton. Rebecca explained that artificial ova were unsafe and genetically flawed, leaving William to conclude that only gods or God-class Anomalies could create a reproducing species.

• Rebecca welcomed William and Serena to her office and discussed Umbrella's Living Skin technology and the TX model.
• William asked whether Umbrella could create a conscious human body without cloning, and Rebecca said woven bodies could not possess independent consciousness.
• William proposed combining a T-900 or TX skeleton with living human tissue and an Intelligent AI chip, then asked whether the company could make an artificial ovum.
• Serena realized William wanted to give artificial intelligences the ability to reproduce and thanked him for supporting her and the others.
• Rebecca explained that artificial ova could cause severe genetic diseases and would not produce healthy, long-lived children.
• William concluded that only gods or God-class Anomalies could create a species capable of reproducing on its own.

William visited The Hive’s fourth-floor laboratory area with Serena and inspected its security and elite UBCS guards. He asked to see the facility’s contained anomalies and its imprisoned D-Class personnel, beginning with the prison for those classified as “scum.”

• William asked Serena whether she wanted a human-like body, and she chose to keep her current prosthetic body.
• William told Rebecca to use information from The Hive to improve Living Skin and T-X technology for operations in the colonies.
• William and Serena took the elevator to The Hive’s fourth floor and passed through its Absolute Slaughter laser corridor.
• The facility’s Artificial Intelligence identified William and Serena, and they entered the fourth-floor area guarded by the elite Vespa Company.
• William asked a lieutenant to show them the contained anomalies and the D-Class prison, and the lieutenant led them toward the prison.

William and Serena observed four D-Class personnel being injected with a newly developed Nanite Serum during an experiment in the Hive. Serena explained that the serum’s side effects were unknown, leaving the prisoners’ fate uncertain.

• William spotted technicians escorting four D-Class personnel from their detention unit and went with Serena to observe the experiment.
• William and Serena watched as the technicians disinfected the prisoners, restrained them in an isolation chamber, and injected them with a grayish substance.
• Serena checked the prisoners’ records and found that they had committed serious crimes, including sexual assault, drug trafficking, and murder.
• Serena identified the injected substance as Rebecca Chambers’s latest Nanite Serum, which could heal wounds and repair bones but had unknown side effects and caused immune rejection.

William observed Rebecca’s New Nanite Serum experiment, which killed three D-class subjects while one survived, and ordered the research team to keep testing the survivor. Serena then made an advance on William, and he agreed to pleasure her without considering it cheating.

• Serena explained Rebecca’s role in developing the New Nanite Serum, and William watched four D-class subjects receive it.
• Three subjects died from severe rejection reactions, while the fourth survived and was taken away for further experiments.
• William told Serena to have Rebecca’s team use the surviving subject to test more viruses, vaccines, and serums.
• Serena sat on William and confessed that she had long wanted physical intimacy with him.
• William said they could not have sex in the full sense but agreed to another kind of physical pleasure, while privately rationalizing that Serena’s cybernetic body made it different from cheating.

William returned home troubled by what happened with Serena, but Halsey recognized his guilt and forgave him. He then told her about the events in the Terminator: Resistance universe, and she concluded that his arrival had broken Skynet’s time-travel death loop, leaving John Connor free of the fate that had bound him to Skynet.

• William returned Serena to Umbrella’s apartment building, then flew back to the seaside manor and worried that his encounter with her counted as cheating.
• Halsey was still awake in their bedroom and asked William whether Serena was troubling him.
• William confessed that he had lost control, and Halsey forgave him while warning him not to let it happen again.
• William told Halsey about his forces’ experiences in the Terminator: Resistance universe, including Skynet’s T-800s, T-X, and Time Machine.
• Halsey reasoned that Skynet had created a death loop binding John Connor and Skynet, and that William’s arrival had broken it.

William and Halsey discussed avoiding time-travel technology while using Living Skin and Terminator technology to support agents. Halsey planned to build Ivan a Power Armor suit and MS, along with an AI housed in a T-X, and the couple went to sleep after joking about setting up their son.

• Halsey advised William not to develop time-travel technology because it could trap their universe in a repeating cycle.
• Halsey and William agreed to use Living Skin-covered T-800s to assist agents and T-X units to work with Ghost Agents.
• Halsey proposed designing Ivan a Power Armor suit, an MS, and a dedicated AI housed in a T-X, and William agreed.
• William helped the tired Halsey into bed, then changed into pajamas and joined her.
• William felt less guilty about Serena after talking with Halsey and resolved to treat his wife well.

The morning after completing the Resistance mission, William reunited with his family and promised Halsey he would not repeat his actions from the previous night. He arranged specialized mecha for Ivan, while Yelena secretly headed to Umbrella First Military Academy to meet Li Lie instead of going shopping with classmates.

• William woke beside Halsey, worked out, and prepared breakfast for his family.
• At breakfast, William told Ivan about defeating Skynet, and Halsey and William offered Ivan specialized Power Armor, an MS, and a new Artificial Intelligence.
• Yelena said she was going to the mall with classmates, while William and Halsey spent the morning walking around the estate and working.
• Yelena left in her red Flying Vehicle and headed toward Umbrella First Military Academy to meet Li Lie.

Yelena visited Umbrella First Military Academy and met Principal Li Mu in his office. She told him that her father had finished handling an abnormal phenomenon and that her mother was resting during her pregnancy.

• Umbrella First Military Academy continued training its freshmen and second-year students through the summer.
• Yelena arrived at the academy, and a Marine Corps soldier contacted Principal Li Mu for permission to let her in.
• An instructor escorted Yelena by SUV to Li Mu's office.
• Li Mu welcomed Yelena and asked how her parents were doing.
• Yelena said her father had finished handling an abnormal phenomenon the previous day and her mother was resting and focusing on her pregnancy.

Yelena asked Li Mu about Li Lie, who was away on a confidential summer internship as an agent. Meanwhile, Li Lie joined a mercenary group escorting an archaeological team to an abandoned Romanian castle, where the group prepared to begin its expedition.

• Yelena visited Li Mu and asked whether Li Lie could join her for lunch, but Li Mu said he would be away until September on a summer internship.
• Li Mu assured Yelena that Li Lie and the other student agents had emergency support, though he admitted their safety was guaranteed only in theory.
• An archaeological team and its mercenary escorts reached an abandoned castle north of Moldoveanu Peak in Romania.
• Li Lie worked undercover as a rookie mercenary in Flynn's ten-person group, which had former UNSC soldiers and a history that included the Battle of Baghdad.

Li Lie and Flynn’s mercenary team secured an ancient castle so Professor Quell’s archaeology group could camp there and begin excavations. Li Lie learned that the site was said to be Vlad III’s tomb and asked Quill about its connection to Dracula.

• Flynn led Li Lie and three other mercenaries through the castle, confirmed it was safe, and let the archaeology team set up camp in the courtyard.
• Professor Quell told Flynn that the castle was the tomb of Vlad III and asked the mercenaries to escort the researchers during the excavation.
• A female demolitionist teased Li Lie in the military tent, but he rejected her advances and suggested she try Mickey instead.
• After Quell left the tent, Li Lie asked him whether Vlad III, whom he knew as Dracula’s prototype, was buried at the castle.