"The first time a terminator comes for you makes an impression." John laughed a little mirthlessly. "But, Mom was tough, a fighter. She was nineteen, working as a waitress to pay for junior college, when they came for her because of me. She could have saved herself, terminated the pregnancy when she found out. But, she chose to raise me and teach me to fight back instead." In a way, he thought, his mother had been his entire world. Even when she'd been in Pescadero, his actions were more about being mad at her than anything else. The bus was just lucky Derek had been the one to shoot the conductor. John wouldn't have been as nice about it.
John shot her a grin. "See, a comment like that just makes me want to ask what the weirdest place Latin ever came through for you was."
Nodding as she caught on quickly, he clarified. "Bare wires that touch each other can. It's like hotwiring a car. You get sparks because the energy is passing through the bare metal. The plastic insulates it and channels the energy. I'm not sure what could have done this, though. It's like that casing just wasn't there." The only time the bus had even experienced so much as the space equivalent of turbulence and been leaving Okeano's collapse. Had that contributed, he wondered.