Tim Reese

Tim Reese is the younger brother of Kyle Reese.

History[]

The Younger Reese[]

Tim Reese was born in 2017.^[1] He got separated from his brother Kyle when he was a kid^[2] and started fighting the machines when he was just seven years old.^[1] At some point he was part of the 132nd, like his brother, although they were never part of this unit at the same time.^[3]

In 2031, young Tim was in Florida, fighting alongside Johnnie-O and his Synth-Slashers. During a mission to recover ammunitions from a Skynet base, the Slashers were killed by the machines and Tim escaped alongside young Ann. Tim carried the injured Ann to Homebase, a base thirty-five miles off Miami^[4] built around a nuclear silo and where Resistance group Sarah's Slammers, led by Commander Michael Leahy, resided.^[2] Realizing that Tim had unwittingly led the machines to their hideout, the Slammers evacuated the base by hijacking an HK-Aerial and forcing it to head back to its base for repairs. Tim, feeling guilty about having cost the Slammers their base, heard from them what happened to his brother Kyle: he had been sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor.^[3]

Tim recognized the place where the HK took them: a Skynet base the Synth-Slashers would often raid. Ann was killed by the humanoid Hunter Killers that protected the facility, that turned out to be an artificial village identical to an actual human village from before the war, where Skynet was raising and training Terminators with human brains. The Slammers managed to escape and destroy the sinister place.^[3]

The Fall of Third Base[]

Weeks later, Sarah's Slammers had been laying low in Third Base, their new hideout in the Basinger Mining Complex,^[5] an abandoned mining facility near Lake Okeechobee, Florida.^[6] Tim struck a friendship with Konrad, a synthetic member of a group of visitors from a moon base that had joined the Slammers since their supply ship had been destroyed.^[4] DIX-190, a Terminator that had been tracking Sarah's Slammers since they hit a flesh farm, infiltrated the base through an underwater tunnel and took over its systems. Konrad and Tim faced several mining drones that DIX-190 had commandeered. DIX-190 recognized Tim as Kyle Reese's brother and got ready to execute the helpless teenager, who was saved by Konrad before the Terminator could pull the trigger.^[6] Separated from the rest of the Slammers and thinking DIX-190 to be buried under a cave-in, Tim and Konrad reached an underground dock that took them to Indian River. Making camp for the night, they ran into Tama, an old Seminole woman that agreed to take them to Orlando.^[5]

After arriving in the ruins of Orlando, Tama took Tim and Konrad to meet a Resistance group that had made their base in the tunnels under the Mort Dizzy World theme park. They were led Doctor Hiram Potterwax, a scientist who, by John Connor's command, bred humans in artificial wombs hidden from Skynet's prying eyes.^[7] While the doctor repaired Konrad, Tim met Colin Savoy, an old friend of John Connor's. Savoy agreed to help Tim join up with the leader of the Resistance, assigning him and Konrad as guards in a caravan that was taking newborns to Little Rock, Arkansas, where Connor was waiting.^[8]

The Search for John Connor[]

The following day, Tim and Resistance member Johnny Go scouted ahead of the caravan and found a Terminator outpost in an abandoned baseball field. Tim recognized the leading Terminator as his old enemy DIX-190, now rebuilt and improved by Skynet as an advanced Goliath prototype. The Terminators detected Tim and Johnny and captured them. DIX-190 decided to take Tim hostage to goad Konrad to come face him and sent Johnny back to the caravan with a ghastly gift: Tim's severed tongue. Konrad went alone to rescue his now mute friend. DIX-190 didn't plan to keep his promise to release Tim and ordered the kid killed, but a sniper shot suddenly blew up the Terminator holding Tim: it was John Connor and his people, the Grizzlies. Connor personally destroyed DIX-190 and finally met Tim, who he had also been looking for.^[8]

Connor added Tim and Konrad to his forces, anticipating that the machines would launch a retaliation strike. Despite his anger and protests, Connor ordered Tim to protect the supply trucks instead of joining the fight. Connor also ordered medic specialist Marissa Powell to take care of Tim, placing her in charge of his emotional and physical recovery after the brutal mutilation he had suffered at the hands of the machines. Ten hours later, the machines arrived in force. Tim was unable to watch his new friends die, so he disobeyed Connor's order and, taking a plasma rifle, joined the defense.^[1]

From Child to Man[]

In the coming years, Tim would join the Grizzlies and get to know Connor well. He trained with Miguel "Patch" DeVerona, Connor's one-eyed right hand man, who would become his close friend. He would say that, by taking his voice, Skynet had given him a replacement: a voice of fire and steel.^[1]

Ten years later, in 2041, the now battle-hardened Tim had become an integral member of the Grizzlies. During a battle against Hunter-Killers and Skynet's Sweepers, Tim helped fellow Resistance members destroy an HK-Tank but was forced to retreat alongside the rest of the team. In a later strategic meeting, Connor decided to take the fight to Skynet's complex in Thunder Mountain. The meeting was interrupted when Tim shot dead a soldier who was mortally wounded and in unbearable pain, his cold actions stunning Marissa. The rest of the Resistance had no time to react, as they saw a massive fleet of HK-Aerials carrying nuclear bombs: it seemed the AI had decided to burn all of Earth to finally end the war. Their mission had become even more urgent now.^[9]

Hours later, the group began climbing Thunder Mountain and facing Sweepers, a slow ascent under heavy rain that cost the life of many of Connor's men. Tim had a different mission: he was part of a second team led by one of Connor's officers, Gerry Gagnon, and his mission was to blow up a power generator complex, the source of energy for Skynet. Their ascent was not easy either: Tim discovered that the road was covered with tripwires and that even nature appeared to be against them, with Jean Starr losing her life when a rattlesnake bit her and his friend Marissa and fellow soldier Lafe McWilliams dying buried under a mudslide. Tim, Gerry and Sue were the only ones to reach their target, hidden in a small hidden valley. Tim signed the rest that he would commandeer a nearby plasma cannon and use it to cause an avalanche that will bury the power station. Tim's plan was a success and the power station was destroyed, just in time to save Connor and his people from dying at the hands of the Terminators, that fell inert. The HK-Aerial fleet came down without detonating the nukes. Tim Reese had saved the world.^[9]

Many years later, in 2067, Tim Reese would write a diary about his experiences fighting the machines alongside Connor and his men.^[1]

Notes[]

The Terminator RPG provides additional detail about Tim's childhood in Kyle Reese's profile. As this material is incompatible with the events shown in the NOW comics, it's been left outside of the main profile. In the Terminator RPG timeline, Tim and his mother Mary are captured by the machines when Tim is very young and put to work at the Century Mall work camp, where Tim is reunited with his brother Kyle. John Connor himself liberates Tim and the others before Resistance forces destroy the work camp. Mary Reese is killed in the escape, Kyle joins the Resistance, and Tim and Jada Star, Kyle's young friend, are taken in by Resistance fighter Virginia Alexander.