hey guys, i'm back!!!! whew, this chapter is LONG, and it took me a while to get it finished. but it is finished, so i hope you enjoy chapter 3:)
DISCLAIMER: i do not own T2. i only own Kylie Connor
Detective Weathersby slapped a black and white photograph on the table in front of him. The image was a nightmare from the past. It was a surveillance camera still-frame from the L.A. police station where the first terminator made such an impression in 1984. The picture showed the blurry form of a cop frozen in the emergency lights of a burning corridor. A black-clad figure stood at the end of the corridor. The guy had short-cropped hair and dark glasses, an AR-80 assault rifle in one hand, and a 12-gauge in the other -- holding them both like toy pistols. Weathersby slapped another photo on top of the first.
It showed the Terminator as he loomed in close up. "These were taken at the West Highland police station in 1984. You were there" Weathersby was saying to Sarah. Weatherby's partner, detective Mossberg, and Dr. Silberman, sat at the table as well. Two uniformed cops, plus Douglas, stood by the door. Sarah stared listlessly at the top photo. She was withdrawn, haggard... drugged-looking.
"He killed seventeen police officers that night. Recognize him?" Mossberg asked. Weathersby sighed and slapped another black-and-white eight-by-ten on the table. This one was a closeup of the Terminator taken by the tourist at the mall. It's the same face. "This one was taken by a tourist today" Mossberg continued. Sarah didn't react. It was hard for the men to tell what she was thinking, or Whether she was up hope or just in a drugged stupor.
"Ms. Connor, you've been told that your son's missing. That his foster parents have been murdered, and we know this guy's involved. talk to us. Don't you care?" Weathersby said, desperate to get Sarah talking. Sarah stared up at him. a cold and empty stare. He glances at Silberman. then at his partner.
"We're wasting out time" Mossberg mumbled. One of the uniformed cops opened the door and Mossberg strode into the hall. Weathersby and the two uniforms followed him out, with Silberman right behind.
"Sorry, gentleman..." Silberman told them. Sarah stayed seated in the chair, slumped under the bright lights. Totally out of it. Then she slowly lifted her hand, creeping along the edge of the table toward the stack of photos. She slipped off the paper clip binding the stills together, and hid it between her fingers. Douglas then jerked her up by the arms and lead her out of the room.
in Sarah's cell...
Douglas inched up the last of Sarah's restraints. then he leaned over her, looking down. Even wrecked as she is, it was easy to see the beauty in her face. Douglas slowly bent down, almost as if he was going to kiss her. Instead he ran his tongue across her face like a dog would. Sarah seemed not to even see him, her dull eyes looking past him. He couldn't provoke a reaction. Even here, strapped down, the two of them alone, she gave him no superiority. He smirked and left, the sound of his night-stick tapping its way down the corridor ringing loudly, growing fainter. suddenly Sarah's eyes snapped open, alert. There was intensity and resolve in them. She slipped the paper clip out from between her fingers and awkwardly spread it open into a straight piece of wire. With slow, painful concentration she moved it toward the lock of the restraints that bind her wrists to the bed at her sides.
the Terminator, John, and Kylie charged through the night on the Harley, Streetlights flaring past them like comets. two serious guys and a hot chick with a mission. one a ten-year old kid, the girl being his older sister, and the other a half-man/half-machine cyborg from the post-Apocalyptic future.
back in Sarah's cell...
Sarah finally unlatched the restraint, successfully picked by her paper clip. That was not an easy thing to do, but she had taught herself a lot of things in her years of hiding. Sarah, her hands free, sat up and released the Velcro straps on her feet. Then she rolled off the bed, totally alert, and almost feral in her movements.
In the hospital's guard shack, a bored security guard glanced up as an LAPD black-and- white car pulled up. He raised the barricade and nodded to the T-1000/cop as it passed. The cruiser pulled in next to the other police vehicles. The T-1000 then walked toward the main entrance.
meanwhile, Sarah was using the paper clip on the door lock. She could hear an echoing tapping sound. It was getting louder, coming her way. She quickly went back to work on the lock.
in the corridor...
Douglas the attendant was tapping his stick along the wall like he did every night on his rounds. He shined a little mag-light in the windows of the cells as he passed, barely slowing. He rounded the corner, his footsteps echoing in the dark hallway. The tip of the stick hit the wall; Tap, tap, tap... getting closer to Sarah's cell. He stopped at the door, about to shine his light in, when he noticed that a utility closet across the hall was open. He went to shut it, absently flicking his light into the dark closet.
He noticed something strange among the buckets and cleaning supplies. A mop lie on the floor, with its handle snapped off about halfway up. The other half was missing. Douglas pondered this for half a second, then heard a sound behind him, making him spin around. The sound he heard was Sarah's cell door. The missing two feet of mop handle filled his vision as it cracked viciously across the bridge of his nose. 250 pounds of doughy attendant hit the floor like a sack of cement.
Sarah then slammed the makeshift baton down expertly across the back of his head, bouncing him off the linoleum. lights out, Douglas. She dragged him into her cell and locked him in with his own keys, then swapped her mop-handle for his nice, heavy night-stick. She then continued to move down the dark corridor, cat-stepping in her bare feet. She held the baton like a pro, laid back along the forearm, police- style. She looked dangerous...
A long corridor ended at a reception area, which was closed, and a night receiving desk, which was a glass window where they could buzz you in through a heavy door. A night nurse typed at a desk nearby. She looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw a young cop (the T-1000) walking toward her. "You have a Sarah Connor here?" the T-1000 asked. The nurse assumed he was with the other cops, and smiled.
"Running late, aren't you?" she asked, turning to the inner door to buzz him in, just in time to see Silberman and the cops coming toward the door from the other side. "Your friends are on their way out now..." the nurse said as she turned back to the window, surprised to see that the "cop" was no longer there. She went to the counter and leaned out to see if he was at the drinking fountain or someplace. no, Reception was empty. And so was the long corridor beyond.
She frowned. too weird. Silberman then came through the solenoid door with Mossberg and Weathersby, the two uniformed cops, and the hospital security guard. The guard retrieved his 9mm pistol from a lock-out box behind the night desk, Silberman facing him. "Lewis, see these gentleman out and them lock up for the night" Silberman said. The security guard nodded, and Silberman went back into the secure area of the hospital as the cops walked down the long corridor to the main doors. no sign of the T-1000. Mossberg and the other cops exited, and Lewis locked the door behind them.
he walked slowly back along the long corridor. The hall was dark, with the light at the night desk far ahead like a sanctuary. His footsteps rang hollowly on the tile floor, His keys jingling loudly. Suddenly, the floor started to move. It shivered and bulged upward like a liquid mass, still retaining the two-tone checkerboard of the tile. It hunched up silently into a quivering shadow in the darkness past the guard. Up ahead, the night nurse was busy typing. she had her back turned, working. Lewis stopped at the drinking fountain, bending to take a sip. Behind him, the fluid mass reached six feet of height and began to resolve rapidly into a human figure. It lost the color and texture of the tile and became... Lewis.
The T-1000's mass had been spread out a quarter of an inch thick over several square yards of floor. When Lewis had walked over the T-1000, his structure had been sampled that instant. now the T-1000 drew in and pulled up to form the figure of the guard. The T-1000/Guard's feet are the last to form, the last of the "liquid floor" pulling in to form shiny black guard shoes. The shoes detached with a faint sucking sound from the real floor as the T-1000/Guard took its first step. Lewis spun at the sound of footsteps to see... himself. He had one deeply disturbing moment to consider the ramifications of that, Then his double calmly raised its hand and, inexplicably, pointed his right index finger directly at the real Lewis's face, about a foot away. In a split second, the finger speared out, elongating into a thin steel rod which snapped out like a stiletto, slamming into the guard's eye. It punched into the corner of the eye, past the eyeball like a trans- orbital lobotomy tool, and emerged from the back of the guard's skull. Life quietly emptied from the guard's face. He was dead weight, hanging from the rod/finger, which suddenly reacted --
SSSNICK.
As the guard slumped, the T-1000 took his weight easily with one hand and walked him, like it was carrying a suit on a hanger, back toward the night desk. The wounds were so tiny, no blood dripped onto the floor. The night nurse glanced up as the T-1000/Lewis walked past, dragging something casually which she couldn't see because it was below the countertop. "Whatcha got, Lewis?" she asked.
"Just some trash" the T-1000 said casually. She nodded, uninterested. The T-1000 moved past, dragging the unseen guard toward a closet down the hall from the night receiving station. The T-1000/Lewis removed the Browning High-Power pistol and the keys from the real Lewis's belt, then stuffed the body into the utility closet.
at the night recieving desk...
T-1000/Lewis went back out and glanced at the nurse. "All set" the T-1000 said. the nurse glanced toward him, seeing the Beretta in his holster.
"Gotta check the gun first, Lewis" she said. the T-1000/Lewis nodded slowly.
"yeah, sorry". It opened Lewis' locker and blocked it from the nurse's view with its body as it mimed putting the gun in. but instead of setting the gun in the locker, it inserted the pistol into its own chest, where is disappeared inside like it was dropped into a pot of hot fudge. It withdrew its hand, The chest once again a surface that looked like cloth, buttons, name-tag etc. You'd ever guess it was really an intelligent liquid metal being. The T-1000 slammed the locker door and waited as the nurse hit a button, unlocking the door with a
BUZZ-CLACK.
then the T-1000/Lewis went through.
There was a small room before a short sally-port corridor designed to prevent violent inmates from making a run for it. There were doors at each end. The first one was barred like a jail-cell door, and the second was a steel fire door. The attendants had a video monitor with which they could see the corridor on the other side of the doors. The two bored attendants barely noticed the T-1000/Lewis as it approached. It looked briefly at a chart next to the door, seeing Sarah Connor was in #19. In the isolation ward, the T-1000 passed a nurses' station which looked like a cage, walled in by heavy metal mesh.
Silberman, leaning in the open doorway, was talking to an attendant in the cage. He didn't glance twice as the T-1000/Lewis passed by. Sarah, moving like a ghost in the darkened corridor, heard footsteps coming and quietly but quickly unlocked a cell next to her with Douglas' master key. She slipped into the cell and waited as the footsteps passed. the T-1000/Lewis passed the window. Sarah waited as the footsteps fade away. She looked over. a female inmate, strapped to a bed, watched her with bird-like eyes. Sarah put a finger to her lips – "SSHHH". The inmate nodded as Sarah left.
Meanwhile, Silberman, yawning, looked at his watch. He turned to go... but Sarah was there. She slammed into him, hurling him through the door into the cage and followed him in. The orderly jumped up, going for his stunner, but Sarah nailed him with Douglas' baton.
WHAP!
WHAP!
WHAP!
the thing was barely visible, Sarah was swinging it so fast. The guys went down. Silberman lunged for the alarm button and she cracked down hard on his arm. He cried out and grabbed his wrist. She grabbed him by the hair and slammed him face down on the desk, smacking him behind the knees expertly with the baton. His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees with his chin on the desk. She pinned him with one hand. His face was full of outraged disbelief.
"You broke my arm!" Silberman yelled.
"There's 215 bones in the human body, motherfucker. That's one. Now don't move!" Sarah sneered. Moving rapidly, she whipped open a medication drawer and grabbed a syringe. They kept a few of these handy for tranking unruly patients. Sarah jammed it into the orderly's butt and fired the whole shot. Still holding the empty syringe, she saw what she needed next. They also kept the toxic cleaning supplies in there to keep the inmates from drinking Drano. She grabbed a plastic jug of liquid plum'r and slammed it down on the desk inches from Silberman's eyes. She jammed the empty syringe into the plastic jug and drew back the plunger.
The syringe filled with blue liquid. She whipped it out of the jug and jammed the needle into Silberman's neck. His horrified eyes racked toward it. 10 cc's of blue death fill the cylinder. Her thumb hovered over the plunger. She jerked Silberman to his feet by the collar and got a tight grip on him, then hauled him through the door. In the corridor outside cell #19, the T-1000 stopped and looked in the window. Douglas, his face a bloody mess, yelled to be heard. "Open the door! The damn bitch is loose in the halls!" To Douglas' amazement, the T-1000/Lewis turned impassively and walked away, leaving him shouting soundlessly at the window.
Outside the hospital, the Terminator, John, and Kylie approached the guard gate on the Harley. They could see the guard inside look up at the sound of the engine. "Now remember, you're not gonna kill anyone, right?" John said.
"Right" the Terminator replied.
John looked at him. He wasn't convinced. "Swear" he said.
"What?" the Terminator wasn't sure what John meant.
"Just hold up your hand and say "I swear I won't kill anyone" Kylie said, holding her hand up, like she was being sworn in. the Terminator stared at her for a minute, then mimiced the gesture.
"I swear I will not kill anyone" he said, lowering his hand back down. Then he stopped the bike and got off. the guard, sensing trouble, had his gun drawn as he came out of the shack. the Terminator walked toward him, drawing his .45 smoothly.
BLAM!
He shot the guard accurately in the thigh. The guy dropped, screaming and clutching his leg. the Terminator kicked the guard's gun away, then smashed the phone in the shack with his fist. He pushed the button to raise the gate and walked back to the bike. he looked at John and Kylie."He'll live". the Terminator climbed back onto the bike and drive toward the hospital, heading down an ambulance ramp to an underground receiving area.
meanwhile...
The attendants at the security checkpoint looked up at the monitor as someone entered the corridor. They saw Sarah, holding Silberman at syringe-point. Sarah spoke to them through an intercom on the wall.
"open it or he'll be dead before he hits the floor!". The attendants' adrenaline levels had just gone off the scale. The first attendant shook his head no. The amperage there was really high. The second attendant, a woman named Grace, keyed the intercom switch.
"There's no way, Connor. Let him go".
Silberman's face was the color of suet. "It won't work, Sarah. You're no killer. I don't believe you'd do it" he said.
"You're already dead Silberman, everybody here dies. You know I believe that. So don't fuck with me!" Sarah hissed. "now open the damn door!" The attendants looked at one another, hesitant. one of them hit the solenoid button, making the far door unlock. In the lookout corridor, Sarah pushed Silberman ahead of her. The nearer, barred door had to be unlocked manually. Grace cautiously approached and nervously unlocked the door. "Step back!" Sarah snapped.
Grace did.
Sarah faced her and the other attendant, Robert. "down on the floor! now!"
They complied. She went through with Silberman, giving them a wide berth. She slowly started backing down the hall away from them, still holding her hostage. She couldn't believe she was actually pulling this off. At that moment, a third orderly lunged from around the corner, grabbing Sarah's syringe hand. she spun on the orderly and caught him across the throat with the nightstick. He lost interest fast, dropping to his knees and gagging. Silberman pulled away, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Get her!"
The orderlies scrambled up as Sarah took off like a shot around the corner. One of them hit the panic button and alarms began to sound. In the isolation ward, the T-1000 was looking in at a very stoned attendant inside the nurses' station when the alarms shrieked through the halls. It reached into its chest and pulled out the 9mm pistol, heading for the security entrance.
in the maze of the vast hospital, in another corridor, Sarah flew down the hall, her bare feet slapping on the cold tiles. The orderlies charged after her. She was like an animal in a maze. She turned the corner, glancing off the wall, and sprinted on without slowing. She reached a steel door and tried to open it. locked. She could hear footsteps behind her. She fumbled with Douglas' keys, breathing hard. finally jamming the master key in. The orderlies were bearing down on her at full tilt.
Sarah got the door open, ran through, and slammed it. She turned the deadbolt knob just as the first orderly grabbed the latch on the other side. He was too late. Sarah saw them beyond the window, fumbling with their keys. She was already in another sally-port corridor. A jail-cell type barred door was between her and the corridors of the ward beyond. She sprinted to the walls of bars, jamming her key into the door. She unlocked and pulls open the door just as she heard the latch of the one she just came through being unlocked. She flung herself frantically through the barred door as the first orderly came through behind her. She slammed the bars shut.
CLANG!
Her keys were dangling from the lock on the other side from her. The orderly was racing at her, white-lipped with rage. She reached back through the bars, turned the key, and purposefully snapped it off in the lock. An instant later the big orderly slammed against the door, grabbing through the bars for her as she danced back just out of reach. He lunged against the steel bars, unbelievably pissed off. Sarah took off running, looking back at the frustrated orderlies. They were shouting at each other, unable to fit their keys into the lock -- The broken-off key tip made it impossible to get their keys in. Silberman was shouting at them.
"Go around, damn it! Go around!!" The orderlies ran back the way they came, and along a cross-corridor to another set of doors. Meanwhile, Sarah rounded a corner and saw the elevators ahead. Now she's home-free.
At a full-tilt sprint, she was nearly there when the elevator doors parted...
and the Terminator stepped out... his head swiveled to face her. Sarah reacted, stricken by the image from her worst nightmares. Her eyes widened as momentum carried her forward. Her bare feet slipped on the slick tile, and she slammed to the floor, staring up at the leather-clad figure with the shotgun. She lost all semblance of courage and some of her sanity. She wasn't even aware that she was screaming, or what she would be screaming if she could get the breath to do it. In what felt like slowed-down dream-time, Sarah scrambled back along the floor like a crab, spinning and clawing her way to her feet along the wall. She ran like the wind, like in her nightmare. If she had looked back she would've seen John and Kylie step warily out of the corridor behind the Terminator. The siblings, however, caught a glimpse of the fleeing Sarah and figured out instantly what happened.
"Mom!! wait!" John called, but Sarah didn't hear him. She had clicked fully into her own nightmare. John and Kylie took off running after Sarah. She was pelting down the long corridor, back the way she had come. as she reached an intersection with a cross-corridor, a white-clad figure blurred from that corridor. The orderly hit her in a flying tackle. She skidded across the floor, shrieking and struggling. The other two orderlies leapt into the fray.
"No! Help me! Damn it, it's gonna kill us all!!!" Sarah was screaming, shouting, pleading, trying to get them to understand what was coming. They grabbed her thrashing arms and legs, not even looking where the out-of-control woman was pointing... back along the corridor. They had pinned her to the cold tiles, a ring of faces above her. Silberman leaned down to her, holding a syringe with a heavy dose of trank. Sarah craned her neck and saw the dark silhouette of the Terminator coming up behind them. It was exactly her nightmare. She screamed in utter hopelessness. the Terminator, holding the shotgun in one hand, reached down and grabbed one of the orderlies with his other hand. He hurled the 200-pound guy against the far wall of the corridor.
SMACK!
The guy dropped to the floor. The other two orderlies reacted instantly, leaping onto the intruder. the Terminator seemed to disappear for a moment under the two big guys. Then there was an explosion of white-clad figures, as the orderlies were flung outward like they stepped on a land mine. One crashed through a window of safety glass and was caught before a two-story fall by the outer steel bars. The other one crashed through an office door, splintering it into kindling. While that was going on, Silberman had jumped to hold Sarah. He was grabbed by a roll of skin at the back of his neck and lifted like a cat.
The doctor felt his feet pedaling above the ground and turned to look into the expressionless face. and that as when it hit him. Sarah was right... this guy wasn't human. He felt the fabric of reality crumbling. Then he felt himself flying through the air. The wall smacked him, then the floor kicked him in the face. He decided to lie there a second. Sarah blinked, staring up at the figure looming over her. John and Kylie suddenly knelt next to her.
"Mom, are you okay?" Kylie asked. Sarah looks from the Terminator to John and Kylie. back to the Terminator.
"Is this a nightmare? Or have i finally gone truly mad?" she thought.
Incredibly, the Terminator politely reached his hand down to her, offering to help her up. The last thing she ever expected to see.
"Come with me if you want to live" he said, repeating the words he'd said to Kylie earlier. The orderlies just stood there, stirring.
"It's all right, Mom. He's here to help" John said. Sarah, in a daze, took the huge hand in her shaking fingers. the Terminator lifts her to her feet. Kylie turned and saw a guard standing thirty feet away, on the other side of the walls of bars. John followed his sister's gaze, and felt that something wasn't right with the guy. the Terminator turned to look too. the T-1000 had its pistol in its hand, at its side. the Terminator pushed John and Kylie behind him. then they all started backing up slowly.
the T-1000 walked forward, reaching the bars. It didn't stop as its body divided like jello around the bars. as it squeezed itself through like metal playdough, its surface reformed perfectly on their side. it deformed and squeezed through like a viscous paste forced past an obstacle. meanwhile, Silberman had recovered enough to be sitting up and watching this. That faint snapping sound is his mind. CLANK! the T-1000's gun had caught against the bars... the only solid object. the T-1000 turned its wrist and tried again, slipping the gun endwise through the gap. Sarah was agape, not reacting. It had been a heavy day for her.
the Terminator suddenly raised the shotgun and started backing up faster. "Go! Run!" he said.
Sarah didn't need to be told twice. the T-1000 walked toward them, opening fire with the Browning Hi-Power. the Terminator straight-armed the 12-guage like a pistol and fired. The stunned orderlies flopped face down on the floor as the corridor wasfilled with high-velocity lead. One of them, stupidly running for the cross-corridor, got hit by the T-1000. the Terminator was hammered by several slugs, and the T-1000 was cratered by two buckshots hits. It staggered, but kept coming. In the craters were bright pools of mercury before the craters closed and resealed, disappearing in a second. the Terminator made it around the corner and broke into a run.
ahead, Sarah, John, and Kylie were already at the elevator. the Terminator ran in and Kylie slapped the button for "Garage Level". The doors started to close as the T-1000 cleared the corner. the Terminator slammed John and Kylie back against the side walls as the T-1000 charged at them, rapid firing the Browning. The rounds hit the steel doors as they closed. the T-1000 kept pumping them at the closing gap. Inside, they saw the backside of the doors denting with the hits that were punching holes in the other side. The Browning locked open, empty. the T-1000 dropped it without a glance back as the doors closed.
K-WHAM!
the T-1000 hit them a split second later. The elevator hadn't moved yet.
SSWWIKK!
a sword-like blade rammed through in between the doors, forcing them open. the Terminator jammed the shotgun through the widening gap, punching the muzzle right into the T-1000's face --
BOOM!!
the T-1000's head was blown apart by the blast. It was hurtled back as the doors closed. the T-1000 stood frozen outside the elevator. Its head, which was blown apart into two doughy masses lying on the shoulders, reformed quickly. There was no trace of the injury. It saw the closed door and jammed its hands between them, its fingertips becoming pry-bars. It pulled the doors apart with inhuman strength and leaped into the open shaft. It falls two floors and... in the elevator, the three humans and the machine hear a loud thump on the roof. the Terminator, reloading the shotgun, looked up. Sarah grabbed the .45 from his waistband and aimed it at the ceiling. then
CLANG!!
a swordlike shaft punched through the ceiling and speared down four feet into the elevator car, inches from Sarah's face. she opened fire,
BAM
BAM
BAM
right through the roof. Lighting-fast the lance withdrew and thrusted down again, slashing the Terminator's jacket, and missing John by inches. the Terminator chambered a round and
K-BOOM!
the 12-guage opened a hole in the ceiling. the Terminator rocked out in a fury of firing/cocking/firing as the metal shafts slashed down again and again. Kylie yelled in pain as one of them sliced open the back of her right shoulder. A few seconds later, the doors opened, and Sarah pulled John out as soon as the gap was wide enough. They emerged into the basement where the Harley was parked nearby. the Terminator, in a rearguard action, fired another blast through the ceiling and ran out, pulling Kylie along behind him. He then threw his leg over the Harley, kicked it to life with one powerful stroke and whipped something out of the inner pocket of his jacket. He threw it to John.
"a road flare!?" Kylie cried, her eyes widening. In the elevator, the T-1000 had bashed a hole in the ceiling big enough to... Pour itself through. a massive blob of mercury extruded from the opening. the mass dropped through the hole, down out of frame, then it forms the T-1000. it seemed to need just a second to get its mental act together after doing its king of taffy-pull with itself. It opened its eyes and saw – the Terminator, the shot gun held in his teeth, astride the roaring Harley twenty feet away. the Terminator twisted the throttle and popped the clutch. The back tire screamed on the concrete, and the front wheel lifted off the ground and the heavy bike launched in a thundering wheelie. the Terminator got off just before the bike hurtled into the elevator. the Harley slammed the T-1000 square and smashed it right through the back wall of the elevator.
the Terminator got to his feet just as John struck the flare on the concrete and tossed it. the Terminator caught the life flare with one hand, leveling the shotgun with the other. with his last round, he blew a big hole in the bike's gas tank. gas splashed everywhere, covering the struggling T-1000. then the Terminator tossed the flare.
KA-VOOOM!
the explosion knocked the Terminator backward off his feet, enveloping him in the fireball. He got up, smoking, and ran after John, Sarah, and Kylie toward the exit ramp. They are partway up the ramp when a blue-and-white hospital security car came screeching down the other way. Without breaking stride Sarah ran right at the car. It skidded to a shrieking halt. She was in the guy's face with the .45 in both hands.
"Out of the car!!" she yelled. the patrol guy was thinking what he could try when
BLAM!
she put a round through the glass next to his head. "right now!" The door opened and the guy was coming out with his hands up as the Terminator arrived. The cyborg flung the rent-a-cop out of the way and slid behind the wheel. Sarah and John got into the back seat as Kylie dove into the front passenger seat, seconds before the Terminator slammed the car into reverse and punched it, lighting up the tires on the slick ramp. He then handed the shotgun over his shoulder to John and told him to reload it. John pulled some shells from the pocket of his army jacket and started feeding them in. the Terminator powered backward up the ramp, scraping along one wall, barely in control. Meanwhile, the T-1000 was running at them out of the inferno below.
"This guy won't quit!" Kylie thought, watching as the T-1000 shifted from chrome mode to cop-form as it ran. It sprinted up the ramp after the retreating car, gaining. the Terminator handed Kylie another magazine for the .45. She snatched it, dropped the empty one out, and slapped in the new one. cocks the slide. the car backed along the service driveway toward the security gate as John handed the shot gun back to the Terminator. the machine leaned out the window and took aim at the pursuer. the T-1000's face was right in the headlights as the Terminator fired, blowing a hole in its shoulder. shiny liquid metal was visible in the hole, which then closed. Kylie, half out the passenger window, opened fire.
The car crashed backward through the security barricade.
"Hang on" the Terminator said calmly as he cut the wheel, hard. the car slewed into a reverse 180, swapping ends with a screech. the T-1000 was almost on them. the Terminator punched it, causing the car accelerate forward. the T-1000 leaped, and landing on the trunk. Its hand was a metal crowbar, slammed down through the trunk lid. feet dragging on the pavement, it slammed its other hand down, punching another metal hook into the trunk lid, pulling itself up. the Terminator turned to Kylie. "drive" he said, heaving himself half out the driver's window. Kylie slapped her foot down on the throttle and steered from the passenger side. the T-1000, fully on the car now, held on with one hook-hand while it slammed the other into the back window, sweeping away the glass and missing John by inches as he ducked. It drew back for another swing, lunging forward as the Terminator whipped the shotgun over the roof of the car, firing point-blank. The shot hit the T-1000's arm just above the "hand", which anchored it to the car.
The 12-guage blew the arm apart, severing the hook-hand. the T-1000 tumbled backward off the accelerating car. John looked out the back window, his eyes wide. He saw the T-1000 roll to its feet and continue running. But it was dropping way behind. Kylie had the car floored and the liquid-metal killer wouldn't catch them on foot. John watched, in awe, as the "crowbar hand", stuck into the trunk right in front of him, reverted to the neutral polyalloy... a kind of mercury. the gray metal slid off the trunk of the car and fell onto the road to lie there in a quivering blob as the car sped off into the night. the T-1000, walking now, was watching the tail lights recede. It looked down at the liquid metal blob. next to it is the T-1000's shiny cop shoe. the mercury blob crawled and rejoined the main mass, disappearing into the "shoe".
Meanwhile, the security car blasted out of the darkness on a long stretch of moonlight highway. headlights off, the car punched a hole in the wind. Inside the speeding vehicle, the energy was still high. The icy air was blowing in the shattered windows as the Terminator drove the car easily by electronic night-vision.
"can you see anything?" Kylie asked.
"I see everything" the Terminator replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Cool" John murmured.
Sarah looked at the Terminator, still not quite believing what was happening. but this was a different Sarah than the waitress of 1984. She spent only a second or two dealing with the unbelievable. Then she turned to John.
"You okay?" she asked.
John nodded.
Sarah reached for John and he thought she was going to hug him. instead, she started to rub her hands over him, and he realized she was checking for injuries, very clinically the way a vet checks a dog for broken bones. He pulled away from her. he hated her always checking him, treating him like he might break, like some piece of rare china.
"I said I was okay" he said.
Sarah looked at him, exasperated and stern. "It was stupid of you to go there" she sneered. John stared at her, surprised. "damnit, John, you have to be smarter than that. You're too important! You can't risk yourself, not even for me, do you understand? I can take care of myself, I was doing fine. geez, John. You almost got yourself killed". Kylie glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her brother's chin quiver. She knew he was a tough kid, but all he really wanted was for Sarah to love him. He hadn't had enough years on the planet yet to be the man of steel she demanded.
"I... we had to get you out of that place... I'm sorry, I..." His face crumpled, and he started to cry.
Sarah gave him a cold stare. "Stop it! right now! You can't cry, John. Other kids can afford to cry. You can't".
"hey mom, lay off!" Kylie snapped. She could tell John was trying to be brave, he really was. Kylie felt like crying. "geez, John's just a kid, try to be understanding!! This is a lot of baggage for a 10 year old, so just… please, back off!" tears were welling up in her eyes.
the Terminator turned and saw the water leaking from her eyes. It didn't make any sense to him. he slowed the car and reached over to Kylie, putting his hand on her chin and turning her to face him.
"What is wrong with your eyes?" he asked. Kylie blushed and turned away, embarrassed.
"nothing" she mumbled as he pulled his hand away from her face. She turned to look out the window, her blush deepening. Sarah let her breath out, realizing how keyed up she was. She looked at the Terminator, giving him a wary once- over. "So what's your story?" she asked.
Back at the mental hospital, the cops have shown up, as they always did. there were black-and-white cop cars everywhere, and ambulances were arriving. two cops and an orderly were required to subdue poor Doctor Silberman, who was raving at the top of his lungs;
"... it was all true and we're all going to die!! he changed, I saw him change!!" It was quite pathetic. a nurse shot him up with a sedative, then they lead him away. the T-1000 walked, unperturbed, among the milling cops. no one noticed as It slipped into a cruiser and drove off into the night.
meanwhile, the Terminator drove steadily into the black night.
"This T-1000... what happens when you shoot it?" Sarah was asking.
"Ballistic penetration shocks it, but only for a few seconds" the Terminator answered. Sarah thought about that for a minute.
"Can it be destroyed?" Kylie asked.
"Unknown" the Terminator said, glancing at her. Kylie blushed, looking out the window. they rode along in silence for a few seconds.
Sarah saw something up ahead, some lonely neon in the blackness. "Pull in here. We have to ditch this car" she said. the Terminator nodded, pulling up at a rundown gas station with a buzzing neon sign and no one around. a sign in the window said closed Sundays. they continued around the building to the garage's back door, where the Terminator braked the lock on the roll-up door and raised it. Sarah pulled the security car in out of sight. the Terminator rolled the door down behind them. It was dark inside the gas station, so Sarah switched on the single drop-light.
Kylie and the Terminator looked at each other. the Terminator was shot-up and bleeding, and Kylie had a vicious slash through her shoulder, which had soaked her sleeve with blood.
"You look like handmade shit" Kylie told the machine.
"So do you".
"here, I found this in the office" John said, setting a first aid kit on a nearby table, along with some not-so-oily rags, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a few small tools, and other makeshift odds and ends.
The Terminator turned to Kylie. "take your shirt off".
Kylie's eyes widened. "what?!"
"I have to disinfect your wound and sew it up" the machine replied.
Kylie nodded, blushing as she took off her shirt and jacket. "good thing I'm wearing a bra" she thought as she sat down on a stool in front of the table. the Terminator moved to stand beside her, suturing her wound with some fine wire from the winding of an alternator. using a pair of needlenose pliers, he drew the wire through her pale skin with a delicate hand. A strange feeling overwhelmed Kylie as he did so. His fingers brushed against her skin every once in a while, and every time it happened, a warm, tingling feeling spread through Kylie's body.
like goosebumps.
She closed her eyes, her heart beating faster. "what's wrong with me?!" she thought, a nervous feeling rising in her stomach as the Terminator continued to sew her up. She exhaled and closed her eyes again, tilting her head back slightly.
"having fun over there Kyles?"
Kylie's eyes shot open and she gave John a dirty look. He grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes.
"how do you know so much about this kind of stuff?" she asked the machine.
"I have detailed files on human anatomy" the Terminator said. Kylie turned slightly and stared into his face, which was inches away from hers. she blushed, feeling her heart hammering in her chest so loud and so hard, that she was convinced that the sound was echoing off the gas station walls. "great" she thought sarcastically.
"turned on by a machine".
Sarah stood nearby, observing the "surgery". she didn't like the Terminator being that close to her daughter to begin with, let alone him carving on her. and she was worried about Kylie, seeing the way her daughter reacted whenever the Terminator's hand made contact with her skin. It was almost as though she enjoyed it!!
"I'll bet your files are very detailed. makes you a more efficient killer, right?" Sarah said.
"Correct" the Terminator answered, handing Kylie her shirt and jacket. Kylie turned to face him just as he took his own shirt and jacket off. Kylie's jaw dropped, and she felt her eyes widen.
"hey Kylie, get your tongue back in your mouth".
Kylie glared at John. "don't make me hurt you" she sneered through gritted teeth.
John smirked and shrugged. He clearly wasn't bothered by his sister's threat.
The Terminator sat on the stool Kylie had just been in. John examined the machine's jacket, which was riddled with bullet holes. Kylie and Sarah stared in amazement. there were at least twenty bullet holes in him. in his back. arms. shoulders. fortunately they were all 9mm, meaning that the holes are small and the damage cosmetic.
"Does it hurt?" John asked.
"I sense injuries. The data could be called pain" the Terminator answered. Kylie sighed nervously as she started washing the bullet holes in his broad back with alcohol.
"Will those heal up?" Sarah asked.
the Terminator nodded.
"that's good. because if you can't pass for human, you won't be much good to us" she said.
Kylie sighed again as she reached into the bloody wounds with pliers, finding the copper-jacketed bullets, flattened against the armored endoskeleton. She slowly pulled them out. they clinked one by one into a glass.
"How long do you live? I mean, last, or whatever?" John asked.
"A hundred and twenty years on my existing power cell" the Terminator said. Kylie nodded, pulling out another slug.
CLINK.
the glass was nearly full of flattened bullets. She began to sew the holes closed with a few wire sutures. John watched in quiet amazement, the wondering what his sister liked so much about the machine.
"Can you learn? So you can be... you know. more human. Not such a dork all the time" John asked, getting another dirty look form Kylie.
the Terminator turned toward him. "My CPU is a neural-net processor... a learning computer. but Skynet presets the switch to "read-only" when we are sent out alone".
"Doesn't want you thinking too much, huh?" Sarah said, a cynical tone to her voice.
"No".
"Can we reset the switch?" John asked.
Kylie watched nervously as Sarah cut into the Terminator's scalp at the base of his skull with an x-acto knife. his voice was calmly directing Sarah as she spread the bloody incision and located the maintenance port for the CPU in the chrome skull beneath.
"Now open the port cover" the Terminator instructed. She wiped away the blood and used the garage-mechanic's air tools to unscrew the port cover. her hands were covered with blood, like a surgeon's. "Hold the CPU by its base tab. Pull". Following the instructions, Sarah reached in with a pair of tweezers and pulled --
there was a burst of static and the Terminator's screen went black. Sarah, John, and Kylie stood there, looking at what Sarah had removed. a reddish- brown ceramic rectangle with a connector on one end. about the size and shape of a domino. on close inspection it appeared to be made up of small cubes connected together. It was identical to the shattered one in the vault at Cyberdyne Systems. It was the brain of a Terminator. John walked around Terminator and looks at his face. Eyes open, the machine was completely inert.
dead.
John snapped his fingers in front of the Terminator's face.
No reaction.
meanwhile, Sarah examined the CPU chip.
"Can you see the pin switch?" Kylie asked. Sarah ignored her. she looked at Terminator, then back at the chip. then she set it on the work table and picked up a small sledge hammer. John looked over and realized what she was about to do. He ran at her as the sledge was whistling down.
"No!!!!"" He cried, slapping his hand down over the chip. Sarah barely stopped the sledge before smashing his fingers.
"Out of the way, John!"
"No! Don't kill him!" Kylie pleaded.
"It, Kylie. Not him, It". Sarah said.
John sighed "Alright, it! We need it!" he kept his hand right where it is.
"We're better off by ourselves" Sarah said.
"But it's the only proof we have to the future... about the war and all that" John said, trying to prove his point.
Sarah shook her head. "I don't trust it! These things are hard to kill, John, believe me, I know. We may never have this opportunity again".
"Look, Mom, if John's supposed to ever be this great leader, you should start listening to his leadership ideas once in a while. 'Cause if you won't, nobody else will" Kylie said, putting her arm around John's shoulders. "i will. no matter what" she thought. She would always stand by John. Sarah sighed and nodded reluctantly. Kylie picked up the chip and studied it minutely. Then she took a pin and moved the almost invisible switch to the other position. It was now in "write" mode. then she grimaced as she inserted the wafer back into the slot in Terminator's skull. The Terminator came back to life instantly, in a burst of static. Kylie still stood behind him in the mirror.
"Was there a problem?" the Terminator asked.
John glanced sheepishly at Sarah, then smiled at Terminator. "no problem. none whatsoever".
well how was that? i don't think i've ever worked on one chapter for so long!
Terminator: "i helped"
Me*rolls eyes*: yeah, by hovering over me while i type! which, i must say, is pretty cool
Terminator: "..."
Me: "well, please review, and i hope you enjoyed this one. remember, the Terminator knows where you live!!
Terminator: "no i don't"
Me: "sshhh!"
