With the threat of the killer-robot having entered the bunker, Pops and Hicks was hurriedly arming themselves with the weapons the old machine had prepared a few hours earlier.
"How could this be?" Hicks asked as he did a quick check on the M-16 rifle with a built-on M-203 40mm grenade launcher he'd just picked. "I was sure I covered my tracks! How could it trace me?"
"You humans are not as systematic as the artificial intelligence of a terminator is," Pops said as he inserted the ammo-belt into a modified portable minigun. "You can never completely cover your tracks! If there is a slightest trail left, the terminator can find it. It's what they do!"
"Well, thanks for the vote of confidence," Hicks muttered under his breath as he slung another rifle; an M-60 over his shoulder. He then turned towards the child.
"Newt! If you got a special hiding-place picked out, you go there right now and stay there! Don't leave it for any reason! Okay, girl?"
"And remember it can imitate voices," Pops added. "Don't answer if you hear any of us call for you!" Newt nodded and went her way. Hicks looked away – he figured it was better if he did not know where she was going to hide. Before the two combatants went out, Hicks added a Uzi to his armament. Then they went out to face the threat: Hicks with three kind of weapons and Pops with the minigun only. If he had any other weapons on him, he concealed them well.
"Quick. Give me a crash-course on the terminator's weak-spots!"
Pops reply was not satisfactory. "It doesn't have any!"
"I don't buy that!" Hicks snapped. "You told me yourself how you and Sarah defeated a machine back before you met up with Kyle Reese. You damaged it enough to make it shut down!"
"Only because it was momentarily standing still as it was about to deliver a killing blow to me. A moving target is prone to withstand the kinetic force of a ballistic object and deflect it. Besides, the bullets we used back then were of a special brand that is impossible to come by."
"What'd you use?"
"The only possible way we had available to us so that we would be able to compromise the outer shell of a terminator's hyper-alloy chasse was to use bullets made from the same kind of metal as it were made of. We forged the bullets ourselves."
"Where'd you get the metal for that?"
"From me! I had some pieces removed from places behind my armor which wouldn't compromise my condition and I replaced them with a weaker kind. There weren't many bullets we could make."
The pair had now reached one of the large outer chambers of the bunker which was not part of the habitat section. There were mostly crates stacked there. Hicks knew that this was bad, because there was a lot of hiding places here. Hicks didn't bother to consult his 'droid-detector' he carried on his wrist – it would not be able to distinguish one android from any other. Again, he cursed himself for not thinking of bringing a motion-tracker. They stopped to listen for footsteps or scraping to the floor.
"Do you think he's here?" Hicks asked quietly, but still as loud as he dared to make himself heard by the other.
"He should be!" Pops stated, not as quietly. Then he suddenly gave the soldier a powerful shove. "Get down!"
Hicks flew quite a bit. It seemed like a violent move, but it was to save his life as the spot Pops had cleared him from suddenly exploded. From a hidden corner the 'X'-terminator had fired a round from the magnetic breacher it carried and the impact of the fired shell blasted a large hole in the concrete, filling the air with fire and dust. Hicks would've been smeared to the wall now had Pops not pushed him away. The 'X'-terminator stepped out from behind its cover to assess the result of its attack, guns raised. There was still too much miniature particle-debris floating in the air for its sensors to make a full analysis, that's why it failed to notice its other adversary; the rogue unit stepping out of the cloud to 'greet' it before it was too late.
Pops pressed the trigger of the minigun. With a loud-pitched sound the barrels spun around the axle of the motor-unit and let loose a deadly barrage of armor-piercing bullets. The magnetic breacher, the more powerful weapon in the 'X'-terminator's possession was knocked away from the machine's hand - dented and bent it fell to the floor, damaged and totally useless now. Pops directed his line of fire across the other machine's torso, intent to take out the pulse-rifle as well. But the enemy terminator wouldn't let the rogue unit get that far. Taking hold of the remaining pulse-rifle in a two-hand grip, the 'X'-terminator let loose a barrage of its own, opening several silvery holes in Pops' liquid metal-cover. Now the two machines from two different time-lines stood shooting at each at almost point-blank range with a force that would hack a normal human being into unrecognizable mince-meat. Both staggered from the multiple hits each one of them took from the other, metallic clangs ringed in the bunker from repeated impacts on the hyper-alloy chassis, but neither would fall or even relent.
While the terminators stood shooting at each other, Hicks was moving around the crates out of sight to flank the enemy machine from the side. He found a spot where he had a clear shot at the killer robot, but he didn't dare to reveal himself just yet. All the enemy terminator had to do was to momentarily redirect its line of fire to completely perforate Hicks' hide should he expose his position, so the corporal therefore had to wait for the right moment before he could charge. The moment came quickly: the 'X' had spent its magazine and needed to reload - for some reason Pops had also stopped firing. Hicks didn't stop to wonder how come, he simply acted. As the 'X' released the spent mag' and was about to slap a new one in, Hicks stepped out from his cover and let loose his ammunition. Not with bullets, but with the grenade launcher on the M-16. The soldier fired repeatedly and the enemy terminator was suddenly engulfed in fiery hot fire from several explosions.
The spot the 'X'-terminator had occupied was a pyre and Hicks walked up to Pops whom was already 'healing' his gun-wounds while he struggled with the minigun. The soldier found it creepy how the holes in Pops' body flowed over in silvery liquid and solidified before his eyes.
"You should exercise extreme caution when firing the M-203 grenade launcher, Dwayne Hicks." The cyborg said as he worked on the weapon.
Hicks groaned, feeling unappreciated for his action. "I can't find you being concerned for me violating close-quarter regulations ninety-five through ninety-eight?"
"I'm not," Pops replied. "But those crates around us contains more weapons and explosives. If you set off one of those bombs you may start a chain-reaction which could blow us all up!"
"Now you tell me!" Hicks felt cold by the revelation that he was standing in the middle of a weapons-depot. "At least my attack finished the job!"
"It didn't," was Pops' short answer and true to his words, the 'X'-terminator stepped out of the raging pyre still fully functional. Burnt flakes of different materials fell off its torso and the metallic surface gleamed in orange from the light of the fire. All the excessive cover; remains of flesh and camouflage clothing, everything had been burnt away. The terminator showed itself to them for what it was now: a skeleton-like combat-machine, built to be mankind's doom. And it approached the two adversaries now, ready to kill! The pulse-rifle it had possessed was gone, but that fact didn't seem to make it hesitate in any way. Hicks fired his weapon at it, but to no avail: the bullets bounced off the adequately-sloped composite hyper-alloy armor like flies crashing into the windshield of a car, leaving no damage at all.
Pops threw away the minigun. "His last shot damaged the motor. It's inoperable!" Hicks responded with unslinging the M-60 from his shoulder while backing away, laying down cover-fire with the M-16. The extra weapon was tossed to the 'friendly' cyborg. "Make good use of it, Pops!" Hicks called over the roar of his own firing. Pops did just that, but it wasn't enough to sway the 'X' away from its primary function. It had its sensors fixed on the soldier and the mission parameters flashed in big letters on the machine's visual display: TERMINATE!
Faster than Hicks had anticipated, the killer machine was upon him, totally ignorant to the swarm of bullets that was released against it. The 'X'-terminator raised its mechanical arm and swung it towards the soldier, intent to smash his face in. It was Hicks' military training which saved him this time, he managed to duck just in the nick of time before the other connected. The mechanical arm punched right through the wooden crate instead, sending splinters in every direction. Hicks was on his knees and the machine towered over him to deliver another hydraulic-powered blow. The soldier raised the M-16 rifle in a two-hand grip just above his head to deflect it. The idea was good in theory, but practically it cost him a great deal. He deflected the blow, but the impact was so powerful that it broke the rifle in two and the abusive kinetic force was channeled through the two halves of the weapon into his arms. He didn't know if he screamed, but the pain that jolted through his arms made him convinced that the bones within was completely shattered – it was so excruciating that he blacked out.
The 'X' had a clear shot for the kill, the soldier was totally defenseless – but before it could do the murder, the stock of another rifle slammed into its head. Pops held the M-60 like a club and he swung the weapon repeatedly at the other machine, driving it away from the unconscious human. The 'X' recovered quickly though and shielded the next blow with its arm. The M-60 flew out of Pops' hands and disappeared somewhere into the bunker. The cyborg didn't bother to look for it, instead it went into a clinch with the other, going mano a' mano against it. Both machines were now back at the fight they had begun at the Yutani Mall in Washington, but this time it was going to be a fight to the finish. The hydraulic drives of both terminators could be heard whining as they struggled to destroy the other.
Meanwhile Hicks came to, spying the two combatants in the peripherical view of his eyesight. His arms felt numb, but thankfully he could still move them. He struggled to get up, knowing that he would have to return to the battle. But what could he do? His human strength was no match to that of a killing machine – if it hadn't been for his military training, he would be dead now. Fact was, a military tactic was what he needed now; brute force alone would never accomplish victory in this case. He tried to collect his thoughts, going through exactly what he knew about that terminator in his mind. Pops had declared that it had no weak-spots, but Hicks refused to believe that – everything had a weak-spot, it was just a matter of finding it!
As he crawled up on all fours, he recalled the conversation he'd had with Pops earlier. Okay, so the only way to penetrate a terminator's chasse was to use bullets that were of the same material as it was made of – but that option was not available. Pops had used material from his own body to make the bullets in 1984, which told Hicks that while you couldn't damage a terminator on the outside, it was susceptible to damage from within. Maybe that was the answer: just like an egg it could withstand a lot of force on the exterior surface, but could perhaps be vulnerable on the inside, where control-circuits and other delicate equipment to make it function should be located! Hicks knew what he needed and what he had to do, but he feared that it would cost him his life. Well, if it meant Newt's safety, then so be it.
Hicks got up on his feet while the machines continued their fight. He leaned against the crate the terminator had punched a hole in and what do you know: within the hole Hicks spied the very device he required now: a magnetic shaped charge! Pops was apparently well equipped – Hicks couldn't help to wonder where he had acquired all these weapons and why. Had he prepared for some kind of war?
Silly question – of course he had! And unless they could stop the machines that had come into this era, a nuclear war would be upon them in the future if Pops' theories were correct. Hicks didn't want to believe that such scenario was possible, but he couldn't afford to take the chance – this killer robot had to be stopped or it could mean the end of humanity as he knew it! Obviously, the fight was taking a toll on Pops – he was an older model and not up on his prime. The 'X'-terminator was getting the upper hand. The enemy unit had its back to Hicks, so hopefully it wouldn't see what he was up to. Thankfully it didn't appear to have any sensors in the back of its head – a mechanical error he hoped that Skynet would never think of correcting. Hicks armed the shaped charge and moved in.
With a swipe of its arm, the 'X'-terminator threw off the rogue unit with a powerful punch, and Pops flew into some other crates. The boards that made the crates cracked under Pops' weight and he got tangled in the wooden debris. Had the 'X' been able to express feelings, it would have given the other a glee for having acquired the upper hand – but it wasn't programmed for that. It didn't have time for it either as it suddenly detected something going on underneath its torso. Hicks had sneaked up right behind the terminator and now he jammed the magnetic shaped charge up into the protective housing between the waist piston and the metallic spine. The 'X' spun around with an outstretched arm to slam the pestering human away. Hicks took the hit, but it wasn't lethal thanks to the fact that the soldier was already in motion to jump away, so the punch only helped to make him fly further off to the side. The 'X' knew that a foreign object was inserted within its housing and it reached in with its mechanical fingers to remove it – that's when it blew. And as the terminator's body contained most of the explosion, several joints within took the full blast which was much too powerful to withstand. The 'X'-terminator blew apart in a fireball and the pieces were spread in every direction.
Everything was quiet in the bunker for a moment except for the sound of Pops crawling out of the crate he had fallen through. As he got up, he walked over to the wall to fetch a fire-extinguisher. He had to put out the fire the crates had caught from the explosion before it reached into the armament that was packed within. Once the fire was out he went over to the fallen form of the human soldier. His sensors told him that he was alive, the cyborg could hear him lying wheezing. Pops turned him over even though you should never move a wounded. Hicks groaned and Pops checked him out – surprisingly he wasn't all that seriously wounded.
"I was wrong about you, Dwayne Hicks," Pops said. "You are a formidable warrior."
"…Thanks…" Hicks muttered under his breath, fighting the pain. "All the same, I think I'd rather take on those damn bugs with acid for blood again instead of these cursed robots! At least they died when you shot at them! But don't tell Newt I said that – she hates them even more than I do." Speaking of Newt, Hicks could almost swear he heard her calling his name. Looking over to a wall on the far side of the chamber, he realized that he wasn't imagining it. A grate unlatched from within and fell away and from the hole behind it, the child emerged. Hicks almost laughed at his own stupidity – where else would the girl have hidden if not in the air ducts?
Newt jumped down on the ground from the entrance to the duct. She had seen the whole battle from the behind the grate and her heart had threatened to jump out of her chest every time one of her friends had taken a hit. But the terminator was now defeated, so she deemed it safe to come out - besides she was anxious to see if Hicks was alright. So intent was she to get to Hicks' side that she almost failed to see danger she was about to pass by. It was only thanks to her heightened senses she had gained from her solitude in her ruined colony that she became aware of the motion from the mechanical debris to her left. A metal arm suddenly shot out attempting to grab her leg. With a gasp, she instantly jumped away and then she saw how the debris from where the arm originated twisted and turned, and two piercing red lights fixed on her and the debris moved closer. Newt screamed.
The child's cry of fright made Hicks forget about his aching body. He instantly scrambled to his feet and both he and Pops rushed to Newt's aid. The severed and damaged torso of the 'X'-terminator dragged itself with one remaining arm towards the child – no matter how damaged it was, it would not stop until the targets were dead. Newt herself wasn't wounded however, so she could quickly escape from the crawling metal monstrosity. She rushed into Hicks' arms, seeking safety there.
"Won't that thing ever give up?" Hicks growled as he held the child to him. "What does it take to kill that rust-bucket?"
"Terminators don't rust," Pops said unnecessarily with his usual equivalent tone. He strode over to the remains of the machine, slammed his foot down on some loose cables beneath the torso to stop the enemy cyborg from advancing towards the humans and then he leaned down to pin the twitching body to the floor by putting his knees on the back of the other, putting his entire weight down on it. Then Pops grabbed hold of the twitching arm with one hand and the other on the head. "With most of its mass blown away, it won't get the leverage to resist or kill unless we allow it to. Still it's too dangerous to leave it active. Dwayne Hicks, I'm holding it down. I need you to deactivate it."
Hicks left the child away on a clear spot and joined Pops beside the twitching remains. "What do I do?"
Pops was holding the skull down to the floor in a firm grip. "See that circular plate on the top right side of the dome? That's a port-cover! Pry it off!" Hicks found a piece of metal lying around that looked dense and strong enough to work as a prying tool. Hicks wedged it in under the edge of the plate on the skull, twitched it as hard as he could so that the two locking cylinders holding it sealed cracked with a 'pop', and the circular plate came off.
"What now?" Hicks asked.
"You see a shock dampening assembly inside. Remove it!" Hicks looked inside the opening in the skull of the terminator and saw what appeared to a plug of some kind within. He pinched his fingers onto what looked like some kind of handle and pulled. A small cylindrical piece came out and revealed a deep hole in the metallic cranium. In the bottom of the hole there was small rectangular device visible.
"That's the CPU," Pops informed Hicks. "It contains most of the primary software and operational functions essential to run a terminator. Without it, a terminator is no more dangerous than a broken toaster."
"That's a funny metaphor. Are you actually capable of telling jokes?"
"Just pull the chip, Dwayne Hicks!"
The red glowing eyes of the 'X'-terminator was fixed on the soldier as he approached the socket with a pair of tongs. It made a last attempt to break free with the little mobility it had left in what remained of its body, but to no avail – Pops held it down firmly. Hicks could almost swear that those piercing red eyes were displaying evil thoughts of revenge of some kind, but that was a ludicrous feeling. It was just a piece of machine - yet a dangerous one at that. Hicks grabbed on to the CPU with the tongs and pulled the tiny little chip out. The red eyes or the 'X'-terminator instantly diminished and went completely dark. The remains of the endo-skeleton became completely inert.
"Is it dead?" Hicks asked while he examined the tiny little circuit board.
"It's nothing more than a 'scrap-heap' now, Dwayne Hicks," Pops said as he got up. Newt dared to come a little closer now as she heard those words.
"You do have a sense of humor," Hicks stated. Pops gave him a grin in reply: an extremely ugly grin. "But not an ensuring smile!" Hicks added repulsed.
"Sarah Connor taught me that. She said I needed to blend in. I think I got the hang of joking, but my smile always needed a little more work."
"No doubt about that," said Hicks.
Newt wasn't interested in Pops' lack of social display. Her senses were more acute than average after LV-426, and she could almost swear that something was not right.
"Are you sure it can't hurt us anymore?" the girl asked.
"The terminator is completely inoperable, Newt Connor."
"Yet I'm sure that I can hear some kind of a low humming from it."
"That is not possible, Newt Connor. Without the CPU, it is fully incapable of…" But here Pops stopped himself. He stared at the remains. "You are correct! There is an activity still going on, although there shouldn't be."
"What's it doing?" Hicks asked, pulling the Uzi he'd picked earlier but never got around to use. If necessary, he was going to shoot it to pieces on close range.
"I'm reading an energy build-up within the torso. It's quickly climbing to a high level!"
"What's happening?" Newt asked nervously.
"Is it re-activating?" Hicks shot in.
"Negative! The energy-level has already passed beyond the usual operational requirements for the terminator's functions. It's going to a critical mass! It's over-loading! It's a self-destruct!" Pops turned to the two humans. "The detonation will blow out the whole bunker! Go! Get out now! RUN!" The seriousness in Pops' tone was so strong that Hicks did not stop to question it. He quickly scooped up Newt in his arms and rushed for the exit as fast as he could, with Pops running closely behind him. Don't look back, Hicks thought to himself. Don't hesitate; just run!
Pops wasn't limited to mono-tasking as humans were. While he ran, he calculated the numbers of rate that the energy in the terminator-wreck was climbing and the distance they had to get to the exit. He didn't say it out loud to the humans in front of him, but they were not going to reach the bunker-opening in time before the detonation.
Hicks could see the night-sky at the far end of the chamber. Grabbing tightly on to Newt so that he wouldn't drop her, he willed his legs to move faster. But then the world exploded and the bunker-exit were obscured from his eye-sight…