Chapter 5
Max and Tread stepped inside. The hot door closed behind
them. Tread looked at Jeff, who was still breathing hard. The off duty dogs all
whined and crouched as Tread past them. Max looked at them and then at Tread.
"I can't believe you made it this many years with
that predatory hum in your DNA."
"Yeah. He caught up with
YOU?" Tread motioned to Jeff.
Phil grabbed Jeff's shoulder
and whispered to him.
"Show's over, hero.
We gotta finish our shift."
Jeff knew he was right. He choked up the 12 gauge and
started to back up toward the door, still watching as Max and Tread walked
slowly down the hallway. The two tired Ninjas followed along. Jeff turned away
and faced Phil, the two of them about to resume the Hot Door duty, when Max
called out.
"You two wait a
second." Jeff and Phil looked back. Max spoke to her Ninja's.
"You guys take over the Hot Door till the sick kid
finds replacements." The two tired soldiers didn't look happy. Max spoke
to Phil.
"I'd hurry if I were you,
these guys can hold a serious grudge."
Jeff was disoriented now. He hadn't done anything wrong.
He wasn't sick. Why was he being taken off the door? Tread answered his
question.
"Kid, you're with me." He said.
Jeff looked at Phil. Phil gave him a big smile and a
thumbs up.
Jeff tagged along. No need to run this time. Max and
Tread were walking like normal human beings. Jeff was trying to hear what they
were saying.
"I whacked two flyers and a Tank on the way
here," Tread spoke. (Note: I don't think "spoke" is the right word to use in this
instance…_
"That's going to bring us some heat." Max said
with a little annoyance. "Two Flyers AND a Tank?"
"And four spent
Infiltrators," Tread added
"You never were one for
'Escape and Evade'," she said shaking her head.
"I was built more for 'Seek and Destroy'." Max
stopped as he walked a few paces ahead. Tread turned to see why.
"So were the
Terminators." Max added.
Max and Tread had been having of form of this argument
for close to 30 years now. There was no fight left in it.
Max always felt she may have been designed to be a
'killing machine' but was going to be more than that. She wasn't going to be
what they wanted her to be. She wouldn't kill people if she absolutely didn't
have to, and she wouldn't be responsible for the deaths of innocent people. It
was her bid for her freedom.
Tread on the other hand considered himself robbed of his
choices, his Freedom. He decided to give the people who created him just what
they asked for, but not the way they asked for it. There was no such thing as
an innocent person in his eyes. People either fought the good fight, or they
were part of the problem. In a way, it always haunted Max. It was just Logan's
philosophy taken to the extreme. She thought back to that cold night so many
years ago.
"You accept the way things are you're an active
participant in making them worse."
She had sniped back something about social studies
lessons. If only she'd have known then she would spend the rest of her life being
"an active participant" in making things better.
"I'm too old of a dog to
learn new tricks now, Max." Tread answered.
"I've got people here who
die every time the machines find us."
He looked back at Jeff. Then
at Max.
"Everything will be clear
when I brief you. If I didn't HAVE to come, I wouldn't have."
There was something in his eyes that was different from
the past 30 years she had known him. He wasn't showing off, or sending a
message. He seemed almost sorry about something.
She was about to ask him about other people they knew,
but the "HEAT" she was expecting arrived. An alarm blared through out
the compound. It could mean only one thing. TERMINATORS.
"Door B! 4 maybe 5,
AAHHHHGHGHHGHHhh *SQUARK*"
The voice was cut silent by
phased plasma fire.
"Where?" Tread.
"This way." Max.
Jeff was standing alone before he knew it. He managed to
make the corner in time to see Tread race out of sight.
Plasma fire and conventional ordinance was everywhere.
When Tread reached the edge of the firefight, Max had already commandeered a
phase plasma rifle. He didn't see until a moment later that it was from one of
her fallen ninja guards. The four she left in the dust earlier had been among
the first of the military to respond to Bravo door alarm. Smoke and screams
filled the hallway. Tread quickly peaked around the corner and ducked back
barely fast enough to avoid the burst of Plasma that blew chunks out of the
wall next to him.
Miraculously, several people backed down the hallway firing
whatever they had at the Terminators. One young woman managed to squeeze off
the remainder of her clip before her torso exploded. Max was about to stick her
head out into the hallway and lay down some suppressing fire when she caught
Tread giving her a hand signal to hold back. The hallway was filling with those
low on ammo, or trying to escape when the muzzle of the 80 watt plasma rifle
slowly came into view around the corner with a Terminator holding it only a
step behind. Tread leaped into the hallway, grabbing the rifle in the
Terminator's hand and spinning with it. The Terminator swung with the gun and
Tread slammed him into the wall on the other side of the hallway right next to
Max. Tread was almost a foot shorter, but monster and machine locked eye to
glowing red eye. The Terminator tried to use brute force to throw Tread off,
slamming him against the other side of the wall. Dust a mortar gave way to the
impact of the ancient mutant, but his grip did waver. Tread wrestled back,
slamming the Terminator back again the other side of the hallway with enough
force to shatter the wall's support column, impaling the cyborg's flesh on a
reinforcement bar. Tread twisted the rifle straight up seconds before the
Terminator fired a burst. The unsupported ceiling exploded and snow, dirt and
concrete collapsed on both killing machines. Max backed up looking at the cave
in. On the far side a dark figure appeared through the shadows and dust. Red
eyes adjusted and targeted Max over the rubble. A trail of plasma fire from the
40 watt rifle this one carried sent dust and debris raining on Max as Tread and
his opponent burst out of the fallen rock pile, ruining the second Terminator's
shot. Tread guided the barrel of the 80 watt rifle he was struggling with into
the throat of the second Terminator. A third Terminator joined the first two
rifle butting Tread in the face. The second Terminator took the moment's
respite to pull the unfired 80 Watt rifle muzzle out of his throat by leaning
back.
Suddenly there was a blast of shotgun fire. The force of
the blast sent the second Terminator stumbling forward, impaling his throat
right back onto the 80 watt plasma rifle being shared by the first Terminator
and Tread. If a Terminator could have an expression, this one would have looked
surprised, but not for long. This time the opportunity to fire was not missed
by the old, out numbered aberration of science. Its head was blown clean off
and the force sent it falling backward on top of Jeff, smoking shotgun still in
hand.
Tread, now out of the smashed ruins from the ceiling,
braced the stock of the 80 Watt rifle on a fairly heavy piece of ceiling
wreckage, pinning the first Terminator, and swung around it on with more than
enough force to repay the third Terminator for his rifle but earlier. The snap
from Tread's kick sent the third machine sailing down the hallway into the
forth machine. As the two cyborgs struggled to untangle and right themselves,
Max flipped over Tread and his first opponent, then opened fire on the two
Terminators now on their knees. They reeled from the blasts and one of them
lost an arm. The fifth Terminator stepped from a room and started to return
fire blindly.
Tread finally won his battle for control of the 80 Watt
Rifle from the pinned and impaled first Terminator. He rolled up next to Max in
a crouch position and brought his new weapon to bear against its previous
employers. In a hail of plasma fire, the three machines' last moments
would never be seen by SkyNET because of the jamming system, activated when the
Alarm went off.
Jeff finally pushed the headless Terminator off of
himself enough to crawl out from under it. As he made his way to his feet, he
looked up and into glowing red eyes of the first Terminator that had also freed
itself. It reached for him at lightning speed, but he was already unloading his
12-gauge auto loader into it. Each blast threw it off balance and sent it back
a few steps. As the last shot from his shotgun went click, Jeff panicked. The
Terminator stood there for a moment, rallying, then looked directly at Jeff. It
had only taken a single step toward him when a gloved gauntlet made a clang
against its skull. Tread slammed it back into the wall and started pummeling
the unfeeling machine with both hands. As it started to block he grabbed its
throat with his left hand, lifting it into the air and pounding its body with
his right until arcs of high voltage started to course out of it like high tech
blood. Max appeared at the end of the hallway watching super man vs. machine
with more than a little concern growing.
Tread in hand to hand combat with a Terminator, ok. That
was pretty much an even match. Tread beating a machine to death with his bare
hands… ok, gloved hands? Something wasn't right. Jeff noticed that Treads
veins began to pop. Tread switched from pounding the machine's body to its
head. The already torn up skin splattered away at force of Tread's blows,
revealing the machine skull underneath. Tread dropped the machine so he could
beat on it with both hands. Its metal battered against the concrete wall and
Tread's metal gloved fists like a punching bag. The skull slowly warped
from the impacts, and finally the glowing red eyes went dark. It slumped over,
dead.
Tread stood there glaring at it. Max touched him on his
shoulder. His fist jerked a little and c0cked. He caught himself and forced his
hand to an open palm. The bulging veins in his head and neck slowly subsided. He
started twisting his head to loosen the muscles in his neck.
He looked at Jeff, still
hyperventilating.
"Good work kid."
Max looked at the shattered
T800 and back at Tread.
"What the hell was
that?" she asked.
"Briefing,"
he responded. "We need to do that briefing."