Corporal Kyle Reese makes his way back to the base, crossing the rubble-filled landscape of downtown Los Angeles. He climbs down the stairs leading to a door.
It was not an easy task for him. On the way back, he and his squad ran afoul of an enemy tank. One of his squadmates was killed by the tank's antipersonnel weaponry. He can still remember the sound of the tank's treadsa rolling over the skulls of those who were killed in the nuclear blast twenty-one years ago. The tank's armor was able to rersist small arms fire. He was able to use a plastique charge to blow the teads and immobilize the tank. He knocks on the door and gives the password, and the sentry allows him in.
"We lost another one," says Reese. "It was Kramer."
"Aw, shit," says Private First Class Venitez. Kyle looks around the base that has been his home for over four years. He walks past a large dog. He had known that dog since he was a puppy. He looks and sees a broken Sony color television, now being used as a fireplace. He reaches into his pocket and takes out the faded photograph of Sarah Connor. There is something about her. He wonders what he is thinking. He wonders why he would be thinking of a woman who died long before the war started. There is a knock on the door, and the sentry opens the little window, seeing two people.
The dogs bark ominously.
Then the two people bust in and spray the whole place with machine gun fire! Kyle looks and wonders what is going on. Did the terminators find their base? He goes to the weapons locker and takes out a plasma rifle. He sees something on the floorburning, and he sees it is the photograph of Sarah Connor. Her face is now surrounded by flames. He sees bubble form in the photograph, and then darkness overtakes the image. Sarah disappears in flames.
"What is going on?" asks Major Bratt as he goes to the scene of the carnage. He sees the two figures spraying machine gun rounds over the place.
Then Major Bratt is cut down by a few hundred machine gun rounds, becoming a pile of raw meat on the concrete floor. Less than a minute later, the two attackers are taken down with plasma bolts and grenade rounds.
"What was that?" asks Captain Colton, looking at the two figures. They both look alike, like identical twins. He touches the flesh.
"They're human," he says. "We'd better check them out, sir," says Kyle. He opens the jacket of one of the attackers. Removing the shirt, he can see the flesh.
And metal under the flesh.
"These are terminators, sir," he says.
"Terminators with human skin?" asks Colton. "This is some fucked up shit."
"Yes, sir," says Kyle. He examines the face of one of the terminators. "He even has bad breath."
"Terminators with human skin?" asks Sergeant Joanna Harland. She remmbers hearing about the death camps; she wonders if Skynet is skinning people alive in those camps.
"Our base here is compromised," says Colton. "Skynet will soon start shelling this place and send some more terminators to clean up."
The Army captain walks to the briefing room and looks at the wall map of Los Angeles County. He measures the distance between here and Azusa Base. "They'll be here in less than ten minutes. We'd better evacuate." Colton goes to the radio which receives messages from Crystal Peak. While it is not nornally used for outgoing transmissions, it is capable of one outgoing transmission.
An automated
message is sent to Crystal Peak, which receives it in less than a
fraction of a second. The command center personnel hear the message.
"Grand Outpost to Crystal Peak," says the voice of the now dead Major
Bratt. "Our position has been compromised. We request an emergency
extraction."
Back at Grand Outpost, the Restiance outpost in Los Angeles, the garrison of soldiers prepare to leave.
"Reese," says Captain Colton, "headquarters will want to see the terminator. Take the terminator with you."
"Yes, sir," replies Reese. He takes the fallen terminator and tries to lift it. He finds out it is very heavy.
"I'll help you," says Sergeant First Class Baker, helping the corporal lift the flesh-covered machine.
Shelves and cabinets are lined up against the main entrance to impede a terminator assault. Weapons and equipment are packed.
"Let's go, people!" yells Captain Colton. Before he leaves, he takes one last look at the corpse of Major Bratt.
Using the processing power of millions of computers scattered across the world, Skynet learns that there is a human outpost in downtown Los Angeles. It decides to send three Hunter-Killers and some terminators over to the site. Three Hunter-Killers in Azusa Base warm up their engines. A squad of six terminators enter a helicopter. Within minutes, the HK's and the helicopter are on route to Los Angeles.
February 8, 2025
The eighteen survivors of the Skynet raid on the Resistance outpost in Los Angeles reach a ladder. They walked about a few miles, far from the site of the base. Corporal Kyle Reese lifts the manhole cover.
"No terminators in sight, sir," says Kyle, removing his night-vision goggles.
"You and Baker get that terminator up to the surface," says Colton.
"Yes, sir," says Sergeant Baker. He and Kyle lift the terminator up the ladder. It is no small feat given the fact that the terminator weighs well over four hundred pounds. Other soldiers decide the help. Finally, Klye hauls the terminator to the surface.
Kyle is now on a city street littered with rubble from ruined buildings. Tall hills tower over the horizon. Kyle remembers from a briefing that those hills shielded the area behind them from the blast, which saved the lives of those living to the north, as well as the industrial capacity which Skynet took over after the fallout forced the survivors to flee. He looks around and listens for any signs of helicopters or HK's. Looking through the night-vision goggles, he can see three birdlike shapes flying in the sky. He knows what they are; he hides behind a wall of a blasted building. He removes the night-vision goggles. He sees one of the HK'S fire plasma bolts in his direction. He takes cover. He then aims the SAM launcher.
"I got you now," he says. He fires a surface-to-air missile, which takes down the HK. It crashes into the walls of a ruined building, finally bringing down its remnants.
Kyle hears the chopping sound of a helicopter blades. He wonders if it is the Resistance.
He then sees the helicopter flying in plain view of the HK. It is one of Skynet's helicopters. He loads a SAM into the launcher and then aims for the helicopter. With one shot he can take out an entire squad of terminators. He fires the missile. The helicopter turns, and the tail rotor is hit. the helicopter goes to a tail spin and crahses on the street a few yards from Kyle.
Humans would be killed or seriously injured from the crash; Kyle knows that terminators are made of sterner stuff. Hiding behind a ruined wall, he peers over and sees silvery skeletons glistening in the starlight. They loom different from the T-600's he had seen. This must be a new model, he thinks. He goes back to the manhole.
"There are two HK's and some terminators above," he says to Captain Colton and the others.
"We'd better keep them at bay until the extraction team arrives," says Colton. "Everybody up."
and
so they emerge from the manhole. They open fire on the terminators from
prone positions with the plasma rifles and grenade launchers. Two of
the terminators are taken down.
Kyle looks through the window of a wall, and sees an HK coming towards him. Then it explodes.He looks above and sees a fighter jet fly by.
"They're here!" he yells. the Resistance fighter turns around and then fires an air-to-air missile at the remaining HK, blowing it to bits. Four terminators approach the extraction area. Suddenly, they are blown apart by an antiterminator bomb launched from an F/A-18 Hornet. A helicopter flies in. "This is the U.S. Marine Corps!" yells a voice from the helicoipter's speaker. "We're coming to get you out."
"You first, Reese," says Colton. "Take the terminator with you."
"Yes, sir," says Kyle. He and Baker lift the terminator and head to the helicopter.
"What's that?" asks a marine, brandishing a plasma rifle.
"It's a terminator," says Kyle. "Crystal Peak's gonna wanna see this."
So he boards the helicopter with the terminator. A few more soldiers pack the helicopter, and then the Marine pilot flies out of here. More Marine helicopters arrive, pickung up the soldiers who had evacuated the outpost in Los Angeles. Captain Colton is the last to leave.
Hector Zamora goes to the lab and sees soldiers wheel somebody in. He sees what appears to be a man. "This isn't the infirmary," he says.
"It is a terminator," says a sergeant. "You are to make a full examination."
"It looks human."
"It seems to be wrapped in human flesh. It attacked one of our outposts.""I'll see what I can do."The terminator, apparently wrapped in human flesh, is laid before a table. Zamora and his assistants all prepare to examine the machine. "First, we'll have to cut away the flesh," he says. Zamora uses a knife to cut the flesh and strip it off. As the flesh is stripped off, it reveals a metal endoskeleton. It looks like a 600 or 700 series. It is not. For one thing, this new model has an articulate jaw, while the 600 and 700 series did not. Phootgraphs are taken of the terminator.
The terminator's hard drive is then removed from the skull and attached to the Macintosh computer used to diagnose computer datas from Skynet's machines. For obvious reasons, this computer has no network connections.
"Interesting," says Zamora. "The general would be interested in this report."
A civilian, Hector Zamora is one of TechCom's most valuable assets. For Hector Zamora was a researcher assigned to Cyber Research Systems in Edwards Air Force Base. Zamora had worked on the software used by the T-1 terminators as well as the Skynet Battlefield Management System. When the T-1's began their takoever of the facility, Zamora managed to escape with an Air Force master sergeant named Candy. After a few weeks, he and Candy made contact with John Connor. He does recall that John Connor seemed to recognize Sergeant Candy, even though Candy had never met the guy before. Now he appears in a conference room before General John Connor and the top commanders of TechCom. an international command, TechCom Headquarters has personnel from six different countries, and each of the six officers here represent their respective nations.
"Give us your report," says Connor. "Well, sirs," says Zamora. "This model of terminator is designated as Model 101, Series 800. It is a cyborg-cybernetic organism. A metal endoskeleton wrapped in human flesh."
"Human flesh?" asks Admiral Thomas Wright of the British Royal Navy. "Are they stripping flesh from human corpses?"
"It doesn't look like it," says Zamora. "It seems that the flesh is generated from a vat. A physician I asked to assist me in the examination has not seen any signs this flesh was stripped from a dead human. It uses a fuel cell as a power source, and it has a wireless modem to communicate with other machines."
"So then there are terminators which would look identical to humans," says General Will Nelson of the Canadian Armed Forces.
"Yes, sir."
"This is serious," says General Sergei Gugarin of the Russian Air Force. "They can send spies or even assassins."
"I guess we'd have to be more cautious," says General Connor. "As a precaution, we'll need to screen all base personnel to see if they are human."
"And how would we do that?" asks Admiral Wright.
"The thermal image of a terminator should be different from a human," says Zamora. "Then we will use infrared scans of everyone in here," says Connor. "And Zamora, you will continue further study of the T-800's software."
"Yes, sir."
Kyle sits in the cramped guest quarters. He was brought here after a short stay on a Navy warship. He had heard the base was in lockdown, and the Crystal Peak garrison was using infrared scans on everyone. He hears a knock on the door. He answers and sees an old man in uniform.
"Hi there," the man says in a thick Texas accent. "Are ya Corporal Reese?"
"Yes."
"Chief Master Sergeant Candy, U.S. Air Force, senior enlisted advisor to TechCom. come with me."
So
the corporal follows Sergeant Candy through the halls of Crystal Peak.
After a minute, they arrive outside a door marked "VIP Dining
Room".
"Ya know," says Candy. "this used to be a fallout shelter for the U.S. government. It was built as a temporary headquarters in case of a nuclear attack. There are dozens of these scattered across the United States."
"Are they all Resistance bases?"
"Some of them yeah. Some of them were taken over by the machines. Now let us go inside."
They go inside the VIP dining room. It is a small room covered in a blue carpet. The tables are covered with white tablecloths. The U.S. flag is located in the back. General John Connor sits at the table with a young man and a young woman. "Hello, sir," says Kyle as he gives a salute. "If I had known I was gonna have lunch with you, I would have put on a dress uniform."
"It's okay, Corporal."
Kyle has a seat. "This is Tyler and this is Heidi," says the general. "They are my children."
"Hi there," says Kyle. He quickly views both of them. Tyler is a tall young man with red hair, just barely into manhood. He wears a U.S. Air Force dress uniform and his insignia identifies him as a second lieutenant. Heidi has brown hair tied into a ponytal and she wears a white blouse and slacks. Lunch is served by an Army private. It is prime rib.
"This came all the way from the cattle ranches of Argentina," says Connor. And so the four of them eat the prime rib.
"So tell me about yourselves," says Kyle.
"Well, I recently finished flight training in the U.S. Air Force," says Tyler. "I report in two days to join the 11th Fighter Wing which is defending Alaska from Skynet's air raids."
"Why the Air Force?"
"I know that to win this war, we need to take back the skies. I joined up to take the skies back."
"And what of you?" Kyle asks the girl."I'm a computer programmer," says Heidi. "I learned a lot about Skynet's programming, about its matrices and code and data files.""Uh huh," says Kyle, not knowing what the girl is talking about."
"We have ways of hacking into the system," she says. "We use this to fool the machines- like a cyber decoy. This war will be fought with keyboards as much as it would be fought with guns or planes. Just recently, I started working with Zamora on the T-800 that was captured"
"Where's your mom?" asks Kyle.
"She's in an air base in Nevada," says Tyler. "She'll come back tonight."
"Well," says Kyle, after swallowing a piece of prime rib, "I wish you two the best."
February 10, 2025
General John Connor enters the research lab where Hector Zamora and his staff work. He sees Zamora in his bleached-white lab coat.
"Hello there," says Zamora. "We've finished the reprogramming of that terminator that was brought in."
Connor
looks at the gleaming metal skeleton. A cable runs from the back of its
skull to the Dell personal computer. The wireless modem had been
removed; its connection to Skynet is severed. Zamora clicks on the
mouse attached to the Dell computer. The terminator rises. "Hello
there, John Connor," says the T-800in a heavily accented voice.
"Tell us your mission," says Zamora.
"My primary function is to obey John Connor," says the terminator.
"It's you," says Connor, recalling thirty-year-old memories. "It's been thirty years since..."
"According to my memory files, this is our first encounter," says the T-800. "Of course," says the general. "Stand up."
The terminator gets up from the table and stands tall."Stand on one foot."
The terminator raises its leg and stands on one foot.
"Just like before."