Sarah lay motionless on her bed as the orderly strapped her in. She heard the familiar ripping noise of the Velcro straps being re-secured, and the little chink of the shiny lock on her chest being locked. The orderly watched her closely for any signs of life. She was the prettiest girl in his ward, and it was late. After a quick glance around, the temptation was too great. He licked her cheek slowly, tasting her salt, half-hoping for a reaction.
Nothing.
Her eyes were still dull and listless, staring blankly into space. "Huh…" he said. Then he went out, locked her door, and began running his baton against the wall, making rattling, thumping noises.
Sarah waited calmly until the noise died away down the hall, then sprang into action. Quickly, she spat out the paperclips near her hand, and she straightened it out as best she could, but still leaving a few kinks in it. She did the same with the second one, then jimmied the lock on her chest. It stuck for a moment, reluctant to be opened by this alien thing, but in a few minutes she got open anyway. With a sigh of relief, she shrugged herself out of the white ropes, then used her teeth to tear off the Velcro restraints.
She tore off a strip from her gown to tie her hair back. A little yank and a pull, and her hair was tied back in a messy pony tail. She carefully picked up the two paperclips and began working on the lock on her door.
0o0o0o00o0o0o0o0o0o0o
A young police officer walked quickly into the Maximum Security ward, his badge twinkling in the industrial lights. Everything was hospital white; the walls, the ceiling, and the chairs. Except for the floor, which was a black and white tile, it looked as though an artist had done a sketch, then forgot to add color.
He went up to the elderly lady behind the desk. "Excuse me, but do you have a Sarah Connor here?" he asked politely.
She smiled at him. "You're a little late, aren't you? They've already been in there for an hour."
This puzzled him until he caught sight of the two detectives, accompanied by Dr. Gorke and two uniformed officers, in the mirror on the wall.
"Hold on, I'll buzz you in," she started to say. "Oh, wait, here comes your friends now." She turned to the place where the young cop had been, but there was nothing there. She peered around the desk nearsightedly, blinked, then shrugged.
There was a loud rap on the glass door, and she buzzed the detectives in, still confused.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The Terminator and Jess halted just outside the gates to the psychiatric hospital. "Why are we stopping now?" the Terminator asked wearily.
"Just to make sure you're not going to kill anybody." she said.
"I will not kill anyone." he said impatiently.
"Swear?" she asked. He turned around, a knot forming between his eyebrows.
"What?" he asked. This human used some very strange phrases.
"Just put your hand up and say 'I swear I won't kill anyone'" Jess said. He did so.
"I swear I will not kill anyone." he intoned.
"Good, now c'mon."
They rolled into the drive through, and the security guard stepped out of the little shed. "Visiting hours are 10 to 6, Monday through Friday-"
The Terminator got off his bike and pulled out his pistol, shooting him twice in the kneecaps. He punched through the window and opened the gate, then took the keys and Taser off of the guard.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jess shouted. The Terminator calmly got back on the bike.
"He'll live." He quipped. Jess almost laughed. A Terminator with a sense of humor. Who knew?
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Nelson, the orderly, walked down the hallway, checking all the doors. Before he got to 304, which was Sarah Connor's room, he saw the open door of a utility closet. Pulling out his flashlight, he peered inside. He was about to close the door when he saw that the mop had been broken in two, with the stick gone. All that remained was a few inches attached to the mop head, and it was splintered at one end. Shrugging, he started to close it again when-
WHAM
Sarah skipped out of nowhere, whacking him clean across the face with the mop handle. He was about to cry out when she hit him again, this time at the base of the neck. He gave a muffled groan, and fell face first on the clean linoleum. She rifled through his pockets expertly, taking out a ring of keys and stealing his baton. With a little skip and a jump, she crept down the hallway silently, twirling the baton as she went.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Tony was a fat, balding man with a bristly mustache and red hair, or what was left of it. His buttons strained to pop on the front of his khaki shirt that barely covered his pudgy gut. He marched down the hallway, hearing his boots squeak on the clean floor.
But not all of it was floor.
Making as much noise as a spider, the T-1000 pulled himself up from the floor with painstaking slowness. He had melted himself to become part of the floor, and now he slid upwards, forming himself into an exact imitation of Tony.
"Hey, Lisa, you want a cup of coffee?" Tony yelled to the front desk. He put a Styrofoam cup on the automatic coffee maker, and watched the stream of bitter liquid flow into it.
"No thanks. How about a beer?" Lisa asked. Tony laughed.
"Yeah, right." he said. The coffee machine beeped, and he took the cup off the tray. Lifting it up to eye level, he checked the "Secret sticker code" on the side of the cup. He got an ace, king, queen, jack of diamonds.
"Hey, Lisa! I got a full house!" he exclaimed excitedly.
"Wow, it must be your lucky day." she called back, immersed in paperwork.
Tony turned around, and saw an exact replica of himself staring at him with a wide-eyed, angry expression on its face. He opened his mouth to say something to Lisa, but before he could, his mirror-image raised a finger, and pointed it at him. His cup of coffee splashed to the floor, spilling over his new shoes.
The finger shot out, turning bright silver, and impaled him right through his left eye. Tony gurgled unpleasantly, twitching grotesquely.
After the horrendous business of stashing the real Tony somewhere, (in a broom closet), the fake Tony knocked briskly on the glass door. Lisa buzzed him in automatically, still up to her watery brown eyes in paperwork.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Sarah made her way into the front desk, where Dr. Gorke and an orderly were still talking. She raised the baton and cracked it across the orderly's neck, hearing bone crunch and vertebrae twist. Dr. Gorke reached for the phone to call security, but Sarah smashed the baton on his arm with a savage growl.
"You broke my arm!" Dr. Gorke yelped, clutching the wounded arm to his chest. Sarah rummaged roughly through the janitor cart, bringing up a bottle of Drain-O and a syringe.
"There are two hundred and fifteen bones in the human body, Doctor. That's one." she snarled. She stabbed the needle and syringe into the Drain-O and pulled out a full five milligrams. "Now you better listen carefully…"
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
At the lobby, the three guards on duty witnessed a terrible sight; Dr. Gorke had a syringe full of some blue liquid poked in his neck, and that crazy woman, Sarah Connor, was holding the needle. Her face was a mask of hate and rage.
"Calm down, Sarah, no one needs to get hurt!" called one of the guards, a female with a cast on her arm. Sarah had broken it two weeks ago.
"Open the frigging door," Sarah growled. The other two guards rushed to the glass door, batons in hand.
"Come on, Sarah, you won't do this," Dr. Gorke said in a wheezing whisper. "I know you're not a killer."
"Remember, Doctor? You're already dead!" She increased the pressure on the headlock she had him in.
"Open the door." Dr. Gorke ordered, his face going deathly pale. "Open the damn door."
The door opened with a little whoosh of released air. "Drop 'em!" Sarah ordered. The two guards threw down their batons and backed up.
"On the floor, all of you! No, not you." Sarah said, pointing at the other door with her chin. "Open that door, then get down and face the wall!"
She knew what she was doing. She had been planning this escape for weeks, months. How long she had studied the guards, waiting until the perfect opportunity, she didn't know. She knew their weaknesses, their fears. She waited for one of them to slip up, then she pounced like a tiger. They all feared her. They feared her because she looked perfectly sane, perfectly normal. But they knew she was as mad as a hatter. Terminators? Really?
Sarah backed up, the needle still in Dr. Gorke's neck. Unfortunately, behind her, an orderly was sneaking along the passageway, baton in hand. He rapped it lightly on her arm, enough to make her let go, and Dr. Gorke hurried away, out of Sarah's deathly grip.
With a quick skip, Sarah took off down the hallway. The orderlies were after her, of course, along with Dr. Gorke. He was ashen faced, and sweaty. The pain in his broken arm was monstrous.
Sarah raced down the passageway, unlocking the door and dashing through it. She locked the door just as they all piled against it, expecting for it to give. They beat against the glass, yelling, as one of them struggled to unlock the door. The next door was easier; it was simply metal bars stretched across the hallway, so Sarah could reach in and break off the key.
She turned the corner, skidding slightly on the linoleum, and banged her hand against the elevator. Of course; they were in lockdown, the elevators weren't working. She cursed herself for forgetting this crucial detail. Next time-
But then the elevator door on the left pinged. She dashed towards it, her eyes wide with relief and adrenaline.
Time slowed to a crawl.
Out of the elevator, like some giant demon from Hell, the Terminator stepped out. He was the same as ever; biker gear, shotgun in hand, that impassive, cruel sneer on his chiseled features. Sarah screamed, louder then she had ever screamed in her life, and pulled up, sliding on the floor, backing away from him on her hands and knees.
"NO!" She shrieked, getting to her feet. Instead of shooting her, like she expected, he followed her down the hallway. He wants to make sure of the kill, she thought hysterically. She was so deep in fear that she didn't hear Jess calling her name.
The orderlies piled on top of her, whipping out restraints and syringes, pinning her to the floor. Sarah was hysterical, her eyes mad with fear.
"He'll kill us all!" she screamed. She kept repeating this, over and over. "He'll kill us all! He'll kill us all! Get out!"
"You gotta help her!" Jess called. The Terminator pushed her back.
"Stay here." he barked. Jess did so.
To Sarah's utter surprise, the Terminator picked up one of the orderlies and flung him against the window. Of course, the glass shattered, but the glass had iron bars behind it and the orderly slumped to the floor, out cold. He tossed another one through the doorway, and he whacked his head against the wall. He didn't shoot them, like Sarah was expecting; he just knocked them out or crippled them.
The guard who had a cast on her arm slammed it against the Terminator's neck, twisting it. It should have broken any normal man's neck, but it didn't. His sunglasses skewed off his face, and he threw them off, then turned to face the guard. He shot her once in the leg, and she screamed, rolling to the side.
Dr. Gorke pressed himself against the wall, hoping against hope that the strange, leather clad man wouldn't notice him.
Jess kneeled down next to her mother. "Mom," she said. Sarah was still staring at the Terminator, her eyes wide. "MOM!" Jess cried, right in her ear.
Sarah turned, looking at Jess. It was amazing; why wasn't the Terminator pumping them both full of lead? What had happened?
Then, the Terminator offered her his hand. It was the most innocent of gestures, a token of chivalry and gentleness. "Come with me if you want to live." he said quietly.
Trembling, Sarah allowed herself to her pulled up. She sensed the raw power behind his cool brown eyes, felt it in the firm grip. Then he helped Jess to her feet too, and Sarah gasped in surprise.
The Terminator's head snapped up, his eyes in search mode. "Run." he snapped in a low growl. He pushed them both towards the open elevator doors. Jess yanked Sarah behind her, dashing towards them.
Because, at the other end of the hallway, there stood the T-1000.
He had changed form again, and was now in his usual form, the young policeman. His glare was cool and determined. The metal bars posed no problem; he simply melted through them. There was a little clink, and he looked down, surprised. The gun was still on the other side. He twisted it sideways and pulled it through.
The syringe cap dropped out of Dr. Gorke's mouth. He wondered how many years of therapy it would take to erase this from his mind.
The Terminator flipped the shotgun again, much as he had when he was rescuing Jess from the truck. He blew a huge silver hole in the middle of the T-1000's chest, but the robot kept advancing. He fired a few more bullets at the new robot, but they didn't seem to have any effect on him, except making him pause.
But a pause was all he needed. He made a sprint towards the doors, and they closed just as the T-1000 reached them.
They had made a grave miscalculation, though. A sword stabbed through the elevator doors, then shifted into two crowbars that pried the doors open. There was a little grin on the T-1000's face.
The Terminator coolly blew a hole in his head with the shotgun, making the T-1000 stagger back, his head nearly blown in two.
The doors closed, and they started to descend. Sarah clutched Jess to her, still amazed that the Terminator was defending them. The last time she had seen him, he was determined to kill her. She still had nightmares about those burning red eyes, crawling towards her…
THUMP
The T-1000 landed on top of the elevator. "Get down." the Terminator ordered, and Sarah pulled Jess to the floor.
A huge steel knife stabbed through the elevator ceiling, missing them by a fraction. The Terminator moved to the corner, and blasted a hole in the ceiling. There was a pause, then it stabbed again, this time slicing Sarah's arm to the bone. She screamed, grabbing her shoulder, blood pouring out through her fingers.
The blade flashed again, this time narrowly missing the Terminator himself, but he seemed not to notice. He blew another hole in the roof. Sarah swallowed hard, ignoring the screaming pain in her arm, and snatched the pistol from the Terminator's waistband. She emptied a full clip in the ceiling, and there was a small pause. She guessed she had hit him, and he was regenerating.
Ping…
Jess and Sarah raced out, closely followed by the Terminator. He smashed open a police car, and ordered them to get inside. They obeyed, Sarah in the passenger seat and Jess crouched in the back.
Out of nowhere, two metal crowbars lodged themselves firmly in the trunk of the squad car. The T-1000 pulled himself up on top of the car, the used his metal arm to smash the glass in the backseat. Shard of glass rained around her, and Jess shrieked in pain and fear.
"Drive!" the Terminator barked, and Sarah awkwardly grabbed the wheel with her one good arm, her left. The Terminator leaned out the window and shot the T-1000 squarely in the chest.
It toppled off the car, regenerating slowly. A tip of the crowbar had snapped off, and Jess stared at it in morbid fascination. She had a morbid idea that the tip of metal would call the rest of it, and she tugged it out of the car and threw it.
The car whizzed down the road, rapidly vanishing out of sight. The T-1000 walked carefully over to the crowbar tip that had clattered on the pavement. With a little effort, he sucked it into his polished boot.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Down the road, Sarah turned to Jess. "Are you okay?" she asked. Jess nodded, her blue eyes shining. It had been almost two years since she saw her mother, and at least five years since she was able to hug her.
"Can you even see anything?" Jess queried of the Terminator. He turned to her, while still driving perfectly. It was eerie, how he could multitask like that.
"I see everything." he replied.
Sarah motioned for Jess to come over, and she happily complied, hugging her mother. It took her a moment to realized that Sarah was patting her down, checking her arms and legs, her torso and neck. "Mom, I said I'm fine," Jess complained, withdrawing.
"That was stupid," Sarah said, her eyes flaring. "You can't risk yourself! You're too important! You can't do anything like that again, even for me. You were almost killed!"
Jess blinked back tears. What was she saying? Jess had risked life and limb to get her mother out of there, exerting all her skills and cunning, and her mother was berating her for it.
"I had to get you out of there," Jess said in a choked whisper. Sarah just turned away, shaking her head.
Neither of them noticed the Terminator watching them. "What's wrong with your eyes?" he asked Jess.
Jess cuffed bitterly at the hot tears that were impairing her vision. "Nothing." she said in a hard voice. "Nothing at all."
There was quiet for some minutes, then Sarah looked at the Terminator. "So, what's your story?" she asked.