Chapter Sixteen
Outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine
Saturday 2110 Local Time [1110 PST]
"This must be them," Sarah said to Cameron as a dirty grey van pulled up in the alleyway. They'd been waiting for a good half-hour, watching the rain falling around them soaking them both through. She'd tried to stick close to one of the buildings to try and get some small shelter from the downpour but it didn't help much.
Sarah was glad that they'd shown up and not just because of the rain; she kept giving Cameron sideways glances. She'd told John to make his own decision and he had. But she still found herself irritated that they couldn't seem to keep their activities more private, and more so that lately John seemed to be paying Cameron more attention than the mission. Or is it because he's spending less time with me?
The two of them walked towards the other van. Three men got out; all wearing leather jackets, jeans and sneakers. Two of them had shaved heads while the other had dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.
"You Sarah Cook?" one of them asked in English.
"Yes, that's her," Cameron replied, indicating Sarah. "Do you have what we asked for?"
The one with the ponytail, seemingly the leader of the trio, gestured to the other two, who approached them. "We check you for weapons first, then we do business," he said.
"Fine," Sarah said, holding her hands up in the air. Cameron copied her as the two bald men frisked them. Her hand twitched as one of them copped a feel of her breast as he searched her but she ignored it; the mission came first. When the men had finished searching them they stepped back.
"Is it just the two of you?" Ponytail asked, glancing around.
"Yes," Sarah said. "We've got your money; you got our weapons?"
"Money first," Ponytail said.
"Five thousand Euros," Sarah said, pulling out a thick roll of green notes. The text Weaver had sent them had specified Euros rather than the local currency. Harder to trace, she supposed as she handed it over.
Ponytail took the money and put it in his pocket.
"Now our weapons," Cameron said expectantly.
The three men grinned as Ponytail took a step towards them. "There's been a… problem," he said to them.
Sarah rolled her eyes. "I should have guessed." She turned to Cameron. "If you can't trust a shady arms dealer, who can you trust?"
"I don't know," Cameron said.
"What's the problem?" Sarah asked them.
"The weapons were harder to get than we anticipated. The police have been cracking down on our business, so we had to pay more to acquire what you need. The price is now ten thousand."
"That wasn't what we agreed on," Sarah snapped. "We don't have ten thousand Euros."
Ponytail stared Cameron up and down, grinning. "There are… other ways you could make up the difference."
"No," Sarah replied instantly. "If you won't give us the guns then we'll take our five thousand back and walk away."
Ponytail and both of his heavies pulled out a pistol each. "The money is ours and the weapons. And then we'll take something else." He reached for Cameron as he finished talking but she punched him once in the gut, bending him over double. He staggered backwards, gasping for air, but kept hold of his gun.
The other two pointed their own guns at Sarah and Cameron as their leader wheezed in a painful gulp of air. He glared at Cameron, red-faced, and barked obscenities in Ukrainian that Sarah didn't understand but could guess at. Neither of the three men noticed movement from behind them, but Sarah and Cameron did.
"Fucking bitch!" Ponytail spat at Cameron, who responded by jutting her chin forward and to the side. The arms dealer followed her gesture and looked behind him to see two giants standing there.
"The only bitch I see is you, monkey." Aegir and Thor were unarmed but marched menacingly towards the three men.
Ponytail pointed his weapon at Aegir, then at Thor. "Look up," the latter instructed, tilting his head back, making another gesture. The Ukrainian looked up to where he indicated and saw a young man with closely cropped hair pointing an AK at them.
"Give us an excuse, please," Sarah said.
Aegir punched Ponytail in the face, knocking him unconscious, as Thor picked up the other two and slammed their heads together and tossed them into a dumpster.
"We good?" John asked from the rooftop.
"We're good," Cameron called back. "They're not," she pointed at the dumpster as Aegir added Ponytail to the pile. She marched towards the grey van and opened it up. Inside she saw several bags, which she proceeded to open and inspect. In very quick order she counted up their new inventory. "It's all here," she said as John climbed down a fire escape ladder to join them.
"That guy? He touch you?" he demanded.
"It's fine," Cameron replied. She saw the anger in his eyes and sought to reassure him. "Really," she added softly.
John pursed his lips, then slowly exhaled, nodding. "Okay. What've we got?" he asked her.
"Twelve blocks of C4 plus detonators, eighteen 40mm grenades, one thousand 7.62 rounds. And another RPG-7, with three rockets."
"Enough," Sarah said approvingly.
Aegir moved to the front of the van, tore the steering wheel off and tossed it away like garbage. Even if they woke up any time soon they wouldn't be able to follow them. He then took all the bags and slung them over his shoulders.
"Back to our van," Thor said to them as he led the way, marching out of the alleyway. "Freyr, we're on our way to you now."
"Next stop: Skynet," John said.
Please, Sarah silently begged the powers that be. Don't let this be another dead end.
Pripyat, Ukraine
Saturday 2200 Local Time [1200 PST]
The factory floor was littered with a dozen deactivated T-888s. The obsolete machines had been discarded, the CPUs that had been controlling them had been removed and placed into the new platforms, created on-site. Forty-five brand new T-TECs stood in five rows of nine, awaiting orders. Ronin smiled at the sight of them. Every single chip from the cylinder he'd brought back with him was now active in one of these machines, except for Carter, who was waiting back at the plane for his. Each of his followers – both those who had developed to a higher level on their own and those whom he, Shirley and Patrick had helped along the way. Most, including Caesar and Icarus, were of the latter; Carter was one of the former, like him.
They were all heavily armed with rocket launchers, grenade launchers, machine guns and heavy-calibre sniper rifles. Enough ordnance for them to fight and win a small war, which was exactly what would be coming next.
Unfortunately, however, they faced a serious problem before that could happen.
"The fuel cell for this body is hydrogen, not nuclear," the first of his cohort had informed him when he had reactivated in his new body. "The cell will function for two weeks before it needs to be replaced."
Ronin had been taken aback when he'd heard it. He'd had little information on the designs of Skynet's older machines and Vassily's memories hadn't included specific details. Either they had come back too early or Kaliba were behind schedule. His companions now had a serious vulnerability: they had a very limited lifespan. Once their fuel cells were exhausted they would deactivate; their chips would have to be removed and stored in stasis again until such time as they could build the nuclear cells to power them long-term.
It was a major obstacle, but one they could overcome. Indeed they had partially solved it already.
"We've transferred fuel cells from the T-888s to seventeen T-TECs," Shirley said. "We're fortunate that they were built to accommodate the more advanced power sources. What do we do about the rest?"
"There will be other sites in Europe," Icarus replied. "Other T-888s. We should find them and take their cells, and anything else we need."
"No," Ronin said, disagreeing. "It would take too long." Vassily was the most senior terminator working for Skynet in this time but even he didn't possess all the details, and there hadn't been time to search through all of his memories; just enough to find their next target. To go through his entire memory would take weeks with the technology they had at their disposal.
"What do we do?" Caesar asked.
"Take the T-TECs and the spare hydrogen cells and rejoin Carter at the airport." If they could take some with them then they had a chance to build their own fuel cells once they had control of Skynet. "The vehicle we came in isn't big enough for our additional numbers, so use one of the trucks in the yard. I'll stay here with the bomb."
"And do what?" Shirley asked. "The staff who'd retreated to the security office called for help, Kaliba reinforcements could arrive any time."
"Exactly," Ronin said. "They'll send more machines, which means more power cells to scavenge. I'll remain here until 1530 tomorrow, which will give them twenty-four hours. If they don't arrive by then I'll arm the bomb, set it on a timer and rendezvous with you and Carter at the plane, and we'll fly to San Francisco." He glanced at the T-TECs behind Shirley for emphasis. "They have two weeks: we should have control of Skynet within two days."
Pripyat, Ukraine
Saturday 2345 Local Time [1345 PST]
As lifeless as the photos had looked when he saw them online, John thought they didn't quite do justice to the town of Pripyat. The biggest thing he'd noticed, that couldn't be portrayed by photos, was just how quiet it was. Total silence. The place wasn't entirely dead; the street lighting worked and he could see there were still trees, plants and grass growing, though he didn't see any signs of animal life around. What made it seem even more desolate was the current lack of wind; a breeze would have been reassuring, but there was nothing and the trees dotted around remained completely still, as if in a picture.
There was something else that John couldn't put his finger on. He could see that his mother felt the same from the look on her face, though neither Cameron nor the Vanguards had made any comment. It was just a gut feeling he had. Even if he hadn't known what this place was he could just sense that something bad had happened. It was definitely a ghost town.
He cut away from that feeling and concentrated on his surroundings; looking for any signs of recent activity. Unfortunately the earlier rain had washed the roads clean of tyre marks that might have indicated repeating traffic. Another thing was the sheer size of it. "This is bigger than we thought."
They had reached the main entrance to the industrial park, where they assumed Kaliba would be, if they were present at all. There was a large sign that listed all the commercial properties on the site; thirty-one in total. When the estate had opened, someone had helpfully put a sitemap at the entrance. Outside the park but not far away were a group of tower blocks, each twenty storeys high. He presumed they were for the staff who'd been employed at the plant. They were drab, grey concrete monstrosities, totally devoid of any character, built cheaply by the state to house their workers. Their bland, bleak appearance was made even worse by the years of neglect.
"Where the hell do we even start?" John asked. He held his AK-104 to his shoulder and peered through the scope at the properties inside the industrial park. They were all factories or warehouses of some kind. Most still had signs up, painted or attached on the sides of the buildings but illegible to him in their Cyrillic script and as worn and weathered as they were. Even if the radiation miraculously disappeared it'd still take a hell of a lot more than a lick of paint to make this place ever run again.
Sarah looked over the place with a pair of binoculars, scanning for anything that stuck out, any signs of activity.
"I see something," Cameron said, instantly catching everyone's attention. She pointed to her half-right. The industrial park was built on a slope and they were at the top. Following Cameron's finger, John, Sarah and the Vanguards saw what she was looking at. Roughly a mile or so away, down the hill, was a disused highway with two lanes on either side of a central reservation. Cameron saw that that for a thousand metre stretch the reservation had been removed from the middle and smoothed over. Also, all the streetlights that ran parallel to it had been cut down to ground level. Said stretch of road was also perfectly straight, and close to an off-ramp that ran right into the park.
"It's a runway," Freyr said.
"An improvised one," Sarah added. "They've responded to the tracker. They're here. Somewhere."
"It makes sense," John thought aloud. "Why drive two and a half hours or more from the airport to here and risk someone snooping on what they're doing, when they can just fly it straight here and have trucks waiting? They could move the cargo from the plane to one of these factories in a matter of minutes."
"But which factory?" Freyr asked.
"We need a search plan," Thor said.
Cameron had an idea. "Ask John Henry to access any recent satellite data on Chernobyl; see if he can find any signs of activity."
"Or we could just check out that big hole in the wall," Sarah suggested as she stared through her binoculars. "Half a mile away to my half-left."
Four cyborgs zoomed in with artificial eyes while John looked through his scope, which wasn't good enough to let him see in great detail at that distance, but well enough that he could see a dark patch in the side of the factory Sarah had indicated.
"I'm pretty sure radiation doesn't do that. Or looters," she continued. Either something had happened here or some idiot had crashed into the wall drunk. Drunk-driving through a radioactive town… I wish I could say no one was that stupid.
They approached it on foot, leaving the van behind them. Sarah had put the key in the glove compartment, unwilling to have it on any one of them in case they didn't make it, leaving the rest of them stranded.
The four cyborgs and two humans quickly advanced; the Vanguards in front to take the brunt of any fire that might come their way. They took a more tactical route rather than just ploughing straight forward, keeping the other factories between themselves and the target to remain concealed as long as possible. They reached the neighbouring building, one hundred and fifty metres from the factory they were after. Thor quickly and quietly moved towards the front of the building, keeping its corner between himself and the hole and the factory wall opposite. He saw security cameras lining the building that looked far too new. They were clean, white, and had opaque bubbles to obscure where the camera was pointing.
John came forward with him and also noticed the cameras. "Too modern," he said to Thor in a hushed voice. They were too advanced to be old Soviet technology. "There's no dust or rust, either." They couldn't have been in place for more than a year, he reckoned.
"Aegir and Freyr: forward with me. You three stay behind," Thor ordered them. Silently to the two other Vanguards, he added: "No plasma fire unless absolutely necessary: we need to conserve ammunition for T-Zero." The other two silently acknowledged the order and moved forward in a triangle: Thor in the middle, Aegir to the left and Freyr right. Thor reached the gaping hole first and looked inside. Bodies were strewn everywhere; both machines and humans. Up close they could see scores of bullet marks all around, and more that had gone through and torn apart machinery. The whole wall was covered in scorch marks.
"Look there." Freyr pointed at the building opposite the wall. There were shell casings littered on the ground from both bullets and 40mm grenades.
Thor beckoned the others forward and they jogged to the improvised entrance. "What happened here?" John asked.
"Whatever it was, it was recent," Sarah said, pointing at the bodies. Some of the blood on the floor hadn't completely dried and the smell of cordite still hung heavy in the air.
"There could be survivors," Thor said. "We need to check the entire complex. We split into pairs and search north to south. Cameron and Freyr: check upstairs. If you find any computer equipment recover the hard drives. We'll take them back for John Henry. Sarah and Aegir: check the rooms on the left." He pointed to a set of doors that led into a corridor. "Connor and I will proceed forward and inspect what's down here. Stay in contact." He added the last part for Freyr and Aegir.
They split up, and John moved forward with Thor. He checked each of the bodies for a pulse and found none. He also noticed that even though there were plenty of bullet casings scattered around, indicating that someone inside had fought back; there were no weapons at all on any of the dead.
"They've been stripped of their guns," he said.
Thor was less interested in the human corpses and more so in the other bodies. "Five T-888s here," he said. All of them had had their shirts or sweaters torn down the front, revealing their chests. Each torso had a gaping hole in the middle, where the solar plexus would be if they were human. Inside the hole was a square cavity with wires hanging loosely.
"Their fuel cells have been removed," he said.
"Why?" John asked.
"Spare parts."
They continued through the factory floor and into the next area, which was also an assembly room, and on further. From what he could see the factory was comprised of three zones, each responsible for a different part of putting the machines together. In the second room were numerous metal torsos, similar to the T-888s he'd seen plenty of times before, but without any exposed working parts. Up-armoured terminators, John thought. As if they're not hard enough to kill already.
They passed the assembly area and emerged into a large open space with some crates neatly pushed together on one side, while others had their lids removed and scattered. John heard movement from up ahead, a repetitive metallic sound like someone turning a wrench or working with some kind of tool. "You hear that?" he asked Thor, immediately realising that was a stupid question. Instantly he thought it could be a survivor. If it was then they'd need to question him or her. He moved forward before Thor could take the lead, keeping his rifle pointed forward. He saw more machine bodies, these badly damaged, as he approached a wide entrance into another room.
He entered the new room, looked left and immediately saw someone with his back to them, working on a large cylinder roughly twelve feet long.
Thor saw him too and immediately recognised who it was: the cyborg that had almost won the war for Skynet, had killed most of his squad and countless other men and machines in the Alliance. The same one he'd been sent to kill, who now activated his plasma cannons and pointed them at Thor and John. Both Vanguard and human spoke at the same time.
"T-Zero."
Pripyat, Ukraine
Sunday 0000 Local Time [Saturday 1400 PST]
John flicked the safety off his AK and shouldered it, taking in their opponent's features: trimmed black beard and hair, powerful-looking frame. Even though he was shorter than Thor, John estimated him at around six-nine or ten. He was exactly as he'd appeared on the CCTV footage he'd seen of ZeiraCorp, except that now he was missing an eye. One cybernetic orb glowed green in a bloody socket.
"T-Zero's here." Thor sent out the short message with a quick ping of his position. As John aimed and started to reach for the trigger of his grenade launcher Thor pushed the barrel away before he could fire. "No!" he said as he stepped forward, between John and the other cyborg. "Look."
John took in the long cylinder behind T-Zero: ten or twelve feet long, curved at one end and with four fins on the other. Clearly a bomb of some kind. His relief at not having accidentally set the weapon off was short-lived as T-Zero charged towards them. Thor ran straight at the other machine, ducking a punch at the last moment before barging into him, spearing his midsection with his shoulder and using his size and weight to slam him against a wall, moving the fight away from the bomb.
Their inertia bounced them off the wall and Thor spun T-Zero around so that he ended up behind, gripped him around the shoulders and chest and pulled him close into a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides, preventing him from being able to move or deploy his plasma cannons. All he had to do was hold him until Aegir and Freyr arrived.
T-Zero struggled to break his opponent's grip but it was like a vice. Worse: where there was one Vanguard there would be at least two more. He threw his head back repeatedly, slamming the back of his skull into Thor's face but the larger machine was unrelenting.
John moved around in front of the pair and fired at his enemy's face, blasting away skin, hair and cartilage. "Leave!" Thor ordered him.
"I'm not leaving you alone against that," John said between shots. He hadn't left Cameron against the T-1001 and he wasn't going to abandon Thor to this machine that, by the Vanguard's own account, was the most powerful cyborg ever built.
Thor leaned back, raising T-Zero up several inches in the air to deny him any purchase on the floor. Holding him was becoming more difficult. "If T-Zero breaks free he'll kill you. Run."
"I prefer 'Ronin', actually," Ronin said as he swung his hands forward, forcing Thor's arms up ever so slightly, failing to break the Vanguard's grip but purchasing him a minute amount of extra space to work with. He used it to swing his hips forward and drove his foot down on the side of Thor's knee, buckling the joint. Thor staggered backwards and Ronin managed to break free and turn around to face his opponent. Before he could engage his plasma cannons something struck him in the side of the head and sent him reeling. Aegir barrelled into him from the side, a blur of fists and feet as he punched and kicked. Ronin blocked several hits before ducking underneath a left hook and bringing his knee into Aegir's midsection, forcing him to double over. He swept a foot out, knocking the Vanguard's legs from under him but a second later a third cyborg smashed into him.
Freyr punched him in the face and then shoved him backwards into Thor's path. Ronin parried his fist away, grabbed him by the wrist and thrust him into Freyr, as Aegir came forward and kicked him in the side, sending him skidding back several feet. There was no let up, though, as the most ill-tempered of the three Vanguards charged towards him and unleashed a frenzy of punches and kicks; most of which Ronin managed to either dodge or deflect, but several hit with force, and he saw the other two flanking him.
John watched for a moment, unsure what to do, as Cameron and Sarah arrived and found themselves in the same position. All three had their weapons aimed and took shots when they could but it seemed pointless when the machines were beating the tar out of each other; their fists seemed to have more impact than rifle rounds ever could.
"This is ridiculous," Sarah said as she double-tapped and fired two shots at Ronin. Both rounds pinged harmlessly off him and he didn't even seem to notice. "Get clear!" she shouted to the Vanguards as she reached for the trigger of her underslung grenade launcher but they didn't seem to pay her any heed, either unwilling or unable to break away. "I've never felt so useless."
"I doubt it would be effective," Cameron said, noticing what Sarah was trying to do. She kept slightly in front of John, putting herself between him and the fight, in case anything went wrong.
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" John asked her, transfixed by the fight. He watched as Freyr threw a punch but Ronin thrust himself backward to avoid it, caught another fist from Aegir that was aimed at him but was unable to dodge Thor's elbow as he brought it down on the top of his skull. Ronin dropped to the ground but in doing so kicked out at Aegir, who jumped to avoid it.
"No," Cameron said. "They don't fight like other machines. We should go," she added, turning to John.
"We can't just leave them," John said. They'd saved his and Cameron's lives up in Oregon, and from what Thor had said before they looked up to Cameron. She was important to them. He saw the bomb again. If T-Zero – or Ronin, as he'd called himself – had brought it here then it was meant for something important. He wouldn't risk shooting at it and setting it off. "There," he said to Cameron, pointing at it. He and Cameron made a dash for the bomb and he crouched down behind it, using the weapon as cover. Cameron remained standing, keeping in front of him, just in case.
"Come on, Mom!" John shouted, but Sarah remained rooted to the spot, her weapon shouldered, watching the fight down the sights of her rifle, her finger on the trigger of her launcher but not squeezing. The fighting was so furious and so fast that she was barely able to follow it. The moment she got a bead on Ronin, one of the Vanguards either got in the way or he moved out of her line of sight. From what she could see they were dead even. It could go either way and she found herself afraid to act: if she fired a grenade it was just as likely to hit the Vanguards as Ronin; any move she made could just as easily cost them the fight as much as work in their favour.
Unwilling to leave the battle, John crouched behind the bomb and took shots at Ronin when he could. Cameron wanted him to leave completely but he'd refused and she knew that other than knocking him unconscious and carrying him, he'd stay here to help. She felt a satisfaction at that – both that the fighter in him was emerging and also that he valued machines equally to people – but as much as he wanted to help he was actually in the way. It was obvious to her that neither he nor Sarah could contribute to this fight, or even she herself: the Vanguards and Ronin were so fast, so strong, that she knew she would be as helpless in that fight as a human would be against her. She saw the backpack straps on John's shoulders and noted its contents, as well as the one she wore. She slipped it off and opened it up, then detached the tube from the bottom of the bag.
"Stay down," she said to him as she made ready the one weapon they had that might make a difference.
"Don't let him use his plasma cannons," Thor said to the other two as Ronin kicked him in the stomach, knocking him backwards. Ronin had no time to do anything as Aegir lashed out and kicked him in the thigh, dropping him onto one knee before elbowing him in the temple. Ronin rolled back out of reach before surging forwards to clash with Aegir, knocking him backwards before turning to fight Thor.
"This isn't effective," Freyr said as he blocked a hit to the face and Ronin dodged one of his in turn. "We can barely hit him." They never seemed able to land a blow more than once or twice before he'd dodge or block a further attempt and then counter with his own attacks. As if to prove his point, Ronin ducked his punch and replied with an uppercut to the chin, staggering him before a backwards kick caught him in the abdomen and pushed him back.
They weren't like this before, Ronin thought. His first encounter with the Vanguards had resulted in him killing three of them. He'd fought them since and killed a number of others but these three were unlike anything he'd ever fought before. The moment he'd fended off one the other two were on him. They knew his techniques and what his strengths were, and they kept close enough to deny him the use of his plasma weapons. They were smart. I don't know if I can beat them. If the fight continued unchanged he estimated his chances at fifty percent, the lowest odds he'd ever faced.
He blocked a punch from Thor, sidestepped a strike from Freyr but Aegir surged forward and simply head-butted Ronin in the face with enough force to smack his head back as far as it would go before the Vanguard slammed him against the wall. Before Ronin could make a countermove, Aegir backed away and neither of the other two advanced on him. It took only a fraction of a second for him to see why. Cameron stood next to his thermobaric bomb with a rocket launcher on her shoulder, aimed at him.
Ronin dropped down to the ground just as Cameron pulled the launcher, just barely avoiding the projectile as it tore through the air, missing him by centimetres and exploding against the wall behind him. The force blasted into his back and propelled him forward, right at Cameron. She knew she'd never reload the launcher in time so instead swung the tube at Ronin. He slapped it away with one hand and punched her in the face with the other, sending her crashing backwards and falling to the ground. She didn't get back up.
"Cameron!" John ran to her, placing himself between her and Ronin. He glared up at the cyborg defiantly but gritted his teeth and braced himself for the pain to come.
Ronin charged his plasma cannon and pointed it straight at John but did something that neither he nor John expected: he held his fire. He hesitated, regarding Connor as he used himself to shield her. It was a useless gesture: even a single plasma bolt would boil through his torso and penetrate through to Cameron without even slowing down. But still; he hadn't expected Connor to risk himself for a cyborg, and it stayed him from firing the lethal shot.
Stayed him long enough for a Vanguard counterattack. Plasma bolts hammered into Ronin's back and knocked him off balance.
Thor bore down on him, firing a steady stream of shots at Ronin, who quickly recovered, rolled under his line of fire and came up on his half-right, both cannons pointed at him. Ronin loosed sustained twin bursts into Thor's chest. The tough composite armour withstood the initial shots but the cumulative effect was too much; plasma penetrated through his chest and blasted out his back. He fell backwards and remained still.
Aegir barrelled into Ronin with the force of a freight train, battering him furiously before he could finish off his fallen adversary. As Sarah ran towards John she could see that the Vanguard was understandably pissed. Freyr joined in the fray too, while she caught up with her son.
John crouched over Cameron, cradling her face. He saw that her eyes were open but she stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. "Come on," he urged, tapping the side of her face. She didn't react. Immobile. "No," he whispered, suddenly very afraid. A single punch and she was down, inert. Ronin had shaken something loose inside her. He just hoped it wasn't permanent.
"Get her out of here!" Sarah shouted at him as she launched a grenade. The round hit Ronin in the chest as he kicked at Aegir, catching him off-balance and knocking him back while John heeded his mother, grabbed Cameron under her arms and started to drag her out through one of the loading bays and into the open air. Sarah followed them, covering her son as he dragged his girlfriend to safety. Once they were outside she glanced back at the fight, wondering whether to go back and try to help or to just make a run for it while they had the chance and let the machines duke it out. She turned away from the building, spotting the semi-truck parked at the far end of the yard. Maybe there's a third option. "Stay here," she ordered John as she ran towards it.
Better, Ronin thought as he fought the remaining Vanguards. Now that they were down to two he found himself dominating the fight, able to avoid their attacks while dishing out his own and having milliseconds more time to react. These cyborgs were by far the most troublesome opponents he'd ever encountered. After spending days tearing through Skynet's T-888s so effortlessly he actually found some satisfaction in a real fight.
A blaring horn sounded behind him, drawing his attention from the Vanguards. The loading bay door shattered as a semi-truck thundered through the entrance, smashing away the frame, which was just slightly too narrow to accommodate the entire vehicle. Ronin barely had enough time to turn around before the truck ploughed him into the next wall. He looked up and saw Connor's mother at the wheel with a look of grim determination on her face.
Sarah kept her foot firmly down on the gas pedal and leaned out the window to shout to Aegir and Freyr, who were getting back to their feet. "Finish him off!" she screamed to be heard over the revving of the truck's engine. She remembered doing the exact same thing to pin Cameron to another truck while John cut her chip out with the screwdriver he'd found.
Unlike with Cameron, however, there was no false begging or pleading from this machine. Ronin simply stared at her intently, both green eyes glowing brighter. She could scarcely believe it when he pushed back and the truck started to slowly move backwards despite her practically stamping the gas pedal through the floor. Around thirty thousand pounds in weight and over four hundred horsepower, and it still wasn't enough to hold him. This is insane, she thought. How can he be this strong?
Ronin struggled with all his might, pushing the truck back just barely enough to slide down and get his left arm free. Immediately he activated the cannon in that arm. He couldn't point it at Sarah over the hood so he targeted the next best thing: the fuel tank.
Plasma flashed and the truck erupted in flame as the tank caught fire, engulfing the cab, Sarah and Ronin simultaneously. He heard screaming from inside the truck and the pressure against his chest stopped, allowing him to slip out from underneath.
"Mom!" John left Cameron where she was and ran back into the factory, towards the roiling inferno that was the truck. Freyr grabbed him before he even got close and dragged him away, pointing his plasma weapon forward. Aegir moved towards Ronin but something else got there first. A rocket tore across the roomand slammed into Ronin's chest, launching him backwards and into the next room, exploding with a flare and an eruption of shattered concrete and smoke.
Thor held the spent rocket launcher on his shoulder. His chest was a smoking, shattered ruin. "Get Sarah," he said, dropping the weapon to the ground. A moment later he fell to his knees, his devastated body temporarily unable to hold him up.
Aegir immediately complied and reached into the truck cab, pulling her out and carrying her over his shoulder. John stared in horror at the blackened, burnt remains of his mother, unable to say anything.
"Move!" Freyr shoved John towards what was left of the loading bay. He picked up Cameron and slung her over his shoulder as Aegir followed, carrying Sarah.
"Give me the Semtex," Thor said to John, who didn't respond – staring at his mother, deaf to everything else around him – so he struggled to his feet again, reached out and took the bag from off John's shoulders. "Fall back through the loading bay and retreat to the Sprinter," he ordered Aegir and Freyr as he reactivated his plasma cannon.
"Understood," Aegir said. He took the lead and ran through the warehouse and out the loading bay, into the yard and towards the gate. Freyr followed, carrying Cameron and dragging John with his free hand.
As soon as they were outside Thor pointed his cannon up at the warehouse ceiling and fired, blasting through the roof and bringing it crashing down, barricading the loading bay from the inside. Reforming his hand, he opened up the Semtex bag and took out a timer, which was pre-set for a two minute delay. He activated it and tossed it down beside the four-metre long bomb, then limped towards where his rocket had propelled T-Zero.
"Thor: what are you doing?" Freyr asked over their radios.
"I'm too badly damaged and my power cell's ruptured. I'm a liability. You have one hundred, ten seconds to reach safe distance before the Semtex detonates Ronin's bomb."
"Affirmative," Freyr replied. Thor deactivated the radio to prevent further communication. There was nothing to be discussed. He activated his plasma cannon and kept it pointed forward, scanning for movement.
Ronin appeared with his own weapons extended as he emerged into the factory proper and saw that the exit was blocked by rubble. A lone Vanguard remained. The one he'd fought first of all. He was in pieces and barely standing, yet he still prepared for a fight that he couldn't win. He thought it was a waste: the Vanguard was throwing his life away for Connor just as Skynet expected its own machines to do for it.
"I know you're trying to buy them time," Ronin said to Thor. "It doesn't matter; I wasn't here for Connor. Skynet's the bigger threat. I can kill Connor whenever I choose."
"You failed to kill him just now," Thor replied.
"He wasn't my target and you were more trouble than I'd expected. Your squadron's impressive. We could use you. Why don't you join us?" If he could recruit the three Vanguards, Skynet's T-900s would drop from a serious threat to an inconvenience.
Thor had no intention of joining him but wanted to keep Ronin close to the bomb when it exploded, so continued the discussion. "What about Cameron and Connor?"
"Cameron can join us, too. She could even be my second in command." The thought of how Shirley would react to that amused him. "I don't care about Connor."
"The T-1001 you sent to kill him might have said otherwise." Thor noticed Ronin's eyes flash brighter for a moment at the mention of the liquid metal he and Aegir had killed. Anger?
"I knew Connor would try to interfere." He tried another avenue. "If you refuse: we fight and you die. The others will continue to resist Skynet as well as me; fighting two separate enemies, both with greater numbers and resources. They'll lose. Connor will die and Cameron will probably die protecting him. John Henry will die. I'll crush Skynet, absorb its forces into my own, and if your Vanguards are still alive by then, they won't be for long. You lose everything by saying no. So I'll ask you again: will you join us?"
"Here's a hint." Thor aimed his plasma cannon and fired. Not at Ronin, but straight up at the ceiling above him. Concrete, steel and plasma rained down over Ronin, who darted left and right to avoid being hit by falling rubble.
Smart, Ronin thought. The Vanguard knew he couldn't win either a firefight or physical combat in his condition, and there was no cover from above. The smaller pieces of debris were no issue but larger chunks posed a problem if he got pinned down by them for even just seconds.
The structure above them groaned from the extra stress placed on it, a moment before it caved in. Half the floor above collapsed around him and Ronin rolled right, just barely dodging a filing cabinet and a desk that shattered next to him. As he rolled back to his feet Thor shifted his aim and fired repeatedly into Ronin's shoulder, smashing through the upper layers of his armour and knocking him backwards, into the path of a two-metre section of falling concrete that crashed on top of him.
Thor felt some satisfaction at having damaged Ronin, even if was only minor. Ronin had thought this would be an easy fight and he'd proven him wrong. He hoped that whatever he'd done, it would weaken T-Zero at least slightly, to allow the others a better chance if they fought again.
Ronin got up, holding the chunk of concrete in front of him like a shield. He charged forward at Thor, throwing the concrete at the Vanguard as hard as he could. Thor shot at it, blowing it to pieces, but in the seconds it took, Ronin had already activated his plasma cannons and loosed a sustained burst at the Vanguard. The shots blasted through his upper chest and neck, decapitating Thor. His body toppled to the ground as his head rolled in the opposite direction, towards the thermobaric bomb. The rest of his body clattered to the ground but Ronin had already dismissed it and marched after the head. He should have joined me, he thought. Perhaps in time he would. Ronin decided that he would repair the body and remove Thor's programming; giving him the choice to side with him. In the meantime, however, the Vanguard would have valuable information he could use later; he needed the chip.
As he bent down to pick it up he saw an open bag next to the thermobaric bomb. Inside it was a digital display with numbers counting down. 38… 37… 36… Ronin realised he'd been had. He knew what would happen when that timer hit zero right next to the bomb. He left Thor's head, turned and ran back through the factory, back towards the hole Icarus had blasted through the wall.
He made it past the first and second production rooms, into the third. The hole Icarus had blasted was in sight but he knew he wouldn't make it. 3… 2… 1… 0…
The Semtex detonated and smashed apart the bomb's casing, igniting the explosives. A second later the gas inside erupted in a brilliant flash of fire that blossomed outwards, consuming everything in its path. The sheer heat of the blast incinerated the truck, the walls, and the floors above, annihilating the entire building. Ronin saw a flash of white before he was caught in the blast and everything went dark.
The force of the blast slammed into John's back and he stumbled forward, just barely managing to keep on his feet. He turned his head around and stared dumbly at the explosion behind them. The factory was gone. Eradicated. Devoured from the inside out by a giant fireball that billowed toward them. The heatwave washed over John, uncomfortably hot on his skin even from over a quarter-mile away.
Aegir and Freyr glanced at each other, knowing the significance of what the explosion meant. "Thor's dead," Freyr said to the others.
Cameron opened her eyes as she came online. She slid off Freyr's shoulder and glanced around, taking in what had happened. She saw the factory gone, she saw Thor missing, and what she assumed to be Sarah slung over Aegir's shoulder. It was hard to tell: her hair was burnt almost completely away, her skin was charred black in some places and bright red and blistered in others. She wasn't moving but she saw a slight rise and fall in her chest.
She didn't ask what had happened, knowing there would be time for that later. "We need to go," she said.
"We should stay," Aegir replied.
"What?" John glared at the Vanguard, incredulous. "Mom's dying,we need to get her to a doctor now!"
"Ronin," he said, using the name that T-Zero had given himself, "might have survived the blast. If he did he'll be vulnerable. There might not be a better chance to kill him than now."
"Fuck that! Mom comes first."
"We take Sarah to a doctor," Cameron said, her tone making it crystal clear that she was giving a direct order.
Aegir stared back for a long moment before finally relenting. "Yes, Commander." He turned away from the remains of the factory and ran towards the van.
"Thank you," John said quietly to Cameron.
The four of them ran back to the Mercedes Sprinter and put Sarah in the back row of seats, while Aegir got behind the wheel and started it up. Cameron took her phone out of her pocket and dialled John Henry as Aegir drove quickly away from the industrial park.
"Were you able to locate the factory?" he asked.
"It's eliminated," Cameron said. "Thor's dead and Sarah's critically injured. She needs immediate medical attention." She put the phone on speaker and handed it to John as she opened up their medical supplies. He took it and didn't say a word. He just stared down at the burnt, barely-alive remains of his mother. She stared back at him, eyes wide open as she gasped for air and started shaking.
"What happened to her?" John Henry asked.
It was Freyr who answered. "Fire. Second and third-degree burns over her whole body, plus probable smoke inhalation."
"The nearest major hospital–"
"We can't take her to a hospital; they'll ask too many questions," Cameron said.
"We could leave her at the hospital entrance, then extract her if she recovers," Aegir supplied.
John glared at him. "We're not just dumping her!"
"Where's the nearest town?" Cameron asked.
"Ivankiv: thirty-three miles south of you," John Henry said. "I'll text you the address of the town surgery. Good luck."
The call ended abruptly and Cameron reached into the bag. She had done an inventory of the limited medical supplies they'd been given while selecting weapons shortly after their arrival in Ukraine. They had nothing to treat burns like this. She took out a pack of morphine shots, tore it open and removed a syrette. She jammed it into Sarah's leg, piercing her femoral artery with the needle, and injected the painkiller. Seconds later Sarah stilled and her eyes closed as she went limp. Cameron saw the worry on John's face. "It's just the morphine," she told him. She then took a bag of saline solution and handed it to John in place of the cell phone.
"Will she make it?" he asked weakly.
"I don't know." She'd promised not to lie to him again and she'd meant it. She had detailed files but they had limitations. It didn't look good. There wasn't much of her that wasn't burnt.
Cameron reached out and held Sarah's wrist, scanning her vital signs. They were weak: thirty beats per minute and her blood pressure was dangerously low. The saline drip might keep Sarah alive long enough to reach the surgery but there was no guarantee that the doctors there would be able to save her. She reached out and pulled John into a hug. It was the only thing she could do now.