Author's notes:
The word "cyborg" is intentionally omitted and replaced with "android", as this is technically correct for this T-800.
Leaving Sarah, carefully covered with his jacket, on the comfortable couch he had advertised, Traxler backed out the door and closed it silently behind him, leaving the lights on.
Outside the door, he stopped and rubbed his chin. For the second time in the last evening, the lieutenant had doubts about this guy, Kyle Reese, or the whole affair in general. The man's eyes behind the double-focus glasses seemed to be inordinately large, and the gaze staring into the void was absent. Detective Hal Vukovich was familiar with that look.
"What?" He asked.
"I don't like it."
"Nonsense," Vukovich said. "I've already told you that the guy is crazy. That's what Silberman thinks."
"Yes. Only for some reason I have a premonition that all this will not end so easily—"
Vukovich sighed.
"You've earned enough, Chief. Have a cup of coffee. Or juice. This guy is crazy, that's all."
"If only," Traxler muttered, still staring into space. The guy is clearly not a blunder, it is a tough nut to crack, as if he was forged and tempered somewhere — you won't find such people among the street hooligans. That's the look of guys who've been through Vietnam, but this one is too young for him — he's nineteen at most. Well, twenty. He didn't fight there at the age of four, did he? Something's not right here. And his own internal radar picked it up.
"Crazy," Vukovich said, handing the lieutenant a cigarette.
Traxler looked him straight in the eye.
"Think about it for a second. Play this game in your head and think," he said.
"What other game?"
"What if he's not crazy? Just imagine what kind of shit we'll be in!"
"What are you, Ed? We've known each other for so many years, but I've never seen you bought for such nonsense: robots from the future, time machines— Nonsense!"
Seeing that his words did not have the desired sobering effect on Traxler, the man exhaled, shook his head, and preferred to leave the office.
And the lieutenant was left alone with his thoughts. After standing there for a minute or two, he reached for the pack Vukovich had left on the table and took out one of the cigarettes. He had already brought it to his mouth and reached for the lighter with his other hand, but suddenly remembered that he had forgotten it in his jacket.
Traxler put down his cigarette and quietly opened the door to the adjoining office. Sarah slept peacefully with her eyes closed, or at least pretended to be asleep. Of course, he wasn't going to wake the girl up over such a trifle. So instead of a cigarette, the lieutenant decided to drink coffee.
Gulping down the nasty dark goo from the plastic cup one by one, the man continued to fight the remnants of doubt. And in the end, he won. "I'll probably regret it," he muttered under his breath as he tossed the empty cup into the bucket before walking out into the hallway.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the labyrinth of the police station, Vukovich and another plainclothes detective escorted Reese to the waiting room, from where he was to be taken for a psychiatric evaluation.
Kyle's worst fears came true. He gave everything and got nothing in return. This tactical mistake can be costly. The price could be the life of Sarah and the lives of millions of unborn.
John was right — no one can be trusted, no one or anything can be relied upon. He need to save Sarah.
"Okay, boy, sit here for a while," Vukovich said, seating the detainee on a chair. "They're going to come for you soon, and you're not going to be our headache anymore," he winked at the second policeman. He grinned knowingly in response.
"You don't understand, do you? All of you!" Reese gave the detective a grim look.
"We get it, buddy, calm down, you've come from the future to protect the girl from the robot, and it's up to him to kill her," Hal replied peacefully, but there was a smile on his face that Vukovich couldn't hide. This only infuriated Kyle, whose nerves were already stretched to the limit.
"You're all dead!" The young fighter snapped.
"Hey, you're more polite!" The second detective said to him, and a smile faded from Vukovich's face.
At that moment, Traxler appeared in the office. Everyone's attention turned to him.
"I want to talk to the detainee. Alone."
"Lieutenant, it may not be safe," Vukovich's partner tried to object.
"Ed?" He exclaimed in surprise, but Traxler, who usually did not resort to formalities in dealing with his closest subordinates, made an exception this time.
"Have you heard, detectives? It's an order!"
The lieutenant shifted his gaze from Vukovich to the second policeman and back again. Hal exhaled noisily and said through clenched teeth, "Yes."
He went out. The second cop followed.
Left alone with Reese, Traxler closed the door and sat down across from him at the table. Kyle stared at the lieutenant silently, a look of curiosity rather than hostility.
"Just don't make any sudden movements, okay?" Ed began. Kyle didn't say anything, and Traxler took it as agreement. He continued, "My name is lieutenant Traxler. I'm the head of this station—"
"So you're the chief here?" Reese interrupted. He didn't want to waste time on another idle chatter — the Terminator could be here at any moment.
"Yes, it turns out that it is."
"And what do you want?" I've already said it all, but that one of your— The doctor didn't believe me."
"Would it be easy for you to believe this: nuclear war, terminators?"
"I don't know, it's an everyday reality for me."
Traxler took a deep breath.
"You think I'm crazy too, don't you?" Reese stared at him, as if trying to get right into Traxler's brain and find out what he was thinking.
"I'm used to believing the facts and what I see— Let's talk about this terminator again, shall we?"
"What's the point? You won't be able to stop him!"
"But you were going to do it somehow. This means that it also has weaknesses. Tell us, and we'll have a better chance. At the end of the day, we have the same goal: to protect Sarah."
Reese seemed to be thinking. Traxler didn't rush him, knowing that it would only ruin everything. The young man was considering whether to answer the call of the lieutenant, because he himself had just decided that no one could be trusted here. But at the same time, there was a grain of reason in the policeman's words. What if we tried to explain it to them? Who knows, maybe these people will even be able to do some damage to the terminator. That way, he'll have an even better chance of escaping unscathed with Sarah.
"Okay, listen," Kyle Reese said after a moment's pause.
Silberman tapped on the plexiglass partition next to the bulletproof glass booth in which the night shift sergeant sat on duty. Sergeant Wright glanced at the psychologist, took his pass back, and pressed a small button under the table. The doctor walked into the lobby and waved his hand to the sergeant.
"Good night!"
"Good night!" Wright said.
The psychologist was roused from his reverie by the sharp squeak of a small electronic buzzer on the waistband of his trousers.
Concentrating on the device, Silberman didn't notice that a big man had walked through the door. Despite the fact that it was late at night, he was wearing dark glasses. The Terminator walked confidently to the desk of the sergeant on duty and waited patiently for him to raise his head from the pile of papers in front of him.
"How can I help?" Sergeant Wright asked in the voice of a very tired man. He noted the big man's repulsive paleness. And the eyes behind those glasses are probably coming out of their sockets. Another one crackhead, he thought cynically to himself.
"I'm a friend of Sarah Connor's," the Terminator said. "Can I see her?"
"No, you can't, she testifies."
"Where is she?" the Terminator asked, pronouncing the words clearly so that the man behind the glass would understand his request.
Sergeant Wright stared at the big man. "And why do they always come on my shift?" he thought.
"She's busy," Wright said in the tone of an impatient schoolteacher. "Do you want to wait? There's a bench over there!" He pointed to the left with his pencil.
He adjusted his thick-lensed glasses and went back to his papers.
The Terminator, not at all embarrassed by the sergeant's negative answer, examined the booth and noted that the glass was thick, apparently bulletproof. There was a heavy steel door on the side. Behind it were various rooms and cubicles. And in one of them is Sarah Connor.
The Terminator leaned slightly toward Wright.
"I'll be back," he chimed in.
With that, he turned and walked slowly out into the street.
"Its main body is made of super alloy, no firearm can penetrate it," Kyle said at this point. "The chest and back are reliably protected by armor plates. Underneath them are fuel cells. It is also useless to shoot at the head — this is one of the most well-armored parts of the 800 series. But if you're aiming for joints, servos— Understand?
"I think so," said the lieutenant, who had been listening intently. "It's something like the joints of a person, where the arms and legs connect to the torso—"
"That's right. There are also various tubes and micropumps for the circulation of artificial blood, which supports the skin— They are also relatively easy to disable."
"All right. Anything else?"
"Yes, under no circumstances should you run close to him and do not stand in front of him — it is better to shoot from behind cover and from several points at the same time."
"We could disable his weapons—"
"That, too. And remember: it won't dutifully stand by and wait for you to reload your weapon and so on — one of the directives built into these machines is self-preservation until the main mission is completed.
"Okay, I got you. Now I—"
But he didn't finish. At that moment, there was a crash from below, as if a dozen vandals were smashing everything with sledgehammers, and then the first shots were fired.
"It's him," Reese said flatly.
"We didn't have time to prepare!" the lieutenant said in his mind with annoyance.
Vukovich and his partner burst into the office. They've been loitering around all this time.
"Ed, there seems to be a war going on there."
"Take the handcuffs off him!" Traxler nodded at Reese.
"Are you crazy?!"
"Hal, it's an order! Under my responsibility!"
Vukovich nodded to his partner, who reluctantly freed Kyle.
"Now let's get to the armory!" Traxler ordered. "Take your rifles, put on bulletproof vests. I'll catch up now."
As these two rushed to carry out the order, the lieutenant drew his revolver from its holster and handed it to a slightly surprised Reese.
"You do what you've got to do: protect the girl. She's in my office on this floor—"
The first victims of the Terminator were two veterans who ran out into the hallway to see what kind of doomsday it was. One of them had a cup of coffee in his hand.
The Terminator impassively pulled the trigger of his assault rifle and turned them into a mess of plaster and blood.
Sarah heard the faint but distinct echo of gunfire. The seeds of foreboding sprouted luxuriant shoots of anxiety.
The Terminator stepped over the bodies of the dead policemen and resolutely moved on. He looked into the room from which they had run out. Nobody.
Meanwhile, colleagues of the deceased ran around the building with revolvers at the ready. They looked at each other anxiously and shouted something as they walked.
People panicked. The sound of automatic fire in the station building awakened the most terrible fears in every policeman. It was some kind of ominous dream that everyone had at once.
The Terminator had already reached the end of the corridor and turned left. One by one, he opened the doors wide and exterminated the policemen, ruthlessly and systematically.
Somewhere in the middle of the hallway, the android came across the main electrical switchboard of the site, and he tore the cover off its hinges.
Quickly identifying the 440-volt power wiring harness, the Terminator ripped it out by the roots. A mini-explosion rang out, sparks flew in all directions, and an electric arc formed around the android.
With a slight blow, the Terminator smashed the distribution box and injected 440 volts into the lighting circuit. All 134 fluorescent lights exploded at the same time, plunging an already chaotic area into darkness.
Sarah was standing right in front of one of these lamps in Traxler's office, and a thunderous crack terrified her. The room was plunged into darkness, and Sarah felt herself trembling. The sound of gunfire grew louder and faster. This meant that the battle was getting closer.
When Traxler ran to the room where the weapons were stored, Vukovich and his partner had already put on their bulletproof vests and were preparing to take up arms. They exchanged grim glances.
"Shoot at the shoulders, at the neck— Don't get too close, don't get in front of his eyes," the lieutenant instructed these two and several other subordinates as he walked, putting on a protective vest. "Shoot from behind cover, two or three at a time! And be on the move all the time!"
Then he, too, grabbed an M-16 rifle, and he, Vukovich and the others ran down the corridor to the sound of gunfire and screaming.
The Terminator was searching the rooms of another room. He kicked down the first door. The machine man quickly assessed the situation, found no target, and moved on.
Next door. A shot at the castle. Search. No target detected. Farther. The scheme remained unchanged, but flexible enough to react to some unforeseen obstacle, some danger.
Several policemen spilled out into the corridor and took aim at an oncoming target. Six revolvers rattled simultaneously and punched holes in the Terminator's chest, arms, and legs. He looked at them, calmly raised his AR-180 and destroyed them with aimed fire—
To Sarah's untrained ear, it seemed as if the shots were just outside the door. She wasn't very wrong, though. The girl's whole body shuddered, a primal horror seized her when a large silhouette suddenly appeared behind the frosted glass of the door.
Sarah looked around the tiny room — where to hide? Just don't panic, she told herself. Something needs to be done. Suddenly, a childhood memory came to mind. Wanting to hide from her father's angry voice, she would run to her room and crawl under a small white—
Table! You need to hide under the table! Sarah ran behind a large metal table and pressed herself against the recess intended for a chair.
The silence was broken by a loud clank. Someone was trying to enter the room. Broken glass rattled. He had kicked down the glass door and was now opening the lock from the inside.
The door swung open, and Sarah heard a man run into the room. She closed her eyes, counting down the last moments of her life. But nothing happened.
"Sarah?" A voice called.
It was Reese.
Without a moment's hesitation, Sarah scrambled out from under the table and ran over to him.
Reese was even happier than she was. Sarah is alive! He grabbed her arm and they ran down the hallway.
The fire started in a room at the entrance to the building, but it has now spread and threatened to engulf the entire site.
Reese and Sarah ran through the smoke, listening to the screams and groans of dying people.
Gripping Sarah's arm with an iron grip, Reese dragged her through the bullet-riddled rooms. He stayed away from the corridors, where the bloodied corpses lay.
And there was the Terminator.
As for fighting in the rooms, in the narrow, rat-infested tunnels, Reese felt confident. This was his territory—
The Terminator needed to reload his deadly weapon. The android pre-fastened the magazines with cartridges with adhesive tape end-to-end — this made it possible to replace the clip instantly. However, he did not have time — at that moment, a group armed with M-16s attacked the Terminator from different sides. Hiding behind corners at the end of the corridor and in the doorways of various offices, people rained down a hail of bullets on their opponent.
They tried to aim where Reese was talking, but it was almost impossible to maintain the accuracy of fire in such conditions, due to both the recoil of the rifle and the trembling of the hands in a critical situation. As a result, the entire upper body of the machine was under fire.
Bullets tore his leather jacket to shreds, ripped chunks of flesh from the android's body, ricocheted off metal, sending out sparks. However, he kept moving.
"It's a pity we don't have armor-piercing bullets or a grenade launcher!" flashed through the lieutenant's mind.
Everyone was shocked by what they saw. Traxler and Vukovich looked at each other, their looks telling more eloquently than words: Reese is not crazy! But, God, what's going to happen now?
The attackers were lucky to disable the AR-180. The Terminator threw the weapon and ammunition aside and hurried to use the SPAS-12. The poor junior sergeant, who froze in shock at the sight of an exposed metal skull with a brightly glowing red eye and did not have time to run away in time, was unlucky: the Terminator fired a shot directly into the guy's chest — even a bulletproof vest did not help.
The comrades of the murdered man, who were nearby, hurried to disappear from the android's sight and took refuge in their offices. But the enraged Vukovich, who had been reassured by his anger, reloaded his rifle and aimed precisely at the shoulder of the killing machine. Traxler supported his colleague with fire.
"Hey, you mechanical freak!" The detective shouted angrily.
The burst interrupted one of the servos, causing the Terminator's right arm to be immobilized and the shotgun to a standstill, clutched in the powerful grip of an iron fist.
The Terminator assessed the damage and hurried to take shelter in a nearby office. Inspired by this success, the impulsive detective prepared to follow him — a big mistake.
Traxler watched as Vukovich's body literally flew out of the office and into the hallway and slammed into the wall, breaking his ribs with a powerful blow. The android also took the detective's rifle, disposing of the shotgun, which had run out of ammo.
But the machine did not deal further with the wounded lieutenant who ran up to him — through the roar of the flames, he heard the howl of the engine being started. The Terminator instantly realized that his target, which he had not yet been able to locate, was trying to escape.
Through the window, he saw Sarah and Kyle in a red Pinto driving off in the parking lot. Amid the flames, Reese also spotted the Terminator in the window. "Lie down!" he shouted to Sarah. The Terminator raised his rifle and took careful aim, taking into account the vehicle's speed and angle of rotation. He fired three quick shots, and then it turned out that there were no more shells in the magazine. Reese and Sarah were lucky. The first bullet hit the left wing of the car, just behind the headlight. The second one pierced the hood, but did not hit the engine — an inch lower and the "pinto" would have received a wound in the heart. A third shell pierced the left front door, entered the upholstery and spilled out onto the mat under the driver's feet.
Then he jumped down and a moment later collapsed on the asphalt. Quickly rising to his feet, the machine man gave chase to the car, which was already rushing towards the exit track. This scene was watched from above by lieutenant Traxler.
"Hurry up, Reese!" he urged in his mind. At that moment, there was nothing he could do to help the guy and the girl — he had to think about those who were still alive, call an ambulance, firefighters.
In the meantime, the flames were already raging, devouring the entire site. Traxler, along with a few of his subordinates who remained unharmed, hurried to find and carry out the wounded.
There was no need to call the special services — the shooting on such a scale and the fire could not go unnoticed, so many residents of the nearby areas managed to dial "911" by this time. An ambulance, firefighters and a reinforced group of special forces were quickly drawn to the site.
Traxler refused to undergo a medical examination, assuring that he was unharmed, and the blood on his clothes was not his. The lieutenant was glad that Hal Vukovich, whom he had known for a decade and had been friends, had also survived. The detective had several broken ribs, damaged internal organs, and a concussion.
Despite this, the man found the strength to ask his chief before he was wheeled into the ambulance, "How did it end, Ed? Is he dead?"
He shook his head and answered, "Reese and Sarah managed to escape in a car — he ran after them—"
"What are you going to do?" Vukovich's voice was so weak that the lieutenant had to bend down to hear.
"After what happened, I'm going to find the metal bastard and kick his ass! I will ask for help from the special forces, the military— I don't know, but I want to save the guys at all costs. It's my duty!"
"Come on, chief!" Hal called and coughed up blood.
They were not allowed to talk anymore: Vukovich was rushed to the hospital. Traxler watched the ambulance and suddenly felt like he wanted to light a cigarette more than ever. But his lighter was still in his jacket pocket and was sure to have been destroyed by the fire, as well as the jacket itself.
Well, so much the better — a reason to finally quit smoking. And besides, now he need to do completely different things—
