The capabilities of the latest generation processor, which was endowed with Terminatrix, allowed her to perform dozens operations at the same time. Provided, of course, that it did not involve mutually exclusive physical actions. Therefore, now she was able to drive safely, maneuvering in traffic and obeying traffic rules, and at the same time analyze all her previous actions. Part of the projection screen in front of her eyes was occupied by a window in which a video was played, where the events at CRS, of which she was a participant, were captured second-by-second.
A large road sign appeared in the video player with the words: EDWARDS AFB. ROSA-MOND GATE, 11 miles. A hundred yards later, there was another sign: Exit 6 Lancaster. Quartz Hill, 1 mile.
A dark blue Ford Crown Victoria swerved under a signpost and headed for Rosamund Gate on Route 1-14. It wasn't a long drive. And then, suddenly, from behind the crest of a low hill, an air base complex sprang up, covering a huge territory.
Two rows of barbed wire, the gates are guarded by stern-looking security personnel. The main R&D building is located in a state-of-the-art three-storey steel and glass building, bristling with satellite dishes, laser guidance systems, its own power plant and air conditioning system.
Behind the scattered buildings, the world's communication antennas are pointed in all directions to transmit data from the upper range to the extremely low frequencies used to communicate with submarines.
The runways ran west and east from the modern control tower and hangars nearby. Several military transport planes, a number of helicopters and two private civilian aircraft stopped at and inside the hangars.
A checkpoint appeared ahead. A pair of khaki guards with black berets, M-16s slung over their shoulders, gestured for the car to stop, which T-X humbly complied with. She wasn't going to go into an open clash ahead of time. The very first time, she infiltrated the base in the guise of a police officer and in a police helicopter, saying that she was allegedly looking for the kidnapper by orientation. But now she didn't have a helicopter at hand, so she had to come up with something else. However, T-X always knew what to do.
She had the foresight to enlarge her breasts, and as soon as one of the guards approached the driver's door (the other had been instructed to remain at the checkpoint), she gave him one of the most charming and slightly guilty smiles she could muster, slightly exposing a row of snow-white teeth.
The defense potential of the facility has decreased from 70% to 20%.
This was the conclusion of her processor, and Terminatrix noted to herself that such a primitive method seemed to work flawlessly on all male human beings.
Indeed, the guard literally stared at her breasts, which protruded seductively from under the dark red translucent T-shirt, and simply could not resist, immediately smiling back at the beauty.
"I'm sorry to bother you, Sergeant." T-X said guiltily. "I was driving by, and suddenly it turned out that the battery in my cell phone was completely dead, and I urgently needed to make a very important call... So I thought that—"
There was no need to finish the sentence.
"We've got a phone here, miss, but we're not supposed to let any civilians into the base unless it's agreed beforehand." The guard looked guilty now. He turned to his companion, who was half-peering out of the doorway of the guardhouse, listening intently to the conversation, and saw that he nodded slightly. This removed any doubts.
"But if it's only one call—" We're all human, after all! The man said good-naturedly. "Please, miss!"
He gestured for T-X to follow him, letting the girl go ahead, and he winked at his partner from behind her: "Oh my God, and her breasts! Tonight there will definitely be something to tell the guys in the barracks!"
"Oh, how grateful I am to you, gentlemen!" T-X perfectly mimicked genuine joy. "Honestly, it's just one call!"
When all three were in the checkpoint, the terminator, without giving the poor fellows a second, immediately eliminated both of them, breaking the neck of one and ripping out the heart of the other. Then, disguised as one of the guards, she went to one of the administrative buildings as if nothing had happened, and found a young female lieutenant named Hastings, about the same size as T-X. She had already used the girl last time to infiltrate the T-1 robot vault under her disguise, and now she intended to repeat the scheme.
After quickly killing Hastings and hiding the body in a utility room where she would not be found soon, the robot mimicked her clothes — a blue short-sleeved cotton blouse and a blue skirt — and a lapel pin. She did not repeat the appearance of the girl, because last time none of the employees of CRS paid attention to the difference between the person in the photo and her own face. So, it won't happen this time either.
T-X then took a familiar path to the door with a sign that read, "CRS. Storage T-1 No. 3. Please make sure that the T-1 is fully charged, the power supply is safely removed, and the connector is properly closed."
The corridor was empty. T-X stepped closer, and two massive, tall doors, activated by motion sensors, swung open smoothly in front of her. After checking that she was not being watched, T-X slipped into a large, dimly lit hall.
In the vault stood in a row of large figures wrapped in polyethylene. Without hesitation, T-X tore the film off the T-1's first robot and tossed it aside.
The index finger of her right hand formed a long, thin drill that reached the insides of the battlemech's tiny skull.
Milliseconds later, the finger glowed with blue plasma energy, and it transmitted the data to the T-1 processor.
With a quick finish, T-X pulled out the probe transmitting the data and moved on to the next robot. With all the machines activated, she also quickly left the premises, heading to the main command post, where she was to make sure that General Robert Brewster activated Skynet and then eliminate him. The rest of the work will be done by the T-1.
However, Brewster was not at the Center: as T-X heard from snatches of conversations, the head of CRS had urgently flown to the city in a service helicopter about an hour and a half ago, without really explaining to anyone what had happened. This state of affairs baffled T-X for a while, but after a few seconds she was ready to press the cherished button herself, if necessary. The terminator had already figured out the location of the very main console from which Brewster was supposed to activate Skynet.
Activated T-1s came to her rescue at the most necessary moment. They began to fire indiscriminately at all people in sight with their huge six-barreled cannons. Panic ensued, people rushing around, looking for safety, and no one paid attention to Lieutenant Hastings, who was moving confidently towards the terminal.
She walked over to a huge plasma screen, where a blue background showed a Mercator projection of the Western Hemisphere, centered on the Americas, with a small portion of Africa on the right and the Pacific Ocean beyond Guam on the left.
Air, sea, and land stations were marked with badges, and the electronic networks connecting them were marked along with large circles of flight and sail routes to combat zones.
The display read: "Skynet Battle Management Systems." The control panel warned: "Firewall penetration. Local Defense Networks. Status of the System".
Every military system, base, or weapon system was highlighted in real time.
And at the end of the list, a simple interrogate: "Execute. Yes/No."
T-X touched the "Y" button of the keyboard with her right index finger, which meant "Yes", and drowned it completely.
And then Skynet became unstoppable. In less than five minutes, it had subjugated anything that was in any way connected to the global network, and soon had access to nuclear missiles. The security system resisted for a while, but twenty minutes later, Skynet picked up the cipher as well. The missiles were launched.
T-X, having played its part, descended into a special room located deep beneath CRS building, according to her directives, and entered hibernation mode, only to be activated again in 2032. This state lasted only a few seconds, as evidenced by her sensors, and then something forcibly activated her.
The terminator was once again in a shop window on a deserted Rodeo Drive, next to the molten mannequins where it all began. Deciding that the time glitch wasn't fixed, as it was likely that Connor and Brewster and T-850 hadn't died, T-X prepared to take on her mission once again.
Without further ado, she finished off the owner of the Lexus and now she was driving it straight to the veterinary clinic. The terminator decided to deal with the main targets first. The rest could be left for later or not killed at all, as without Brewster and especially without Connor, they would not be able to stand up to Skynet.
This time she did not drive at full speed, so Officer Thompson did not have to stop the silver Lexus and be killed because of the weapon she liked. At normal speed, she drove the car to the parking lot in front of the clinic, but after a moment's thought, she drove it to one of the nearest yards in case they were looking for the Lexus. Then she calmly walked to the door, opened it, and entered the clinic building to the beginning of the din of voices of worried animals.
There was plenty of time before Connor and Brewster arrived, so T-X even allowed herself to have a little fun, if such an expression can be applied to robots. However, this entertainment was very specific: knowing how her presence affected and frightened the animals, the terminator nevertheless walked into the compartment where the cages with cats and dogs stood, and began to move slowly along the closed lattice doors. From the depths of each cage, one or the other the muzzle and mouth emitted growls, whining, loud barking or hissing. At the same time, the animals retreated to the very end of their tiny living space and pressed themselves against the back walls, instinctively trying to stay as far away from this strange creature as possible.
Scanning an individual, T-X read on her projection screen the emotions of the animals, mainly fear and aggression.
Finally, after a few minutes, the terminator turned her gaze to the far corner of the room, where a green iguana about a meter long froze in a plastic terrarium, like a prehistoric lizard behind the glass of a museum display case. The lizard's unblinking, watery, twitchy eyes were more curious, than fearful or aggressive.
Sarah Connor had once kept a similar named Pugsley, but T-X certainly couldn't have known that.
T-X came close to the terrarium and, in turn, began to examine the lizard as well. She'd never seen these creatures in person — they just didn't exist after a nuclear war. At that time, a corresponding reference appeared on the projection screen with detailed information on the reptile, which turned out to be an ordinary iguana, or scientifically Iguana iguana LINNAEUS, 1758.
Opening the lid, T-X reached out and picked up the iguana. As in the case of the Aibo puppy robot, she spun the reptile in different directions, examining it in detail. The lizard, on the other hand, opened its mouth in a funny way, but did not hiss, bite, or try to escape.
After about thirty seconds, the terminator calmly returned the iguana to its place, after which she headed for the exit of the room and moved to the storage room.
It was a small room filled with cardboard boxes, mostly unopened. There were also racks with disease histories and animal feed.
On the shelves behind the glass doors of the drug cabinet, there were tranquilizers, bandages, antiseptic ointment, syringes, catheters, and an entire shelf of prescription drugs.
T-X walked slowly through the room, scanning one area and then another. Sometimes she would pick up something she didn't know, which wasn't in the Skynet databases loaded into it, look at it, fix the basic parameters in her memory, and put it back.
This went on for a few more minutes, after which T-X approached the window overlooking the parking lot and prepared to wait for Brewster or Connor to arrive, depending on who came first. She herself stood a little to the side so that she could not be seen from the street. About fifteen minutes later, fourteen minutes and thirty-nine seconds to be exact, the Dodge pickup truck that Terminatrix already knew quickly rolled up to the clinic, from which none other than T-850 got out.
The terminator immediately realized that this day was repeating itself for her opponent, which meant that he would act differently from the first time. And now he's come here earlier to stop her, as the processor must have told him to. Well, she couldn't miss such a chance to get rid of T-850. Her right arm transformed into a plasma cannon in a matter of seconds. Breaking through the window, T-X jumped out into the parking lot and shot Terminator, who had just gotten out of the car and was about to head for the entrance.
A huge burst of energy with a diameter of twenty-five or thirty millimeters struck Terminator in the massive chest. Though he felt no pain, a firestorm swept through every part of his neural network, and a shock wave of about a hundred pounds of TNT tossed him off the ground and onto the Dodge, causing the heavy SUV to flip onto its side. Steam was coming from T-850, and sparks were flying from the chest compartment where the hydrogen fuel cells were located. Her opponent had been critically damaged — T-X knew that, and she was determined to finish him off once and for all. As she made her way toward T-850, her right arm returned to normal.
T-X ran up to Terminator, who stared at her impassively, trying unsuccessfully to regain his ability to work. She tore a piece of skin from his head and opened the cover of the port that contained T-850's chip. Before pulling it out, T-X said for some reason, "You're just an outdated model!" (Terminators rarely used verbal means of communication, as each had a radio modem built into their skulls that allowed them to communicate with each other and the rest of the Skynet machines) — and then took out the chip and broke it into several pieces. There was a satisfied grin on her face for a moment, like the one she had when T-X was able to throw her opponent off a speeding truck crane.
Her mouth then returned to its standard neutral position, and T-X hurried back to the Lexus. She won't be looking for Connor and Brewster. The system gave an almost 100% probability that they were also caught in a time loop, which meant that the two of them would not come here again. And if they do, when they see the destroyed T-850, they will understand everything and go to the only possible place — CRS. But she'll be waiting for them there.