However, there was no need to worry about Scott's fate in terms of potential danger from T-X, because, as you know, she decided to do something completely different, and killing people was not part of her plans this time.
So, starting with Beverly Hills, or more precisely, Rodeo Drive, as a starting point, T-X slowly moved towards West Hollywood along Santa Monica Boulevard. Along the way, the robot kept turning her head in different directions and looked like an ordinary tourist visiting Los Angeles for the first time. It was so different from the post-apocalyptic landscapes of a nuclear-war-torn city she had seen in 2032. She hadn't had time to pay attention to such things before, but now they seemed interesting to Terminatrix, full of information about the people who had built and operated all this infrastructure. And the human brain is not so primitive if it managed to create all this!
On her way, she came across the Hollywood Forever cemetery. People associated with the Hollywood film industry are mostly buried here: actors, actresses, directors, producers, screenwriters, as well as some members of their families. T-X had been to the Valley of Peace Cemetery before, but she didn't fully understand the meaning of such places. Skynet gave only general information on this subject, that cemeteries and burials in them are associated with people's abstract belief in God and something called the soul. They have no practical significance, and therefore should not be taken into account.
Terminatrix decided to look into the cemetery and read what was written on the tombstones. They were very different in shape and size: from small in the form of tombstones to rather large tombs; in some places only the names and dates of birth and death were engraved, while on others entire epitaphs of the deceased were immortalized; figures of individual people and entire sculptural groups, birds carved out of granite, angels (creatures with wings incomprehensible to T-X) and many flowers in large flowerpots.
She thought again of the junkyard of robots on the side of Navajo Mountain. It was in stark contrast to what T-X was now seeing. Humans even took care of their dead specimens, and Skynet simply got rid of unnecessary, outdated models. In its virtual brain, of course, the idea of burying the terminators who have served their time according to the customs of people in separate graves would never have been born.
"It's interesting, isn't it, miss?" The voice snapped T-X out of his thoughts. She turned. Not far away stood a short man with a bald patch in his gray hair, apparently a caretaker or a night watchman. He smiled amiably, exposing both rows of teeth (some, as T-X noted, were golden).
"Yes, it's an unusual place," she said back.
"That's right, miss," the man said, coming closer. "Almost all of our 'guests' are celebrities. There is the silent film star Rudolph Valentino, and the head of the jazz orchestra Ben Pollack; actors Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; singer Ima Sumac," the caretaker began to enumerate, not without pride in his voice.
He liked to talk about the local dead, and even more so if the listener turned out to be a beautiful woman, "Victor Fleming, you know, is the director who made The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind; singer Joe Dassin—"
"Why is it necessary to bury a person after death?" T-X interrupted. Such a question seemed to baffle the man. He stumbled and furrowed his brow, trying to figure out what to say.
Terminatrix waited patiently, reasoning that the human brain needed more time than the processor in the terminator's head to process information. In addition, the question is apparently not simple.
Finally, the caretaker gave out the following, "In the opinion of many enlightened people: scientists, philosophers, doctors, theologians, in this case, it is the psychological component that is important. A grave in a cemetery gives you the opportunity to feel closeness to someone who was dear, to take care of him, to bring a priest to the grave to perform a rite, to visit there with children to remind them of someone who has already left."
And then, without giving the girl a chance to answer, he asked a question himself, "Why did you ask? Have you never been to a funeral in your life?"
"No, never," the terminator said after a moment's hesitation. She decided that the story of the Navajo Mountain dump would be a very unfortunate decision in this case.
Although the man looked surprised, he preferred to remain silent in response: after all, you never know what kind of situations someone has, and it is not his business. After about a minute, however, as if remembering that it was night, the man said, "Well, it's getting late..."
T-X correctly understood this as a sign that it was time for her to move on.
"I'm sorry, I was just about to leave."
"Good-bye, miss! I hope you'll visit us again!"
"Possibly," T-X replied vaguely, knowing for sure that they would never meet again.
She left the cemetery grounds and walked further down the boulevard, which eventually led her to the southern slope of Mount Hollywood, dominated by the Griffith Observatory. T-X wanted to look at the city from the high plateau, where there was a parking lot. At the same time, the female robot did not guess that twenty years ago, in almost the same place where she was now standing, the first terminator sent to kill Sarah Connor was looking at Los Angeles at night.
Soon he met punks who occupied a place near the telescope on the edge of the observation deck, who became his first victims. Twenty years have passed since then, but in 2004 the place continued to be chosen by various kinds of marginal elements. They looked different, expressed themselves differently, but in essence they did not change.
And now, on the same platform near the telescope, three such subjects, about eighteen or nineteen years old, one white and two Hispanic, were spending their simple leisure time. This time, however, there was also a girl with them, a mutual acquaintance of theirs. A little younger than her friends, however, she was also far from the image of a well-mannered and modest young lady: brightly made-up, in a short denim skirt, mesh tights and a T-shirt that did not fully cover her belly, this girl with all her appearance seemed to ask for trouble. All four young people were sipping beer, laughing, and rather violently expressing their disdain for modern society and conventional morality.
But at some point, the guys, already pretty hot with alcohol, wanted such a simple thing as love. Of course, in the primitive way they understood it. However, the girl was not ready to share such an impulse. She began to resist more and more insistent requests, which turned into demands. The guys didn't lag behind. A little more, and the matter would have ended in a banal gang rape, but suddenly one of them noticed a tall, sexy blonde, slowly approaching them from the direction of the observatory.
"Hey, look what we've got here!" One of the thugs said, pointing his finger at her and grinning vulgarly. The others also stared in the direction he was pointing. They continued to hold the girl they knew, but they no longer tried to tear off her clothes.
"What, a nice night for a walk, doll?" Another said as soon as the blonde came within a couple of meters of them and began to look at them.
"It's a nice night for a walk," the terminator said calmly, and then added, "What are you doing?"
The question was not purely rhetorical. T-X was aware of intersexual relationships between humans, but theoretically it should have looked different: one male and one female.
There was clearly a disproportion here, and the girl obviously did not want to mate. It was incomprehensible to T-X. According to her, people should not hesitate to engage in copulation in order to procreate. All animals do this.
"Help! They want to rape me!" The girl cried out desperately. Not a trace of her swagger and cheerfulness remained. Now it was only a frightened, defenseless victim in the hands of three torturers.
"Shut up!" One of the boys barked at her, and the other asked Terminatrix to a general giggle.
"What do you think it looks like?"
"I don't know, you tell me," the robot really didn't know.
This caused the drunken trio to burst into another burst of laughter. The girl continued to look at the stranger with a pleading look in her eyes.
"We'll not only tell you, we'll show you!"
"Please help!" The unfortunate girl spoke again.
"I told you to shut up, bitch!" The thug who was holding her slapped the girl in the face, causing her to fall.
T-X, who could have left the whole story unattended and left, decided to help the girl anyway. Something unnatural was happening, something out of the norm for human behavior, and she wondered what she could do.
"You have to let this girl go," the terminator said calmly but firmly.
"Of course, baby, we'll do that, but only if you're willing to take her place!" One of the guys came close to T-X and reached out to grab her shoulder.
In an instant, his right arm twisted unnaturally, and the bone cracked like a dry branch under the pressure of the robot's iron grip. The guy screamed in a voice that was not his own and began to roll convulsively on the ground, holding on to the crushed one with his whole hand.
"Oh, bitch!" His friend lunged at T-X, pulling a penknife from his pocket. One example was clearly not enough for these thugs.
But when this very knife was stuck in the shoulder of its owner, everything became clear for the third guy. He stared at T-X in horror, sobering up instantly.
"Take your buddies and get out," the terminator said without a hint of menace in her voice, but there was no point in disobeying her.
Carefully grabbing the one with the broken arm, the only scumbag left intact quickly led him away, afraid to even look back. And the third one ran beside him, still with the knife in his body.
Following their gaze, T-X turned to the girl who sat cowering in the corner of the landing, trembling with fear. She also stared at the stranger with genuine horror, and as T-X approached, she pressed herself even further into the steel bars of the fence and closed her eyes.
"Don't hit me!" Please don't hit me!" The girl babbled again and again.
These human emotions were familiar to T-X: how many times she had seen them on the faces of her victims. But right now, the robot wasn't going to hurt the girl. She just looked at her carefully and asked a simple question, "What's your name?"
The girl opened her eyes, but she was still shaking. She had been through so much in the last few minutes that she couldn't think straight. So T-X had to repeat the question.
"Sta... Stacy," the girl said hesitantly.
"Julia," T-X has long since put aside the name in case she has to introduce herself. That was the name of the owner of the Lexus: she looked at the ID card for the very first time.
"I think you need to get out of here."
"Y-yes, I—" Stacy tried to get up, but her trembling body didn't obey her. T-X had to go over and force his new acquaintance to lift. At this, Stacy flinched at the touch of the terminator.
"I... I... This is... thank you, anyway," Stacy mumbled, as soon as she recovered a little.
"You're welcome."