As soon as John, Kate, and T-850 entered General Brewster's office, she asked her father to invite Tony Flickinger and his assistants. The general wondered how she knew about Tony, but Kate only tried to calm her father down with a memorized phrase, "Believe me, Dad, it's the right thing to do. We just want to save time. Now John will tell you something, and then everything will be clear to everyone."
"I hope so, Katie."
The general picked up the phone and, dialing the extension number, said, "Tony, please come in. And grab your guys."
As they waited for Flickinger, there was an awkward silence. Brewster tried to defuse the situation a bit.
"Hmm, well... How are things in the clinic?" He asked his daughter.
"It's all right, Dad," the girl assured him. At this point, the half-hearted attempt to occupy the waiting time with something almost died in the bud. Fortunately, they didn't have to wait long: in a couple of minutes, the chief engineer and his assistants — two men and one woman — appeared on the doorstep.
They were embarrassed by the presence of strangers in the general's office, but Brewster hastened to explain, "That's my daughter, Kate, and these—" he hesitated a moment, — "her buddies."
Flickinger nodded, and brief greetings followed from both sides. Only Terminator continued to stand alone at the window, periodically looking down at the people present.
"Guys, sit down," the general pointed to a large rounded leather sofa to the left of his desk, against the wall with the safe, "you'll have to squeeze in a bit, but I think you'll be able to sit relatively comfortably."
"It's okay, I'm personally ready to stand," Tony said immediately. "My back is already numb to sit in the chair."
The general nodded and got down to business.
"I invited you because Kate asked me to."
Flickinger and the others stared at the girl in surprise.
"She says this young man — his name is John Connor — has something to tell us all. Something very important about this damn virus and... Skynet."
Tony's face was even more surprised.
"Since my daughter is not inclined, I assure you, to participate in any stupid pranks, I think we all need to listen."
The engineer and his team nodded their heads in agreement. None of them were going to argue with the head of CRS.
"Well, then, please, John."
Connor got up from the chair in which he was sitting, and, stepping back a little to face more or less everyone, said, "But please don't interrupt, no matter how fantastic you may think what you are about to hear!"
When the audience nodded again, John said, "To begin with, Skynet is the virus..."
He began once again conscientiously and thoroughly to repeat what he had said before. Connor had memorized many of the phrases so well that he said them without hesitation and in exactly the same order as he had done in the previous repetition. Kate only occasionally confirmed his words, allowing her friend to finish the story himself.
Mostly, Catherine watched the faces of her father and the others. They changed several times in the course of the story, and at the end they turned very pale. When Terminator was called in again to confirm the authenticity, and he easily tore out the door of the safe, the female technician screamed, covering her mouth with her hand, and the men's jaws literally dropped. Flickinger's eye also began to twitch.
The most surprising thing is that there were practically no questions. The demonstration of T-850's capabilities, coupled with John's detailed explanations, did the trick. Flickinger and his men only asked for a few details.
"Well, I take it that we're in big trouble," the general concluded. "What do you say, Tony? Can you outsmart Skynet?"
The man, in turn, looked at the three aides, who looked downcast, and, turning to the general, answered honestly, "We'll do our best."
"The problem is that we are under pressure from above from the Pentagon! Oh, if only they knew—"
"Father, you're the chief here! Without your orders, no one will be able to launch Skynet!"
"If we wait too long, they'll think they need someone else to push the button. They'll just remove me from command and quickly send someone here who won't look into it."
"After all, it is possible to somehow delay this process, create various obstacles so that this person cannot get to the right terminal for as long as possible!"John said.
"That's easier said than done!" Brewster said ruefully.
"Sir, isn't it worth the effort to save humanity?"
For a moment it seemed to John that Brewster would be angry at these words, but he replied, "Yes, of course, you're right! Why am I so limp?!" And, turning to Flickinger and his men, he urged, "Tony, guys, get to work right away, but for now, do everything secretly! We will not advertise your actions to other employees. And I will do my best to cajole the Pentagon."
Flickinger nodded, but then Terminator suddenly interjected.
"T-X will probably be here soon, unless it's already!"
"I will order that the halls where the machines are displayed be kept under special surveillance!" The general nodded.
Before returning to Grand Park, T-X managed to walk around several other areas of the city, talk to people, and even witness the rescue of a suicide bomber who was about to throw himself from the twentieth floor of a tall office building. She also changed her "outfit": now T-X was wearing a light blue dress just above the knees with a thin vertical stripe, fastened in front with a few buttons, and on her feet - white open-toed shoes with medium heels. She still left her hair falling loosely over her shoulders.
When the terminator arrived at the park, there were already significantly more people, and she had to move carefully so as not to collide with any of them or injure them. Of course, it was impossible to avoid the dog's barking at her approach, but T-X, ignoring the frightened animals and the puzzled looks of their owners, calmly walked on.
Her goal was the far corner of the park, where an improvised auditorium was arranged on the slope of the hill, and below, at its foot, there was a large screen, like in a real cinema, and other necessary equipment. From above, both equipment and people were covered with a giant canopy made of dense opaque fabric, protecting them from the sun and rain. Although there were special seats for spectators, many preferred to sit or recline directly on the grass with towels or blankets underneath.
Quite a lot of people gathered under the canopy, but there was no full house, so late movie lovers could comfortably choose a place to their liking. There were still a couple of minutes left before the start of the screening.
T-X began scanning the area for Peter, but he suddenly appeared from behind her. Radiant, cheerful, the young man also dressed differently this time: gray sneakers, light-colored trousers, and a plaid shirt that was slightly stretched by broad shoulders and powerful arm muscles.
"Hello, Julia! I was afraid you wouldn't come!"
"Hello. I promised."
The guy smiled sheepishly.
"Well, yes... The movie is about to begin. Come on, I've taken our seats."
"Where's your dog?"
"Oh, I left Charlie with friends! He doesn't like to watch movies," Peter said jokingly.
As they took their seats among the other spectators, Peter took a book out of his backpack and, handing it to the girl, commented, "Well, I promised, too. These are Runaround and "Robots and Empire", and also... Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is the book that was made into the movie we're going to watch," the guy explained. "I hope you like it!"
"Thank you," Julia said, picking them up and flipping through the pages.
"I'd like to hear your opinion! And about the film, too."
T-X looked at him, but said nothing. They were spared from further conversations by a movie projector that turned on. The logos of the film companies began to appear on the screen one after another. The hubbub of voices among the people died down. Everyone was immersed in the viewing.
During the session, Terminatrix didn't pay much attention to what was happening on the screen, although the basic outline of the plot quickly became clear to her. Of course, what she was seeing was only a human invention, and these so-called "replicants" — humanoid cyborgs — behaved accordingly. Julia could have pointed out a lot of mistakes to the filmmakers, but she was curious to get an idea of how humans see robots.
At the same time, the terminator was thinking about all her impressions of the past day, evaluating and analyzing the behavior of the people she had met. Stupid, irrational creatures who themselves cannot really understand what they want, what they strive for; sometimes cruel, sometimes weak, suffering from a variety of fears. Still, Julia thought, they weren't as bad or primitive as Skynet thought. Human beings have the right to exist and do not deserve the fate it has prepared for them. None of them, not the old cemetery keeper who loves to talk about the dead, not young Stacy, who will probably never learn to choose the right company, not Wally, who has sunk and almost lost his human form, not the suicide whose name she did not know, not Juanita, not Peter, not John Connor, not Catherine Brewster, nor... billions of other human beings.
She noticed that Peter kept stealing admiring glances at her. T-X knew what that meant. And if she had been a human being, she herself would probably have felt sympathy for this young man — what people call falling in love. But Terminatrix, of course, could not fall in love and fully understand what love is.
The film was coming to an end, and one of its brightest and most memorable scenes unfolded in front of the audience. Replicant Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer, realizes at the last moment the value of human life and rescues Rick Deckard, Harrison Ford's character, who is hanging over the abyss, and then tells a stunned Deckard about what he is experiencing on the eve of his own death: " I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate... All those moments will be lost in time, like... tears in rain. Time to die."
Suddenly, everything became clear to T-X. This cyborg doesn't want to die. So does she. And people don't want to. These words, combined with the laws of robotics, led her to a simple conclusion: she must stop Judgment Day and save mankind from destruction! Who else but she, who knows so much about Skynet, herself the embodiment of his technical thought, can do this? She need to act! Probably even today…
A bright flash in the east instantly riveted the attention of everyone around. Frightened voices and screams were heard.
"Oh my God, what is it?" Peter exclaimed in a voice full of terror.
People around them didn't understand what was happening. In a panic, they jumped out of their seats and tried to run away. But T-X knew that no one could hide, "So people couldn't turn it off after all!" She turned her face in the direction of the flash, where the nuclear mushroom was already taking on its characteristic features. And in a matter of seconds, everyone and everything was swept away by a shockwave.
Severe interference appeared on the projection screen T-X, after which the picture disappeared completely.