Terminator - T3 01 - Rise of the Machines

by David Hagberg

  Still, the T-X continued to fight with every gram of her strength, her programming forcing her to continue up to the very point of her own destruction. She had no

  other option.

  '

  Her mouth opened, and as if she were a human being

  in pain and anguish at being burned to death at the stake, she emitted a powerful scream.

  Kate stepped out from behind the magnet, and stood behind Connor, watching what was happening to the monster.

  "Just die," she screeched, not able to take any more. "You bitch!"

  Connor lingered for just a moment longer, fascinated by what was happening to the T-X, but then he turned and with Kate raced down the tunnel in search of the way up to the flight line in front of the hangars.

  Most of what could be thought of as Terminator's artificial intelligence, his main CPU circuits, were intact As were ninety-five percent of his subroutines.

  But the rest of his functions, mental as well as physical, operated as if he were in a fog. As if he were a human trying to wake up after a particularly deep sleep, or an alcoholic whose functions were impaired.

  His motivational programs had been especially affected. Much like a schizophrenic who realizes that what he is experiencing is not real, and yet can do nothing about his fantasies, Terminator understood that he had been altered by the T-X.

  But there was nothing he could do about it

  Terminator slowly raised his hands to his cranial case, which he lifted into place on the three support strut ball joints, and snapped them back into place.

  Able to sit up now and hold his head upright, he got to his feet where he remained for several moments, his head cocked to one side as if he were trying to figure out where he was, what had happened to him, and what he was supposed to do next.

  He didn't feel as if he were under the direct control of the T-X, but he couldn't be certain.

  A small hole had been drilled into the temple of his cranial case, and it crackled with blue plasma energy, but he could feel no pain in the human sense, only the dull fog obscuring a portion of his motivational programming.

  He headed to the nearest emergency exit, his movements jerky at first but smoothing out as if he was learning all over again how to move and function.

  limeter by millimeter the blade edged against the wall of the accelerator tube.

  At first nothing seemed to happen as the saw made contact, but then a long streak of sparks shot away, and

  seconds later all the air in the tunnel seemed to be focused in a hurricane-strength gale past T-X's saw hand, and into the breach of the accelerator tube's vacuum chamber.

  An impossibly loud whistle rose from the widening gap, and the powerful hum of the electromagnets immediately began to wind down as the entire system went into its automatic shutdown mode.

  T-X slid down from the tube, her features beginning to coalesce into their normal shapes, her strength and ability to function returning as the magnetic field rapidly died off.

  T-X was fully cognizant of all her neural paths. Her body was bound to the electromagnet by a force that by sheer dint of strength she could not break. But she was not unconscious, in the machine sense of being on standby, nor was she without her reasoning powers and her still considerable abilities.

  Slowly she was able to morph her plasma weapon back into its containment field, and just as slowly morph the diamond-tipped cutting saw into place.

  Her mental acuity was up to speed, but her electromechanical functions were sluggish.

  The saw came to life with an angry whine, and mil-

  Something had gone wrong. The accelerator was turning itself off. Somehow the T-X had managed to wreck something.

  The placard at the base of the shaft read emergency

  EXIT—WARNING AN ALARM WILL SOUND.

  Connor pulled down the access ladder, slung the musette bag of explosives and fuses over his shoulder, and started up first A siren suddenly began blaring in his ears.

  There was no telling what they would find when they got to the surface. The diagram he'd studied in General Brewster's office showed that this shaft opened behind one

  of the hangars across from the west wing of the main R&D building.

  They'd seen what the T-l robots and the H-Ks had done, and it was more than likely that they were still up there searching for live humans to exterminate. He didn't want Kate poking her head up into a maelstrom.

  Steel rungs rose up the inside of the shaft. At the top was a steel hatch, with a locking lever.

  Connor looked back to make sure Kate was okay. She gave him a reassuring nod, and he slid the latch to the left, freeing the hatch.

  Girding himself, he eased the hatch open just enough so that he could see outside. There were wrecked cars and trucks on fire. A couple of helicopters and a military transport were also damaged, and bodies were scattered everywhere.

  But nothing moved so far as he could see.

  He eased the hatch all the way open, climbed out, and keeping low, scurried the ten feet across to the rear wall of the hangar.

  His sudden appearance drew no response. The T-ls and H-Ks were nowhere in sight for the moment

  Kate poked her head up out of the escape shaft and he motioned for her to come ahead. She climbed the rest of the way out and ran over to him.

  When they had driven in through the main gate, he thought he remembered seeing several small aircraft and helicopters parked inside this hangar.

  "This way," he told Kate. Together they raced along

  the back of the hangar to one of the small service doors that Connor eased open.

  There were several aircraft inside, light planes and a couple of bigger helicopters. They seemed to be intact, and there were no robots here. From this angle he could better see the burning transport across the flight line and more bodies. The scene looked like a war zone.

  Kate lit up. "My dad's plane," she said. "I trained on it."

  She led Connor across the hangar to a single engine Cessna 180 with a blue stripe and wheel pants. The civilian registration painted on its fuselage was N3035C.

  She checked in the window to make sure the key was in the ignition, and she and Connor pulled the chocks away from the wheels.

  Connor looked up as Terminator entered the hangar, and all of a sudden he felt as if they had been delivered. The fight wasn't over, but with Terminator back it was less of a lost cause.

  "Yes," Connor said. "He made it." He started over, but something wasn't right. Terminator's movements were stiff and jerky, like a puppet's.

  "Get away from me," Terminator said. There was something wrong with his voice too. It was distorted.

  Connor stepped back, closer to Kate. Whatever shit was going down now was definitely not right.

  "Leave," Terminator warned. "Now!" It seemed as if he were fighting something inside of himself. "Let's go, John," Kate said.

  Connor nodded, but he kept his eye on Terminator as he climbed into the right-hand seat, and Kate got in on the pilot's side. Without thinking they locked their doors.

  Kate frantically threw switches, the gyro compass, the radio, VOR and DME, and set the altimeter to what she remembered was the field elevation.

  "Come on, come on," Connor urged her to hurry. He pulled the knapsack off and tossed it in the backseat.

  Kate turned the key to engage the starter but nothing happened. Nothing was working. She had missed the master switch. "Shit, I forgot to—"

  Terminator was at Connor's door. He pulled it open, popping the flimsy lock, and yanked Connor out of the plane, tossing him on the concrete floor.

  Connor tried to scramble away from Terminator who was right on top of him. "You can't do this."

  "I have no choice," Terminator said, his voice still badly distorted. "The T-X has corrupted my system."

  The Cessna's engine came to life suddenly, revved up, and then settled back to a few hundred rpms.

  "No! You can't kill a human being," Connor argued, sti
ll scrambling backward, trying to get out of Terminator's reach. "You said it yourself."

  Kate leaped out of the airplane, ran directly at Terminator, and jumped on his back, tearing at his optical sensors.

  "Let him go!" she screeched. "That's an order!"

  Terminator threw her aside as easily as batting a fly

  off his shoulder, sending her sprawling against a big, rolling tool chest.

  He stopped for a moment and looked at his raised hands, almost as if he knew that he had done something bad.

  "You can fight it," Connor shouted. "You're fighting it now."

  "My CPU is intact. But I cannot control my other functions." Terminator advanced another step toward Connor who continued to back up.

  "You don't have to do this. You don't want to do this." "Desire is irrelevant," Terminator said, still advancing. "I am a machine."

  "That's not true! You're more than that!" Terminator grabbed Connor by the jacket and tossed him onto the hood of a Humvee parked just outside the hangar's main doors.

  Before Connor could move, Terminator was on him again, grabbing his neck with one hand and drawing the other back into a fist that could crush a man's skull like an eggshell.

  "What's your mission?" Connor shouted in desperation.

  Terminator's head jerked as if he had received a jolt "To ensure the survival of John Connor and Katherine Brewster."

  "You're about to fail in that mission!"

  Terminator's entire body began to tremble. As if fighting a tidal wave force inside of himself, he cocked his fist farther back and drove it down, with every kilo of his force.

  c30

  CRS

  Until this moment Connor never believed that Terminator could hurt him. It was like a child's faith in its father.

  He raised a hand to ward off the blow.

  At the last moment Terminator diverted his fist to smash the Humvee's hood inches from Connor's head.

  "I... I cannot," Terminator struggled with the words.

  "You know what you have to do," Connor told him. "You know my destiny."

  Terminator's entire body shuddered again. His optical sensors glowed with an incredible brightness, blood red, as if they were heading for overload.

  It was clear that he was no longer in control of his functions. He was fighting some colossal internal battle. Something had to give way in his system.

  "I have to live," Connor said.

  Terminator seemed to focus on Connor for a moment, then grabbed him by the jacket and tossed him aside.

  Terminator brought his fist down on the hood of the Humvee, caving in the heavy gauge metal like tinfoil.

  He threw his head back and uttered a guttural, plaintive otherworldly scream, then stopped, jerked upright, looked at something in the distance, and shut down.

  The light in his optical sensors winked out, and Terminator remained frozen in place, unmoving, unblinking, apparently unaware of his surroundings.

  Connor got to his feet, a great sadness and weariness coming over him as he stared at the closest thing to a father he had ever known.

  Terminator was dead.

  There was nothing Connor could do except make sure that he and Kate lived into the future. They owed him and the human resistance that much.

  He turned on his heel and sprinted back into the hangar where Kate was struggling to her feet She was dazed from hitting her head on the tool cart.

  "Are you okay?"

  Kate looked at him, and then out at the flight line at the motionless Terminator. "What happened?"

  "He couldn't do it," Connor told her. "He shut himself down." He gave Kate a critical look. "Can you fly?"

  She nodded, and he helped her back to the plane where he handed her up into the pilot's seat, then hurried around to the passenger side and climbed in.

  They buckled their seat belts, and Kate checked to make sure that the controls moved freely, that no locks were in place. She eased the big throttle knob forward, the engine responded, and they taxied out onto the ramp.

  She had to maneuver around Terminator and the destroyed Humvee as well as burning vehicles and the bod-

  ies. Everywhere there seemed to be bodies, civilians as well as Air Force officers and security troops.

  The humans hadn't had a chance. LAW rockets might have helped, and perhaps if there'd been time to get the Army National Guard out with a couple of tanks, the fight might have been less one-sided.

  But even then Connor doubted if the outcome would have been much different

  Kate turned onto the taxiway that led to the main east-west runway. She automatically dialed up the tower frequency that was posted on the control panel, and reached for the microphone when she realized that there would be no response.

  In the distance they could see the control tower was badly damaged, all its observation windows shot out, smoke curling from inside, and no signs of life.

  The fight would already be spreading out now in preparation for the nuclear war. A war that no one in their right mind wanted, and a war no one ever expected would be fought this way.

  "Are we okay on gas?" Connor asked, to distract her. She was starting to drift because of the unreality of what was happening around them.

  She gave a start and glanced at him, and then at the fuel gauge that showed more than three-quarters full. She nodded. "Plenty."

  "Then let's get out of here before another one of those flying robots shows up," Connor said.

  Kate pulled up at the intersection with the runway, and turned toward the east, into the wind. She checked

  her controls again, and then holding the brakes ran the engine up to 1850 rpm, held it there for a few moments, then switched to magneto one. The engine dropped about 25 rpm, and came back up when she switched to both. It dropped again, this time almost 50 rpm when she switched to magneto two, and came back when she returned to both.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  "Anytime," Connor answered.

  Kate firewalled the throttle, released the brakes, and the Cessna gathered speed down the runway. At sixty miles per hour, Kate pulled off the carburetor heat and the engine picked up another 150 rpm. At seventy-five she eased back the wheel and they lifted off, building speed for the best rate of climb and then accelerating as she slowly bled off the flaps.

  T-X emerged from the particle accelerator emergency shaft and went around to the front of the hangar. In the distance to the east she spotted what looked like a small plane gathering speed and altitude off the end of the runway.

  She enhanced her optical circuits, focusing on the light plane. It showed up in her database as a Cessna 180, registration N3035C belonging to Brewster, Robert.

  She watched for a full minute longer while the Cessna turned and apparently settled on a heading just east of north.

  Her processors brought several options to her head-up display, but Crystal Peak indicated the highest confidence at about ninety-five percent

  If they had acquired the necessary data from General Brewster, there was a chance that the humans, John Connor and Katherine Brewster, could have a major negative impact on Skynet if they were allowed to reach the control center core. This could not be allowed to happen.

  T-X strode purposefully into the hangar, passing the inert Terminator without so much as a glance, and headed directly for a Bell Iroquois helicopter parked by itself in the open.

  It was not quite as fast as the Cessna 180, but it could take off and land anywhere. It did not have to taxi out to the runway and the time saved would be enough.

  Into the Sierra Nevada Mountains

  From the air, Connor could see fierce fighting going on over at the main side of Edwards. The carnage was spreading even faster than he had feared it would.

  They were running out of time to stop Skynet. Any delay, no matter how slight, would put them over the limit. They would be late, the war would begin, and there would be no turning back from the fight to the death between the machines and the human race.

&
nbsp; The future, as Terminator had painted it for them, was a bleak one.

  "Okay," Kate said. "Zero-one-five degrees. Fifty-two

  miles, our maximum airspeed is about one-sixty."

  Connor glanced at his watch. They would touch down at Crystal Peak, if they didn't get lost, in about twenty minutes. Just time enough. "Thirty-two minutes left," he said. He looked at Kate. "It's just you and me now."

  She nodded but didn't say anything. After losing her fiance and her rather within the space of one day it was a miracle she wasn't a complete basket case.

  Connor got the knapsack from the back, and started arming the one-kilo bricks of C-4 with fuses.

  Kate watched him work. "John, what if we can't..."

  "There's enough C-4 here to take out ten supercomputers," he told her. "We're going to make it, Kate." He looked up into her eyes. She was frightened. He offered her a small smile. "The future is up to us."

  She nodded and turned away to watch out the windshield. The Sierra Nevada Mountains rose in front of them, even more bleak and forbidding than the desert beneath them.

  "I saw the future," she said.

  Connor looked up, startled. "What?"

  "I had a vision. A waking nightmare," she said. "There were robots, and explosions and fires." She shivered, and then looked at Connor, wanting him to believe her. "Bodies too. Hundreds, maybe thousands of human bodies, and skeletons and skulls in big piles."

  Connor nodded. "I've had the same dream for the last twelve years. Welcome to the club."

  "It's true?"

  "Not if we can stop it," Connor said. "The future is up to us."

  She nodded with a new determination, her lips compressed. "Then let's do it right," she said.

  c.31

  CRS

  Blackness.

  A tiny cursor began to flash in the upper right corner of Terminator's head-up display. The word restart appeared.

  His diagnostic circuits were the first to come on-line. Starting with his core programs his CPU was tested and rebooted, then brought up to speed one step at a time. But at an increasing rate.