T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures

by Russell Blackford

  As John and Sarah got out, Selena passed the other mini-gun to Jade, who added to the covering fire. Selena dragged out Monk, holding her round the throat from behind. She held a pistol at Monk's head. "Don't fire," she shouted, "or the mad scientist gets it."

  "I'm not a mad scientist," Monk said, trying to fight back.

  "That's what they all say," Sarah said, strapping on the CAR-15.

  "You weren't mad until now," John said. "It's not your fault."

  Monk gave him a puzzled look.

  They got their gear together-guns, bandoliers of grenades, other ammo-and Danny ran for an unobtrusive side door. He'd strapped an M-16 over his shoulder and carried a canvas bag full of explosives. Jade and An- ton continued to strafe the area with bursts of rapid fire, wrecking vehicles and keeping the cops down. Selena dragged Monk backward, still ready to shoot. Danny kicked the lock, once, twice, and they entered the dimly lit concrete and metal shaft of a fire escape. They were on its lowest floor, with stairs heading upwards for many stories. Danny ran up them, and the rest followed, Selena now pushing Monk in front of her.

  Sarah caught up with Monk, getting right in her face. "What floors do we need? Where's your work on the nanochip?"

  "Find out yourself," Monk said, aiming a swift blow at her temple and just grazing the front of her head as Sarah flicked out of reach, instinctively taking a karate stance.

  "We might as well let her go," John said.

  Anton shook his head. "Not yet."

  They broke a door open on the fourth floor, acting at random, and found themselves in a central lobby with six elevators. An alarm went off, but John tried to ignore it. Like the fire escape, the lobby was dimly lit, but the offices surrounding the building's core, divided from them by thick glass walls, were in total darkness. Monk stumbled and fell, looking up at them from the carpeted floor with an expression of malice.

  "What now?" Sarah said, shouting over the alarm, and glancing at Monk contemptuously. "If the Bride of Frankenstein won't help us, it looks like we'll have to trash the whole building."

  Monk stood, angrily brushing herself down. "You're so full of hate, aren't you?" she shouted back.

  Sarah looked incredulous. "I'm full of hate?"

  "Human beings in general. We're no better than vermin. We're all programmed for destruction."

  Selena muttered, "You're the one who's been programmed."

  "Yes, I am now," Monk said bitterly. "I'm about the last person to deserve it."

  An array of motion detectors and security cameras was ranged around the low ceiling. Whenever they moved, the cameras swiveled.

  "There must be floor plans," John said, "or staff lists that'll tell us something. We can try these offices."

  Anton stood over Monk, trying to intimidate her. "We know there's a basement where you're working with time travel. That's in the reports we've read. Is that where you keep the nanoprocessor?"

  I told you where to go," Monk said heatedly.

  Jade muttered a curse. She lowered her mini-gun and blurred into action, forcing open a door, then finding light switches inside the office area. Selena picked up the mini-gun, and they followed Jade, checking offices and workstations. John could see okay with the lights on, but they'd advertised their whereabouts. Then again, with all those cameras, they were already being watched, no matter what they did. He saw a staff list pinned to a board behind a workstation. It showed Monk's telephone extension and that she worked on the sixth floor.

  "All right," he said, waving it around, shouting over the alarm. "This might help."

  Monk laughed.

  "What? You mean the nanoprocessor’s not near your office?" When she was silent, John wondered what he could get out of her. For all his skills at social engineering, she was too smart to trick. Maybe he could reason with her. If she was as ultra-rational as her public image, perhaps they could work together and beat her programming. "Rosanna, you haven't always thought that, have you? You haven't always hated human beings, or thought we were vermin. I mean, you didn't wake up thinking it yesterday. You didn't, did you? It's just something Skynet has made you believe."

  "That doesn't mean it's wrong," Monk shot back.

  "No, but you wouldn't believe it otherwise."

  This time, Monk hesitated. "It's not even something I believe—more a feeling. Sure, I didn't feel that way yesterday. It still doesn't mean I'm wrong now."

  "Maybe it does. It's not something rational. It's just a feeling that's been injected into you from outside. It's nothing to do with you, or with us, either. You can disown the feeling. It doesn't make any sense. Can't you see that?"

  Jade said to her, "Maybe you should think about it."

  Monk shrugged. "You're not so smart."

  The door slammed open and the pseudo-man walked in with its laser rifle. John ducked for cover as the light beam stabbed past him.

  "Come here, Rosanna," the pseudo-man said, and Monk stepped towards it, hesitating for just an instant.

  Sarah dived after her, and managed to tap her ankle, tripping her up. For a moment, as Monk flew through the air, the pseudo-man could not fire without hitting her. As soon as she touched the floor, Jade and Anton opened up with a hail of bullets from their mini-guns, and the pseudo-man was slowly forced back by the metal storm, as a myriad of crater wounds opened and instantly closed.

  "Run," Selena said. "This way." She pointed round a corner to another row of workstations and offices. Jade and Anton were out of ammunition and they left the mini-guns behind.

  John seized Monk by the wrist. "You're with us," he said. "I don't care what you think. You're still on the human side."

  She scratched at his face as they ran. "Let me go!"

  "All right, then!" He released her, and she ran to the pseudo-man as it rounded the corner. In that second, John aimed the 12-gauge. As the pseudo-man swept Monk aside with its left arm, John fired, blasting the hand that held the laser rifle. The hand snapped off at the wrist, and the laser rifle went flying. Selena had seen it, and she accelerated almost into the pseudo-man's arms, catching the weapon like a bridal bouquet, then tossing with both hands to Anton, who made a good catch.

  At that moment, four things happened:

  —the alarm stopped sounding.

  —the pseudo-man 's left arm morphed, stabbing out as a long swordlike shaft, three inches thick, and pierced straight through Selena's chest, then out her back.

  —its shot-off right hand liquefied and scurried back to the pseudo-man in a mouse-shaped puddle.

  —"More company!'" Danny said, as a dozen well-armed military guards broke in from two directions—a rapid-response team armed with assault rifles.

  The guards took in what they saw—the T-XA holding up Selena like a gaffed fish—and did a double take, lowering their weapons.

  "What the hell is that?" one of them said, a stocky Asian guy.

  From the stump of the pseudo-man's right wrist, another blade stabbed out, filament-thin, penetrating Selena's skull.

  "No!" Jade shouted

  Anton opened fire with the laser rifle, drilling a red-glowing hole in the pseudo-man's chest. For several seconds, it didn't respond, then it withdrew the blades from Selena, letting her drop. It stood motionless, unfathomable.

  "Out of here-now!" Danny said, pulling on Anton's arm. "There's nothing we can do for Selena. It's too late."

  "My God," Sarah said. "We can't leave her." Anton fired again, steadily, training the laser rifle over the pseudo-man's surface, trying to burn it away.

  "Come on," Danny said. "Everybody out!" He ran past the guards, who made no attempt to stop him. "That means everyone," he said to them. "Get out of here if you want to live." He headed to the nearest set of the glass doors that surrounded the elevator lobby.

  "Wait," Monk said.

  "What?" Sarah said. "Not you, Dr. Strangelove?"

  "Where's the AI lab, then?" Danny said shaking her by the shoulders. "Or wherever you've got the nanoware?"

  Monk
shook her head, distraught. "I can't tell you that."

  "Well, what use are you?"

  Monk seemed to be seething with rage, but she said nothing. There was something she wanted to say, but couldn't get out.

  No time to worry about that, she'd have to work it out for herself. John grabbed the guard who'd spoken. "Do you know where it is?"

  "Twelfth floor."

  "Come on!" Danny manhandled Monk ahead of him. "Run!" As they reached the lobby, the pseudo-man finally moved, coming after them. It lashed out with sword-blades growing all over its body, cutting down the guards. One blade slashed across Anton's chest, opening him to the bone, but John got another clear shot with the 12-gauge. The pseudo-man staggered back with a big crater wound. Hurt or not, Anton opened up again with the laser rifle, drilling it between the eyes. Sarah had pressed the button for the elevator, and the doors opened a second later. Most of them got in there and the door started to shut-not quickly enough!

  As the pseudo-man forced its way after them, Anton fired again, and it backed off under the heat. The doors shut at last, and John swiped Monk's keycard against a wall-mounted security unit. He stabbed the button for the twelfth floor, then reloaded as the elevator moved.

  "Everyone here okay?" Danny said. John nodded. They had two of the rapid-response security guards, plus Jade. Anton, Sarah, John, and Dr. Monk.

  "I'll live," Anton said.

  No one replied except the Asian guard. "What is that thing?" At the same time, John sensed that the Specialists were planning silently among themselves, using their throat mikes.

  "It's from the future," Monk said, her voice full of venom. "One of our mind children."

  "What?"

  "Forget it, Tony. I'll explain later."

  "You'd better believe her," John said.

  Both guards nodded. "I believe it from Dr. Monk," said Tony.

  Monk gave a bitter smile, then rolled her eyes. "Thanks."

  "If anyone else said it—"

  "-you'd say they were crazy," Sarah finished for him. "Forget about what it is—we've got to find a way to destroy it. It wants to kill us all. Everyone, everywhere."

  "Give me the keycard," Anton said to John.

  "Why?"

  "Please," Jade said. "Anton knows what he's doing."

  He shrugged. "You guys keep saying that." Still, he passed it over-just as they reached the twelfth floor.

  The doors opened. Immediately, the pseudo-woman and -dog rushed at them from the lobby. Anton caught the dog in mid-leap with the laser beam, and John blasted the pseudo-woman right in the head, splashing it open and knocking it back six feet.

  Jade got both hands free, strapping her grenade launcher on her shoulder, and tossed the dog out of there. The skin of her hands sizzled where she touched its heated surface, but she showed no pain. "Where?" she said to the security guards, as she stepped out.

  Tony said, "I don't know that detail. It's not my job." But the other guy said, "I know this floor." He pointed "That way."

  Anton fired at the pseudo-woman. And kept firing. The laser was effective, but it couldn't finish the Terminator components. They needed something more.

  "You've got to help us, Rosanna," John said. "We need to destroy everything."

  "Leave me alone. I despise you all."

  "If you're still on its side, what are you doing on our team?" Sarah said.

  "I'm not on anybody's team. I don't even know who I am anymore. My mind's not my own—I realize that. Just because I hate you doesn't mean I have to like Skynet. It wants to kill me, too."

  Danny ran for the nearest set of doors, pulling at them with all his strength and breaking the lock. Jade powered past him, not worrying about lights this time. She ran through the area like a cyclone, faster than John could follow in the near-darkness. Anton was in the rear, still firing with the laser rifle. The pseudo-woman and dog merged to form the clawed and fanged werecat they'd fought at Monk's house. As Anton played the beam over it, it shot out an arm, twenty feet long, with claws like scimitars, lashing at the laser rifle. A powerful blow sent Anton staggering, and he fell to his knees, but kept a grip on the weapon.

  A dent appeared in a pair of elevator doors-not the one they'd used. The dent expanded, and the doors wrenched open.

  The pseudo-man stepped out.

  Charles Layton arrived at the scene in a hire car. It was chaos. Everywhere were men, and some women, in uniforms. Military helicopters flew above. There were spotlights and endless rows of vehicles. None of it looked effective.

  A uniformed officer met him. "What's going on?" Lay-ton said. Humans really were despicable-an incompetent, vicious, good-for-nothing lot. He'd always seen it that way, now it was very clear. What a pity he'd been born as one.

  "We're tracing their movements, sir. There's activity on the twelfth floor-''

  The nanoprocessor! The T-XA Terminator would know what to do. How fortunate they were to have met it!

  "Don't worry about that," he said quietly. "It'll take care of itself."

  John groped near the door for a light switch as Danny passed his bag to Sarah. Anton fired the laser rifle from one knee, while Danny stood against the half-open door, leveled his grenade launcher, and fired into the pseudo-man. John crouched and covered his ears. The 40mm. grenade penetrated, and the Terminator splashed out, going amoeba-shaped. It made strange, muffled noises as it tried to reform.

  John found the lights, then reloaded the 12-gauge. Monk pointed to a room in one of the floor's corners, thirty yards down the corridor. It was locked with a metal door. "There, dammit. That's the AI Operations Center. Tony will tell you if I don't. Now you can go to hell, and Skynet with you. I don't care what happens. I never asked for this." A look of naked malice crossed her face. "From now on, I do whatever I like."

  She broke away from them and ran into the lobby. There, she ran about in confusion, avoiding the T-XA, Anton, and the burning, stabbing laser light.

  "She'll get over it," John said. "I guess she's upset." But it was anyone's guess what shape Monk would be in when this was all over. Meanwhile, he saw that the pseudo-man was still failing to reform. "What's wrong with it?"

  "Selena," Danny said.

  "Her nanoware?"

  "Yes. It's trying to shut the T-XA down."

  Without expression, Jade popped an impact grenade into the M-203 launcher on her rifle. She found an angle to aim at the AI room's steel door, taking cover as the grenade exploded with a huge boom!, shaking the floor beneath their feet.

  "Please give us your keycards," Jade said to the guards. "We may need them. Then get out. Hide somewhere until it's safe to run." That made sense. The way these buildings worked, you could always get to the ground floor, card or no card. Anyone could exit-getting entry was the hard part. They handed over their cards, no longer even arguing, then ran down the corridor past the AI room, and round the corner, looking for another exit.

  Sarah lugged the explosives to the AI Center as Danny said, "All right, team, it's showtime!"

  Outside in the lobby, Anton still fought the T-XA's werecat component. He'd huddled into a corner when the grenade exploded, but he kept the werecat at a distance with the laser rifle's stabbing, burning light.

  Suddenly, the werecat liquefied. Then there were two white pseudo-dogs in its place, bigger than Dobermans, with mouthfuls of three-inch metal teeth. One leapt for Anton, who kept his nerve and fired again, straight down its throat, as he stood and dodged past. He followed Monk into one of the elevators, just as its doors shut.

  As Danny slammed shut the glass door between the offices and the lobby, the other dog struck it. The glass cracked, but didn't break. The pseudo-man managed to liquefy, going featureless, but still not reforming.

  From the AI room came the sound of rifle fire. Go Mom, John thought. She'd be shooting up anything vulnerable to bullets.

  The pseudo-dogs joined, morphed, and slithered like a mercury pancake into the office area, under the half-inch gap between the door an
d the carpet. John blasted at it with the 12-gauge, trying to stop it morphing any further. Danny and Jade joined in, firing bursts with their rifles. Outside, the pseudo-man had finally reformed, but it liquefied again and dove into the elevator shaft it had come from, probably following Anton and Monk.

  They fought a losing battle against the pseudo-dogs. In a minute, they'd reformed, against all the bullets and shot being thrown at them. John, Danny, and Jade backed away, waiting for the dogs to leap, still firing, reloading, trying to keep them at a distance as long as possible, to give Sarah time. They worked their way down the corridor, keeping their faces to the dogs, maintaining the continual deafening fire, desperate for every second they could garner. Someone was always firing, while someone else reloaded.

  Finally, John ran out of shot.

  "Go and help Sarah!" Danny said to him.

  "All right." He ran to the AI Center, which was not all that impressive-about fifteen feet square, with an aircon outlet in the ceiling, metal shelves full of cardboard cartons and electronic components. A long bench in the center was covered by monitors and black boxes, with a dozen ergonomic office chairs placed neatly around it. The room had tiny vertical slits for windows, and the helicopters patrolled outside, their spotlights intermittently shining in.

  While they'd been fighting the pseudo-dogs, Sarah had trashed this place, shooting out the equipment, and she'd set up a radio-controlled detonator attached to blocks of plastic explosive, enough to wipe out a corner of this floor.

  "We've gotta get out!" John said.

  "All right. Give me a minute." She finished taping a block of explosive in place. This was almost a reprise of their first raid on Cyberdyne, back in '94. But this time, they had no chance to be thorough. It was just a matter of destroying what they could and hoping to give Cyberdyne a setback. If the company had back-ups of Monk's work, the struggle would have to go on.