David Hagberg - Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines

"Make sure?" Kate prompted.

"That the world didn't end," he said. His life for the past twelve years had been surreal. But these past four hours had been the worst " 'Every day after this one is a gift,' she told me. 'We made it, we're free.' But I never really believed it." He glanced at the weapons. "I guess die didn't either."

He and Terminator looked at each other.

"You know, you were the closest thing I ever had to a father," Connor told him. He shook his head. "How pathetic is that?"

Kate suddenly lunged between them, snatched a Glock 17 pistol from the coffin, and skipped back a couple of steps as she fumbled for the twin triggers. Her father had taught her something about guns too.

Terminator stepped to the left, blocking her exit.

She pointed the pistol at his face. "Out of my way!" The gun trembled in her grip.

"My mission is to protect you," Terminator told her evenly. He took a step toward her and she backed up, keeping the gun trained on him.

"That's enough," she warned. She took another step back and was at the wall. There was nowhere to go. She tightened her grip on the gun and steadied her aim. "Move, or 111 do it. I swear I will. I'll shoot you!"

Connor hadn't moved. "Go ahead," he told her. "See what happens."

Kate was distracted by what Connor was suggesting. She glanced at him to make sure that he wasn't laughing at her again.

Terminator snatched the weapon out of Kate's hand. Her finger jerked the triggers back, past the safety guard, and the weapon fired point-blank into his face.

He flinched, and Kate stepped aside in horror, stifling a scream, not believing what she had just done.

Terminator rolled something around in his mouth, turned his head, and spat out the deformed bullet, a drop of artificial blood on his lips.

"Don't do that," he said mildly.

Kate was beside herself. She didn't know what to do. Where to turn. What to say. "Oh, my God," she muttered. "Oh, my God."

Something metallic banged against the entry corridor wall and clattered down the stairs with a tremendous racket, belching dense white smoke.

It was tear gas. Connor jumped back from the canister as the sharply pungent smoke filled his nostrils and burned his eyes like acid. He had been taught as a kid to breathe shallowly when you found yourself in this kind of situation. But Kate wouldn't know that.

"This is the police," a powerfully amplified voice came from outside the crypt. "We have the building surrounded. Release your hostage."

Connor reached for Kate, but she spun on her heel, managed to skip past Terminator, and was gone up the stairs in a flash.

He tried to go after her, but Terminator kicked the tear gas canister aside and hauled Connor back to a relatively smoke-free niche behind a couple of marble statues of angels.

"Just leave me here," Connor protested. His eyes were red and filled with tears. His vision was blurry at best. "You're wasting your time. I'm not the one you want."

"Incorrect," Terminator replied firmly. "John Connor leads the resistance to victory."

"How?" Connor shouted. "Why? Why me?"

"You are John Connor," Terminator said without inflection, as if Connor had just questioned a fundamental law of the universe.

But Connor shook his head. "Christ, my mom fed me that bullshit from the cradle. But look at me. I'm no leader. I never was. I'm never gonna be."

Terminator grabbed Connor by the throat and lifted him bodily off the floor so that they were eye to eye.

Connor struggled desperately to get free. "What are you — Let go—"

Terminator squeezed harder, as if he were going to choke the life out of the human. "You are right," he said. "You are not the one I want I am wasting my time."

Connor's eyes went wide with rage. The injustice of what was happening to him now was beyond bearing. After all he had gone through. After his mother. After everything. The struggle. All the bullshit for twelve years.

Not this way. He wasn't going to die here and now. Not this way. He slammed his hands into the sides of Terminator's skull, kicking, thrashing wildly, fighting for his life with a rage that threatened to blot out every last sane thought in his head. '

"Fuck you!" Connor screamed raggedly. "You fucking machine!"

Terminator nodded. "Better," he said. He tossed Connor aside.

Connor picked himself up and rubbed his throat as he tried to catch his breath. He had been close to fuzzing out. "Why did you do that?" he croaked.

But Terminator showed little or no reaction.

"You were dicking with me?" Connor demanded.

"Anger is more useful than despair."

"What?"

"Basic psychology is among my subroutines," Terminator said as if he were discussing the weather. He pulled the modified Stoner 63A.30-caliber machine gun out of the coffin, then grabbed a belt of ammunition and efficiently loaded the weapon, pulled the slide back and released the safety.

Connor suddenly remembered what Terminator was capable of doing. "Jesus, don't kill them."

"My reprogramming will not allow it. I am incapable of taking human life."

Connor grinned wryly, still rubbing his bruised neck. "Good to know."

They had left the BP station a few minutes ago. The black detective was driving the plain blue Chevy sedan, while his partner, Detective Martinez, spoke to someone by cell phone. Something was haywire with all the police frequencies, but so far cell phones didn't seem to be affected.

T-X, as Scott Peterson, dressed now in a light sweater and slacks, sat in the backseat listening. There was trouble not too far away from here. The San Bernadino County Sheriff's office and State Police had been called in, along with an LAPD SWAT team.

"Perps are still holed up?" Detective Martinez said. He nodded. "Gotcha." He broke the connection and turned to T-X. "Good news, your girlfriend's okay."

"Where is she?" T-X asked.

Martinez glanced forward. "Valley of Peace Cemetery. But they're going to bring her downtown—"

T-X drove its left hand through the back of the front seat, its fist emerging from the black detective's chest, the fingers grabbing the steering wheel in a spray of blood, shattered bone, and torn tissue.

Martinez reared back, not able to grasp what he was witnessing except that it was bad. Worse than he'd ever seen.

"Oh, Jesus, God—" he blurted.

He grabbed for his piece beneath his jacket, but T-X smashed the man's head into the passenger side window with its free hand, breaking out the glass and shattering the detective's skull.

T-X drilled into the Chevy's dash panel and connected with the automobile's computers. The cemetery was highlighted on a map in its head-up display.

Its arm still through the detective's chest, T-X hauled the car into an accelerating U-turn and headed off.

The LAPD SWAT team leader hustled Kate down the hill to one of the waiting ambulances, where he turned her over to a paramedic whose name tag read stewart.

Police radio units, the SWAT team van, and fire rescue units were parked along the base of the hill thirty yards from where the hearse and Cadillac limousine were parked. No one had found the drivers of the two vehicles. They had probably taken off the moment the trouble started.

Officers, some of them dressed in dark jump suits with visored riot helmets and Kevlar vests, armed with various weapons including the Colt Commando assault rifle and the 9mm Heckler & Koch MP5 room broom, were fanned out behind headstones, statues, and one of the large mausoleums near the crypt.

Other cops were positioned behind their squad cars, their sidearms drawn. Still others held shotguns at the ready.