Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

C.11

Connor allowed himself to be hustled out of the clinic, partly because he knew there wasn't much he could do about it, and partly because of what was re-forming in the kennel.

"Why are you here?" he asked Terminator. "Where are we going?"

"Keep moving," Terminator said. He led Connor around to the back of the pet van and pushed him through the doorless driver's side. Fire still raged in the back of the building. Propane flames shot straight up into the dark, early morning sky. Debris littered the street. In the distance, Connor thought he could hear a lot of sirens. Someone must have turned in the alarm. The cops and the fire department were on the way. He glanced toward the front of the clinic in time to see T-X emerge through the shattered glass door. "Shit. Look out!" Terminator turned as T-X came toward them, the cyborg's liquid metal skin and clothing peeling back to reveal its formidable battle chassis armored with a crystalline ceramic that was interlaced with nano fibers of carbon and titanium. T-X's right arm had transformed into the same model of plasma weapon that had been used in Colorado to wipe out the commands of Colonel Earle and Lieutenant Benson. This was Skynet's latest.

Terminator stepped directly between the oncoming T-X and Connor and raised his shotgun.

"Get out of here," he told Connor.

He fired. The 12-bore slug plowed into T-X's armored skull, showing little effect other than opening a small liquid metal crater that immediately closed.

"Now!" Terminator insisted, firing a second time, and a third, and a fourth.

Connor finally got the van started and peeled away, tires screeching as Terminator headed directly for T-X, firing the last four shells.

He took more rounds that he'd found in the pickup truck from his jacket pocket and loaded them into the shotgun as an electric blue aura formed and intensified around T-X's plasma cannon.

A tremendous burst of raw energy, twenty-five or thirty millimeters in diameter, shot from the transmission head of the weapon, striking Terminator square in his broad chest.

He was not capable of feeling pain, but a firestorm raged across his battle-hardened neural networks, and a physical force as powerful as one hundred pounds of TNT picked him off his feet and propelled him across the street and through the front window of what appeared to be a hardware store. Glass and metal and bricks went flying as if a bomb had gone off just outside the store.

Terminator landed on his side on top of a pile of glass and tools from a display rack, his shotgun gone, his sun-glasses askew. Blue plasma energy crackled through his body.

He was aware of his surroundings; aware of the still burning propane fire, of the approaching emergency vehicles, of his internal systems trying to reboot.

He was vulnerable now. Unable to perform his as-signed duties.

Terminator hot-started many of his systems, shunting others, bringing as many battle and defensive subsystems on line as quickly as possible before T-X came to finish the job.

T-X turned in the direction that Connor had gone, but the pet van had already disappeared around the corner. A street map of the immediate area overlaid her head-up display. The probable paths that Connor could take increased exponentially with each elapsed minute. She debated giving chase on foot — the T-X was ca-pable of speeds in excess of eighty kilometers per hour for brief periods of time before its power packs began to show slight declines — or mounting a vehicular pursuit. The solution presented itself as the first two squad cars and ambulances turned the corner at the end of the block, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles right be-hind them.

T-X evaluated the developing situation and moved up the street toward the equipment rental company as her flesh re-formed over the plasma cannon.

The first police officers to arrive immediately began taping off the entire area. Some of the paramedics rushed into the clinic, while others tried to get in close to the rear of the Dodge pickup that was still totally involved in the intense fire.

Two LA. Fire Department pump units arrived, and their crews began setting up their equipment, while pairs of LAPD squad cars blocked off the intersections east and west.

People had materialized from somewhere, forming a small but growing crowd to watch what was happening.

T-X was just one person in the middle of the confusion. No one noticed her, not even the beefy fireman in all his gear who ran headlong into her, and bounced off as if he had run into a brick wall.

He picked himself up and ran off as T-X nonchalantly headed over to one of the unattended LAPD squad cars.

No one was watching as she lifted the hood, breaking the latch as if it were made of straw. She extended the data transfer point drill from her right index finger directly into the engine block.

In a matter of milliseconds she connected with the automobile's extremely crude but effective computers and reprogrammed them.

When she withdrew her finger and closed the hood, a blue glow lingered in the engine compartment.

In Kate's estimation, whatever John really wanted, he was at the very least a liar. She'd got that much from the few words he'd had with that creature she'd seen walking out of the middle of the flames.

God, this wasn't happening. She was still at home in bed having a bad dream. Any minute now Scott would nudge her shoulder. She would wake up suddenly and he would tell her that she was moaning in her sleep. She was having a nightmare.

Only she knew that she wasn't dreaming. She could still smell the fire. She could hear the man firing his shot-gun at someone.

And the sirens. They seemed to come from every di-rection. They were much too loud for this to be a dream. The pet van was bouncing all over the place, but Kate opened one of the emergency medical kits and found one of the clinic's cell phones. The battery was nearly dead, but she braced herself in a corner and managed to dial 911. It rang once.

A woman with a soothing voice answered. "This is nine-one-one. What is your emergency?" "I'm being kidnapped," Kate said, her voice low but urgent.

"Yes, ma'am. Can you tell me where you are?" "I don't know where. It's a Toyota pickup with a tan cup. It says Emery Animal Hospital on the side. I'm

locked in the back." The 911 operator didn't answer.

"Hello?" Kate said. "Hello?" She looked at the cell phone's display. The battery indicator showed discharged. "Shit," she said.

Connor figured that if he could make it to the freeway, he would have a good shot of getting out of the city. Out in the desert where he'd have some breathing room; time to figure out what the hell was going on.

But he wasn't familiar with this part of L.A., and he hadn't paid any attention earlier this morning when he'd caught the ride with the Mexicans. So he was driving blind. Sooner or later he'd have to cross one of the freeways though. It was an unavoidable fact of life in the city.

He just had to get that far.

Someone, or something, banged on the cab's rear window, and Connor nearly jumped out of his skin, almost smashing into a row of parked cars. They were still in a commercial section of the city: warehouses, hardware stores, appliance repair shops, air-conditioning shops.

He glanced over his shoulder. The window was painted black and it was protected by a heavy mesh screen. Whoever was back there banged on the window again.

Connor slid it open, and Kate was there.

"Let me out!" she screeched.

For a moment he didn't know what to say or do. He had no earthly idea how she had gotten into the back of the truck. He thought she was dead, back in the animal clinic.

"What the — what are you doing back there?" "You tell me!" Kate shouted. "You got me into this!" She searched for words. Frustrated, angry, frightened. "That woman shot Betsy — the man, that man came out of the fire. Who are these people?"

"They're not people," Connor said. He felt truly sorry for her. She seemed like a nice person, although he couldn't remember her from West Hills. But that was a long time ago. A lot of things had happened since then. And somehow she had gotten into the middle of it. "Stop the car!"

"I can't," Connor said. "Not yet." "You can't keep me in here!" Kate screamed. She banged her tack. "Stop the car — please. Stop the car." "Be quiet—"

She exploded. "You bastard! Stop the car!" "Shut up," Connor shouted back. He reached over his shoulder to slide the partition shut, taking his eyes off the street just for a second.

A black Mercedes C280 came around the corner as Connor missed the stop sign and plowed into its rear end, sending them both to the side of the street. Connor was shoved up against the steering wheel by the force of the impact, and Kate crashed into the front of the cap.

The accident wasn't serious, but the pet van had astalled nd Kate was shouting for help.

The Mercedes's driver, a middle-aged man wearing jeans and a light pullover, jumped out to see how bad his car was damaged.

Connor opened the partition. "Are you okay back there? Are you hurt?"

"Let me out! Now!"

Connor tried to restart the pet van when the Mercedes's driver suddenly looked up.

"Goddammit," the man shouted. He was pissed off.

Connor continued trying to start the pet van.

"Hey, you!" the Mercedes's driver shouted, and he started back.