Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

C.18

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.

Dense clouds of tear gas poured from the entrance to the crypt as shell after shell was fired through the open doorway.

Kate shivered, and the paramedic put a blanket around her shoulders.

A heavyset man, with thinning white hair and a smarmy look on his round face, came over. He had a manner that Kate supposed was meant to be comforting.

"You're safe now," he told her.

She couldn't determine if he was for real or not. But then he hadn't seen that thing that had kidnapped her.

He dropped the cigarette he'd been smoking and ground it out. "Kate, my name is Dr. Silberman. I'm a post-trauma counselor for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department" He smiled pleasantly, trying to reassure her that everything would be okay. "How are you feeling?"

"He's not human," Kate said softly. "He's really not human—"

An understanding look came into Silberman's eyes. He sat down next to her in the back of the ambulance. "I know what it's like to be in a hostage situation. I've been there myself." He looked away and stared into the distance. He had been there. He knew. "The fear, the adrenaline. You find yourself imagining things. Impossible things. It can take years to get over it"

Six SWAT cops wearing gas masks made a dash for the entrance to the crypt, leapfrogging by twos so that they could provide covering fire for each other if need be.

Kate shrank back, but Silberman patted her hand. "It'll be fine, you'll see."

One of the stained-glass windows burst outward in a spray of colored glass shards. Terminator stepped through the opening. The machine gun was cradled in his right arm, and with his left he balanced the stainless-steel coffin on his shoulder. Dense smoke swirled around him.

The SWAT chief waiting farther down the hill raised his megaphone. "Drop your weapon." His sharply amplified voice rolled across the cemetery. "And the coffin!"

Terminator headed down the hill away from the crypt toward the pet van without breaking stride, looking neither left nor right.

Kate's heart hammered out of her chest Dr. Silberman jumped to his feet.

The SWAT team at the entrance to the crypt swung around and opened fire. Bullets slammed into Terminator's back, ricocheted off the coffin with angry whines, and tumbled away at oblique angles.

They crab-walked behind him down the hill, laying down a continuous line of intense fire. Some of the bullets struck the pet van, opening the gas tank, and it caught fire with a dull thump.

Terminator paused momentarily, then turned and took a couple of steps toward the hearse parked about twenty yards away. He was still taking heavy fire to his torso, his legs, and to the back of his head.

He stopped again, raised the Stoner machine gun, and began spraying the cemetery in a long, looping arc; the large caliber bullets shattered headstones, cut down small trees and statues, and destroyed several police cars.

His targeting computer, which showed up as a reticle in his head-up display, overlaid with the heat signatures of humans, was meticulous in avoiding nonmechanical targets.

The police officers and SWAT team crew dove for cover.

Silberman's face turned ghostly white. He stammered something incomprehensible.

Kate got to her feet, the blanket falling off, and she backed away from the ambulance. "They can't stop him," she babbled. "We have to get out of here—"

She turned, but Silberman was already gone, running as fast as his legs could carry him from the battle zone.

"Oh, God," Kate cried, and she started after him.

Terminator reached the hearse during a momentary lull in the return fire. He tore open the rear door, shoved the coffin inside, and slammed the door shut.

The police units opened fire again as he moved around to the driver's side, got in behind the wheel, yanked the ignition set out of the steering column, and hot-wired the engine.

Bullets had retorn the flesh from Terminator's neck and head, exposing bits of his metallic cranial case, but doing nothing other than superficial damage to his main systems.

The hearse was beginning to take fire, some of the windows blowing out, bullets slapping against the sheet metal like hammer taps in a tinsmith's shop.

The lid of the coffin opened, and Connor, who'd been jammed inside with the weapons, rolled out, keeping below the level of the windows.

"Get us out of here!" he shouted.

The engine caught. "We must reacquire Katherine Brewster," Terminator said. He swiveled his head and did a quick scan of the cemetery with his sensors.

"Why?" Connor demanded. "What makes her so goddamn important?"

"Through her you make contact with the remnants of the U.S. military and learn to fight Skynet, forming the core of the resistance," Terminator said.

They were taking a lot of heavy fire, but Terminator acquired two moving targets. One of them was a 96.55534 percent probable match to Katherine Brewster. He slammed the hearse into low and peeled out.

"Later, your children become important when—" Terminator continued as if nothing else were happening.

"Whoa," Connor stopped him. "What?"

"She is your wife," Terminator said, matter-of-factly.

think the cops stood a chance against that — thing. Not after what she'd seen it do.

A dark blue Chevy sedan came roaring up the road and through the broken gate into the cemetery. Someone was slumped in the front seat.

Kate pulled up short as the car screeched to a halt fifty feet away. The back door popped open and Scott jumped out.

Instant relief poured over her like ice water on a blistering hot day. She couldn't believe it. Scott. Here.

"Scott," she cried, starting for him. "Thank God!"

T-X moved toward Kate, morphing, as he seemed to glide over the grass, back into the persona of Nancy Nebel in the rust-colored Gucci leather suit.

Her right arm was changing into the plasma weapon, and Kate stopped in midstride.

This was the same monster from the pet clinic. The one who had killed Betsy. The one who had nearly killed them all.

"No—" Kate moaned, stepping back Was there no end to this insanity?

T-X raised her plasma weapon, the blue glow sur-rounding her arm as the unit came to a full charge.

Silberman had disappeared, and the shooting was still going on behind her. Kate had no one to turn to. She didn't.