They'd have to show themselves, whatever risks it involved.
He'd reached a decision. "Okay," he said. "We've got to take the fight to Skynet."
"Good," Sarah said. "The choice had to be yours. It's what I hoped you'd say."
ARGENTINA
2003
An icy wind blew across the dustbowl. John had turned eighteen, and his fame was spreading through the Argentine countryside. Some remembered how he and Sarah had predicted Judgment Day, either because they'd seen something on the Net before it happened or because they knew someone who had. Some had military contacts, who knew the Connors' names, and how they'd been a thorn in the side of the U.S. government.
John was working with the T-800 and Juanita Salceda, fixing one of Raoul's Humvees. Juanita was fourteen now, growing tall and skinny, like a dark foal. She was good with machines and stuff. John liked having her around. "Okay," he said. "Let's try it."
Juanita started the vehicle, and it roared into life.
John turned to the T-800. "Hey, whaddya think?"
"Cool," the Terminator said. It held out the palm of its big hand. "Give me five."
"Right!"
Just then, Raoul drove into the compound, his Jeep Cherokee raising a rooster tail of dust along the track from the Cordoba road. There was something funny, though. He drove confidently enough, smoothly, but not in his usual gonzo style. Despite his age, Raoul could be crazy once he got behind the wheel. Right now, he seemed to be holding back for some reason. He parked in front of the casco, and Gabriela stepped out to greet him. Their once-elegant mansion was ugly from years of battles and repairs, the original stone largely gone. Its gardens, groves and lawns were an ill-kempt jungle of weeds and cactus bushes. Even Raoul's dog, good old Hercules, was thinner, almost gaunt. They'd learned to live with hunger.
Raoul stepped out of the Cherokee and looked around, kind of alert, like he was casing the joint. He saw John, and their eyes met for a moment. "Hello, John," he said. "We need to talk. Something's happened, companero."
"Sure, Raoul," John said, feeling puzzled. Raoul had been to a meeting with other landowners here on the Pampas, the few who'd survived the winter and the warlords. Now they formed an alliance. "What's up?"
"Raoul?" Gabriela said, stepping down from the porch. Hercules was upset, whining about something, then barking angrily.
Raoul ignored her, and walked over to John, looking very serious. "Bad news," he said.
"Sure, Raoul. What is it?" For Raoul to act like this, ignoring Gabriela, something must be deeply wrong.
Raoul took another step forward, ignoring the T-800, just like he'd ignored Gabriela and Hercules. As John braced himself to hear the worst, Gabriela followed Raoul over. Hercules refused to budge.
"Raoul," Gabriela said again. Then in Spanish, "Raoul, what's the matter with you?"
"What's going down?" John said, backing away slowly, looking around for an escape route. He had an uneasy feeling. Yes.. .something was very wrong about this.
Raoul said, "This..."
In a sudden movement, the T-800 pushed John to the concrete floor. A swordlike metal object thrust between them like lightning. John realized his life had just been saved. If the T-800 hadn't acted, the blade would have skewered him. He rolled aside and pulled out his handgun. He should have trusted his instincts and gotten out of there quickly. Hercules was still barking. Gabriela screamed and screamed, and Juanita picked it up like a contagion. As the six-foot-long silver-chrome blade stabbed at him again, John moved sharply to his left, then fired. He knew it was useless.
But the T-800 snatched its shotgun from a workbench—and fired, hitting Raoul squarely in the chest. Then again. And again. And again. Raoul staggered back with each hit. His chest opened into shallow crater wounds, the width of drink coasters, lined with shiny, silvery metal. He frowned at the T-800 severely, shaking a finger in reproach.
"That's not nice," he said.
It had happened at last, John thought. The T-1000 had found him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
John's world Mexico city, Mexico
AUGUST 2001
At point-blank range, Sarah shot the pseudo-dog with her .45, splitting open its demonic head—but only for seconds.
That way," Jade said, pointing to a metal fire door.
"All right," Danny Dyson said. "Let's go." The Specialists had tremendous coordination—that sense of telepathy again.
They ran for the door as the T-XA's three components entered the foyer. Selena Macedo reached into her dress, pulling out the hand grenade John had given her. "Eat this, bozo," she said, pulling the pin and throwing a speedball straight at the pseudo-man. It raised an arm to bat the grenade away, just as it exploded.
John and the others ran down a flight of concrete stairs. Within the enclosed stairwell, the noise of the security alarm was almost intolerable. It could drive you crazy. Danny tried to open the fire door on this level, but it was locked.
"Keep going," Jade said, still running.
Two levels lower, she stopped and passed Baxter's body over to Selena. Danny delivered a powerful kick to the fire door, tearing metal and breaking the lock. Jade bent to take off her high-heeled shoes, then tossed them down the rest of the stairwell. "Hurry." The door they'd entered opened above them. John took over the assault rifle as Danny delivered another kick, and the fire door opened outward into a car park.
Just a few vehicles were parked here, backed into reserved bays. Danny pointed silently to a white van, and Jade ran for it with an unbelievable burst of speed, beyond anything John had seen so far. She smashed the van's window with her fist and opened the door, getting in and starting the engine in a matter of seconds.
The rest of them ran behind a thick concrete pillar, Danny physically picking John up to carry him. "I'm sorry this isn't dignified," he said. Sarah was last getting there, just making it before the pseudo-woman and -dog entered the car park.
John flicked his head back behind the pillar an instant before they would have seen him, but the dog component ran to the other end of the big open space, covering territory, looking for them-and it found them in a couple of seconds. John's heart was pounding. The alarm continued, even down here, impossible to ignore. Anton Panov aimed the assault rifle and fired, but it was out of ammo. The pseudo-dog charged and leapt, almost into Selena's arms. She struggled with it, trying to keep its metal teeth away from her throat. Both of them moved with astonishing speed, a flurry of swift, vicious movements.
The pseudo-woman ran at them, her right hand metamorphosing in a three-foot, upward curving blade. She caught hold of Anton, who was too badly hurt to dodge, or fend her away. The blade went through him, and he dropped the CAR-15. John got a clear shot at the pseudo-woman with his 12-gauge, and she staggered back with a crater wound. Sarah managed to shoot the pseudo-dog with her handgun, and Selena hurled it to the floor. Her dress was ripped and she was covered with deep cuts, though they started closing before John's eyes.
At the same time, Jade's van squealed across the concrete, swiping the T-XA's pseudo-man component as it entered the car park, still toting the laser rifle. The pseudo-man went flying from the impact, but landed unhurt. It looked fully recovered from the effect of the hand grenade. Jade backed up, then swerved forward to pick up the rest of the humans. Quickly, though not too disrespectfully, Danny placed Baxter's body in the back of the van and scrambled in himself. Selena pushed John and Sarah into the van, then got in after them, as the pseudo-dog leapt again. Sarah had picked up her assault rifle John tried to shoot the pseudo-dog, but now the 12-gauge was empty.