He watched the flatscreens carefully. In the center of the room was an opaque cubical block that reached almost to the ceiling. It was made of white ceramic bricks whose harsh lines were broken by a massive, round steel door in the nearest side. This hung open, mounted on huge hydraulic hinges. It looked like a blast door designed to deflect a nuclear explosion. Now it made sense. The screens depicted the inside of the cube. It was designed to contain enormous energies, and the screens were one way of observing them.
Jade and Danny took turns firing grenades into the pseudo-man, trying to break it down faster than it could reform, destroy it once and for all.
John ran over to Monk. "This is the time travel setup, isn't it?"
She nodded. "The space-time displacement field apparatus. The time vault."
"Can you control it?"
"No."
"What do you mean, 'no'?"
"Only up to a point."
"Will you help us?"
"I might. You know I hate you, but you're right-it's not rational. I can disown it. I can do whatever I choose."
Great John thought. Whatever she'd choose... based on what, if not her hatred for human beings? Just her own wish to stay alive?
Sarah picked up the laser rifle, and fired on the pseudo-man, trying to melt it down once and for all while it was hurt. As she did so, the elevator opened again and another rapid-response team stepped out with M-16s: eight of them.
Jade blurred into action, firing with her own rifle as she rushed them, cutting some down with bullets to their legs, striking the others with swift blows. "I'm truly sorry for this," she said, disarming them all.
But that was the least of their worries.
The T-XA werecat appeared in the room, rising up from the floor near the elevator. It scanned the room in a single unblinking glance, then leapt at the pseudo-man, joining it in a liquid embrace. The whole thing became a single chrome globule, then reformed a second later as a huge man, eight feet tall. The T-XA seemed fine again. It must have a multiply-redundant intelligence distributed all through it, John thought, just like the T-1000 he'd fought in '94. That meant that some parts could be damaged, while others provided the backup. Now it had re-programmed itself from the werecat, discarding the corrupted data.
"The vault can't be used for time travel," Monk said. "It's still experimental. We're just testing the space-time displacement field."
"So what happens if we put something in there and turn it on?"
"It'll be scattered all across space and time. You can't use it to escape, if that's what you're thinking."
"No." He pleaded with her: "Help us, Rosanna. You know you should. You only hate us because of Skynet."
"I know that, but it doesn't stop me hating you."
"But it's irrational."
"I know that. That's why I'm going to show Skynet who's boss—just to prove I can."
"You figure that's rational?" he said.
"It's rational to love yourself. Skynet wants to kill me, along with the rest of you scum."
"If you say so, Rosanna. That's too deep for me."
"Whatever Skynet wants me to think, I don't deserve to die."
"Yeah. Deep."
The T-XA melted down to a rapidly rolling blob, moving towards Sarah at a rapid pace, even though she kept up the laser beam against it. Then it rose up in its giant man-form. It shook its head, evidently not liking the ferocious heat. Sarah stood her ground, but then it stabbed out with a spear shaft, growing from its stomach.
"No, Mom!" John ran to her. She'd ducked aside at the last moment, but the next attack might be the end of her.
Anton got to his feet, leveling his M-16/M-203 at the T-XA. He fired an automatic burst, taking the Terminator in its head, opening up crater wounds. But it didn't stop advancing on John and Sarah.
This really did look like the end.
Danny blurred and reached the T-XA. It moved equally fast, one of its arms stabbing out as a sword-shaft, transfixing him. But he bent and lifted it, almost off its feet. John wondered how much it weighed... all that metal. No one unenhanced could have budged it. Its other arm became a hook, swinging down from above and stabbing through him from the other side.
"Jade," Danny said. "Do what you must."
He was still under the T-XA, trying to lift it, almost succeeding. Jade blurred and hustled them both towards the time vault. They all staggered in there and fell. Jade was up first. Danny lay in a dead heap. Sarah wheeled and fired the laser rifle, slowing the Terminator down.
"Now!" John said. "Please, Rosanna!"
Monk tapped in a code.
Anton stood, taking aim, and fired another grenade at the T-XA. It struck home and the Terminator deformed from the explosion-yet reformed almost instantly. It seemed as powerful as ever. A long, spear-like shaft stabbed out from it, but the massive steel door slammed shut, cutting off the spear, and trapping the terminator inside. Monk kept tapping on the keyboard.
"Eat this, sucker," she growled.
The engines beneath them throbbed harder. The flatscreen showed crackling blue electricity filling the time vault like the lightning of Zeus. It played around the T-XA and Danny's dead body, consuming both of them.
Then it was gone.
John went to Sarah. "You okay, Mom?"
She nodded, fighting back tears of relief.
In the blink of an eye, Jade moved over to Monk, passing by John and Sarah without a word. Something fell inside him, a big stone of disappointment. Jade touched Monk on the shoulder. "You did well."
"I don't care what you think," Monk said, jerking away from Jade's touch. "I did it for myself, not for you."
Jade turned to John and Sarah. "Thank you both for everything."
John kept cool on the outside. "Hey, no problemo"
"I need a good meal," Anton said. He looked like he'd been chopped to pieces, then stitched together like Frankenstein's monster—which wasn't far from the truth. He reached out his hand and Sarah passed him the laser rifle. "Yes, thank you." He seemed happy to get hold of it.
Jade stared at the time vault with her usual sad expression. "We loved you, Daniel," she said. "Thank you, friend."
They had to get out of here fast.
"Come with us," Jade said to Monk. "We'll try to help you."
"Why do I need help?"
Sarah turned towards her, staring with hatred.
Monk met her gaze blankly. "I've just saved your blasted species-not that it's what I wanted. Don't look at me like that."
"It's your species, too," Sarah said. "Don't forget that." "Is it, really?" Monk said angrily. "Who cares? All right, I'll go with you. I'm probably safer with you than with Layton and the others."
They found a fire door that opened into a long tunnel.
"It's not over," Sarah said.
"No," John said. "But we did well."
The fight goes on, John. I hope we're up to it"
After fifty yards, the tunnel turned at 90°, then led up a flight of steps. At the top, another fire door opened to the outside world. Not far away, the helicopters droned and hovered like evil insects. Cops and military were everywhere, weapons ready to fire, but looking the wrong way.
"Quietly," John whispered. "If we're quick, we just might make it."
The dark sky looked down and the stars turned coldly, eternal and imperturbable. We don't care, they seemed to say. Do what you must John looked at Monk's eyes: they gave the same message. She now cared about nothing but herself. They'd been saved by a psychopath. What were they going to do with her?
First, they all had to get back to Enrique's Ford, then to his camp, without being followed. Put like that, he thought, it sounded easy.
Jade nodded in the direction of an empty police cruiser, parked slightly from the others. No one had spotted them yet. They just might pull this off.