Read T2 - 01 - The New John Connor Chronicles - Dark Futures Online
Authors: Russell Blackford
"John?" Dyson said.
"Yeah?"
"Just chill out. Okay?"
He thought about it for a moment. He did have to trust these guys. What choice was there? "All right," he said. "I get the message."
"How about some introductions here," Sarah said. She'd been in these situations before. She didn't sound panicked, just pissed off at having her routine disrupted. "Then someone can tell us what's going on."
"Right," Dyson said. "We're sorry to bring this down on you."
"You're from the future?" John said. "You fight Skynet?"
"Exactly."
"From 2029?"
"No." Dyson sounded puzzled. "We're from 2036-fif-teen years after Judgment Day."
"We have a lot to learn from these people," Jade said to him.
"Obviously."
"How about you give us the highlights," John said, trying to make sense of all this. "Then we can give you ours." Dyson had just implied that Judgment Day would happen in 2021. That was a very different story from the one Kyle had brought back from the future, or that the T-800 had told him in 1994.
Dyson craned round for a second. "All right. We're enhanced human commandos-Specialists. We're with the Resistance."
"I can relate to that," John said. "So does it mean you've come back to help us?"
"In a way. We may even be able to save your lives. You see, you die in six years' time. Maybe we can stop that."
John's mind suddenly went blank-between the attack and this startling revelation, it was all too much to take in. He couldn't figure out which was worse: the news of his ultimate fate, or the dispassionate way in which it had been delivered.
"Primarily, however," Jade said, cutting across all this. "We need your help."
"
You
need
our
help?" Sarah snapped. John could tell the anger in her voice was meant to conceal her true feelings, but the fear that shone brightly in her eyes as she looked back at him was only too evident
"Yes," Panov said. "That's why we came to
Mexico City
. There's no one else we can trust."
"Those were Terminators after us, right?" John said, his thoughts slowly beginning to come together.
"No, only one Terminator. You saw a mimetic poly-alloy unit operating as three components."
"You mean it's made of liquid metal."
"Correct," the Hispanic woman said. "How did you know?"
Sarah said wearily, "We've seen something like it before."
"Somehow I doubt that," the woman said. There was a strange silence for a few seconds, as if the newcomers were conferring by telepathy or something. Then the woman added: "Whatever you've seen, raise it to the nth power."
"It's an experimental autonomous model," Dyson said. "A T-XA. It can merge or split itself at will, at least down to a certain size. It can look like anything it wants. And that's about the least of its abilities. You seriously don't want to do a dance with this thing."
The driver swung left to pass a battered truck carrying boxes of fruit. "Don't you think we should introduce ourselves, Daniel?" he said. "Like the lady asked?" He glanced across at Sarah, then into the rearview mirror. "My name is Robert Baxter. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"All right," Dyson said. "In the back seat with John, we have Miho Tagatoshi-better call her 'Jade'-Selena Macedo, and Anton Panov."
"And you're all from the Resistance?" John said.
"Yes."
"So we didn't stop Judgment Day," Sarah said. John could almost feel the disappointment in her voice.
"No," Dyson said. "We told you, you got killed trying. In February 2007."
"What are you talking about?" Sarah demanded. "Judgment Day was supposed to happen four years ago. We stopped it from happening... didn't we?"
Macedo said, "Not in our universe."
"
Your
... ?" John said. There were sirens behind them. Baxter pushed the accelerator
down
even
harder.
John
couldn't
see
the speedometer from here, but they must have been doing
Up ahead, another police car came out of a side street, siren blaring, trying to cut them off. Baxter managed the traffic like a Formula-1 driver, easily getting round the police car, hardly slowing down, though John was tossed about in the back, or would have been except the forces the car was generating simply pressed him harder against Panov or Macedo.
"I figure they're real cops," Dyson said. "They're driving like humans, not like a Terminator."
"Lose them, Robert," Jade said.
"Your wish is my command," Baxter said, suddenly steering towards an alley, almost hitting the brick wall of a medium rise building. The back of the Pontiac swung around, tires locking up and skidding, then the car straightened out and headed down the narrow alleyway, missing Dumpsters, trashcans, parked trucks, and a road cleaning vehicle, with only inches to spare. As John craned his neck, two police cars went past the entry to the alley. Another skidded to a halt, trying to make the turn, but hit something and stopped.
Baxter reached another street as the police car backed up and headlights shone behind them. He swung the wheel and snapped the
Pontiac
cleanly into place in a tiny break in the traffic. Horns were honking all round them. Someone cursed loudly in Spanish. The police car followed them, several places back, its siren on and lights flashing.
Baxter ignored it all and kept driving. "We're going to need another vehicle," he said.
"Yeah," Dyson said. "Every cop in
Mexico City
will have the registration of this one."
“See what you can do," Jade said. "Maybe find a car park."
"No time for that now," Baxter said, glancing into the mirrors. "I think we've got trouble."
John looked round and saw yet another police car veering through the traffic, catching up behind them. It overtook the car with the siren. Its front screen was smashed out, and there were two figures in the front, a man and a woman. The pseudo-woman drove, while the man aimed the phased-plasma laser rifle.
Baxter took another left, and the T-XA followed, tires screeching. Further back now, falling behind, the other police car also followed. A shot from the laser rifle went wild as Baxter twisted the wheel: right-left-right, then hard left at still another intersection, driving straight across on-coming traffic. Cars skidded and crashed behind them, but the T-XA got around them all and hardly lost any distance. In another minute, it was gaining once more, as Baxter took yet another turn, then another, working his way through a maze of roads, never staying on a straight stretch long enough for the T-XA to get a clear shot.
They seemed to have lost the other police car, but that was little consolation. Seemingly ignoring the traffic, Baxter headed onto a huge roundabout, planted in the center with a sixty-foot palm tree. That led them into an eight-lane highway, and Baxter took the outer lane, weaving through the traffic, taking whatever lanes he needed to keep going, never touching the brake, trying to keep ahead of the T-XA. For a minute, they were pulling away. Baxter's reflexes were unbelievable, like nothing human, but the Terminator was just as good. It got round some slower cars and was soon sticking to them like glue.
Just ahead, a cluster of cars and trucks blocked all the lanes. "What do we do now?" Sarah said
As they entered a long tunnel, Baxter nudged a big purple SUV, forcing it over. "Just watch."
He slammed the
Pontiac
left, almost on top of a rusty utility truck, which gave a prolonged honk of its horn as they accelerated past. Baxter seemed to be aware of everything going on around him, with the minimum of actually looking. The T-
XAs
laser beam
strobed
by on their right-hand side, then swept behind them, hitting the utility, which slewed sidewise and hit a sedan on its left Both vehicles veered off into the oncoming traffic entering the tunnel from the other direction. There was a terrific pileup in the
Pontiac
's wake, metal tearing, horns blasting away.
"All right!" John said, though he immediately felt a twinge of guilt. He hoped no one was hurt in the crashing cars.
Baxter got them out of the tunnel, looking round for an exit. They should have been in the clear, but somehow the T-XA had found a gap. It was steering wildly, all over the road, but never losing control.
Macedo watched with John through the broken rear screen. "Damn," she said, as the T-XA's police car straightened out. She leant forward over the front seat to talk to Sarah. "Give me your weapon."
John rummaged in his backpack, finding the grenade. "Try this."
Macedo took it from him, stuffing it down the front of her dress. "That might come in handy," she said, "but it's too risky now."
Sarah passed over the CAR-15, and Macedo opened up with a burst of automatic fire. The laser rifle hit straight back, the beam catching the
Pontiac
's tailgate, and bursting a tire. Baxter lined up the wheels somehow, while stomping viciously on the brake. Macedo never stopped firing, aiming for the wheels of the T-XA's police car. She managed, it seemed, to shoot out a tire, for the T-XA lost control on a bend.
"Brace yourselves," Baxter said. "We're going to hit."
The
Pontiac
lurched forward as he took his foot off the brake, but the police car slammed into them. The
Pontiac
fishtailed, then spun 180° clockwise, as the T-XA kept going forward. Panov smashed out his window with the shotgun's butt, and fired at the T-XA-the pseudo-man with the laser rifle—as they passed each other. He missed, but the Terminator didn't-not entirely. The heat beam struck
Panov's
arm, and he screamed, dropping the weapon on his knees. John grabbed it, and looked for an opportunity.
In only a second, Panov seemed to master the pain. "Don't look, John," he said.
The T-XA's police car hit a traffic light, throwing the pseudo-man out the front. It slid along the roadway, trying to twist and fire as it went The Pontiac came to a halt thirty yards down the road from the T-XA's car, two of its wheels on a narrow grassy verge. Police sirens now came from all directions. Three cars headed the way they'd all just come. A fourth approached from the other direction.
"Out, quickly," Dyson said.
As they scrambled out, the German shepherd was the first of their enemies to act It rushed at them down the road, going for Panov, who was the worst hurt. He slapped it away with his good arm, but stumbled from the impact. The dog rolled over and over on the grass, melting into a ball of silvery liquid. It turned inside out, and came at them again-its teeth extending beyond those of any normal dog, more like some
carnosaur
from the Mesozoic Era. John shot at it with the 12-gauge, making a deep wound on its surface. He chambered another round and fired again, denting the pseudo-dog like
plasticine
walloped by a steel hammer.
Macedo grabbed his wrist "Run! Don't you want to live?"
Baxter had drawn a handgun and he started firing, perhaps ten times in a matter of seconds. The bullets did the pseudo-dog little harm as it reformed, but it stopped in its tracks under the hail of accurate fire, letting the humans get a few more yards ahead. Meanwhile, the pseudo-man and -woman components of the T-XA came after them, both of them fully recovered, the man firing the laser rifle. This time, the beam nailed Baxter, drilling through his torso and setting him alight.
"Robert!" Jade shouted, rushing back to catch his smoking body as it fell. She hefted him over her shoulder, running under his weight without seeming impeded.
"Is he still alive?" Sarah said. She drew the .45 from her waistband, glancing round for a target
"No, Ms. Connor," Jade said as she ran. "There are some things even we can't survive."
"We can't let ourselves fall into the T-XA's hands, even when we're dead," Dyson said grimly.
The T-XA was hot on their heels. They made it over the grass, to a concrete footpath that ran past a light industrial jungle. Another laser beam went past, as Macedo let go of John's arm and shot away the lock on a chain-link gate. They ran down the side of an ugly factory. The path led to another gate, which Macedo shot open like the first Beyond this was a narrow road alley between medium-rise buildings.
Macedo pushed John in the back. "Just run as fast as you can."
"We must be slowing you down," Sarah said as they crossed the road, dodging traffic. She was starting to pant from the effort she was making, keeping up with these superhuman warriors. "We're not enhanced like you."
"Yes, but you're doing well. You must be very fit."
"None of us can outrun that thing for long," Panov said. "Maybe Jade... But we've all got the same problem."
It didn't look that way. The Specialists still seemed fresh, even those who'd been wounded. John was exhausted from the effort he'd made.