Terminator - T3 01 - Rise of the Machines (15 page)

Either that or someone would come looking for her. She was the key to finding John Connor again. Her fiance was expendable.

T-X moved silently across the room and sat down on

Kate's side of the bed. She picked a framed photo off the nightstand and studied it. It was Katherine Brewster at her graduation. Robert Brewster stood beside her. Smiling. The proud father.

Scott stirred on the bed. T-X put the photo back as Scott sat up. "Hon? You just get in?"

T-X swiveled her torso 180 degrees to face Scott, who stared at her with incomprehension. She reached over with one hand, almost gently caressing the man's face, before she lowered her hand, thrust it deep into his chest, and destroyed his heart before he could utter a sound.

He fell back in a bloody heap.

T-X went to the bathroom where she fastidiously washed the blood from her hand as the front doorbell rang.

She cocked her head, her sensors picking up electronic emissions from a plain sedan parked on the street. Police frequency emissions.

She glanced at Scott's body, then headed to the living room, her body thickening, her clothing melting away and changing so that by the time she opened the front door she had assumed the infiltration mode of Scott Peterson, including the boxer shorts and T-shirt he wore for bed.

Two men stood in the corridor; one a bald white man, the other a black man with short dark hair. They were dressed in cheap suits and ties.

They held out their gold shields. "Detective Martinez, LAPD," the one introduced himself. "We're looking for Katherine Brewster. Is she here?"

T-X, as Scott Peterson, shook his head.

The detective consulted his notebook. "You're her fi-anceScott Peterson?"

T-X nodded.

"A few hours ago there was an incident at the veterinary hospital where she works. We're concerned something might have happened to her."

"Where is she?" T-X asked without inflection, as if the Scott character were in shock.

"Well, we got a report from a gas station attendant out toward Victorville about a possible kidnapping. Might be related."

T-X nodded his head. "I can help you find her."

The two detectives glanced at each other and nodded. "Sure. Any idea where she might have gone?"

17

Valley of Peace Cemetery

In the back of the pet van John Connor watched through the dividing window over Terminator's shoulder.

He and Kate had finally eaten something and had drunk some water, but she refused to say anything else to him. He almost hated to turn his back on her. She looked as if she were on the verge of going berserk again. There was no telling what she was capable of doing.

Connor hadn't been able to figure out where they were going, although he knew that the desert was off to the east and LA. back the other way. But now they were in an area of grass and tree-covered rolling hills, the occasional long driveway up to a house in the distance, or a small horse ranch nestled against a steeper hill. Pleasant countryside. He figured that a lot of people escaping from the daily grind in Los Angeles came out here.

Terminator drove at a steady sixty miles per hour, on the straight stretches or on the curves, it didn't seem to matter to him.

They were off the main highway, on a blacktopped secondary road that suddenly came around a hill to a

broad vista of trees, grassy slopes, and narrow roads that wound their way in and among headstones, classical statues, small family plots enclosed by low iron picket fences, and mausoleums of all sizes, styles, and ornateness.

No one seemed to be here this morning, except for a hearse and a Cadillac limousine parked at the base of a hill in the distance. At the top was a Gothic stone building that was an entrance to a crypt. But there didn't seem to be any people nearby. Nor were there any signs that caretakers were at work this early.

Without slowing down, Terminator made the sharp turn onto the entrance road, flashed past a sign that read valley of peace cemetery, and crashed straight through a tall iron gate, knocking it half off its hinges.

He drove directly across the cemetery, following the narrow roads, finally slowing down and coming to a halt near where the hearse and the limousine were parked.

The morning was cool and beautiful out here, the sun very bright in a crystal clear sky. i

Terminator opened the rear door. Connor jumped out first, blinking in the brightness. He turned and offered his hand to Kate, but she batted it away and jumped down on her own.

"Come with me," Terminator said. He turned and strode up the hill to the crypt entrance that was flanked by tall stained-glass windows showing angels ascending to heaven. Connor almost expected to hear organ music playing softly.

The heavy bronze doors were locked, but Terminator

simply pulled them open as if they had been held in place by straw.

Inside, he led them down a flight of stairs into the crypt Coffins were set behind marble slabs in tombs that were stacked five high. The morning light was diffused and colored by the windows, lending the place the solemn air it was supposed to have.

Connor suddenly had an uneasy feeling that he knew who was buried here, but he couldn't stop himself from seeing with his own eyes.

Terminator stopped in front of one of the tombs near the center of the crypt.

Connor pulled up short, hesitating, as he saw what was chiseled in the marble cover of the tomb. He'd never been here before. He didn't even know about this place.

He took a few steps closer, Kate just behind him. The inscription read sarah connor
ሗ
-1997
—
no fate

BUT WHAT WE MAKE.

Kate was obviously confused. Nothing that had hap- pened to her this morning made any sense. She looked from the inscription on the tomb to Terminator and then to Connor.

"Your mother?" she asked.

"I never knew where she was buried," he said, his voice soft but filled with emotion. "I hit the road the day she died." He looked at Terminator. "Why did you bring

me here?"

Terminator didn't answer. Without warning he slammed

his fist through the marble slab, shattering it into a mil-

lion pieces, sending chunks flying everywhere, dust rising from the pulverized stone.

Connor couldn't believe what was happening. He tried to muscle the cyborg aside, but it was like ramming his shoulder into a brick wall. "No! What are you doing?"

Terminator shoved him away, reached into the tomb, and pulled out the polished stainless-steel coffin with one hand as if it were a toy. He slammed it on the floor, popped the locking bolts out of their seats, and threw open the lid.

Connor was speechless. He didn't know exactly what he expected to see after all these years; his mother's skeleton, probably. But he wasn't expecting to find a steel coffin completely crammed with weapons and loads. A .30-caliber machine gun, several Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles, 9mm Glock pistols, a bandolier of H&W stun grenades that U.S. Special Forces used, a LAW antitank rocket, a 40mm Mk-19 grenade launcher with its loads, small bricks of C-4 plastic explosive, and a lot of other weapons, all of which Connor knew how to use.

"Sarah Connor was cremated in Mexico," Terminator explained. "Her friends scattered her ashes in the sea. They stored these weapons in accordance with her will."

Connor's eyes were drawn away from the weapons to a larger piece of the marble tomb on which the name connor was legible. So many years wasted. So many lives lost. So much damage and heartache.

Now this.

"What happened to her?" Kate asked at Connor's shoulder.

"Leukemia."

"I'm sorry," she said, staring at the weapons.

Terminator was going through them, checking to see what had been left behind, in what condition everything was, and discarding some of the things.

"We were living down in Baja when she was diagnosed," Connor said, not looking up. He was still in his own thoughts. Still back in Mexico with his mother. "They gave her only six months, but she fought for three years." He lowered his eyes. "Long enough to make sure."

"Make sure?" Kate prompted.

"That the world didn't end," he said. His life for the past twelve years had been surreal. But these past four hours had been the worst " 'Every day after this one is a gift,' she told me. 'We made it, we're free.' But I never really believed it." He glanced at the weapons. "I guess die didn't either."

He and Terminator looked at each other.

"You know, you were the closest thing I ever had to a father," Connor told him. He shook his head. "How pathetic is that?"

Kate suddenly lunged between them, snatched a Glock 17 pistol from the coffin, and skipped back a couple of steps as she fumbled for the twin triggers. Her father had taught her something about guns too.