T2 RF

	 Not at all what they expected.
	 The leader spoke through a megaphone. “Stop where
you are. Lie down on the floor, face down. On the floor,
NOW!”
	 He continued to stride toward them, as if not hearing,
or caring.
	 The SWATs tensed up. They never saw anything like
this.
	 Closer and closer he came.
	 The leader made another command decision. “Drop
him.”
 	The corridor was abruptly filled with crackling
thunder. The rounds tore into Terminator’s chest.
Stomach.
Face.
Thighs.
	 His leather jacket, already punctured in two dozen
places, was now ripped to shreds as the rounds hit him.
	 The SWAT leader grasped for the obvious in the face
of the impossible, thinking the guy must be wearing
body armor. So he lifted his sights and fired directly
into the suspect’s face. His head should have been
taken apart like a ripe melon. Instead, it simply rocked
slightly, and a tear in the cheekbone spouted blood.
	 Still the man kept coming toward them!
The SWATs did what they were trained to do.
Hold the trigger down.
	 “Aim for the face!” the leader shouted, thinking
somehow his bullet must have been defective. But a
man next to him shouted with a trace of fear in his
voice, “I am!”
	 Terminator smoothly drew his .45. His internal scanner
flashed THREAT ASSESSMENT—TERMINATION
OVERRIDE—DISABLE ONLY. Without particular
hurry, as if he were glancing at the shelves in a
supermarket, he selected his targets. He shot the nearest
man in the left thigh. As he screamed and dropped,
Terminator bent down and picked up the shrieking
man’s tear-gas launcher. It was one of those new rotary
jobs that held twelve rounds in a big drum. Terminator
shot the next SWAT square in the chest with the tear
gas launcher. The gas canister hit the man’s body armor
and didn’t penetrate. But it was like getting slugged in
the stomach with a full-swing from a baseball bat. The
SWAT folded double and hit the tiles, gasping.
	 Terminator was an image from Hell, a tall figure in
shredded black leather, streaked with blood. One eye
was now a bloody socket, the metal eye-servos glinting.
The flesh of one cheek hung down in tatters, revealing
the chrome cheekbone beneath. The whole front of his
jacket was blown open, revealing his metal chest.
	 Some of the remaining SWATs were close enough to
see all this. It was too much to see. Even in the heat
of battle, even against the grain of their training, they
began to fall back. One turned to run and—
	 KA-POW! A gas canister nailed him in the back,
sending him sprawling. Terminator fired three gas
grenades into the lobby. It filled rapidly with the white
gas, cutting the visibility to a few feet. It was total
pandemonium.
	 The SWAT leader crouched in the fog, white
knuckling his rifle, completely at a loss for what was
happening. Terminator loomed suddenly out of the mist
right in front of him.
	Before the team leader could react, there was an
explosion and a white flash and a dull thud as Terminator’s
bullet drilled in his leg. As he screamed and dropped the
rifle to clutch his leg, Terminator ripped his gas mask
off. The SWAT leader fell back, writhing to the floor,
choking and gagging, mindlessly clutching his ruptured
thigh, trying to stem the trickle of blood.
	 Terminator walked up to two SWATs at the front doors.
POW-POW. Leg and leg. He snatched off their masks as
they fell.
	 Then, the gunfire stopped. Nobody could see anything.
Screams and whimpers echoed in the smoke.
	 Smoke boiled out the front door as a figure emerged.
Firing the tear-gas launcher with one hand, Terminator
launched all remaining rounds among the police vehicles.
Unprotected officers ran back, choking and half blind,
slamming into cars and tripping over each other.
	 It was a total rout.
	 At the SWAT van, one of the men was rapidly handing
out the remaining masks to unprotected cops. A figure
appeared out of the smoke beside him. He looked up as
Terminator handed him the empty launcher. Instinctively,
he grasped it. Then Terminator ripped off his mask,
grabbed his flak vest with one hand, and sailed him out
into the mist. The cyborg strode the length of the van and
climbed into the driver’s seat. No keys in the ignition.
He flipped down the sun visor.