Chapter 10: Empty Factory

Kayden and his group retraced their steps and returned to the path which they had originally taken. After walking for some distance down the tunnel, they reached a new section of the complex.

This section looked like a large industrial factory. It was filled with loud noises of the many machines working there.

They were many fabricated parts, which Kayden recognized were newly fabricated Terminator endoskeleton parts, arranged on shelf racks.

This area should be where damaged Terminators come to for repairs.

The machines were still maintaining their normal work motions although, as far as Kayden could see, the obvious subjects of repair — the Terminators — were completely missing from the whole area. It was almost like the machines had initially been working on some Terminators, but the Terminators had suddenly stood up and left while the repair process was still in progress.

'Fuck! And there goes my plan to rely on my enhanced hearing ability to detect any approaching dangers.' Kayden thought with a wry smile on his face.

While Kayden was still lamenting, Serena had walked up to stand beside him at the front of the group. She looked around the area and at the many busy and noisy machines with a frown on her face.

"This is the place to find a new path that will take us to that secret exit. This section is an important part of the facility so pathways from many different sections are connected to this section. As long as we walk through this section and cross over to the right side of this section, we will definitely find a path that can take us to the secret exit." She said, nodding.

Kayden nodded. He turned to Serena and said, "We should hurry up and move past this area as soon as possible. Anything could be hiding in this place and we wouldn't know until they are right on top of us."

"Yeah, I think so too." Serena said and then quickly added while looking at Kayden appraisingly, "You are good at this."

"What?" Kayden asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I meant that you are good at leading. It almost seems like you have done this before?"

"Nah, I'm just a normal survivor who was captured by Skynet just like all the other prisoners."

"Hm… You seem very confident about your decisions and plans. That's not usually the case for a normal survivor with no experience." Serena said still frowning like she was pondering something.

Kayden heart skipped a beat. He was afraid that Serena might have started to develop some suspicions about him. He was aware of how strange it was for someone who proclaimed himself to have always been a normal survivor to still be so confident about his decisions and plans in such a high-tension situation as the one they were currently in.

"I might have led a few scavenging missions for my survivor group. That's some experience, I guess." Kayden answered quickly while putting on a smile which he hoped was charming and distracting enough to allay her suspicions.

Serena smiled and kept quiet.

After secretly heaving a sigh of relief, Kayden turned to the rest of the group behind them, and said, "We are going to walk fast past this area. Everybody, try to walk faster. Keep your eyes open and watch out for any dangerous machines or Terminators. Okay?"

Nadiya and the rest all nodded and quickly followed behind Kayden and Serena who had turned right in order to walk across the section and move over to the right side of the facility.

Just a few minutes in, all of them were already sweating profusely from the heat generated by the many machines, including the heat coming from all the molten metal in the area.

The uncomfortably loud noises were not helping matters either.

Kayden noticed the rest of the group had unconsciously hastened their walking paces in order to leave this unpleasant area faster even without any prompting from him. They were no longer as careful about watching their surroundings and were obviously only thinking about leaving the area as quickly as possible.

But just as Kayden was about to remind them to be more careful, he noticed something strange.

Although was sweating like all the others, he did not feel much discomfort from the heat.

Kayden noticed that he was only feeling the sensation of heat, but there was no accompanying painful or unpleasant sensation from the high temperature — he could feel that area was hot, but he felt that the heat was not bad enough to cause him any discomfort.

Walking absentmindedly while still lost in his thoughts, Kayden had not been paying much attention to his surroundings or watching his surroundings carefully.

And just as he was about to walk past a section of the area, Kayden caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision, jolting him out of his thoughts.

Kayden quickly turned towards that direction and saw something that shock him.

He realized that he currently right in the middle of passing by one of the many walking paths that separated the machines in the area and which had been arranged around the area in a massive network of walkways in order to allow for easy movement around this industrial factory-looking section.

And just as Kayden looked down the walking path that he had been about to walk past, he found himself standing face-to-face with a large, armed, and heavily armored robot.

Standing at an imposing height of about 2.4 meters, it was taller than of most men. It had a round head fitted with two glowing 'eyes', two arms, each carrying wielding a minigun, and two 'legs' consisting of individual tank threads.

And with the T-1 wielding its twin miniguns, it looked ready for business.

Kayden's HUD was immediately turned on.

[HUNTER-KILLER (aka 'HK') TANK: T-1 BATTLEFIELD ROBOT aka GROUND ASSAULT VEHICLE aka T-1 DETECTED]

[WEAK POINT: HEAD]

[WEAPONS: MINIGUN (2), THREAT ASSESSMENT: LOW]

A T-1 tank Hunter-Killer!

Kayden noticed that the T-1's eyes were focused and locked on to him. It had already started the motion of lifting its miniguns and aiming at him, which would be quickly followed by an outpouring of the miniguns' bullets.

As soon as Kayden saw the T-1, he felt like his body was immediately flooded with adrenaline. He felt his nerves tingling all over his body. He seemed to enter a state of mind that greatly enhanced his senses and made him feel like time was dilated. He felt everything around slow down, including the T-1's action of lifting its weapons.

"This feeling… I felt it before during my fight with that T-800 Terminator!" thought Kayden with shock.

Kayden realized that while he was in his current state, his reaction speed had been boosted tremendously and that he could perform a few quick different movements before the T-1 could complete even a single action.

So, when Kayden saw that the T-1 tank had almost completed its aiming motions, with its miniguns starting to rotate slowly, he quickly raised and aimed his Phased Plasma Rifle at the T-1.

But just as Kayden was about to pull the trigger, a circular crosshair appeared in his HUD. The circular crosshair had appeared around the T-1's head.

New words appeared on his HUD.

[AUTOMATIC AIMING/TARGETING ASSISTANCE SYSTEM aka AUTO-AIM ASSIST ACTIVATED…]

As soon as the words appeared on his HUD, Kayden felt almost like his brain had made some unconscious adjustments to his aim. The hand holding the Phased Plasma Rifle had perfect stability and Kayden felt totally confident that any shot he took right now would an accurate hit and would definitely strike the T-1's head.

So, with complete confident, Kayden pulled the trigger.

And a plasma bullet blasted the T-1's head to pieces.

"Yes!" Kayden shouted, punching the air in celebration.

But just as the Kayden was still celebrating his perfect shot, he saw another six T-1s wheel themselves to appear behind the one he had just destroyed.

Fuck!

Turning to the rest of the group who were shocked by his actions, Kayden shouted, "RUN!"

*****

Thanks for your support on Patre*on:

heller8284

***

Check out my Patreon to support me: At www.patre*on.com/Kendrix

(Remove the *)