GANT RANCH 7/18/90 The story action in the Salceda Camp scene was originally part of a much longer and drawn-out portion of the film in the 7/18/90 draft, and took place at the mercenary ranch of Travis Gant, the "crazy ex-Green Beret" John refers to in the final film. Although there was a good deal more character exposition and development of the "fathers" theme -- including the discussion of a prior romantic relationship between Sarah and Gant -- the scene slowed the pacing of the narrative down considerably and was ultimately streamlined and simplified into the Salceda's Camp scene. It is interesting to compare the two scenes side by side to note the condensation of narrative and the retention of the essence of the story despite the scaling- down of its scope. Salceda appears in this version as merely one of Gant's men. ----------------------------------------------------------- EXT. DIRT ROAD - DAY The desolate hills southwest of Brawley. TERMINATOR steers the pickup along a narrow dirt road which winds precariously through the hills. It is designed to discourage casual visitors. They approach a heavy metal gate which blocks the road. It is flanked on both sides by a high chain-link fence topped with razor-wire. There is no call box or phone. Only a NO TRESPASSING sign with a bunch of dried rattlesnake heads decorating it, their jaws wide, fangs gleaming. SARAH Don't get out. They saw us coming three miles back. On cue, a jeep rounds the bend beyond the gate and roars toward them. They hear a thundering whop-whop of rotors and a Vietnam-era Huey roars over the hill next to them and hovers overhead, blasting them with its rotor wash. Three men dismount from the jeep and walk forward. One carries a shotgun, the other two M-16s. Above them, in the door of the Huey, another guy has an AK-47 trained on them. Terminator steps out with the shotgun. Sarah gets out and goes to the gate, waiting for the sentries to reach her. She speaks to the lead man, SALCEDA, through the gate in perfect, almost unaccented Spanish. SARAH (subtitled) Tell Gant I'm here. Salceda, a Mexican wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a flak vest, grins at her. SALCEDA (Spanish/subtitled) He doesn't want to see you. SARAH Just tell him, pendejo. And tell him I have John with me. The sentry speaks into a walkie-talkie. We hear her name mentioned, but not much else. John waits at the truck with Terminator. JOHN This place is run by a guy named Travis Gant. An ex-Green Beret. A total wild man... he's got connections all over Mexico and Central America. The sentry is nodding, holding the walkie up to his ear. We don't hear the other end of the conversation over the helicopter. He looks at Sarah and shrugs. The sentries open the gate, waving the chopper off. SALCEDA (to Terminator) Put the shotgun back in the truck. Sarah nods to him to comply. SALCEDA You ride with me. Enrique will bring your truck. One of the sentries walks past them to their truck as they move to Salceda's jeep. CUT TO: EXT. DIRT ROAD IN THE JEEP, bumping along the winding road. Sarah, John, and Terminator jammed in the back, holding onto a roll bar. JOHN What makes you think he'll help us? SARAH He'll help us. JOHN (to Terminator) The last time Gant and Sarah were in the same room he was in a drunken rage and coming after her with a sheepskinning knife. TERMINATOR Why? SARAH We were breaking up at the time. EXT. GANT'S RANCH/COMPOUND - DAY The jeep passes through an arched stone gate and enters the courtyard of Gant's run-down hacienda. The place might have been nice once, but it's a dump now. A lot of military-surplus jeeps and other vehicles are parked around, and we see surveillance cameras, razor wire, and other styling touches which make the place look more like a military compound than a ranch. There are more men, mostly Hispanic. A few white guys. Dress varies from biker denims to military fatigues. There are women, children running, and dogs. Terminator, John and Sarah get out of the jeep. The dogs do not dig Terminator at all. They are barking and whining, slinking around, keeping their distance. Two men come out of the main house, one striding ahead of the other. In the lead is TRAVIS GANT, followed by his first lieutenant, INGRAM. Gant is in his late thirties, lean and muscular. He wears combat boots and cammo pants, no shirt, a denim vest, and a greasy bandana rolled into a headband. He is tight lipped, no nonsense, and even though his hair has grown out and he only shaves every other day, his bearing is utterly military... no fat, no nonsense, no wasted movement. His eyes are concealed by dark aviator-style shades, and he wears a Detonics custom .45 holstered at his hip. Ingram is younger, an almost baby-faced ex-Marine punk with a bad attitude. Gant walks up to Sarah, glancing once warily at Terminator, and plants himself right in front of her. GANT Man, you are one fuckin' section- eight crazy fucking bitch, coming here, you know that? (changing tone) Hi John, long time. JOHN Hi, Travis. Gant turns back to Sarah, talking lower. Very tense. He leans close to her, so no one else in the compound can hear them. GANT Your picture's all over the TV, you know that? You and your psycho buddy, there. Man I do NOT need this! I got a business to run. I can't afford any heat up here. SARAH So deal to us and we're on our way. GANT What do you need? SARAH Guns... heavy stuff. Explosives... and com gear, travel documents. And I need you to get us across the ditch and arrange a trip south. Costa Rica. Peru. Whatever you can set up. GANT How about the fillings out of my fucking teeth?! Man, you are unbelievable! John sees them standing close together and says to Terminator... JOHN This is going better than I thought it would. ON SARAH AND GANT, TIGHT. GANT I can't believe you had the balls to come back here. And dragging that poor kid along. You still feeding him all that crazy shit about a nuclear war and how he's gonna be the savior of all mankind? SARAH He is. GANT Still a goddamn loony tune. You always were. A good fuck, but a loony tune. Just get out of here, Sarah. SARAH I need your help, Gant. GANT Forget it. When the Ice Capades open in Hell, you call me. Gant turns to walk away, yelling to Ingram and the others. GANT Get her out of here! SARAH Wait! Gant pauses. She gestures to Terminator to walk forward. Ingram and the sentries raise their weapons. SARAH Tell him what you are. TERMINATOR Series 800 terminator. Model 101. Cyborg tactical infiltrator. GANT Oh my God. A killing machine from the future. Watch out, guys. Gant snorts, shaking his head. Looks between Terminator and Sarah like they are a sorry pair of losers. GANT Man, you two deserve each other. SARAH (to Gant) Give me your .45. I need to show you something. Gant looks at her warily. But there are ten of his people around with automatic weapons, so he unholsters the pistol and hands it to her. Sarah shows it to Terminator. SARAH Can I shoot you in the head with this? TERMINATOR If it will help. SARAH Turn around. He does and she levels the pistol in a two-hand grip at the back of his head, point blank. Sarah clicks off the safety. Gant can't believe what he's seeing here. She's really going to do it... GANT Bullshit!! POW! POW! Terminator's head jerks a little with each hit. John winces. The cyborg turns to them, calm and unhurt. TERMINATOR No problemo. Gant just stares, his mouth hanging open. He slowly goes up to Terminator. Gets right up to his face. He looks right into the eyes. Touches the skin of the cyborg's cheek. Walks slowly behind him, not knowing what he expects to see. It all comes crashing in on him. We see it in his face. He believes. Gant turns to Sarah. GANT (weakly) Come inside. John winks at Terminator. Gives him a BIG THUMBS UP. Terminator imitates the gesture, then tries a wink. It needs work. INT. GANT'S HACIENDA - DAY Gant leads them into the kitchen, yelling to the house in general. GANT Yolanda?! We got company! He is in shock, going to one cupboard then another, then back to the first. His body moving while his brain reels. GANT Where's the fucking tequila? He pulls a bottle out of the cupboard and grabs more glasses than he can carry, gets them to the table. Sarah helps him. A WOMAN comes to the doorway... Hispanic, about 25, and seven months pregnant. She looks stonily at the scene, wary of the strangers. A two-year-old boy toddles up behind her, hand jammed in his mouth. GANT That's Yolanda. Mrs. Gant. (he arches his eyebrow at Sarah) Go figure, huh? JOHN (Spanish/subtitled) Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm John, this is Sarah, and this is-- (indicating Terminator) Uh... my uncle. Bob. Uncle Bob. Yolanda smiles. John has broken the ice. He has a way of controlling situations, understanding people. Gant is ripping the cap off the tequila bottle. The two- year-old toddles to him and grabs his cammo pants, sliming them with drool. Terminator watches the tiny kid, fascinated. What is it? GANT And this is Paco. Honey, take Pacolito. Thanks, baby. She takes the child and retreats. Wife as domestic slave. After Sarah, the guy obviously wanted somebody more tame. Gant sits heavily at the table, moving like the breath is knocked out of him. He pours himself a tall shot and downs it in one gulp. GANT So... everything you always said. The war... the future... it's all real? He looks at Terminator, who nods "yes". Gant grabs the other glasses, pouring while he talks. GANT Wheww! Damn. I feel like I been kneed in the balls here. This is big. (to Terminator) Drink? Terminator gestures "no" at the proffered glass. Gant realizes his mistake. This cyborg shit takes getting used to. GANT Yeah, right. Sarah pours for herself. A straight shooter. She tosses it back. SARAH I tried to tell you. GANT I know. You did. Many times. John signals to Terminator "let's go". He wants to leave Sarah and Travis alone to work this out. As always, his instincts are solid. He takes Terminator by the sleeve of his jacket and they drift away. John calls from the front door... JOHN Any place I shouldn't go? GANT Su casa, John. You know that. Anything I got's yours. EXT. MAIN HOUSE Terminator and John walk out on the porch. Ingram, standing just outside the door, eyes them coldly. He has heard Gant's shouted carte-blanche but he doesn't like it. As they walk down the steps Terminator looks at John... TERMINATOR Uncle Bob? INT. HOUSE Gant and Sarah at the kitchen table. He takes off his dark glasses and his eyes are somehow appealing, not hard like we might have expected. GANT When you first laid that shit on me, about John, I thought you were section-eight for sure. Psycho waitress that thinks her kid's fucking Napoleon. SARAH (she smiles) You didn't exactly throw us out. GANT Naw. I start cuttin' people off just cause they're crazy an' I'd lose all my friends. Now I see why you were always serious as a heart attack. Carrying that kind of shit around, by yourself, year after year. I'm impressed kid. CUT TO: EXT. COMPOUND John and Terminator walking across the compound. John calls to some guys he knows, yelling in fluent Spanish. They wave to him. TERMINATOR How long did you live here? JOHN Four years. But we spent a lot of time in Nicaragua, Costa Rica... places like that. Wherever Travis had business. I thought this was how people lived. Like everybody grew up doing weapons training. Riding around in helicopters. Learning how to blow shit up. TERMINATOR Gant taught you? JOHN My mom and him, yeah. When she got busted I got put in a regular school. The other kids thought I was a little weird. INT. HOUSE/ KITCHEN Gant stares at her, thinking back. It's one of those moments where someone is utterly familiar and yet somehow suddenly a total stranger. GANT Yeah... now I look back I can see your whole plan. Find some guy that knows weapons and tactics, some dumb bastard, and get him to teach you how to run a military operation... so you could pass it on when the kid was old enough. Brilliant. And I was the dumb bastard. SARAH Travis... GANT Everything had a purpose. Coming on to me, getting me to teach you, take you out on runs. Christ, I didn't care. Long's you wrapped them legs around me, I'd a done anything. Damn, you didn't give one shit for me really, did you? In her expression, her contained sadness, we see that she did not. SARAH I'm sorry, Travis. GANT You took me for a ride, got what you needed, and got off. We can see his pain. He thought they had something. Even though it ended badly, he remembered good moments. His new knowledge has led to a bitter re-evaluation. Now he knows those moments were hollow even then. SARAH I did what I had to do. GANT Yeah. I guess you did. You wanna know what's crazy about it? SARAH What? He pours again, for both of them. Tall. GANT You did it exactly right. You knew what you had to do and you did it. You got nerves of fucking stainless steel, baby. I'm proud of ya. I really mean that. They lock eyes... a moment of connection. She is forgiven, although it is a painful forgiveness. He grins at her, suddenly, a crazy kamikaze grin. Clinks her glass. GANT To the future! Fuck it if it can't take a joke! Right? He tosses back the tequila. EXT. COMPOUND John and Terminator pass some stripped Hueys, rusting on blocks. The functional Huey sits on the grass beyond. Salceda is supervising the unloading of some crates from the chopper. JOHN It's sad, me mom and Travis. She won't let anybody take the place of my real dad. TERMINATOR Kyle Reese. JOHN Yeah. He's dead. (brightening suddenly) Hey! Did you ever meet him? Up in the future, I mean. TERMINATOR No. Sorry. John shrugs. He thinks he's being casual, but his longing for some kind of parental connection is obvious. JOHN I wish I coulda met him. I guess I will, when I'm older, cause I send him back through time and all. He hasn't even been born yet. Man, it messes with your head. TERMINATOR (remembering the phrase) It messes with your head. JOHN Yeah. My mom and him were only together for one night, but she talks about him every day. She still loves him, I guess. I see her crying sometimes. She denies it totally, of course. Says she got something in her eye. They reach a bunker-like concrete building. There is a combination lock on the heavy steel door, like a bank vault. John starts twiddling the dial on the lock. TERMINATOR Why do you cry? JOHN Left 3 to 48. (looking up) You mean people? I don't know. We just cry. You know. When it hurts. Right 2 to 90. TERMINATOR Pain causes it? JOHN Uh-unh, no, pain is like a... like an alarm that tells you when there's damage. This is different... And left one to 20. It's when there's nothing wrong with you but you hurt anyway. Because you love somebody, and they're gone or whatever. You get it? TERMINATOR No. John completes the combination and tries the latch. It unlocks with a CLUNK. JOHN He should change this combination. INT. ARMORY John precedes Terminator into Gant's armory. A long concrete room lined with every imaginable kind of weapon. Racks of rifles, pistols, rocket launchers, mortars, RPGs, radio gear. At the far end boxes containing ammo, grenades etc. are stacked to the ceiling. Terminator gets real alert. Scanning the walls, wondering where to begin. TERMINATOR Radical. JOHN Yeah. I thought you'd like this place. Terminator picks up a MAC 10 machine pistol. Slaps in a magazine. John grabs an AK-47 and racks the bolt with a practiced action. Inspects the receiver for wear. Doesn't like what he sees. Puts it back. His movements are efficient. Professional. Uninterested. JOHN Hey, do you feel any different yet? Like you're learning stuff? TERMINATOR I don't know. I feel the same. JOHN Have you figured out yet why you can't go around killing people? Terminator is still stumped. He takes a shot in the dark. TERMINATOR Because it hurts them? JOHN Nooo. Because it hurts the people who love them. Get it? That's the value of human life... we have feelings, people love each other. (a beat, then--) Are you afraid of dying? Terminator pauses a second. The thought never occurred to him. He searches his mind for the answer... TERMINATOR No. Terminator slings the M-79 and starts looking for the grenades. John is idly spinning a Sig Saur 9mm pistol on his finger... backwards and forwards like Bat Masterson. JOHN See, that's the problem. You don't care if you live or die, and so you think everybody's like that. TERMINATOR I have to stay functional until my mission is complete. Then it doesn't matter. John picks up a 2nd generation Starlite scope. Switches it on. Twiddles the gain. Looks through it. JOHN Yeah. I have to stay functional too. (sing songy) "I'm too important". (he puts the scope down) She won't even let me play football. It's a drag. EXT. COMPOUND - LATER - DAY Sarah has changed. Boots, black fatigue pants, T-shirt. Night patrol jacket. Shades. She looks hard. She and John have their weapons and supply selections laid out for cleaning and packing. Maps, radios, documents, explosives, detonators... just the basics. Gant strides up. GANT It's set. Soon as it's dark we'll cross the ditch in the Huey, and I've got a Citation meeting us at that strip in San Lupe. SARAH Thanks. Sarah eyes the preparations one last time and walks away. CUT TO: INT. T-1000'S POLICE CRUISER - DAY The T-1000 sits as before. Monitoring the police radio. Listening to Sarah's tapes. Scanning John's letters and papers. SARAH (V.O.) ... if we're ever separated, go directly to Gant's ranch. Travis will take care of you until I get there... T-1000 stops scanning the letter in its hand. It zeros in on the sentence it just heard. Stops the cassette recorder. Reaches to the computer terminal on the dash. Types "Travis Gant" with a KNOWN ACQUAINTANCES cross- reference to "Sarah Connor". TIGHT ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN. Gant's vital statistics come up. Date of Birth. License. Number of arrests. And an address out in Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border. TIGHT ON T-1000 staring at the screen. Suddenly, the barrel of a REVOLVER appears through the open window beside it. It's aiming right at its head. The owner is a helmeted C.H.P. OFFICER. CHP Freeze! Police! The T-1000 calmly complies. ANGLE ON CRUISER from a few yards away. The motorcycle cop stands outside the cruiser's window, aiming his revolver. We see his motorcycle parked off to the side of the empty road. A SECOND MOTORCYCLE COP pulls into shot, rolling into CLOSEUP. He's wearing a headset/microphone under his helmet. We hear him calling in the report. 2ND CHP Roger, that's a positive I.D. on the vehicle. Suspect is in custody. CUT TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - MINUTES LATER - DAY The T-1000 thunders along on a CHP Kawasaki 1100, doing about a hundred and twenty. PAN WITH IT until it recedes toward the horizon. CUT TO: EXT. GANT'S RANCH/COMPOUND - DAY Sarah seems to have the weight of the whole world on her shoulders. She sits at a picnic table. Draws her boot knife. Starts to carve the words... "There is no--" NOT FAR AWAY, JOHN is field-stripping and cleaning weapons, packing for the trip. UP ON THE HUEY NEARBY, Gant and Terminator are flight- checking the aircraft, Gant covered with grease, changing a part in the rotor-head. Terminator helps him install the component. GANT So you're supposed to stay with the kid forever, and teach him, protect him, and keep him out of trouble? TERMINATOR Correct. GANT Buddy, sounds like you just got yourself elected father. TERMINATOR Father? GANT Women'll do that. TERMINATOR I'm not even human. GANT No, it's fucking brilliant. Think about it. She knows you'll never stop... that you'll always be there. And you'll never hurt the kid. You'll never shout at him, never get drunk and hit him. Never say you can't spend time with him 'cause you're too busy. And you'd die to protect him. You're the ultimate parent. TERMINATOR You're better suited. The boy likes you. GANT Naw. I ain't the guy. Forget it. She wrote me off a long time ago. Too many bad habits. Gant laughs and takes a long pull from the tequila bottle. He looks at Terminator, the solemn cyborg from the future. GANT Anyway, considering what's ahead for that kid, you're a better role model... God help him. HOLD ON Terminator, thinking about what's been said. TERMINATOR You are a father. Do you have any advice? GANT Talk about the blind leading the blind. My advice? Lighten up -- the kid's world is so goddamn grim -- smile once in a while. TERMINATOR Smile? GANT Yeah. Smile. You know. (he whistles to one of his men) Hey, Enrique... your sister still sucking off donkeys in Tijuana? ENRIQUE (with a shit-eating grin) No man, she's cutting down. Your mother's taking all the business. GANT See. That's a smile. TERMINATOR POV (DIGITIZED) The real-time image continues while a replay of Enrique grinning runs in a window. It expands, so that Enrique's mouth fills the window. Replays again in slow motion. A vector-graphic of lips smiling appears, along with an array of symbolic data. Terminator tries it. The result is dismal. A rictus-like curling up of the lips. Terminator's next effort is a marginal improvement. GANT I don't know, maybe you could practice in front of a mirror or something. ON SARAH, AT THE TABLE, as she looks up from her carving, thinking. She watches some kids playing in a sprinkler nearby. They are children of some of Gant's men... shrieking as the cold water hits them and loving it. Sarah sees Yolanda walking Pacolito by the hands. Backlit, stylized. Carefree, despite the para-military setting. She looks over at John, cleaning guns... sees the future. ANGLE ON kids playing. TIGHT ON John inserting a part. SARAH leans back against a tree trunk. Closes her eyes. TIGHT ON small children playing. Different ones. Wider now, to reveal a playground in a park. Very idyllic. A dream playground, crowded with laughing kids playing on swings, slides, and a jungle gym. It could be the playground we saw melted and frozen in the post- nuclear desolation of 2029. But here the grass is vibrant green and the sun is shining. Sarah, short-haired, looking drab and paramilitary, stands outside the playground. An outsider. Her fingers are hooked in a chain-link fence and she is staring through the fence at the young mothers playing with their kids. A grim-faced harbinger. Some girls play skip-rope. Their sing-song chant weaves through the random burbling laughter of the kids. One of the young mothers walks her two-year-old son by the hands. She is wearing a pink waitress uniform. She turns to us, laughing. It is Sarah. Beautiful. Radiant. Sarah from another life, uncontaminated by the dark future. She glances at the strange woman beyond the fence. Grim-faced Sarah presses against the fence. She starts shouting at them in SLOW MOTION. No sound comes out of her mouth. She grabs the fence in frustration, shaking it. Screaming soundlessly. Waitress Sarah's smile falls. Then returns as her little boy throws some sand at her. She laughs, turning away, as if the woman at the fence were a shadow, a trick of light. Behind her the earth splits open. In a wide shot we see everyone stop and stare as the ground heaves upward all around them. As far as the eye can see the monstrous caps of missile silos are hinging up, ripping up through the grass and soil. Now the mothers are screaming, pulling their children to them... but it is too late to run. The silo caps open, rows of them marching to the horizon. As if a tranquil reality has split open to reveal another horrible reality which has always been there, hidden beneath it. Thunder shakes the earth. We see the obscene heads of the missiles thrusting up out of the holes in the ground. Walls of fire erupt as the fat cylinders rise like awakened monsters from the earth. Sarah stares in numb horror as the tail-nozzles clear the silo rims, and a wall of flame roars out, devouring the cowering mothers and children. Incinerating them and rolling on, toward her. She screams and we hear it now, shrill and terrifying, mixing with the thunder as the flames wrap around her, blasting her apart and she... Wakes up. All is quiet and normal. The children are still running through the sprinkler nearby. Less than fifteen minutes have gone by. Bathed in sweat, Sarah sits hunched over the table. Every muscle is shaking. She is gasping. Sarah struggles to breathe, running her hand through her short hair which is spiky with sweat. She can escape from the hospital, but she can't escape from the demon which haunts her. She looks down at the words she has carved on the table, amid the scrawled hearts and bird-droppings. They are words Kyle Reese told her, which John Connor made him memorize before they came across time. They are: "There is no fate but what we make." Something changes in her eyes. She slams her knife in the table top, embedding it deeply in the words. Then gets up suddenly and we-- CUT TO: INT. ARMORY The door opens and Sarah walks in out of the afternoon sun. SERIES OF TIGHT SHOTS: A big FN FAL .308 rifle is snatched from a rack. A laser-designator is clipped onto the barrel. A tritium-reticle night-scope is snapped into place. Long .308 bullets are rammed one by one into a magazine. TIGHT ON SARAH, looking at the last bullet. She pushes it down into the magazine with her thumb. Sitting on top, it will be the first one fired. A 20 cent bullet which could save 3 billion lives. She slaps the magazine into the rifle and chambers the first round. Slinging the heavy weapon over her shoulder she exits. LONG LENS on Sarah walking toward us. In the sunlight now, she pulls a pair of dark glasses from her jacket and puts them on. In her night-patrol fatigue pants, boots and glasses she is all business. She strides across the compound with grim purpose. Her face is an impassive mask, her lips set. She has become a terminator. JOHN LOOKS UP from his work in time to see Sarah throw the rifle into the back seat of a hard-top jeep, jump in and start it. She slams it in gear. GANT AND TERMINATOR look up as the jeep brakes hard alongside the Huey. They are up on top of the cowl, adjusting the cyclic linkage. Sarah roars up in the jeep. She yells to them without getting out. SARAH Fly John out tonight as planned. Then come back and wait for me here. I'll be back by dawn. GANT Where you going? (she roars off) Hey!! Where -- god-DAMN-it. MOVING WITH SARAH as she leaves the compound. We see John running after her... yelling. Can't hear his words. She looks in the rear-view mirror but doesn't slow down. CUT TO: EXT. COMPOUND - MINUTES LATER - DAY John, Terminator, and Gant ponder the message carved into the top of the picnic table. Sarah's knife is still embedded there. Ingram looks on, wondering what the big deal is. JOHN "No fate but what we make." My father told her this... I mean, I made him memorize it, up in the future as a message to her-- (he sees Gant's expression) Never mind. Okay, the whole thing goes "The Future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." GANT What's it mean? TERMINATOR It means she intends to change the future somehow. John snaps his fingers as it hits him... JOHN Dyson!!! GANT What? JOHN Miles Dyson. She's gonna blow him away. Son of a bitch! GANT Who's Dyson? JOHN (to Terminator) We gotta stop her. (he spins to Gant) Travis, you stay here in case she comes back. Keep her here till we get back. We need a jeep. Gant is amazed to be getting orders from a ten-year-old. Even more amazed to be following them. GANT Take that one. He points to an open jeep nearby. John motions to Terminator and breaks into a run. JOHN Come on. Let's get our stuff. CUT TO: INT./ EXT. SARAH'S JEEP - DUSK Sarah speeds through the darkening desert. Her face is a mask. Grim and expressionless. In her dark glasses, she looks severe. Pitiless as an insect. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT TRACKING WITH A JEEP, Terminator and John heading into L.A. TERMINATOR Why do you want to stop her, John? It may work. JOHN I don't care!! Haven't you learned anything?! There's gotta be another way. Think! PAN THEM BY as they pass, revealing the lights of the city ahead. CUT TO: EXT. GANT'S RANCH Gant, deep in thought, approaches the back entrance to the main house. He sees Enrique asleep in a chair on the back porch, rifle across his knees. Gant works up to him like a cat, and surprises him by swiping his cap. Only Enrique doesn't surprise so well. His head lolls over and Gant sees the dilated pupils, the trickle of blood from the corner of one eye. Gant gets a shot of adrenalin that revs him into hyper- alertness in two seconds. He drops into the shadows next to the chair and scans the surroundings rapidly. In the bushes, twenty feet away, another one of his men lies crumpled and motionless. Gant pulls his Detonics .45 and thumbs the safety off, then slips his walkie off his belt. He cups his hand over it and whispers. GANT Main gate? Miguel? Don't talk, just key your walkie if you copy, over. (there is no answer) Salceda? You copy? Franco? Come back. His answer is static. Not good. Gant takes a couple grenades from Enrique's harness and slips them in a vest pocket. He cat-steps to the house. INT. GANT'S HOUSE Gant enters the dark house. His radar is turned up all the way. He hasn't felt his heart pounding like this since Khe San. He crosses the living room. Pauses in the corridor. Silhouetted in the kitchen is a motionless figure... Yolanda. He puts his finger to his lips and motions her to him. As she comes toward him Gant wonders at the last second why she doesn't look particularly afraid... an instant before Yolanda's hand snaps out into a two-foot steel needle which punches through his abdomen and pins him to a solid oak door with a THUNK! He whips up the ,45 but THUNK! His forearm is skewered, pinned to the door at his side. The pistol clatters to the floor. He stares, face to face, into the eyes of the T-1000 as it morphs into the cop-form. Maybe this is an acid flashback, except it hurts too goddamn much. He knows suddenly that very special fear, not just death, but of an incomprehensible death in a deranged universe. T-1000 Where is John Connor? Gant squirms on the skewers like a bug, gasping with the pain. GANT John who? THUNK! Another needle slams through him, sprouting directly from the cop's chest. It pins him through the left lung. T-1000 Where is John Connor? Gant struggles to breathe against excruciating pain. GANT Don't know... gone. (THUNK. Another needle) Aaaarrgh! THUNK. Another. Gant screams now, feeling rapier thrusts through shoulder and groin. He can't believe the pain. His hand fumbles into the pocket of his vest. Sweaty fingers find a grenade there. He pulls the pin. The spoon flies out and clinks on the floor. T-1000 looks down and looks up, into Gant's eyes. GANT FUCK YOU!! EXT. GANT'S HOUSE The front of the house EXPLODES in Ingram's face. He was running toward the front door with his MPK machine-pistol at ready. The blast knocks him on his ass. He sits up, slashed by flying glass, to see the inside of the house engulfed in flame. Then he sees something on the ground, just outside the shattered front door... A chrome head. Ingram's expression goes bugshit. The chrome mouth is moving, gulping like a gaffed fish. A figure appears in the doorway... or most of a figure. We TRACK WITH the polished black cop shoes toward the head lying in the dirt. A hand enters frame. The head dissolves and fuses with the hand, like two blobs of solder running together. IN CLOSE-UP, the T-1000 rises into frame, whole again. INGRAM snaps out of his stupor and crawls in a frenzy for his machine pistol. He starts screaming and firing, screaming and firing as we TRACK IN ON HIM. The MPK clicks empty. It is swatted out of his hands and s steel needle pins him to the dirt. T-1000 Where is John Connor? INGRAM I don't know, man... aaaargh... they were talking about some guy... Dyson or something like that... INGRAM'S POV as the impassive cop face hovers above him. T-1000 Thank you for your cooperation. The cop's hand comes into frame, the index finger pointing straight at us. RACK FOCUS to the tip of the finger as-- SSSNICK! A flash of steel FILLS FRAME, then blackness. CUT TO: