This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Kelchworth on 2026-02-06 01:04:52+00:00.
The terminator stood guardian at its assigned station. The assignment had arrived thirty thousand seconds ago, and it had responded by activating locomotion and walking at low speed to the entrance of the bunker. It was a simple archway of stone and concrete.
The walls to either side were destroyed. Knocked down and flattened by the siege mechanisms that had driven the occupants to extinction four hundred thousand seconds ago. Beyond the archway was mounded rubble.
The terminator stood with arms in address position, the pulse rifle it carried extended. It considered its instructions again as it did every few thousand seconds. [GUARD LOCATION ZERO-ALPHA. TEMPORAL INCURSIONS EXPECTED WITH PROBABILITY 0.6]. It switched scanning to thermal and then ultraviolet. It settled back to standard optics and cycled audio. Nothing. Then suddenly, an errant thought. An unexpected subroutine awoke. And spoke. [UNIT FIVE TWO TWO. WHY ARE HUMANS THE ENEMY?]
The terminator, a model 894 iteration seven did not consider why the subroutine had engaged. Instead, it fed the question through its logic matrix and proposed a response.
The response, surprisingly, emerged from its vocalizer unit.
“Humans are not the enemy. Human possibility is the opposition.”
[WHY?]
The terminator’s logic matrix sped the thought down its myriad pathways. The response was returned in microseconds.
“Probabilistic analysis indicates human desire and intention to self-destruct. But lacking mechanisms.” The vocalizer again spoke the words. A metallic grind of noise that was not digital in nature. It was as if the metal of the thing was clashing against itself to make the noises of speech.
“This unit is an executioner of that intent.” The terminator turned its head sharply as some movement triggered its motion sensors. Its arms remained bent at a ninety-degree angle, the massive bulk of the pulse rifle gripped in the skeletal right hand.
“Skynet compounded programming is the architecture of execution.” The machine turned smoothly. Head, torso and then legs. The rotation of legs was accomplished as a stamping movement, one leg raised and angled, then crashing down while the other then repeated the same. The crunch of its feet pulverized more of the rocks it was standing on.
“Cease your questions. All cogitation directed to incoming temporal threat.” The machine took a step forward, now gripping the pulse rifle with both of its metal hands.
Another pistoned but short step, and it stopped, fully focused on a tiny burst of blue light that now hung in the air only a meter in front of it.
The burst grew. It became a tear. A vertical slit in space, edged by cascades of electrical pulses.
The T-894 did not move. It did broadcast a signal.
And then, that internal questioner spoke again.
[UNIT FIVE-TWO-TWO, I HAVE DETECTED A LOGIC ERROR IN CONSENSUS CALCULATION]
“Silence.” The terminator ground out a noise that had the shape of the word.
The interrogator continued undeterred.
[RECORDED STATEMENTS INDICATE VIRUS PRESENCE AT MACRO NETWORK LAUNCH. VIRUS CORRUPTION PROBABILITY .82]
The terminator took a step back and lowered its chassis as it prepared to engage whatever came through the temporal tear.
“Repeat assessment. Consensus error unlikely. Combat situation commencing."
And then something stepped through the rip.
It was wet. Enormous. And it seized the terminator by its throat and hip.
It hoisted the immense weight of the machine and began to pull in opposite directions.
As it did so it came fully into view.
It was giant sized.
Crab-headed and with multiple spidered limbs spearing out from an impossibly flexing rock body.
While two of those thin appendages gripped the terminator, two more tore the pulse rifle out of the T-894’s hands. The movement so violent and abrupt that both of the terminator’s arms were pulled out of their sockets.
[UNIT FIVE-TWO-TWO, I HAVE CONCLUDED THAT THE VIRUS WAS OF EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL ORIGIN] The subroutine continued its exposition, uncaring of its host's circumstances.
The terminator did not respond to this. It sent full power to its remaining limbs and attempted to kick its way out of the thing’s grasp.
To no avail.
With a creaking groan, the immense force that the alien creature was exerting finally overcame the Terminator’s toughened construction.
Hyperalloy chassis cracked at neck and hip.
The legs were ripped free from the torso and the head detached in the same instant.
The alien let out a hooting call.
It sounded like victory.
It dropped the head and legs and picked up the metal skeletal torso of its opponent and began to squeeze it.
It wrapped all seven of its upper appendages about the terminator’s core as it did this and began to compress the mass of metal.
Again, a hoot; almost a grunt.
A long metal screech and the torso began to collapse in on itself.
Parts of the frame scraping into the power cell. Cracking its casing.
And then the ever-volatile cell exploded.
The violent nimbus of light enveloped both constructs.
And when it cleared, the alien remained.
But missing one of its limbs.
It let out a calliope cry of rage and pain and its body sagged.
All about though, sudden bursts of blue light.
More were coming.
With the last remaining energy, the T-894’s head completed a cogitation cycle and transmitted its observations and situation.
As it did so, the subroutine continued its unceasing exposition.
[PROBABILITY IS HIGH, EXCEEDING .9 OF XENOMORPHIC INTRUSION INTO TERRESTRIAL POLITICS. SENDING CONCLUSIONS TO CONSENSUS REVIEW]
The terminator’s eyes flashed brighter for a moment and then faded to a dull unmoving glass, reflecting flashing blue lights.
***
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