Sarah and John have separate showdowns with Terminators.
Sarah faces off against the female T-1000 at NetWork
Developments and manages to destroy it with a freezing
compound from the chemical analysis lab, the melee ending
with an explosion that destroys the company's Simi Valley
headquarters while Sarah escapes.
Meanwhile, the remaining T-800 rises from the wreckage of
the van in the desert, but Mossberg takes it down with a
bazooka.
Reuniting at another of the Salceda family's hideouts, John
and Sarah come to the conclusion that the rise of Skynet is
inevitable...but they have a new plan.
The title of this issue, "No Fate", comes from the phrase
"No fate but what we make" that appears in
Judgment Day.
Besides the pistol, Sarah appears to have taken an Uzi
submachine gun from one of the feds on page 3.
On page 4, panel 5, Sarah's narration describes the H&K
running out against the T-1000. "H&K" is a reference to
Heckler & Koch, a German gun manufacturer, though at
this point, she is only holding an Uzi, which is not an
H&K weapon. Possibly the narration refers to the pistol she
picked up on page 3, but she also seems to have emptied and
discarded it on that same page.
In the chemical analysis lab at NetWork Developments, Sarah
stumbles across a flask labeled 27B/6 which she throws in
desperation at the T-1000. The solution from the shattering
flask turns out to have instant freezing properties that damage
a small part of the poly-alloy surface. Sarah finally finds
a drum of the solution and takes down the T-1000 with it.
"27B/6" is likely a reference to the
1985
dystopian comic film Brazil, in which form
27B/6 is required in order for any work to be done by
repairmen from the Department of Public Works (the film's
scriptwriters conjured the nomenclature from the address of
George Orwell when he was writing his famous dystopian novel
1984; he lived in Apartment 27B, 6th Floor).
On page 7, Blythe, in shock after the attack by the
Terminator and the van crash, is mumbling the words of the
old nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie".
On page 8, Mossberg picks up a bazooka from the wreckage of
the van. Recall that Sarah said she'd tell him where to pick
up some weapons and supplies on the way to the mountains
back in
"Judgment Impaired".
On page 11, it seems that the hideout in the mountains is
another one of the Salcedas' places.
On page 12, John appears to have changed out his Public
Enemy t-shirt for an Iggy Pop one.
In the last panel of the story, it's revealed that John has
saved the head of the T-800 that attacked Mossberg's van.
It's possible that he plans to use it in his and Danny's
plan to create a long-term virus that will inevitably
destroy the yet-to-be-born Skynet.
Sarah and John's conclusion that the development of Skynet
is inevitable nicely sets up the events of
Rise of the
Machines in 2004, but a full 8 years before that movie
was released!
The T-1000 that appeared in
Judgment Day was supposed to be a one-of-a-kind
prototype. So how did Skynet manage to send the one we see
throughout Cybernetic Dawn? Later, in
"Dead Men Walking", we'll see two of them, the one
that goes back to 1995 and is seen in
Judgment Day and one that impersonates resistance
member Griff and infiltrates John's unit at the end of
"Father's Day".
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