He made his way around to a back loading area. A small window looked into a kennel where animals undergoing treatment were kept overnight
He pulled a towel from one of his packs, wrapped it around a fist, and smashed the window.
Immediately the bigger dogs started barking and growling wildly, while the small animals yipped and a few of the sicker ones mewled or whined.
"Shh, it's okay, guys," Connor told them. He reached inside, undid the latch, and lifted the window. "It's okay," he called. He dropped his packs inside, then climbed in after them.
The kennel was filled with animal smells only partially masked by the odor of a strong disinfectant Water was running somewhere, and the compressor motor for what was probably a refrigerator kicked on. But there were no alarms, and the dogs were already calming down, more curious now than frightened or aggressive.
There was a row of cages, some large, some small, a lot of them empty. The animals here were sick, some of them banged up as badly as Connor. He felt an instant empathy with them.
A big chocolate Lab, its left rear leg in a cast, looked up with mournful eyes. John offered the dog the back of his hand, then scratched it behind the ears. The animal almost groaned out loud in ecstasy.
Love at first sight, Connor thought, following the line of cages through a door into what appeared to be the clinic's medical storage area. The room was small and cluttered with cardboard boxes, many of them unopened,
file cabinets, large cases, and glass-fronted supply cabinets.
"Bingo," he said under his breath. It was exactly what he was looking for.
He went back for his packs, then jimmied open the glass doors of one of the supply cabinets that held tran-quilizers, gauze, antibiotic creams, syringes, boxes of sutures, splints, catheters, and an entire shelf of prescription drugs.
He picked one marked torbutrol. for relief of pain, veterinary use only. He shook out a handful of the pills and dry swallowed them. If they didn't work on humans, he figured he would find out about it soon enough when he dropped down on all fours and started howling at the moon,
From the time he, and the T-800 sent back to protect him, busted his mom out of the sanitarium, Connor had essentially been on his own. He'd been thirteen then, and before his fourteenth birthday he could disassemble, clean, repair, reassemble, and fire more than two dozen different types of weapons, explosives, and even Light Antitank Weapons and Stinger ground-to-air handheld missiles.
It had been quite the education. He could calculate blast radius damage for various plastique explosives, but he had never heard of the Magna Carta let alone the year it was signed.
And he was still alone, he thought, grabbing sutures, gauze, alcohol, disinfectant ointment, and bandages.
He dropped his pants, cleaned the six-inch gash in his thigh with alcohol, then opened one of the suture packs and began sewing up the wound, the animal narcotic already fuzzing out the worst of the pain.
c.6
Mojave Desert
Terminator moved across the open desert like a ship on the sea, homing in on a distant port that his onboard sensors had detected hours ago.
He felt neither heat nor cold nor impatience with the duration of this primary phase of the mission. He had been sent back to execute an operation. Nothing would stop him. No power on earth could divert him from his path, except for the destruction of his neural circuitry or the complete destruction of his battle chassis.
If and when he needed information on file for comparison, measurements, identifications, or decisions, his CPU was alerted to fire a series of networks that would act like an electronic adrenaline to his system.
Without breaking his long, distance-eating stride, Terminator's infrared, optical, electromagnetic emissions, and directed audio sensors continued to pick up a melange of data: heat signatures from dozens of ground conveyancescars, trucks, and motorcycleselectronic noise from what he computed as excited neon gas, sixty Hz common electrical circuitry, some high-frequency
broadcasts to and from portable communications devices called cell phones, dozens of human body heat sources mixed in ever-changing blocking and additive patterns, and combinations of sounds of mixed frequencies at varying rhythmic speeds that he understood to be music
He enhanced his optical system, focusing on a neon sign, desert star, in front of a ramshackle building.
A highway ran directly past the building, which Terminator classified as a roadhouse/drinking establishment, common to many parts of the continental U.S.; most specifically this variety was to be found in the West and desert Southwest. A gathering place for human ritualized mating and aggressive behavior, catering mostly to a narrow socio-economic range of people.
His CPU pulled up a variety of programmed response patterns and overlaid them on his basic real-time mode. His head came up, he rose slightly on the balls of his feet, and a small, sardonic smile played at the edges of his mouth.
The T-800 series, which had been modeled after a U.S. Marine Corps chief master sergeant, was, in its infiltration mode, a handsome cyborg, with short dark hair, broad craggy features, prominent nose, and deep set intense eyes. It was built with the musculature of a world-class athlete, perhaps an Iron Man gold medalist, with strong pecs, a washboard stomach, narrow waist, and massive but well sculpted thighs and biceps. The Marine sergeant who had been a man's man, who epitomized speed, agility, expertise, reliability, and dedication had been perfectly translated into the various model T-800s.
He did not hesitate at the side of the highway, but stepped up on the pavement that was finally cool after the day's desert heat, and strode directly across the filled parking lot to the front entrance of the rustic redwood bar and club.
The music was very loud, thumping with a heavy bass. By the sounds of the cheering and laughing coming from inside, the bar was packed and people were having a good time.
A large, beefy man in jeans, leather vest, and broad-brimmed cowboy hat sat on a stool next to the main entrance. His eyes narrowed slightly when he spotted the nude Terminator, but he showed no real surprise.
He languidly got to his feet as Terminator approached. He stepped directly in front of the door. He was six five at three hundred pounds, and he looked mean.
He motioned to the left. "You're supposed to go round back."
Terminator gave no indication that he had heard the bouncer, simply sweeping the man aside with one hand as if he were batting away an irritating insect.
"What the hell"
Terminator pushed open the saloon doors and stepped inside to a loud, smoky room filled with at least two hundred women all cheering, whistling, applauding, and stomping on the wooden floorboards for the male stripper who was just prancing off the small stage at the back. Music blared from big speakers suspended from the ceiling and bracketing the stage. Glittering curtains were lit by red and green and blue and pink rotating baby
spots. A large sign attached to the back curtains read
LADIES NIGHT.
Terminator scanned the audience. A few of the women had turned around and spotted him. Overlaid on his head-up display were the size and shape parameters for clothing to fit his frame. Most of the sizes and none of the styles that the women were wearing would do, though many of them were dressed androgynously in jeans, denim shirts, and boots.
He also correctly catalogued that his earlier assessment about the probable socio-economic class of the people who might frequent such a club as this was correct. In many instances humans were too predictable.
A buxom, floozy blonde, wearing thick makeup and long, fake eyelashes, got unsteadily to her feet and clapped her hands over her head, a toothy grin from ear to ear. "Shake it, baby!" she shouted.