Betsy searched Kate's face to make sure that she wasn't being blown off, then nodded. "Okay."
Kate went back into the kennel, picked up the Tor-butrol bottle, and hunched down in front of the cage that held her prisoner.
"Did you call the cops?" Connor asked.
"Not yet."
Connor glanced at the empty bottle. "Am I going to need my stomach pumped or something?"
Kate felt a little sorry for him. He looked forlorn. Lost. "You took a couple hundred milligrams of a narcotic ... you're going to be out of it for a while. That's all."
Connor nodded.
"You're John Connor," Kate blurted.
A look of surprise flickered in his eyes.
"I'm Kate Brewster. West Hills Junior High."
Connor had to laugh quietly; there was nothing much else he could do under the circumstances. He shook his head. "Nice seeing you again, Kate."
T-X came around the corner past the Universal Rentals lot with the big yellow crane behind the fence, and pulled up behind a pickup truck and a Cadillac DeVille parked in front of the animal clinic.
The veterinary hospital was a match with T-X's files.
She got out of the Lexus and started up the walk.
"What happened to you, John?" Kate asked.
It was a good question, Connor thought. He lay back against the bars and closed his eyes. How to summarize his crazy life in twenty-five words or less?
"Middle of the eighth grade, you just disappeared. And there was something about your foster parents*
"They were murdered," Connor replied, opening his eyes.
Kate reared back.
"I didn't do it," Connor said, matter-of-factly. How to explain that part to her? Impossible. "So, wow," he said, trying to lighten it up a bit "West Hills. Those were the days." He grinned at her. "I don't suppose for old times' sake you'd just let me"
Something crashed out front. Kate looked up, alarmed. It sounded like a lot of glass breaking. Almost as if a car or truck or something had crashed through the front windows.
She turned back to Connor. "What the hell? Is somebody with you?"
Connor shook his head. "No."
Kate stood up and hurried into the hall to the reception area. She was just in time at the door to see Betsy come around the corner as a stunning-looking blond woman stepped through the smashed front door, a big gun in her hand.
The woman raised the pistol without a moment's hesitation and fired twice, both shots hitting Betsy in the chest, driving her backward off her feet, blood flying everywhere, her arms and legs splaying out.
Kate took a half step back away from the door, a scream caught in her throat. This wasn't happening. She couldn't move. She could not utter a sound as she watched in horror.
The blond walked to where Betsy lay and bent down over her.
"Katherine Brewster?"
Betsy was still alive. Her mouth moved, trying to form a word, but she could not speak.
The blond touched a delicate finger into the blood that covered Betsy's chest, then raised it to her lips.
A moment later the woman shook her head. "No," she said softly.
The dogs were barking furiously, howling and baying, knowing instinctively that death was nearby. Hercules the cat was out of his pet carrier. He sauntered around from behind the counter, glanced at his owner and then up at the blond woman, a look of indifference on the feline features.
Kate backed up as the woman turned and came directly toward her. It suddenly registered on her that the
killer had used her name! She realized that she had just a second to make a decision; stay and be shot to death like Betsy, or move and try to live.
She turned and sprinted back into the storage room where she snatched her cell phone from the top of the file cabinet and ducked behind the stack of dog food boxes. With shaking hands she managed to enter 9 and then 1 before she fumbled the phone and it clattered to the floor.
Before she could retrieve it, the door opened and T-X stepped inside, the big gun sweeping left to right across the room.
The cell phone was on the floor less than a foot from the killer's right boot Kate could do nothing but hold her breath.
T-X spotted the bloody gauze and other surgical supplies on the floor. She moved forward, picked up the gauze, and touched it to her tongue for a sample to process.
A double helix DNA sequence appeared in her head-up display. lines of genetic code streamed across her eyes with lightning speed.
A moment later her head-up display cleared. John Connor's head shot came up over the legend: john con-
NOR-----PRIMARY TARGET.
Kate watched with openmouthed amazement and fear. It was almost as if the killer had tasted the blood to see who it was from.
But that was crazy. This whole thing was insane. Surreal. It was a nightmare from hell.
Making as little noise as possible, Kate stepped out from behind the boxes, grabbed her keys, and dashed out the door back into the hallway.
The killer turned inhumanly fast, fired at the retreating figure, wood splinters hitting the back of Kate's neck, and continued to fire, emptying the gun as she gave chase.
Kate raced out into the reception area, skirting Betsy's blood-soaked body, her heart hammering nearly out of her chest.
The stupid cat leaped from out of nowhere, tangling with Kate's feet, sending her sprawling on all fours.
The cat howled in rage and pain and shot away as Kate picked herself up, ducked through the broken glass, and sprinted to the animal van.
This had something to do with John Connor. She'd had a bad feeling terrible things were going to happen the second she realized who he was. There had been a lot of weird shit going on when they were kids. It had been more than Connor's foster parents. There'd been other killings, explosions. Strange stuff.
His mother had even gone crazy and had been locked away. The rumor was that the woman claimed that robots from the future had come back to kill her.
Kate tore open the driver's side door, scrambled behind the wheel, locked the door, and fumbled to get the key in the ignition.
She looked up. The killer was right there! The homicidal woman ripped the driver's side door off its hinges. She tossed it aside as if it were nothing more than a piece
of cardboard, and pulled Kate out of the truck, tossing her on the ground like a dishrag.
Kate frantically backpedaled, desperately trying to get away from the killer, but she jammed the heel of her boot into Kate's throat
"Where is John Connor?"
Kate couldn't breathe, let alone speak. She managed to shake her head. Somewhere in the foggy distance she thought she heard the sound of a car or truck or something screeching around the corner at the end of the block, its engine revving high.
"He was here," the killer said in a calm, unhurried tone. "Where did he go?" She eased the pressure on Kate's neck.
Suddenly an impossibly large, dark presence loomed directly over Kate's head; screaming, roaring noise, the strong odors of burnt rubber, oil, gasoline, and something else, tall wheels bracketing her body.
The killer looked up at the same moment the grille of the big-wheeled Dodge pickup truck plowed into her body, carrying her in a seeming instant into the side of the Lexus convertible, bumping over the curb and shoving the entire mass of steel and plastic and cybernetic circuitry and framework into the side wall of the clinic.
For the briefest of moments the crash seemed to hang in midstride, until the leading edge of the wreck, still moving in excess of three meters per second, ruptured a large, three-fourths-full propane gas tank.
A huge ball of fire erupted, blowing straight up and then out, the heat instantly bringing tears to Kate's eyes.
Still dazed, she sat up as tremendous clouds of dust and black smoke billowed up from the great flash-bang of the explosion. She'd never seen anything like that in her life.