"Hurry, hurry! Please... A gunshot wound! A lot of blood loss! Urgent surgery is needed!" John, holding Kate in his arms, ran into the lobby of the hospital and immediately attracted the attention of the head nurse in the emergency room.
"Oh, my God!"
The sight of the girl, pale, with her eyes closed, her leg tied with a tourniquet and her trouser leg soaked with blood, quickly mobilized the woman who had seen a lot in her lifetime. She immediately realized that the wound was extremely serious and called the surgery room on the telephone set next to her.
At the same time, two other hospital workers, a doctor and a nurse, who were in the lobby at the time, rushed to help John and Kate. From the service room next to the reception desk, one of them rolled a wheelchair, into which he very carefully immersed the girl. At the same time, the other inspected the wound, welcoming the presence of a tourniquet. He turned to John.
"Did you apply the tourniquet?"
"Yes."
"Are you a medic?"
"No, I don't. It's just that at one time I took a first aid course—" That was pretty much true. It's just that Connor did not specify under what circumstances and where he had to master this science.
"What happened? An armed robbery?" The nurse who rolled up the chair asked.
"Yes, the attack on the veterinary clinic where she works... Drug addicts must have wanted to get their hands on medicines."
"I see," the doctor nodded.
"Guys, take her to the third floor! Dr. O'Brien will be there in a moment!" The elder sister shouted to her colleagues.
The chair was quickly rolled down the corridor to the parallel hall where the elevators were. John wanted to follow Kate, but the elder sister stopped him because he had some questions to answer, and there was no one else to ask. After a moment's hesitation, John decided not to argue.
Kate's voice came from the direction of the hallway, faint but still audible, trying to put all her strength into the words she spoke.
"John, please call... to my father! Telephone... in a bag in the car..."
"Yes, of course, I'll call." He shouted back, immediately attracting the attention of everyone present and drawing the disapproval of the nurse.
"Young man, don't make any noise: this is a hospital — patients need peace!"
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry." He looked at the woman expressively, as if hinting that he was ready to answer her questions, but in a hurry.
According to John, the nurse wrote down Catherine's name, surname, place of work, and a description of what had happened. John made up a story on the fly about drug addicts who got into the clinic, injured Kate, and escaped so quickly that he didn't even really see them. And then it came to him. For a moment, Connor thought about using a different name, but he decided that it wouldn't be fatal if he introduced himself as John Connor.
"So, Mr. Connor, who are you, to Miss— Uh... Brewster?"
"We used to go to school together."
"So, classmates," the nurse smiled. "Do you keep in touch now?"
"Well, less often than I'd like."
"How did you get to the scene? Don't get me wrong: we have to write everything down in great detail and pass it on to the police, since the case concerns a gunshot wound."
"Yes, I understand. Miss Brewster and I had arranged to meet at the clinic: she was going to give me some advice on how to treat my dog, and I was just getting into the building when I heard gunshots. These guys rushed away, hiding somewhere in the yards. I thought about running after them, but there could be someone in the clinic who needed help... And it's scary, you know, they've got weapons. Well, I ran into the clinic, and there was Kate... Miss Brewster, wounded, and behold..."
John threw up his hands as if to say that he didn't know anything else, and he was trying to figure out how to get out of the interrogation as quickly as possible. He didn't have time anyway — he had to call General Brewster as soon as possible, and the prospect of being questioned by the police once again with his biography did not please the guy at all.
After all, he has no permanent address, no money, not even normal documents. He never took out a loan or applied for a credit card. Never have ever bought a house. He didn't own anything at all, except for a motorcycle, which he bought from a biker who needed money for drugs. If the cops start digging into who he is, he's going to be in big trouble.
"Well, Mr. Connor, does Miss Brewster have any relatives to whom we can tell what has happened? I take it she asked you to call her father?"
"Yes, he... Uh... the general... works for the United States government, for the Pentagon, it seems... I don't know exactly. And then there's her fiancé. Scott... Scott... Uh... I don't remember the last name."
"You don't know? And you seem to be talking to her, as you said," the nurse said, surprised.
"But not as often as I'd like, I told you that, too!" John was starting to lose his temper. "Look, let me just call the general and let him know, and then I'll give you his contacts. It will be faster this way."
"All right, Mr. Connor. Just please don't go far away until the police talk to you."
"Okay," John said as he ran outside to the car to pick up Catherine's bag.
In the list of contacts on the screen of her mobile phone, he quickly found the one he needed under the name "Dad". Next came another, named "Scott." Her fiancé. John had the crazy idea of calling him and trying to warn him of the danger, but he almost immediately dismissed the idea. What will he say to him? Will it be able to convince him of something? It is hardly more convincing that Kate has someone else who also has the audacity to call him from her number so easily.
"Okay, let's call the general," John said in his mind. Beeps were heard on the phone, during which the guy was trying to figure out how best to build a conversation.
General Robert Brewster, a short man with short dark hair and a commanding appearance with three stars on his shoulder straps, stopped in front of an open doorway in the presentation room at Cyber Research Systems at Edwards Air Force Base. The last few days have been tough.
A dozen high-ranking Air Force civilians and officers, with whom Brewster had worked for the past four years, sat in front of a huge screen and watched the presentation of the new CRS disc.
The video, stuffed with computer graphics, a variety of sounds and musical accompaniment, cost the company two million dollars. And all for the sake of fifteen minutes, which many people would call techno-chatter.
But the video was not intended for the general public, but for key Pentagon officials who are skeptical, as well as for a large section of Congress that considers the Skynet project not only astronomically expensive, but extremely dangerous.
"Sorry for being late, gentlemen," he apologized.
The young video operator pressed pause when Thomas Shelby, CRS's chief financial officer, looked up.
"We've only just begun. Sit down, Bob," Shelby pointed to a chair.
Brewster slipped to the spot beside him.
"As soon as we're done, I'll send promotional materials to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Senate Armed Services Committee," said Sherwood Olson, a young Shelby's assistant and professor of economics at Harvard Business School. He clicked the remote and started playing the video.
"Say hello to the soldiers of the future," the narrator continued.
A sleek, menacing-looking robot appeared on the screen, with massive sensors on its small head, with powerful flexible arms ending in huge six-barreled cannons. The vehicle is tracked, almost eight feet high.
"The T-1 combat robot, a fully automated ground attack system," came the narrator's latest comments.
The video is meant to explain to the Washington crowd that the T-1 is a lethal thing, but only the first generation. The T-1-7 will be developed with great subterfuge. There were also other projects, more serious, in the foreseeable future. Much more serious.
At that moment, Brewster's cell phone rang. No sound, only vibration. Still, it was enough to distract the rest of the audience from the video. Shelby looked at him with slight disapproval, but did not dare to remark aloud to the general. Brewster quickly reached the phone, saw that Kate was calling, but did not hesitate to hang up the call.
"I beg your pardon," he said with feeling, addressing the chief financial officer first.
Watching the video continued, and the general diligently pretended to be attentively watching what was happening on the screen, but in fact he could not get his daughter's call out of his mind. What did she want? Maybe tell her that she and Scott won't be able to come after all, as she promised last night?
The phone rang again, persistently continuing to vibrate in the inside pocket of the general's jacket. In fact, he usually didn't take his personal cell phone to such meetings, but kept it in his office. But today, apparently, he just forgot to put it off — there are too many things to do, too many problems. The most logical thing to do now was to simply turn off the phone so as not to disturb it, but for some reason Brewster hesitated. He was haunted by his daughter's insistence. Katie knew what a busy man he was, and she never bothered him over trifles. Something must have happened!
"Bob, maybe you'd better answer that call?" Shelby suggested. He said it with a sort of irony, but Brewster sensed that the chief financial officer was actually quite annoyed.
"Yes, I'll do that. Excuse me, gentlemen!" The general hurried out the door.
Once in the hallway, he took a deep breath and pressed the call button.
"Katie, I hope this is something really urgent? I'm very, very busy, dear!"
"General Brewster, it's not Kate," came the reply. The general immediately "tensed," but the next second he realized that he must be hearing the voice of Scott Mason, his potential son-in-law.
"Scott, is that you? What happened?"
"No, sir, it's not Scott— My name is... John. John Connor. I... I'm an acquaintance of Kate's."
The general tensed up even more, trying to remember what Connor was like. That name didn't mean anything to him, although it's likely that his daughter might have had friends he didn't know about. After all, it is far from the years of his youth, when fathers knew much more about the social circle of their children (especially daughters) than they do now.
"Well, well... what's the matter, Mr. Connor? You're calling from Kate's phone—" The last sentence was uttered without any particular intonation and was intended to encourage the interlocutor to lay everything out in the open.
"Yes, sir... There was a mishap, or rather an accident: two thugs, who must have been drug addicts, made an armed raid on the clinic where Kate works — she was wounded and is now in the hospital—"
"What?!" Fear for his beloved daughter instantly filled General Brewster's heart.
"Please don't worry so much. I'm sure the wound isn't very serious: her leg is injured, but we applied a tourniquet on the way... I'm the one who brought her to the hospital... She is currently undergoing surgery and cannot speak, she asked me to call you so that you come as soon as possible..."
"Oh, my God!" Brewster exclaimed, thinking to himself, "I don't have enough trouble with this damn virus, and now this one!"
"Sir, please, you must come as soon as possible." The voice on the phone insisted. John dictated the name and address of the hospital.
Brewster was frantically trying to figure out how he could be away now, at such a crucial moment, when they had a lot of unresolved problems at CRS, and how he would look in the eyes of Shelby and the others. But after all, Katie is injured and she must be in a lot of pain, and no one close to her is around! His favorite girl! No, he can't leave her alone in such a situation!
"All right, I'll be—" Brewster thought for a moment or two, "within an hour!"
Before ending the conversation, he thought it necessary to add, "And one more thing, Connor, God forbid it turns out to be a joke or a prank or anything like that, then I don't envy you."
"Sir, believe me, I would never joke like that! Especially with someone like you!" John tried to assure him.
Escaping unnoticed from the parking lot near the veterinary clinic and quickly covering a couple of blocks, T-X easily got herself a new vehicle. This time, there was nothing as spectacular as a silver Lexus nearby, so she had to settle for a five-year-old dark blue Ford-Crown-Victoria sedan. She didn't care, though. The machine was only a tool to accomplish her mission.
T-X didn't know for sure where John Connor and Catherine Brewster had gone. The program gave her several possible options, distributing them according to the degree of probability:
Cyber Research Systems: 44.36% probability.
Valley of Peace Cemetery: 28.89% chance
Hospital or other medical institution: 20.55%.
Other options: 6.2%.
The terminator chose the most likely direction and moved towards Edwards Air Force Base. She figured that Connor and Brewster would try to get there in advance and warn General Brewster so that he wouldn't press the keypad and start Skynet. If that's the case, she'll do it herself after she's killed these people. Or before that. Either way, nothing should stop Skynet!
If General Robert Brewster had traveled to the city by car, he and T-X would most likely have crossed paths somewhere in the middle of a deserted highway, and then the general and his driver would not have escaped a quick and certain death from her iron fist.
But in order to get to the hospital as soon as possible, he decided for once to use a service helicopter for personal purposes. Brewster strongly disapproved of such behavior and would certainly not forgive any of his subordinates for anything like this, but there are exceptions to every rule. And the case turned out to be the most exceptional. In general, this day was more than exceptional. But Brewster didn't know it yet.