to pay."
The older man snorted and took a sip of his coffee.
"Let's see if any opportunities present themselves, okay? No point in doing things the hard way if you don't have to. And those three boys look plenty hard, if you get my meaning."
As far as Alissa could tell, this conversation had nothing to do with her; in any case, it was irrelevant at the moment. She continued to eat steadily, her higher metabolism allowing her to eat adult volumes of food with ease. The waitress, when she returned, complimented her on it.
"I was very hungry," Alissa told her. "Are there facilities here?"
The waitress pursed her lips in amusement and indicated a corridor to her right, moving aside when Alissa slipped out of the booth. "She's cute," she said to the Terminators when Alissa was out of hearing. They just looked at her. "So," she said crisply after a silent moment, "you gonna have dessert?"
As one, the three Terminators looked toward the bathrooms.
The waitress rolled her eyes. "Coffee, then, until your little girl gets back?"
One of the men at the counter threw down some bills and left. The other headed for the rest rooms. The waitress took note, estimating with a glance that the crumpled wad of money would pay their check.
"Coffee," the senior Terminator said at last, the answer its decision tree had
offered as the best response.
The waitress nodded and cleared the table; and she made a bet with herself that these weirdos wouldn't tip.
Clay Radcliff was proud of the fact that, like the Boy Scouts on whom he had occasionally preyed, he was always prepared. He never left home without a nice clean handkerchief and his little bottle of chloroform tucked into his belt pouch.
He lurked in the men's room, the door open just a traction, watching for this glorious little moppet who was soon to be his little movie star.
Alissa finished her business, washed her hands, and disdained to use the endless linen towel that had apparently never been changed. Wiping off the wet on the skirt of her dress, she walked down the hall back toward the Terminators.
Clay swung out behind her and with practiced ease clapped the handkerchief over her small face, pulling her tight to his soft stomach as he dragged her into the men's room.
Unexpectedly the little brat clawed backward, obviously aiming for his groin. He barely got his leg up in time to protect himself, and even then she grabbed the muscle with the force of a metal clamp. Clay gasped in pain, his mouth wide open in agony and surprise. He swung her off her feet and the girl began to pummel his legs with her sharp little heels. Each kick was like a hammer blow and Clay spread his legs, trying to get away from the punishment.
Desperately he pressed her body against the wall, clamping her there with all his weight. Still she wriggled and kicked. Damn but the kid was strong! When the hell was she going to black out. Usually they went down instantly. He was
getting dizzy from the goddamned fumes and she was still bucking like a bronco!
Alissa's computer enhancements worked hard to overcome the effects of the chloroform. They warned her that if she didn't break free in ten seconds she would succumb. The I-950 continued to fight. The slight differences in the muscle attachments in her arms and shoulders gave her a strength far beyond her size and years; and there was a greater flexibility built into her joints that allowed her to perform feats so unlikely that no ordinary human could anticipate them.
She folded one leg behind her, pointing her foot, and rammed it upward into the man's groin. He gasped in agony and his grip on her arms loosened. The I-950
twisted her arm free and reached up and back.
The man didn't even have time to react to the touch of a tiny hand on his throat.
One moment he was folding over the agony in his groin, still trying to keep hold of her, the next he was thrashing on the floor, clawing at thin air, blood spraying from his throat, spurting from his mouth. He fell back, choking, his eyes bugging out in horror, the blood turning to a fan-shaped spray as he tried to scream.
Alissa's powerful little hand had snapped his windpipe like a paper straw.
Out in the parking lot Gil's fingers beat a nervous tattoo on the van's steering wheel. He'd been in position for over five minutes and he was feeling very conspicuous. Nobody sits outside an emergency door in a van with the motor running for no reason. Anybody who noticed probably wouldn't think that reason was a good one. Most likely they'd think he was waiting for someone to finish robbing the diner.
He wished. Robbery carried a fairly light sentence compared with kidnapping.
Hurry your ass up, Gil! he thought fiercely.
Three minutes later he slammed his palm against the wheel and opened the van door. He moved to the emergency door and opened it with exquisite caution. Gil breathed a sigh of relief when no alarm sounded. He peeked through the crack and saw no one in the short corridor; there was no sound from either bathroom.
Gil looked around; no one was watching, so he slipped inside and moved quietly to the men's room. Pressing his ear against the door, he listened and heard water running. Carefully he tried the knob and it turned. Gritting his teeth, Gil opened the door and slipped inside.
The little girl washing her dress in the sink looked up at Gil, who stood frozen, staring at the man lying on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Slowly he turned to gaze at her sweet, expressionless face and innocent blue eyes and wondered if he was having a nightmare.
She blinked at him and Gil shook his head. Her hair was drenched with blood and her face and arms wore flecks of blood so tiny it looked as though they'd been applied in a fine spray. He took a deep breath of the fetid air in the tiny room and nearly gagged on the complex mixture of blood and feces and disinfectant.
Gil knew that somehow this beautiful little girl was responsible, that somehow, like an avenging angel, she was the answer to all the prayers of all the kids he and Clay had ever hurt. He pressed his back to the door and all he could think to say to her was "no," over and over, half plea, half denial.
Alissa stared at the human. Then she smiled slightly, watching him pale as her expression changed. "You should have knocked," she said gently.
He turned to open the door and she squatted to pick up the chloroform-soaked handkerchief, then sprang up and grabbed him, her legs clamping around his arms so tightly he couldn't dislodge her. The man shrugged and struggled, opening his mouth as though to shout. The I-950 pressed the handkerchief over his mouth and nose, effectively gagging him. Within seconds he began to totter.
Apparently sensing his danger, he began trying to bite her, but Alissa easily kept his jaws apart. Then he slammed himself into the bathroom door. She grimaced and held on, extending her senses to see if anyone had heard the sound.
Apparently the crash had been more significant in the bathroom's small confines.
No one commented, no one came.
Her computer tested the man's vital signs and concluded that he would shortly be unconscious. The I-950 lost patience; shortly wasn't soon enough. She took one hand from his mouth and felt along the column of his throat. The man tried to shout, making muffled sounds, then tried to turn his head, obviously meaning to shake off both of her hands, almost succeeding in actually moving. Alissa found what she was searching for, and with a flex of her fingers she felt his hyoid bone snap.
That should hurry things along, she thought with satisfaction.
For a moment his struggles became more violent, then he fell forward. The computer confirmed unconsciousness and she let him go; pushing herself upright, she stared down at him. A brief spasm passed through the body and it voided, finally going limp. That was good. She hadn't wanted any more blood to
contend with.
As she scrubbed her dress the child part of Alissa enjoyed pretending that Skynet had set up a test for her, just like it used to do for Serena, her mother/sister, a test that she had passed. But the computer part of her objected to the dissonance and with a wistful
sigh she put the idea from her.
She looked at the bodies on the floor. It would probably be best to leave here now. This incident had already caused enough delay.
Holding up the dress, Alissa studied it. Most of the stains were gone, but there was a shadow of brownish red at the neckline. Future washings would probably remove the stain. Meanwhile she could hardly walk through the diner in a soaking-wet dress. She ordered the T-101s to meet her at the van and slipped out the back door in her underpants.
MIT CAMPUS
The guys' attitude had changed dramatically in just the few days that John had been gone. Wendy listened to them with growing unease.
"I feel like I've been hypnotized," Snog was saying. "I can't believe I was making life-changing promises to some seventeen-year-old!"
"If what John was telling us is true—" Wendy began.
"Hey! He lied about his age," Yam pointed out.
"That's because you guys were making such a big deal about it," she said crossly.
"Anyway, if Judgment Day happens, then at least we'll have lives."
"His father is from the future," Brad said dreamily. "He probably hasn't even been born yet." He looked around at his friends. "How the hell does that work?"
"Not too well," Yam commented. "At least as far as his dad was concerned."
"Yeah," Carl agreed. "Imagine sending your father back through time to become your father, knowing he's going to get killed."
There was silence as they all contemplated the idea.
"Do it to my old man in a flash," Yam muttered.
"Yeah, I've met him, I second that," Carl said. They high-fived.
Wendy frowned but said nothing. She listened uneasily, not liking the implied criticism of John, and not sure where they were going with this. Not knowing for sure how she felt about all this.
On the one hand, she felt uneasy knowing that all John's mother's ravings were nothing but the truth; on the other, she didn't like knowing that far from being the victim of some government conspiracy, his mother really had blown up a bunch of computer companies.
And what would you have done? she kept asking herself. As yet she didn't have an answer.
"His mother must be terrifying," Brad said, almost as though he was listening in on her thoughts.
"I heard she was a fox," Snog said, and waggled his brows.
The guys started kidding and snickering about that, and Wendy listened. Maybe they were just acting out because John intimidated them. Her lips quirked in a smile. If seventeen-year-old John was intimidating, then maybe his mom actually was terrifying.
"So what are we gonna do?" Carl asked. He looked directly at Snog.
Snog shrugged, his eyes wide in a manner that invited Carl to say more.
"What do you mean, what are we gonna do?" Wendy demanded.
"Oh, c'mon," Carl almost shouted. "When he's around, you somehow can believe all that crazy shit. But let's get real, guys. A father who hasn't even been born yet? Killer robots? A maniacal computer that's going to blow up the world?
That's bullshit! None of that can possibly be real!"
"But this is real," Snog said. He held up the chip that John had left with them.
"And he sure didn't create this thing." He gave Wendy an apologetic glance.
"John's smart, but he's not smart like us, and none of us could have come up with this design, never mind actually manufacturing it. I know we all want to go into denial, guys. I can feel the pull myself. But there's always this." He shook the chip. "And this says it wasn't a dream, and it isn't a lie, it's real. So what I'm gonna do is figure this baby out, then I'm gonna get my degree and get the hell outta Dodge before the fire comes down."
Wendy let out her pent-up breath quietly, tremendously relieved. If Snog had backed out on this project John had given them, the others would have followed
his lead. There wouldn't have been a thing she could have done about it, either to change their minds or to retrieve the chip.
She met Snog's glance and she still didn't feel absolutely secure about him, but for now, he was on John's side, and that would have to do.
DUFFY'S DINER, UTAH
There had been a little spate of customers and it was a half hour later when the waitress noticed that the three men were still seated, unmoving and silent before their untouched coffee, and the little girl wasn't back from the rest room yet.
These guys are seriously getting on my nerves, she thought.
She brought over their check.
"Twenty-eight eighty-seven, boys," she said with false cheer. "Hope you enjoyed it." She stood, smiling expectantly, determined not to be intimidated by their size and their silence, even though she was.
The three Terminators looked at her, their faces expressionless, unblinking. Then one of them took a wallet out of Alissa's bag and extracted two twenties. The waitress, so tense she actually felt taller, began to count out change. Then, as one, they suddenly rose and walked out, paying her no more attention than if she'd been invisible.
"Well, hell!" she murmured. Then she shook herself.
She'd been wrong; they were good tippers. But she hoped she'd never meet their like again.
Soon after her strange customers had gone it occurred to the waitress that she might want to check the ladies' room. She didn't quite trust that strange little girl.
Opening the door, she found the place in perfect order. Well, as perfect as a rest room ever got. As she went back down the corridor she decided to check the men's room to see if it needed paper.
A bloodcurdling scream was heard all the way to the kitchen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ENCINAS HALFWAY HOUSE,
NOVEMBER
"Dr. Silberman was surprised to find his office door unlocked, but put it down to his having been quite tired the night before. He was even more surprised to find a short, dark stranger turning away from one of his filing cabinets.
"May I ask who you are?" he said carefully.
In his profession, in a place like this, it was unwise to display even perfectly natural irritation. This might be a new resident who had wandered in quite innocently, or a new resident hopped up on drugs and looking for more, and it was, after all, his fault for not locking the door.
"I am the new janitor," the man said. He raised a feather duster, gripped in a massive fist, as proof.
"Oh?" Silberman was surprised. Ralph hadn't said anything about leaving. And
usually when someone left it took forever to get a replacement. "What happened?" he asked when it became clear the fellow wasn't going to volunteer anything.
The stranger shrugged his impressive shoulders. "I don't know," he intoned. "I was told to come here from now on."
Silberman noted a slight accent; the man looked Turkish or Middle Eastern, which might explain his odd manner of speaking. But not his apparent desire to dust the inside of the file cabinet. The doctor frowned.
"No one said anything to me about this," he said.
The janitor just stood there, staring at Silberman.
Very low affect, the doctor mused. Maybe this was a new resident playing a role.
Possibly neurological damage.
"Well, look." Silberman placed his briefcase on the desk. "Could you come back later? I need to get to work right now. But I'll be out of here between two and four, so you can finish up then." He smiled politely, trying to exude confidence; by two o'clock he should have some answers about this guy.
The smaller man didn't respond for a moment, then he simply walked forward, as though he intended to go right through Silberman, who jumped aside at the last second. This time he did allow his irritation to show.
"Hey!" he snapped at the retreating back. Then he forced himself to calm down.
"Didn't they give you any paperwork for me?"
The janitor stopped, turned his head, said a short "no," over his shoulder, and continued on his way.
Oh yeah, it was going to be fun having this guy around.
<
br /> "Just what this place needs," Silberman muttered, "a janitor with attitude."
IBC OFFICES, NEXT DOOR TO ENCINAS
HALFWAY HOUSE
Operative Joe Consigli dropped his feet to the floor as the office door began to open and grinned with not a little relief when he saw who it was. "Hey, buddy, what brings you around?" he asked cheerfully.
He and Paul Delfino had been working this case together in the first few weeks after Sarah Connor was captured, until the powers that be decided only one operative at a time was necessary.
As far as Joe was concerned this was a totally dead assignment and he was profoundly bored. Especially since Connor had been moved to the halfway house next door. Watching these weird, sad people was depressing as hell and they made his skin crawl. Having someone to help him make fun of them would be primo.
"The head office sent me over," Operative Delfino said. "It seems that their janitor"—he indicated the monitors that showed various locations inside the Encinas Halfway House—"was killed during a burglary."
"Killed?" Consigli said.
Delfino snorted. "Boy, howdy! The guy's head was almost twisted off. The house was trashed, but there was cash left in the poor guy's wallet." He shrugged. "Which made the front office think something might be up."
Consigli looked at the monitor. "Hunh," he said.
He pulled his chair up to the recording equipment and removed a tape, quickly replacing it, then he pushed the tape into a player, rewound it, and set it to play on a blank monitor. He pointed at the screen. "This is the guy who claims he was sent over to replace their janitor."
Delfino pursed his lips. "Not what we were hoping for," he said.
Not at all. What they were looking for was a guy about six feet tall, blond, with sculpted features. This was definitely not him.
When Dr. Ray first proposed moving Sarah Connor to a halfway house, the head office had jumped on the idea and pushed it through. Even Ray was stunned that the committee had approved his request. The organization's theory was that surely, in such a low-security environment, Connor's allies would make a move to break her out.
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