The tires squealed as he swerved the car over the curb up onto the sidewalk, flying with the speedometer redlined, his knuckles white on the wheel. "I'm here to help you," he said, as Sarah cowered against the doorframe. "I'm Reese, Sergeant, Tech-Com DN38416, assigned to protect you. You've been targeted for insemination."

Sarah felt herself going bug-eyed as she processed what the madman was saying. "Insemination, what, like getting pregnant?"

"That's right. It's very important that your son be fathered by the right man or the whole future could change and humanity will be wiped out."

The Ford shook again as Reese drove back into the street, veering erratically.

"What are you talking about? My son? The future? This is crazy! How can that man just get up after you—"

"Not a man, a machine. Inseminator. Cyberdyne Systems model 101-XXX."

"A machine? Like, a robot?"

"Not a robot, a cyborg, cybernetic organism."

Sarah shook her head. "No, he... he had his pants down and I saw..." The images of just minutes ago when the largest, buffest man Sarah had ever seen had come at her at the club with his fly open and a raging erection flashed before her eyes. He'd been a hair's breadth from reaching her when Reese had blasted him with a shotgun. But that hadn't stopped him.

Tufts of tire smoke kicked up as Reese made a hard turn into a parking garage, tearing through the wooden barrier post at the tollbooth. Reese kept his head on a swivel, glancing every so often over at Sarah as he drove through the vacant garage.

"Listen, I don't know tech stuff. I didn't build the fucking thing. I can't explain it to you any better than I'm trying to. It makes my head hurt too," he said. "August 29, 1997, at 2:14 AM, a military computer that's wired into everything, SKYNET, will become self-aware and decide our fate in an instant. It'll launch all the nukes, the Russians will launch theirs and that'll be it for most of humanity. The survivors will be rounded up into extermination camps where the furnaces will run day and night. We were nearly wiped out, on the brink, until one man stood up, taught us how to fight back and gave us a chance. That was John Connor, your son, Sarah."

"What?"

"We smashed Skynet's mainframe, we won. But just before that, in desperation the machine sent a cyborg, a Terminator, back in time to kill you before John could be born. That failed too. But time travel is screwy. It could keep trying until something worked. If Skynet can't stop John Connor by killing you, it figured the next best thing to try is changing who fathers him. That's why that Inseminator is out there, Sarah. It's