Riverside
He was standing by the river, watching as the hydrobots swam silently around the half-human Terminator in the shallow water.
Why me? He asked himself again and again.
Of course, he knew he would one day become the leader of what remained of humanity, he was born to be that man. He was concieved to be that man.
He did his best, he kept fighting the machines, he kept the spirit, he kept hope. Out of so many people, many believed they would win someday, but he was the only person who knew. If they wouldn't have won in the future, Skynet wouldn't have sent the first Terminator to kill him before he was born, and he wouldn't have had to send Kyle Reese back to protect his mother... and father him. He was the living proof that they would win this war.
He used to doubt it. Maybe future was written, unavoidable, like Judgement Day was.
Until yesterday, it was debate time. Today, Skynet made its choice. It wanted him dead. Not the leaders of the Resistance, not the Admiralty, not General Ashdown. It wanted John Connor.
Why?
Why was he so special? How did Skynet know he was so special?
Maybe it wasn't knowledge. Skynet accepted him to be its nemesis. Its nightmare. Its downfall.
Skynet named its enemy today.
Why me?
John Connor looked at the Terminator called Marcus Wright. His mother never spoke about this deceptively human type of Terminators. Normally, those were metallic structures with lethal weaponry, and vulnerable in the back of their skull. By the time he will send Kyle Reese back, Skynet will have the technology to more or less disguise its Terminators as humans.
John remembered „uncle Bob". He was meant to be more advanced than this Marcus thing, but he was not able to mimic real human emotions. Marcus had even convinced that pilot-girl of his soul, his heart. Isn't that a contradiction? If the Marcus model was this effective, why will the Skynet develop and produce less convincing infiltrator robots?
Then, he understood. The difference was not only where he came from. Not only Kyle Reese being sent back in time to protect his mother and to father him. He had an own Terminator at the age of ten. He didn't only see them as killers, but also, as protectors. Persons. Allies.
He tried not to forget that this is how he would once be killed by one of them.
He looked Marcus Wright straight in the eye. The Terminator robot seemed to be confused, but in a very human way. It could have been the ideal infiltration unit. Yet, Skynet abandoned this human-based model in favor of those with rubber-like covering. Something must have gone wrong with Marcus; wrong from Skynet's point of view.
No, it didn't go wrong. It will go wrong.
John realised he was the only living person who had learned to trust a Terminator.
And he decided to use this knowledge now.