Skynet Connor

	As he tried to run faster, a ferocity of thoughts churned in Connor’s mind. What had gone wrong? It made no sense, no sense at all. Employing force and skill, knowledge and stealth, Wright had fought his way into the heart of Skynet Central. To what purpose? To lure Connor to his doom? If Wright’s aim all along had been Connor’s death, he’d had ample opportunity to kill him on the outside. The hybrid could have slain him easily when they faced one another beside the river. Why this elaborate subterfuge to draw him to Skynet itself?
	Unless....
	With all that had happened, with all the changes to past and future, it might be that Skynet would not trust reports of Connor’s death without assurance. Without incontrovertible proof. And what more convincing proof than to have Connor die on site, where his body could be incontestably identified down to the last strand of intractable DNA?
	Or was there another reason? One that was unknown to the fleeing Connor—and perhaps even to Wright himself?

-Terminator Salvation: The Official Movie Novelization (chapter 15)

	“You still don’t get it,” Lajard insisted. “I already said Jik was a last-minute throw-together. The plan—the real plan—was to get hold of Connor himself for that job. The real John Connor.”
	“What are you talking about?” Blair asked.
	“Oh, come now,” Lajard said his voice loaded with scorn. “Did you really think Skynet had Marcus Wright lure him to Skynet Central just to kill him?”
	Blair felt her breath catch in her throat. That part of the operation had been bothering her for a week now, ever since Barnes and Marcus came charging out to her helo with a bloodied and battered John Connor stumbling along between them. There had been hundreds of Terminators in that facility, T-1s, T-600s, and T-700s. And yet Skynet had held them all back while it sent a single Terminator against Connor?
	Now, suddenly, horribly, it all made sense.“Skynet was going to turn him into a Theta,” she breathed.
	“Bingo,” Lajard said sarcastically. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
	Blair shook her head. “That’s insane.”
	“On the contrary, it’s brilliant,” Lajard said. “Think about it. You take Connor alive—maybe just barely, but alive—and remake him in Skynet’s image. Then we delete all memories of what happened to him, from the moment he walked into Central until the moment he walked out.”
	“And you send him back to the Resistance.”
	“Exactly,” Lajard said. “With probably a few little enhancements to take with him. Enhancements like wonderful oratory skills, limited tactical abilities, and jealousy of subordinates.”
	“Especially the more competent subordinates,” Blair murmured.
	“Of course,” Lajard said. “After all, they’re the ones we’d want him to destroy. All we do then is let him regain his title as savior of humanity, and watch as he builds, nurtures, and destroys the Resistance.”
	An eerie feeling spread over Blair’s skin. It could have worked, too. Connor had been inside Skynet Central at the exact time that Skynet’s little kill-code deception was supposed to annihilate most of the Resistance cells around the world, including Connor’s own group. Those few who survived would have more important things on their minds than to wonder where Connor had been during the weeks or months of his Theta transformation.

-Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire (chapter 23)