He finds a street dealer selling scrap electronics and new condemns. He demands to know what year it is, and learns it has been 11 years since the invasion.

Two cops suddenly appear and grab them. They recognize Cade as they manacle him, and quickly let him go – though not without encouraging him to get a proper identity brand.

The intrepid hero follows. He watches as Joshua picks up a beautiful woman, gets in a car, and drives away.

Checking the identity card on her apartment, Cade learns that the woman is Claire Wilson, a concubine for the military section. He walks into the unlocked apartment, ducking a security camera within and breaking it off.

When the concubine returns from her date, Cade surprises her. She’s terrified until she recognizes him.

Cade asks why she knows who he is. "You’re only the most famous human in the world," she tells him.

She flips on the "Gua-net", and Cade’s smiling face appears.

"Take it from Cade Foster," the man on the television says, "everyone needs a registration brand."

Claire shows Cade one of his classic journal entries. It tells the world that "we were doomed," and that the Gua have made Earth "whole" again.

According to Claire, everyone believes in Cade’s inspirational leadership. "It’s what keeps us going," she says.

Cade now suspects the Gua are up to something. He theorizes that they’ve used computers to generate fake images of him.

Claire is sure the Gua are the saviors of humanity. Cade tells her they’re killers, and proves it by taking her to see an execution at the warehouse.

Shocked and amazed, Claire becomes an instant convert to the cause. She calls Joshua, telling him that she wants him.

Cade watches the ensuing gratuitous sex scene with interest. He sneaks up behind the heaving couple and filches Joshua’s identity card.

They go to see him, and discover that Eddie has become a gardener. He has garden gnomes, so he must be good at it.

Cade greets Eddie. Eddie spits in his face.

We’re putting the band back together!

Claire and Cade slowly convince Eddie that Cade is for real. He tells them that after the Gua arrived, "it was either give up or die."

Eddie thinks his rebel days are over, but Cade inspires him to drop his watering can and take up the fight again.

They go to find the street dealer Cade encountered.

Eddie demands of high-band converter, but decides he can adapt a normal converter. The dealer wants 4 credits and half an hour with Claire, but the cops break in before another sex scene can properly develop.

Suddenly, Cade’s world freezes. In an amazing twist, we learn that everything we’ve seen is a virtual reality simulation.

Cain – the Gua consciousness now living in Joshua’s husk – has captured Cade, and is using the simulation to interrogate him. He wants to learn the location of the book of Nostradamus.

Cain is also making the most of his new human body. He’s freebasing salt and trying to seduce Gia, the scientist who is the model of "Claire Wilson."

Having accomplished important plot exposition, Cain and Gia continue playing with Cade’s brain. They remove the last few minutes of the scenario from Cade’s memory and move on to the next scene.

Cade and Eddie are back at the farmhouse. Eddie reveals a secret weapon – he has buried his old trailer behind the house.

They enter the trailer, and Eddie sensuously unwraps his computer. Cade plans to use a pirate broadcast to rally humanity.

They rig up the camera from Claire’s apartment, and Cade records an inspiring message. Afterwards, Cade and Claire stroll around the far while Eddie works on uploading the message.

Suddenly, Joshua and his agents burst out of the bushes. Cade and Claire have been captured!

Just in case you were getting excited

We go back to reality. Cain fiddles with the controls, revealing that he's enjoying breaking Cade’s mind. He wakes Cade up and introduces himself, describing how he captured Cade by arranging a meeting as "Joshua."

Then he wipes Cade’s memory and continues the simulation. The virtual Cade sits in a holding cell. Joshua brings Claire in and offers to let her go if Cade swears allegiance to the Gua.

Cade refuses. Joshua shoots Claire and orders Cade’s termination.

In the real world, the pressure on Cade’s hypothalamus is acute. Gia warns that he’s about to suffer brain damage.

Eddie is hauled into the room. He says the Gua captured him, but not before he broadcast Cade’s message.

The Gua have offered to spare him if he can get Cade to knuckled under. They’ve also threatened Eddie’s friends.

Eddie suggests that Cade make the pledge – it will help buy time so that Eddie can rescue him. Eddie will get the books, translate the quatrains again, and re-launch the resistance.

There’s just one teensy problem – Eddie says he can’t quite remember where the books are after all these years. Cade tells him, and Eddie thanks him for bringing him back into the fight for freedom.

The Gua take Cade to the termination chamber. Joshua gives him one last chance to pledge, and Cade refuses again.

Joshua gives the execution order, but stops just long enough to let Cade say good-bye to an old friend. Eddie comes in and chortles about betraying the book’s location to the Gua.

Then the Gua push the big blue button and terminate Cade.

In the real world, something’s wrong. A virus is invading the Gua’s computer systems.

The power goes out. When the emergency backups kick in, Cade has vanished.

The Gua get dirty

Cain and Gia retrieve the book from the park in which it is buried. Cain gloats, "This moment will be forever remembered in the history of the Gua."

Cade has returned to Eddie’s trailer. Eddie pulls a locator device – presumably bought from Ginsu, since it also helped him listen on Cain and send the virus into the Gua computers – out of Cade’s body and offers him a restorative beverage.

The locator isn’t the only trick up Eddie’s sleeve. He pulled a switch on the Gua, substituting a fake Nostradamus book for the real one.

Cade rests easy. The Gua have been misled, and Cade has both valuable information and a renewed sense of purpose. What more could an alien hunter want?