Crouched along a corridor are Derek Reese and his compadres, one of whom notices Derek straining his water through a cloth into his canteen and says that doesn't work, calling it an old wives' tale. "I don't do it, and I haven't been sick for years," he says. Which doesn't, I should point out, prove that what Derek's doing doesn't work. At the very least, it probably removes nasty floaties from the post-apocalyptic water supply. Derek says that's because his buddy's guts are metal like his head, and if he were any smarter, he'd be a tin can. "When I was in Century..." begins Derek's buddy, as they're joined by a bearded fellow whom Derek calls "Wisher," and sarcastically asks Wisher if he'd heard that his brother Kyle was at Century work camp, and everybody busts on Kyle Reese for the exaggeration of rescue tales involving John Connor.

The good-natured joshing is interrupted by a rumbling that shakes the entire corridor. "Centaur patrol," says Derek. Kyle fishes a photograph out of a jacket pocket. It's an updated version of the photo he held in the first movie, and Sarah disappointingly looks a lot less like Olivia Newton-John than she used to, and stares at it until the rumbling stops. A light bulb pops. In the future, humanity has given up on compact fluorescents and gone back to incandescents. "I hate that thing," says Derek. "It's just a picture," says Kyle. "It's Connor's mother. I don't get why he'd give you that." Wisher watches the exchange. "She's my lucky charm," says Kyle. Yet he mocks his brother for straining his water. Another soldier lets them know Connor wants them topside, to track where the Centaurs came from.

The soldiers reach topside up some stairs and through a trap door covered by the detritus of a junkyard. They climb out to the sound of laser fire in the distance, and then close the doors and pile junk back on top of them, and move out.

The squad takes cover behind some rubble having lost the trail. Kyle thinks the Centaurs went north-northeast. He thinks this, because that is what he'd do if he were a cyborg. This is what he says. And who can argue with that? "I smell jet fuel," he says. Derek points out that they found a tank factory the last time Kyle smelled jet fuel. Well, at least that's something. Wisher says he thinks John is after bigger fish than factories, like some kind of Skynet secret weapon, but John's best bud Kyle says John hasn't said anything to him about any secret weapon.