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Would everything end where it begins? That's what I was wondering in the final hours. Stuck in a psychiatric ward, integrated by doctors who believed I was crazy. I believed they were human, if they weren't I would have been dead. Not that it mattered, the invasion was upon us and humanity didn't want to know a thing about it. One thing was for sure; they'd know when the war was upon us. Kept telling the Shrinks that 19 million people would die on the first day and that we were all screwed. Told a new Doc about the alien anti-Christ named Mabus. She wanted to know how I'd survived my fights with the demon if he was really so all-powerful? I didn't have an answer - they had me talking in circles. Were doing the same thing to Jordan, trying to convince her the Raven Nation didn't exist. Telling her she'd been manipulated by me, pulled into some grand lie. They told Joshua he wasn't an alien at all. Said he was a staff sergeant for the U.S. Marines, told him he had kids. Eddie was just plain crazy, they didn't have to tell him otherwise. They kept us from each other but I could hear Eddie in his cell. Said he'd found a fifth Omega Quatrain coded in the algorithm of the other quatrains: "As the Second Wave is nigh, four must be chained strong as one, hammer can smite victory if honor is granted to Xevallah." But we still needed to find the hammer! And we were locked away with a bunch of non-believers! Felt like I was going crazy myself. Probably sound like it here. Until I heard the crap they were selling Jordan, then I got mad. They taunted her about our relationship. Told her my journals talked about what happened between us, meaning Mabus and I, when I was his prisoner. Jordan told them they had no idea what she'd been through - she was right, none of us did. Then they told her she was some kind of victim who'd fallen in love with a wife murderer who'd used her. She was just like any other abused women, maybe she was worse? Told me I'd gone on a countrywide killing spree, murdering innocent people under the guise of a quest to stop an alien invasion. It wasn't true. It wasn't! Could it be? Jordan even asked me if someone who was insane could tell they were insane? And then I woke up from the nightmare. It was all a Gua security measure - they'd bombarded us with a mind-altering device. We were together - Jordan, Eddie, even Joshua. And we were at ground zero. A gua bunker holding the army of the Second Wave - football fields of husks. The invasion wasn't on its way, it was already here! An invasion from above without an aerial attack. It must've taken years to grow the husks. Joshua didn't think it was possible to download that many consciousnesses at once. He'd need an unbelievable power source - we were missing something. If Mabus had his army ready, what was he waiting for? Decided to start searching for the download mainframe. Joshua and Jordan were at odds, neither trusting the other. Good thing I trusted them both. Eddie figured Mabus was using the hammer as a power source; it was the only thing that made sense. That's when we all got caught. And sent back to the delusion. Back to the mental hospital. That's where Jordan remembered the husk they'd built for Mabus, growing in an incubation chamber. Believed it was our baby - Mabus had used our bodies to make the perfect husk for his consciousness. It was one of the reasons the Gua had kept me alive. And the others were all losing out to the delusion. They didn't want to believe. They'd lobotomized Eddie, convinced Joshua he was human and Jordan had committed suicide. She left a note that read: "believe." Now it was just between Mabus and I. He offered me a bargain: continue trying to return to the bunker or live inside the delusion where at least I could stay alive. Told him to go to hell. Then he offered me the chance to save my wife, Hannah, I could go back and undo the past. The hammer would give me the power. But it was something I'd never do. The past got us here and leaving it alone was the only way I could be sure we'd never have to live through this nightmare again. Broke out of the delusion and we all figured it out. Mabus needed me to power the download - it required both of us. Jordan and the crew thought I needed to get the hell out of the bunker. Knew that wasn't the right move. Had to ask them one thing, same thing I'm asking you all. Believe in me. This is our final battle.
Final Omega Quatrain. Eddie called it the last chance. "Into the void must go the Twice Bless'd Man. Seek the hammer, as the seeker has sought before. In the courage to end, find the beginning, or death and darkness befall mankind." The hammer is the ultimate Gua weapon, able to move matter through a vortex in time and space. It could deliver an alien army to our doorstep in a heartbeat. Our only salvation was that the hammer had been lost in a vortex, beyond Mabus' grasp. Or so we thought. Joshua intercepted a Gua transport carrying a locator, a device meant to help the Gua locate the missing hammer. Our only hope was finding the weapon before Mabus did. Eddie and Joshua rigged a device to get me into the vortex; once inside, the locator would lock onto the energy of the hammer and guide me toward it. Downside: There was no way back. Only the hammer could bring me home. It was succeed or die. And if Mabus got there first, there wouldn't be much to come home to. Joshua asked me if I was ready. Was I ready? I'd been fighting the Gua for three years. I'd traveled to the future, been killed, brought back to life, trained by an alien sensei this was as ready as I'd ever be. Joshua didn't think any of that mattered if I wasn't prepared to face the hardest part of my journey I'd have to kill Mabus in Jordan's body to win this fight. For me that was the absolute last option, but if it had to be done, I'd do it. Jordan would've wanted it. Into the vortex I went. Found myself under Gua fire right off the bat. There was a sign: "Terminal City: Forbidden Zone. Condemned by the Gua Military Council." Bullets had me running for cover. There was a girl there, looked like Raven Nation, name was Taryn. She knew who I was. She took my locator, figured me for an "AC" - Assassination Clone. I was in the future again; the invasion had already happened. Then I was face-to-face with myself, but this time I was nine years older and I looked like hell. The "future me," a guy Taryn called "the Commander," wouldn't believe I was real; he said no one could stop the Second Wave. But if the Commander really was me, then I should've known what I was doing there. Confusing, I know, but stay with me. My future self was bitter, angry. Said he knew all about the hammer and that the plan wouldn't work. He'd already fought for a decade, watched humans hunted and exterminated and all they had left to fight for was this hellish future. He'd failed, which meant I was wasting my friggin' time. He destroyed the locator. In an instant, he'd killed us all. The fight for the future was over. And Mabus was in the vortex now, too. The older Cade was afraid that, if he helped me, history would repeat itself. Thing is, I didn't know what the history was. Eddie and Joshua entered the vortex behind me; I wish they hadn't, but Joshua wanted to be sure someone came out with the weapon. Taryn seemed intrigued by me... wanted to know more about why I was there, told me Eddie was dead in this future, started asking questions about Jordan. Taryn said her Commander had loved Jordan and that Jordan had been a martyr for the resistance the Commander didn't talk about Jordan much. It killed me to know Mabus had finally finished Jordan off. The Commander came to see me. I realized he still had the hammer in his possession. We talked about the prophecy, he'd had to choose between Jordan and the hammer and he'd chosen the weapon it wasn't an easy call to make. Said I'd do the same it was the only way to stop the Second Wave. But the Commander had lost something in letting Jordan go it broke his spirit, dulled his skill all he'd been taught meant nothing. He couldn't control the weapon when he had to. Then he told me how Jordan died the Commander said I killed her. She was so close he could see her eyes when he did it, he could see Jordan was still inside Mabus. "I" shot her through the heart. Mabus died too, but the Second Wave came anyway. Commander said this time it would be different; Jordan wouldn't die because he wouldn't let me kill her again. He was gonna let Mabus get the hammer this time Jordan would live! Figured I'd become insane in the future. Wanted to make things right, but the future me couldn't believe we had a chance. We couldn't both exist in the same time period, not for long. We were deteriorating. The Commander felt one single act could change the world, and he wanted "us" to disappear from both our realties. Figured whatever happened, the world would get another chance if "we" hadn't existed. He was just hoping the next spin would be better than his own. The Commander was playing with all our fates, but I believed he was wrong. Got out of my cell and went after the hammer. I could still stop the Second Wave if I got there first. See, there was a difference between the future Commander and Cade Foster today: he'd given up. I hadn't. I will stop the Second Wave.
Joshua said it best - we needed to understand the extent of Mabus' fist strike and the clock was counting down to the Second Wave. Checked out a lead that didn't pan out. Searched the woods in the dark, but it was a trap -- the Gua came after us - a fleet of assassins targeting us with laser tags. We split up, lost Joshua in the dark. Eddie fell behind me and then there was a blinding flash of light. And suddenly, I wasn't in Kansas anymore - it was some kind of void, howling snarls echoed throughout the place. Walls of crystal, maybe ice. Could hear Eddie calling for my help in the distance and then suddenly there was "another me." That same "other Cade" who rescued me from the Gua as a child - the first time they messed with my head. The quatrain which lead us to that discovery said "When twice three years and twice again, find secret skill in darkest hour. 'Tween bless'd and cursed, a third will come, or worlds consumed in battles fire." This other Cade appeared as my "adult self" then -- couldn't be sure it was the same guy, this could've been a Gua trick. Gun flew out of my hand; he was using some form of telekinesis. The twin told me he'd be back someday - now he was. Said he was there to prepare me for the fight of my life. His name was Xevallah and I believed he was the so-called "third" from the quatrain. If he had a skill to teach me he needed to be quick about it - Eddie and Joshua were out in the real world being hunted by the Gua. The Second Wave was happening in less than a week. Xevallah's timing couldn't have been worse. He arranged some strange stones in a circle at the center of the void. Told me there was nothing I could do for my friends, I just needed to pay attention to him and my surroundings. Asked me if I would risk what he had to teach me to save one man's life? He was talking about Eddie, damn right I would. Xevallah said I was safe within the circle, outside were my fears, my demons, and my nightmares. Big deal, my life had been a nightmare for the past three years. I wasn't afraid. And then he said something that really got my attention - I had the power to save Eddie AND stop the Second Wave. Didn't know what being in this void could teach me but figured I'd give Xevallah the chance to explain. He said I would gain insight into myself. Screw the self-help; I needed practical tools, a way to beat Mabus - a way to save Eddie! Xevallah said my perceptions would be brought to life in this place and only when I understood those perceptions would I be able to proceed. Then he started taunting me about the Raven Nation, said I'd let my army go. That I'd failed, let the Gua proceed to the "eve of their invasion." Things got ugly, pulled a knife on Xevallah, told me I needed to learn to respect the teacher and took my weapon away. Then he gave me his bio. He was from a place called Arkipova, a lush planet like earth. It was destroyed by a Gua invasion. He was one of the only survivors. He'd survived despite the odds, just like me. To Xevallah, the Gua were trying to hurt my "warrior spirit" - to drain the fight out of me. They'd killed Hannah to distract me, let me expose experiments even taken Jordan just to fuel my capacity for anger - Xevallah felt that hurt my development as a warrior. He took me to a place far away with a tap of his staff. It was his home, or so I thought. Looked like a wasteland. Using anger as a weapon resulted in the destruction of his planet, wanted me to understand the futility of my rage. Almost thought he had a point, but then I heard Eddie in the void - he sounded terrified. Xevallah cautioned me not to step outside the circle but my friend needed me. Eddie wasn't out there - terror was. I was hunted, helpless, hated the feeling - reminded me of the Gua - they killed my wife and I couldn't stop them. But Xevallah didn't think I should hate the Gua for killing humans - it was simply their nature. Nothing I could do could change that. He had to be wrong, they were predatory but that wasn't an excuse! Xevallah wanted me to let that go. He said hate and anger were an "impediment to the warrior." Hating the Gua couldn't change anything for Xevallah and it wouldn't for me. Hadn't I already avenged Hannah by killing the Acolyte who murdered her? That was true --fine. But there was still the little detail of the aliens trying to take our planet from us - I couldn't forgive them that. He gave me a test. Controlled my anger, passed. My reward was a rock from the circle - it absorbed into my hand. Xevallah told me to revel in it, save questions for another time. He gave me something to eat and drink, was unlike anything I'd ever tasted. Didn't surprise my host, said I'd just eaten the blood and heart of a great Gua warrior. Was sick - worse than I've ever felt before. Threw up my guts, wretched over - Xevallah said I was reacting to the essence of the warrior - that the illness would "purify" me. Started having visions - there was a hammer in the fabric of the void. The image was whoozy but it seemed familiar - like the weapon we'd used against the Gua a few weeks ago - the one we'd uncovered in the dig in the bus graveyard. Felt like hell, passed out. The sunofabitch had poisoned me! The Sensei disagreed, said the Gua had poisoned me, slowly but surely over the past few years -- now he'd cleansed me of that poison. Told me the hammer was the key. It would be of practical use in the final battle. Finally, something I could understand, something I could really use. Next test came up quick. Xevallah wanted me to put my hand in the flame of his staff. Didn't think so. But he was driving his words home - asked me if I had forgiven the Gua for killing Hannah? Told him no way. He told me the weight of the past would prevent me from winning. The way to victory was to be free of those events - I had to let go. I couldn't. I failed. We were running out of time, Xevallah insisted I work harder ... if I didn't, the earth would go up in flames. But how could I ever let what had happened to my friends go? The innocents, Hannah, Jordan ... I could never forgive the Gua for what they'd taken from me. But I wasn't gonna let them win either.
Omega Quatrain 2. "In the west, near the rock mount, a load stone pulls opposing sides closer. The fallen signals war and guidance for the coming maelstrom." A loadstone is a magnet, which may connect to a powerful magnetic anomaly Eddie detected in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. We suspect it's the source of several mysterious satellite blackouts that have been baffling authorities. Could the loadstone be a Gua weapon designed to disable earth's defenses? I was starting to have doubts, until something dropped out of the sky. Had a feeling "the fallen" that "signals war" just made its first appearance. With Eddie complaining all the way, we hiked deep into the mountains. Found a device putting out high-magnetic readings but no one running it. Left the device and headed in the direction of the crash site. Found a fire, something had crashed, could have been a satellite or maybe a ship? Couldn't tell which yet. And we found something ... or someone, too. Joshua -- nothing like a little destruction from above to bring out our recently estranged ally. Joshua was interested in a specific piece of the wreckage, so I distracted him, sent Eddie to pick up the junk before Joshua could get away with it. Joshua wasn't thrilled to see me - he'd decided he was gonna fight Mabus on his own since I'd refused to kill the alien Anti-Christ in Jordan's body. Asked him why he was there? Joshua said he was investigating Mabus' new pet project - a vessel that had cloaking and spy capabilities. Joshua had shot it down. Said there was nothing of value left in the wreckage, told me we were both wasting our time. He was bluffing. No way he'd take the ship down for the heck of it, not with the Second Wave coming any day. Joshua thought the crew must have been incinerated in the crash but I'd noticed a footprint in the dirt leading away from the site. Joshua was definitely hiding something, but what? Eddie couldn't figure out what the "box" he'd lifted from under Joshua's nose was used for but he was gonna try to figure it out. Figured Joshua knew we had it but he'd taken off instead of trying to recover it again - he must have really been after the survivor. Left Eddie with the device and went after Joshua. Didn't need his cooperation to figure out what was going on. It was obvious Joshua wanted to play this the hard way. Good, I'm used to the hard way. While I was searching the woods for Joshua, Eddie made some headway with the box - said there was a substantial amount of electromagnetic resonance coming off of it - just like we'd seen in quantum pockets. Could've been some kind of portal - Eddie would need more time. Heard an explosion up ahead. Headed in that direction. Then I heard Joshua scream. Found the Gua crewmember first. She was cocky, told me it was her lucky day -- she was gonna finish Joshua and one-one-seven back-to-back. Joshua howled again in the distance. Sounded like he needed my help. Took the pilot and went looking for Joshua - he didn't answer any of my calls. The alien taunted me - told me Joshua had already dissolved. Didn't think so, Joshua was tougher than that. The alien said the vessel she'd crashed meant the end of mankind - didn't matter that they'd lost one, the Gua had dozens of the ships ready to strike the earth. She tried to pull a mini-grenade on me, turned the tables on her and pocketed it myself. Headed back to the crash site with the Gua prisoner, found Eddie who'd figured out what the "box" did. It was a Gua flight-recorder, a lot like an earth plane's black box, except this was a 3D version. We entered a "duplicate cockpit" inside a quantum pocket the box created - whatever happened in the real world was recorded in the parallel dimension inside the box. Eddie'd already lived through the crash simulation and didn't want to do it again. We scanned the flight recorder to help us figure out what else Joshua was looking for. Had to drug the alien pilot with salt to get her to talk. She said the ship had carried a warhead ten times as powerful as any human nuclear weapon. Didn't make sense, a bomb of that magnitude could destroy the entire planet - the Gua would have nothing left to live on. But the pilot said this bomb had no fallout - humans would die and the Gua would move right in. But why would Joshua want the warhead? Why would he keep it from us? Left Eddie with the drugged-up Gua and found Joshua. He was next to the warhead, almost dead, his wounds too severe to self-heal. Using a wonder-drug I'd taken from the pilot I was able to bring him back but Joshua was still pretty weak. Asked him what he planned to do with the warhead? He said, right now, Mabus had the element of surprise on his side, take that away from the Guahead and the planned invasion would fail. Joshua was going to set off the bomb. Earth would believe they were being attacked and unite -- the Gua would have to reconsider their strategy, maybe go home. Joshua felt the ends justified the means. Hundreds of thousands, even a million of human deaths are better than nineteen million Mabus promised. Joshua didn't want to see his own side slaughtered. This was war. I called it murder, and no way was I gonna let Joshua get away with it.
The Gua have struck hard. Mabus has entered the body of Jordan and taken over. The army of the Raven Nation has fallen. Its generals are dead, the survivors scattered. Even after everything we've worked for, I can't expect defeat. I choose to believe in the future. In spite of everything, we can still win this fight. I have to believe it. They're the words I posted right before we were attacked. The entire Airstream was taken down in a hail of bullets and I was suddenly on my way to a specially planned visitation with my one time partner and friend - Jordan Radcliffe. A woman we now call Mabus. I'd been hit in the attack on the trailer but a Gua Empiricist healed me. Couldn't figure it out, Mabus wanted me dead, so why were they fixing me up ... even I knew the truth -- I was on my way to hell. The answer came from the Guahead himself -- my journey had come full circle. He wanted to have the pleasure of breaking me. It was the conclusion of the same human will experiment that had started all of this. Mabus wanted to defeat me the old fashioned way ... and he wanted me to beg for my death. Tried to keep my cool but it wasn't easy. Mabus was inside Jordan's body, and she looked ... powerful, stronger ... comfortable. Freaked me out big time. Got me thinking Mabus was winning, taking over Jordan's soul. Was hard to look into her eyes and see that evil. But it was seductive too. Jordan had warned me of that after we saved a young girl recently -- one of Mabus' pawns to reach Jordan. He'd failed at capturing Jordan that time but now he had her. All I could think about was freeing my friend. Told Mabus that the Gua had tried to break me before and failed, this time wouldn't be any different. Mabus shrugged it off, said he'd show me why I was wrong. Pain didn't matter to Mabus, he was beyond that - but he was in Jordan's body, he could still harm her. Mabus put Jordan's arm in some flames and I snapped. Told him to stop. Wanted to kill him there and then. It only egged him on. Mabus told me Jordan was my weakness, said she was buried within him. She'd put up walls inside her head to keep Mabus out but he was too strong, he was chipping away at her. Soon the walls would fall and Jordan would be nothing but a memory. Didn't know how much of what Mabus was saying was true. Jordan could've been gone already. But I doubted it. She'd rather die than give into Mabus. I believed in her. That's when Mabus gave me a gun. Told me I couldn't kill him before, wanted to see it I could do it now. He told me Jordan was begging for me to end her pain. No way. Mabus wanted me to do this, which is exactly why I wouldn't. Didn't want to kill Jordan, didn't believe I could ... but if I had to, no way would it be on Mabus' terms. He had me on a leash. Told me Eddie'd given up the Nostradamus book, that I'd failed my best friend. Mabus said he'd killed Eddie. Told me I'd failed mankind. But I believed there'd be another after me, someone else to carry on the fight. It pissed Mabus off. He told me that every time he conquered a planet there was someone like me, someone who couldn't accept that they'd lost. Screw him. I was happy for it. If the Gua were so sure they were gonna win then why'd they care about the damn book. Told Mabus he wasn't all knowing -- his needing the book proved we still had a chance. And then he touched my head and showed me a future I can't believe is real. Horrible visions of an Apocalypse to come. Shoulda kept them to himself, it only made me more determined. The visions knocked me out. Woke up to find the Empiricist "healing" Mabus. Horrible scars and boils had formed on Jordan's back and shoulder - he was killing her from the inside. Mabus still needed another vessel. Offered myself up if he'd let Jordan go but Mabus said he liked Jordan's body, wondered if I didn't find it appealing? Couldn't take the bait. He was playing with my emotions, using my ... feelings for Jordan to manipulate me. Mabus was reveling in trying to break me but I got out of the leash / collar - clipped it onto Jordan's neck. Got the hell out of there. But Mabus caught me before I was through the first corridor. Grabbed the Empiricist to use as a living shield, thought it would help me make my way out of the facility. Mabus killed the Empiricist to catch me - said he didn't believe in bargaining. Put me in his incubation chamber. Thing looked like a giant tuna can, was meant to keep Mabus fresh until he could find another human body to inhabit. It would have a different affect on me. Mabus said I was about to experience "profound regret." Wasn't kidding. Heard the voices of all those who have died, Eddie and Joshua were telling me how I'd failed them. Jordan was there - she forgave me for what'd happened. We got close. It was a dream. Or maybe a nightmare. And I had a feeling I'd just given Mabus exactly what he wanted.
Quatrain 26, Century 9: "As the Apocalypse draws near the adherents are summoned. Down to the catacombs they flee, pursued by an enemy none can see." We had to warn the Raven Nation. But they weren't about to believe anything they read online -- not something this important. Using information Jordan shared with only a trusted few I would send a top-level distress signal - it would trigger a failsafe plan. The Raven Nation would assemble. They'd be expecting war. Probably would've been easier news to deliver. Mabus was living inside Jordan, controlling her body and mind. There was no way of knowing what he planned to do. The Code 13 was sent. As part of Jordan's self-designed security measures the four top Generals of the RN didn't know each other. They didn't even know what the others looked like. The one thing they did know was the secret roster of militia in their zone. Four Generals with four separate cells, it was a brilliant way to make sure no one could cripple their ranks. But I had the names of the chosen ones. Smythe. Sullivan. Tonetti and Kendricks. They were all on their way to the meeting location. Their leader was gone. I kept replaying the events over and over in my head - Jordan, Mabus and I, trapped inside Stareman tower, a standoff with results I didn't want to believe were possible. I'll live with the moment forever - standing by the elevators, my gun drawn - a wicked smile crossing her his face. I'll always wonder about the choice I made, because that decision brought me to the satellite base - to meet the RN Generals. To confront the fact that, now that Jordan's body has been taken over by Mabus, she herself may be the "enemy none can see." We needed to plan our counteract. But the Raven Nation wasn't all sweetness and roses. General Tonetti knew better than to trust just anyone waltzing into the facility - pulled a gun. The "good cop," Sullivan convinced her hotheaded comrade that I was the real thing. Smythe and Sullivan hadn't shown yet. Sullivan and Tonetti always got their info from Jordan directly - didn't take well to the idea that something might have happened to their leader. Then the power went out. Had to go searching in the dark. Found the old horse of the crew - Kendricks. He'd already done some recon. The facility had been cleaned out. The Gua had already been there. The Generals figured it for a trap. Tonetti took off, didn't want to take orders from anyone. The crew was rough around the edges but they had the fire to win. They couldn't be too trusting of anyone. With the power out the doors were all locked down. Kendricks and I found something strange in the locker room of the facility - a kind of skin - a giant snake shedding. And Tonetti found something else - an eye - human. Best guess said it belonged to Smythe. The facility used a retinal scanner to let the Generals in. Mabus, posing as Jordan, must have taken it right out of Smythe's skull. We had an uninvited guest. Tonetti had been attacked by something, but we didn't know what. He couldn't tell us anything - seemed like he was in a coma. There was ooze on his face; Sullivan's hand went numb when she touched it. Closer analysis of the skin indicated that it was in fact reptilian. Figured the Gua had a hybrid on their hands - had crossed the DNA of a snake or a lizard with human and Gua DNA like we'd seen them do with bees in Ohio. Kendricks had a hard-on about the chain of command in the Raven Nation. He was a military man, an ex-marine, assumed he was next in line to give orders to Jordan's army. Kendricks thought I was good enough to rally the troops behind but now we needed someone to lead them into war. I didn't care who was in charge, right now I just wanted us all to get out of the facility alive. And then I met the alien who'd infiltrated the facility. It came out of nowhere. She was chameleon like - blue, hideous - its skin was cold. She attacked me, got close enough to kill me for sure - but she didn't. She just looked me in the eye and leaped away. Kendricks was looking for a way out. Thought he'd found it, he went to work. Sullivan and I finally realized why the beast was here and why it hadn't killed me when it had the chance. It was there for the Generals, that was its mission. And until it had what it needed from them it wouldn't come after me. Which is what it did. Out of nowhere the beast attacked Sullivan, sprayed her with its paralyzing ooze and disappeared. It was a chameleon. The power came back on and we chopped the beast in half with one of the facilities two-ton doors. Sullivan survived but she couldn't remember anything about the Raven Nation. There were non-blistered, burn scars on her head from a device the Gua used on Sullivan's forehead. The beast was harvesting information on the Raven Nation. It was going to locate the members and destroy our allies. That force was Jordan's legacy. No way was I gonna let it get taken down.
Quatrain 41, Century 4. "At the inception of the millennium / machines of the new age deliver devastation in war. / From a throne under 13 faceless warriors / the invader king wields power." "Inception OS" is an operating system used by almost every computer in the country "the machines of the new age." Max Stareman is president of the software empire who planned to release the program to a massive media and consumer blitz. If Inception software was the weapon that "delivered devastation" then we had to stop it. And first we had to get to Max Stareman. Eddie figured tapping into Stareman's home base computer qualified him as nuts and who was I to argue Eddie'd always called himself "crazy," my plan helped validate the name. Way I saw it, the world's top computer programmers worked for Stareman, and any one of them could've been Gua even the billionaire himself. Wondered what the Gua wanted with an operating system anyway? Eddie figured the answer was easy: control. Most of the worlds' computers ran on Inception even the ones at the Pentagon. A hidden Gua-program could crash the entire world's computer-net or link them all into one big "Gua.com." Wasn't gonna be easy to get close to Stareman but I knew Jordan, Eddie and I would have to what choice did we have. Eddie hacked into the billionaire's personal calendar Max had a meeting scheduled in Silicon Valley with a quirky programmer named "Jinks." Stareman wanted to buy his company "Terminal Bug" they were developing a high-tech, security program. Jordan and I broke into Jinks' place had a close call with an electronic sensor in the air ducts but otherwise I had my cover. Jordan left me for my "meeting" with Jinks the next day all I had to do was wait. Jinks was the stereotypical computer geek played most of the day, worked almost never. When he finally made it into his office he crumbled easier than I thought. Jinks didn't like guns, sent the rest of his team home and then our own version of programmers came in Raven Nation-style-programmers they packed guns instead of pocket protectors. We were gonna corner Stareman and uncover his game with the Gua. Eddie posed as Jinks, the RN ops took their places at the computers. Jordan played receptionist and I stayed out of sight until the last minute. But Stareman was quick he knew something was up right from the start. Tried to leave. Jordan wasn't having it. Came out with my gun, told Stareman what we knew about the Gua and about how Inception could pose a serious threat to the world. Jordan cut Stareman he didn't heal. Then, just as we were about to cut George, Stareman's trusty assistant the real Jinks burst into the room. George was Gua. Jinks' distraction let the alien get me by the neck, ready to snap it Jordan shot him square in the forehead. Stareman got to see a genuine Gua dissolve. It was enough for a guy like Max a take-charge guy. He brought us to the office, shut down the Inception project and ordered the master copy of the program brought to his office immediately. Stareman was a dream he had exactly the kind of clout we needed to get the word out about the Gua. We'd stopped the launch of a system that would effectively cripple the world's defenses in the Second Wave and had found a new ally. Felt like a good day. Couldn't have been more wrong. Never saw what was coming. Stareman was Gua. Right above Max's desk was a sculpture 13 partial faces hanging above his throne-like chair. Stareman was Mabus. Alien Anti-Christ. Leader of the Gua. And he was in my head. Probing, smothering my psyche. But he got distracted. He went after someone else. It's the worst blow we'd been dealt in a long time. Listen up, Mabus. I am not giving up. You've taken away too many people I care about. You've attacked my family again and again. And I protect my own. This game isn't over. And now you've made it personal all over again. Gonna be your last mistake.
The Raven Nation is an army of believers from every walk of life: cops, teachers, salesman, parents, and scientists - all touched by the lethal hand of the Gua. Dr. Pierce Malcolm was a highly renowned geneticist before the Gua killed his only son. Soon after, he joined the Raven Nation and brought his genetic expertise to our fight. I'm usually encouraged by the determination shown by people like Dr. Malcolm to beat the Gua. So why did I have such a bad feeling about the Doc and the lab he'd invited Jordan, Eddie and I to visit? Maybe it was because it would be the site of our latest trial - a real nightmare. Jordan gave Malcolm one mandate: to find weapons that would give us an advantage over the aliens. The Doc claimed we now had that advantage. He did a test on some blood samples, one human, one Gua - from a prisoner Malcolm had in his lab. He changed the Gua sample green - made it distinguishable from the human sample. It was an indisputable method for telling who was Gua and the beginnings of a way to attack and possibly destroy them on a genetic level. Scientific gibberish was wasted on me. Was more interested in the weird looks I was getting from our Gua-guest. She called me "brother" and I kept hearing this chirping in my head - like some kind of horrific baseline - plaguing me. It was making me feel crazy. Went to a mirror ... I flashed alien. Punched the mirror and healed. And then I remembered something. Was drugged, dragged to the lab, injected with something by Malcolm the night before when we'd arrived. He was hiding something - and I had a feeling I knew what it was. I was Gua. The sunnofabitch had turned me, injected me with a derivative blood serum replicated from the hostage. Malcolm said the Gua genome was powerful, resistant; it would give me unparalleled strength and intelligence. He was giving me the edge we needed to win the war. The Doc believed he had a right to vengeance and believed we were all helpless in this fight. But now I was the strongest of us all. A Twice Bless'd Gua. I hadn't asked for this. Jordan was on the razors edge herself. Couldn't believe we'd been betrayed by one of her own. Thing is Pierce didn't believe he'd done anything wrong - the world was changing and it was survival of the fittest now - Pierce had made me into a walking symbol of evolution. And then he was dead, along with the key to an antidote he claimed existed. The Gua captive snapped his neck from her cell. We dissolved her, but the Doc was gone. Tensions were up within the group. Somehow I felt Jordan was responsible for this - she should've been more careful with her people. Eddie figured he might have enough genetic know-how to figure out how to reverse the process - we started checking out his research. And then the voices started again, a constant, eerie reverb in my head. I could hear the Gua. Felt desperate, begged Eddie to stop the change. He told me I needed to rest. So I did. And then I was awake. Strangling Jordan. Wanted to feel her throat crushed beneath my hands. But it was all a dream. And there was a Gua coming. It was Joshua, Eddie'd called him. Jordan was suspicious, this war was Gua against human and Joshua was still the enemy. She wanted him gone but I knew we needed him to stay -- he could help. Joshua checked me out. Told me Gua DNA replicates more aggressively than human DNA, my change would be exponential. But in humans, DNA was coding, a blueprint, according to Eddie I shouldn't have been "transforming" into an alien. Joshua explained the Gua DNA acted more like a virus, it attacks a genome and rewrites its code - it was the way they procreated. Joshua didn't know how far the change would go - he wanted to look at Malcolm's files. I count on Eddie for certain things, Jordan for others. What I had to ask her for wouldn't be easy but she was the only person I could trust to handle it. If the change went too far, she'd have to kill me - I couldn't become Gua. Jordan resisted but I told her I'd do it for her in a heartbeat. To become what I hate - couldn't imagine anything worse. The changes continued, my body was shifting, my skin had become almost reptilian in places. We were running out of time. But Eddie had a lead on how to change me back. Checked out the machine, it'd been sabotaged. And Jordan thought I was the guilty one. She locked me in the Gua-holding-cell. She'd already begun to not trust me. Jordan and Eddie went head-to-head on the decision. Eddie couldn't stand to see me treated as sub-human. Joshua thought my change was unprecedented, figured it was affecting my mind. It was Jordan's facility -figured if there was a law to follow it was hers. My future wasn't looking pretty. Joshua said the Gua were powerful in life, but most humans would probably consider them disturbing to say the least. The Gua were in a constant metamorphic cycle throughout their lives, I'd continue to change often. They had different senses - supposedly ten-times as sensory as humans. Joshua resented his human body. I just wanted mine back.
Quatrain 11, Century 9. "Nobles gather on a midsummer's eve / and the Raven grasps the curse of legacy. / Look to the traitor's haven / as the beast prepares for Apocalypse." When Jordan got an invitation to a midsummer bash at a mansion owned by her late parents, Eddie linked the party to the words of Nostradamus. Did this "curse of legacy" refer to the Radcliffe family? Could the traitor possibly be Jordan's father, a man she both loved and respected? Jordan wouldn't rest until she knew the truth. Neither would I. If "the beast" was Mabus, then I wanted to do my part to find out how the Radcliffes fit into his preparations for the Apocalypse and I wanted to stop him. We knew of a secret vault within the mansion, so while Jordan made a grand entrance to join the rich and famous, I was breaking in upstairs to crack a safe. Some things never changed. Had to be tough for Jordan. Once the Gua enter your life it changes forever. I'd lived it, and so had she. But Jordan was good at putting up a front. Downstairs she was reuniting with Sabrina, an old journalist pal and her father's business partners Keenan and Tara a couple of old timers Jordan believed were genuine friends to the Radcliffe family. They asked her to come back to the company. Jordan told them she'd been creating a "foundation of her own." Said it helped her heal. She was talking about the Raven Nation. And I couldn't agree more. Found the secret vault and some pretty interesting stuff inside. Radcliffe had a file labeled "conspiracy," inside was some info on me including my now infamous mug shot. They were alien-related files. Jordan's father obviously knew about the Gua. And then there was Davis. Jordan never mentioned that she'd been engaged before her brother's death. We didn't talk about our romantic pasts, lotta pain there. Davis had been Radcliffe's protιgιe; since Jordan's brother never wanted to be a suit her father trained someone who was interested. Before he died, Jordan's father asked Davis to look after the two things he cared about most: the company and his daughter. Jordan left Davis at the altar, but the company was doing great. Davis said it was easy to focus on work once Jordan walked out of his life it was all he had left. He gave her a necklace her father had left behind, an heirloom with the family symbol. Jordan didn't waste any time telling him how much she changed. One look at Davis and you knew his feelings hadn't changed any. Couldn't blame him. Even before Jordan became who she is today I know she couldn't be easy to forget. There aren't many women as strong as she is. Found a tape in the vault too. Played it. It was of Jordan's father presenting her with the necklace. He said the jewel had been worn by five generations of Radcliffe women and that, with it around her neck she'd "always have the legacy at her grasp." It fit the quatrain. Jordan would be crushed. And Davis had another surprise for his ex. He had a great offer on the company and was looking to sell it off. He'd been waiting for Jordan long enough, she'd had time to mourn. He wanted to get back to his life, and he wanted Jordan to join him for the ride. Things get a little fuzzy here. We'd had a contingency plan in place. Find out what we could and get out of the mansion. But Jordan had missed our meeting time, so I had to go in. Been a while since I put on a tux. Time to break it out. Found Jordan in the party but she didn't have a clue who I was. Eddie thought she might have been maintaining her cover but I could see it in her eyes this wasn't the Jordan I'd been fighting beside all these months. Something was different. Heard a conversation between Davis and Keenan. Davis was ticked; Jordan wasn't willing to go along with any of his plans. Keenan told him to give it time, told Davis "the process" seems to have worked. They'd done something to Jordan, I just didn't know what. Ran into Sabrina downstairs, pumped her for info on Davis. She gave me the basics: Davis was the golden boy who wasn't about to give up on his girl. Sweet-talked "Jordan" into giving me a dance. Told her something happened to my "friend" when we got to the party. Told her that I was worried about this friend. Again, no recognition. And then Davis spirited her away. Talked Keenan into doing some tequila shots, figured the salt might work as a Gua test. Baited him with talk of my concern for Jordan, we moved into another room for some privacy. That's when I tried the hard sell. Keenan said they'd used some form of psychological therapy to extract painful memories from Jordan's brain a kind of retrograde amnesia. A group of doctors were running the experiment. Far as I could tell Keenan wasn't Gua. Cut him lose and hit the party again. Jordan and Davis were giving a toast and announcing the sale of Radcliffe Enterprises to Keenan and his wife Tara Barton. But that wasn't the worst of it. Davis had some other plans in mind as well. He and Jordan toasted their new engagement. Jordan was getting married. Things were out of control and I was about to lose my partner. No way this could get any worse. But it did. Sabrina had an announcement of her own. She knew who I really was. And she couldn't wait to tell the world about Cade Foster.
Quatrain 22, Century 4. "When twice three years and twice again, find secret skill in darkest hour. "Tween Blessed and Cursed a Third will come, or world's consumed in battle's fire." Nightmares. They were stealing my rest. Making it impossible for me to sleep. In them, I'm twelve years old, in a white room, strapped to a chair and there's a man there. He gives me a gun, commands me to shoot. I do it. And then I wake up. And I'm terrified. Don't even like to admit it. But Jordan and Eddie were noticing and thought I needed help. Didn't want me becoming a liability in the fight. Eddie keyed into the quatrain, thought Nostradamus was talking about me all those years ago. Even if the prophet was right I figured the news was about sixteen years too late. Jordan disagreed. Mentioned a Raven Nation regression therapist, thought I should check him out - he could take me back, help me relive my past. But my childhood wasn't any picnic - and living it once was enough. Wanted to let it go but the team wouldn't let me - it was one of the lines in the quatrain -- "find secret skill in darkest hour." As much as I hated the idea it looked like I was going to have go back to my past and relive some dark moments. If I did, maybe we'd finally find the edge we need to win the war. Got me thinking about my father. My real father, the one who died in combat. My mother always yearned for him. Came home one day to find her staring at his picture, just like any day. She always told me "he was brave and died so that others could live." She told me I was just like him. And then Ned came in and ruined the moment, again, just like any day of my life then. Ned was my stepfather. A poor excuse for a person, a drunk, a nobody -- and he knew that's what I thought of him. He was always goading me, wanting me to take a shot at him. Who does that to a kid? People like Ned do. He fostered my anger. Made me want to kill him. It was like watching him kick the hell out of my life all over again so I woke up. I was in "regression therapy" with Jordan and Tyler Greer, her RN Doc. I'd already had enough. Jordan wanted me to give it another chance but I wasn't buying. My mother and Ned weren't in the dream - they had nothing to do with this. I took off. The nightmares continued. This time my mother was there, with a hole in her head. I was being tortured, my mother was being beaten. It was worse than before. Quatrain or no quatrain it looked like I was gonna need more "help." Greer explained that nightmares weren't random, that they were triggered by traumatic events in our life that we couldn't face. The answer to what my mind was trying to tell me lay somewhere in a twelve-year old me. I was back on the couch, regressing again. Ned was there, Mom. But it wasn't real, this hadn't happened. The memory was too good. Greer said I was using my memory "creatively" to create walls and hide a painful truth. That's what was happening in the real world, but inside my head the truth was crashing down all around my mom and I. She was going to the hospital and I promised to stay with Ned until she got back. Too bad that wasn't gonna happen. Ned had sold me to some experiment, told me I was gonna earn my keep around there. The man who was there to take me away was a scientist, a guy named Rook who promised I'd be back before my mom returned. Rook's flunkie handed Ned a wad of cash and they grabbed me, so I fought back. And that's when I saw the truth for the first time. I cut the flunkie and he healed right before my eyes. He was Gua. Ned had sold me to the Gua. Eddie did a search. A Dr. Rook never existed but he'd found something else. There were a lot of missing kids in the Chicago area at the exact time this stuff would have been happening. They were almost all found a day or two after they'd disappeared, but none of them remembered where they'd been. And they had social problems when they got back - were in and out of hospitals, committed suicide. And Eddie thought I was one of 'em. All of these kids' fathers had died in the war and all of them were 12 years old. I was furious. It didn't make sense, the Gua had started messing with my life only a few years ago. How could I have been a test subject all this time? Greer thought the Gua had found some way to block the memory. That only made it worse. As lousy as my memories had been at least they were mine. I owned my crappy childhood. Now I find out the Gua had been there too. Their manipulations never seemed to end. I needed to know why. But there was a wall in my mind. And every time I hit it I'd plunge back into reality. Greer said we had to be more aggressive to get to the suppressed memory. He'd have to put me directly into the white room. Bypass the blocks. Told him to do it. And it almost killed me. Saw my first Gua flash alien and I went into cardiac arrest. I was trapped in my own brain, in these first memories of the Gua. And it didn't look like I was ever coming back.
Quatrain 17, Century 4. "Through the ancient north it shall pass, ship to ship the power of powers. All strength to those who unearth it, joined together will earth itself be consumed." A Gua intelligence communiquθ intercepted by the Raven Nation mentioned an all-powerful weapon the Gua have spent years searching for, and now we were close to finding it. A search of archeological dig sites turned up an excavation of a Viking settlement in Nova Scotia. Crossing the border into Canada was a risk, but one I was willing to take. The dig was stationed out of a bus graveyard. Yesterday's settlement was today's dump. I had to go in low profile - this time posing as Clyde the tow truck driver who wandered into the wrong place. But that's why I have Eddie and Jordan. Eddie posed as a big-shot archeologist named Dr. Charles Channing. His partner in the dig would be a man who made searching for "The Hammer of Thor" his life's ambition an uptight, hefty guy named Dr. Samuel Spiedel. Jordan was Jane, the trusty archeological student. Could this hammer be the weapon the Gua were searching for? Seemed unlikely. But somehow the two were linked. Even Eddie was skeptical. Called the hammer the "golden fleece" or the "holy grail." He said there was a reason these things were still myths and it was because they didn't exist. Guess Eddie figured if a Paranoid hadn't exposed them yet there wasn't anything worth exposing. Besides the Gua had only been interested in earth since the 1940's, Eddie didn't want to think they'd been around since the Vikings. Jordan told him to chill out, thought Eddie needed to live and learn. With my team as my eyes and ears, and also to create a diversion, I was able to sneak into the dig's main tent. And what I found made this puzzle all the more confusing an ancient hammer in a silver lock box. Didn't have time to investigate any further. Jordan saw the dig chief Bishop and his heavy henchman Ash reacting to something with alarm and I had to get out of there. But the goons were onto me, and they had guns. And then I was gone. In one giant flash an otherworldly portal opened up and pulled me through ... THAT'S WHERE I'll PICK UP THE STORY. Jordan here. What happened to Cade was a mystery for both Eddie and I right after the chase. We'd lost contact with him, gunfire and static. But I wanted to keep it cool. Sure, my first impulse is to go in with my biggest guns hefted high but something told me that was the wrong way to go this time at least. I started my own investigation, kept up the "Jane" persona. Until I saw Bishop making contact with Mabus online. Eddie's worst fears were confirmed. And truthfully, so were mine. The "Hammer of Thor" was named by humans, but it turned out to be alien. Over the communicator Mabus foreshadowed it's devastating effects saying that thunder was an appropriate link to the shattering effects of the weapon. It was definitely the weapon the Gua wanted a power of powers. I figured it was time to call in my people the Raven Nation. We hadn't heard anything from Foster and Eddie was going nuts. I alerted the nearest team but it would take them some time to get to us. Until then, Eddie and I were it. We had to get the weapon and get the hell out of there before Bishop was able to deliver our destruction to his slimy leader. Eddie was picking up some wild electromagnetic activity of the quantum pocket variety. But that's when Ash and Bishop exposed us. Or thought they had. The Gua knew they didn't have the real Dr. Channing in their midst but they couldn't peg him as Cade's closest ally. And my cover was still a lock. Eddie was tied up in the tent when Spiedel uncovered what looked to be the real deal the mystical Hammer of Thor. But when we uncovered it and flashed a light on it the whole world seemed to open up a portal of energy, unlike anything we'd ever seen. Cade was inside, and he looked like a ghost. He called out to me but couldn't see me at all. He was pale, fading. He sounded as if he were in pain. I wanted to plunge right in and grab him out. But I knew if Cade and I were out of play the Gua would have their weapon and it would be game over. Cade wouldn't have wanted it that way and neither did I. I'd have to save him later. We couldn't do anything until the weapon was safely in Raven Nation hands. Eddie was loose. And he said he had the hammer. But as far as I knew Spiedel had run off with it when the portal opened. That's when it all finally clicked. The Hammer had been split into two parts. Cade thought he's found it earlier but all he'd found was one half. Now Eddie had the other. "_joined together will earth itself be consumed." It fit the Quatrain. The Gua hadn't won yet, they needed to join the two halves of the hammer to make it work. I needed Eddie to work on the half he had, figure out what made the thing work. It was our only chance at getting Cade back safely and I wanted Foster here for the final fight. Eddie wasn't too pleased, told me he'd need time and quiet to figure out a piece of alien technology and the Gua were crawling all over the place. Screw the Gua. Now this was between me and them. And you all know how this girl feels about aliens. They were gonna wish they never set foot on my side of the galaxy.
Quatrain 15, Century 5. "The message precedes the messenger, a sudden link to darkness. Betwixt the glare and the chasm, the child is freed with shadows behind." The Paranoid Times gets thousands of hits a week, all from the growing contingent of believers who know that aliens threaten our world. Most of these e-mails voice support, but when one tipped us to a Gua bomb set outside a United States Federal Office, we had to check it out. That e-mail saved hundreds of human lives, but who sent it? A disgruntled alien, a human with knowledge of Gua plans? The e-mail was traced to a residential address. With backup courtesy of Jordan's Raven Nation, I set out to see if our mysterious cyber-tipper was truly a friend ... or possibly a foe. Posing as Timothy Murray, a Compustar Internet Service employee I met Anne Berman, Aunt and guardian to Emily the intense little girl who lived at the house and the only one to ever use the computer. Made no headway, Anne said Emily was sick and she wasn't interested in the computer problems she sent me away. Back at the trailer I asked Eddie if there was any way the kid could have sent the plans to him. Eddie was emphatic, he knew all about child prodigies but there was no way any kid could have sent such a complex schematic of an alien bomb. Far as we knew, Emily was the only one using the computer and Eddie's research indicated said no one had piggybacked the message. It came from that household unit. Research into her school records proved the kid was a genius for sure, but she was having social problems lately. It gave us our shot this time it was Jordan who was going in. Using a home-study program Emily's school had implemented for emotionally troubled students Jordan went undercover as Helen Lesco, a representative of the school. Got the details on Emily's recent past. Emily had lost her parents in a car accident the year before, Jordan could relate to the loss but couldn't imagine how difficult it could be on a nine-year-old. Anne said Emily had been doing well for a while, but then started getting into fights, slacking on her schoolwork. And she'd been having seizures, visions of some horrible nightmare. She was dying, her white cell count diminishing daily the doctors gave the little girl two months. When Jordan first met Emily she didn't know what to make of her. The kid was hostile, detached, until she told Anne that Jordan wasn't who she claimed to be and started chanting "Stay away!" That's when things got really weird. The world started shaking and Emily collapsed telling Jordan "He says we're all gonna die!" Jordan asked her who says that? Emily's answer sent chills down all our spines. She said it was "Mabus." Far as we could tell Emily was human and so were her parents and Anne. We'd met psychics who could connect with the Gua before, so why not this kid? If it was true she was all too valuable though I still had trouble believing the key to ending the invasion rested with a nine-year-old girl. While Eddie and I wrestled with this puzzle Jordan tried to reach Emily. Told her about her own troubled past. Emily didn't remember sending the e-mail, but she did say that sometimes she would play on the computer and then couldn't remember anything. And she also said when she was with Mabus it was scary -- they were in a long hallway with a bright light like the way people talk about heaven. And the kid knew this place wasn't heaven. Emily was afraid of the light, she said if she touched it, she would die. With Jordan, Emily and Anne out of the house Eddie and I did some recon. Emily was inserting a symbol in all of her drawings, it seemed familiar to Eddie, but he didn't know where he'd seen it yet. Emily and Jordan were establishing a strong relationship, I could tell Jordan was starting to care for the kid. Emily even told Jordan how much she liked her back. Then Emily had another vision. The whole park was suddenly shaking, wind howling. If we were gonna help Emily we'd have to do it fast. The seizures were getting worse. In the meantime Eddie had tracked down the icon. It was a "Vahnas" symbol, iconography from a 1600's Hindu cult. It involved a psychic link between two people that allowed the linked minds to meet in a "netherworld" of sorts. The ritual was extremely debilitating, often resulting in the death of one or both of the participants handily severing the link for good. Figured it was why Emily was dying. But we were still missing something, and had no idea what it could be. At the Berman house Anne wasn't taking Jordan's truth too well. And Emily was having another "seizure." Anne grabbed Emily during the episode this time, and she saw Mabus. He told her "the target of destruction will be struck again." It meant there was another bomb. We could have used more info but Jordan didn't want to push Emily too hard and she couldn't let her die. Mabus was preying on a kid this time. Jordan swore to make the alien leader pay for what he was doing to Emily. And I was determined to make sure it was his biggest mistake yet.
A faction of Gua generals, working with Joshua, seek Foster's help in a plot to assasinate Mabus. ----- The prophet Nostradamus has foretold the arrival of an alien antichrist who will bring about the apocalypse. He calls himself Mabus, and he's out there right now ... somewhere. The prophecies of Nostradamus guide us and help us fight the Gua, but we have yet to get close to Mabus, we have yet to strike a blow that will stop the impending invasion. Until then, we prepare. Call it a crisis of faith. Eddie was desperately searching the quatrains, trying to get us closer to Mabus but we were running out of angles. Jordan tried to bolster my spirits - told me our plan was working. We would continue to take the Gua down one by one, each step bringing us closer to finding the Guahead. Jordan believed we were gonna get him and win the war. While sifting through quatrains, Eddie received an encrypted message from Joshua requesting a meeting to discuss Mabus. He wanted me to come alone. Eddie seemed to think the message was genuine, Joshua had used the encryption code before. Jordan thought I was nuts, the Gua were onto me, to take a risk like this was suicidal. Figured this could've been the break we were looking for. No matter how strained things had become between Joshua and I, this was an opportunity I wasn't gonna turn down. Joshua said he'd be alone, but when we rendezvoused in the desert he had two Gua snipers pinned on me, didn't matter, 'cause Jordan had my back. Joshua said I was vital to a plan the Gua snipers, Allegra and Steven, had proposed to him - a plan to assassinate Mabus. Jordan rigged me with a Raven Nation satellite tracking device - shot the sucker right into my shoulder - hurt like hell. Eddie was freaking out - he didn't like the risk, wanted me to take backup. We didn't have a choice - Mabus had been our focus for months and the Gua assassins had insisted that I join them alone -- this was do or die. Allegra took me into the camp. The Gua had a hundred thousand acres of desert to use as training ground - they got it from the government. They were training to take us down right under our noses - and Uncle Sam was helping. In our first official meeting Steven made his feelings clear - we had a common goal to kill Mabus, we weren't there for any reconciliation - as far as he was concerned humans were scum. Told him I felt the same way about aliens. Moved into a briefing where I was told the Gua still hadn't developed a husk strong enough to hold Mabus' consciousness for more than a few weeks, their leader had to spend the bulk of his time in an incubation unit to slow down the accelerated decomposition of his human body - we were gonna use that to our advantage. Each of us had skills suited to the mission -- as Adjunct General, Steven had free passage into the bunker, he would arrive early to occupy the Guahead and disable his last line of defense. Allegra had thorough knowledge of the bunker's defenses. Joshua was a weapons specialist and skilled Acolyte assassin - he would provide cover as we blitzed the corridor leading to Mabus' chamber. And then there was me, "one-one-seven," I'd provide a decoy as they approached the unit - and I'd get to fire the first, and hopefully last, shot. They wanted me to kill Mabus. Gave me a special gun, developed in a Gua lab. It used a charge that should destroy husk and consciousness - but they couldn't be sure and couldn't risk his surviving the attack. Joshua said no one truly knew how strong Mabus was - and he wasn't any ordinary Gua. Something didn't fit. These guys were all Gua soldiers, all had access to Mabus - so why the hell did they need me? Steven's answer seemed to make sense. If Mabus were killed by a Gua it could start a civil war at home, but if he were killed by a human it would raise questions about the viability of the Gua's invasion of earth. Steven didn't like the situation but said we needed each other. I disagreed - we were using each other. Cornered Joshua, asked some questions about Steven. Joshua said Steven spills blood like water and had led the Gua to victory before -- his ambition was boundless. Allegra collected state secrets like jewelry, she'd seduced several American and international officials. I didn't trust any of them. Not even Joshua, though he assured me that I could count on him. After what went down since I got him out of that quantum-pocket prison I couldn't be sure. Used to believe Joshua had some regard for human life, now I questioned that belief. The Gua team had a high-tech simulator just like the one Harley and I ran into last year. We ran the plan and we failed -- the entire assassination team was killed in a hail of gunfire from a Gua guard. Steven was pissed. No way was this gonna work if we couldn't act as a team. And in the real world there would be no second chances. Tensions were on the rise and Allegra had a real jones to take me out. She talked about a Gua prophecy, said she didn't believe I was the one it spoke of. Joshua explained that the Gua had prophets like Nostradamus, they called them Harbingers - with powers far beyond that of the normal species. The first was Medak, a philosopher the Gua once revered. The last was Mabus. The prophecy said that if Mabus was killed by the "chosen human hand" this invasion would end. Both Joshua and Steven believed I could be the "chosen one" their prophecy spoke of. Now they worried that my prior knowledge of that same prophecy could invalidate it. I told them not to worry. I was gonna kill Mabus ... whether he knew I was coming or not.
Quatrain 28, Century 3. "Tainted streams flow into fields of stone / As the vanguard rises from hope / On the path of least obstruction / The evil one is crowned." An operative for the Raven Nation, Alana MacAfee, disappeared while investigating an anonymous posting to the Web site. It claimed that the aliens were active in the small mining town of Hope, Montana. Could've been the "hope" mentioned in the quatrain. Always wanted to see Big Sky country. Alana was one of Jordan's soldiers, so she was taking this personally. We decided to make the infiltration a team effort. Jordan set off to check out a local motel, questioned the clerk there, a woman named Sheryl Nelson. Told Sheryl we were a couple and were supposed to be hooking up with Alana to drive to Bozeman together later that day. Sheryl told us Alana had already checked out. Jordan was antsy, hadn't heard from Alana in three days but knew her agent had been onto something when they last talked. I told her how a cop had tailed me into town these days I call attention to anything we do. Didn't want to leave Jordan behind but figured I might not have a choice. That's when a sergeant named Cobb tracked me to the motel. Some shaving cream and glasses made it impossible for Cobb to make a positive I.D. He seemed to buy our story but we weren't out of the woods yet. Best lead we had so far was to search for Alana's car, Sheryl provided us with the make and model. At the towing company we met Jim, a weathered townie who claimed he'd never seen Alana or her vehicle. Hope seemed like a nice enough place but so far I had no idea what the Gua would want with it. Jordan knew Alana, trusted her, and if a Raven Nation op said this was worth checking out, then as far as Jordan was concerned we'd find something. The quatrain mentioned a "vanguard," troops that move at the head of an army. Having met the citizens of Hope, it just didn't add up. These were simple people, not soldiers, and definitely not aliens. The cops found Alana's car pitched into a ravine. While Cobb was distracted, Jordan checked out the body. It was Alana her face nearly burned off. Car hadn't caught fire, no skid marks on the pavement. The entire accident site seemed staged. Eddie checked out a roll of film I lifted from Alana's car. Far as he could tell, the prints had been exposed right through their protective canister by some kind of radiation or x-rays. And they'd all been exposed at once from some kind of blast. We figured that was how Alana's face got burned. The pictures looked like fragments of a whole, turns out that's exactly what we had. Put the prints together and they made what looked like a monster. Something large, looming. Something not human. Hope's main business was the HMC. Hope Mining Corporation. Jordan and I broke in, but it was too easy. There was no one working there in the middle of the day. The place was practically deserted. Investigation of the files showed no major production at the facility since 1988. We were stumped. No tourists, no exports. How were people in Hope surviving? Cops showed up and we were on the move until we ran into Jim. He held a gun on us and bagged our heads. He knew about my alleged crimes, told him I was innocent. He didn't care, just wanted us to get out of town. But we wanted answers. Turned Jim's gun on him and told him to start talking. He confessed to putting Alana's car in the ditch, said she was already dead when he found her. Then he said what was going on in Hope was wrong, and that nobody there wanted anyone else to know about it. Jordan put it together, realized Jim put the anonymous tip on the Web site. He admitted that too. Said Alana had been snooping around the "watcher's fields." We wanted to know what happened there. Jim said "they" were forming some kind of army, getting ready, and then he was cut off by a shot in the back. We were under fire, took cover. And Jim was dead. But right before he passed he told us we shouldn't be looking under, but rather over. Jim was gone. But he didn't dissolve. We still hadn't seen any aliens in Hope but we knew they were there. Or maybe this was something more? Something we hadn't seen before? Were the people of hope working with the aliens? And if they were, did they know what they were sacrificing? Felt like this was gonna be a different fight. This time it wasn't man vs. alien, it looked like it was man vs. man. And I'm not about to tolerate any traitors in this fight.
Quatrain 72, Century 5. "Hallowed eyes burn through the line to the fifth in colonies of old. Malevolence awaits a perfect division, as four makes five for apocalypse." A killer struck twice in New England recently, a place Eddie and I took for Nostradamus' "colonies of old." The police did their best to keep details confidential but reports leaked. The victims were said to have their eyes burned out of their skulls. Malevolence could be a reference to Mabus. Suspected the killer could have been Gua. Could the murders have something to do with the coming apocalypse? Cops had turned up short on leads. Couldn't stop me from starting my own investigation. Posing as Lafayette County, Field Evidence Tech "Fozen" I checked out the second crime scene, claimed the detectives on the case needed some new angles on the clues. Up on the ceiling near the pipes I found a strange symbol Ι could've been written in blood. Wasn't the only one working the case for our side. Eddie was at the local police station "confessing" to the murders, claiming to be "kill crazy." He told the cops the aliens were the reason for his killing. They weren't buying. Didn't matter, all Eddie really wanted was to hook up to the cops' computer to get the inside info from the Metro Police files. There was only one suspect - and he looked a lot like Joshua. Eddie figured our alien ally had lost it after I pulled him out of the alien prison - was on a spree-killing. I knew Joshua better than that, if he was anywhere near the killings it meant they had something to do with the invasion. There were two victims - cops hadn't found any connection, didn't mean there wasn't one. Broke into the coroners office, figured the report might have some more info. Wanted to inspect the body. Those rumors weren't rumors at all - the victims eyes were charred away. And the killer had struck again. New crime scene had footprints burned into the ground, saw the same thing at the first location. Victim's eyes were gone and the cops logged another symbol. But I wasn't the only one checking this out. Joshua was there too. Questioned him. He wanted me to stay out of it, didn't think he owed me a thing. Once I pulled a gun he gave up what I already expected -- the killer was Gua, but not like anything I'd ever seen. Joshua wasn't intimidated by the weapon, he turned the level up, got in my face. Warned me that guns wouldn't help me against this enemy. Joshua seemed different, more angry, more intense. He walked away. Checked out one of the victim's homes - Chandler Evans, met his sweet widow. Mrs. Evans said Chandler had complained of a headache the night he died - that he seemed scared. And she never saw him again. Noticed something odd in the house. Chandler had been painting pictures, the same thing over and over - a road in the woods, with a marker for "Mile 9." Mrs. Evans never understood what it meant. All three of the victims had an odd birthmark on their neck - we knew it couldn't be a coincidence. Eddie'd checked back for generations, but there was no connection between the victims. Told him to go further. We both knew there was nothing random about these killings. Not if the Gua were involved. And then it all made sense. Eddie was running a computer program to trace geneoligies in both the USA and Europe - he found the connection. Michele de Nostredame. The Gua were knocking off our prophet's living descendents. "Four makes five for the apocalypse." That meant that there were two left in the Nostradamus blood line. This was huge. If these people inherited any of Nostradamus' ability the Gua could be facing a modern-day psychic. And he or she would make an ally that could turn the tide. Found the location from Chandler Evans' drawing -- not a pretty scene. The killer had tied the fourth victim to a tree, the killer was on fire. Shot him in the chest, but didn't even make a dent. He got out of there fast. Joshua was there too, and this time he was ready to talk. Told me the fire that this Gua creates is focused and intense. The killer wears an amulet around his neck to control the flames - an accelerator that converts matter to energy such as fire. Joshua told me that the Gua believe they are born of flames and that fire is the purest state if being. The symbols represent the moons that orbit the Gua home world, each sacrifice is said to bring power to the killer. Didn't make sense, why was Joshua suddenly sharing? He told me it was clear that I'd figured out why the killer was choosing his victims, and Joshua wanted the name of the final descendent. But I wasn't giving up the name without something else. Wanted to know what the symbols really meant. Joshua wanted the name so he gave it up. Said the Gua had faced this kind of killing before, in a dark time for his people. Sacrifices, tortures, rituals, a single, sick ruler took control then -- Mabus. If the Guahead was to consume the power of Nostadamus' family line he could gain the power of the prophet - Joshua said that Gua wars had been won by stealing visions. When the final descendent was dead, Mabus would end the killer's life with the same ritual and take Nostadamus' visions for himself. Joshua believed he was the only one who could stop Mabus. Too bad. That job's mine.
Quatrain 92, Century 8. "The mighty shall be laid low, impaled on the fine honed sword of truth. A voice of justice is stilled, as nightmares take earthly form." Judge Carlton Levy was a respected district court judge for 23 years, a true voice of justice before sudden insanity laid him low. Levy had been a regular visitor to the Paranoid Times website, claiming to have information about the aliens who've infiltrated this planet. Was the judge really mentally ill, or did his nightmares simply "take the earthly form" of the Gua? Time to go undercover to protect one of our own. Posing as Lukas Johnson, Associate Director of Human Resources down at the court I went to see Carlton's wife. Didn't even need the false I.D., she wasn't interested in talking to me until I mentioned aliens. Told her I wanted to help her husband, that I believed he spoke the truth. Eddie didn't believe that Levy had snapped, felt responsible for one of his readers who'd put his neck on the line for us. Now the Judge was in a high security mental hospital named "Shady Crest." Place was locked down, even to Carlton's wife - no one was getting near Levy for at least 30 days. Except Eddie. Jordan resisted, said this was a field operation, too risky and difficult for Eddie to handle. It pissed Eddie off. Eddie said the Judge was a believer - we didn't have a choice. To get himself noticed by the Docs at Shady Crest, Eddie tried to take over a post office "run by aliens." It worked. Inside he met the Chief shrink of the facility - Dr. Zahn and his nasty staff of orderlies. They held Eddie down and drugged him. Then it was time for group. In the common room Eddie met Mary, a blonde nympho, and Lorenzo, a smarmy little guy who thought everyone was an alien. He also found Levy staring blankly out a window as if no one were home. When Eddie pushed the Judge to talk Levy went ballistic - attacking Eddie and trying to choke him to death. That's when Eddie met Orderly Coogin, who wasn't pleased that Eddie had upset the Judge. Coogin wasn't a nice guy. Strike one. That night, Mary crawled into bed with Eddie - said she didn't think he was an alien but that she did think he was cute. Wasn't easy, but Eddie gave Mary the boot - sent her on her way. He also lifted Coogin's pass key from the blonde - headed out to do some investigating of his own. Once free, Eddie called Jordan and I, wanted to upload some files but he got cut off. Eddie claims a hand reached out of the computer screen and started choking him to death. Sounded like a hallucination - sounded like the work of the Gua. Jordan wanted to move in, felt Eddie needed back up. Eddie believed he could pull this off on his own, we had to give him the chance. Checked out some of the files Eddie uploaded. A couple of the names sounded familiar - and they were all influential. Worth checking out. Inside, Zahn was drugging Eddie again. Told him if Eddie were to get well, they really needed to create a "partnership." Eddie would have to want Zahn's help. But who was the Doc really? Eddie's bet was Gua. Back at the trailer, Jordan and I had discovered all of the influential names in the patient files Eddie had uploaded had gone crazy right before they were about to reveal some information - usually of the top-secret kind. And they all had something to do with a "Project Blacklight." I'd never heard of it, but was betting the Docs at Shady Crest had. Eddie was trying to get through to Levy again. Told the Judge he understood why he was afraid, how when they talked about the aliens, certain "visions" took over. Levy indicated that Eddie was right, but couldn't say a word - he was scared. Eddie told the Judge he had a way to get them out, Carlton should meet him in the bunk room later. Judge wasn't gonna make it. Eddie found him hanged. Another Gua victim. Coogin and Co. found Eddie with the Judge's lifeless body so Eddie beat-it outta there. Had another hallucination, this one worse than the rest. Found a room full of unmoving patients - who then taunted him incessantly. Telling Eddie he was crazy for real. It pretty much broke my buddy. I hated waiting on the side-lines. Was ready to go in. Jordan and I busted into the Judge's office - searching for anything about "Project Black Light." Had a near miss with a clerk. Jordan distracted him and I found an unmarked cell phone. Hit redial - guess who answered? Someone who knew about the Gua. Someone who wanted me to "come in" to talk about the aliens. It was a trap. No doubt. But whoever was out there was gunning for believers. And no way was I gonna let that happen. Eddie'd be on his own for a little while longer. I had an alien to catch.
"Quatrain 77, Century 9. Redemption is offered by a woman of scarlet, for the twice bless'd to seek out. Enter the belly of the beast and become one." There's no more reason to hide. The ruse is over. The way I see it, we didn't have a choice. Eddie received a computer tip from a user known only as "Red." She said she knew about the Gua and that she'd found the true file on Hannah's murder and that the ones read at my trial were a fake. Traced the e-mail to a PD in Chicago, I had no choice but to go undercover. A convicted killer walking into a cop station sounds crazy, especially for a "dead" convicted killer. If I was recognized it would be feeding time at the zoo. I'm writing this now, so you know that's happened. But I couldn't stay away, the prize was just too huge. There was a secretary in Operations with red hair who hadn't been seen for a few days - she was our best lead. I had a few things going for me there, since the assassination of my clone on live TV the cops weren't looking for me anymore. The heat was off. The other was Jordan, our new ally. She infiltrated along with me - posing as clerical support. With her watching my back, at least I wasn't alone in the belly of the beast. The plan was to be in and out within an hour. Posing as Officer Jeff Thompson, transferring over from the 18th Precinct, I quickly started scanning personnel files, until I was caught-in-the-act by Sergeant Cznoffsky - who didn't have a clue who I was and why I was rooting through his files. Fortunately Eddie was on top of it - sending in a quick dummy "transfer" file via some first class hacking. Eddie made Jeff sound like a nightmare so they'd put me in a nice, low-profile desk job. I just didn't expect it to be in Homicide. The Sarge boasted how the guys in Homicide had broken some of the most famous murder cases in Chicago. What he didn't know is just how familiar I was with these goons. Asked about "Red," Cznoffsky figured I was talking about the secretary named Emma, who had a thing for sex in the workplace. Emma's rep was known throughout the precinct - she'd taken most of the cops on the force down to the evidence room for tricks. The Sarge figured she got fired for leaving marks. Seems the wives didn't appreciate Emma's idea of overtime. And then I met Detective Gavin, my superior in the Homicide department. Gavin was said to be a hard nose - the kind of guy who took the fun at of being a cop. And of course he said he recognized me, he just didn't know from where yet. I knew I had to get out of there fast. Disguised or not, the heat was already building. Eddie said the records he sent over wouldn't hold up long but the quatrain said that red would offer redemption. And that could be the key to us getting some serious public recognition - to exposing the Gua. I wasn't leaving. Jordan hadn't found much in Emma's desk - everything had been erased. But she did lift a paper with a bunch of odd scratches on it - the letters MAB. Mabus, newly arrived leader of the Gua. There were aliens in the precinct. It was the only answer. And here we were worrying about cops. Ran into Gavin in the hallway with Jordan. He offered me a plastic file and then took off with it. Jordan and I knew it right off - I'd just been fingerprinted. We had even less time than I thought. We headed for the evidence room. I'd been thinking about Emma, Jordan figured her for a nympho, but I knew better. Emma wasn't kinky, she was scratching the cops as a test - trying to figure out if they would heal. Trying to see if they were alien. We slipped the Evidence Room guard a twenty and told him Jordan was a friend of Emma's - a little nudge got him to shut off the surveillance camera but we still had to make it sound real. Between moans I figured out what Emma was trying to tell Eddie in her message before she was cut off - she wasn't talking about dead people, she was talking about dead files - unsolved cases. That's where we found Hannah's file. It was like living the nightmare all over again.
Quatrain 73, Century 6: "A daughter of war meets the gallows when darkness' spirit takes flight. In the land of the Eye of the Stag, savior and devil come together as one." Even though I'm flying the Airstream solo these days I promised to keep up Foster's fight. So I'm doing the usual, scanning the quatrains and looking for matches in the real world. Thought the "Eye of the Stag" sounded like Ohio, the Buckeye State. So I checked for odd stories in the place that's "round on the ends and hi in the middle." Came up with a girl named Lindsay Tilden, a cheerleader facing the death penalty for murdering her dad, Alistaire. Death penalty. Gallows. The clues were adding up. Spicing up the pot was the fact that Lindsay's late Dad worked for Rocom Industries, a high tech weapons design firm and prime target for the Gua. Could Lindsay be the "daughter of war" the Big N had mentioned? All signs pointed that way. So it was Eddie to the rescue. Solo. Or so I thought. Posing as Jack Reynolds from the North American Liberties Union I had a tκte-ΰ-tκte with young Lindsay. She insisted she was innocent, couldn't remember a thing about the moment of murder except finding her dad dead. I asked her about projects Alistaire might have been working on at work. Anything unusual. Lindsay just said that her dad didn't talk about work much. And she was afraid to die. A psycho killer named Lanning was about to be executed in Lindsay's prison. The chick was terrified. I know it's a crazy world, kids popping each other, their parents, classmates every chance they get. But something about Lindsay made me believe her. I wanted to prove her innocence. Rocom was a no-go, they had firewalls and all kinds of junk to keep a hacker at bay. So I figured I had to do the next best thing - I headed over to Lindsay's place and did a little "B & E" as Foster used to say. And that's when I met the person we've all been waiting to hear about. Jordan - leader of the Raven Nation. Details notwithstanding, let's just say Jordan wasn't on Team Nambulous just yet. She does things her own way. We've made contact, and stuff went down but I can't talk about it here just yet. It's a story for another day and one I promise to tell. In the here and now however we decided to share some info, got to know some of Alistaire's fellow science buds through files in his home office. I figured checking out the people who knew Lindsay's dad was a good idea. Jordan wanted to tag along. As we were prepping to bail Casa Tilden we heard a whistling coming up the steps - it was "London Bridge." The fella who caught Jordan and I in the dark gave us a whacked stare and took off, running right into a moving car on the street. The guy grabbed at the driver and she just took off, laughing as she drove away. And that's when things got really weird. The guy had no idea where he was. Total blackout. And Jordan and I believed him. Just like Lindsay. Back at the trailer we got to thinking - could what we have witnessed been the some kind of Gua consciousness transfer? It freaked me way out. The Gua have a special process for that transfer - if they could just start jumping body to body -- through touch, well the ramifications for all of us here on earth were huge. Invasion would be that much easier. Not something we wanted to consider. Jordan and I decided to split up - start checking out the scientists from Rocom. She was gonna take some Raven Nation operatives to Susan Wilson's and we were gonna hit a guy named Francis Jeffries. Both checks turned up nothing, but we did find some info that would send us to where Susan may have been hiding. Headed to a camp ground in the Lakes area where I had a run-in with the body-jumping Gua. We had a knock down, drag out fight and he high- tailed it but not before Jordan tried to kill him, which I couldn't let her do. As far as we could tell, this Gua was using innocent human hosts to get around -- people with lives. Jordan figured he was a major threat, and if one human had to die to stop him so be it - I wasn't so sure. We butted heads over the issue (and if you could see Jordan, you wouldn't mind butting heads with her - that's for sure). She wasn't too pleased with me, and the Gua was still on the loose. We'd have to argue ideologies later. Jordan found Susan and the woman was terrified. She verified our worst fears. The man named Francis Jeffries was a Gua. And the device they'd been working on at Rocom, something they called "the Vessel," provided Jeffries with a way to transfer his consciousness from person to person simply with a touch. Jeffries was searching for the vessel and killing everyone in his way. We needed to stop him. I didn't want to consider the alternative. Foster would have known what to do. Jordan had an idea. This was a race against evil. And God help us if we didn't get there first.
Quatrain 83, Century 7. "The traitor sits in a hidden world, waiting for the man Twice Bless'd. Joined in desperate moments, to push the rock over the peak of time." I believed the traitor Nostradamus spoke of in this quatrain was Joshua, an alien who has helped my cause on numerous occasions. The Gua build hidden worlds known as "quantum pockets" - Eddie's learned to penetrate them. Recently, I busted into a pocket, believed Joshua was to be found there and if he was alive, I had to get him out. Everything in this particular false reality suggested the aliens had been defeated, my wildest dream come to life. But I knew it wasn't real. Out in my world the alien leader named Mabus seeks to enslave humanity. The key to his defeat could be Joshua. Found my sometimes ally in a desperate situation. Joshua believed the aliens had launched a neutrino bomb toward earth - a final desperate move to cover their humiliation at having been defeated by humanity. Joshua had the code to abort the mission and wanted to get to the deactivation site. I had to convince him to come with me instead. But how do you tell a desperate man that his mission isn't real? That it's all an engineered delusion? Knew first hand why Joshua wouldn't listen, guess I was along for the ride. Joshua had a gun on me at first sight. Told him we were in a QP and I was there to get him out. Eddie'd found an exit point and Joshua and I had to be there in exactly 24 minutes or we'd miss it. Joshua believed he had less than 19 minutes to save the earth and whatever Gua remained there from total annihilation. Joshua didn't trust humans. He took off, but human authorities quickly picked him up. Pulled a gun on the "cop"- told him Joshua and I had to be going. The cop knew I wasn't Gua, figured I was worse than alien - because in this world it looked like I was helping the Gua scum escape. There was no second chance out of there. The cop pulled a gun so I shot him. I killed a human copeven in virtual reality it felt wrong Tried to convince Joshua that Mabus was on his way in the real world, that we needed to get out of the pocket and back to the real fight. Joshua didn't buy it, asked me how I didn't know I was the one in the delusional pocket? He reminded me that in a false world I'd believe in a fighting chance and I wouldn't give up either. Again, he had a point. Helped him hot-wire a car and made a deal. I'd help Joshua stop the bomb and then he helps me by getting the hell out of there. He agreed. High speed chase got us away from the authorities and into an abandoned barn. Joshua said it was a regional command post for the western sector before the war. He wanted to find the launch command console for a wormhole and close it before the Gua bomb made it into Earth's air space. The console was in a white room - we had forty seconds. Ran into a Gua following old orders to protect his post. Joshua and I were shot. The bomb was headed this way. It was over. Earth was destroyed. Or was it? That's when things got really confusing. Everything seemed to start over. But this time I was having vague premonitions of what was about to happen. Felt like I was living the moment but not. It was eerie, couldn't explain it, something just wasn't right. At the command center we noticed a flickering monitor outside the white room. In the image, Joshua and I were dead. A Gua entered, we tried to reason with him and this time Joshua was ready for the Gua who shot him before. But we couldn't seem to stop the launch again? And then we were back for more. This time I knew Joshua needed my help right away. Something told me I had to stop the launch or we were never getting out of there. I remembered the quatrain, "joined in desperate moments to push the rock over the peak of time." It was based on the myth of Sisyphus, we were stuck in a loop, trying to accomplish the same objective over and over - repeating time. And Joshua was feeling it too, starting to remember things. He told me he suspected the Gua put him in the pocket intentionally - some warped alien version of a gulag. He suspected it happened during his trial - when he was tortured for helping me and branded a traitor to his own kind. The Empiricists had erased his memory and doomed Joshua to live out his failure for the rest of his days. Again we weren't sure how to get out, but knew we had to stop that launch. And that's when there was a new wrinkle. Something we were sure hadn't happened before. Cain was in the quantum pocket. Wanted to take me in for dissection. Too bad I wasn't up for it. Joshua and I were getting out. And there was no way Cain was gonna stop that.
"Quatrain 88, Century 8. In the arsenal of an emerald city / the smallest of creation becomes great / Horses four will trumpet the end, born on the devil's breath." The Emerald City is Seattle, where a converted armory housed the labs of Vio-Zor, a company that specialized in microbiology. Mabus is the leader of the alien invasion here on earth. If he's the devil referred to in the quatrain, then somehow Vio-Zor plays a part in the Gua's plans for our destruction. Eddie uploaded a computer bug into Vio-Zor's software. I went in to fix the problem, posing as Jay Rollins, a software technician I planned to find out how Vio-Zor might be connected to the aliens. I entered through the airtight seal and met Dr. Kelly, the Program Director of Vio-Zor and her staff, Dr. Jagger and Dr. Samuels. Seems a guy they affectionately referred to as "Tim the Rat-Boy" was missing. It was my first clue that something was up. On our way to the computer lab we passed through a decontamination chamber Kelly claimed was inactive. The chamber was built by the army to handle bio weapons during the Gulf War. It used ultra-violet lamps and anti-viral mist. Got me worried, was I gonna leave this place with a bug I didn't come in with? Kelly brushed it off, said Vio- Zor didn't handle anything stronger than Level Two research strictly benign substances. But I noticed the jets were wet meant they'd been used recently. Things were definitely not what they seemed at Vio-Zor. Kelly left me alone with the computers so naturally I hooked Eddie up to start working his hacker magic. He said the company had links to U.S.A.M.R.I.D. (The U.S. Army Medical Research of Infective Diseases) and the Delta Wing, but he didn't have time to explain what they were. Samuels walked in on the call, started buddying up to me. Told me Dr. Kelly was a renowned Virologist, Ratboy had his rodents and Jagger was into cell-targeting all specialists. Samuels didn't get to tell me his specialty before Kelly dragged him off. That was fine, because I was planning to do some research of my own. Broke into the animal lab and was caught by Kelly. She was jumpy, called Samuels and Jagger down to the lab right away. Didn't appreciate my wandering around unattended. And then she noticed some samples missing. There was no explanation and Kelly wasn't happy about it. Samuels tried to cool her down. And then we found Ratboy. Hidden in a supply closet, all puss and ooze. He looked like his face was being eaten off. Kelly said it looked like a massive viral infection and we had to seal off the building immediately. Samuels went nuts, he had Ratboy's blood on him. Kelly pulled the ripcord we were sealed inside with what I believe could have been a Gua bio-weapon. And we weren't getting out for 12 hours. And there were no guarantees we'd get out at all. Kelly and I went into the decontamination chamber. Had to strip down and throw our stuff in the burn shoot. Kelly said she didn't know anything about bio-weapons or the Delta Wing. Wasn't buying, it just didn't add up. When I asked her about the lockdown she said the facility was built to survive a war and to avoid any kind of viral outbreak. It even had a Level 4 termination factor meaning the Center for Disease Control could monitor us to assess the situation and if necessary, destroy the place to control a lethal contagion. Samuels was in really bad shape. The virus was spreading unnaturally fast and Samuels was suffering. Got Jagger alone and questioned him about the facility. He said the rats were to blame. Called Eddie. He had some info on the Delta Wing. It was a CIA front, specializing in bio weaponry and Vio-Zor was running tests for them. An infectious agent known by the code name "Revelation," was shipped from the Delta Wing's HQ in Maryland to Vio-Zor. "Horses Four" tied into Revelations. This was continuing to add up to something none of us wanted to consider. And now I was beginning to hallucinate. Get angry. So I decided to force some info out of the pretty Doc. She'd received Revelation, was doing the tests for "the good of her country," or so she thought. But I had news for her. The anger, the delusions, someone messed with Revelation. It was airborn now. And we were all infected. How was I gonna get out of this one? Didn't know. But if I didn't the Gua would win. And you know that's something I could never accept.
Things are about to change here on Earth. YOU are the hunted. You are Gua. You don't know me. But I am here. We're all here. You think we're not ready. You think you're smarter. Quicker. Harder. You think yourself superior. Wrong again. We are strong. Stronger than you can possibly know. And you created us. The force that will stop you. The force that will rise up to destroy, not to be destroyed. And we don't just want to send you home. We want you to die. And we want it to HURT. Afraid yet? You should be. There was another who opposed you. Another you created. You know his name. These are his journals. I don't write this for his supporters, I don't write it for those who follow his memory now. Because he will always be one of us. He will always be the man who exposed your evil plans. You called him 117. But he has a name. It's Cade Foster. And his death only strengthens our resolve. I address you here only because I know you will read this. It's what you do. Putting us under a microscope, analyzing and cataloguing our behavior. Studying the every move of humanity. Well now it's your turn. See, we've been watching back. Look over your shoulder. There we are. Can't see us? That's because we don't want you to. Not yet. But you will. And you can bet your ass you're gonna wish you'd never made this move. We all have our own stories. Our own losses at your hands. That's why we address you here. Where our fallen comrade gave voice to our own inarticulate pain. We will fight hard and fast, as he would have wanted Ι even as we grieve the loss of the Twice Bless'd Man. We're Foster's army. The Raven Nation. We're a new breed of warrior. The kind who'll fight fire with fire. You started this, Gua, now we're gonna finish it. We will have no mercy. For years you've been here, ready to obliterate our homes, spreading like a virus. You've been preparing for the Second Wave. To that, the Raven Nation has only one thing to say. Bring it on.
Jordan Radcliffe joins Cade and Eddie to fight the aliens. The Gua make a clone of Cade.
