""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 look

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 dest

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 wa