The aliens try to trick Foster into revealing the location of a lost book of Nostradamus' quatrains. - - -

""Three rivers amidst iron wrought / Barren ground shall be sowed once more / The hunter and hunted are one/ When shadows descend on the twice-blessed man"".

Followed up on an e-mail to this Web site which led me to the iron city of Pittsburgh searching for possible alien activity. I thought Nostradamus' mention of barren ground might have been the Soames medical facility, which had been closed for years – wrong move. Made a mistake this time, a big one.

The cops were after me. Got caught at the facility, chased out. Down a fire escape, over a fence, they weren't messing around, took a bullet in the side. Figured the Gua had probably joined the hunt too. I was running out of time. Had to think fast.

Taking a hostage was a desperate move, knew it would happen some day and dreaded it. Couldn't take any chances. No way I'd make it on foot.

That's how I came to take Lena Hansen hostag

Several teens die from mysterious neurological disorders. - - -

""Here the waters are contained / Nature's course is obstructed / And youth imprisoned by devil's lightning / Whose use shall tame the rival's ardor"".

Crazy Eddie has been recently getting more and more e-mails from visitors to the site. Readers who believe the unbelievable – that the aliens are here to take over our planet.

One of our readers, Robbie Harlock, e-mailed us repeatedly about the bizarre death of Carson McAuliffe during a pool party in a small town in Illinois. The e-mail bore similarity to Quatrain 66, Century 7: ""Where the waters are contained / Nature's course is obstructed / And youth imprisoned by devil's lightening / Whose use shall tame the rival's ardor.""

From previous experiences I knew following up e-mails is a risky business, but I also knew our network of believers is growing so the risk was worth it. That's what brought me to the small town called Normal.

Met Robbie in the woods along the highway

The aliens pursue Eddie at his high-school reunion. - - -

I ain't Foster. But you probably know that right off the bat. That's right, Crazy Eddie here. I talked to Cade about taking over the journal this week seeing as I was the alien target du jour. You heard it here first – the Gua were gunning for the Nambu-lator.

And it all started with a reunion.

They say that high school is the practice run for the marathon of life, if that's the case, then what started out with a blazing burst of speed ended in the limpid lameness of loserdom. The terrible event that closed out my school years has haunted me to this day, a failure so profound I cast off my closest friends like obsolete software and never looked back.

So I had some issues associated with my teen years. That's why I left the warm security of my trailer for the cold harsh reality of Heisenberg High. To reconnect with the people who were once my friends … and seek answers to the enigma that is my life.

Just when I was about to los

A young man kills nine people in an act of senseless violence, based on his experiences in an alien-run amusement park. - - -

Fork Falls, South Dakota. Gary Lanning shot and killed nine people in a fast food joint. When the cops found him, he was stuffing his face with fries. The publically released records of a psychiatrist said Gary had delusional fantasies of time spent in an amusement park called Playland. That was before Gary stabbed the shrink in the heart with a pen.

Are kids like Gary who Nostradamus was talking about when he said ""youth most murderous?"" Is it possible that this troubled teen's delusions were caused by a Gua experiment? I went to Playland to find out.

Met Eddie in the Laser Gun House at the park. Kids were running all over the place, we found a back room. Eddie said there was an abnormal electrical ion level focused there. Gary mentioned going through a secret door in the park. The quatrain spoke of a ""threshold of light."" We'd seen the Gua use quantum pocket

Aliens harvest human hormones for their healing properties. - - -

""On the fields of Revolution / Where England's traitor King runneth / Passion's dew is stolen / The undercroft keeps the salve of enemy wounds"".

The Charles River in Boston is named after Charles the First, the Traitor King of England. Bit of a stretch when you read the quatrain, except that three wealthy women had recently disappeared in Boston.

Looks like I was headed to Bean Town.

One of the women who had gone missing was Jennifer Moore, the sister of Renee Ashford. Ms. Ashford was offering a reward, $100,000 to the person who could find her sister and bring her home. Apparently Renee thought the cops didn't have enough incentive to launch a real man-hunt.

Met Renee at her home as she was telling the press about the reward money. Posing as a representative for the missing sister's bank – I told Renee that the last time Jennifer used her credit card was to charge a room at the Whitmore Hotel. Renee already knew that

Lucas is sent to Earth to test Cade Foster's warrior potential.

- - - Quatrain 99, Century 1: ""Heed the call to the island of commerce / Cut be watchful of footsteps that lead unto battle / Look to the light to guide thee / The hacking blade has a double edge""

This quatrain had had me and Eddie baffled for some time until Eddie began receiving a series of e-mails at the Paranoid Times from a man named Harold Shanley who claimed to have escaped from an alien experiment. The poor guy sounded out of his mind; seems he became delusional enough to shoot his own kids. His descriptions took me back to my own nightmare. As much pain as I felt at losing Hannah, I'm sure his was 100 times greater. I knew I was the only one who could help him, and I also knew that any information he had could undoubtedly help me too. I had to find him before the Gua did. According to the origins of his sporadic e-mails, Shanley was making his way across the country, the most recent was from an Industrial Trade

The aliens make Foster a national hero. Or do they? - - -

No quatrain this week. No century. Woke up in the present with the possibility of realizing a dream. Thing is, got a feeling I've become too cynical to accept it. The Gua have messed with me too many times before to believe this will ever be easy.

All started with Eddie cracking an internet code and getting us a lead on a possible Gua transfer of some kind of device – the transfer of goods happened in an open lot – a suitcase left in the passenger side seat. Checked for C4 explosive residue, found it all over the car. Also found a steel Halliburton briefcase filled with Gua orbs.

Jackpot. But it was gonna come with a price.

Said goodbye to Eddie and made a choice. The car exploded, the world went black.

Back to my dream. Woke up in a hotel suite, hooked up to monitors, wearing different clothes. Looked like I was in a high security, high-class hospital – security clearance notices posted all over the place.

Found my way into a

Cade works to expose a U.S. Senator who is thwarting government funded space exploration. - - -

Quatrain 42, Century 5: ""When the sun bursts forth at night / The life of a starwatcher is lost / But the truth revealed in the heavens / Is carried to a high magistrate"".

Eddie's friend Vincente Miranda, an astronomer in Ohio, was shot to death shortly after witnessing a meteor burst out of a wormhole just outside our atmosphere. He instantly understood the implications of what this could mean. While he explained his findings to Eddie over the phone, he put the critical photographs and charts in a package to be over-nighted to U.S. Senator Sterling Preston. Lucky for us it wasn't clearly labeled. The Gua who rubbed him out destroyed everything having to do with the discovery, but he didn't think to go through the outgoing mail. The package was sent, delivered and signed for. Of all the places I wanted to go hunt down evidence, the nation's capital was at the bottom of my list. Only the t

Cade investigates a psychic research project in a seaside town.

- - - Quatrain 23, Century 3: ""The two-sighted will meet death in sleep / Purged from the nightmare of a hidden enemy / Barricades protect spurious sleep / And the spectre is lanced with a common blade"".

Found myself cruising along the coast to Prescott, Maine where a renowned group of psychics were burying one of their own. Rachel Cates had died mysteriously in her sleep. I usually think of hotlines and con artists whenever psychics are mentioned. But with all I'd seen in the past two years, it seemed possible the Gua had decided this was a group they couldn't afford to ignore.

I'm no psychic, but I had a strong hunch there was an alien in my future.

Posing as an investigator for Cates' insurance company I went to talk to Ellen, a clairvoyant, and part of the local universities illustrious paranormal studies department. Besides Ellen, the group also included a telekinetic and a man who could cast images that weren't the

A young woman communicates directly with the spirit of Nostradamus.

- - - Quatrain 4, Century 9: ""She will rise from the dead / With words of fortune on her lips"".

The local newspapers say paramedics revived a waitress in Cranston, Rhode Island, after six minutes with no heart beat. She woke up speaking words of fortune, only those words belonged to an ancient prophet.

I know Chloe Wells is reciting the lost quatrains of Nostradamus. The aliens must know it too. I have to find her – before they do.

Arrived at Chloe's house to find a media circus led by glitzy news hound Arthur Hewitt, and a crowd holding vigil for their newly appointed savior. Seems that one of the first quatrains Chloe spoke struck a cord with the people of Cranston – a prediction of their mayor's death. Checked out the scene and the cameras caught me – just for a second, but when you're a wanted man every second counts. Nobody wants to be on America's Top Fugitives.

Eddie and I had hidden the Nostradamus book as an

Foster attempts to uncover an alien plot to infiltrate the military. - - -

""The town will not ring its cracked bell / For the hero has gone astray / The crimson banner lures the one and the many / With each victory so will victory undo"".

Special Forces Colonel John Russell died suddenly of extreme internal temperatures – literally boiled to death. His first lieutenant, Alex Harkin, disappeared immediately after. Suspected of being a ""deep cover"" spy, Harkin was due to face inquiry before his hasty exit.

Twice-decorated for heroism, Harkin was the winner of the Red Flag, an award given to the best of the best in the military. The crimson banner and the hero gone astray are both mentioned in the Nostradamus quatrain. I wanted to know how the Red Flag and the aliens were connected, so Eddie and I cooked up some triple-A credentials and I became Matin Sloane – super-soldier – one of five contenders for this year's competition.

Off the bus, I met a military hard-ass named Major Birch, my

Foster poses as a journalist to investigate proposed casinos on native reserve land. - - -

""In the woods of Winchala / Amnis lights the flame of affliction / Elders set the course / To choose wrongly will mean woe"".

This quatrain led me to the reservation of the Winchala, a small Native American tribe with a rich history. The landscape was calming, but something was definitely wrong. There was a lot of tension about the legalization of gambling on reservation lands. But why would the Gua infiltrate the Winchala reservation? And how could gambling fit into their plan?

I arrived posing as a reporter for The Gaming Chronicles. I played a few hands at the black jack table and was able to spark up a conversation with a talkative dealer who filled me in on some of the details. Only one casino has already been built, but there was a proposal in the offing which would call for the construction of ninety more to be scattered across Winchala territories. The community's board of elders was onl

An attempt on the life of the minister causes chaos at an assembly of alien dignitaries. - - -

There is a potentially dangerous storm brewing deep within the ranks of the Gua forces. Though my concerns grow more dire each day, I, Joshua, must admit to feeling a certain degree of relief – to finally know that I am not alone in my conclusions, that others both here and at home are similarly doubting the validity of our mission here on Earth.

Decades ago, during the earliest days of the infiltration, we were a unified force, certain that patience and careful planning were all that would be required to defeat the human race. I used to believe that. But now I find myself riddled with doubt. Now I know enough to question not only the tactics but the very objectives of our leadership. Yet even as I write here, the most powerful and respected of our leaders continue to maintain that Earth and its inhabitants are well within our control, utterly unprepared to defend themselves against a full-

Foster investigates an alien experiment that caused people to be trapped alive in underground tombs. - - -

""A maiden cut aloft from humanity / Locked in a coffin of stone / Her resurrection a clue for the man twice-blessed / Till the fate of her soul has been sealed"".

Our boy Eddie was able to link this quatrain with a wildly bizarre story he picked up in the Paranormal News Group. While building a connector deep within the New York City subway system, a group of workers discovered the extraordinarily well-preserved body of a woman. She had apparently been entombed within a concrete wall that was built over 50 years before. And, believe it or not, that's not the weirdest part. The strangest aspect to the story is that the woman was found alive.

Authorities were able to identity the woman as one Francesca Dutton, an accomplished travel writer who was reported missing way back in 1945. Eddie worked his usual magic and managed to work up a false identity for me. I would undertake my inv

An alien experiment involving bare-knuckle fighters draws Cade Foster and an old prison friend to enter a boxing competition. - - -

I went to Atlanta, a city built on the ashes of the Civil War, to check out the world of bare-knuckle fighting and seek an ally in my fight against the Gua.

Passed a wanted poster on my way into town and the face staring back was my own. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Time to take off the gloves.

Omar Healy was a prize-fighter in a world without the Vegas showgirls and limelight. 35, and with a prison record, Healy had been disqualified by the Olympic committee for drug use – turned out to be a bum rap, since the drugs were over-the-counter migraine medication.

Healy and I knew each other from our days locked up together, he accused me of being a bad guy who turned good and then back again. Told him I was innocent and needed his help. Then I told him I wanted to call in an old debt.

Needed Healy to help me gain entry into the Human Genome P

Foster and his cronies find themselves as participants in an alien experiment. - - -

""The weapon will fall upon cities / Unless theives deliver humanity from woe / The enemy of triumph is intellect / For faculties failure requires sence anew"".

I spent my early years in a top-notch thief crew, so this Nostradamus quatrain peaked my interest. But touching base with my past quickly collided with my present. Suddenly, I was back in the game, working as a break-and-enter man for a score going down in Silicon Valley.

And the people I worked with were no strangers.

Harley Daniels, more than an old friend, a statuesque blonde with brains to spare – she finds the scores and makes sure they get set up right. Ritchie Black, a wild boy who happens to be the best alarm-bypass man around – it always felt good to have Ritchie by my side on a job.

And then there was Dex – the taskmaster of the unit – took ""Crew Chief"" as his title. Dex had a special love for giving orders – he kept us on track. Thin

Cade Foster investigates the possibility of alien experiments on football players. - - -

""Here the good river runs north / Young fortunes are reversed in mock battle / Enslavement takes myriad focus / The key to them all is control"".

The Ohio River runs north on the eastern border of the state. In the Iroquois language Ohio means ""good river."" Sounded like a good place to start looking for a Gua experiment.

Eddie checked for anything unusual in the region and came up with what looked like anything but. The Fairvale Falcons – a high school football team with a winning streak that the pros would love to claim – 11 and 0. It was an amazing turn around for a team that's been in last place for nine years running. And it got me thinking.

Could high school football be the mock battle Nostradamus was referring to? If so, the Fairvale Falcons have thrilled the state as they reversed their fortunes. As unlikely as it seemed, it fit.

Had to check it out. Every dog may have its day, but I've lea

By now you all know how close the end could be. A massive alien force known as the Gua are quietly preparing to invade the Earth and snuff out humanity. Cade Foster and I had been trying to stop the Gua before it was too late, we were desperate, something had to be done.

My name is Eddie Nambulous. These are my journals. At least, now they are. As faithful readers of this site you know this is where Cade wrote about the alien threat week after week. And you were all there at the end. Calling in your support. You were part of the worldwide audience who saw Cade shot and killed on live television.

I pulled the trigger.

And I don't know if I'll ever be able to explain why. Not the way I want to.

But know this. Cade's death was not in vain. He's a martyr to our cause. And I've sworn to fight on.

With all of your help of course.

Things are a little out of whack. Kinda all over the place.

And there's a new alien in town. His name is Mabus. The third Anti-Christ predicted by our buddy Nostrad

""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

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 mis

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

""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

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 Ju

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 É could've been written in blood.

Wasn't the only one working the case for our side. Eddie was at the local police

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

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. Eddi

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'

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 communiquè 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

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 th

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

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

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 wo

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

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 sta

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

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"" t

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

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 pl