Did the Gua bury her alive? How did she survive so along?

Posing as "Jack Dutton," Francesca’s grandson and sole surviving relative, Cade meets Henry Vervet and Josie Simon, two special agents for the National Agency of Missing Persons.

After receiving confirmation of the "Dutton" identity, Vervet takes Simon out into the hallway to confirm. Since Francesca isn’t talking to the special agents, Vervet wants to bring the grandson to her in the hopes of getting her to open up.

They show Francesca to Cade from an observation room behind a one-way mirror. She is as pale as an albino – her cells had no need to produce melanin in a lightless environment – but has not aged in her 55-year incarceration.

Simon is confident that they’ll find a scientific explanation for her survival and lack of aging. She may have absorbed trace elements through fissures in the concrete, causing her body to hibernate to prevent death and aging.

"Do you have an answer for everything?" Cade asks her.

Vervet is a less strident skeptic. He knows only that he doesn’t have an explanation yet, and Francesca isn’t telling him anything.

"We could use your help," he says.

Cade goes to Francesca and tries to make a connection to her, eventually bringing up his "mother", Patricia. This brings a response – she’s surprised that her 6-year-old girl grew up and died only two years ago.

Otherwise, she seems disoriented, saying her memories and sense of self faded "until I was nothing, just a hollow soul."

Cade tries to find out what happened to her, and who buried her. Frightened, she worries that "they might be out there . . . out there still . . ."

After Cade leaves her, Vervet and Simon ask him if he knows what she meant. Cade thinks he does, but pretends to knowing nothing.

He presses them for more information, asking what forensics uncovered at her tomb. There wasn’t much – some decomposed clothes, a hairpin, an old penny – and a strange ball made out of an unknown metal.

They show Cade the ball. He’s seen it before – it’s one of the balls the Gua store their consciousnesses in for space travel.

He’s also considering trusting the NAMP agents and telling them what’s really going on. Eddie thinks that’s a bad idea, especially without any evidence to back him up.

If Cade can help find out what happened to Francesca, though, they might be more inclined to trust them.

Cade goes to the subway tunnel she was found, but learns little except the fact that the company that built it closed down years ago and that the concrete seemed unusually soft to Hank. Cade takes a sample for Eddie.

Josie Simon is chewing on a doughnut with unusual relish when Vervet interrupts her. He’s been doing tests on the concrete, and it’s turned out to be pure limestone instead of ordinary concrete.

Almost simultaneously, Eddie and Vervet remember an old myth, telling their respective partners about a Tibetan lama who had to free a man from a limestone prison to release his soul. Could the limestone tomb somehow have trapped Francesca’s soul and thus preserved her life?

She says she dreamt of Cade that night – it was her first dream in a long time, since she had forgotten what people and things looked like during her incarceration.

Cade tries to inspire her trust and find out more about what happened. She asks him if he’s like her or like "them" and he tells her "like you."

That encourages her to tell him of the existence of more people buried like her, and that he must help them. She writes two names on a pad.

Cade leaves, refusing to show the investigators what the sheet says. Since they've been refusing to show him their files, he’ll only share information if they do.

The names are James Jeffrey Reed, a New Haven banker, and Olivia Quinn, a college professor. Both disappeared in 1945, but there seems to be no other connection to Francesca Dutton.

Logically, they’re buried in buildings built in 1945, and Eddie can get a list of those buildings. Since Francesca was buried in her hometown, it’s not unreasonable to search for them there.

The only question is: how do you find a body buried in concrete? Cade has an answer for that one – when he was a thief, he would occasionally use ground-penetrating radar to find valuables that people had buried in their yards.

They start with New Haven, since it’s much closer than Quinn’s hometown of Los Angeles. After searching many buildings – and taking a bad trip to a convention center – they find the twitching body of J.J. Reed buried in the foundation of a building.

He shares the find with the investigators, who call in the equipment needed to disinter Reed. Vervet agrees to share his files with Cade.

Cade goes through the files, reading Francesca’s travel stories. He’s amazed that such an active woman didn’t go completely insane during her confinement.

Simon tries to talk to Reed, but he is as silent as Francesca was. Four NAMP teams are searching L.A., but over 17,000 buildings were built there in 1945.

Reed orders Simon out, then refuses to eat. He throws his food against the one-way mirror where Vervet and Cade are watching him.

"One-way mirrors don’t exactly encourage trust," Cade observes. He wants to talk to Francesca alone.

Vervet, meanwhile, has found a connection between Dutton, Reed, and Quinn. According to the Customs Department, they were all in India in 1944.

Eddie is shocked that he didn’t think to check customs. Cade tells him, "You’re slipping, buddy."

Francesca sits outside on a bench. Cade joins her, and she comments that they’re "finally alone."

He confesses that he’s not her grandson, and to his surprise, she already knows. It’s "because you said you’re like me," she explains.

She is unclear on the idea of alien experiments. He begs her to tell the agents about what happened to her, and she agrees – but only if the others are found so they can corroborate her story.

She claims to know nothing about the silver orb.

As Cade leaves, she asks him, "Are there many of them?"

He answers, "As far as I can tell, thousands."

Josie watches them from a window.

Cade tells Vervet and Simon what he’s learned so far. Josie continues to be skeptical, commenting, "Alien delusions are a common psychosis."

Eddie triumphantly informs Cade that he’s found a new connection between the victims, one the government agents missed. The structures were all designed by same architect: Frederick Lansing, who is still alive and living in New York City.

Cade, Vervet and Simon go to Lansing’s house. There are days of newspapers on doorstep, and Lansing refuses to let them in until the agents present their identification and explain their business.

He’s shocked to learn that they’ve found Dutton and Reed.

"You didn’t release them?" he exclaims as he lets them in. "God help us . . ."

A door opens, and a doughnut-munching cop is knocked to the floor. A pool of blood spreads around his body.

Lansing is wealthy and eccentric. His study is dominated by old furniture, a statue, and parrots.

He reveals that he was married to Olivia Quinn, and they met Dutton and Reed while traveling in the Himalayas. The travelers became friends, "but it all went ghastly wrong" when they ventured into a side trail.

They found a meteorite, broken open, with shiny silver balls spilling out. The other three wanted souvenirs and grabs the balls, which took over their personalities.

A Hindu priest recognized the "demons" inside them, and told Lansing to trap the demons in stone. He buried them in tombs on his construction sites.

"You fools released them," Lansing tells the agents. "You have no idea what you have done."

Lansing refuses to reveal Olivia’s location. "You must put them back," he says. "You must!"

After they return to the hospital, Cade tells the agents that Lansing is telling the truth – that there is an alien invasion, and that the silver orbs to have the power to possess a human who holds them. Cade theorizes that this is how the Gua first seeded the Earth and prepared the way for the first wave of the invasion.

The body of the cop is discovered, as is the disappearance of Dutton and Reed. If they’re aliens, Cade realizes, "they’ll go after Frederick Lansing."

Indeed they have. They break down the Lansing’s door and confront him.

When Cade and the investigators arrive, it’s too late. Lansing is dead, and stuffed into his parrot’s cage.

As Cade and Vervet search the study, Reed jumps him. Vervet gets the upper hand, but Simon stops him and shoots him.

She’s a Gua agent, and now Cade is alone in the study with three aliens.

Hoping to gain some room to escape, he pushes the statue over. It shatters, revealing Olivia Quinn, who Lansing apparently couldn’t bear not to have near him.

Cade jumps through window and escapes into the night.

Eddie gets Cade coffee and tries to console him. Cade asks him, "When are people going to believe?"

Eddie reassures him that they have followers, and that one day they will rise up against the Gua.

Cade takes some comfort in that. Frederick Lansing took the Gua on half a century ago, he tells himself.

"I pray in the end that I fare better than he did."