Karl and the assembled Gua are familiar with the problems Cade's posed, but Joshua reviews the situation in detail. Cade was part of "experiment AHX-2323", which took 117 humans of various personality types and tested them to destruction with hallucinations and hints of the upcoming invasion. As he describes the experiment, we begin the first of many flashbacks from previous episodes [here set off in italics].
Cade explores his ruined home, frantically searching for and finding his wife Hannah, who is hiding in the bath. ("Subject 117")
More than the aliens bargained for
The problem, Joshua says, is that with Cade Foster, the Gua "got more than we bargained for."
Cade and Hannah search through the garden maze of Emmett Mayhew, finding the book of Nostradamus' prophecies. ("Subject 117")
Joshua believes Cade is using the book to track down the Gua's experiments. Although Maya interjects that there's no proof of this, Joshua is convinced that to understand Cade, the Gua have to understand the atrocities they put him through.
In bed, Cade tells Hannah he's sending her away for her own safety. They begin to make love, but tentacles spring from Hannah's body, choking him into unconsciousness. She then joins some Gua agents in preparing a duplicate of her. ("Subject 117")
The trouble is, Joshua continues, Foster didn't go insane. He even made it to the aliens' "finish line," the test of warrior potential they had set up at 19 Haven Street in Chicago.
Cade walks into a white room and examines 117 files of alien test subjects. The last is his own. ("Subject 117")
"The man's a worthy adversary," says Joshua.
The law of averages
Maya's not impressed. After all, Cade's only one subject out of over a hundred, and the rest all crumbled.
"The others don't concern me," Joshua says. "If one out of every 117 humans is a Cade Foster, we'll face a frightening force, far stronger than we're prepared to deal with." He then points out Cade's resourcefulness by explaining how he escaped from the mental institution the aliens had sentenced him to.
After avoiding swallowing the sedatives he'd been given, Cade puts his burglary skills to work escaping his cuffs and chains, then fights his way out of the hospital. He pauses at a video camera and warns his alien adversaries, "I know you're here." ("Subject 117")
Karl agrees Cade is a problem, but he's only one man. Joshua points out that one man can build an army of followers.
Maya thinks the idea that Cade's a threat is ridiculous. The Gua have had tremendous success in manipulating humanity, a species she thinks is "rotten to the core and ripe for takeover." As such, how much chance does one man have to rally them?
Joshua disagrees. To him, Cade's "dogged perseverance" is the worst threat the Gua face.
Cade goes to meet Eddie for the first time, convincing Eddie he has vital information related to a cloning story Eddie had published. ("Crazy Eddie")
Cade's friendship with web journalist "Crazy"
is an example of his ability to forge alliances. With Eddie and the book, Cade's been a deep thorn in the Gua's side. He could show up anywhere -- in fact, Joshua says, "he could be outside this building right now."
In an abruptly truncated flashback, apparently intended to add some tension to this short but dull second act, Cade and Eddie stare in horror at a Gua cloning facility. ("Crazy Eddie")
Was Nostradamus an alien?
Cade almost got hard evidence of the Gua invasion at that cloning facility, Joshua continues. His continuing escapes and successes have convinced Joshua that he's a dangerous threat, even supernatural threat to the invasion plans.
"I believe he's the one our oracles predicted," Joshua says.
Eddie explains to Cade that Nostradamus predicted three waves of invasion -- and that Cade is the "twice-blessed man" who can stop them. ("Crazy Eddie")
"Ridiculous," Maya says. Karl is taking Joshua seriously, however. He's not convinced, but he'd like to see if Joshua has proof for his arguments.
Joshua does, describing Cade's discovery of and defeat of the Gua's "quantum pocket" experiment that we know as the episode, "Marker 262."
Trapped in a pocket dimension, Cade finds an exit in what seems to be a wall of rock. He and the two young men trapped in the dimension drive a car toward the wall at breakneck speed and pass through the wall to escape. ("Marker 262")
According to Joshua, the destruction of the experiment sent years of work down the drain.
Can Cade defeat sexual power?
Maya notes that the experiment was simply moved to a new location. Cade gained nothing. Even if he finds evidence of the invasion, the Gua can easily suppress or discredit it.
As she puts it, the Gua are "more advanced, more cohesive, and the sexual power of our gentech bodies is strong." Yes, "sexual power." In some cases, the aliens have literally slept their way to the top, and that's a weapon Cade will never be able to defeat.
Joshua thinks Cade's willpower might prove surprisingly effective against the Gua's connections, but Maya angrily dismisses the idea. She thinks the human concept of "will" is a sham, a self-delusion. Humans are weak.
In a bar, Foster discovers and scoops up a worm, which Eddie will later dub the "interneural nematoda". Later, Foster chooses between two duplicates of his old friend Susan Tannen, identifying and destroying the one who's an alien. ("Blue Agave")
Joshua disagrees.
"Foster doesn't yield to temptation," he says. "He keeps his goal firmly in mind. That goal is to drive us off this planet."
Addictions to the human condition
There's another complication, the dark side of that sexuality Maya is so proud of. Foster may be able to avoid sexual temptation, Joshua says, but the Gua can't. The sensuality of their human bodies is wrecking some Gua's resolve to fight, and part of Joshua's job is finding and stopping Gua sex addicts. The charismatic preacher Elton Beleye is a case in point.
Joshua confronts his old friend and fellow invader Elton, who has grown too fond of his role as a revered cult leader. Elton won't change his ways, and Joshua is forced to eliminate him. ("Speaking in Tongues")
Sex isn't the only addiction the Gua are struggling with, either.
Joshua invades a drug den, chasing down and eliminating Calvin, a Gua who has become addicted to iodized salt, which acts like heroin on the Gua husk bodies.
Joshua has one final point to make. One of the reasons that Cade is so dangerous is that revenge is no longer his primary motive.
Detective Ludlow torments Cade by describing how he killed Hannah. Enraged, Cade breaks free and kills him. ("The Box")
Cade has already avenged his wife's death. As such, he could have stopped his war against the Gua, but the fact that he hasn't indicates some troubling element in human nature. He has a quality that connects him to other humans, that makes him keep on fighting for them. Karl then asks for final arguments before the vote.
Maya blames Joshua's recommendations on a fear of progress and of the changes involved in a full-scale invasion. She claims Cade is an anomaly, and that the Gua will eventually crush him.
Joshua points out that he is a patriot, and that he wants the Gua invasion to succeed. However, he says, "the human race has revealed a noble core." If Cade can bring this nobility to the surface, than the invasion may be doomed.
The decision
The vote begins, and as votes pile up both for attacking and not attacking, Maya pulls Joshua aside. She wants to know why he's trying to save human lives. He tells her he's trying to save the lives of humans and Gua alike.
Then the votes are tallied, and it's a tie. Five for invasion, five for holding off. Karl has the deciding vote -- and as he tries to decide, all he can see is the image of Cade staring at the camera, saying "I know you're here"....
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