“Mabus” is episode one of the third and final season of First Wave.
This episode opens with Eddie narrating as Cade’s body is in a morgue being examined. The Gua were going to snuff out humanity and Cade and Eddie were getting desperate. Something had to be done. The entire world watched as Cade was shot and killed on live television, at the end of the season two finale, “The Believers”, and Eddie pulled the trigger. He’s now going to explain why.
Cain arrives at a compound in the woods with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. He enters a building and the woman inside tells him he’s early. Inside the briefcase is a Gua orb. The woman says she will begin the transfer tomorrow. Cain wants it doing tonight and won’t accept that the woman has things she needs to finish first. She’s had three months to grow the husk and one of the most powerful Gua – Mabus – has arrived to initiate the Second Wave. Mabus will have a husk tonight or she will answer to Mabus. The husk is there and Cain thinks it’s perfect.
Cade is complaining to Eddie that he was filly the Caddy up and someone recognised him. Cops are after him, every alien wants him dead and someone is calling his name in the street. Eddie tells him it’s worse, showing him an ad for The Phil Tennant Show. Eddie says there’s been a surge of hits to the Paranoid Times and has tried to trace their origin. They’re encrypted, but not Gua. Eddie has managed to translate bits, one of which talks about the Raven Nation. Cade asks if there are any Nostradamus quatrains. Eddie is checking them
The female Gua, Alice, tells Cain that there’s been a surge of power. She needs to check the generator. She heads outside and doesn’t head to the generator, but manages to convince the guards to let her out of the compound.
The search of the Nostradamus quatrains is complete. There are a few with ‘raven’ and more with ‘nation’ but none with both. However, there is a ‘brodde nation’ and ‘brodde’ apparently means dark, dusky, black. Or raven. The quatrain says the prophecy will come true in two weeks and the surge on the website started two weeks ago. Eddie thinks it could be the omega quatrain. There’s a reference to a scholar, and Cade asks who that is.
The Gua guards are telling Cain that Alice left the compound. He runs inside and finds that Mabus’s orb is gone. He’s unhappy. Eddie and Cade have a list of scholars and are whittling it down. They come up with a Peter Mincer, who solved a 17th century theorem two years ago. Cain and the other Gua are tracking Alice through the woods. She runs into a road and flags down a pickup, getting a lift. Cade has headed to see Peter Mincer, claiming to be a fan and asking him to sign a book. He mentions things such as aliens, the end of the world and the Raven Nation, but they seem to mean nothing to Mincer. The pickup pulls over and the driver isn’t so good, bleeding from nose and ears. Alice takes out Mabus’s orb, saying it’s responsible, and the man screams.
Cade contacts Eddie, saying he doesn’t think Mincer knows anything. Eddie has been asking around and says that Mincer hasn’t been the same since he solved the theorem, locking himself in his office and keeping everyone out. Cain and the Gua have found the pickup and the now-dead driver; the nearest building is a church. Cade breaks into Mincer’s office and finds a lot of religious stuff, including an inverted cross. A strange collection. Alice is at the church and she hides the orb in a flower holder case by a statue. She heads into the church and hides in a confessional as Cain arrives. It seems Alice has changed her mind about the invasion.
There’s a problem with anyone human getting the orb, because it kills them by its mere presence. Most of the events of this episode are set before the events of the prior one.