“Subject 117” is episode one of season one of First Wave.
This more imaginatively named first episode begins with a Corrections van heading towards the Wilsonville Psychiatric Institute. A man’s voice is saying that they identified 117 human archetypes and a subject to fit each archetype. This is number 117 and his initial warrior rating was 8%. The man, and a couple of others, are in front of one in a chair who looks out of it. The speaker, in a doctor’s coat, isn’t sure why this one lasted the longest. He will be purged and his brain dissected to hopefully answer this. Another repeats the word 19 several times before telling the man in the chair that, on the first day of the invasion, 19 million will die.
Another man, the one from the chair, Cade Foster (Sebastian Spence), narrates that three days ago, he had now idea that life as he knew it was about to end. Cade is doing a presentation at a company about corporate espionage, and how the Viceroy Uplink will help stop this. The chairman says they have just spent $80K on new locks. Cade says that Goodwin locks are pretty good, but do not provide comprehensive security against industrial espionage. They are pretty good for home security. During this, Cade has been checking the paintings and has found a safe. Also by Goodwin. Halfway decent, but any thief will tell you, a cinch to beat if you know what you are doing. Cade smashes the lock off and gets in. He heads to his briefcase to get the Uplink – which changes into a severed head. Cade recovers after this.
Later, Cade is telling some friends about this whilst doodling ’19’ on a pad. He’s making it into a joke. A woman excuses herself and Cade starts to follow. On the way, a waiter tells him there’s a problem with his card. Cade will deal with that later. The woman is his wife, Hannah, and she’s concerned about his hallucinations. Cade says no medical reason has been found for them. He’s bought her a locket for their anniversary. Later, whilst they are in bed at home, Cade sees the head again. This time it’s attached to the rest of the body, which isn’t dead, but is still a hallucination.
At work, Cade’s boss tells him he’s received something about Cade ‘s past. Cade admits he was a juvenile delinquent. An understatement, according to his boss. Thefts, bank robberies, forging; though Cade didn’t use weapons he was considered extremely dangerous. Cade says he changed when he met his wife. However, he lied on his application to Viceroy. Well, yes; they wouldn’t have hired him if he’d told the truth. Cade will cost more jobs than he brings in if this got out. Cade wants to know who sent the records, because they were sealed. His boss won’t tell him and Cade gets escorted out of the building by security.
At Cade’s home, he finds the place trashed and ’19’ written everywhere. Hannah is hiding in the bath. She wants to know what’s going on. Cade intends to find out. This involves breaking into his former employer and finding the records. There’s a business card for a Samuel Hitchens of the Detective Squad of Metro City Police attached to them. Hannah is concerned that Cade is back in the game when he returns, and she was terrified. Cade had a security guard watching her from across the street and a neighbour with a shotgun. He tells her he isn’t working again; his records were sent by a cop and that they have no credit cards and their accounts have been drained. He’s going to find out what Hitchens knows.
Two people in a car watch as Cade arrives at Hitchens’ home. His wife thinks Cade is the police; her husband has locked himself in his room and won’t come out. He’s got a gun and been acting crazy for weeks. He’s been seeing visions and lost his job. The same bad stuff as Cade, in other words. There’s a gunshot and Cade breaks into Hitchens’ room. You can guess what Hitchens looks like. At least his head is attached. There’s paperwork on the desk about a millionaire called Mayhew who killed his family before being committed to Wilsonville. Cade swipes the detective’s badge.
Cade uses the badge to get to see Mayhew. Mayhew says he’s insane, doesn’t Cade know that? Cade tells Mayhew that he doesn’t feel crazy. The things Mayhew said happened to him are happening to Cade. Mayhew tells Cade they are being watched; to check his home for surveillance devices. Mayhew wasn’t sure who they were at first but, when $37 million disappeared, he sent a team to find out. He hid the clues they found in the maze behind his house. Who are they? Aliens. Cade says Mayhew never mentioned aliens at his trial. Well of course he didn’t. Mayhew killed his family because they were imposters. Then he decides Cade is one of them. Behind Cade is a watcher from the car outside Hitchens’ home.
Cade’s life starts to rapidly spiral out of control as more and more things go wrong outside of his control. The episode comes to an end where it started, with Cade taken to Wilsonville. More details are given at this point, as bits that were cut from the opening scene are included in the closing scenes.