Ringer (
whatmatters) wrote2014-10-11 06:34 pm
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THE ATTACK
CAMP HAVEN (Wright-Patterson AFB)
NEW BASE
SQUAD 53
RINGER
FULL OF SPOILERS FOR THE 5th WAVE SERIES
THE ATTACK
1. Inject a baby while in the womb with program
a. Memories will be of an owl on the windowsill, watching
b. Awaken at the age of 13
2. Arrival (pg 18)
a. Satellite pictures of the mothership passing Mars
3. First Wave (pg 29-)
a. Electromagnetic Pulses (EMP)
b. Ten days after ARRIVAL, 11:00 AM, early spring
c. Lasted seconds
d. Killed around half a million
4. Second Wave (pg 44-)
a. Metal rods dropped onto fault lines
b. Lasted about a day
c. Killed around 3 billion people
d. 2x H Empire State Building, 3x as heavy, drop from upper atmosphere – 12mi/sec
e. Floods as far east as Vegas
5. Third Wave (pg 45-)
a. Birds spread Virus through feces
i. Takes up residence in your lungs
ii. Bad cough
iii. Fever
iv. Headaches
v. Spitting up blood
vi. Moves into liver, kidneys, brain
vii. Delusions, hallucinations, personality afflictions/madness (pg 52)
viii. Death: bleeding out, blood erupting out of every opening – including crying tears of blood
b. Lasted 12 weeks/4 months
c. Killed more than 3.5 billion people, roughly 97% of survivors
d. Three hundred billion birds, 75:1; crap 5-6x/day (pg 46)
e. "Ebola can't spread through the air. But change a single protein and you can make it airborne, like the flu." (pg 46)
f. Only survival is genetic immunity
i. With Haven treatment, roughly 1 in 10 chance of survival
g. Red Death, Blood Plague, Pestilence, Red Tsunami, Fourth Horseman (pg 46)
h. "second most common thing you found in cities, after the bodies, were fires" (pg 39)
i. Quarantine
j. "Whacked out people roamed the streets, breaking into houses and setting fires, the whole murder, rape, and pillaging thing." (pg 48)
k. "Opening attacks were brutal in their efficiency, wiping out 98 percent of us" (pg 11)
l. Huge flocks of crows and other carrion birds "blotted out the sky" (pg 14) at the height of the Plague
m. "If they could genetically engineer a virus that kills nine out of ten people, why not ten out of ten?" (pg 209)
6. Drones
a. Showed up "at the tag end of the 3rd Wave" (pg 27)
b. Dull gray, cigar shaped
c. "Gliding swiftly and silently thousands of feet up" (pg 27), sometimes circle
d. Can turn on a dime and come to a sudden stop, from Mach 2 to 0 in less than a second
e. Unmanned; packed with instruments, no room for pilot
f. Drones went down after Camp Haven fell (pg 79)
7. Fourth Wave
a. Silencers
i. Injected in the womb (see ARRIVAL)
ii. "Awaken" at thirteen
iii. "Their primary goal had not been to kill, but to sow mistrust among the survivors and drive them … to slaughterhouses like Wright-Patterson." (pg 80)
b. ("sixth day in camp" pg 65)
c. "… one out of every three surviving human beings … is one of them" (pg 120)
8. Fifth Wave
a. Roughly four months after Arrival
b. In progress, kill count unknown
c. See OPERATION LI'L BO PEEP
d. See CAMP HAVEN
e. "Camps were set up to winnow out the best candidates for brainwashing … and to dispose of the ones who weren't … once the 5th Wave was rolled out, all they had to do was sit bak and let the stupid humans do their dirty work" (pg 45)
9. "From seven billion to just one in five months" (Cassie, pg 44)
10. Allegedly watching Earth/humanity for centuries
CAMP HAVEN (Wright-Patterson AFB)
1. Personnel
a. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vosch – Ashpit, Haven, X
i. Commander of Camp Haven/Wright-Patterson
ii. Appearance (pg 126)
1. Tall, lean, hard-edged
2. Cold and piercing blue eyes
3. Short-cropped sandy hair
4. Chiseled face, thin lips
5. Crisp uniform, shiny boots
6. Breath smells like apples
7. Sharp, aristocratic nose
iii. Had wife and child (age 6 or 7)
b. Major Bob – Haven
i. Appearance
1. Big man
2. Wide, fleshy face
3. Teeth small, like his small eyes
c. Corporal Branch – Ashpit – DECEASED (Cassie's dad, Ashpit)
d. Corporal Parker – Ashpit, School Bus
i. Appearance
1. Round face, small nose dotted with freckles
2. Roughly 17 years old
ii. Medic
iii. Helps Sammy on the bus
1. Lies about presence of force field (pg 188)
iv. Sorts reds vs greens
e. Reznik – Haven – DECEASED (Mission 1, by Ringer)
i. Senior Drill Instructor
ii. "Cruel, unfeeling, sadistic bastard" (pg 213)
iii. Fleshy, pockmarked face
f. Greene – Ashpit
g. Walters – Ashpit (DECEASED: Haven, by Evan)
h. Dr. Pam – Haven
i. Tall and thin
ii. Treats Zombie upon arrival
iii. Puts all recruits through Wonderland
i. Kistner – Haven
i. Tall, skinny kid
ii. Medic/nurse
j. Hudson – Haven
i. Driver of PARKER's bus
k. Pierce & Jackson – Haven (DECEASED: Haven, by Evan)
l. Dr. Claire – New Base (DECEASED: New Base, by Ringer
i. Wavy hair pulled back
ii. Eyes color of autumn sky
iii. Smells like bitter almonds/odor of cyanide
2. Technology
a. "Infested" Scanner
i. Quarter-size metal disc
ii. Pressed to forehead
iii. Lights up green or red
1. Green = infested, red = unTed
a. Sam/NUGGET = green
b. Megan = red
b. Capsule/Pellet
i. Injected in the back of the neck
ii. Gray tube, the size of a grain of rice
iii. Tracking
1. Transmits unique signal
2. Can be detected as far as a mile away
3. Used to track anyone with the capsule close to their brain
a. Back of neck
b. Between upper gums and teeth
c. Up the nose
iv. Can be targeted using SILVER DEVICE and will kill bearer if in the neck as injected
c. Silver Device
i. Size of a cell phone
ii. Grid occupies top half of display
iii. Used to search, find/track, and kill those with capsules
iv. Capsuled show up as green dots on map
v. A number glows above the flashing green dot (pg 249)
vi. Can highlight and destroy multiple dots
d. Wonderland
i. Computer program that causes patient to relive their memories
ii. Memories are downloaded into database
iii. Can also garner "true intentions" of patients
iv. Must have capsule to be put through Wonderland
v. Issued to all graduated recruits
vi. Meds/Painkillers interfere with the use of the program
e. Eyepiece
i. Headband equipped with a clear, quarter-size disk that slips over the left eye
ii. Humans glow green; Others or humans with CAPSULE/PELLET don't glow
1. Told "infested humans" light up green through the lens
f. The Eye
i. Bomb
ii. Metal, shaped like football but 2x as large
iii. Green glow in center makes it look like an eye
iv. Counts down: Pulse . . . Pulse . . . Pulse . . . Flash, flash, flash. Blinkblinkblink.
v. Levels [large area] completely, preventing regrowth etc.
g. The 12th System
i. 44,000 microbots injected to support the eleven biological systems
ii. Controlled by The Hub, inserted into the brain
iii. Enhances user
1. Improves speed, hearing, sight, healing, etc
2. "I thought about Vosch appearing in my room completely healed, days after I smashed his nose and gave him two black eyes" (pg 218)
3. "Bots to deaden sensation. Bots to repair damage." (pg 249)
4. Nerves shut down or pain receptors in in brain turned off (pg 271)
5. "A dark filter with no discernable difference from sunglasses drops over my vision" (pg 273)
6. Combat descriptions
a. "The 12th System locks in on it and thousands of microscopic droids go to work augmenting the muscles, tendons, and nerves in my hands, eyes, and brain to neutralize the threat. In a microsecond, objective identified, information processed, method determined." (pg 247)
b. "I'm still, but the mechanisms inside me aren't. Her position is fixed: I don't have to see her to know exactly where she's standing. The hub's dispatched the managers of my muscular and nervous systems to execute the directive when called upon. I won't have to think when the time comes. The hub will take over." (pg 256)
iv. Creates a deep and penetrating empathy upon touch (pg 261)
3. Operations
a. Operation: Li'l Bow Peep
i. "Rescue and Winnowing Operation"
ii. Escorts children in using yellow school buses
b. Processing & Disposal (pg 229)
i. All squads work P&D shifts, rotate through duties
ii. Three squads:
1. Start stacked against back wall
2. ONE: Moved to metal tables
3. TWO: Processing
a. Sorted, clean vs infected/unTed vs Ted
i. Infected = bright green on forehead
b. Empty pockets, separate contents
i. Trash
ii. Electronics
iii. Precious Metals
iv. Other Metals
4. THREE: Processed corpses stacked in front for pickup
iii. Bodies in varying stages of decay, months old to brand new
iv. Music over the loud speakers: "most of the guys prefer rap … I like to mix it up with a little heavy metal and some R&B"
v. Clothes burned with corpses
vi. Power plant incinerator next door; black smoke from coal, gray from bodies
vii. Hundreds of bodies burned for light/heat/etc (pg 181)
4. Weapons
a. Black Hawk helicopters
i. Rotors include muffling by stealth technology (pg 285)
ii. Equipped with Hellfire missiles
b. M16 rifles
c. 10" combat knives
d. Humvees
e. Dodge M882
f. Haven Armory
i. THE EYES, several hundred of them
ii. Rifles, rows and rows
iii. Grenade Launchers
iv. Smaller guns, grenades, 10" combat knives
g. IED children
i. Small five-pronged hook tucked in right tonsil
ii. Hair-thin wire embedded near the opening of the throat
iii. Tiny green liquid-gelcap-looking thing connected to the wire's end
iv. Calibrated to detect minute fluctuations of CO2 in breath
v. When CO2 reaches certain threshold (multiple targets), device detonates
5. Basic Training
a. Competition
i. Scoring
1. Marksmanship
2. Obstacle course (best times)
3. Air Raid Drills (best times)
4. Two-mile runs (best times)
ii. Placement
1. Tenth
2. Eleventh (post-Drill, because NUGGET)
3. Seventh (1 week post-RINGER)
4. Fifth (3 weeks post-RINGER)
5. First (just before graduation)
iii. Only top 4 squads graduate
b. Graduation
i. Banners: WE ARE HUMANITY ; WE ARE ONE
ii. Six months of training before graduation
6. Notes
a. Age groups
i. Regiments composed entirely of those ages 7-18
1. "It's why a kid army makes sense. Adults don't waste their time on magical thinking. They dwell on the same inconvenient truths that landed Tank on the dissection table." (pg 242)
ii. Ages 5-6 trained but not allowed in field until 7
1. Used for IEDs?
iii. All kids 4 and under kept separate from recruits
1. Used for IEDs
b. "Going Dorothy"
i. Also referred to as "off to see the Wizard"
ii. Too much pressure breaks the person
iii. They turn on others or themselves
iv. Reported as "going Dorothy" and are killed
v. "It is hopeless. It is crazy. Tank is the sane one because he sees it clearly. Which is why he has to go." (pg 239)
c. Other
i. Barracks ring the parade grounds
ii. Go "Code Yellow" during Evan/Cassie invasion
iii. Escape pods on base (pg 426)
iv. After EYES, Haven: "same barren landscape of Camp Ashpit times ten" (pg 449)
v. Vincit qui patitur (latin) = 'He conquers who endures'
WALKER HOTEL
1. Description
a. Mildewed carpeting and rotting wallpaper
b. "Nondescript two-story white rectangle among a cluster of other nondescript white rectangles." (pg 7)
c. Four miles from CAMP HAVEN, south of the NEW BASE
d. Swarmed with vermin, especially bedbugs and carpet beetles (pg 23)
e. "A strip of parking lot, a decrepit diner, and a stretch of gray highway" (pg 40)
NEW BASE
1. Description
a. Wonderland in windowless classroom (description, pg 191)
b. Hallways, etc (pg 198)
c. Bathroom (pg 210)
i. Sink, cabinet, toilet, shower stall
2. Layout
a. Bathroom two doors down from hospital room
b. One floor down is ICU
c. Barracks, observation posts, hospital (pg 250)
SQUAD 53
1. Assigned to Barracks 10
2. Personnel
X. LEADER: Zombie (current), Flintstone (former)
a. Zombie
i. Age: 17, real name: Ben
ii. See BENJAMIN "ZOMBIE" PARISH
b. Dumbo
i. Age: 12
ii. Big ears, quick smile that disappeared
iii. Jokes as tasteless as his ears are big
iv. Medic of squad
c. Nugget
i. Age: 5, real name: Sammy
ii. Scrawny, shaved head
d. Ringer
i. Age: ??, real name: Marika
ii. See RINGER
e. Tank – DECEASED (executed for going Dorothy, Camp Haven)
i. Skinny, quick-tempered farm boy
f. Oompa – DECEASED (shrapnel from tanker explosion, Mission 1)
i. Real name: Kenny
ii. Chubby with crooked teeth
iii. Last in every drill, first in chow line
g. Flintstone – DECEASED (kill switch accidental suicide, Mission 1)
i. Age: 17
ii. Big head, bushy unibrow
iii. Pissed at Zombie & Nugget for demotion from Squad Leader
iv. "Okay" at marksmanship
h. Poundcake –
DECEASED (Grace/Suicide by IED, Hotel Walker)
i. Age: 8
ii. Mute, second best shot after RINGER
iii. Used to be bullied
iv. Stopped talking because told to shut up (pg 113)
v. Shot by Grace, chose to blow up IED to kill Grace
i. Teacup –
DECEASED (Razor)
i. Age: 7,
real name: Alison
ii. Meanest 7-year-old ever, used to be most gung-ho in training
iii. Quick to jump into a fight in training
iv. Clings to RINGER
2. Schedule (pg 222)
a. 5:00AM: Wake up, wash up, dress, prep for inspection.
b. 5:10AM: Fall in, inspection.
i. Three laps for failing to meet perfection
c. 6:30AM: Chow in mess hall (smells faintly of sour milk).
d. 7:30AM: Training.
i. Calisthenics (pg 214)
ii. Weapons
1. M16 rifle
iii. Hand-to-hand
iv. Basic wilderness survival
v. Basic urban survival
vi. Recon
vii. Communications
e. 12:00PM: Noon chow.
f. 1:00PM: More training, usually firing range.
g. 5:00PM: Evening chow.
h. 6:00PM: Drill instructor Q&A in barracks.
i. 8:30PM: Personal time.
i. Wash everything
ii. Clean rifles
iii. Play cards, etc
iv. Pass around contraband (candy, gum, etc)
j. 9:30PM: Lights out.
3. Equipment
a. M16 rifle
b. Canteen
4. Notes
a. Standing at attention
i. "You stand perfectly still, eyes forward, hands at your sides, chest out." (pg 219)
b. At ease
i. "I spread my feet, put my hands behind my back, right hand loosely gripping my left wrist … eyes forward, chest out." (pg 256)
c. Hand-to-hand combat
i. Unpredictable, every second one remains engaged increases the risk
ii. "Getting off the X" (pg 198)
RINGER
1. Real name: Marika
2. Age: 16-17
3. Appearance
a. 5'8" tall, thin
b. Three-quarters Asian, one-quarter apache
c. Straight black hair, bangs stop just short of eyebrows
d. Pixie face, dark deep-set eyes, flawless pale skin
i. "The kind of eyes you search to find something there" (pg 243)
ii. "No emotion, like her eyes" (pg 244)
e. Gorgeous, "The kind of face you remember"
f. "Has the flawless complexion of an airbrushed model, the kind you see on the covers of fashion magazines smiling arrogantly at you in the checkout line." (pg 455)
4. Camp Haven
a. Originally Squad Leader of Squad Nineteen
i. Later, Private of SQUAD 53
b. Assigned to Barracks 10, previous Barracks unknown
5. History
a. Timeline
i. "Almost a year into it" (pg 126)
ii. Spends 6 weeks at NEW BASE (pg 249)
b. Family
i. Dad, brother, and baby sister
ii. Mom died first /
Mother left when 3 years old
iii. Tsunami destroyed home, plague killed family
iv. Playing chess with father (read pg 24-)
v. Father
1. "He rests his elbows on the table and laces those fingers to make a shelf for his chin, like my father did every time he played." (pg 193)
2. Started caring for alcoholic father at 14
3. Physical description (read pg 196)
4. "'He was an artist … He was also a drunk. Did more drinking than painting.' Thought not always." (pg 235)
5. An atheist
c. Post-Attack
i. Made it to Cincinnati with father
ii. "Then his stash ran out. He begged me not to leave him, but I knew if I didn't find some alcohol fast, he'd die. I found some—a bottle of vodka tucked underneath a mattress—after breaking into sixteen houses … I was so happy to find that bottle, I actually kissed it. But it was too late. He was dead by the time I made it back to our camp." (pg 205)
iii. "When I got back to our camp that night with the vodka, I found my dead father curled into a fetal position, his face covered in blood where he had clawed at the bugs born inside his mind. Bitch, he called me before I left to find the poison that would save him. He called me another name, too, the name of the woman who left us when I was three. He thought I was my mother, which was ironic. From the time I was fourteen, I was more like his mother, feeding him, washing his clothes, taking care of the house, making sure he didn't do something catastrophically stupid to himself. " (pg 231)
d. "Marika was slow, weak, sentimental, dimwitted. Marika was a little girl clinging to rainbow fingers, helplessly watching the time wind down, teetering on the razor's edge of the bottomless abyss, exposed behind her fortress walls by promises she could never keep." (pg 248)
e. Injuries sustained in crash: a couple broken ribs, a fractured wrist, a deep gash in forehead (pg 272)
6. Notes
a. Loves her rifle
b. Has the best eyes in the Squad
c. "Ringer fires again, this time at the reaching hand. It's three inches across, and she scores a direct hit. In the murky dark. Through heavy snow." (pg 312)
d. "I'd never handled a firearm in my life until the enemy found me hiding in the rest stop outside Cincinnati, brought me to their camp, and placed a rifle in my hand, at which point the drill sergeant wondered aloud if command ha slipped a ringer into the unit." (pg 16)
e. Started playing chess around Teacup's age
f. Hasn't played a game of chess since her father died
g. Prefers white in chess
h. Story of six blind men and elephant (pg 221)
i. "'My father had a favorite saying … We call chess the game of kings because, through chess, we learn how to rule kings.'" (pg 223)
j. Sucks at games of chance and hates them for that reason
k. Lost 8 pounds and 20% of muscle mass (while at NEW BASE)
l. Doesn't pray; "I don't like putting God on the spot." (pg 251)
• Personality
o Careful, deliberate
o Extremely factual, including with "compliments"
o Doesn't take shit from anyone
o "Quiet in an intense, unnerving way, with eyes that seem to dissect you" (pg 248)
o "'Giving the orders is my best chance to stay alive.'" (pg 248)
o Reassuring
o Patient; "like she could wait for a thousand years" (pg 289)
o "And then Ringer says, because she's Ringer, 'We're coming back.'" (pg 299)
o "Don't you get it yet? The minute we decide that one person doesn't matter anymore, they've won." (pg 455)
o Deliberate, without panic. "Panic shuts down neurons." (pg 11)
o "Every inch of my body tingles with the sensation of being watched. An uncomfortably familiar feeling now." (pg 14)
o "Teacup screams … Unacceptable." (pg 18)
o "Now my words are the chain that binds me to her." (pg 20)
o "She treated everything with a kind of icy contempt" (pg 40)
o "Ringer: the human Wonderland" (pg 43)
o "Then she walked out of the room. Just like that. Right in the middle, before anything was resolved. Who … does that?" (pg 44)
o "You engaged with Ringer at your own peril. She could humiliate you with a single word." (pg 46)
o Tells Zombie to lie back down
o "Think before you respond. Chess teaches that." (pg 192)
o Acknowledges and admits to being stressed
o "It never occurred to me that he might be bluffing." (pg 200)
o "The uncertainty of my own experience is crushing." (pg 207)
o "Fighting down a rising sense of panic, of losing control of something I never had control over." (pg 212)
o "And every day I went to school in my perfectly pressed uniform and they called me Her Majesty Marika and said I thought I was better than everybody else because my father was a semi-famous artist, the reclusive genius type, when the truth was that most days my father didn't know what planet he was on. By the time I got home from school, he'd be full-on delusional. And I let people on the outside hold their delusions, too. I let them think I thought I was better, the way I let Sullivan think she was right about me. I didn't just foster the delusions. I lived them. Even after the world crashed around us, I clung to them. But after he died, I told myself no more. No more brave fronts or false hopes or ptending everything's okay when nothing is. I thought I was being tough by pretending, calling it being optimistic, brave, keeping my head up or whatever bullshit seemed to fit the moment. That's not tough. That's the very definition of soft. I was ashamed of his disease and angry at him, but I was just as guilty. I played right into the lies right up to the end: When he called my mother's name, I didn't correct him. Delusional." (pg 231)
o "Are you serious? He doesn't know that I am 99.99999 percent of the time." (pg 234)
o Doesn't like risk and never did; "I just learned to accept it" (pg 247)
o Jokes all the time, extremely dry
o "There's nothing the hub can do about my snowballing panic." (pg 268)
o "…something loosens inside. My knees begin to shake. My chest aches like I've been hit with a battering ram. I can't catch my breath. … but there's nothing the forty thousand uninvited guests can do about a broken heart." (pg 278)
