"Erica, I know this must be hard for you, but we couldn't have brought Father Jack in with us. He was already under the control of Anna's bliss. He would have been a direct threat to the project had we brought him in," said Chris.
"You don't understand. Out of the team, out of my team, he was the only one who kept us screwed on straight. He was the only one who stopped us from killing thousands of people. He kept us standing when we needed him, and now I need to do the same," an exhausted Erica tried to explain for what seemed to her like the fifteenth time too many.
After finding Jack hypnotized by Anna's bliss, Erica had tried to literally pick him up and take him back to the bunker. Her old FBI partner, Chris, had dragged her back without the priest. He took her into a private meeting room with their old boss, Paul, where they had been trying to explain to Erica the many reasons why bringing Father Jack back into the Project Aries bunker was an extremely bad idea.
"I've argued about this enough." Erica stood abruptly, sending her chair rolling until its leather back hit the glass wall. She slammed her fist on the dark wood table and said, "I'm going to back out to find my team, and then we're going to take out the Vs like we've been doing." She turned to leave.
"And because that's worked out so well in the past."
Erica stopped her mad charge for the door and turned. "Are you making an offer, Paul?"
"Erica, you are the leader of the Fifth Column, and you can't have gotten there without some knowledge of the Vs and leadership and teamwork skills. You would make a great addition to Project Aires. Take one mission with us, and if you like it, you can stay. If you don't, then you can continue your worldwide escapade to find your broken team."
"Okay."
"That's it, okay?" Chris questioned incredulously.
"Yeah. I would be wandering alone out there, not having any idea where I was going or when Anna would bliss again. I need a team to work with."
"Then I better show you around."
The queen wasn't going to like this at all. A little more than ten minutes had passed after Anna had put Lisa in her grandmother's old cell, and she had escaped. Marcus walked into his queen's main office.
"As they say on earth, my queen, I have good news and bad news," Marcus stated cautiously. When Anna gave no response, he continued. "The good news is that your daughter from the second queen egg has successfully conceived. I just received confirmation from Joshua. Also, from our detection, every human on earth has been successfully blissed."
"And the bad news?" Anna turned as she said this, and her eyes menacingly stared back at Marcus.
"We worked very hard to contain her, but Lisa escaped with Tyler's body a few minutes ago. We tried to pick up the ship that she got away in, but our radar couldn't pick it up."
"That's okay. We still have my other daughter to work with as far as breeding goes. Lisa won't get far anyway. And as for Tyler's body, I'm sure that Lisa was just feeling overly emotional about his death. None of what you said worries me except for the fact that you failed to mention who helped her escape."
"Pardon?"
"That prison is built to contain anyone who I put in there and not let them out. Therefore, someone must have helped her escape."
Marcus looked bewildered.
"Go back through the security footage and find out who aided my renegade daughter. After that, I want you to root out all Fifth Column members aboard all 29 ships. The rest of the moles need to be rooted out and destroyed before I can safely continue with my plan. You may go."
Marcus turned to leave.
"And Marcus?"
He turned back to face her.
"Don't make another mistake, because you are replaceable."
