The 5th Wave

Cassie searches the house while Evan is out and finds some pictures that support his story. She’s still suspicious, however, so she goes out to the barn. She finds her M16 rifle wrapped in cloth.

Cassie considers killing Evan because she believes he might be the Silencer who shot her but can’t bring herself to do it. Instead, she allows him to tell her a plausible story about finding the gun where she left it on the highway while he was out hunting. She finds herself wanting to believe him, especially when he says he’s willing to die for her.

Zombie’s squad is dropped outside a neighborhood in downtown Dayton to root out a group of Teds, or Others. When they make their way to the assigned area, they spot three people. They wear eyepieces that glow green around people who are infected; the three people glow green. Ringer sets up to shoot them, but Zombie hesitates to give the order because he wants to ensure they are alone and that their guns won’t alert someone nearby. However, someone fires on them so he gives the order. Ringer hits two of the three, with one escaping. She points out that the shot aimed at them came from the top of a nearby building. Zombie realizes they are in danger no matter what they do, so he decides to blow up a nearby tanker to interfere with the sniper’s night vision—giving the squad time to run to a nearby parking garage.

Zombie successfully blows up the gas tank on the tanker. He runs as it blows up, only to discover that Oompa has been wounded by a piece of debris. He carries Oompa to the parking garage where Dumbo treats him. Unfortunately, the wound is too severe, and Oompa dies.

Ringer pinpoints the building where the sniper sits. The sniper does not glow green in their eyepieces, but they need to neutralize him in order to return to their rendezvous point. Zombie and Ringer decide to attempt to wound the sniper.

Once alone, Ringer asks Zombie to take the implant out of her neck. She believes those who glow green in the eyepiece only do so because they do not have an implant. Zombie argues with her, afraid she’s having a nervous breakdown like Tank; but he reluctantly agrees after a lengthy discussion. When the implant is out of her neck, Ringer glows green on the eyepiece.

Ringer tells Zombie that they have been trained to be the fifth wave: The Others want the humans to kill each other.

Zombie reflects on Ringer’s argument and things he knows independently of her and agrees with her assessment. He asks her to take his implant out too. They go after the sniper to make it safe for them to leave the area. Ringer shoots the sniper in the leg and then in the hand when he reaches for something. It is then when Zombie and Ringer realize the sniper is Reznik. Ringer shoots him in the chest. The two retrieve the item he was reaching for—a silver disk with a grid on its screen. They realize the disk is tracking their squad, and that there is a kill button for each of them. They believe Reznik was there to kill them should they fail to shoot the people they believed were Others.

When Zombie and Ringer return to the parking garage and tell the others what happened, Flintstone refuses to believe it. He grabs the disk from Zombie’s hand and presses the kill button under his number; he instantly dies. Zombie instructs Dumbo to remove everyone’s implants and tells them to run. He, however, plans to go back to the base to rescue Nugget.

A Black Hawk helicopter comes and retrieves Zombie. He has a wound in his abdomen that he requested Ringer give him (to make him look less suspicious). The pilot rushes Zombie to the base hospital.

When Zombie wakes in the hospital, he finds Vosch beside him. He tells Vosch that Ringer went crazy and convinced everyone to remove their implants; when he argued with her, she shot him. Vosch struggles to believe Zombie but tells him that they will be stopping his pain medication so he can be hooked up to Wonderland. This is why Zombie insisted on being shot: He needed time between arriving and being hooked up to Wonderland to find Nugget.