Prologue[]
Grant MacLaren, now inhabited by a Traveler, asks his team if there are any issues he should know about. Marcy Warton notes the intel on her host was way off mark, but she's handling it. She injects Mac with a comm, as the others have already been given earlier. Carly Shannon sets the voice activation sequence for the comms. Grant asks when did they have time to make the devices, and Trevor Holden answers he did them after school.
Victoria Boyd barges into the 12th floor of the abandoned building with police backup, demanding everyone to freeze. She tells MacLaren they're responding to a backup call he issued earlier. Mac claims he was forced to neutralize Jonas Walker, whose body is under the tarp near the cops. Carly tells them their fellow cop Jeff Conniker is locked out on the roof.
While the cops deal with the given information, Boyd approaches MacLaren and identifies herself as Traveler 3185. She gives him an antimatter containment unit for his team's next mission. Mac's surprised as he thought he would be meeting her en route, but Boyd remarks no plan survives contact with the past. As 3468 only arrived about six minutes earlier, Boyd pats him and encourages him to "save the world."
Meanwhile at Van Huizen Corporation, the citywide blackout causes blaring alarms. Major Gleason tells Dr. Delaney he will be taking her stock of antimatter back to his base. Delaney objects to his untested transport unit, and accuses him of only wanting to use the material for weapons development using the blackout and "safety concerns" as excuses. The Major doesn't deny it.
Antimatter Retrieval[]
Late March 10, 2017 and early morning March 11, 2017, the Core Traveler Team drives to intercept Gleason's shipment. In the historical record, the antimatter exploded during transport, killing 11,000 people. The Travelers aim to prevent this by stealing the antimatter into their own containment unit.
Gleason is informed that containment failure is imminent. He orders the rest of his convoy to turn around and drive as fast as they can. The antimatter truck driver Wilson promises to take the material as far as he can. Gleason assures him he'll be following close by, but he does not actually intend to do so.
The Traveler team splits into two groups. In one car, Grant and Carly flirt with each other, as they have been in a relationship in the future prior to arriving in their current bodies. Carly recalls the real MacLaren's visit to her house earlier, noting he's just as charming as 3468, and she was almost tempted to warn him against going to his fated death to avoid being overwritten. Grant supposes this is better, as the next available host candidate was a morbidly obese meat salesman. Carly asks if he likes "soft" girls like her host, and Grant replies there's no safe way to answer that question.
They're interrupted by Philip Pearson over comms, who notes that the truck's convoy is now moving away from it. Grant drops Carly in front of the truck's way while the rest of the team follow behind it. When Wilson is forced to stop due to Carly's presence, he attempts to radio Gleason about it. However, Philip is jamming his radio. Marcy injects him with a sedative. Philip and Trevor scramble to transfer the antimatter into their portable unit, then Trevor replaces the truck's contents with a conventional bomb set to detonate in a minute.
Marcy injects Wilson with a stimulant before fleeing the scene with her team. Wilson awakes none the wiser, unaware of the bomb in his truck that will explode in less than 18 seconds. From a safe distance the Travelers witness the explosion, still big but not as big as an antimatter explosion ought to be. They remark they have officially changed history and saved 11,000 lives, except for Wilson who was the unavoidable casualty.
At 8:30 AM later that morning, they are scheduled to hand over the portable unit to another incoming Traveler Team Leader to officially complete the mission. Philip and Marcy volunteer to do it: Carly has a baby, Trevor has school, and Grant has a wife he will be meeting for the first time. With 40 hours remaining on the portable unit's battery, there's no rush.
Marcy returns to David Mailer's residence around 12:47 AM. Still awake, David asks if she had anything to do with the blackout, then if she was involved with the FBI. MacLaren called David about the encrypted chatrooms before he was overwritten by 3468. Marcy denies knowing about the blackout, though she does confirm she is working with MacLaren. David has one more question, why is she staying at his apartment, and she replies there will come a time she will need his help, and there are few people she trusts.
Grant drops off Carly at her house, but she advises against coming in as there's a babysitter. She kisses him for the night. She finds her house empty, as Jeff has taken their son and left a note for Carly demanding they talk soon.
Trevor sneaks into his bedroom while Patricia Holden prepares for a candlelight bath, unaware or uncaring of his presence. Grant returns to his home, but sleeps in the sofa instead of the bedroom with his wife. Philip goes to a stocked warehouse with the portable containment unit, and sleeps with the glow of its lights in one of the rooms.
Meanwhile, back at the explosion site a heavily injured but still breathing Wilson crawls away from the fires.
Complications in the Plan[]
Power has been restored by morning. Grant awakes to the sound of his wife Kathryn MacLaren preparing coffee, who remarks he didn't even make it upstairs. Grant claims he didn't want to wake her. He chokes over cow's milk in the coffee, and calls his wife "Kathryn", something he never did since their first date. Kat assumes he's just tired and goes to prepare for her day. Grant tries to use context clues to smooth over the moment, and also dumps the rest of his coffee down the sink.
Trevor awakes to an erection in his teenage body. His mother bursts into his room to wake him, and Trevor assures her he's already up. Carly starts her day doing exercises. Philip fights his withdrawal symptoms as Marcy comms him to meet her at the incoming T.E.L.L. He takes a hit of heroin to steady himself.
David tries to convince Marcy to go to the hospital because of her seizure two days ago, but she is otherwise occupied and now claims to David she is indeed a doctor. She diagnoses her seizure as an absence seizure, something more common in children than adults, and she will be ordered to take an MRI because it will likely get worse. David still insists on taking her to the hospital as her social worker, so Marcy bargains with him. She won't have to go to the hospital if she proves that there will be a plane crash with four casualties in Oregon around noon. David reluctantly takes the deal, and also gives her a cellphone that he intended to give to an ex-girlfriend.
Philip and Marcy proceed to the incoming Traveler's office at the 7th floor of a building and wait for the download to complete. They greet the new Traveler, but it turns out he just died of fentanyl overdose. They contact the others about it.
The Travelers proceed to the warehouse Philip is staying, now cleaned up and converted into their Ops. They discuss the developments: according to the historical record the host killed himself with a gun, and the fentanyl pills were his unrecorded failsafe in case he chickened out. Philip and Marcy didn't see any other teammates of the deceased Traveler, and according to Philip, no good hosts are available from 8:30 AM onward for any incoming Travelers who can complete the handoff.
The Travelers are unaware of what the antimatter is for. Carly suggests driving it out of town like the military was trying to do. Philip wants to send an SOS on the deep web to alert the dead Traveler's team to another handoff. Trevor suggests extending the portable unit's power supply. Grant supposes the Director has a plan for the antimatter and authorizes Philip's SOS, pledging to run interference at the FBI if needed, and goes off to talk to Boyd if she knows something.
Back at Van Huizen, Delaney receives a call from Gleason demanding to know about the discrepancy in his truck's explosion. Gleason thinks the explosion was too small for an antimatter detonation and while the blast was substantial it sent his driver Wilson into a coma. He accuses Delaney of never having the actual material in the first place, or somehow holding on to it. Delaney denies these allegations and wasn't even expecting to hear from him again, but Gleason promises to hold a personal conversation about it soon.
Boyd's walking with a female acquaintance and a child at a park, separating from them at a juncture. Grant talks to her afterward, but she reminds him of Protocol 6. Grant tells her of the complications in their mission, but Boyd replies that in the absence of a clear course of action he should await the Director's instruction either by messenger or another Traveler; she is not that Traveler. She is not supposed to know anything outside her assigned task: Travelers are compartmentalized. She advises him he will have to make tough calls on his own if no instructions are forthcoming.
Around noon at a bar while feeding his dreadlocked client, David listens to the news anchor reporting about the plane crash in Oregon, exactly as Marcy predicted. He calls her while she's at Ops demanding an explanation, but an accident consumes her complete attention. While Trevor and Philip are working on the portable unit, Philip's shaking hands result in a short-circuit that sends him into cardiac arrest. Marcy sets down her phone and administers medical attention, all the while with David on the other end listening to audio of the events and fruitlessly calling her name, only cut short with Carly canceling the call.
Philip is revived, but there's still bad news. The containment unit's battery drained instead of having its capacity extended. From 30 hours they now have 5 hours. Carly still advocates for driving it far away, though Trevor suggests there's still a solution they haven't thought of. Grant returns to Ops relaying the similarly fruitless talk he had with Boyd, but Philip has an idea. They should return the antimatter to Van Huizen as they have the only facility nearby capable of storing the antimatter indefinitely.
Antimatter Containment[]
To minimize the number of people knowing what they're about to do, Philip hacks into Van Huizen's systems and starts a coolant leak. This sends most of the employees home. The Travelers pose as cleanup crew from Futura Reclamation and undercover they will reinsert the antimatter back into its original place.
David continues to call Marcy, but being busy with preparations she doesn't answer. Philip asks about their connection, and Marcy tells him the historical record on her host is fiction. She was a mentally disabled woman in the care of the state and David is her social worker. She deems her condition fatal long-term, but not immediately, and she plans to tell MacLaren once she has properly diagnosed herself. She knows about Philip's addiction problem because of her medical expertise, and she remarks they all have their burdens. She advises him to dose a little first to keep his hands from shaking; he can go clean after the mission.
While driving to Van Huizen Carly tells Grant she isn't comfortable working with a mass murderer. Grant assures her Delaney was only the military's scapegoat in the historical record, though Carly still deems her personality unpleasant, having seen her in the historical docs.
The Travelers pass the security checks at Van Huizen's gate and drive up to the facility's building 26 with no problems. As they prepare to transfer the antimatter, Delaney appears with a gun in her hands demanding to know what they're doing. Delaney already fixed Philip's hack on the relief valve, but assumes the military is there to steal her research. Grant explains they're the one behind the antimatter theft last night and they have the material to return it to her, but to signal he means business he informs her Marcy is behind her to shoot if she tries anything.
Grant identifies himself as FBI, with some specialists, and claims they're "tasked at the highest level to prevent the military from building the most powerful weapon of mass destruction in history." She checks his credentials, while he continues narrating about preventing thousands of deaths last night as well as an arms race. However, it took almost the entire five hours from mission prep to this moment, and their portable containment unit's battery is running out.
Philip observes Van Huizen's security cams from a Futura van and spots Gleason arriving at this inopportune moment, to demand an explanation from Delaney. Carly and Marcy take hidden positions while Grant helps Trevor with the transfer, also instructing Delaney to get rid of the Major as quickly as possible. Gleason verifies the antimatter is not in the Van Huizen tank, but hears a ticking sound nearby. Delaney distracts him by lying they never actually produced antimatter in sufficient amounts, "explaining" the minuscule explosion, and that she didn't want to lose her funding. Gleason gloats over this, but allows Delaney to retain the funding in exchange for continued research and scrutiny. Once he's finally out of the way, Trevor transfers the antimatter back to Van Huizen.
Once the crisis has passed Delaney announces her continuing mistrust of who the Travelers claim to be, citing their youth and the miniaturized containment tech being impossible from her point of view. Grant assures her he is indeed FBI but working with a top secret task force. He wants her to keep the antimatter story secret and off the news. Because they will be meeting with her again soon, he gives her his calling card.
Grant also adds that in a manner of speaking Delaney saved Gleason's life because he would have allowed Carly and Marcy to shoot him if he stayed there too long. She sarcastically notes that made her day.
Trevor returns home to a disappointed mother. His school called her to note that he missed an exam yesterday. Patricia texted him while he was at Ops, but he ignored it as he "got busy". Patricia only supposes he'd get back to his old self someday. Marcy returns to David, who inquires if she saved Philip. While having tea together, Marcy decides she'll go with him to the hospital tomorrow after all. Carly returns to her home, and sends the babysitter looking after Jeff Jr. out for the day.
Grant returns to his home, to a Kat who's pleasantly surprised Grant is actually home for once. He answers the door when somebody knocks, and it's a child. In a robotic voice she calls him Traveler 3468 and declares the outcome of their concluded mission acceptable, in light of extenuating factors. However, she warns him further breaches of Protocols may result in punitive action. The child snaps back to awareness; Kat checks her out and identifies her as a girl scout who already sold her two boxes of cookies 30 minutes ago. The girl seems bewildered as the MacLarens close the door, but Grant knows she was turned into a messenger from the Director. As they retire for the day with wine, Grant coaxes Kat to talk about her day as he deems his "boring".
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