On March 8-9 2017, four separate incidents occur over a span of a few hours in which individuals live past their expected times of death but undergo drastic personality shifts afterward. The fifth happens two nights later.
Marcy[]
Marcy Warton is an intellectually disabled girl working in a public library. Her coworker Tory clocks out early, but is attacked by four violent men in the parking lot. Marcy notices the commotion and bangs the library's glass wall in an attempt to distract the attackers, which allows Tory to escape. Marcy flees the incoming men, but trips on the staircase, bumping her head. She then sees the attackers apparently have gone away, so she goes to the parking lot to retrieve Tory's bag. However, the attackers were just waiting out of sight and now starts assaulting Marcy.
She clutches her head around 10:42 PM, screaming in pain after falling to the ground. When she regains consciousness, she stands up and proceeds to beat up her assailants, who scamper afterward. She collects her things and goes home.
Thursday, the next morning, Marcy's acquaintance David Mailer visits her residence at Del Mar Inn. Marcy answers the door naked, which makes David remind her it's inappropriate and he asks her to put some clothes on. David notices her head injury and wants to take her to the doctor even though she has an aversion to them. After putting on a dress Marcy asks if she's wearing appropriate clothes, and David responds she could use some underwear.
While commuting with Marcy on a bus David brings out children's reading material for Marcy. He's surprised when Marcy reads the headline for the day's newspaper perfectly, apparently without the stuttering or slowness expected from disabled people.
At Dr. Grace Lee's office around noon David relays the "miracle" to the doctor, who deems it impossible in light of Marcy's reported physical brain damage. According to her file, Marcy lived in an abusive institution until she turned 18. The doctor hypothesizes that Marcy was just faking it to cope with her experiences and make people care for her, and her injury made her "forget" being disabled.
David calls it impossible, but the doctor deems it more possible than Marcy's IQ doubling overnight. David met Marcy around 2016 and got her a subsidized apartment and other benefits based on her seeming disabilities. When Marcy intrudes on their conversation, they show her videos of her from a few months ago struggling to read simple sentences. Marcy claims she doesn't understand, so Dr. Lee establishes baselines by asking what she remembers. Marcy claims to be a librarian and calls David a reporter, but they reveal to her those were just made up personas in order to teach her about social media. David reminds her she's a cleaning lady and he's her social worker. Marcy seizes up at the information.
It is already dark when Marcy regains consciousness at a hospital. She supposes there's too much preexisting damage to the host, though David doesn't understand. She implores David not to bog her down in hospital tests as she has important work to do. As soon as David leaves to see the doctor, Marcy yanks off her monitoring wires and escapes.
Marcy heads to David's residence and uses his computer to send encrypted messages on the deep web, confirmation of Traveler 3569's arrival. David catches up shortly thereafter and asks what's really going on. Marcy isn't allowed to say anything, only to hint that what's happening is happening for a good reason.
The next morning, Marcy wakes up at David's couch, naked again. David allows her to stay as long as she wants, since he has other social worker clients to attend to. She announces she will be out late, and kisses David before he leaves.
Trevor[]
High school football star Trevor Holden is fighting at a brutal cage match, observed outside the ring by his friend Kyle. His opponent wallops him to the mat hard, but Trevor ignores Kyle's advice to give up and tries to continue the fight. He is again kicked down. Around 11:06 PM he starts clutching his head and screaming in pain, but after recovering he immediately concedes the fight.
The next morning in his home's kitchen, Trevor attempts to decipher text lingo from his own girlfriend Rene Bellamy, who's asking "R U Ok Babe?" His parents Patricia Holden and Gary Holden enter the room, with the former being supportive in light of his concussion and the latter being more annoyed that his son will be impaired at football. Patricia cools down the tensions between father and son, and Trevor expresses gratitude, causing both parents to look at him sharply. He never did that before.
Trevor soaks up the sunlight when Rene walks up to his lawn and hugs him. Hearing his parents are out, Rene attempts to "comfort" her boyfriend by seducing him. However, Trevor declines in light of his concussion, using it as an excuse to claim it left him unable to recall certain things. He claims he'll heal with time, and in the meanwhile wants Rene's help to "find himself".
Later that night, Trevor researches information about Jonas Walker while also confirming Traveler 0115's arrival on the deep web.
The next morning, Trevor attends his school, to Kyle's surprise who thought he has a free pass to stay home for the rest of the year. Trevor asks him if he knows the combination to his locker. He lets his mother know he will be out late that night.
Philip[]
Philip Pearson prepares heroin doses for himself and his roommate Stephen. Around 11:35 PM Philip clutches his head and screams in pain, and afterward he tosses away his own needle without using it. Stephen has already injected himself but the heroin turned out to be a bad batch. He overdoses, though Philip leaves instead of calling 911 or attempting to help.
The next morning around 8:16 AM, Philip is at an internet cafe sending messages on the deep web, confirmation of Traveler 3326's arrival. He puts away the interface when Detective Gower walks up to him, informing him about Stephen's death.
At the police station's interrogation room Gower walks through Philip's recollection of last night's drug session. The detective wants to know if Philip can be held liable for manslaughter. Gower leaves him to stew for a while, as Philip invokes his right to an attorney while suffering from withdrawal.
Public defender Ray Green enters the interrogation room and tells Philip he's looking at prison time. Philip refuses this outcome and makes a counteroffer that can benefit them both, heroin addict to gambling addict, and fronts him a cash advance for investing.
Philip is released afterward and Ray drives up to him, incredulous that his "stupid" bets yielded large amounts of money. He hands Philip his share of the winnings plus some heroin from lockup, pledging his services in return for more winning bets. Later that night, Philip shades winning lottery numbers in a convenience store and walks away $92,000 richer.
The next morning, Gower tails him about the lottery winnings, but is distracted by skateboarders paid by Ray. Ray wants more winning horse races, but Philip rebuffs him. The lawyer dumps Philip in front of Gower to help him "think about it", which leads to Gower chasing Philip on foot.
At an empty alley the detective finally catches up to Philip, but the overexertion gives him a heart attack. Philip declines to help, claiming Gower "was considered to be a host" but his heart attack was inevitable. The detective perishes not understanding Philip's reasons.
Carly[]
Carly Shannon is mother to the baby Jeffery Jr. and partner to the domestic abuser Jeff Conniker. Jeff goes home drunk one night. Irritated at Carly mouthing off on him, he smashes her head on the counter. Around 12:38 AM she clutches her head and screams in pain, which only serves to enrage Jeff more. When she recovers, Carly rejects Jeff's apology and warns him to leave her house.
The following morning, Carly searches the internet on "how to care for an infant", despite being mother to one for over a year. She feeds baby cookies to Jeff Jr. in the meantime.
Opening up the same interface used by Philip, Carly types on the deep web that Traveler 3468's arrival is still scheduled for tomorrow night while Traveler 3465's arrival is confirmed. She tells Jeff Jr. "Daddy's coming", apparently not referring to the boy's father.
Jeff returns more sober to Carly's house, but still in a belligerent mood even after apologizing. Carly isn't backing down either, and demands proper financial support in addition to restricting Jeff's visiting hours. Wanting to prove he's serious at making amends, he asks what to do. Carly tasks him with changing the baby's diaper.
The next morning, Jeff, a police officer, secretly watches Carly's interactions from his car. Later when Carly goes out, Jeff assumes she's meeting with the white guy she spoke to earlier and harasses her. Carly gives him one last warning, then mandhandles him when he ignores her, driving away in his car.
Grant[]
Grant MacLaren is an FBI Special Agent monitoring the movements of criminal Jonas Walker. However, his partner Walt Forbes hands him screenshots of cryptic messages on the deep web, which look like gibberish to the untrained eye. As Walt is booked at the courts, Grant handles the investigation, wondering if the "Travelers" who posted these messages are some kind of terrorist cell or just gamers.
Later that night, MacLaren is alerted to a flag indicating chatroom activity on the deep web. Forbes advises him to contact Gower, considering Philip created the chatroom and Gower booked him for Stephen's death.
The morning of March 10 2017, Grant heads to the houses of IP addresses associated with the encrypted chatroom. Patricia Holden thinks Trevor was just using the internet for porn and games. Carly feigns ignorance about the chatroom. Nobody's answering at David's apartment, so Grant slips in a calling card. With Philip not returning to his former residence, Grant calls Gower and asks him to surveil Philip's movements. Later in the evening, he calls David's landline but also gets unhelpful answers from the social worker. When he checks with Gower, he finds out the detective just died earlier.
With none of his leads panning out except for the coordinates of an abandoned building from the chatroom, Grant drives there to see what it's all about. He sees Jeff entering the building, giving him the impetus to follow.
Jeff used police resources to track his car and ends up exploring the abandoned building. He gets lost there, and is locked out when he emerges on the roof. Shortly before 11:17 PM, a citywide blackout occurs. At the 12th floor of the building, Grant nearly falls down an elevator shaft along with his cellphone but is saved at the last moment by Trevor. Carly, Philip, and Marcy are also there. They claim to be Travelers from the future, sent back in time to correct the mistakes of the past. They came from a future where humanity was all but wiped out, and there are thousands of Travelers already in the 21st century doing their part to prevent it from happening.
They developed the technology to transfer a consciousness from the future to a host body in the past, using the T.E.L.L., but doing so overrides the consciousness of the original host, and the Traveler must resume the host's life from the date of their historical death onward using knowledge from historical records and current social media - which will all be part of the historical record in the future.
The Travelers show Grant the body of Jonas Walker, who historically went on a shooting rampage. The Travelers preemptively stopped him. Marcy informs Grant that he historically died between 11:14 and 11:17 PM in pursuit of Walker, when he fell 45 meters down the elevator shaft Trevor saved him from. Grant is initially skeptical of these tales, but as his T.E.L.L. approaches he begins clutching his head and screaming in pain, like all the previous Travelers before him.
When Grant recovers, he's pleased to learn his team all made it to the 21st century. He declares to them, "let's begin."
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