Claire and Ty Jantzen visit Da'an to ask for his help.
Claire explains that Lawrence didn't come home when the Taelons freed the other political detainees
last episode. However, the Volunteers claim to have no record of his having ever been arrested. Da'an promises to look into it, but Claire doubts the inscrutable alien's sincerity.
Instead, she's heard that many other prisoners never made it back from the Taelon mothership.
Da'an's bodyguard Liam Kincaid gives the family his word that he will find Lawrence, but the theme of trust -- and the Jantzens' lack thereof -- emerges as Ty Jantzen doesn't seem impressed with the promise of a Companion Protector.
Lili is alive and at large!
Back on the mothership, Erika Vosser, a Taelon Volunteer, frees Lili Marquette -- whom everyone assumes to be dead -- from her cell. Lili is reluctant to trust Vosser, but with nowhere else to turn, she doesn't have much choice.
Piloting a shuttle away from the mothership, she asks Vosser who she's working for, only to be rebuffed with a curt, "Patience, Captain Marquette."
Once on the ground, the women enter a laboratory. Lili tries to escape when she sees a machine used for CVI implantation, but Sandoval's assistant Tate is waiting for her with a tranquilizer. Lili loses a short struggle, then loses consciousness.
Oblivious to all this, Liam and Augur get to work on finding Lawrence Jantzen. Unfortunately, their network of Resistance contacts has almost completely been destroyed, but while the search turns up nothing on Jantzen, the pair do uncover cases of missing Resistance prisoners all over the world. Liam again vows to find the missing persons.
In her guise as Doors Industries liaison to the Taelons, Renee Palmer visits Da'an. She brings up the rumor of missing detainees, proclaiming it to be "a brilliant strategy", and suggests that she might be able to use some of these prisoners as test subjects.
Later, vampishly disguised, she charms the security guard in Sandoval's apartment building and sneaks into his place.
Cookouts and other painless processes
Liam interrupts a family cookout to question one of Jantzen's Resistance associates, Peter Brogan, about the disappearance. The pair not only ran an anti-Taelon newsgroup before the crackdown, but shared a cell when both were imprisoned on the mothership.
However, while Brogan admits to seeing Jantzen prior to boarding a ship back to Earth, he claims he lost track of him in the crowd of detainees and hasn't seen or heard from him since.
Back in the lab, Lili comes around to discover she has been strapped to an operating table. Tate informs her that implantation is a relatively painless process, and he and Vosser proceed with the implantation of the CVI.
Afterward, Vosser putters about the CVI lab, only to be knocked out by a justifiably angry Lili, who steals her global link and makes good an escape.
On the run through the facility, Lili finds herself in a room full of cages full of people. Fortuitously, Jantzen is one of the prisoners. He tells Lili to be quiet, but it's too late. Tate, accompanied by a pair of Volunteers, arrives on the scene and informs Lili that her implant functions perfectly. The guards escort her back to the lab but, in a show of sloppy housekeeping, the shattered global link stays on the ground where Jantzen can pick it up and start fiddling.
In Sandoval's apartment, Renee starts snooping through computer files, taking a moment to admire the décor while waiting for the file copy to complete. As she waits, she notices extensive handwritten notes on Sandoval's desk blotter. She scans these with her global for future consideration.
In his cell, Jantzen has built a crude transmitter out of the broken global, using a watch battery as a power source. A fellow prisoner thoughtfully reminds him that the Volunteers will kill him if they discover his efforts, but Jantzen observes that they're all going to die eventually anyway, noting bitterly that no one cares about missing persons.
Preparation, cooperation
Liam breezes into Renee's office at Doors Industries HQ, where Renee is waiting. Although he is still unsure whether he can trust her, he tells her that Sandoval is on her trail after she
freed him and Augur during the state of emergency. In return, she admits that she is also looking for Lawrence Jantzen.
Back at Sandoval's secret lab, Tate places taser shackles on Lili's legs to paralyze her in case she tries to make another run for freedom. Lili demands some exposition about her new CVI and about who Tate and Vosser work for, only to learn that she has become a walking video camera. She looks horrified as Vosser tells her, "Your eyes and ears belong to us now."
Tate then escorts Lili to another lab, this one containing a large tank. Vosser tells her to remove her clothes. Tate tells her not to be frightened because what they have planned is intended not to harm but to "prepare" her. Horrified, Lili asks, "Prepare me for what?"
Meanwhile, Renee receives a transmission from Jantzen and attempts to win Liam's trust by handing over records of hundreds of others who have disappeared from Taelon custody -- records that presumably originate in Sandoval's computer, but she doesn't bother telling Liam that.
As it turns out, Jantzen was part of a secret Resistance cell that helped Renee infiltrate Taelon security. She asks for Liam's help in decoding Jantzen's signal and finding the missing detainees, then goes to see Augur.
She observes that the computer genius has finally gotten his system up and running after she scrambled his electronics
last episode. Then, she hands him a copy of Jantzen's signal, urging him to hurry lest Jantzen and the others disappear forever. The signally eventually resolves into an image of a window, causing poor Augur much consternation.
What is Sandoval up to, anyway?
By this time, Renee has returned to Liam and the two talk about Sandoval, who they have learned is involved in a company that manufactures CVI technology. They realize that if the Taelons manage to implant the missing prisoners with CVIs, the Resistance is finished.
A little detective work uncovers a new counter-intelligence CVI designed specifically for Sandoval. The new implant is adaptable to hostile environments, leading Liam and Renee to suspect that the Taelons are again planning to ship humans off-planet.
Renee gets another call from her people, who have finally traced Jantzen's frantic signals. However, by the time Liam and Renee get there, the location turns out to be a seemingly deserted alley -- could the transmission have led them into an ambush?
In his cage, Jantzen hides his transmitter when Sandoval and Tate arrive to play a game of Bad Cop/Worse Cop in an attempt to find out about Renee, whom Sandoval still thinks is simply a rogue Taelon Volunteer.
Afterward, Tate gossips about his boss's plans with Vosser while Lili floats in the tank. She now has a strange device attached to her chest and Tate asks about her lungs. The pair of flunkies wander off together, giving Lili a free moment to make her way to a window and scratch "Find me" into the frame with her dog tags.
She manages to open the window just enough to drop the tags out, but they catch on the frame. When she attempts to knock them free, she cuts her finger, revealing that her blood is now black.
Sandoval arrives and taunts Lili with her now extraterrestrial physiology, noting that she can no longer survive more than 12 hours on Earth. He fails to notice the dog tags.
Burn the lab!
Meanwhile, Liam and Renee realize Jantzen must have piggybacked his signal off a nearby global and decide he must be nearby.
Sandoval orders the Volunteers to abandon the site and orders Tate to destroy the building. Tate jokingly inquires whether he should get rid of Vosser as well, but she -- and Sandoval, to his credit -- does not find this terribly amusing.
Augur shows Liam and Renee the "window" image from Jantzen's message. Enhancing the picture in classic "Blade Runner" fashion, he reveals a church steeple and Concorde airplane visible through the window. Using flight schedules, the angle of sunlight streaming through the window and native intuition, Augur narrows the search radius considerably for Liam and Renee, who split off to cover more territory.
Jantzen, meanwhile, dourly ponders his imminent death.
Sandoval prepares Lili and her shuttle for takeoff. He explains the vessel will be on autopilot and she should enjoy the ride. She is more direct, telling him he'll get his someday and she hopes she can be the one who pulls the trigger. The shuttle launches on its interdimensional journey.
Liam finds the church steeple and he and Renee infiltrate the supposedly abandoned building while Vosser sets bombs. Meanwhile, Sandoval and Tate plot their own private evacuation, fleeing through an interdimensional portal.
After a brief firefight with Vosser, Liam and Renee free the prisoners. In the chaos, Jantzen tries to defuse the bomb, but sensibly gives up and starts running instead. The three Resistance members escape, remarkably unscathed.
It never ends....
Outside the now-ruined building, the weary rebels split up. Liam pointedly fails to notice Lili's dog tags in the rubble.
Aboard the mothership, Liam tells Sandoval he has identified the rogue Volunteer as Vosser, causing Sandoval great irritation. Unwilling to admit he was behind the CVI facility, Sandoval is forced to accept the findings.
Reunited with Lawrence, the Jantzens enjoy an afternoon in the park. Nearby, Liam and Renee discuss Sandoval's strained reaction to Vosser's alleged betrayal. As they reflect on the domestic bliss playing out around them, Liam asks Renee if she'd like to have children some day. She says she would, but wonders what kind of world she'd be bringing them into.
A group of armed Volunteers walk by. Newspaper headlines tell of 61 Resistance members still missing in Barcelona. Liam and Renee join the Jantzens as more Volunteers march through the park and Taelon ships pass overhead. Life on Earth goes on.
In another solar system, Lili Marquette's shuttle carries her to meet her fate.
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