The mysterious stranger begins exploring, picking through skeletal human remains without regard for archaeology or respect for the dead.

He eventually finds a number of artifacts -- including a golden medallion, a knotted length of rope, two small idols, and a lump of smooth, glasslike material -- but the arrival of a guard soon interrupts his tomb raiding activities. A fight ensues. He escapes, seeming more interested in the glassy lump than the gold or statuary.

Later, Liam Kincaid arrives at the Rizzori Gallery in New York, where a woman we will later know as "Vera" is berating Sandoval and another man, Carl Praeger of U.S. Customs. She is very insistent that they all leave immediately.

Sandoval decides to take the artifact into custody, but Praeger insists on cataloguing the gallery before handing over anything. The two men begin to argue, until Liam steps in to suggest that Praeger take 24 hours to complete his work. Meanwhile, Sandoval will inform the Taelons of the discovery and Liam will attempt to track the items to their source. All (reluctantly) agree, leaving Vera Rizzori to impose some semblance of order as Praeger's men get to work.

Outside, Liam greets Renee Palmer as she arrives on the scene. It turns out that Renee and Vera Rizzori are old friends. Sandoval, meanwhile, angrily insists that he is in charge of all Taelon-related developments and storms off to make arrangements to post guards at the gallery.

With Sandoval out of the way, Liam freely tells Renee about what we know so far about the supposed Taelon artifact, which Vera's people found in a recent shipment of recent pre-Columbian antiquities. As he explains, the presence of Taelon technology in Peru is something of a geographical anomaly because the only known traces of ancient Taelon presence on Earth, the grave and personal effects of Taelon explorer Ma'el, were discovered in Ireland.

Renee confesses that her visit isn't coincidental after all. It turns out that Door Industries has contacts in global law enforcement who passed along the call that brought Liam to the scene. Liam accuses her of running errands for Jonathan Doors, but Renee argues that her interest lies with the broader Resistance movement rather than the man's own cult of personality.

Liam decides that he needs to take a look at the orb because an uncontrolled source of Taelon technology is "too good to pass up." When Renee protests that Sandoval has the gallery under guard, Liam indicates that he has a plan. But wait! As they depart, we see the man who stole the artifacts from the site in Peru watching them.

On the Taelon mothership, Zo'or is visibly shaken when Sandoval shows him an image of the supposed Taelon artifact. He insists that Sandoval hand over the item immediately, but Sandoval explains that U.S. Customs is in control of the case for the time being, so any attempt to seize the artifact would only cause delays.

From a window across the street, Liam aims a bazooka-like weapon at the Rizzori Gallery. He fires a projectile through a window and it imbeds itself in the far wall. When Liam sends a signal via his global, the projectile unfolds into an antenna array.

He then puts on a pair of night vision shades and, grabbing a harpoon gun, steps into an ID portal. As it turns out, the antenna is an interdimensional receiver, which allows Liam to beam up in the gallery, 80 feet above the floor. He fires the harpoon gun into the ceiling, and hangs, suspended.

Nimbly lowering himself to the floor, Liam looks for the Taelon artifact, checking in with Renee to make sure nobody's seen him break into the gallery. Although he quickly finds the Peruvian artifacts, the presence of Taelon-friendly Volunteer guards forces him first into hiding, then into combat.

Renee, watching via global, mutters to herself. She has been busy herself, setting an incendiary grenade to cover their shenanigans, but Liam's delay in fleeing the building forces her to toss the grenade into a nearby dumpster, where it detonates uselessly.

Liam leaves the way he came in while Volunteers race to investigate the explosion. Otherwise, no trace of the break-in remains behind.

Renee and Liam bring the loot to Augur's for analysis. Interestingly, the stones used as eyes for the idols are synthetic "flame fusion gems," created in a process brought to Earth by Taelon contact.

Meanwhile, the glass orb itself continues to resist scans, while the knotted rope is of course a fine example of quipu, Incan knot writing. Once translated, the rope reveals itself to be a treasure map of sorts, with the knots representing distances.

Sandoval discovers the break-in and immediately informs Zo'or, who is not happy. Da'an is also not pleased, reminding Zo'or that the artifact is the key to the Taelons' involvement on Earth. Without it, he says, "we may as well leave the humans in peace. They will never be of any use to us, unless we find it."

Liam meets with Vera Rizzori at the Flat Planet, but she seems more interested in complaining about Sandoval than the burglary and potential firebombing of her gallery. In fact, she brushes off the theft entirely, claiming that she already knows who broke in -- the man who sold the gallery the artifacts in the first place. She gives Liam the address of her partner, who bought the stuff.

Of course, this seemingly earnest help only prompts an ambush when the address leads Liam to a seemingly abandoned building. After a brief knife fight with the tomb raider ends badly, Liam finds himself forced to listen to the man complain about how Vera owes him money.

Fortunately, Renee is watching all this over the sights of a pistol, but refuses to kill the smuggler while she has the drop on him. Instead, she starts nosing around on her own, only to find the body of Vera's dying partner, who we soon learn is the hapless Praeger.

Liam attempts to bargain with his captor, offering immunity in exchange for information about where he found the relics. The smuggler isn't interested in making a deal, so Renee finally returns and distracts the man, allowing Liam to break free. The man runs away. Renee fires at him, but misses.

Before dying, Praeger chokes out that the artifacts were discovered in "Laya...." Liam and Renee flee the scene

Later, Da'an finds no mention of Praeger's death in the media, an apparent oversight that Liam is only too happy to explain -- Customs has hushed up the story because it implies that one of their agents was involved in a smuggling operation.

This distracts Da'an from finding out that Liam already has the artifact the Taelons are so eager to recover. Liam also suggests that the item might lead to more of Ma'el's research into the opportunities for Taelon-Human cooperation, a prospect Da'an finds exciting.

Liam meets with Augur to discuss the knotted map, which leads them to contemplate the possibilities of the great Plain of Nazca, which is covered with miles-long Inca art that is only visible from the air or from orbit. Since one of the designs looks like a giant landing strip, Augur suggests that Liam center his search there. But where to begin?

Sandoval briefs Zo'or on Praeger's murder. He identifies the suspect as Enrique Gonsalves, believed to be a multiple murderer and smuggler of Peruvian antiquities. Sandoval agrees to trace the smuggling network, then shows Zo'or forensic data taken from Renee's bullet, which was found embedded in the wall near Praeger's body.

Studying the data, man and Taelon agree that the missed shot must have been deliberate, while the weapon itself is highly advanced, limited to military and law enforcement personnel -- and, as Zo'or notes, "our industrial partners."

Zo'or goes to Jonathan Doors, who confirms that some of his security staff carry these "smart bullets." Doors offers to help Zo'or trace the source of the artifacts, an overtly cooperative gesture that surprises the alien until Doors explains that the smugglers are looting from a site where his company has its own interests.

Augur finally realizes that there's a "Rio La Yapana" in Peru near Nazca. Could it be the "Laya" Praeger was talking about? The only way to know for sure is to explore it personally, so Liam and Renee take a shuttle to Peru.

After a brief look at a Doors Industries offshore oil platform, our heroes check out a fishing village where a river meets the sea. Unfortunately, the arrival of Sandoval puts an end to the sight-seeing, leaving Renee to deal with the intractable FBI agent in her capacity as a Doors executive. Unseen, Gonsalves watches the developments with interest.

Liam eventually notices the tomb raider and chases him around, only face Gonsalves' knife again. It all ends well when Gonsalves falls off a trailer truck onto his own knife.

After leaving Reneee a message, Liam takes a truck into the jungle south of the village in search of the location indicated by the knots. Not only does he quickly uncover the original tomb site, but a quick telemetry check indicates that the oil platform matches the directions left by the ancient Incas.

Liam enters the passageway and eventually arrives in an underwater chamber -- clearly Taelon in design -- under a glass dome. He takes out his global and begins recording everything he sees.

Renee comes up behind him and puts a gun to his head, demanding that Liam hand over the global. He complies.

The lights come on, and Jonathan Doors enters, ordering the people with him back to work. He asks Renee whether Sandoval has been diverted, and she says he has.

Doors then explains to Liam that Renee was acting under orders to keep him away from the site. He tells Liam that they are standing in Ma'el's ship, "the ship that brought the one good Taelon to Earth 2,000 years ago," which he found a year before the Taelons arrived on Earth.

Renee was in charge of the restoration project from the beginning. Liam compliments her on keeping news of the ship from both the Taelons and the Resistance. She corrects him, explaining that everyone involved in working on the ship is part of a secret Resistance cell.

Doors maintains that human control over "Ma'el's legacy" -- whatever it is -- "is our one real chance of defeating the Taelons."

However, Liam argues that Da'an needs Ma'el's research to prove that Humans and Taelons have a shared destiny and, moreover, should the technology fall into Taelon hands, Da'an would be more sympathetic than Zo'or to the Resistance.

Nonetheless, Liam ends up handing the glass orb over to Da'an, claiming to have found it on Gonsalves' body after the other man's suicide. Zo'or tells Liam that the Taelons will treasure the artifact. Da'an asks whether it led to more of Ma'el's research, but Sandoval reports that the site he visited in Peru contained no other Taelon items.

As the humans depart, Da'an and Zo'or contemplate the artifact. Zo'or insists that Ma'el's ship is on Earth, but that Ma'el didn't want other Taelons to find it. He vows to continue searching until the ship is found. At his words, the artifact morphs into a model of a Taelon ship.

Liam meets Vera Rizzori for cocktails at the Flat Planet. Liam suggests toasting to the future, while Vera proposes drinking to freedom. They kiss. She points out the pair of idols sitting on a shelf behind the bar, then she and Liam get back to pondering their mutual attraction.