Lili looks out a window and concludes that she's back on Earth.

Her physician, Doctor Reed arrives and confirms this assumption, telling her she's at Thorson Military Hospital, about 140 miles outside of D.C.

According to Reed, Lili recently came out of a coma. He declines to tell her how long she was comatose, suggesting, "Perhaps we better let you discuss that with a friend."

The future ain't what it used to be
That friend turns out to be Liam Kincaid. After a bit of small talk, he tells Lili that the Taelons are gone, courtesy of the Jaridians.

Before the Taelons rescued her, he says, the Jaridians stole the interdimensional drive from her shuttle. This gave them access to the Taelons' ID technology, providing them with the means of reaching Earth.

Doctor Reed returns and asks Liam to leave so that Lili can get some rest. Before he goes, he shares a final piece of news: Sandoval is in jail, and "he's going to pay for what he did to you, in front of the whole world."

Later, Lili notices a small, dark bruise on her face just below her jawline.

Brain-damage nightmares
As Dr. Reed wheels her through the hospital's garden, Lili marvels at a feeling of heightened sensation. The doctor explains that people coming out of long-term comas often experience this hypersensitivity.

She asks him about the bruise on her neck. Reed explains that they removed her CVI a few days before. He warns her that she might experience the occasional nightmare until her brain heals.

The next day, a colonel briefs Lili, Liam and Reed on Sandoval's crimes. No one seems to know why he abducted Lili, but they still ask her to honor Sandoval's last request. She reluctantly agrees to have a brief talk with him.

The remains of the day
When the guards bring Sandoval in, he is graying and unkempt, nothing like the dapper figure he once presented.

With a show of contrition, he insists that what he has to say is "for her ears only" and draws Lili in close. He whispers in her ear, "You're gonna die in here," then starts ranting and screaming, only to be dragged away.

When it's all over, Liam thoughtfully assures Lili that she has nothing to fear from Sandoval's alleged Underground.

He asks her about Dr. Reed, suggesting that the doctor's interest in her is more then purely professional. He tells Lili that Reed used to read to her at night -- she apparently responded best to A Tale of Two Cities.

Augur also arrives to pay Lili a visit. With the Taelons gone, Augur went legitimate, got married, and had a son. While he happily chatters with his old Resistance colleague, the colonel and Dr. Reed discuss her condition in dark tones.

That night, a restless Lili goes for a walk through the hospital, where she overhears Sandoval's trusted flunky Tate asking about her. She hides, forcing Tate and an assistant to search the facility.

She manages to subdue the aide, but Tate gets the drop on her. He looks ready to shoot her, but Liam arrives in time to save the day.

Sandoval on ice
The next day, Lili and Dr. Reed, who we now know as "Michael," indulge in some low-key flirtation.

Things seem to be going well until Reed, ever the romantic, suggests that watching Sandoval's execution might help Lili overcome the horrors she suffered at his hands.

Initially resistant to the idea. Lili nevertheless finds herself in front of the TV. The commentator announces that President Jonathan Doors rejected Sandoval's plea for clemency.

Inside the cryogenic execution chamber, Sandoval screams, "Blame the Taelons, not me! It was my CVI!"

The execution commences, and Sandoval freezes to death in a matter of moments. Lili refuses to watch the process and leaves the room.

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes
Later, Lili dreams, having another extended flashback sequence that keeps returning to Sandoval's statement that she "no longer has an Earth-based physiology."

In the garden, Lili puzzles over the fact that she knows every one of the soldiers listed on a plaque honoring those who died in the SI War.

Liam has no remedy for her confusion, and instead returns her dog tags to her. This is a source of even greater puzzlement as the tags no longer bear the message "FIND ME" that she scratched into them toward the end of her incarceration.

Liam suggests that amid all the trauma she suffered at Sandoval's hands, she only imagined inscribing the message.

Leaving the dog tag mystery aside for the moment, Lili attends a briefing with the colonel, who explains that Sandoval intended to use her to spy on the Jaridians.

Lili asks when she can leave the hospital. Dr. Reed invites her to discuss it over dinner.

Love among the ruins
After their meal, Reed announces that Lili can leave within the week, if she wishes. They kiss, comment on the ethical lapse this represents, then Lili suggests that maybe staying in the hospital has its good points.

The conversation turns to the SI War. It turns out that Lili and the doctor were stationed at the same post.

This allows Reed to showcase his sensitive side, lamenting about the horrors of war, and those he failed to save. Lili wonders why Reed is so close to her ideal man, then flashes back to her new black-blooded, non-Earth-based physiology.

Pictures in an exhibition
Pretending fatigue, she asks Reed to escort her back to her room.

Back in her room, Lili mutters something in a guttural alien tongue to a nurse. The attendant responds in kind, catches herself, and pretends she was just clearing her throat.

Embarrassed, the nurse leaves the room, leaving Lili free to flip through her copy of A Tale of Two Cities. All the book contains are the words "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times," over and over again.

In a mounting panic, Lili smashes a glass in her sink and uses one of the shards to slice open her finger. The blood that flows from the wound is jet-black.

"I'm not on Earth," she concludes

The truth shall set you free
The next day, Liam finds Lili in the garden. She pins his arm behind his back, disarms him, puts his own gun to his head, and demands some answers.

At first, he deflects her accusations, insisting that she's having an adverse reaction to her medication. However, in the face of her unswerving certainty (and his own gun), he begins to reveal the truth.

According to Liam, they're not on Earth, but on a terraformed asteroid used by the Taelons to ferret out Resistance secrets.

Lili was only comatose for two months. She was discovered adrift in her shuttle after being abducted by the Jaridians. While in their custody, Lili's CVI was modified. She was brought to the asteroid so that Zo'or could learn what was done to her.

Tate's attempt on Lili's life was merely a charade intended to reinforce her belief in the lie. To make matters worse, Liam reports that the nefarious Sandoval is still very much alive.

Liam's advice is, "Play along. Act like you don't know a thing" while he orchestrates their escape. As luck would have it, he has access to a grounded Taelon shuttle, but needs Lili -- who originally designed the human interface to the vehicles -- to repair the ship's hyper-accelerator.

Naturally, Lili's paranoia is in full swing by this point, and she suggests that these revelations, and the hope of escape might simply be part of the Taelon brainwashing program.

Moreover, she begins to doubt that Liam is actually Liam. She demands that "Liam" tell her the name of the only man she ever truly loved.

Perhaps unfortunately, he hits the bull's eye with "William Boone."

Secrets and spare parts
Their planning session is cut short when an orderly summons her to an immediate meeting with the colonel.

She arrives for this meeting to find both the colonel and Dr. Reed in attendance.

Reed reveals that they never actually removed Lili's CVI because she went brain-dead during the previous attempt and they had to abandon the procedure.

However, they've apparently found a way around this problem, because they now want to operate again to remove the implant for good. Lili agrees to take this under advisement and leaves the room.

Reed runs after her. She confronts him with the story Liam told her. He seems nonplussed by this, insisting instead that she has no real choice in the matter of the operation and that she should "forget the Taelons and fix the accelerator."

He slips her the shuttle part she needs and they go their separate ways -- she to start her repairs, he to parts unknown.

Later, Reed supervises the removal of Lili's CVI. As the extraction begins, Lili dreams that Jaridians are performing a medical procedure on her. Her eyes open and she begins screaming.

The great escape
Lili awakens back in her room. Reed tells her that the operation was a success. She tells him about her vision of the Jaridians. Reed concludes that it was a subconscious reaction to the time she spent in their custody before coming to the asteroid.

Liam meets her in the garden again. Lili tells him that she can't figure out why the Taelons would commit such an obvious blunder as to leave a flawed copy of A Tale of Two Cities where it could arouse her suspicions.

Liam tells her it must have been left deliberately by a Resistance sympathizer who wanted her to learn the truth.

She meets Reed for lunch to tell him the accelerator is fixed and she's ready to leave. Lili as pleased to learn they can escape tonight, as she "can't spend one more night in this damned fantasy."

That night, she and Liam free Augur and Reed, but a Volunteer shoots Liam. When Sandoval arrives on the scene, Lili shoots him ... repeatedly. Observing her handiwork, Lili hisses "Now you're really dead."

Although Liam and Augur both insist that they should leave the dying Liam behind, Lili refuses to consider abandoning her friend. With Volunteers closing in, they make their way to the waiting shuttle. They make it aboard. Lili slots the hyper-accelerator into the ID drive.

Good Jaridiance
Liam dies but Lili, a good trooper, begins the shuttle's startup sequence. Suddenly, the colonel gestures to the troops. They immediately stand down and march away.

The scene before Lili shimmers and re-forms into the vista of an alien world. From behind her, "Augur" announces, "Welcome to Jaridia."

Lili is shattered by this revelation. The "Augur" and "Reed" doppelgangers explain that the Jaridians sifted through her mind to create the illusion of the hospital. The entire experience was constructed to manipulate Lili into repairing the ID drive and giving the Jaridians a workable prototype.

The Jaridian masquerading as "Liam" returns from the simulation of death, reassumes his true form and tells Lili, "Don't be alarmed, Captain. It will still take months to return."