The episode begins in the office of plastic surgeon Dr. David Lyman, who is dictating into a hand recorder when he hears noises outside his office. He discovers the Terminator in his outer office who insists the doctor perform re-constructive surgery on it immediately.
Sarah goes to John's room to talk with him. She is concerned about his state of mind following the suicide of the student that he wanted to prevent. Cameron enters with a DVD from a TV station that shows the skull of Cromartie the Terminator in the background of the video that was taken when they came forward through time and appeared on the freeway. Cameron has been monitoring recent events and concludes that Cromartie will repair itself and continue it's mission. Sarah wants to run again, but John convinces her to fight while Cromartie is vulnerable.
A shipment of Coltan is arriving at the shipyards and Cromartie is expected to steal the material to repair it's exoskeleton. As they wait for it to arrive, a truck leaves with the Coltan and they discover several men tied up with their uniforms removed. They decide to follow the truck.
When the truck arrives at a warehouse, they discover that a Terminator is in charge, but it is not Cromartie, and they have no idea what its mission is.
Agent Ellison arrives at a crime scene where Dr. Lyman lies dead in his office. He became aware of this crime due to the forensic blood information logged by the local police. Video from the doctor's office incriminates George Laszlo, who is the person that the Terminator now resembles.
At the warehouse, John wants to attack but Sarah recommends they step back, that they are outnumbered. John argues that they can use the Coltan to build enemy soldiers, 530 according to Cameron, but Sarah is adamant they leave. John disobeys and enters the warehouse to plant a tracking device on the truck, but gets trapped inside the truck before he can escape. Sarah and Cameron are distracted by warehouse workers and the truck slips away.
In the truck, John overpowers an armed guard but his telephone, which Sarah and Cameron were tracking online, is damaged.
At the police station, the real George Laszlo is brought in for questioning. Agent Ellison requests a blood sample to clear or incriminate him, and he complies.
Sarah and Cameron return to the warehouse and interrogate one of the guards. The guard spills his guts after his encounter with Cameron and takes them to a decommissioned arms depot located on a gunnery range.
At the real Laszlo's house Cromartie arrives to verify his new likeness and learn Laszlo's voice, and he then kills the real Laszlo.
The truck arrives at the depot and John manages to sneak out of the truck unseen. He discovers that the depot is a fallout shelter, a relic of the cold war. The Terminator kills the human guards that assisted it and uses a key to close the blast doors to the shelter. It then stands in front of the door and powers itself down into standby mode.
Ellison is briefing the task force and theorizes that someone forced the doctor to do plastic surgery on them to impersonate the real Laszlo, but his theory is shot down and mocked by the rest of the task force.
Sarah and Cameron arrive at the depot and Cameron reveals that this is the building where a factory is born that will build her and many other Terminators in the future. She points out the closed blast doors and says that the Terminator has stockpiled the Coltan inside so it will survive judgment day.
Inside the blast doors, the guard that John overpowered wakes up and confronts John. John tells the guard that his boss killed the others and that they need to find a way out of the shelter. The guard ignores him and confronts the immobile Terminator, pushing it down on the floor. This action causes it to awaken and it promptly kills the guard, then resumes it's position and powers down again. John realizes he is safe for the moment as long as the Terminator is “asleep”, and finds a telephone to call Sarah. Cameron states that it takes the Terminator 15 seconds to reboot from standby mode, so Sarah tells him to open the door and run through it when it opens far enough for him. John removes the key chain from around the neck of the Terminator and opens the door.
When the door opens, Cameron enters and flings the Terminator away, but John does not appear. The truck starts up, and Sarah climbs inside once she sees John behind the wheel. Cameron and the Terminator start hand to hand battle as John struggles to get the truck moving. Sarah jams the truck in gear and John drives it out of the blast shelter. Cameron manages to gain a momentary advantage and exits the shelter herself, after closing the blast doors and removing the key, locking the Terminator inside.
Ellison arrives at Laszlo's apartment and talks with the Terminator, not realizing with whom he is speaking. He warns Laszlo that someone may be trying to steal his identity and leaves his business card.
Cameron drives the truck off a cliff where it and the Coltan disappear into the ocean. Later Sarah asks John if he is okay and he says he is fine and needs to do his homework. As he sits at his desk, his hands tremble from the memory of his encounter with the Terminator.
Written by pentar on Jan 25, 2016