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In the flashbacks Kyle and Derek Reese are soldiers fighting Skynet alongside two other soldiers named Sayles and Billy Wisher. However, when they come to the surface they are separated from Kyle and captured along with their assault team. They are taken to a resistance holding ground where they are each given a barcode on their arm. While in the holding ground, after being tortured, Wisher confesses to Derek that his real name is Andy Goode and admits his role in creating Skynet. He begs Derek to forgive him When they later get back to their base, they find it has been destroyed by Terminators. When Derek starts searching for survivors of the attack. He cannot find his brother Kyle (since at this point Kyle went back in time to protect Sarah Connor from the T-101 terminator as seen in the original film). Weeks later, at a resistance base Derek has a panic attack when he discovers that Cameron is a terminator. However, one of the other resistance fighters tries to calm him down by saying she is reprogrammed and is one of ours now. Sometime later, a reprogrammed combatant terminator malfunctions and starts killing people in the base. However Cameron destroys the terminator second later, and explains to Derek that sometimes reprogrammed terminators inexplicably go bad. (However, in the present Cameron explains that her memory was erased during her reprogramming, so that whatever interaction she might have had with Derek is irrevelent to her current mission.) A few months later, Derek finds out about the newly developed time-portal, and agrees to go to the year 2007 with other resistance fighters (the same fighters found dead in the apartment in the episode Gnothi Seauton). While explaining the mission to the other soldiers, he sees Wisher/Andy Goode. Goode gives a nod implying that he knows what Derek's mission is and accepts it as a means of freeing himself from his guilt.
The remainder of the episode takes place in the present-day storyline (that is, 2007) it has Charley, Sarah and John hesitantly becoming reacquainted, and Sarah finally explaining to Charley about the Terminators. Charley is bemused by the implausible-sounding narrative of Sarah's life, but seems willing to believe her. Charley also observes Cameron disposing of the T-888 she terminated in Queen's Gambit. She strips away its flesh revealing its metal endoskeleton, which Charley inadvertently stumbles upon in the garage. At this point he has proof that Terminators exist; he also acknowledges that Cameron is a machine, calling her a "very scary robot." Cameron destroys the remains of the T-888 by burning its with thermite in an improvised cinderblock furnace. Destroying all traces of T-888 of ever exsisting, except for the T-888's left hand, which Agent Ellison discovered in the previous episode.
Tension develops between Cameron and Sarah, as Sarah intuits that Cameron might kill Charley because he has learned too much. Cameron submits that she will not, and promises to recover the T-888's missing hand. Curiously, after promising to destroy every last bolt of the T-888, Cameron is shown to have kept the T-888's chip she had extracted from its skull in the previous episode. (The episode did not reveal why Cameron would lie to Sarah and of what importance the chip is to her.)
Before leaving, Charley reconciles with Sarah of her leaving him, and tells her of an agent Kester, whom Charley doesn't know is really Cromartie posing as an FBI agent. Charley gives Sarah Kester's business card and leaves.
The episode also reveals that John's lineage—specifically his relation to his father, Kyle Reese—is a closely guarded secret. Neither Derek (Kyle's brother) nor Cameron are aware of this fact. John desires to learn about the paternal side of his family from Derek, specifically wanting to know about his father. Sarah, however, forbids John from revealing his lineage to his uncle since she distrusts him, calling him "a stranger" and noting that future John has not told him about the secret.
Derek recovers from his wounds, and John tells him that Kyle had come back in time to protect him and Sarah and died doing so. Just as he is about to reveal that Kyle is his father, Sarah enters the room, so instead John calls Kyle a hero.
The last scene of the episode flashbacks to Andy's hotel room, while Andy is still alive. Derek appears, shoots him through the head, and flees...