Elliot and Shayla are sitting at a table in a busy neighborhood restaurant. Fernando Vera's brother, Isaac and Vera's homie D.J, watch from a nearby table. Elliot and Shayla aren't really eating, and not talking of anything important, just being together a little bit. They talk some about the first time they met, and Elliot wishes he could undo what's happened. He promises to get her out of this. Then Isaac announces that time's up. He then drags Shayla from the table and out of the restaurant (as the other diners take little notice). D.J stands over Elliot to keep him from objecting, and leads him to a back room.
In the back room, there's a telephone; Elliot picks it up, and it's Vera on the other end. Vera talks about some research he's done, research on his name and Elliot's: phrases like "brave traveler", "adventurer", "savage" come up. Elliot wants to know where Shayla is being taken, but Vera's mind is on other things: He's impressed with the power Elliot has, and he wants it, and by that he means he wants Elliot to hack him out of jail, today. Elliot says it takes weeks to find security holes, but Vera says it has to be tonight. And when they get back together out of jail, Shayla will be there too, Vera will give Elliot a big hug and they'll all be happy.
Elliot, Isaac, and D.J arrive at Elliot's apartment. Elliot is all worked up about Shayla, but Isaac wants him to concentrate on nothing but getting Vera out. As he looks at the documentation for the prison's control system, Elliot remarks to the viewers, that hacking a prison network isn't impossible, most are regular industrial control systems. Isaac and D.J are just hanging around, occasionally wondering what Elliot is good for, and whether he can do the job he's been ordered to do.
Elliot is curious about Isaac, something bugs him; he uses a wifi scanner tool, and finds a signal named "Isaac's S5 phone".
Angela is alone at Allsafe, it's before working time, nobody's there but her, and she's looking at the online article "Did Colby implicate himself?" She's also looking at the materials from the family's lawsuit from long ago, then she's printing out Terry Colby emails from the fsociety data dump, and going through and adding notes. That done, she gets a list of law firms, and starts calling them, asking each about the Washington Township scandal. She spends a while at this, getting nobody to talk to her, until she gets to attorney Antara Nayar. Now Allsafe employees are starting to arrive, but Angela sees that Antara Nayar has sent her a text; she gets her coat and leaves.
Outside the prison, Darlene is wandering around the parking lot, scattering flash drives on the ground.
Angela is meeting Antara Nayar in her office; Antara represented the 25 families of victims of the Washington Township case, one of which was Angela's mother. Antara says after the case was dismissed, she took eight years to rebuild her career. Angela wants her to reopen the case, with the new data that Angela has brought, but Antara dismisses the collection of "internet gossip" and amateur research. She turns Angela's attention to several clients in the waiting room, all serious criminals, but Antara will have an easier case defending them than if she again tried to attack E-Corp.
Outside the prison, an arriving officer notices the flash drives on the ground, and picks up one. We can see Darlene watching from a distance. Inside, the officer sticks the drive into a computer. It looks like he's in a security center, with many monitors on the walls. His computer shows him windows, offering him a free eTunes gift card, and he happily answers its innocuous questions ... until he gets a popup from the computer's malware detection system, it detected malware in the eTunes software. The officer is immediately anxious, first pulling out the flash drive, then pulling the power plug on the computer.
At Elliot's apartment, his desktop displays "Connection closed by remote host", he says he was in for a moment, but then the exploit stopped. Isaac slaps him and asks what's going on, but Elliot says he needs to take the dog for a walk. After Elliot leaves, D.J gets up and watches from the window as Elliot walks out of sight.
Elliot meets Darlene a block away, and complains that the exploit didn't work. She says, well, she only had an hour, it was all she could do, and he gave her no time to do it right. She's ready to walk away, but Elliot says Isaac and D.J are sitting on him, and he has to get this solved right away. Darlene is not impressed, but then D.J shows up. He shows them his gun, and waves them back to towards the apartment.
Antara Nayar still isn't willing to work further on the case, when Angela asks, "hypothetically", what it would take to make a case. Antara says it would take a reliable eye witness, an insider, who was there when the decisions were made. She doesn't think Angela knows anyone like that.
In an E-Corp meeting room, Scott Knowles is meeting senior employees, when Tyrell Wellick comes in. Tyrell says Scott should just skip the interviews and play golf with him, but Scott says he sees what's going on. Tyrell wanted to be CTO, he's not, and he's pissed. So Tyrell is trying to mess things up for Scott, but Scott says it won't work, he even knows the suggestions that went on between Tyrell and Scott's wife, she told him all about it. But Scott wants Tyrell to really get the idea. He's not going to be CTO, ever, so he doesn't need to play these "silly games".
Elliot is still researching, with Isaac and D.J watching over him and Darlene, when the doorbell rings, it's Angela. Though everyone ignores her, she keeps calling for Elliot to let her in, so Isaac lets Elliot go out and get rid of her.
Tyrell is at home with Joanna, he's furiously angry, while she is calm and confident. Joanna had told Tyrell that Scott was dangerous, and he is. Tyrell says he's at risk now, he has to pull back and remain patient. But Joanna reminds him that "patient" does not mean "cowardly". He has to take advantage of the opening that Sharon Knowles gave him. Sharon wants to be wanted.
Elliot meets Angela outside, and she says she's met with her lawyer, and has an idea on how to press the suit against E-Corp. She doesn't want to go into the details, which is fine with Elliot, he has urgent stuff to deal with that isn't her business, so he tells her to trust herself. She asks about Shayla, to which Elliot vaguely answers, and she leaves.
Elliot goes back up the stairs towards his apartment, and finds Mr. Robot waiting for him on the stairs. Mr. Robot warns Elliot that this thing he's doing for Vera, it can't work out well, it probably won't succeed, and whether it does or doesn't Vera's homies will probably kill both Elliot and Shayla anyway. Elliot says there's got to be a way, and he'll find it. Mr. Robot reminds him about fsociety, it's a success, and Elliot can do so much more with them, but this deal with Vera, it's failure.
Back at Elliot's apartment, he walks in full of purpose. He stuffs his laptop and other tools into his backpack, and says "I'm ready to bust Vera out". He needs to get to the jail, now, he wants Darlene to stay, but Isaac is having none of that, everyone is going.
On the way to the jail, Elliot thinks about how he misses his old life. "Remember when the panic would set in and we had a solution?" And now he has both Shayla and Darlene to rescue from Vera and his homies. Parked near the jail, Elliot gets out and marches in, quickly typing on his cellphone, thinking "My mind is frayed.... I can feel the static running through my brain".
Now Elliot is in the jail's busy visiting area, across the table from Vera. Elliot says he needs more time, but Vera says it has to be tonight. Elliot explains that, actually, he and Vera have to sit here and talk, because right now his cell phone is sniffing and detecting any sort of wireless network in sight, and then he'll own the network. Vera says, brave but stupid, when he springs Vera everyone will look to the security recording of this meeting and go after Elliot, but Elliot says he'll open all the cells at once, no problem. But, he knows, once Vera is free, he's going to need to run, and with his money too. Elliot has hacked Isaac's phone, and has hacked Vera's entire operation, crew, shipments, all of it, Elliot owns it. So he needs Vera's word: once this is done, Vera and his homies will leave both Elliot and Shayla alone, or else Elliot will leak his information. And in case Elliot just gets killed, he's arranged to leak it if he doesn't disable it every 24 hours. Vera doesn't look happy, but seems to accept it. He then tells him that he will hug him.
Angela tries to visit Terry Colby in his city townhouse. He doesn't want to be visited, nor dosen't want to talk to anyone.
Outside the prison, Elliot looks at his phone's snooping app, and it shows nothing but WPA2-protected networks. He thinks: "Borderline unhackable". But he stops and looks around at the parking lot, and runs another app, scanning for bluetooth transmitters, and finds one in a nearby police car. He realizes he doesn't need to hack WPA2, when there's a dedicated bluetooth network he can get into.
Elliot arrives at the car where the others are waiting: "We're good. I can pull this off". He's ready to get going, but Isaac pulls Elliot into the car, tells everyone else out, and drives off for a private talk.
Elliot and Isaac walk along the river, and Elliot is explaining, he's ready, he can free Vera, and if he doesn't he can kill Vera's operation. Isaac stops him and points his gun at him, Isaac is anxious, but Elliot is calm and understanding: Isaac doesn't want Vera free, he wants to have Vera dead, tonight, and the first thing Vera will do is to kill Isaac. Isaac is worried and puts down the gun. Elliot says Vera is all set either way, he's got protection inside, and if Isaac doesn't get him out, he'll have Isaac killed just for that. So Isaac's best choice is to let Elliot get Vera out, then Isaac can do whatever he wants. Isaac says, "What makes you think I still won't kill you afterwards?" Elliot replies, "I don't. I'm just playing my best move". Isaac puts the gun away, and they go back to the car.
Elliot explains to Isaac that he needs about a minute with the patrol car's bluetooth connection, and he'll have the exploit into the main prison control system, which will open all the cell doors at 9:49 PM. Darlene, dressed suggestively, approaches the officer in the car, and engages him in conversation. While she is keeping his attention on her, we can see windows pop up on the patrol car's laptop display, and we can see Elliot typing in commands. Elliot thinks, the exploit's in the laptop, now to get it into the jail. Elliot announces that he's paused the exploit, and they should drive away.
The police car gets a bulletin of an alarm going off, but Darlene keeps the officer distracted so he pays no attention.
In their car, Isaac points his gun at Elliot. Elliot says, "I only need to press one key to run the expliot. Or, I can press another and disable the entire plan. I made my move. You make yours".
The officer turns away from Darlene and notices the windows up on the laptop; he tries to type commands, but nothing works. The officer says he has to get back; Darlene walks away as the officer is calling in, "My computer's on the fritz".
Isaac lowers his gun and says they should go to the meet. They drive away. Elliot remarks to the viewer, if he made any mistake, the cell doors won't open, and he knows what that will mean. But doesn't make mistakes.
Night outside the prison, Isaac, D.J and Elliot are standing outside the fence. It's time. Isaac gets out his gun and tells D.J it's just in case some prisoner rushes them. There's noise, alarms, the screech of metal doors opening, and the campus lights go off. Elliot tells them it's from the power surge of opening all the doors at once, but the prison control system should still be saying all the cells are locked and closed, so the alarms will turn off. The lights come on again, and we can see prisoners boiling out from the buildings, headed towards the fence. They get through the fence door, and split in every direction, but it's Vera who walks to the three.
Vera tells them that this is just what he needs. Then he tells D.J to "shoot the cocksucker", and D.J shoots Isaac, who falls down dead. Vera says, that's right, he's his brother's keeper, and now "like Cain after Abel, I'll be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth". He thanks Elliot for his bravery, but tells him, his operation is over, Elliot can burn it to the ground, it doesn't matter he's gone.
A car drives up and stops next to them. As Vera and D.J move to get in, Elliot asks where Shayla is. Vera gets the keys to Isaac's car from D.J and tosses them to Elliot: "You just didn't realize she was with you the whole time". Vera and D.J drive off, leaving Elliot next to Isaac's car. He opens the trunk, and finds out that Shayla is dead, lying there. Elliot turns around, not quite crying, then definitely crying. We see the lights of police cars flashing around. He pulls up his hood and runs away.