Continuum Episode 1.06 Time's Up

Kagame articulates that the first step in his plan to begin their new revolution must first be to infiltrate and coax the current groundswell of dissenters and grassroots activists towards the Liber8 cause. Back at the farm, Alec catches his stepbrother Julian heading off on an unknown errand.

Carlos and Kiera head to a peaceful anti-corporation protest outside the headquarters of a major corporation downtown. The protest turns violent as an underground anarchist group crashes the protest, causing a riot. Inside the building, Henrietta Sherman, CEO of Exetrol, is kidnapped by Travis. Within minutes, Liber8 releases a video of Sherman online, clearly showing that she's being held hostage. She promises there will be more videos to follow throughout the day, as she must pay for her corporate crimes.

Carlos and Kiera meet with security team at Exetrol building. Frank, the security chief, gets unusually defensive when they suggest that her kidnapping must have been an inside job. Just then, another video is released, Liber8 demanding a twenty million dollar ransom from the company. They are to await further instruction on the drop location.

As Alec reviews CCTV footage of the protests to track down leads for Kiera, he finds his stepbrother in the footage. Later, he reluctantly shares this information with his stepfather, Roland. Alec sends Kiera a lead on another anarchist activist while he works to sort out the situation with Julian on his own.

When Kiera and Carlos go to talk with the protester, they find Frank, the security guard there instead, pointing a gun at the activist's head. Frank agrees to stop interfering with their investigation. When the activist refuses to talk, Kiera creates a quick distraction to get Carlos out of the room. She injects the suspect with truth serum and he tells them everything, explaining that he received his orders via anonymous text messages. Betty gets to work on tracing the source.

Suddenly, everyone in the precinct receives a mass text message: "Exetrol steals from the people." When the drop location is revealed to be the Exetrol plaza, Kiera realizes that Kagame is turning the situation into theatre for the angry masses. They arrive at the plaza with the money in an armored car, the place swarming with riled protesters. Everyone there receives a new text: "Give the people the money or she dies." The crowd overtakes the armored car, shouting chants of "Liberate!" as they grab fists of cash for themselves. When Alec traces the text to Sherman's own phone, Carlos and Kiera find it leads to a dead end.

Julian finally comes back to the farm, trying to evade his stepfather. Roland calls him out on the rioting, saying that he's disappointed in Julian as he has never advocated for violence to pursue their cause. Julian challenges his father's beliefs by stating it's time for the movement to move. They get into a scuffle as Roland nearly punches his own son in the face; Alec's mother breaks them up.

A new video is released. This time, Kagame tempts the public to vote on the CEO's fate in the next two hours. An already agitated public wants their pound of flesh and it becomes a race against time. In desperation, Kiera calls Kellog for help. He explains that Kagame is trying to use existing structures by winning people's hearts and minds to start their revolution. In the meantime, Kellog breaks into Kiera's apartment and finds her hidden stash of items from the future, including the missing piece from the quantum device. He takes it and leaves.

As the public votes for the CEO's execution and time ticking away, Kiera and Carlos follow leads back to Exetrol's security chief, Frank. When they try to talk to him, he bails; after a brief chase and brawl, they take him downtown for questioning. When they threaten to expose his betrayal to Travis, Frank opens up about the plan to kidnap and extort the CEO of Exetrol. Alec traces the CEO's location but in order to avoid arousing suspicion of Kiera's sudden, magic knowledge, he hijacks Betty's computer so it seems like she finds the source organically.

Teams of police head to an abandoned building where they find Sherman strapped to a chair and rigged to explosives. Liber8 is nowhere to be found. Kiera offers to diffuse the bomb but can't, despite her and Alec's best efforts. She realizes that they're being filmed and broadcast to the masses, and that the CEO's only hope is for her to reveal whatever secret she's been hiding. With seconds to spare, Hermann admits she and the board had been dipping from Exetrol pension funds. When the timer expires, the bomb doesn't detonate and Kagame cuts off the broadcast, exactly as he'd planned.

Back at Alec's farm, Julian confronts his stepbrother about selling him out to their father. He warns Alec to stay away from him from now on. Alec admits to Kiera that his brother Julian was at the riot. While she understands why he tried to protect him, Kiera demands that she know anything relevant to her job from here on out.

Frustrated that she's been played and foiled by Kagame once again, the Liber8 movement now has the foothold they need in the grassroots activist movement to sow the seeds for revolution.