FlashForward Episode 1.09 Believe

A few weeks before the blackout, Keiko Arahia lands a job at Nakahara, the best robotics firm in Japan. Keiko is a brilliant mechanical engineer whose role models include Marie Curie and Jimi Hendrix. Yes, she marches to the beat of her own drum.

The new job means Keiko will never have to work in the family restaurant again. Her mother pushes for a marriage to a man she obviously doesn't love. Keiko believes there is someone else out there for her. We believe that someone is the man she's with in her flash forward, Dr. Bryce Varley.

Four weeks before the blackout, Bryce is told he has Stage 4 cancer. His diagnosis is terminal. This explains why he was going to kill himself on the pier when…FLASH. Bryce is seated in a Japanese restaurant in his flash forward. A smiling Keiko enters wearing a shirt with a symbol on it. Bryce takes Keiko's hand and gazes down at a different tattooed symbol on her wrist. It means "Believe."

In the present, Bryce is teaching himself Japanese when he suddenly has to vomit. He tells Olivia that he's had cancer for about a year. Olivia wants him to take some time off to see a specialist in Houston. Instead, he hops on a plane to Japan to search for Keiko. He manages to track down her family's restaurant, as its logo was on the shirt Keiko was wearing in his flash forward. But when he goes to her house, Keiko's mother lies about knowing her and sends him away. At a dead end, Bryce has no choice but to go home.

Speaking of dead ends, Keiko realizes that her job is prestigious, but unfulfilling. She needs more. And that more is closer than she can possibly imagine. As Bryce arrives back in the States, he exits off the plane into a busy airport terminal. Unbelievably, Keiko steps off the plane a few moments later, clueless to the fact that the man from her flash forward is ever so close. We learn that the Japanese restaurant from their vision is actually located in Los Angeles. These two may be destined to meet. It just won't be today.

Jericho is headquartered in Santa Monica, but Mark doesn't have enough security clearance to get much info. He relays this message to Aaron, who is preoccupied by the fact that Tracy is drinking until she passes out. After he hangs up with Aaron, Mark sees the text Olivia got that revealed the fact that he was drinking in his flash forward. He only told two people. Did one of them betray his confidence?

Mark asks both Aaron and Wedeck if they sent the text. That doesn't go over well. Wedeck kicks Mark out of his office and Aaron tells him to get a new sponsor. Later, Mark stops by to apologize to Aaron, who blames himself for Tracy's addiction to alcohol. Aaron tells Mark that they've crossed a line and he truly can't be his sponsor anymore. But he could really use a friend. Mark's response, "You go it."

The NSA's digital forensics team discovers an alpha symbol on Suspect Zero's ring. The NSA representative who is doing the briefing also reveals that there's a recording of the call Demetri received regarding his supposedly upcoming murder. They are able to determine that the background noise is from a light and music show in Hong Kong. Wedeck puts the kibosh on a trip to the Orient. Think that's going to stop Mark and Demetri from breaking out their passports? No way.