Standing on the ledge of a tall building, Peter Petrelli spreads his
arms and prepares to fly. He steps off the building, begins to fall,
sees a face, and then wakes up. He was having a dream. Simone Deveaux
asks Peter about her father. Peter is helping to take care of her
father, who only has a couple more days to live. Simone tells Peter
that he has been like a son to her father.
In
Bombay, India, Mohinder Suresh is a teacher, giving a lecture on the
human genome, and mutations in the genetic code. He is interrupted by a
colleague, who breaks the news that Mohinder’s father has been killed
while driving his taxi in New York. Suresh doesn’t think his father’s
death was an accident. He heads for his father’s apartment, and while
looking through research files, hears the voice of a man who is also in
the apartment. He grabs the files, takes a photograph of a map on the
wall, and runs out of the apartment. The other man, an American wearing
horn-rimmed glasses, hears the camera click and comes into the room to
investigate, but Mohinder has already left.
In Las Vegas, we
meet Niki Sanders, a stripper. She is performing in front of a video
camera, but her client runs out of credit. She steps out of her garage
studio and goes into the house to check on if her son Micah is ready
for school. As they get ready to go, she sees two thugs at the front
door, so they run out the back and drive off.
In Odessa, Texas,
Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader, stands on top of an 80-foot
tall tower and jumps. She smashes into the ground below, but
miraculously stands up, pops broken bones back into place, and walks
away as scratches and cuts disappear in seconds. All of this is caught
on a videotape recorded by her friend, to whom she tells that this was
the sixth attempt.
Peter is visiting his brother, Nathan, a
politician in the midst of his campaign. He doesn’t have time to listen
to Peter’s dreams and tells him so. Their conversation is interrupted
by a call from their mother, who has just been arrested for shoplifting.
In
Tokyo, Japan, Hiro Nakamura stares at the clock in his work cubicle. As
he focuses on the clock, the second hand stops ticking and actually
ticks backward. Hiro shouts in surprise and runs to his friend, telling
him that he has successfully manipulated time.
At the private
school, Micah’s principal informs Niki that he can no longer attend,
regardless of the $25,000 check that she paid. Niki demands her check
back, but the principal says that it is impossible, as it was a
donation.
Mrs. Petrelli thinks her son Nathan is overreacting,
since she has been released and charges dropped. He cannot understand
why she would steal a pair of socks when she has a fortune left to her
by their father. After Nathan leaves, Peter’s mother confesses to him
that the reason she did it was that she just wanted to feel alive again.
As
Claire and her friend walk home, they pass a huge fire at a cotton
mill. With the videotape running, Claire runs into the flames and
rescues a man consumed by the smoke. Even though her arm was on fire, a
fireman is amazed to find that she has no burns. Before she can be
questioned, she flees the scene.
Peter goes back to see Nathan,
who offers him a position in his campaign office. Peter just wants to
talk about his dreams, but Nathan doesn’t want any more talk about his
delusions and tells him to grow up. Peter leaves and jumps into a taxi
being driven by Suresh. They talk about the coming eclipse and belief
in destiny. As Peter exits, another man enters the cab, and begins to
converse with Suresh about his name. It is the same man, with the
horn-rimmed glasses, who was in Chandra’s apartment. As the rider
begins to talk about the retired professor with the same name from
India, Suresh becomes suspicious, stops the cab abruptly, and runs away
into an alley.
After Niki drops Micah off at her mother’s, she
returns home to find her apartment ransacked, and two goons waiting for
her. They demand payment, which she doesn’t have. Then they suggest she
strip for them to lower the debt. She begins to disrobe, then stops,
sending one of the thugs into a rage. He slaps her across the face, and
is about to strike her again when she catches sight of her reflection
in a mirror. The image looks back at her with a grim expression that it
totally unlike the one she is actually wearing.
We find Simone
arriving at her boyfriend’s loft. Isaac Mendez is frantically
destroying canvases that he doesn’t recall painting. One that he
painted two weeks prior shows a bus bombing, and is exactly like a
picture in today’s newspaper. Isaac decides that it must be the heroin
that he is addicted to, and that his only hope is to get off the drugs.
He kicks Simone out of the apartment and handcuffs himself to a water
pipe.
Back in Tokyo, Hiro is convinced that he will be able to
conquer both time and space. His friend, Ando, laughs at him and makes
"Star Trek" jokes. He challenges Hiro to beam himself into the women’s
restroom. As he returns with drinks from the bar, he finds the police
escorting Hiro out of the ladies’ room. Despite this, Ando still
doesn’t believe his friend.
At home, Claire asks her mother who
her birth parents were. Before answering, Claire’s father arrives; he
is the same man who was in Suresh’s cab in New York.
Niki wakes
up to find the two thugs dead. As she assesses the scene, her
reflection in the mirror gives a grin and a "quiet" signal, indicating
that she should keep this a secret.
As Hiro rides the Tokyo
subway, he begins concentrating after looking at a New York poster. The
time on the subway clock begins rapidly forwarding, and Hiro opens his
eyes to find himself in Times Square. Realizing that he has
successfully moved through space, Hiro raises his arms and shouts for
joy.
Simone takes a vial of morphine, and with Peter, returns to
Isaac’s loft. Isaac has sawed off the handcuff, gotten a fix, and
appears to have overdosed. Peter notices a painting of himself flying,
and another of New York City being destroyed by a massive explosion.
Peter
goes to the top of the building that he has seen in his dreams. His
brother Nathan arrives in the alley below, having been called by Peter.
Peter yells, "It’s my turn to be somebody, Nathan!" and steps off the
roof, only he begins to plummet to the ground rather than fly. Suddenly
his brother flies into the air and catches him. They dangle in midair
together, and Peter suddenly releases his hand from Nathan’s grasp…
