“Playtime” is episode eight of season one of Continuum.
In the previous episode, “The Politics of Time”, Liber8 had started spreading its influence, interfering with the election of a union leader, one who was actually a friend of Carlos. Now, he may well be under their influence to a degree; he has already met Kagame. Whether or not this will have an effect in the future is open to question currently.
Once again, this starts in the future. Kiera is attending a test at Sadtech of a device that is intended to reduce aggression in criminals. The test does not quite go perfectly, but the person doing it would appear to be Lucas. Which would mean that Kiera and he had prior contact, albeit brief.
In the present, at a corporate paintball game, a man walks into the game, pulls out a real gun, speaks to him by name and shoots one of the players, the CEO, dead, before killing himself.
On Kellog’s yacht, Kiera asks him if he’s willing to return the time travel device that he took from her in “Time’s Up”. Kellog may, or may not (he’s a social engineer after all) have a thing of some description for Kiera. She gets a call from Carlos about the murder-suicide. She also demonstrates some more ignorance of the current (past?) as she’s unfamiliar with paintball.
Then a man on a train platform is approached by a woman. She also addresses the man by name, before pulling him in front of a train, killing them both. Both killers worked as beta testers at a computer company that makes massively multiplayer first person shooter games and real time combat simulations. Betty, being a fan of the woman who set up the company, wants to come with Carlos and Kiera to the company; Carlos declines but Kiera agrees. Her version of team building, without the paint.
Both beta testers were working on the same game, a new next generation game. They weren’t the only people working on the game, but none of the others have flipped out. Yet, anyway. The supervisor of the beta testers is nervous about something, but Betty is in her element. Both she and Kiera test out the new game, which involves virtual reality, and Kiera getting killed in the game has an effect in the real world. It also interferes with her tech, severing her connection with Alec. Apparently there is a problem with the simulation, which was known, and the programmer didn’t actually want the simulation to be used. The gamers were also using a drink that was supposed to have been destroyed, a drink that contains amphetamines.
The founder of the game company seems a likely suspect, but perhaps too likely.
Alec is still working on Kiera’s suit that was damaged in “Fast Times”, although he’s having problems. When he sees that Kiera’s connection is down, he contacts her the old fashioned way – by phone. He thinks he can fix it, and it gives him a clue as to how to fix the suit as well. He gets a surprise from the suit during this.
Kellog goes looking for Lucas so he can quiz him about what Liber8 is up to (there is, unsurprisingly, a connection to the clip from the start).