“Ability” is episode fourteen of season one of Fringe.
The episode begins with David Robert Jones’s escape from prison in “Safe” and the response of the prison guards. Two weeks later in Walter’s lab and Olivia asks Peter if he remembers Jones. Because he escaped. Nobody knows how and it doesn’t make sense. The German authorities have contacted her. Peter asks why when it doesn’t make sense and nobody knows they are the ones people come to. Olivia is going to talk to Loeb and wants Walter to describe his stolen invention again. Peter tells him to tell the truth this time. Walter says it’s a transportation device. A teleportation system? Yes. It has problems. It would require weeks of decompression afterwards and, if you survive that, you will wish you hadn’t. Olivia asks if Jones could have zapped himself out of prison with it. Well, yes.
Jones has finished decompression and, when let out of the tank, thanks everyone and asks if everything is in order. His hand is trembling.
A man buys a paper from someone running a kiosk with a $2 note. The next customer is speaking to the seller, Tommie, when something starts happening to his eyes. Then his eyes, nose and mouth start sealing over with flesh. He blunders past the Observer, who is more obvious than in a while, then collapses to the ground. Because with no nose or mouth he can’t breathe.
Charlie is speaking to Broyles about Kohl, Jones’s lawyer. He has a slush fund under an assumed name. Broyles suggests a mistress; Charlie suggests something less salacious.
Loeb is brought to see Olivia. He doesn’t want to help her find Jones, even with the threat of heading to an unpleasant prison. Loeb says it doesn’t matter if Jones is found. He’s just part of an army. What is written will come to pass and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. Olivia then gets a call from Broyles, telling her to come to Boston General with the others.
Tommie is dead. Walter has two thoughts on that. One is how his orifices sealed up. The other is coffee cake. Olivia gets a message. He heads outside with Peter and tells him about Loeb. She wondered if ZFT wasn’t the name of the organisation, but the name of their bible, and asked for a search done for documents with that name. One, with a German title, a self-published anonymous manuscript whose title translates to Destruction by the Advancement of Technology. Olivia explains that the only reason it’s known is a copy was seized ion a police raid. That copy was destroyed ten years ago. She wonders if Peter has any weird connections that could help.
Another agent brings Charlie a list of companies that Kohl dealt with. Peter and Olivia head to a bookshop, where Peter speaks to the proprietor, Markham. Charlie speaks to Broyles about a warehouse leased by Kohl. Power was off for months; it was turned back on the day Jones escaped. They’re planning a raid when Broyles is told that Jones is downstairs. He is, and he wants to speak to Olivia.
Harris doesn’t want Olivia to talk to Jones. Even when she says the only reason Jones is here is because he wants to be, and he expects his request to be rejected. Harris tells her to join the raid on the warehouse if she wants to know more. Harris speaks to Jones himself, who tells him a list of items.
On the way to the warehouse, Peter calls and says he has the book. Never released, and never proofed. It says that science will destroy the world as they know it and the catastrophe has already begun. The warehouse is where Jones decompressed, but it’s now empty of people. One agent finds a $2 in a drawer. It’s probably not going to be a good idea to touch it and it isn’t. The others hear his scream. Olivia performs a tracheotomy so the agent can breathe, but his skin seals around it.
On their return, Olivia does get to speak to Jones. He wants her to do a test. Or there will be a large-scale attack using the same substance.
There’s mention of multiple worlds in the ZFT book and people who are travelling between them. The Observer? And a few more revelations that look like they will have consequences.