Episode 9: The Ones You Love
This one starts with Artie going through the Warehouse shelf by shelf to make sure Brother Adrian hasn’t stolen any more artifacts. Adrian shows up (having used D.B. Cooper’s ripcord to get in) and tosses a deadly boomerang. As Artie and Adrian struggle, the boomerang comes back and Adrian pulls Artie from its path. Artie realizes Adrian can’t kill him because he needs him
alive to use the astrolabe to undo the temporal reset he originally used it for. Their struggle sets off alarms that bring Pete and Myka running. Adrian tells Artie his plan, then knees him in the balls and takes off. Pete tries to find Adrian but he’s gone … although Pete does make a pretty cool catch of the returning boomerang. Artie tells Pete and Myka that Adrian threatened to punish them for Artie’s intransigence.
Artie alerts Mrs. Frederick, who takes Steve somewhere for a special assignment. Claudia gets three hits on one of Adrian’s fake addresses; apparently he’s sent out three more artifacts, one to Colorado Springs, 
Colorado, one to Yuma, Arizona, and one to Menlo Park, California. Myka’s sister Tracy lives in Colorado Springs and Pete’s ex Amanda is stationed at a Marine Base in Yuma, but Artie says they don’t know anyone in Menlo Park. Claudia corrects him, saying her brother Joshua is there working on some secret project. Obviously Adrian is putting pressure on Artie’s friends by threatening their loved ones with artifacts, but according to the Warehouse database, no artifacts are missing. Pete heads for Arizona, Myka for Colorado, and Claudia for California, leaving Artie and Leena to figure out what’s going on.
In Rome, Mrs. Frederick and Steve are let into the Vatican Library by a priest who owes the Warehouse a favour. They’re looking for clues about Adrian and the Brotherhood of the Black Diamond, but it looks like whoever was in the library last left in a hurry. There’s moldy food, half-smoked cigars, and a newspaper from a few months ago lying around. In Colorado Springs,
Myka and her pregnant sister Tracy (played by Amy Acker, of Angel, Dollhouse, and Person of Interest fame) are thrilled to see each other … although there does seem to be an undercurrent of sibling rivalry present. Unfortunately, whatever artifact Adrian sent must already be there, because when Myka hugs her, electricity courses through Tracy and her eyes glow green.
She goes back to normal right away and takes Myka upstairs to see the nursery. Myka is looking for anything new that Tracy might have gotten lately, but the nursery is full of baby gifts, so that doesn’t narrow things 
down at all. Tracy goes to get some chai tea while Myka examines the gifts, trying to figure out which one might be an artifact. She focuses on a sweater set and sprays it with purple neutralizer goo … but it’s not the artifact, and Myka makes things worse by trying to rub the stain out with another piece of baby clothing. Don’t feel too bad for Tracy, though; while Myka’s ruining her unborn baby’s clothes, Tracy is in the kitchen (eyes glowing green again), putting drain cleaner in Myka’s tea.
In Arizona, Pete tells Amanda he’s there looking for an artifact; luckily, she’s kinda aware of what he does, so he doesn’t have to pretend like Myka.
Amanda’s looking a bit out of it, sweating like hell and sucking back water that seems to boil in the bottle after she sets it down. She says she received a leather box in the mail earlier, but it was empty. Pete bags the box, but nothing happens. Well, something happens … Amanda keels over. In Menlo Park, Claudia goes to Joshua’s place and finds out she’s too late … he’s encased in amber.
At the Warehouse, Leena finds Artie loading a .38 revolver; he says he’s sick of Adrian threatening his friends and when he shows up again, he’s going to 
stop him once and for all. Before Leena can talk him out of it, Claudia calls to ask for help. Leena finds a couple of amber-based artifacts and Claudia figures out it’s a Chinese scroll. Unfortunately, she can’t neutralize it, since Joshua is holding the scroll in his hand … which is completely covered in amber. In Colorado Springs, Tracy finds Myka trying to rub purple goo out of the sweater. Myka says she sprayed anti-fungal on it and the purple shows that the sweater is crawling with fungus.
Tracy’s eyes glow green again and she gives Myka her tea. Myka gets a call from Pete and when Tracy tries to push the tea on her, she spills it and it eats a hole in the carpet. Myka goes to the kitchen and sees the bottle of
drain cleaner. She tells Pete her sister is trying to poison her, but she has no idea what artifact might be affecting her. Pete says the same thing about Amanda’s weird heat illness … she received a box but no sign of an artifact. (Myka: “Is she okay?”; Pete: “Well, she’s super-hot.”; Myka: “Yes, Pete, I’ve met her, but if you could just set that aside for a moment …”) Myka notices a butcher knife missing from Tracy’s collection and says she has her own stuff to deal with.
Pete and Amanda talk and she admits she’s scared—which is basically a 
first for her—and Pete notices a tattoo on her back of a tiger with some Cyrillic letters. Amanda says she doesn’t have a tattoo and when Pete puts his hand on it, the tat transfers to him, migrating under his skin under it finally settles on his shoulder-blade. Amanda feels better, but Pete immediately starts heating up. Myka is talking to Artie, who tells her hugging her sister might’ve activated the artifact, and that it might be sibling specific, which doesn’t narrow the possibilities much. Artie says the Warehouse database is down and hangs up
on Myka so he can check a power junction. Pete calls and shows Artie the tattoo, which Artie recognizes as the symbol of an anarchist who assassinated Tsar Alexander II … and is sometimes thought of as history’s first suicide bomber, which means Pete is probably going to blow up. Artie sees Brother Adrian in the Warehouse and becomes very brusque, telling Pete to cut the tattoo off if he has to and hanging up.
Pete asks Amanda to cut the tattoo off him, but every time she tries, it moves to a new place on his body. The tattoo glows, sending energy through Pete’s body that sets off radiation detectors. In Menlo Park, Claudia uses a blowtorch to heat up the amber surrounding Joshua’s hand. I always thought amber was flammable, but Claudia says she got the idea off the
internet, so it must be right. In Rome, Steve and Mrs. Frederick are wondering where all the Brotherhood members are. The priest told them nobody’s seen any Brotherhood members come in or out of the Library in months, so maybe there’s a secret way out. They check the walls for hidden panels and Steve disappears. Mrs. Frederick wonders if he found a secret exit, then she notices a painting on the wall. She turns away quickly and changes her glasses—to ones with red lenses—before examining the painting. Sure enough, Steve is in the painting, along with a bunch of the Brotherhood monks.
In Colorado, Myka tries to tell Tracy that something’s wrong with her, but Tracy fakes her out and tries to stab her. They fight (Tracy, while pulling Myka’s hair: “Your hair! ‘I like it curly, I like it straight.’ Make a decision!”)
and Myka gets the upper hand. In Arizona, Pete gets ready to go into a nuclear shelter to contain the blast when he explodes. Amanda is impressed with his courage and of course Pete has to milk it a bit (“Look Amanda, if there was any way that I could do this without being the biggest hero you ever met … far bigger than your husband Michael … I’d do it.”) Amanda tells Pete she never stopped loving him and he heads into the bunker, still clutching the bag with the leather box in it.
In Colorado, Myka has tied Tracy to the crib (with what look like plush monkeys) and is tearing everything in the room apart looking for the artifact. Tracy taunts Myka, saying Tracy was the popular one and Myka was a big loser. Pete calls to say goodbye and Myka asks him what’s going on. 
When he tells her about the tattoo, she realizes that if the box is made of leather, maybe the tattoo was originally on the box and not in it. That suggests the “leather” box is made from the suicide bomber’s skin, which grosses Pete out. He tries to touch the box to the tattoo, but can’t reach … he blames too many pull-ups for making him too muscular. He finally comes up with the obvious solution … set the box on the floor and lie back on it. That works and the tattoo transfers back to the box, which Pete bags. Amanda is waiting outside and is thrilled to see him alive, though she tries to take back the stuff about still loving him. He does manage to coax a Blackhawk out of her so he can get to Colorado and help Myka.
In Menlo Park, Claudia finishes heating the amber around Joshua’s hand, then pours ice water over it so she can shatter it. That releases the scroll, which she bags, shattering the rest of the amber and freeing Joshua. His hand is burned, but otherwise he’s fine, though Claudia feels guilty he
almost got killed because of her. In Rome, Mrs. Frederick removes the picture from the frame (which was made for Rembrandt out of the Tree of Life) which frees Steve. They figure Adrian must’ve trapped the rest of the Brotherhood before heading to the States, but now that the painting is out of the frame, the monks should be emerging right away. One of the Brotherhood pops out and tries to stab them because they’re not supposed to be in the Library. Steve Teslas him and Mrs. Frederick says he’ll probably have to do that a few more times before the monks get the message.
Pete shows up in Colorado to help Myka, but Tracy is getting worse; her heartbeat is going crazy and Myka’s worried about the baby. Myka realizes she’s checked everything but the wrapping paper, specifically the wrapping 
paper in the garbage. At the Warehouse, Artie finds Brother Adrian and shoots him in the shoulder. Artie says he’s no killer, but Adrian isn’t getting out of the Warehouse. In Menlo Park, Claudia tells Joshua about Adrian and wonders how he found out where Joshua was. Joshua mentions that Artie is the one who set up the secret job for him, which surprises Claudia since Artie seemed not to know where Joshua was. Joshua says Artie was acting weird, more abrupt than usual, almost like he wasn’t himself. Ah, now I’m starting to get it. (Most of you probably figured it out a long time ago, but I really didn’t see this one coming.)
In Colorado, Pete and Myka find a ribbon hat (which apparently is a thing) with an old-fashioned braided cord attached to it. When they bag the cord nothing happens, so they realize they have to cut the cord. That’s sends all kinds of sparks flying and Tracy immediately goes back to normal. Myka’s
explanations for tying Tracy up (she had low blood pressure so Myka was using “forced limb extension” to help her) and the trashed room (a windstorm blew through the window) are really strained. Claudia calls to tell them about Artie’s lie about Joshua and Pete mentions how Artie left him hanging when he was in trouble. Myka says Artie has a lot to deal with, like Brother Adrian and the down database, but Claudia says her remote testing system is telling her the database was never down. They all decide they’d better head back to the Warehouse right away.
At the Warehouse, Artie bronzes Brother Adrian and figures his nightmare is finally over, but Adrian disappears from the Bronzer and appears outside 
again. Artie tries to shoot him, but the bullets go right through. Leena shows up and asks Artie what the hell he’s doing. In Rome, Mrs. Frederick tells the monks about the astrolabe and that Adrian has gone rogue, which they say is impossible. They’re right … Adrian was trapped in the painting too and pops out. He says he’s never been to South Dakota (which Steve’s truth-sense confirms), so who the hell has Artie been dealing with all this time?
At the Warehouse, Artie tells Leena to run before Adrian can hurt her, but Leena points out that Adrian isn’t there … it’s just the two of them. Leena says she’s seen Artie arguing with thin air a few times now. Mrs. Frederick
calls to tell Leena the real Adrian is in Rome and the one Artie has been seeing all this time is in his own head. The false Adrian is a construct of Artie’s subconscious; Artie is the one who’s been sending out the artifacts (which explains why there were no breaches detected) and almost killing all his friends. Apparently the “evil of your own making” Adrian warned about as the price for using the astrolabe was Artie having a psychotic break and manifesting some kind of evil second personality.
Artie is figuring that out for himself, remembering the truth of all his interactions with “Brother Adrian”, who never actually existed. Mrs. Frederick tells Leena to get the hell out of the Warehouse, but she can’t 
bring herself to leave Artie when he’s all screwed up and offers to help him. That was a bad decision, as Artie’s bad side manifests and he’s ready to go to the Dark Vault to get the astrolabe. Leena tries to stop him, which pisses him off. Halfway home, Pete pulls over, telling Myka he just had a major bad vibe; the last time he felt one that strong was when his father died. Myka calls the Warehouse but gets no answer … and we see Leena lying on the blood-stained floor. Is Leena really dead? We’ll find out next episode.