Original Airdate: February 16, 1994 Written by J. Michael Straczynski Directed by Richard Compton Episode #: 4 Production #: 101
Guest stars: David McCallum as Dr. Vance Hendricks. Marshall Teague as Nelson Drake.
Dr. Franklin receives two visitors with strange artifacts. As they are experimenting on the artifacts, Nelson, the assistant, is taken over by the artifacts and rampages throughout the station.
Dr. Vance Hendricks (DAVID McCALLUM), a respected archaeologist, discovers several strange artifacts on a barren planet that provide the secret to organic technology - they are blueprints for living machines. Helped by his assistant. Nelson Drake, Hendricks smuggles the mysterious relics aboard the gigantic space station, Babylon 5. Hendricks hopes to discover the secrets of the objects with the unsuspecting aid of his former student, Dr. Stephen Franklin, the station's medical officer.
Meanwhile, the station's commander, Jeffrey Sinclair and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi investigate the death of a security clerk. They don't know that Drake murdered the clerk to get the relics aboard Babylon 5 without the required quarantine inspection. As the scientists experiment on the objects, Drake begins to transform into a cybernetic killer - part human, part machine and attacks Dr. Franklin.
As Franklin recovers, Hendricks confesses the truth to Sinclair and Garibaldi. He illegally smuggled the object into the laboratory hoping to sell the secret to a wealthy Earth-based weapons corporation. He also explains that Drake was accidentally infected with the cells of the mechanized organisms. As Drake transforms completely into a humanoid machine, he prowls throughout the station, absorbing its energy and killing anyone he believes to be a threat.
Franklin isolates the genetic code that motivates the cybernetic Drake to kill. Over a thousand years ago, the civilization on the barren planet created artificial soldiers to cleanse their race of genetic impurities. Unfortunately, this desire to create a perfect world was interpreted too literally by these cybernauts and they destroyed all life on the planet.
Sinclair finally confronts the unstoppable Drake with these facts, and Drake's artificial memory destroys itself out of shame for failing in its mission. Drake recovers from his transformations but is arrested for the murder of the security clerk. Franklin rejects Hendricks's plan to help him sell the rest of the objects that allows Garibaldi's men to arrest the greedy scientist.
