A child is picked up on the road by a sheriff who decides to take him back to the station in order to track down his parents. The kid suddenly morphs into a deformed creature. At the station, the sheriffs try to decide what to do with him. Two other deformed people enter the station, killing the sheriffs and taking the boy.

The Fringe team comes on the scene to investigate. Walter has several theories, but none of them add up. While the team tries to uncover leads surrounding the bizarre case, these disfigured people will do anything to keep the case a secret. Walter remembers an experiment done years ago in the city. He discovers that they managed to hide their deformities from the human eye through a massive electromagnetic pulse that runs through the town. The people are actually deformed, as an aftermath from testing done in their town years ago. The pulse causes them to look normal. However, once they leave town and are out of the pulse's reach, their true deformities show. They'll do just about anything to stay there, including attempting to kill Peter and Olivia.

Peter and Olivia are saved by someone who no longer wants to harm outsiders that discover their secret. The Fringe team decides to keep the town's secret so that the remaining residents can live a normal life.