So the money's all there, and Olivia, Peter and Gavin all go to sit down. Gavin says he's skeptical that they'd come at all: "I thought it would be Paris all over again." Hicks tells Olivia to tell him that was because of the French intelligence report, and he knows it. Olivia does so, while Peter shiftily looks from Olivia to Gavin, like I'm surprised Peter didn't blurt out, "Nice one, Olivia!" Gavin nods, but points out that this is a larger purchase.

One of his goons comes in with a huge black briefcase, and opens it up. There are two large rounded beakers that look light blue and ... are glowing? And a smaller vial. Gavin's cellphone rings, and he answers it, and then says OK. To Olivia: "Conrad would like to see you?" Olivia, unable to contain her surprise, asks when. "Now. He's on his way," says Gavin.

One of the agents in the surveillance room is all, "What's going on? Do they have the package? Why isn't she calling the raid?" Charlie tells him it's because Conrad's coming: "She doesn't want to scare him off. She wants to get him. She's waiting for Conrad," says Charlie, shaking his head either at Olivia taking the risk or the knucklehead FBI agent who needed it all explained to him.

Back in the hotel room, Gavin pulls out the smaller vial and tells her it's a "reverse mutator." Is that even possible? Wait, a man turned into a porcupine. I withdraw my question. "It would take you years to reverse engineer an antivirus. It's why the purchase price is so high," says Gavin. Well, that, and the overhead. Those two thugs aren't cheap, I imagine. While a stunned Hicks looks at Walter, Gavin explains the formula itself is "deceiving in its complexity."

Olivia says they shouldn't have a need for it, and Gavin says it's only in case of accidental exposure, which he assures her would be fatal. But Olivia's got a problem now. Gavin, sounding skeptical, asks, "Now why wouldn't Ernesto call me back himself? And tell me someone else was coming to meet?" At the Fringe lab, Hicks starts shaking, and his nose starts bleeding. Walter tells Astrid to get him a tranquilizer, and Astrid frantically alerts Olivia that Hicks is transforming.

But Gavin's waiting for an answer, and a slightly unnerved Olivia lamely says, "How would I know? I'm not Ernesto's mother." Gavin wants to at least know who Ernesto was meeting. Hicks, meanwhile, is convulsing and bleeding and presumably moments away from turning into a porcupine, and all the FBI agents are sitting there looking tense, and Gavin puts his gun down on the table. "I asked you a simple question. Who was Ernesto meeting?" Astrid urges Hicks to give her a name, somebody, anybody else in the operation, but Hicks is about as coherent as a frat boy on the first night of spring break. "Hicks is out!" Astrid yells at Olivia, who looks like she's passing a kidney stone.