The Doctor and the Companions are experiencing some turbulence in the T.A.R.D.I.S. trying escape a light beam that's pursuing them when The Doctor realizes the beam is a teleport pulse and lets it catch up to them. A robotic courier arrives and delivers a package from Kerblam! the galaxy's largest retailer.

The Doctor opens it to find a fez hat she ordered a long time ago. Yaz finds a message on the back of the packing slip: "HELP ME" and shows it to The Doctor. They decide to follow up on it and head to the Kerblam! warehouse moon, orbiting the planet Kandoka.

They go undercover as new workers in the warehouse with the help of psychic paper and the sonic to get past the Head of People Supervisor, Judy. The power goes out for a moment while they're getting their bio scans done. They each get an ankle monitor which keeps track of productivity.

The Doctor switches job assignments with Graham so that she can get access to the packing slips. Ryan gets assigned the same area. Yaz goes to warehouse inventory and Graham ends up with the cleaning crew.

Ryan and The Doctor meet a girl named Kira Arlo in the packaging area. Yaz gets to know Dan Cooper. Graham's work partner is Charlie.

Kira gets picked on by Jarvis Slade, the warehouse executive. Ryan and The Doctor stick up for her.

Dan takes a retrieval job from Yaz that he says is in a bad part of the warehouse. Yaz follows. Dan runs into a robotic Teammate that seems to have malfunctioned but, when his back is turned, the Teammate grabs him. Yaz hears him yell and runs to help but only find his broken scanner and his daughter's necklace on the ground. Two Teammates try to flank her but she escapes.

During a short complex malfunction, the team confers and The Doctor decides to file a complaint about Dan's disappearance. They show Judy and Jarvis the "HELP ME" message on The Doctor's packing slip. Turns out that the packing slips are auto-generated. Judy and Jarvis give their word that they'll look into it and The Doctor, Yaz, and Ryan make it clear that they expect results.

The three leave the office and then hide in an alcove to break back into Jarvis' office later.

Graham gets Charlie to find him a blueprint for the complex. The slumbering Teammates reactivate when they walk by.

The Doctor, Yaz, and Ryan find some papers in Jarvis' filing cabinet. Judy catches them, having been alerted to their location by their ankle monitors. The Doctor shows her the papers which track the disappearance of staff over the last few months.

Suddenly, the complex experiences a total power outage. Charlie and Graham join them in the office. Ryan notices an active robot standing outside the office. It comes in, reporting an error has been detected and when Charlie tries to shut it off, it attacks him. The Doctor's sonic has no effect but the robot stops after Judy rips its head off.

The Doctor says she needs a copy of Kerblam!'s original coding. Charlie and Graham lead them back to the artifact exhibit where the first delivery-bot, known as "Twirly," is on display. On a monitor in his office, Jarvis sees them taking the bot and loads a weapon.

In the packaging room, Kira is informed by a couple of Teammates that she has been recognized for her service and named Employee of the Day. The Teammates lead her away to give her a gift. 

Judy is notified that Kira's gone missing and tells The Doctor. Charlie is upset and asks where her signal was last recorded. Judy says Dispatch, which is on the foundation level and fully automated with no organic admittance. Ryan takes Charlie and Yaz and they slide down the parcel chute to Dispatch.

The Teammates lead Kira into an isolated room and leave her locked in. 

Ryan, Yaz, and Charlie survive the chute and end up on the high-speed conveyor belts. Ryan goes to high-five Charlie and accidentally knocks him off the belt, onto a lower one. Ryan and Yaz jump down to join him. 

The Doctor recharges Twirly and then patches him into the system to find the information they need. The connection causes sparks and Twirly's voice changes to that of the Kerblam! system itself, asking for help. The Doctor realizes that the system sent the distress message. When she asks how she can help, it tells her help is needed in Dispatch.

Ryan, Charlie, and Yaz survive disinfection and the system's attempt to disintegrate the "organic infection" (aka them) and enter the empty foundation level of the complex. They can hear Kira's voice. 

The Doctor realizes that they don't need to break into Dispatch since there are delivery robots in the exhibit room. Using the sonic, she can activate the teleportation ability. Jarvis tries to stop them but gets teleported as well and then stripped of his weapon. Turns out he's been tracking the disappearances himself but, with no one to report it to, he's been stuck for a plan. He suspected The Doctor and the Companions of being behind the issues with the system.

Graham finds a pool of goo with ankle monitors floating in it. The Doctor scans it with the sonic and suspects it is the remains of the missing employees. She steps out into the Dispatch area and finds all the delivery bots waiting to be dispatched and realizes that all the boxes, no matter what the order, contain a common item -- the bubble wrap.

Ryan, Charlie, and Yaz run up to the one-way window into the chamber that Kira is in. A gift is teleported onto the table. She opens it to find a single piece of bubble wrap. Charlie screams at her from his side of the window not to pop it but she does and is instantly disintegrated.

Ryan points out that Charlie knew what was going to happen and Charlie mutters that the system's done this deliberately. Ryan and Yaz go to find The Doctor. While she's working out the make-up of the deadly bubble wrap, Charlie runs up holding a controller. He explains that he's infiltrated the system in order to sabotage it and make people distrust the automation. His mission is to make the company completely people-driven instead of only 10%.

He activates the delivery and runs down to stand amidst the delivery bots but The Doctor hacks in with Twirly and re-programs the deliveries to all redirect back into the Dispatch area and every delivery robot must open the delivery and pop its bubble wrap. Graham shouts for Charlie to get out of the crowd of robots but he doesn't and the entire Dispatch force is disintegrated by the weaponized bubble wrap.

Judy and Jarvis debrief with the team and explain that there will be a system overhaul. On the T.A.R.D.I.S. Yaz requests that they take Dan's necklace back to his daughter so she knows how much her father loved her. Graham considers popping some bubble wrap he finds but decides against it.