"Just because I'm poison, doesn't mean we all are."

Joshua's house. Joshua wakes up sniffing, and follows his nose right out of the house and down the street. Oddly enough, given reactions to him later in the season, and the fact that transgenic rumours are already well and truly out there, and how unstealthy he's being, he attracts very little attention from passers by. A fire hydrant, social hub of the dog world that it is, draws his interest momentarily, but then he's off again, pausing to make the acquaintance of a large dog tethered nearby. Their barked exchange, I suppose, is to remind viewers that Joshua has a lot of canine in his cocktail, just in case his facial features and mannerisms weren't enough of a hint. Joshua sniffs his way through a marketplace, now drawing negative attention as he sniffs and licks a large fish on sale and is forced to flee, and then finally finds his way to Max's apartment building.

In the apartment squat she shares with Max, busily making breakfast, Original Cindy is rather surprised to hear a dog howling at the door. She goes to see what all the noise is about, and in comes Joshua. OC's startlement increases, but she handles herself with aplomb.

Max's first concern on seeing Joshua and learning that he followed his nose to find her is to ask if anyone saw him. Joshua shrugs, nonchalant. He hasn't yet learned the levels of exposure-caution that Max has developed over the years since she first escaped. Max is very thrown by Joshua's arrival in her apartment, almost as thrown as Cindy, who has never seen a nomaly before, but Cindy rises to the occasion, realising that this is Joshua – Max has obviously talked about him – and shaking his hand in greeting, offering him breakfast. A small smile flickers into existence on Max's downcast face, clearly relieved to see just how open-minded her friend is prepared to be.



Cindy's open-mindedness is stretched somewhat by Joshua's virtually non-existent table manners. Max gently – and awkwardly – tells him that she had been planning to come by later and bring him some stuff. It seems that this is only the day after they first found Sandeman's house, the day after Max and Joshua were reunited, the day after Max and Logan's hopes of a virus cure were crushed, this episode following directly on from the last. Max's dejected attitude certainly backs up that theory. Joshua cheerfully adds that together they will find 'father', and Cindy wonders who this 'father' is. Joshua explains their hope that 'father' will make Max better, and Cindy exposits for latecomers to the season that this is a reference to 'that love-bug where [Max] can't touch Logan.'

"Well, get on it, Boo. I'm tired of seeing you moping." Cindy offers Max some clearly much-needed pep. "This virus-bitch has got to go down so that you can get busy with your man."
"Max and Logan…getting busy." Joshua is intrigued by the new slang vocabulary laid before him here. "That's the plan."
"The plan is we're going to find father." Max tries to stick to just the one step at a time. "Logan's tracking down some leads. In the meantime you've got to lay low. You can't be walking around out there."
"Don't mope," Joshua smiles. "I'm on it."

On the one hand Joshua's absolute naivety and odd speech patterns can be grating, and he is used for some pretty silly storylines at times, but as a character he is lovely: sweet, caring and insightful. And how could anyone not love him for the comfort and support he provides for Max? The writing of the role might be patchy in places, but the actor really brings the character vividly and sympathetically to life.

And you've just got to love the little interplay between Joshua and Cindy that closes out this scene, as she offers him seconds, briskly smacking him down as he lunges enthusiastically for the spoon. Hee. Cindy is gold, and works so well with Joshua, her matter-of-factness the perfect foil for his social ineptitude and dog-like behaviour. It's a shame we don't see them together more often.

Chinatown. A hunchbacked figure shuffles its way through a crowded marketplace. We catch a glimpse of a hideously deformed face as it approaches a stall and points to a coat. The vendors react with disgust to the appearance of their customer, but a sale is a sale, so the coat is lifted down and eight dollars demanded in exchange. Hunchback goes to hand over a fistful of cash, only for blood to drip from his hand onto the counter. Horrified, they throw the coat at him and yell at him to leave, not taking the potentially contaminated money. Hunchback shuffles away into the crowd.

Hotel, still in Chinatown. The hotelier sees his young son sitting on the front step watching as a firework lights up the sky. The father yells in Chinese at the boy, Henry, that he'd told him not to play with bottle rockets. "Chill, Pop, it wasn't me, I swear," young Henry sasses back at him in English. Pop promptly scolds, still in Chinese, not to lie to him and to get out and start sweeping. Henry grabs his broom with a very bad grace, and slams the door behind him. Kids, eh.

Market. A young man stumbles along looking light-headed and bleeding from the nose.

Sweeping the steps of his father's hotel, young Henry hears the sound of someone choking, and looks up in time to see the bloody-nosed young man collapse to the ground, bleeding from every visible orifice. A crowd of concerned Chinese onlookers swiftly gathers around, so that the young white man who rushes to the side of the stricken victim and calls for an ambulance is very conspicuous by his race.

Elsewhere in Chinatown, Hunchback wraps bandages around his bloody hands, as the camera pans back to reveal the barcode on the back of his neck.

Titles.

Logan's Penthouse. Sitting at his computer with his back to Max, who is about as far away as she could get and still hear him, Logan frustratedly runs through all the research he's been conducting, in his endeavour to identify the mysterious Sandeman. As he stands and crosses the room to stand opposite Max in a doorway, she backs away, still very leery of getting too close lest she accidentally touch and thus kill him. A search of university records has thrown up no Sandeman, Logan explains, at least not in the sciences, and the house has proved a similar dead end – the mortgage was held by an offshore corporation and the taxes paid out of a numbered account.

"Guess if you're splicing genes for a secret government agency, gotta make sure you cover your tracks," Max allows.

Logan starts moving again, and again Max backs away, so that they are kind of circling one another to switch positions in the doorway, as Logan explains that the house was repossessed when mortgage repayments ceased, and it has sat there empty ever since. I'm amazed it hasn't acquired squatters long before now.

Logan: "Looks like Sandeman just disappeared."
Max: "Maybe he retired someplace sunny."
Logan: "Or he ran for his life. I mean, hey, we're talking about Manticore – the place wasn't exactly known for its job security."

With Logan getting too close for comfort, Max backs away at speed, remarking that 'if he had time to pack, he probably would have taken this.' She hands Logan the walking stick she and Joshua found in Sandeman's house, the carved handle carefully wrapped in a plastic bag.

"Manticore symbol," Logan realises. "Are we sure he's one of the good guys?"
"Joshua's sure, that's enough for me," Max tells him. She could be forgiven for not really knowing what to think, everything that's been going on, but she is always loyal to her friends. She suggests that maybe they could have it checked for prints or DNA; after ten years it's a long shot, but worth a shot, since they don't have anything else to go on, not even a first name.

Logan offers to call Matt Sung and see if he can get the police lab to do it. "We're going to find him, Max," he assures her. "We're going to beat this."
"I just want things to be the way they were," Max offhandedly offers, not being one to get drawn into mushy conversations if she can help it. Max prefers to avoid all thought of painful topics, never mind discussion, but this one is kind of hard to get away from. "You know, when we could hold hands without you keeling over on me."

They share a smile, optimism being the only thing they have to cling to right now, but something they can at least cling to together. Then Asha walks right into the apartment and interrupts the moment. Does she have her own key, or something? I mean, transgenics like Max, Zack or Alec just finding their own way in whenever they feel like it, that's one thing – covert entry is something they'd have been taught at Manticore. But Asha? She's got to have a key, and for her to just wander in unannounced like this speaks volumes for how close she and Logan got over the summer, while he was mourning Max.

Logan wanders out into the hallway to greet Asha, so she doesn't see that Max is there as she launches – without stopping to so much as say hello – into a weary rant about how she almost got busted at a checkpoint, the officials there being suspicious of her forged papers. Logan can't get a word in edgeways as she vents her frustration at him over not being able to get through the checkpoints, which means she can't go home, and now has to get her hands on a whole new fake ID – which Logan can probably help her with, he tries to offer – "And we've got to talk about this Manticore thing," Asha finishes. "I'm really glad your friend Max and her furry little friends got out of there, but it's really –"

Max, taking offence, stiffly steps out into the hallway to reveal her presence at this point, and Asha awkwardly stutters to a halt. I like this storyline because it feels so real a consequence of what's happened – Asha did a favour for Logan, and as a result she and her organisation are taking a lot of heat for something they didn't do. She has a right to be feeling annoyed and frustrated about the position Logan and Max have put her in. But from Max's point of view, what's Asha's inconvenience compared to the freedom of all her fellow transgenics? And Logan, of course, is completely stuck in the middle, awkward as hell.

Between the three of them, they manage to recap for latecomers to the season that Asha belongs to political organisation the S1W, who are being blamed for the fire at Manticore, claimed by the government to be a VA hospital, yada yada. "Sorry. From me and all my furry little friends," Max snidely and oh-so insincerely tells the other woman. Asha bristles, and Logan drops his head into his hands.



Street. Unchaining her bicycle, Max mocks Asha to herself, feeling offended and threatened by Logan's friend, who became such a big part of his life during Max's absence. Off she cycles, stewing in her irritation and frustration, while the director uses the opportunity to try out a few nifty split screens and musical sequence.

"Don't get mad. It's not her fault everything handcuffs you to freaking Manticore," Max counsels herself in voice over. "But what is up? Is someone trying to tell me something?"

The introspection comes to an abrupt halt as, not paying the slightest bit of attention to where she is going, Max rides her bicycle right into the side of a car, and goes flying. Lying flat on her back re-gathering her senses, she is rather surprised when her heat-induced one night stand of last season, Rafer, dashes from the car in alarm and starts assessing her for injury. Max insists that she's all right, and takes exception to the examination, protesting in response to his declaration that he is a paramedic that he delivers pizzas. Rafer elaborates that the pizza gig is just part-time for extra cash. "We spent one night together four months ago, you think you know my life story?" he good-naturedly points out. "Now lie still, you might have broken bones…"

Not the slightest bit in the mood to be reminded of that night, Max grabs his jacket and flips him right over onto his back. "Next time you want to cop a feel, hit me harder and make sure I'm out cold," she snarls.

Gotta say this for Max, she is uniformly hostile to anyone that crosses her path when she's feeling troubled about anything. She tries to stomp away, only for Rafer to call her back, holding up a shoe she left behind. Max snatches it from his hand and marches off in a mood. Rafer watches her go, quizzical.

Logan's Penthouse. Logan is on the phone to his police contact Matt Sung, making what will be his penultimate appearance on the show, to thank him for agreeing to have the walking stick examined.

Police Station. Hanging up the phone, Matt's attention is drawn by the young Good Samaritan of earlier, loudly declaring his belief that he may have been exposed to something terrible when he stopped to aid the young man who died. Matt smoothly points out that the coroner has yet to determine what happened. As Good Samaritan is led away protesting that he wants to see a copy of the ME's report, Matt talks to a fellow detective about the rumours flying around Chinatown about some strange guy wandering around. The detective shows him a sketch of the man's hideous, misshapen face, and they theorise that the dead kid could have encountered him and been exposed to something. Detective suggests they keep this possibility under wraps until the autopsy results are in, not wanting to spark off any panic. "You haven't been in Chinatown lately, have you?" Matt worriedly snarks. "There's already a panic."

Jam Pony. Max arrives, carrying the remains of her bicycle, which evidently did not survive the collision with Rafer's car. Normal snips that he's been paging her all morning, and Max snips back that she lost her pager when a car hit her, but is fine, thanks for asking. She starts to ask for a replacement, but Normal cuts her off. "You're not covered for company bikes, and if you so much as break a fingernail, we both know you'll sue." Heh.

Max hangs up the broken frame of her bike, then turns around to see Rafer, in paramedic uniform, but is not in the mood to be gracious about being wrong. "You showed up to make me feel bad about not believing you?" she snits.

Unperturbed by her surliness, Rafer hands over her lost pager, which was his reason for dropping by, and asks if she wants to have lunch, holding up a couple of brown paper bags. "My way of making up for our, uh, little run in."

Give the boy points for trying. Can't help but like Rafer – he's a decent, average guy. Which is, of course, the whole point of the character.

Logan's Penthouse. Still hanging around, since that ID dilemma prevents her moving between sectors, Asha tries to awkwardly apologise for upsetting Max. Logan tells her to forget about it, but she can't. "I put my foot so far down my mouth I've got teeth marks on my knee. She must hate me."

Like Rafer, Asha is hard to dislike. She has her less-than-stellar moments, but on the whole is a sympathetic character, easy to relate to. And that, again, is the whole point. Max and Logan want to be together, but can't be together. And they each have other people in their lives, or on the fringes of their lives, that they could be with, that they could potentially be happy with, have a future with in a way that isn't possible for them with one another the way things stand, if only they weren't so hung up on each other. That is the story that this episode is trying to tell, the crossroads that Max and Logan are at: should they accept the impossibility of their relationship and let go, try to get on with their lives separately? Or should they continue to cling to the painful remains of what they once had, in defiance of all the obstacles fate seems to be throwing at them? Is their love for one another big enough and strong enough to withstand everything that stands against them, or are they just hurting themselves more by holding onto the past?



Now the action starts to skip back and fore between the parallel lunches, Logan and Asha in the Penthouse, and Max and Rafer at Jam Pony, mirroring one another. Logan tells Asha to eat something, and Max tells Rafer that she isn't really hungry.

Rafer awkwardly tries to raise the subject of the night they spent together, and Max curtly insists that she'd really rather forget about it, but is a little taken aback when he agrees wholeheartedly with that sentiment. "I was in a really weird headspace, because I just broke up with my girlfriend," Rafer tells her. "If I came on too strong, I'm sorry, 'cause I'm not like that." Max shrugs it off. Rafer adds that he came by a few times looking for her, but no one knew where she was.

I thought the folks at Jam Pony knew that she'd been believed to be dead – Normal certainly implied that when he accused her of faking her own death in Bag 'Em – and had presumed that Logan would have told Original Cindy, who told everyone else. If Rafer had come looking for Max, you'd think he'd have heard about her supposed death. Anyway, Max brushes her disappearance off as having had to deal with complicated family stuff, and Rafer chuckles that family stuff is always complicated, adding that he suspected she had a boyfriend somewhere. Max sighs that that's complicated, too.

"Which has got to be the understatement of the century," remarks Asha, in the Penthouse.
"Max and I danced around each other for almost a year," Logan wistfully admits. "Just when we finally figure out what's going on between us, this virus thing happens, and…"

"We can't be together," Max quietly tells Rafer, and he wonders why not. "It's hard to explain," she understates. "It's like…it's too intense. Sometimes I think maybe…we're just not meant to be."

"I mean, if it's right, why does it have to be so hard?" Logan sighs. I like the way these conversations work. It's so in character that when Max and Logan finally manage to talk about what's going on between them, it would be an outsider they'd open up to, rather than each other. They both desperately need someone to talk to, but communication of the personal variety never was a strong suite for either of them. And this subject is so painful for them both it's all but impossible to have this conversation with one another. Max, of course, has Original Cindy as a sounding board, but for the thematic purposes of this episode, bringing Rafer back works well as counterpoint to Asha's presence in Logan's life.

"Logan's probably just better off without me," Max miserably decides.

"I just want you to be happy," Asha condoles Logan, touching his shirt in pretty intimate fashion. Logan looks conflicted. He's in love with Max, but he can't be with her, and Asha is right here and able to touch him with non-lethal effect, and is a good friend to him, and sending all kinds of I-could-be-more-to-you signals. They are standing very close, facing one another, close enough that just a dip of Logan's head would bring their lips together and complicate matters even more…

"He'd be lucky to be with you," Rafer sincerely tells Max. "Anybody would be."

Asha realises that she's let the conversation get to a pretty intense point, whether deliberately or not, since it's been pretty obvious from the start that she's got the big old unrequited love going on, which Max's return from the dead pretty much stomped all over. Logan is vulnerable right now and in no fit state to be making any kind of decisions, unhappy and confused as he is over the Max situation, so Asha decides it would be best if she went home now – before anything can happen that they all might regret, she implies but doesn't say aloud. Logan calls after her that she doesn't have ID, but she's gone.

Lunch over, Rafer heads back to work, which reminds Max that she is also meant to be working. Not that she makes any move to actually do so. It's a running joke throughout the series that Max almost never does any actual work.

Chinatown. While Pop sleeps on the couch, young Henry accepts a handful of cash in exchange for a pen to sign the check-in register. The new guest at their hotel? Hunchback. As Hunchback limps upstairs, Henry looks weirded out by his grotesque appearance, but says nothing.

Another rocket lights up the sky.

Chinatown. Sketchy and Original Cindy make a delivery together. Why they are riding in pairs I have no idea – surely Normal would discourage that, as it would decrease efficiency to have his riders doubling up. It kinda figures that the riders would prefer to hang out together rather than caring about efficiency, though. Sketchy is intrigued to hear a couple of checkpoint guards discussing mutants they claim to have heard about. He's swift to repeat the rumour to Cindy, who starts to deliver a scathing putdown, but the sound of coughing and choking draws the attention of both. All around them, Chinese people are collapsing, bleeding from eyes, nose and mouth. Cindy gasps something about getting an ambulance as she and Sketchy grab their bikes to make a hasty getaway.

Later. "Twenty-two, all Chinese," Matt Sung sombrely tells Logan by cellphone as he grimly watches the corpses being bagged up, explaining that it is the same thing that killed the young man the day before, some kind of pathogen that the medical examiner has never seen before. "You catch Eyes Only's hack about that place, Manticore?" he adds. Logan cautiously admits that he did, yes and wonders why. Matt elaborates that the government is trying to say it never existed. "But the word on the street is that the place burned down, and a bunch of these genetically engineered whatsits got out."

Logan points out that those are just rumours. Rumours that he started with those infamous hacks of his. Way too late to bolt the stable door now. Matt tells him that rumour has it that one of them is hiding out in Chinatown. "Supposedly deformed. It bleeds out through its skin." Logan asks if he thinks there's a connection, and Matt admits that he doesn't know. "But Eyes Only might. Can you talk to him?"

Logan agrees to try, rather than 'fess up that he is Eyes Only, and hasn't the faintest idea what's going on in Chinatown. "I'm sorry, Matt. I know this is close to home," he softly tells his friend.

This is why I like this episode, because although it still features transgenic issues, it has a wider scope than transgenic episodes usually do. It's a timely reminder that the issues Logan cares about have always been bigger and wider than simply those of Max and the transgenics, that they are and have always been only part of the whole big picture he sees out there, and that's what Eyes Only is all about. It's what Eyes Only forgot during his summer of grief, when Max and Manticore were all he could see and all he wanted to broadcast about. It's a reminder of last season, when Logan's save-the-world complex encompassed every form of social injustice he encountered, and he encouraged Max to care likewise, to broaden her horizons and to see beyond herself.

Max's horizons have shrunk once more, her own issues too huge to see past. But Logan, isolated from her as he is by the virus, is now remembering who he is. Max keeps him focused on supporting her transgenic issues so much this season, it's nice to have his focus elsewhere in this episode, to be reminded that there is more to Logan than simply Max's sounding board, information provider, and would-be boyfriend. Even though the transgenic angle is still in there, because it always is this season, Logan's focus is elsewhere, coming at the issue from a human perspective, not transgenic, for once. He's working on this case for Matt Sung, not for Max.

Jam Pony. "It was horrible," Original Cindy tells Max. "Says on the news that anybody that was there is supposed to get checked for infection. I'm scared."

Before Max can offer any words of comfort – or insistence that her friend go and avail herself of medical reassurance – Logan wanders up wanting a word.

"Five minutes, then I start docking," snips Normal, wandering past in time to hear.

Having found them a secluded corner in which to have a private conversation, Max does not like hearing what Logan has to say. "Even if there is some screwed up transgenic out there, doesn't mean he's got whatever's killing these people," she insists, automatically on the defensive where any transgenic is concerned.

If Logan is coming at this issue from a human perspective, Max's standpoint remains inescapably transgenic, deepening the rift already opening up between them. They are as bad as each other, their inability to communicate with one another on a personal level now spreading to matters of business as well, that business being as inextricably linked to their personal affairs as it is.

Logan persists with his exploration of the contagion-ridden transgenic theory, asking if, during her time at Manticore, Max was aware of any experiments to do with exposure to virulent bacteria or pathogens. Max snips a negative reply almost before he's finished asking the question, taking even the suggestion that a transgenic might be to blame for human deaths as a personal insult, and demands to know why he's jumping to conclusions. "Because the guy's been seen in the area!" Logan hisses.

Um. While I can see how suspicious that looks, I have to agree with Max on this one: that's circumstantial evidence at best and capitulation to propaganda and mass hysteria at worst.

"If this is something to do with me and my 'furry little friends', then how come all the victims are Chinese? Manticore's always been real big on equal opportunity," Max snarls, understandably hacked off. She was having a bad day even before Logan dropped this on her.

Logan suggests that prolonged exposure is required for infection, and that maybe rich white people would be dying if this deformed transgenic was living among them. Max counters that it could be something they ate. "Or they all got bit by the same mosquito. Or maybe some bug got loose from some lab."

Frustrated by her refusal to even consider the possibility that something cooked up at Manticore could be at fault here, Logan points out that this would be nothing new to Manticore. "Look what they did to you and me, for God's sake!"

From where Logan's standing, it's a theory that makes perfect sense. But from Max's point of view, she and hers are being held up as automatic scapegoats on the basis of rumour and hysteria, rather than evidence. And that analogy, dragged out to back up Logan's hypothesis as proof of Manticore's machinations, is the worst possible thing he could have said right now, given the mood she was already in. Max seethes. "Just because I'm poison, doesn't mean we all are. Your five minutes are up."

Streets of Seattle. Asha tries to sneak her way past a sector checkpoint, only to be caught and arrested.

Joshua's house. "I love what you've done with the place," Max smiles as she enters to find the floor swept, the house in general tidied up as much as possible given its condition, and Joshua lounging in an easy chair, reading. Joshua represents to her the very best of what the nomalies of Manticore can be: disconcerting in appearance, perhaps, on first glance, but beneath that surface just a person, gentle and intelligent. Her own kind, a friend she has already learned to love, and, thanks to her actions bringing about Manticore's downfall, her responsibility. Joshua moving into Sandeman's old house means that, for the first time in her life on the outside, Max has a fellow transgenic living close by, providing companionship of a kind she has craved for years, even if he does also serve as a permanent reminder of her responsibility toward every transgenic she let loose in the world.



"Laying low," Joshua points out. He's got a lot of time on his hands, and nothing better to do with it than try to improve his living conditions.
"Good, 'cause it's dangerous out there," Max reminds him. "Especially these days."

Logan's automatic assumption that whatever pathogen is killing people in Chinatown may have something to do with a transgenic is serving as a reminder to her that even the humans she trusts to be on her side are wary of her kind, and not always prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. Logan's suspicions are very natural and understandable, given the circumstantial evidence and his personal history with Manticore, but must feel like the worst kind of betrayal to Max, who had trusted him to not see her as transgenic or unnatural or inhuman, but just as Max. Must be a very isolating feeling, more especially since she gives her trust so sparingly. The sad thing is that Logan does see her just as Max, but also can't overlook the fact that just because the transgenics aren't to blame for who and what they are doesn't necessarily mean they are all safe to have around. Max, who has no way of being objective about any transgenic, can't allow herself to acknowledge that, because it would open her up to a whole new burden of guilt, and she's hurting too much already.

Joshua assures her that he likes it here, with father's books in father's house. He looks content, at ease with his newfound freedom now that he has found a place to belong and feel safe. Housebound and isolated he might be, but it's a huge improvement over the basement at Manticore. Max has to tell him that the search for 'father' isn't going so well, although Logan is continuing to work on it. "He'll find Sandeman. Just as soon as he's done saving the world. From us."

Her tone is heavy and bitter. Joshua unpeels himself from his comfy chair and comes to sit beside her at the window. "Max and Logan. That's the plan," he reminds her. I don't think Joshua has ever actually met Logan, yet, but he's heard all about him, knows how important he is to Max. What matters to Max automatically matters to Joshua, because Max was the first person since Sandeman abandoned him to offer him the kind of acceptance and companionship he's been starved of all his life.

"I don't know," Max counters. "I'm starting to think there's no plan, and if there is, I'm not clued in at all. Did father ever talk to you about fate? You know, like whether some things just weren't meant to be?"

"Canine with human DNA. Not meant to be. Till Joshua," Joshua gently points out. That's an interesting distinction to make with the x-series transgenics like Max, who are humans with animal DNA. It seems that Joshua, in contrast, considers himself a dog with human DNA, and his appearance and mannerisms certainly indicate that there is truth in that suggestion. "And…Max and Logan not meant to be. Then gettin' busy."

Heh. The dialogue is awkward and clumsy, but the actor sells it, combining absolute innocence with a knowing smirk. His picking up of Original Cindy's expressions is presented to us as a humorous character quirk, but also serves as a timely reminder that, despite his humble origins and lack of education or training, despite perhaps having more animal in him than human, Joshua is a transgenic first and foremost: intelligent and adaptable, quick to learn. That's the point of this entire season, which tells the story of the birth pains of the transgenics as a people in their own right. It doesn't matter what combination of DNA went into which individual cocktail, doesn't matter what they look like, what they can or can't do, they are all transgenic. Kin. There's a basic connection there that no human, no matter how sympathetic or well meaning, can ever understand or be a part of. Max can't help but smile, amused in spite of herself, and hedges that they'll see.

"We'll see," Joshua insists. "This virus bitch going down."

Max's pager goes off, in a classic display of impeccable timing. It's Logan.

Logan's Penthouse. Max phones in response to his page. "If you're calling to apologise…" she begins.
"I'm not," Logan interrupts. "But I will, if that's what it takes."
Max stiffens, realising that he still isn't seeing this from her point of view. He's human; she's transgenic. In this episode that basic fact is starting to look like an impossible gulf to ford. "Spit it out."

Logan awkwardly explains about Asha getting herself arrested by sector cops, that he – they – need Max's help. Asha not being in her good books right now, Max suggests that he try Matt Sung, and Logan has to admit that he has, but Matt isn't answering his page. Logan points out that if the cops run Asha's prints and find out who she is….

"Yeah, yeah." Max brushes him off with studied indifference, willing to help but not willing to make a big deal out of it. "Where they holding her?"

Sector four headquarters, Logan tells her, and Max casually says to meet them at Crash in an hour. She might be feeling insulted by Logan's suspicions and threatened by his friendship with Asha, but do the right thing has become part of who she is. And besides, kicking a little ass should be therapeutic.

Sector four headquarters. Asha is trying to talk her way out of trouble, claiming that she left her ID at work, but it's no use – her prints have been run, identifying her as Asha Barlow, a member of the S1W. Protests of ignorance prove futile, and she's in big trouble, as the officers demand names and addresses of all her associates, and are not afraid to play rough to get them. As usual, on hearing the S1W accused of terrorism, Asha forgets that she's meant to be playing dumb and protests loudly that they are not terrorists, which kind of blows her whole you got the wrong person schtick right out of the water.

Max bursts into the room via a ventilation shaft before things can get ugly, and starts kicking ass in time-honoured Max fashion. Asha jumps onto the back of the officer who'd been threatening her, yelling 'I'm going to kick your ass' at him over and over and over, like it's suddenly the only phrase she knows, but without showing any signs of being actually able to do so. Having taken out everyone else in the room with ease, Max pulls a hilarious face at Asha's impotent flailing, and downs the man with one punch. "It's my thing," she shrugs in response to Asha's equally hilarious look of awe.

Crash. Logan sits at the bar, bored, waiting for Max and Asha to show up. He hears a voice alongside him asking the bartender if he knows a girl called Max, and turns to see Rafer, who, of course, he has never met. The bartender points out that Max is hard to miss, adding that she hasn't been in tonight, and pulls a beer for Rafer.

"You know Max?" Logan sniffs, a little taken aback at the realisation that Max might have acquaintances – friends even – that he doesn't know about. Especially attractive male ones.

The two putative love rivals introduce themselves, which is when Rafer realises that this is his putative love rival, and not just some random acquaintance of Max. The two men nod at one another and subside into awkward silence.

Outside. Max and Asha arrive on Max's motorcycle, and another of those mirrored, dual-location conversations begins. The writers, director and editor had a lot of fun putting this episode together. Asha awkwardly thanks Max for coming to the rescue, and Max dismissively shrugs it off as a favour to Logan.

"Besides, it wouldn't be right for you to take the rap for something you didn't do," she adds, her tone of voice still dismissive, because Max hates to make a big deal out of stuff like this, but that's actually a pretty important statement there: an acknowledgement that despite being so wholly unconnected to them Asha has paid a hefty price for the freedom of Max and her kind, if not an apology for it. Actually apologising for inadvertently getting outsiders into trouble for the sake of hers and her fellow transgenics' freedom, which is still, in itself, something of a thorny issue given what some of them are, would open up whole new cans of worms that Max isn't ready to face just yet, if ever.

Still awkward, Asha says that she's just going to get her ID from Logan and go, and asks if Max is going in.

"You're waiting here for Max, right?" Rafer realises, and Logan stiffly agrees that he is. Rafer nods and decides that's his cue to leave, prompting Logan to, still stiffly, tell him he doesn't have to.

"Things between me and Logan are really screwed up right now," Max understates to Asha, every bit as stiff as Logan. Max's whole life is really screwed up right now, not just the part with Logan in it, and she has no idea how to even begin to go about fixing any of it, or even if any kind of fix is possible.

"Yeah, but he's crazy about you," Asha replies, very simply. Which is kind of the issue being examined here in this episode in a nutshell: is love enough? Max and Logan can't touch one another, can barely even communicate, never mind agree on anything, so is the fact that they still love one another despite all that enough to hold onto? Or are they simply flogging a dead horse? Which is the strongest and most emotionally honest thing to do in their circumstances: let go or keep holding on? Right now, letting go is looking good to them both.

"She digs you, man," Rafer tells Logan. "I'm just gonna back off."
"Have a seat," Logan dourly responds.

"I don't know how things are going to play out between us," Max admits. "So I'm gonna go."

"Wouldn't want to mess anything up for her," Logan sourly decides, handing Asha's new ID to the bartender to pass along when she comes in.

Logan leaves the bar via the back entrance. Max rides away on her motorcycle. Asha enters the bar by the front entrance and is given her new ID by bartender Neil. Rafer sits at the bar and wonders what he's getting himself into. And none of their paths intersect.

Chinatown. Young Henry, in the spirit of morbid curiosity, climbs the fire escape to spy on Hunchback through his window.

Downstairs, Henry's Pop is on the phone gossiping madly to a friend about how he called the police right away, slamming the phone down when Matt Sung leads a contingent of said police into the hotel. Pop leads them upstairs, explaining frantically that his son rented out the room while he was asleep; he had no idea. Mustn't be seen to be aiding and abetting the freaks, especially not one suspected of being some kind of biological threat.

Upstairs, Henry leans further and further across from the ladder, trying to get a better look.

"I keep telling him not to rent to strangers," Pop is saying as he leads the officers upstairs to the 'creature's' room. Which is a joke, since if they don't rent to strangers, who the hell are their customers?

Outside, the ladder slips, leaving young Henry dangling precariously from the windowsill, yelling for help.

In the corridor, Matt and his fellow officers hear the boy crying out and fear the worst. Officers of the law, and yet they are also Joe Public; all they know of transgenics is what the rumour mill is spreading: that they are monsters, to be feared and reviled. They have no way of knowing any better, know only to fear what they don't understand.

Inside the room, Hunchback, his hideously malformed face fully revealed for the first time, having shed his hat, coat and bandages in the privacy of his room, leans out of the window and holds out his hand to Henry. Like Joshua, he is a person beneath that alarming exterior, the kind of person who can't see a child in danger and not try to help. More afraid of falling than of the 'monster', Henry takes the proffered hand, and Hunchback gently pulls him up into the safety of his room, pats his face and shoulder in relief that the boy is safe. Henry stares at him, unable to decide whether to be grateful or simply continue to fear his rescuer. It's all very Hunchback of Notre Dame.

A police officer bursts into the room and starts firing immediately, shooting Hunchback down on the spot without so much as pausing to take in the situation, or to realise that the boy is, in fact, perfectly safe and well. Matt follows his fellow officer into the room, and is deeply perturbed by the grotesque appearance of the man his colleague has just killed.

Autopsy room. Matt Sung and Logan hang around waiting for the medical examiner to offer a verdict. A downcast Max arrives, and Logan is startled – not least because her interest in the case can't really be explained to Matt – hissing that he'd told her he'd call. The medical examiner, who turns out to be Doctor Shankar, one of Logan's contacts, interrupts to announce that the corpse is clean. Not a trace of the pathogen. With no other explanation in sight for the mysterious pathogen killing people in Chinatown, and with a corpse shot dead by police to explain, Matt is dismayed and disbelieving.

Matt, Logan and Max are allowed to view Hunchback's corpse. Max is almost in tears at the sight of him, his twisted body covered with growths and tumours. Matt spots the barcode almost immediately, and is alarmed, asking what it is, and Max becomes even more visibly distressed, Hunchback's transgenic roots now absolutely confirmed. Logan dissembles that it looks like a tattoo, Doctor Shankar remains impassive, and Matt gets the distinct impression that everyone else in the room knows something they aren't telling him, wants to know what's going on.

"You killed an innocent man," Max unhappily tells him. "That's what's going on."

She sweeps out of the room, totally blanking Logan, who has the grace to look abashed. He has to understand why she is angry with him, especially since he knows how guilty and responsible she feels whenever anything like this happens to the transgenics she let loose in the world, but he also understands Matt's point of view, having made the same assumptions himself. Logan was the one who set the rumour-mill running with those infamous cable hacks of his, is better informed as to the truth behind the transgenic conspiracy theories than anyone, and yet he still got sucked in by the mass hysteria that is beginning to take hold as the truth of transgenic existence begins to disseminate. This episode is about race, us against them. Logan knows about transgenics, better than just about anyone who didn't work directly on the project, but he isn't one of them and never can be; he's on the outside looking in. That fact is as much of an obstacle to his relationship with Max as the virus is, and they have never been more aware of that than they are right now.

Matt murmurs that he'd thought Hunchback was hurting the kid – and it wasn't Matt who fired the lethal shot, it's worth noting – and Logan softly soothes that they know. Matt tries to regroup, sticking to what he knows: that something killed those people.

Doctor Shankar takes this opportunity to announce that the tests came back that morning. It isn't an infectious agent – the victims were exposed to the pathogen directly. Worse still: "Mother Nature didn't cook this thing up. The pathogen's genetically engineered."

"Well, if the pathogen's man-made," Logan muses. "Either it escaped from a lab, or somebody's exposing people to it on purpose."

Laboratory. The Good Samaritan from the top of the hour is on the phone, revealing himself as less of a Good Samaritan, and more of an Unscrupulous Scientist. He brags that he got his hands on a copy of the ME's report and they are chasing their tails. "Well, I'm ready when you are. All I need is a test subject," he continues, straightening up as the person on the other end of the line apparently announces that a test subject is all lined up and ready to go. "I'll be expecting you."

Joshua's house. "He was downstairs people," Joshua sadly tells Max, looking at the artist's impression of Hunchback. "Didn't turn out so good."

Joshua is very still, sitting on the floor with the picture in his hands. He knew Hunchback, if only a little, and grieves silently for him. Max, in contrast, is pacing furiously, just about ready to vibrate right out of her skin, she's so wired. She didn't know Hunchback, never got the chance to, and yet feels responsible for his fate; all she can do for him now is be outraged on his behalf, his and every transgenic like him. Including Joshua. "Spends his whole life in the basement in case Manticore needs to cut him up for spare parts, finally gets out in the world, and they shoot him dead like he's some kind of animal! See, this is why I'm always on you, because it's not safe out there."

"People get real scared when things are different," Joshua sombrely repeats the lesson Max has been trying to drum into him since they first met.
"Yeah, but what I forgot to tell you is when they get scared, they can get really mean," Max quietly adds. "I'm sorry."

Together, they quietly mourn for Hunchback.

Logan's Penthouse. "There's a rumour going around the black market about a new kind of bio-weapon, capable of distinguishing between population groups," Logan informs Matt Sung over the phone. "Nasty little trick no one's been able to pull off before."

Matt supposes some kind of anti-Asian hate group is responsible. He's Chinese, his people have been targeted; he automatically assumes the worst. Logan offers a counter-theory: that it was some kind of field test. After all, nobody has claimed responsibility, and also the way it is playing out strikes him as significant: first a single victim, then a handful in a narrowly targeted area.

"I'm not sure what's worse," sighs Matt. "Somebody's out to kill me and mine, or they're using us as guinea pigs."

The parallels with the transgenic experience is kind of blatant in that line: the transgenics have been used as guinea pigs their whole lives, their very conception an extravagant scientific experiment, and now that they are finally free they have all kinds of people out to kill them, not because they have done anything wrong, but simply because they exist. But Matt is destined never know about that, since we meet him only one more time after this episode. Logan agrees to keep trying to find out more, although it is slow going as the Internet keeps crashing.

Max's place. Logan phones, and awkwardly works his way up to thanking her for springing Asha, although it is pretty clear that's not his real reason for calling. "And you were right," he finally adds, finding that the words come easily once he's started. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. Whatever it was that killed those people had nothing to do with transgenics. Guess our thing's just got me a little spun, you know?"

Max has to admit that she's a little spun by it all herself, and then we go into split screen, as call waiting starts to beep for them both. It's Rafer on the line for Max, and Asha for Logan, and so we get another mirror-image dual conversation, with four-way split screen, so as to watch them all at once, and the writing and editing of it is nicely done. Asha asks Logan and Rafer asks Max if they would like to meet them at Crash later, but each turns their prospective date down. Asha and Rafer both say that they'll be there if the other changes their mind, and then Logan and Max each blows them off for the 'someone' they have on the other line.

So, we're down to a two-way split screen, so as to watch both Max and Logan as they talk. Awkwardly, because everything is for them right now. Logan stutters his way toward saying again that he's sorry about everything, and there's not a lot Max can do but agree that she's sorry too, and then neither of them really knows what to say, so they bid one another good night. So completely incapable of communicating with one another right now.

Crash. Max shows up after all, and joins Rafer at the bar. And then Logan comes in the other door, spots Asha at a table, and wanders over to join her. So. Logan sits chatting to Asha, while Max sits chatting to Rafer. And, it has to be said, they all look pretty comfortable and relaxed. Max and Logan have so much baggage with one another, it must be refreshing to spend time with someone else, someone they don't have such a complicated history with.



Then, as Rafer is drawn into conversation with bartender Neil while ordering another drink, Max glances around the bar – and sees Logan apparently rapt in conversation with Asha. Max kind of freezes, dismayed, because even though she's there with someone else herself, that doesn't mean it feels good to see Logan with another woman, especially not someone whose presence in his life she already feels kind of threatened by.

Logan kind of senses that someone's looking at him, turns, and sees Max. And has the exact same she's with someone else reaction. But then they both relax and smile at each other, because despite all their differences, despite all the obstacles dividing them, they do love one another, and they each understand what the other is doing here. So they smile, communicating that love and understanding, but the smiles fade pretty quickly, because it hurts. And suddenly all the easy fun of just hanging out with someone has gone completely, because neither one of them is with the person they really want to be with.

Laboratory. Unscrupulous Young Scientist is bitching at his mysterious employer, who is sitting with his back to the camera, about the process he's laid down for the testing of the super-duper pathogen he's developed. "Step One, target the pathogen to a single individual, expose him to the airborne dispersal, make sure he's the only one it affects. Went off without a hitch, did it not?" He is momentarily distracted by a Random Goon casually discarding a can of soda on top of one of his random techno-whatsits and bitches at him instead about how expensive the equipment is, before turning his attention back to the as-yet unseen Big Boss. "Step Two: target the pathogen to a specific race of people – the Chinese at the bus stop."

He goes into a bit of detail about how exactly he achieved this, which I shan't recap because a) science, and b) it really isn't important, and this scene is bugging me, because they're only telling us what we just spent half an hour watching unfold onscreen, and the recap really isn't necessary. Our memories are not that bad. Anyway, Unscrupulous Scientist brags about the success of this test, since only Chinese people died. Guinea pigs, just as Logan suspected.

And now the other shoe drops, as the camera pans around to reveal that the Big Boss is, in fact, a decidedly unimpressed Agent White, who scoffs at the man about his impressive technology, but is more interested in step three than in reminiscing over past successes. Unscrupulous Scientist declares himself ready, going on to big himself up a little more about how the Chinese were easy in comparison to the kids White wants him to target. Who are, obviously, transgenics, because that's White's job: hunting and destroying transgenics. And so the plot totally flips around on itself, because the pathogen is all about transgenics after all, but not in the way Logan or Joe Public feared. It isn't a pathogen the transgenics brought into the world when they escaped, but a pathogen that has been specifically created to wipe them off the face of the world. For all that the transgenics are feared and reviled as dangerous monsters, it is humans who are responsible for the atrocity, men who care nothing for the deaths of the innocent people used as test subjects, simply writing them off as acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of their own agenda.

Anyway. Unscrupulous Scientist goes on and on about how the Chinese had specific gene sequences to target, whereas transgenics are a little bit of everything, and White is absolutely bored rigid with his self-aggrandizement, can't take any more, and shuts him up – not easily, though, which amuses. He also provides us with a name for his sub-contractor: Cyril.

"Action is character. Show me some," White forcefully demands, expositing for the benefit of the audience that he demonstrated his own good faith by paying Cyril half his fee up front, provided him with everything he asked for. He turns to point out Cyril's test subject – a captive X5, unconscious and strapped to a kind of stretcher, which has been propped upright so we can get a good look at him and his barcode. He's in civvies rather than the uniform he would have been wearing when he escaped, indicating that the rapidly dispersing transgenics are starting to adapt to their new circumstances, rather than simply hanging around hoping for an opportunity to go home. They are learning to look to the future, rather than clutching at the past.

Cyril breezes that they're good to go, could do it right now, even, but White says no. "I want to do it in the field. I want to know for sure." Cyril's good with that, suggests they get on with it the next day, which is fine by White. He asks how soon Cyril can ramp up production, assuming everything goes to plan with the final field test.

"Well, I can manufacture enough to blanket the entire western seaboard by Friday," Cyril brags, which is pretty terrifying, when you think about it. So casual and flippant, and he's talking about committing mass murder by means of bio-warfare. Already has. He adds that how White disperses the pathogen is up to him, since the small rockets Cyril has been using are only good for small areas, besides being very expensive and hard to get hold of.

White, who really, really can't stand this kid and is only tolerating him because he wants the pathogen, tells him they'll use helicopters, all intimidating and challenging. The reason he doesn't like Cyril is his attitude, which totally dismisses White's authority as unimportant, secondary to Cyril's own genius and hard work, and White hates that. His authority and power are important to him, and he likes for everyone around him to be aware of his superiority, so it's really getting up his nose that Cyril barely notices him as anything other than a source of funding and an exciting opportunity to demonstrate his genius. And I love that that comes across so strongly in this scene.

Approving of the notion of helicopters, Cyril – who seems to dislike White's attitude every bit as much as White dislikes his, for much the same reasons – brags that by the weekend there won't be a transgenic left alive between Seattle and San Diego. "Good," White snits, all about the biting sarcasm because he hates both Cyril and transgenics. "Maybe I'll play a round of golf on Sunday."

Yikes. The stakes in this episode just got ramped up way high, with the plot twisting right around on itself. It isn't the Chinese being targeted out of racial hatred – they were chosen as a test subject out of sheer bad luck and happenstance – but the transgenics. And you can bet that while public outrage would accompany targeting of the Chinese as a racial group, public celebration would accompany targeting of transgenics. Us against them, human versus transgenic. This episode emphasises the commonality of the transgenics, despite their very different DNA cocktails. Whatever they look or behave like, they are all transgenic, all of them adrift in the same very precarious boat.

Logan's Penthouse. Logan sits adjusting his exoskeleton with an Allen key. Useful though it is to have that thing, since it allows him to walk, it isn't exactly something he can just throw on in a hurry; no quick dashes out and about for Logan – if he wants to walk anywhere, he has to invest time getting geared up first. I like these subtle reminders of Logan's disability. It's hardly ever referred to overtly, but it is there, all the time, a fact of his life that he can't escape from. He's adapted to it well, has acquired gadgets like the exoskeleton that allow him more mobility than he could have dreamed possible when the injury first happened, but at the end of the day his legs are still paralysed, and all his coping mechanisms are just that: coping mechanisms.

Logan is on the phone to Matt Sung, having gone through all the evidence again and come up with what he believes is a lead: reports of fireworks around the time of both incidents. Matt's like, 'uh – Chinatown', but Logan goes on to explain that there's a type of bio-agent dispersal cartridge that's fired from a hand-held launcher and driven by an altimeter, and Matt's suddenly on the same page. According to Logan's source – yet another anonymous source, so useful to the writers for the provision of information he'd have no other way of possessing – a buyer recently shelled out for three of these cartridges, paying 20 grand apiece. My, White's got some hefty funding behind him.

"Tell me you've got an address," Matt breathes, all over the notion of successfully closing out this case.
Logan smirks. "Have I ever let you down?"

Laboratory. Matt Sung bursts in, gun at the ready, and Logan saunters after him. Um…this is a raid on a premises believed to be involved in bio-warfare. Shouldn't Matt be taking actual backup of the SWAT team variety, rather than going on his own with only Logan, who is unarmed and has no official capacity whatsoever?

It matters not, for the place is empty, but for all that expensive equipment White provided for Cyril.

Sector Checkpoint. White lets himself into Cyril's van, which is waiting in line to pass through the checkpoint. The X5 is in the back, still unconscious, still strapped to his backboard. I kinda find myself wondering what his story is – how they caught him and what exactly they gave him to keep him under so long – but we are destined never to know. He exists only as an object with which to tell a story, rather than as a person in his own right.

Cyril informs White that three steps are going to be involved, which surprises White not a jot. Three seems to be the magic number for Cyril. Step one is taking the test subject into the target area and releasing him. Nice use of semantics there, 'test subject', not acknowledging him – or the Chinese victims earlier – as a person in any way. Dehumanisation of the victim makes it easier to remain detached from the consequences, to view it as a scientific experiment, not murder.

Step two involves dispersing the pathogen by means of rocket launcher. The cartridge contains enough pathogen to kill any transgenic in a two-mile radius, more than enough to cover sector four. Not just bad news for the captive X5, then – danger for any other transgenic that might be hiding out in the area. White points out that the X5 could escape the kill zone, but Cyril insists that's impossible – it only takes a minute for the plume to hit ground level, and then takes another four minutes to dissipate. There's no way the X5 could make it out alive.

Step three revolves around a tracking device Cyril straps to the X5's ankle, so that they can retrieve the body and confirm the kill. White corrects him – Cyril is to track and retrieve him, not White. "I'm staying away from here until this thing is done."

Shades of Proof of Purchase – White enjoys having other people to do his dirty work for him, seems to find it fascinating to see what he can get them to do, working out which buttons to press for maximum effect. No skin off his nose if they fail, but his own job made a little easier if they succeed. Cyril, being inclined by nature towards tech rather than ops, isn't keen on this idea, but that was an order, not a request. "What if you messed up, got a couple of base pairs wrong?" White lays it on the line for him. "For all we know, we could end up with a sector full of dead people."

And isn't that a chilling thought, that White would consider the possibility of a sector full of dead people an acceptable risk in exchange for the possibility of being able to wipe out every transgenic in one fell swoop. Cyril is mildly offended at the thought of his work not being trusted.

"Make a believer out of me, Cyril, then you'll get the rest of your money," White tells him. Exchange vast sums of money for a bomb on the brain stem, Cyril's cooperation being sold willingly rather than coerced at the point of a gun, and it's pretty much the exact same style of conversation that White had with Alec in Proof of Purchase, menacingly affable. He's got the upper hand and he knows it, and it's fun watching them squirm, stone cold bastard that he is. "You have a nice day, now," he chirps, as he dons his sunnies and saunters away.



Laboratory. Logan and Matt are going through the place with a fine toothcomb. I like that Matt is searching the paper records, while Logan works on the computer. Logan finds the Step Three plan all laid out in minute detail, right down to the identity of the test subject: X5-692. He calls Matt to take a look while he gets right on the phone and calls Max to tell her they have a problem.

Sector Four. Cyril's van pulls up in a secluded little alley. Cyril unties X5-692 and cracks some smelling salts under his nose. He wakes up immediately, so whatever he was dosed with couldn't have been all that strong. But his defensive reflexes don't immediately kick in and empower him to take Cyril out with one punch, which disappoints me, since he's supposed to be X5, and the X5's are meant to be badass. Cyril opens the door and smirks that he's free to go, and X5-692, who looks way freaked out and disoriented, takes him at his word and makes a run for it.

"You can run, but you can't hide," Cyril chuckles to himself, readying his rocket launcher.

Sector Checkpoint. White sits in the back of a car, a Random Goon at the wheel, and waits for it to all be over. He is perturbed to hear sirens announcing the arrival of a hefty police contingent and orders his driver to get them out of there.

Logan and Matt Sung are with the cavalry troops that have just arrived, and Max pulls up on her motorcycle moments later. Logan tersely informs her that 'they've' got an X5 and are going to test the pathogen on him. I wonder what he told Matt Sung about the test subject, since Matt wouldn't recognise X5-692 as the designation of a transgenic, and would wig out about it if Logan explained. The police scanner rumbles to life to offer a report of a young man who busted out of a van within sector four and started running, just as Cyril fires his deadly rocket into the air.

"I've got to get him out of there!" Max panics. Logan points out that there's no time, as the pathogen will hit ground level within a minute, but Max isn't willing to give up, simply sets the timer on her pager, and races through the checkpoint, waving her Jam Pony ID to get her through. With no official pass of his own, Logan can't follow, and can only stand and stare helplessly after her. He's only got himself to blame, though, for summoning her here in the first place – he had to know, going on past form, that she'd do something like this.

Alley. Cyril sets out in pursuit of X5-692, tracking him with a nifty little handheld computer. Max sees him standing around looking shifty, tracks the direction he's staring in, and finds her quarry, legging it up a fire escape. She gives chase; Cyril is a little perturbed to see this. Lots of forward fast special effects contrive to show us that the two X5s are moving faster than any human could, as, understandably enough, X5-692 sees someone following him and is spooked, fearing the worst. The chase goes on and on, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Finally X5-692 comes to a halt at the edge of yet another rooftop, with nowhere left to jump. Max sees a deep pool of water just below – presumably to do with something industrial – pushes him into it, and jumps in after him.

Now, I'm going to assume she's going on guesswork here – she doesn't know for sure that the water will protect them from the pathogen, but they're out of time, and this is the only possible option left open to her.

Underwater, Max grabs X5-692, shows him her barcode, and communicates by means of hand signals that it isn't safe to leave the water for several minutes yet. See, for all her bitching about Manticore, the training they provided comes in all kinds of handy in dealing with the dangers of the real world. Of course, she wouldn't need the training out in the real world if she wasn't a product of Manticore, because it's being transgenic that makes the world so dangerous for her and hers…it's a nifty little paradox.

Alley. Matt Sung and Logan find Cyril's deserted van. Again, I understand the storyline neatness of having them working as a pair in this way, but surely it would make more sense for Matt to have a team of fellow armed officers with him, rather than an unarmed civilian. They move out in search of Cyril.

Water tank. Max and her fellow X5 hold their breath as only transgenics can, and wait it out, hoping like hell that the water will protect them. At least, Max is hoping like hell. X5-692 still has no idea what the specific danger is that they are hiding from, since underwater hand signals don't exactly allow for full disclosure. Finally, the timer on Max's pager hits five minutes since the rocket went off, and it is safe for them to leave the water.

Out of the frying pan into the fire. Cyril stands waiting for them, gun in hand, furious that they've ruined his experiment. "Lady, I have no idea who you are, but you just cost me five million dollars," he seethes.

Again: my, that's some hefty funding White's got.

Max is dismayed and afraid, no escape route in sight. But just as Cyril moves to fire, a shot rings out from behind him. He tumbles into the water, dead, revealing Logan and Matt Sung, who has just redeemed himself for Hunchback's death by saving Max and X5-692.

I can't help wondering, though, if there were any other transgenics hiding out within that two miles radius, who wouldn't have known to seek watery shelter, and would thus have succumbed. Sheer good luck if there weren't.

Joshua's place. Joshua gently places a blanket over X5-692, who is sleeping peacefully in front of the fire and is destined never to have a real name, because he and his adaptation to newfound freedom isn't the point of this story. Max thanks Joshua for letting the X5 stay the night, since he's had such a rough couple of days, adding that Logan is going to help her get him over the border in the morning. She's caught that zeal Zack used to have for trying to get the transgenics as far away as possible – all but herself.

"Killing us all, that was the plan," Joshua solemnly notes.
"Still is," Max sombrely tells him. "We just got lucky this time."

They nod gravely at one another, the danger they are in clearer than it has ever been. That pathogen would not have drawn any distinction between x-series and nomaly, wouldn't have cared what they look like on the outside. It would have wiped them all out. Where transgenics are concerned, what's on the outside isn't important – it's what's on the inside that matters, in more ways than one.

Max stands up to head home. "Lay low, Little Fella," Joshua gently cautions her, smiling a little because he can see the humour in repeating her own advice back to her. Being able to pass as human doesn't guarantee her safety any more than hiding indoors would have protected Joshua from that pathogen.
"You too, Big Fella," Max murmurs as she leaves.

Logan's Penthouse. Max stands at the window, staring unhappily out at the rain. Logan tells her that he convinced Matt Sung to let him hang onto everything they found in Cyril's lab. "Didn't want whoever hired him to get their hands on it again." Wise move.

Max nods, noting that Sung is a good guy, and Logan agrees, adding that Matt has a lot of questions that he isn't sure how to answer. "As little as possible is usually a good idea," Max offers. With another near miss behind them, something of their old ease has come back to their conversation, despite the physical distance being maintained. It's nice to see.

Logan smiles that he'll do his best. "Did I mention that I was sorry for jumping to conclusions?" he apologises again, since those awkward earlier efforts didn't exactly clear the air. Still gazing out at the rain, Max agrees that he did, and that's the end of that, she changes the subject, asking if anything has turned up on Sandeman's cane. "Nothing but traces of rodentia calcium," Logan tells her. "The rats tried to eat it."

Another dead end, both in terms of the search for Sandeman and Max's attempt at talking shop. Logan tries again to draw her into more personal conversation, since they so clearly need to, and it isn't as if she's going to initiate it. He starts to bring up the other night at Crash. Max shrugs that she didn't know he was going to be there, and he says the same.

"I…just…needed to get out," Max tells him, eyes fixed on the window. It's getting awkward again.
"I know the feeling," says Logan, eyes fixed on her. And then neither of them knows what to say next. Where do they go from here, if they can't let go, but can't be together?

Logan's phone and Max's pager go off simultaneously. Asha and Rafer. They both ignore the calls, instead sitting there in gloomy silence with one another.


Recapped September 2007

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