In the year 2009, a group of genetically engineered children escape from a military installation run by PROJECT MANTICORE in the Wyoming Mountains. The children had been created using a mixture of animal and human DNA in order to give them enhanced physical and mental skills¹. The goal of Project Manticore was to create the "perfect soldier." Despite the best efforts of COLONEL DONALD LYDECKER (DECK) and his men, MAX and a few others make it past the perimeter guards and to freedom. Several months later, terrorists set off an aerial nuclear explosion, creating an electromagnetic shockwave known as the Pulse. The Pulse obliterates every computer system in operation and turns the U.S. into a third world country.

Ten years later, the U.S. finds itself mired in a depression brought about by the Pulse. Max now works as a seemingly ordinary bike messenger in Seattle. Unbeknownst to her friends, however, Max has an extraordinary hobby: she's a cat burglar who steals from Seattle's richest citizens to finance her ongoing investigation into her past. She also loves to sit on top of Seattle's abandoned Space Needle, looking down on the city and contemplating her life.

It is during a seemingly routine burglary in a posh high-rise that Max stumbles across LOGAN CALE, aka "EYES ONLY," an underground cyber journalist who is the only voice of truth left in the corrupt city of Seattle.

Max bails on Logan's apartment at the first opportunity, but Logan tracks her down. He wants to make sure that she doesn't present a security risk to "Eyes Only." Peter, his security guard, questions his true motives, asking him if he has "found his new girlfriend." Although Max has no intention of compromising Logan's operation, she also has no interest in joining the "Eyes Only" crusade to save the world. Logan tries to change her mind by offering information -- he knows about Manticore, the military base where she and the others like her were trained. He knows about the escape, about her genetic make-up. He can help her, but he needs her help in return. Max has no interest -- she's too busy looking out for herself to risk her neck for people she doesn't even know, especially since she must keep a low profile to avoid those who want to "put me in a cage or flat out kill me"², in her words.

Max goes about her business, trying to ignore her conscience...until matters hit too close to home to ignore anymore. Logan is shot trying to protect a witness for a corruption case Eyes Only is working on and Max feels guilty that she wasn't there to prevent the shooting with her enhanced skills and military training.

A few months later, Logan has recovered sufficiently to return to his "Eyes Only" duties. He's paralyzed from the waist down, but he'll live. Max shows up to visit him and he reiterates his desire that she join the "Eyes Only" team. Again, Max declines, and again Logan baits her with information -- this time, on ZACK, the Manticore escapee Max is most curious about. Logan and Max make a tentative agreement. Quid pro quo. She'll help him save the world if he'll help her put together the puzzle of her past, one piece at a time...

Over the next nine months, Max and Logan form a business partnership fighting corruption, with Max working as Logan's "legs" while Logan attempts to locate information on Max's fellow escapees from Manticore - her "brothers and sisters," also known as the X5 series. Along the way, the two fall in love, although both are too stubborn and scared to admit their feelings to each other. Max's brother, Zack, shows up in Seattle when it appears that Colonel Lydecker is close on her trail. He attempts to get her to leave Seattle and go on the run alone again, but Max refuses - she has a life and friends that she isn't going to leave. At the same time, Logan's ex-wife Valerie shows up attempting to play him for his money, but Max discovers her plan and tips off Logan. The two reach a new level of connection to each other after their mutual disappointments.

Soon after, Zack shows up again. Another of Max's sisters, Brin, has been captured and he is injured trying to help her. Max insists on going after Brin, which leads to another encounter with Lydecker. Brin is rescued, but Max and Zack must allow Manticore to take her back - she is suffering from Progeria, rapid aging, and will die unless they can treat her. In the process, Lydecker sees Max and Zack and now knows what they look like.

Lydecker returns to Seattle and almost captures Max. Zack and Logan rescue her, but she is forced to flee, heading for Canada with Zack. Believing they will never see each other again, Max and Logan share a passionate kiss before she goes. Logan returns to Seattle and another surgery required to remove a remaining bullet fragment from his back.

Logan almost dies, due to a shortage of blood needed for transfusion during and after the surgery, but sensing something is wrong, Max returns and transfuses him with her "super charged Manticore blood"³, thus saving his life. To prevent Max from getting caught, Zack turns himself in to Lydecker, who calls off the search for Max. With the threat of Lydecker removed, at least for the time being, Max decides to stay in Seattle and both she and Logan agree to pass off the kiss as an emotional impulse.

After the surgery, Logan is forced to look once again at his disability when Bruno Anselmo, the man who shot him, reappears as a witness Eyes Only has agreed to protect. Logan asks Max to protect Bruno and she reluctantly agrees. Bruno's return stirs up Logan's issues with being paralysed and in a foreshadowing of later events, it becomes clear that Logan has been keeping his negative feelings about his disability locked up inside of him. Max gets Bruno safely to testify, but he has figured out that she is more than she appears. He sells information about her to a new enemy, the South Africans. They attempt to ambush her, but Logan, who has figured out who they are and why they're after Max, comes to her rescue and saves her. The soldiers, known as the Red series, are stronger than Max and impervious to pain, a result of a neural implant inserted into their brain stems. After her first encounter with them, Max admits to Logan that she is "afraid."

Determined to obtain Max for use in their own genetics program, the Reds return and capture Max's roommate and best friend, ORIGINAL CINDY. In order to save her, Max inserts a Red implant into her own head. She saves Cindy, almost dying from the implant in the process, but Logan once again saves her life. This time by shorting out the implant with a portable defibrillator. After the encounter, Max confesses to Cindy about her true origin and abilities. Cindy is hurt that Max didn't trust her with the truth sooner, but realizes that she risked her life to save her. Max is her "boo" and will be for life.

After the Red encounters, Max and Logan's relationship continues to grow closer, especially when Logan discovers he is able to walk again. Stem cells from Max's blood have repaired his damaged spinal cord. But before they can reach a new understanding, Max is called away to rescue Zack. Zack has escaped Manticore again, but is surrounded by Lydecker's men in the woods outside Manticore. Max gets Zack out, but his escape was a ruse. Lydecker planted a tracking/listening device on him and used it to obtain information on the locations of the other X5s. Having used a technique to 'forget' what he knew of the X5s, Zack is unable to remember how to contact them. It is left to Logan to make an Eyes Only broadcast to warn them. The warning is too late for Tinga, one of their 'sisters,' and Max, Zack and Logan must race to her rescue. Tinga and Zack leave for Canada, but Max again refuses to leave.

Unfortunately, the repairs to Logan's spinal cord are short lived, as his immune system begins to reject the new nerve tissue created by Max's stem cells. Logan goes to a former Manticore doctor in a desperate attempt to keep walking, but she betrays Max to Lydecker and is shot and killed by him. Max escapes capture, but Logan is despondent over losing his chance to walk again and contemplates suicide.

Logan recovers his spirits after the two spend the weekend in a strange little resort town called Cape Haven. Logan is there to track down a potential witness. While he is working on his mission, Max stumbles onto several murders dating back to the Pulse, and puts both of their lives in danger. Incapacitated by severe seizures⁴, Max is unable to defend them from the thugs who come to kill them and Logan is forced to take over. He succeeds, even though he is in the chair, but is forced to reconsider his opinion of killing as a means of self-defense in the process.

When they return to Seattle, another of the 2009 escapees turns up, but unfortunately he has become a serial killer. Unable to function in the normal world without Manticore's discipline, Ben has taken to killing humans as a form of self-punishment. Max finds him and tries to reason with him, but is forced to fight him to protect his latest victim. Ben's leg is broken during the fight and with Lydecker closing in on both of them, he is unable to get away. He begs Max to kill him rather than let Lydecker take him back to Manticore, where he fears he will be put with the Nomlies, Manticore's caged failures. Max very reluctantly does as he asks.

Meanwhile, worried about Max, Logan has contacted Lydecker anonymously as Eyes Only. Deck realizes Eyes Only has a relationship with Max and sends him damaging information about a killing she participated in as a child at Manticore, hoping to remove him as Max's ally.

Logan finds himself doubting Max, but when a series of strange killings take place in Seattle, he has no choice but to continue to work with her. They meet an odd fellow named Phil, who has obtained an old DOD prototype exoskeleton that allows him to run and jump with almost superhuman ability. Phil helps Max and Logan in their investigation and they discover that Logan's uncle's company, Cale Industries, is manufacturing killer hoverdrones. One of these hoverdrones is sent to kill Logan, but Max and Phil save his life and he exposes Cale Industries in an Eyes Only broadcast. In the process, he loses his fortune, which is tied up in Cale stock. Phil leaves town, but sends the broken exoskeleton to Logan. It was damaged during the hoverdrone attack, but he thinks Logan might be able to fix it and use it to walk.

Shortly afterwards, Max finds out that Tinga was married and had a family. Lydecker is after them and she heads to the rescue. She meets up with Tinga and Zack and they rescue Tinga's husband and son and bring them to Logan's. But Deck has infected Case, Tinga's son, with nanocytes, microscopic robots normally used to stimulate metabolic activity and enhance neuromuscular function, but in this case they have been programmed to do the reverse. Tinga must turn herself in to save his life. Max and Zack vow to get her back.

Logan begins to work on the exo, but he needs a special microchip to repair it. The only place to obtain one is from a nuclear power plant, so he enlists Max to steal it for him without telling her why. But Max has her own problems. Her feline DNA causes her to have "heat" cycles and she is in the middle of one when Logan requests her help. He also invites her to a dinner to celebrate their "anniversary," marking one year since Max broke into his apartment.

Max is fighting her heat and the desire to "jump" any male, but especially Logan. She enlists Original Cindy to help her resist, but Cindy advises her to go to it with Logan. But Max doesn't want their relationship to be influenced by her heat and so she cancels their anniversary dinner date. Restless, she goes for a ride on her motorcycle and she ends up having sex with a pizza delivery guy whom she met at Jam Pony earlier.

The next day, she is overcome by remorse, but Cindy gives her no quarter and tells her she needs to "step to the real" about her feelings for Logan. That night, Max shows up at Logan's apartment. She tells him about her heat cycles and how she spent the previous night, but he understands and forgives her. He stands, using the exoskeleton, but it fails and he falls to the floor, embarrassed at his weakness in front of Max. Max reassures him that his walking isn't what is important to her and the two share several intense kisses after finally admitting to their feelings for each other.

Zack walks in on them and tells Max that he has found where Lydecker is keeping Tinga. They must leave immediately to rescue her. Logan assures Max that they "have all the time in the world" to pursue their newfound feelings, and Max and Zack are on their way. Unfortunately Tinga has already been killed and Max finds her body floating in a tank of green liquid. Lydecker arrives and Max is captured. Zack is wounded, but manages to escape.

The season finale sees Max held captive by Lydecker. But Deck himself is on the run from a new Manticore director, Dr. Elizabeth Renfro. Meantime, Zack and Logan have enlisted two other X5s, Syl and Krit, to help rescue Max. Before they can leave, Max shows up with Deck, who has a plan. They are going to attack Manticore and destroy the genetics lab, rather than let Renfro corrupt the Manticore program.

The attack is successful, but unknown to Deck, there are X7 series soldiers on the premises. Max encounters her X7 clone on her way out of Manticore and is shot in the heart. Logan finds her dying in the forest and wants to try to bring her back to Manticore so they can save her. He attempts to carry her in, but even with the exo, he cannot support the extra weight. Deck arrives and knocks Logan out and carries him from the forest, leaving Max behind. Zack is injured and captured by X7s and brought into Manticore along with Max.

Inside Manticore, Max has flat-lined and Renfro is about to harvest her organs for the transplant bank. But Zack shoots himself in the head so they can use his heart to save Max. The end of season one sees Max as a captive of Renfro in Manticore, and Logan sitting on the Space Needle, ruminating on his experiences over the last year. He knows she is dead, but somehow doesn't quite believe it. The season ends with his words.

"Even though I know what happened, sometimes I can't help feeling that she's not really gone, that she's still out there. And I just hope she's okay."⁵

Notes:

1. Refer to character biography for a description of X5 enhanced abilities.
2. Pilot Episode
3. Blah Blah Woof Woof
4. Refer to character biography for information on the X5 seizure disorder and need for Tryptophan
5. And Jesus Brought a Casserole

Season 1 Transcripts