At Sandman's house (which from now on I'm going to call The Dreaming, because that's where Sandman lived in the Neil Gaiman graphic novels), Joshua wakes up, nose twitching. "Atomic Dog" plays on the soundtrack as Joshua gets up and walks out on the street, sniffing all the way. Joshua stops to snuffle a fire hydrant, and for a second I think that we're going to be treated to seeing Joshua lift his leg to relieve himself, but thankfully, he doesn't. Joshua stops to converse with a black dog (possibly a mastiff), then takes off in another direction. Joshua enters a fish market, sniffs a giant fish, and even licks it a little, before the owners tell him to get out. Remember when Max told Joshua to keep a low profile? I don't think running around sniffing everything was what she meant by that. Also, I don't want to think of the implications of Joshua looking for Max, and sniffing a fish instead.
Joshua eventually makes his way to Max and Original Cindy's apartment, where he howls at the door. OC hears it and opens the door, because if you heard a dog howling at your door, of course your first reaction would be to just open it right up without putting the chain on or anything. Joshua busts in. OC is startled, both because of Joshua's looks, and because she's wearing some slinky lingerie. Max enters the room and wonders what Joshua is doing there, and then reassures OC that Joshua is "a friend." OC regains her composure and shakes Joshua's hand, then offers up some breakfast.
Joshua scoops up some oatmeal using the wrong side of the spoon, like, if he's advanced enough to use utensils, wouldn't he be advanced enough to figure out how they work? Joshua fills OC in on the back story, about how he and Max are trying to find their father, Sandman, who will be able to cure Max's Logan-specific virus. OC is all for Max being able to "get busy with [her] man." Joshua says that's the plan. Max once again encourages Joshua to lay low, and Joshua agrees. OC offers Joshua some more oatmeal, and when Joshua lunges for the pan, she smacks him on the head. Sometimes I wish that they would eliminate all of the characters on this show except for Alec and OC.
A mysterious figure covered in a blanket and wearing The Hat That Ate Cleveland limps through a market in Chinatown. I'm just going to call this figure "Lumpy," because his distinguishing characteristic is that he has a lot of tumor-like lumps all over its body. Lumpy walks up to one stall and makes a purchase. The merchant is alternately frightened and grossed out by Lumpy, although all we get to see is the lumpy hand, which drips blood onto a pristine white T-shirt at the front of the stall. The merchant sees the blood, and tells his co-worker in Chinese not to take Lumpy's money. They order Lumpy away. As Lumpy limps along, the other shoppers glance at his face and run away.
Still in Chinatown, a hotel owner watches his young son, who is sitting on the stoop. Overhead, a rocket or something explodes. The hotel owner says to his son (in Chinese, but it's subtitled in English), "Henry, I told you! No more bottle rockets." That doesn't even make sense. He can clearly see the kid, who is just sitting there, not setting off bottle rockets at all. I guess they were trying to let us know that the explosion was loud enough that it could be heard inside. Which doesn't make any sense either, given that during the coming investigation, no one mentions the explosion. Anyway. Henry says that it wasn't him. His father doesn't believe him, even though he could totally see what Henry was up to, and orders Henry to go sweep outside.
A dude walks through the market, gives a cough, and then suddenly collapses while bleeding from the eyes, nose, and mouth. Yikes. Henry observes the whole thing. Some white guy (the only white guy in the area, from what we've seen) dressed in a black suit runs up to the fallen dude. Said white guy is played by Tyler Labine, most recently of Dead Last. Tyler checks for a pulse and then yells for someone to call an ambulance.
Meanwhile, Lumpy is in an alley, where he has taken off some of his many coverings. We see that Lumpy is in really bad shape -- he has a deformed stump instead of a hand on his left arm, and it's dripping blood. In other news, his head is all misshapen. And he has a bar code tattooed on the back of his neck, so he is clearly a Manticore project. Is he somehow related to the guy who just bled out? Well, that's what they want us to think, given the juxtaposition of those two scenes.
At his apartment, Logan fills Max in on his ongoing research into Sandman, but nothing substantial has turned up. Even searching the ownership of The Dreaming led to a dead end. As they talk, Max and Logan circle one another, obviously wanting to get closer, but knowing that they cannot. Logan theorizes that Sandman had to leave quickly because of some threat from Manticore. Max pulls out the cane that she and Joshua found at The Dreaming, and wonders if they could find fingerprints or DNA on it. Logan is doubtful, given the amount of time that has passed, but promises to call Matt Sung, his police contact. Logan assures a frustrated Max that they will find Sandman, and the cure for the virus. Max comments softly that she "just wants things to be the way they were."
The moment is interrupted when Asha busts into the apartment, babbling about how she got held up at a checkpoint and the authorities started to figure out that her identification is forged. Logan keeps trying to interrupt to let Asha know that Max is there, but Asha keeps talking about how she just wants to take a bath, and she's "really glad [Logan's] friend Max and her furry little friends got out of [Manticore], but it's really…" Asha shuts up when Max walks into view. Asha tries to backpedal, and Logan explains that Asha is part of the S1W. Max sarcastically apologizes for the S1W is getting blamed for the destruction of Manticore. Well, she doesn't have to be such a bitch about it. Why should Asha care about Max and her friends, really? She doesn't know them. Max leaves, telling Logan to "have fun."
Outside, Max snipes, "All I wanna do is take a bath," in a mockery of Asha, and then concludes, "All I wanna do is drown her in one." Jealous much? Let's not pretend that Max is all that upset because Asha dissed her "furry little friends." That's part of it, but it's clearly more about Asha and Logan. Anyway, Max rides her bike down the street and suddenly the director goes all Brian DePalma with the split screens. Like, maybe they could spend more time on the writing and dialogue instead of putting in fancy visuals. But then it wouldn't be a James Cameron production, would it?
A car backs out in front of Max's bike, causing Max to hit it and go flying through the air. A guy comes out to check on her, and it's Rafer, Max's booty call pizza delivery boy from last season. Max wants Rafer to leave her alone, because she thinks he's trying to cop a feel. Rafer tells her to chill, because he's a paramedic now, but Max flips him over and threatens him, and then stalks off. Except she forgot her shoe, which was knocked off on impact, so she has to come back for it. Rafer looks after her like, "Damn! I like my woman powerful and bitchy! Also, incredibly thin!"
Logan calls his police friend Matt Sung to make sure that Sung received Sandman's cane for testing. As their phone call ends, Sung hears Tyler in the other room, complaining to the officers that he was exposed to something in Chinatown, and thus he needs to know the results of the autopsy on the guy who died. Also, Tyler is apparently a biochemist of some sort. Sung assures Tyler that they will share the results as soon as the testing is completed. Tyler is led away, still bitching about his exposure. Sung confers with a colleague about the death in Chinatown, and checks out a sketch of Lumpy. They wonder if Lumpy had anything to do with the death. The colleague thinks they should keep the whole thing under wraps until they get the autopsy results, to avoid a panic. Sung drinks from the biggest coffee mug in the world as he says that there already is a panic. This is to let you know that Sung is Chinese, and thus down with the scuttlebutt in Chinatown. After his colleague leaves, Sung checks out the sketch again, probably thinking, "Dude, that's fucked up."
Max carries her damaged bike into Jam Pony. Normal yells at her for being late, and Max explains that she lost her beeper when the car hit her. Max asks to borrow a bike, and Normal refuses, and then urges the messengers to get moving because "it's called Jam Pony, not Jam Clydesdale." I guess Normal could be in my Alec/OC spin-off dream show. Rafer shows up in full paramedic gear to return Max's beeper, and then offers her lunch to make up for nearly killing her.
At Logan's apartment, Asha tries to apologize for her blunder with Max. Logan tells her to forget it and urges her to eat. Maybe he should try that with Max. She definitely could use a sandwich or two. Speaking of Max, she's sitting with Rafer, but also not eating. Rafer tries to bring up their one-night stand, but Max doesn't want to talk about it. Rafer explains that he would like to forget it too, because he had just broken up with his girlfriend before their encounter. Rafer explains that he came by looking for Max a few times, but no one knew where she was. Max says that she had some complicated family stuff to deal with, and when Rafer asks if she has a boyfriend, Max says that's complicated too.
The action continues to cut back and forth between the two couples. Logan explains to Asha that he and Max had just figured out their relationship when "this virus thing happened." Max explains the same to Rafer, and wonders if she and Logan are meant to be. Logan wonders why it has to be so hard, if it's right. Max thinks that Logan is better off without her. Asha grabs Logan's shirt and says that she wants Logan to be happy. Then they stare at each other for a while. Rafer tells Max that anyone would be lucky to be with her. They stare at each other for a while too. Asha looks like she is about to kiss Logan, but she can tell that his heart's not in it, so she takes off. Rafer tells Max that he has to leave. Logan calls after Asha, saying that she doesn't have any ID, but she's already gone. Rafer leaves. Logan sighs. Max sighs. I sigh. See, because they don't know if they should move on or try to stay together in the hopes that they might find a cure for the virus. I don't know why they never talk about their relationship, and at least establish if they are together or not, or if they are dating other people or not. I guess that would be too easy. But there would be a lot less of the pensive sighing.
Back at the Chinatown hotel, Henry checks Lumpy into the hotel while his father sleeps. Henry doesn't seem too fazed by the fact that Lumpy is so…well, lumpy. Henry hands Lumpy a bus ticket for some reason. I think maybe Lumpy handed Henry the bus ticket with his money, so Henry was giving it back. Really, it's just to let us know that Lumpy is planning to leave town, I guess. Meanwhile, another rocket explodes in the sky over Chinatown.
Sketchy and OC deliver a package in Chinatown. The guy accepting the package is telling a story to his co-worker about the resident mutant (Lumpy) biting the head off a pigeon. Sketchy delivers the package, and then tells OC that the "mutant infestation" is worse than they thought. OC thinks Sketchy is being dumb. Suddenly, people all over the place are coughing and bleeding out. OC thinks they need to go get an ambulance, and they take off.
As workers in biohazard suits clean up Chinatown, Matt Sung explains to Logan via cell phone that twenty-two people were killed, and they were all Chinese. It was the same pathogen that killed the guy the day before. Is it just me, or is the sight of people in biohazard suits cleaning out people who died from an airborne pathogen a little jarring, given the current situation? I guess I'd rather that they didn't pull the episode, but it just seemed a little too close to home at times. Anyway, Sung says that they don't know exactly what the pathogen is, but that there's a rumor that an escaped mutant is connected to the deaths. Logan promises to see if Eyes Only has any information, and offers his condolences for Sung's people.
At Jam Pony HQ, OC tells Max that she's scared, since she was in the area when all the people died. Logan shows up and asks to talk to Max. Normal offers up his usual spiel about docking Max's pay if she takes more than five minutes. Max denies that there's any connection between the deaths and the escaped mutants. Logan asks if she knew of any experiments that involved bacteria or pathogens going on at Manticore. Max wonders why he's jumping to conclusions, and points out that Manticore would have no reason to want only Chinese people dead. Logan thinks that it could just be a coincidence of location, and that if Lumpy were downtown, rich white people would be dying. Max offers up multiple alternate explanations, but Logan reminds her that something like this is not beyond Manticore's capabilities, and uses the virus given to Max as an example. Max snipes, "Just because I'm poisoned doesn't mean we all are. Your five minutes are up." Logan makes a frustrated grunt as Max walks away. Granted, Max is right in this example, but maybe she could be a little less defensive about the whole Manticore thing. I mean, many of the transgenics who escaped are trained killers.
Asha tries to circumvent a sector border crossing by crawling through a hole in the fence. Armed guards catch her. Oops.
Max shows up at The Dreaming, which Joshua has cleaned up a great deal. Max tells him that Logan hasn't had any luck with his research. Joshua realizes that Max is upset about Logan, and reassures her that she and Logan will end up together. Max says she isn't sure about that anymore, and that some things aren't meant to be. Joshua says that humans with canine DNA aren't meant to be either, and is all, "Buck up, little transgenic camper." Max gets a page from Logan.
Max asks Logan if he called to apologize. Logan says he didn't, and then explains that Asha got caught crossing the sector border, and he needs Max's help to set her free. Max gets in a few bitchy remarks about Asha, and then agrees to help, telling Logan she'll meet him at Crash in an hour. She hangs up the phone, pissed off.
The authorities are questioning Asha about her lack of identification. The interrogator gets the report from Asha's fingerprints, and says that they know she is involved with the S1W. Asha tries to deny it, but the interrogator bitch-slaps her. Too bad Max didn't get to see that. I think she would have enjoyed it. The interrogator demands answers, "or this is going to get ugly." On cue, Max busts through a window and starts kicking ass all over the place. Soon, all of the guards are knocked out, except for the interrogator. Asha has jumped on his back, and is ineffectually yelling, "I'm going to kick your ass!" She might try more actual kicking of ass and less jumping on backs and yelling of threats. Max watches for a minute, then decks the interrogator, knocking him out. Max and Asha go back out the window.
Logan hangs out at Crash, waiting for Max and Asha. He overhears Rafer asking the bartender about Max. Logan stares at Rafer and finally asks if he knows Max. Rafer introduces himself, and the two men shake hands. Upon hearing Logan's name, Rafer figures out that he's Max's alleged boyfriend.
Max and Asha zoom up to Crash on Max's motorcycle. Asha thanks Max for her help. Max says (much less bitchily than usual) that it was a favor to Logan, and also that it wouldn't be right for Asha to take the rap for something she didn't do. Well, that last part was kind of bitchy, since Max was clearly implying that Asha is blaming the former Manticore residents for things they didn't do. Asha asks Max if she's going in, because Asha is just going to get her ID and leave. Inside, Rafer figures out that Logan is waiting for Max, and offers to leave. Logan says Rafer can stay. Outside, Max tells Asha that "things are really screwed up between [her] and Logan right now." Inside, Rafer tells Logan that Max digs him, and he shouldn't back off. Outside, Max says that she doesn't know how things are going to play out, so she's going to leave. Inside, Logan gives the ID and stuff to the bartender to give to Asha, and takes off. Outside, Max takes off too. Just then, Asha walks in through another entrance and gets the ID from the bartender. Outside, Logan takes off in his desperately-in-need-of-a-wash Aztek, while Max buzzes off on her motorcycle. I think Asha and Rafer should hook up and ditch those losers.
Henry climbs up the fire escape on the hotel and peeks in the window of Lumpy's room. Henry's father explains to someone on the phone that he called the police, and the cops (Sung and a partner) enter the building. The father leads the cops up the stairs to Lumpy's room. Henry continues with the peeking, nearly falling from the fire escape in his efforts to see more. Sung urges Henry's father to stay back. Just then, Henry loses his footing on the fire escape, and yells out. The cops hear the yelling and prepare to enter Lumpy's room. Lumpy pulls Henry into the room, and we finally get our first good look at Lumpy, and…ew. His whole head is just covered in tumors. But at least now we know that Lumpy is one of the good guys. Sung's partner busts the door down and shoots Lumpy a few times. Henry's father comforts him while Sung stares at the grotesquerie of Lumpy's dead body.
Sung and Logan sit outside the autopsy room, waiting for results on Lumpy's autopsy. Max shows up, and Logan is surprised to see her. The tech comes out and announces that Lumpy doesn't show any trace of the pathogen that killed the others. Sung, Logan, and Max go into the autopsy room to check out Lumpy's body, like, I guess the word of the tech wasn't enough. While poking and prodding, Sung finds Lumpy's Manticore bar code. Max looks disgusted (that Manticore could create such a pitiful creature, not at Lumpy himself), and Logan explains it away as a tattoo. Sung realizes that there's something being kept from him. Max says that he killed an innocent man, and leaves. Sung justifies it to Logan, saying that they thought Lumpy was hurting the kid, and Logan understands. Sung insists that something killed all the people in Chinatown. The tech says that the people who died were exposed to the pathogen directly, and it wasn't an infectious agent. She adds that the pathogen was created in a lab, and is not something that occurs naturally. Logan says that it must have escaped from a lab, or someone is exposing people on purpose.
Tyler talks to someone on the phone while peering into a microscope. He explains that the police haven't figured out what's going on yet, and that he's ready for the level of testing, as soon as he finds a guinea pig. Tyler listens for a moment, and then says that he'll be expecting his conversation partner soon.
At The Dreaming, Joshua looks at the police sketch of Lumpy and says that he was one of "the downstairs people" at Manticore, who "didn't turn out so good." Max paces, disgusted that Manticore created a creature to use for spare parts, and that when Lumpy finally made it out into the world, he was shot and killed. Max reminds Joshua that it's not safe out there. Joshua knows that people get scared of things that are different. Max says sadly that when people are scared, they can get mean.
Logan talks to Sung about a nasty bio-weapon that's on the black market that can target ethnic groups. Sung thinks it might be the work of an anti-Asian group. Logan wonders if it was "some kind of field test," since it started with a single victim, and then expanded to killing a group of people in a highly controlled area. Sung wonders if it's worse to think that someone is out to kill Asians, or that someone is using Asians as guinea pigs. Logan promises to keep researching, and they hang up.
Logan calls Max and thanks her for saving Asha. Max accepts the apology. Logan also apologizes for jumping to conclusions about the killing being the work of transgenics. Max accepts that apology too. Then they both get call waiting beeps, and it gets way too complicated to explain. Basically, Asha calls Logan and invites him out, and Logan says no. At the same time, Rafer calls Max and invites her out, and Max turns him down. But it's all done in crazy split screen and it makes me dizzy. Once they return to their call, Max and Logan don't say much, but look really sad about all that they can't say. I still don't know why they can't talk directly about their relationship, but if this is what's going to happen all season, it's going to be incredibly frustrating.
Max walks into Crash. Logan does as well. But Logan is there to meet Asha and Max is there to meet Rafer, even though they both turned them down moments earlier. I guess they both had a change of heart after that long phone conversation where nothing was said. Max spies Logan across the room. They share a soulful look that I guess is supposed to say, "I know you're with someone else, but that's cool, because we can't get it on." So instead of talking about their relationship, they are going to communicate in soulful looks and eyebrow raises. Awesome.
Tyler explains his bio-weapon process for the benefit of the radio audience, as well as some guy who's sitting there. Oh, I'm not going to pretend we don't know it's White behind all of this, even though they don't give us the big reveal until halfway through the scene. Tyler runs down the plan, which was basically to target one person first, and make sure the pathogen worked via airborne dispersal. Then, he targeted the pathogen to a specific race of people, based on genetics. Tyler says that both steps worked perfectly. White wants to move on to step three. Tyler babbles on and on about how difficult it was to target the group White wants killed, and after a lot of talk, we learn that White wants to use it to kill all escaped transgenics, like, big surprise there. White gets frustrated with Tyler's talky-talk and insists on action. White apparently funded Tyler's whole operation, and now he wants Tyler to kill a captured Manticore soldier. They're going to release the soldier, then shoot off another one of those rockets, and see if the soldier dies. It's kind of weird that White is being so careful about this -- what does he care if tons of people die, really? I mean, some already have. Tyler says that he can produce enough pathogen to "blanket the entire Western seaboard by Friday." Tyler promises that "by the weekend, there won't be a transgenic alive from here to San Diego." This pleases White. The captured Manticore soldier (who looks kind of like Lukas Haas circa Mars Attacks, so I'm going to call him Lukas) is unconscious, so I guess he doesn't have much of an opinion one way or the other.
Logan straps on his exoskeleton and tells Sung that the police reports claimed that witnesses heard fireworks both times people were killed. Logan has found out about a bio-dispersal agent that can be fired from a handheld launcher and will explode when it reaches a certain altitude. Logan also found out that someone bought a bunch of these launchers recently. Sung hopes that Logan got the address, and of course, Logan did. Why is Logan doing all the work here? Sung is kind of a crap detective, isn't he? Cut to Sung and Logan busting into Tyler's apartment, but no one is there.
A van pulls up to a border checkpoint. Inside the truck, Tyler explains to White that they will release the subject (Lukas, the captured soldier) into Sector Four, then disperse the pathogen, which will cover all of Sector Four and will kill any transgenic in a two-mile radius. White wonders what will happen if the subject escapes Sector Four. Tyler says that's impossible, since it only takes a minute to for the agent to reach ground level, and then four minutes for the agent to disperse, and no one could escape the sector that quickly. Ah, but did Tyler take the transgenic super-speed into consideration? Tyler slaps a homing device on Lukas's leg and explains that the final step is to track Lukas and retrieve the body. White changes the plan, saying that Tyler will be the one tracking and retrieving the body, because White is staying away until everything is done. Tyler wonders why, and White explains that he's worried that Tyler screwed up and is going to end up with a bunch of dead people. White promises that Tyler will get his money when the job is done.
In Tyler's apartment, Logan checks out the computer, where Tyler has helpfully left an animation of his plan. It's so nice when the criminals help you out like that. Logan tells Sung what he's found, and then calls Max.
Back in Sector Four, Tyler releases Lukas from the van, then prepares to launch the dispersal agent. At the border checkpoint, White watches from his car. Logan and Sung pull up to the checkpoint, causing White to take off. Max shows up. Logan explains that they are going to test the pathogen on an X5. The dispersal agent exploding in mid-air interrupts their discussion. Max says she needs to get Lukas out of there. Logan says that there is no time, telling her that the agent will hit the ground in a minute, and be toxic for another four minutes following that. Max starts a timer on her beeper, and then runs through the border checkpoint. Logan tries to stop her, but fails.
Inside Sector Four, Max uses her cat vision to see Tyler fiddling with a laptop, and then spots Lukas climbing up a fire escape to a roof. Max follows Tyler up to the roof and tries to get him to stop. Max chases Lukas from rooftop to rooftop before finally catching up with him when he runs out of roofs. Max spots a conveniently located pool on the ground. She pushes Lukas into it, and then jumps after him. While they are underwater, Max shows Lukas her bar code to let him know that she's on his side, and he should stay underwater. Max watches the timer on her beeper, so that she'll know how long to stay underwater.
Meanwhile, Logan and Sung creep through alleys, looking for Tyler. Max and Lukas are still underwater. Lukas starts to head to the surface, but Max shows him her beeper to indicate that they need to wait. Finally, time is up, and they surface, only to find Tyler standing there with a gun. Tyler is pissed because Max's interference cost him five million dollars. Before Tyler can decide whom to shoot first, he is shot from behind by Sung. Max grins when she sees Sung and Logan.
At The Dreaming, Max thanks Joshua for letting Lukas stay the night, and explains that Logan will help Lukas get over the border tomorrow. Joshua says that the plan was to kill all the transgenics. Max agrees sadly, and then leaves.
In Logan's apartment, Max looks out the window at the falling rain. Logan says that he convinced Sung to give him all Tyler's materials so that whoever hired Tyler couldn't get the stuff. Max thinks that Sung is a good guy, and Logan agrees, but adds that Sung has a lot of questions. Max tells Logan to say as little as possible. Logan apologizes again for jumping to conclusions. Max changes the subject, asking if anything showed up from the testing on Sandman's cane. Logan say that they only thing that showed up was evidence that rats chewed on it. Logan tries to bring up what happened when they ran into each other at Crash with their respective dates. Max says that she didn't know he would be there, and she needed to get out. Because God forbid they talk about it. It's so much easier to just stare at the rain dripping down the window. Logan's phone rings, and he looks at the Caller ID and sees that it's Asha. At the same time, Max's beeper goes off, and she says that it's Rafer. Max and Logan just stare at each other, because that's easier than actually, you know, discussing what they should do. Ugh.