As a child, Max was part of a highly classified genetic enhancement project. She and several other children were trained in a deeply secluded compound to use their superhuman powers. At a young age, Max and several others escaped the compound and made their way in the world. Now a beautiful young bike messenger and thief, Max is trying to find her lost ""siblings"" from the project, but at the same time, Max is trying to dodge capture from her former handlers led by Lydecker, and is aided in her quest by Logan Cale, an idealistic cyber-journalist.

Max gets called to a secret meeting after seeing a personal ad containing her bar code tattoo number. She leans that Vogelsang claims to know about the remaining children from Manticore. He insists on a large sum of money for the information. Logan questions Vogelsang's motives and his relationship to Lydeker. Mysteriously, Logan's ex-wife reappears after many years of non-contact. Max is suspicious of the ex-wife's motives, but Logan feels drawn to his ex-wife. However, Max discovers the ex-wife has dark motives for returning. Elsewhere, Herbal is fired from the messenger service after using Rastafarian drugs. Cindy and Kendra head up a protest strike.

Lydecker gets the local police to post ""Wanted"" posters of Max throughout the city, charging her with Vogelsang's murder. Zack returns to beg Max to leave town. Logan offers Max and Zack shelter in a countryside retreat. While saying good-bye, their attraction to each other comes to the surface and Logan and Max kiss. Zack tries again to convince Max to run away with him. Just as she's ready to do it, she learns Logan is near death. Max heads back to Seattle to give Logan a blood transfusion. Though she puts her own life at risk, she does save Logan's life. Lydecker and the police close in on finding Max; however, the real murder confesses. It's Zack who turns himself in to police in order to spare Max. The helicopter transporting Zack back to Manticore mysteriously explodes. No one knows if Zack was killed. Meanwhile, Logan discovers the feeling has partially returned to his paralyzed leg. And, Sketchy is put in charge at Jam Pony. He seizes the opportunity to make himself look li

Re-captured by Lydecker after his helicopter crash, Zack is tortured in an effort to get him to reveal the whereabouts of the other X5 escapees. After a failed escape attempt, Lydecker tortures Zack even more and Zack ""dies."" In a ingenious plan, Zack survives his burial and escapes from his coffin. He contacts Max. She meets him in a cave on the Manticore property. Unbeknownst to them, Max is wired and Lydecker and company hear all he is saying. He tells Max he's forgotten everything, but she coaches him to try and remember the whereabouts of the other X5 escapees. He does remember a few details which he tells Max. He reveals Tenga is working in a nearby bakery. This is enough information to get Lydecker on her tail. Max and Zack piece together that Lydecker knows the whereabouts of the X5 escapees. Logan sends a warning out to the X5ers through ""Eyes Only."" All are tipped off, but Tenga alerts Zack that she needs help escaping Lydecker. Zack and Max go to her and help her get awa

Max discovers Logan is dealing with a back-alley medical clinic doctor who has agreed to perform experimental therapies to keep him out of his wheelchair, who Max realizes is also a former Manticore scientist. Meanwhile,Original Cindy returns to Jam Pony and continues to learn more about Max and her relationship to Logan.

Logan is tipped off by a friend at the morgue to a murder victim with a bar code tattoo on his neck. He tells Max who then investigates. Max reads the bar code to be that of fellow X5 escapee, Ben. However, the murder victim is not Ben. While she is viewing the body, Lydecker shows up to confiscate the body and close the investigation. Max hides. After another body with the same bar code shows up, Max investigates the crime scene. While at the scene, Max has several flashbacks that make it clear to her that the real Ben is re-enacting a traumatic Manticore training exercise where a prisoner was hunted down and savagely murdered. Max herself participated in the exercise. Max remembers Ben had an obsession with a religious icon after a Manticore janitor gave him a card with her image. It looks to be an image of the Virgin Mary, but the young Manticore soldiers call her the blue lady. Max goes to a local church and a priest befriends her. Later, the priest is abducted by Ben, who tatt

When fellow X5 escapee Tinga returns to town to save the family she left behind, Max, with the help of Zack, once again places herself in danger to battle Manticore, Lydecker, newly turned X5 Bryn, and an increasingly power-hungry Madame X. When Tinga gives up her freedom to ensure her child's safety, she is taken to a secret government lab. Amid the double crossing, we learn Lydecker is no longer in the loop with the real Manticore higher-ups. This means Max is in more danger that she could possible imagine.

Max starts to feel the stress of being controlled by her genetic urges when she goes into her bi-annual feline DNA sexual urges.

While being haunted by music from the past, Alec must revisit one of his Manticore missions that went bad and resulted in the loss of his one true love. Max attempts to put the pieces of Alec's past together and upon discovery of the truth sets out to help him as best she can.