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

Max and Logan look for Joshua, who is wandering Seattle looking for ""Father"", the man who created him. Meanwhile, Alec fights ordinary people in an underground club but when later caught by White, he must strike a bargain to kill three transgenics to save his life.

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.