Max and Cindy are going to hit the town, dressing up and
determined not to be miserable; Max is out for some fun and Cindy has an in at
the hottest club in town.
Well, in theory, once she finds her Bouncer friend Boom
Boom to get them out of the queue. In the meantime a group of kids drive up and
barge into the club and cause a bit of chaos inside, stealing, kicking and
punching anyone who challenges them – moving with surprising skill, speed and
strength for people that slight. Even more surprising is how easily they take
out the bounces – and one of them slams Cindy into a wall. Watching, Cindy sees
that 2 of them have barcodes on the backs of their neck.
Later at a hospital one of the young women from the gang
staggers into a hospital, she’s blurry and hurting and tells the receptionist
she’s sick. While she’s huddled in the waiting room, one of the doctors notices
a barcode on her neck – the doc, Beverly Shankar, is part of Logan’s network.
At work Max sympathises for 2 seconds over Cindy’s broken arm before angsting about being responsible for what the escaped transgenics did and then angsting over Logan and her and the virus and – wow, you couldn’t last more than 5 seconds on Cindy?
Max speaks to Logan who gives us a nice summary with his
rumours – revved up gang with barcodes, CDC still causing fuss over the
transgenic they almost had – and girl with a barcode in a clinic. Max plans to
go round to the clinic, show off her barcode to the girl and tell her to lay
low.
At the clinic the girl, Lida, is grabbed by the other 3 members of her gang who are angry with her for going to the clinic. They tell her that only Marrow can help her. She refuses to go back but they drag her out – just as Max arrives. Outside at the car she tells them they need to talk, they laugh and the 2 men get in the car with Lida, leaving the other woman, Rain, to take care of Max. She tries to hit Max and Max easily drops her. She tries again and again and Max smacks her around as if she were human. She’s just ready to take down the other two when Logan screeches in in his car – spooking
them, they drive off leaving Rain behind. Max checks
Rain’s barcode while asking what she is – X6? Rain doesn’t know what she’s
talking about and objects to her tattoo being touched – she’s just had it done.
At Logan’s they question Rain on what she’s taking to
make her so strong and where she got her barcode. She isn’t co-operative and
warns Max that Marrow will come for her.
Speaking off, to marrow, the transgenic with prominent
veins and unusual eyes. They’re in an abandoned church and he’s taking
collection from his followers who tell him about Max and that she mentioned
Mantecore. Marrow pauses at this but goes on to work on Lida, blaming Rain’s
loss on her, telling her how useless and how much of a nobody she was until she
met him and how much he’s done for her (but in more dramatic terms) he turns
tat to the whole group with a nifty
sound effect voice. She shakes and begs to “sip”, he tells her it’s too late –
once she starts shaking and she’s shut away.
At Logan’s apartment Rain is having problems, hyperventilating
and babbling, chanting “I give my life to the Marrow”. She babbles about having
to go back to Marrow. Max takes off her coat when she starts burning up and
finds a collection envelope for a church full of money and jewelry. While Logan
gets Dr. Shanker, she decides to go to the church.
Marrow comes to Lida and says he’s not cruel and can’t
stand to see her suffer – and suffocates her. He takes her dead body out to the
body of the church to say a eulogy over her with his followers, while Max
watches from above. He tells them that her death was senseless since she knew
that this is forever – and holds up an odd glass tube, that she couldn’t survive
without it. He rolls up his sleeve and stabs the sharp end of the tube into his
arm, the bulb at the other end fills with blood; his followers sip the blood
from the top of the tube. At which point someone manages to sneak up on super
hearing Max and knock her out.
