In the pilot episode, Roger Smith is introduced as Paradigm City's top negotiator. As the episode begins, he is delivering the ransom for a girl named Dorothy, who had been kidnapped from her father, a rich industrialist named Saldano. After the exchange, Saldano arrives and reveals that the Dorothy Roger they had obtained was actually an android fake. When Roger realizes Beck isn't playing fair, he activates the briefcase carrying the ransom and it flies out of Beck's car.

A woman named Patricia Lovejoy (the same woman called Angel in Electric City) approaches Roger Smith about a job with Paradigm. He is supposed to convince a reporter named Michael Seebach to hand over his manuscript, but as it turns out, Seebach had disappeared months earlier. Using his connections with Major Dastun, Roger tracks down an apartment Seebach is renting. There he discovers a typewriter and a large stack of papers, which he begins to read when gasoline pours in under the door and lights. Roger jumps out the window to escape and is confronted by Seebach, now calling himself Schwartzvald and wrapped in bandages. Seebach tells Roger to report to Paradigm that they will never see him in the city again, then disappears.

After waking Roger up with her piano playing, Roger decides to take Dorothy to see a friend who can help her learn to add feeling to her playing. His friend is a robot named Instro, who was built by a scientist named Amadeus and thought of Instro as a son. Instro remembers how happy Amadeus was when Instro would play the piano for him. While Instro is giving Dorothy a lesson, a mysterious stranger arrives and reminds Instro that he needs to fulfill his creator's legacy.

Episode begins, Roger and Angel are trapped in a building buried under the sea, one of a string apparently created by the Event. Three days earlier, Roger is trying to negotiate to bring down the price of fish for the people outside the domes. He learns that the reason fish is so expensive is because the fishermen won't go out to fish because they are scared of a sea titan in the water.

The episode begins with a mysterious woman in a red cloak and hood murdering several people, leaving behind only the phrase, ""Cast In The Name Of Good Ye Not Guilty."" This is the phrase shown on Big O when activated. One of the dead is a dancer named Ellen Weight, a client of Roger's who had memories from before the Event, despite being far too young.