The crew rescues Bruce Maddox from a crime boss on Freecloud, Seven takes revenge for Icheb, and Jurati secretly kills Maddox.
The episode opens years earlier with Seven forced to end the life of her friend Icheb after the black-market dealer Bjayzl tore out his Borg implants. On Freecloud, the crew learns that Bjayzl is holding Bruce Maddox and plans to sell him to the Romulans, and stages a trade using Seven as bait. Raffi meanwhile fails to reconcile with her son Gabriel.
Maddox is rescued, and Seven later returns alone to kill Bjayzl. Maddox tells Picard that he sent Soji to the Artifact and Dahj to Earth to find out why synthetics were banned. Afterward Jurati, who once had a relationship with him, kills Maddox. Kirsten Beyer wrote the episode.