Neon Heat - Episode 1 - Old Heat, New Beat

The episode opens with a brief introduction of the setting for the show, and quickly progresses to shots of a cityscape in the dying sun, focusing in on two motorcycles in a chase. Chazz Devlin is fleeing his pursuing rider, Artemis, and weaves through traffic to no avail. The chase is brought to a grinding halt as Artemis pulls ahead of Devlin and bails on her bike, crashing into his motorcycle and he sustains a great amount of damage as he rolls to a stop. She hauls him to an alleyway and administers what healing she can in order to talk to him.

It's revealed that Devlin was being pursued because a job got slightly botched, and instead of assisting his teammates, he fled the facility with the information they were hired to procure and locked the other two inside the building with a militia to fend off. Artemis reveals that she was the one who hired him to assist with the heist, and that he's broken the Pantheon honor code. He threatens her, shoving a gun into her stomach, and she lets him retreat far enough to get a clean kill with her comet of kori energy. The blast hits the wall at the end of the alley, almost scorching a newcomer on the scene, a masked rider with a voice modulator. They insist that Artemis come with them, and that they have information that she wants. Artemis follows, as police are arriving on the scene and she needs to vanish. Artemis quickly checks in with her Pantheon partner, Vulcan, to assess his status and set up a meet later that night.

The masked rider and Artemis make a getaway from the scene on a kori cycle, hovering through the city to a dingy garage where they both enter, and the masked rider begins their interrogation. They want to know why Artemis wanted the information she did, and then puts a bag of postcards on the table which are familiar to Artemis as she is the one who sent them. Artemis is on edge as the masked rider demands she take off her helmet and reveal her face, which Artemis obstinately declines. In frustration the masked rider removes their own helmet, and we see Sekka Pahvi, Artemis's childhood best friend and Regulation partner. Artemis removes her faceplate in shock, revealing her true identity of Athena Sideris, Caldonyx native and former Regulator.

Pahvi expresses a great amount of conflicting emotions, shock and happiness that she's found Athena, sadness and frustration that her journey took so long, anger and bullheadedness towards Athena for having left their home in the first place. Athena tries to diffuse the situation by confessing her tale to Pahvi with no further hesitation.

A flashback centers on a retirement party, seven years prior, where Athena is approached by her mentor: Proctor Johl Shin. Johl wanted to speak to Athena one last time before heading off to the surface, as citizens of Caldonyx sometimes do as part of their retirement. He tells Athena he may come back someday, but he's 'not retiring to a cottage on the beach'. He tells her to look after Pahvi and take care of herself, and then he's gone. After the party, Athena heads down to her office to pick up a file that she forgot to put in her bag, and is made to trek all the way to the depths of the Spire to the Records Room to retrieve it. As she walks down the final hallway, she sees the door to the Incinerator is open (which is irregular). She approaches quietly to see the Incinerator is open (the wide orange pit in the floor that a kori crystal was once, but never grew back after removal), and standing by it is Johl, Oculus Jex Davoth, and Delegate Talina Rasmus. There is a catwalk high over the pit, normally for dropping contraband into the heart of the mountain, but currently occupied by four figured, cloaked and hooded in red Regulation finery. Jex takes Johl by the shoulder and Athena hears him say: "Thank you for your service." He steps back and Johl turns to the Incinerator, raises his arms, and dives in. A tongue of orange and red kori energy lashes up and out of the pit as the Incinerator doors close, sealing Johl in to his fate.

Athena in a horrified fugue state makes a break for the floors above, taking the elevator all the way up to the entrance, and ends up fleeing the city. She doesn't quite remember the specifics of her escape, until she comes back to herself in a storage car on the train to the surface. She arrives, hours later, emerging for the first time onto the Belt. The last shot is Athena, scared and alone, against a dizzying backdrop of stars.