“A Normal Life” is episode fourteen of season three of Mutant X.
Brenna, Shalimar and Lexa are in a building, asking Jesse for directions. He can only detect one other person. Apparently, that doesn’t make sense; the guy they are looking for has five Dominion council members hostage. They arrive at the location of the signal and a hologram appears. A disguised voice says that if this is being seen, the Dominion ignored his warnings and demands. Their friends will experience the process first-hand.
The hologram shows five people being subjected to a gas, which seemed to freeze them. The holo disappears and one of the people is stood there, frozen. Shalimar approaches and the person communicating with her – revealed in the previous episode, “Art of Attraction”, to be Adam – tells her not to. Too late. A ball falls from the ceiling and shatters the frozen woman into pieces. The voice says they are fragile and if they want the others revived, pay him. Or another will die every 12 hours.
At Sanctuary, Lexa’s contact is telling that there’s only one man with the motive and knowhow, Keith Burstyn. Worked in a Dominion lab on suspended animation up to 6 months ago. The hostages are all people who had contact with him. Burstyn blamed the Dominion for a personal tragedy and disappeared with his research. Her contact also mentions the untraceable communications coming into Sanctuary over the past week. Lexa will ask the others.
Jesse fills them in on Burstyn’s career. The Dominion won’t respond to his demands. Shalimar walks away and Brennan follows, saying it wasn’t her fault. She tells him she was contacted again. Shalimar wishes she knew who he was and what he wanted. Brennan suggests getting the contact to show his face.
Shalimar is in her room when another message comes in. She refuses to talk until she knows who she’s talking to. The voice agrees, and a holo of Adam appears. It’s too dangerous to come in person. He demonstrates that it’s really him. Shalimar asks how Adam could have let them think he was dead. Because his colleagues were disappearing, being killed, and his contacts told Adam he was next. The explosion was a way out. He couldn’t tell them without endangering them too. He doesn’t know who’s behind this, but their activity is heating up and they might be behind the kidnapping. Adam can get Shalimar to Burstyn, but says he isn’t what he seems. Shalimar must go alone; Adam will tell the others when he can.
At a meeting of the Dominion council, one man is saying they should pay. Another blames Mutant X, and denies that the intelligence was faulty. Someone may be trying to manipulate Mutant X against them. To get to the Creator. Whoever that is.
Lexa asks Brennan about the communications and he denies knowing anything. Then Jesse appears; he logged another communication. It came to Shalimar’s terminal and just had an address. Shalimar is gone; Lexa and Brennan head after her.
Shalimar finds Burstyn, who denies being the kidnapper. Adam’s holo appears and says he’s telling the truth. Burstyn has been set up. Shalimar must work with him to find a counteragent to the process. Shalimar leaves with Burstyn and throws away her comlink. They arrive at an address Adam gave them. There’s a lab inside. Burstyn says that 10 others had access to his research.
Lexa’s contact speaks to her. The council knows Shalimar helped Burstyn; they’ve been plotting under their nose. Forces hostile to the Dominion seek to turn Mutant X against them. However, elsewhere, the council member who said to pay is with the frozen people. He severs the hand of one and then smashes him.
Shalimar and Burstyn talk about the suspended animation process. He tells her he never finished the bit where the process would be reversed safely. That means whoever took the council members had no intention of bringing them back. Burstyn started this for his life, to put her in suspended animation whilst a cure was worked on. But she died last year and he lost interest in his work. He also needs a piece of technology that he had at the Dominion. Adam appears; he has one at Sanctuary. Shalimar will need to break in.
No-one else knows about Adam, so they think Shalimar and Burstyn were plotting. Brennan and Jesse, and to a lesser extent Lexa, are willing to trust Shalimar a bit, but the Dominion is not. And they are raising more questions. What is Adam up to?