“Age of Innocence” is episode sixteen of season three of Mutant X.
A man in nightwear is running away from an ambulance. He looks at his face in a shard of mirror and seems shocked. Shalimar is in a car with Jesse and she removes her comlink; they need to talk privately. Shalimar got a tip that something big is going down and it didn’t come from the Dominion. She can’t tell Jesse who it did come from; she gave her word. Why did Shalimar bring Jesse and not Brennan? Because whatever is about to happen concerns Jesse too.
At that point the running man and the ambulance appear. The paramedics are armed and catch the man. He asks what they did to him. Jesse appears and the two probably not EMS open fire. Shalimar knocks one down and the other is wounded by a ricochet. Both flee. The man they were chasing is now a lot older. And dead. He has a tattoo; Jesse recognises it as being the Tomcats.
At Sanctuary, Jesse tells Lexa that the man was a fighter pilot in a unit called the Tomcats during World War II. He was definitely not young, but looked like his younger self initially. Jesse says there’s something Lexa isn’t telling him. She heard rumours that the military were conducting anti-aging experiments during WWII until the Dominion shut them down. She comments that Jesse seems to be taking it personally. It is personal. His grandfather was a member of that unit. Lexa suggests Jesse check on his grandfather. It seems Jesse’s father and grandfather had a falling out when he was young; Jesse isn’t sure where to look.
Shalimar and Brennan are at the autopsy of the dead man. His organs were those of a 30-year-old male. Brennan asks if it’s possible to reverse aging through genetic manipulation. The doctor tells him that science has looked into extending life, not turning back the clock. But the change was only temporary; this was a work in progress.
An old man in a wheelchair isn’t happy the dead man escaped. He tells his doctor that they were a combat trained; on waking up half a century younger, what did they expect to happen. The doctor is generally pleased with the result; all they need now is time. The man says time is not on his side. Move forward with the final subject immediately.
Lexa is talking to her Dominion contact who tells her about Operation Immortalis run by Colonel Henry Burns on the Tomcats. Cloaked as a tuberculosis vaccination. The research was destroyed by the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb test. They believe Burns has resurfaced to finish what he started. Lexa asks how many of the Tomcats are still around. One.
Jesse is trying to find his grandfather when his computer goes funny and a voice tells him his grandfather is in danger. He looks to have been contacted by Adam as well. Adam gives him address; Jesse needs to go now. He calls for Brennan and Shalimar to help.
The doctor from earlier is injecting something into the IV of a man in a bed. He then contacts someone and says they are good to go; Kilmartin is ready to transfer. Jesse overhears and sneaks into the room as the doctor leaves. It’s his grandfather in the bed. Then Adam’s hologram appears. Jesse’s grandfather is in the advance stages of lymphatic cancer. Jesse needs to trust Adam – which Jesse finds a bit difficult – and get his grandfather out of there. His metabolism is already starting to reverse. Jesse starts to leave and is spotted. He calls Brennan and Shalimar and tells them to move the Helix outside a window. Jesse phases himself and his grandfather through the hospital’s walls and into the Helix.
At Sanctuary, Lexa wants the now much younger Kilmartin looked at by their doctor. Kilmartin himself is happy. Lexa enters the room where he and Jesse are and introduces herself. She says that she wants him checked out.
Adam appears again and tells Jesse he needs to find Burns and destroy his research. Jesse would have thought the research was a good thing. Adam says Jesse will understand when he finds the files. They weren’t destroyed, like the Dominion said they were, and others are looking for them.
Burns is unhappy again. Dr Gallant says that he thinks they were successful this time. He’d stake his life on it. Burns would not.
The research is, as Adam suggested, rather nasty. And will the treatment actually keep working? There are yet more questions about the Dominion’s motives.