“Body & Soul” is episode nine of season two of Mutant X.
Adam is waiting outside what looks like a conference centre. He greets someone, Mark Kearney, and says that Mark is the last person he thought he’d find there. Mark replies that Malone is speaking and he thought he’d listen to see if Malone had learned anything from what happened at Genomex. Adam thinks all Malone knows is how to make a profit in an ethical vacuum. Mark wonders how things would have been different if he worked on Adam’s project, not Malone’s. Adam replies that it wasn’t just Malone who ruined Genomex.
Malone is leaving and he’s approached by a reporter and her cameraman who quizzes him about the potential threats of gene technology and whether the grants being made are mostly to friends and former associates from Genomex. Malone insists that there’s no risk, and heads towards his limo, his bodyguard intercepting the reporter. When Malone arrives at his limo, the back seat is a mess of cheese snacks. The driver is eating them too. Malone tells the driver this is unacceptable; he replies that what Malone did was too. The driver says to Malone that he looks like he’s seen a ghost, and sends energy into his chest. Malone collapses and the driver leaves in the limo. Adam checks on Malone and says that he’s dead.
At Sanctuary, Adam tells the others that Malone was a power in Genomex when he arrived. The glory days, when they had the freedom to take the research where they wanted it to go. Brennan says he saw where the glory days ended up and Adam replies that Malone was one reason why. When Adam found out where Malone’s research was headed, he quite Malone’s team. Malone’s research on human modification was the basis on the adjustments perpetrated on them. Emma doesn’t like the word choice, ‘adjustment.’ It makes her sound like a skirt that’s been hemmed.
Adam’s research didn’t have the same financial upside of Malone’s, who had his pick of the greatest minds in the company. Malone left before the collapse, though; his lab was empty, his team resigned. Adam doesn’t know if Malone’s death had something to do with his research. There were no marks or signs of how he died. The limo driver might have been a New Mutant. Adam hopes the autopsy might help.
The reporter, Carla, and her cameraman, Vic, are looking at the tape of the attack. Vic caught some of the glow but he didn’t catch what Carla saw. They are going to head to the corners too.
Adam, Brennan, Emma and Shalimar arrive at the corners. Brennan and Emma head to get the report and Shalimar heads with Adam to meet Mark. Both Mark and Shalimar seem to take a shine to each other. According to Mark, the corner seems to think there was something strange about Malone’s death. When pressed, he admits he does too. Adam lets Mark know that Shalimar is a New Mutant. Mark says it’s three years since he worked at Genomex and can’t help them, leaving. Shalimar thinks he’s lying. Carla and Vic have arrived by now.
Emma and Brennan are getting the autopsy. The driver is there and he greets Mark by name, licking his fingers. Mark flees and Shalimar heads after. She fights the driver, who is strong enough to defeat her. Brennan and Emma arrive too, as Shalimar and Mark flee; Brennan fairs no better but Emma takes the driver down briefly with a psionic bolt. When she does, a vaguely humanoid energy shape appears. Vic catches some of this on camera. The driver bolts, grabs a woman, energy leaves him and enters her and he collapses. The driver is now dead and the woman is smiling. Emma can sense something. Elsewhere, Mark is telling Shalimar that he never thought their dream of creating a perfect being could come true. Meanwhile, he has patients to take care of.
The coroner’s report says that Malone’s insides were burnt out, as if he was 80. Emma doesn’t think the limo driver was responsible; she describes that, when she hit him with a psionic blast, it was as if there was another consciousness living inside the body. She thinks she felt the same thing even after the driver died. It’s possible there was a body switch. Apparently, Malone was working on something called the Walker Project; studying the genetic factors for astral projection. There could be a spirit travelling from body to body killing.
Carla has found out that Adam was at Genomex. The new body is still eating cheese snacks and making a mess of a cyber cafe. The man there objects and she kills him. Adam is less than pleased about their exposure to the media; should they start wearing Mutant X t-shirts? Jesse has been rewatching the film of the driver dying; he spots the glow moving into the woman. The spirit jumper is able to push the bodies he uses beyond their limits, which makes him strong and fast. Meanwhile, Carla keeps digging into things.