“Reality Check” is episode twenty of season two of Mutant X.
A woman leaves a place at night as Shalimar watches. The woman arrives at her building and is attacked by two men who watched her leave as she opens the door. Shalimar intervenes and takes them both down. Brennan arrives and the woman runs off, scared as much by Shalimar as anything else. Brennan wants to know what Shalimar is doing. Saving someone. Not just that; running around alone, showing off her powers. Shalimar needs to be out at night; she needs to hunt alone. Whatever is happening to her, she can’t just turn it off or ignore it.
Elsewhere, a man is running through an alley, but it looks like he’s seeing himself in a white maze, until the police grab him.
Adam briefs Emma and Jesse on the man, Domenic Rydell. A physicist on the extreme cutting edge of research into quantum power. Rumour is he was on the verge of splitting the light particle, granting unlimited free energy. They ask if someone was trying to steal the process. Adam doesn’t know but he wants to spend time with Domenic and wants Emma to come with. Adam wants Jesse to dig into the last few hours before Domenic’s disappearance.
Emma is surprised they get into the hospital so easily. Perhaps it’s because of his reputation. Or perhaps it’s because he funded their new MRI machine. A Dr Polly Williams introduces herself. She’s stumped by Domenic. No history of mental illness, yet after a few hours he’s in a fully disassociate state. He’s not dealing with reality at any level. It’s also affecting his physiology. They’ve tried fully sedating Domenic, but whatever’s wrong isn’t affected. He won’t last more than 24 hours in this state.
Adam wants to transfer Domenic to his own facility and the doctor agrees. He suggests that maybe Domenic was subjected to a psychic mind attack. Emma tries to calm him but Domenic is crying and cowering inside a white maze. He sees Adam as a giant standing over the maze looking down. Emma says whatever’s wrong with him scares her.
Jesse is briefing Brennan and Shalimar. Domenic was giving a lecture three hours before he disappeared. Jesse’s ID’d all but one person from university records. That one is Jerzy Novotny, now a trade commissioner but formerly a member of the KGB. Adam wants Brennan and Shalimar to head to the embassy to find out what Novotny is doing.
Emma is with Domenic who sees her as a giant looming over his maze. She’s worried she might not be able to protect herself if she goes into his mind. Adam reassures her that her powers are strong enough.
Jesse is in the Double Helix as Brennan and Shalimar head inside. Novotny has an eye for the ladies. Shalimar is confident she can take care of herself, despite Brennan’s warnings. Perhaps too confident. When she heads towards Novotny, Jesse tells Brennan he should know better than to try to win an argument with Shalimar. It’s not that; it’s about working as a team. Shalimar spills a drink over the woman Talking to Novotny, to get in with him. She claims Brennan is her husband; Novotny gets her to go off with him. In a corridor, Shalimar suggests somewhere more private, then grabs Novotny by the neck. Then someone drugs her with a dart.
When Shalimar wakes up, she’s in bed with Brennan. Supposedly her husband. Brennan has no memory of the embassy and, as Shalimar goes on, wants her to explain who she thinks they are. Shalimar tells him, and he asks why they would be interested in a scientist. An odd question, and the reason is Brennan isn’t asking it. It’s all happening in Shalimar’s head. The man who shot her with the dart is a mutant and he’s using some sort of mental power on her.
Emma is with Domenic and, when he wakes, uses her powers to enter the maze. She tries to convince him that she’s there to help. He doesn’t think anyone can help, and believes the maze is real. Someone did something to him and he told them everything he knew. The maze is from a class he took; the professor used to run mice through it, then cut their brains open. Put him off biology.
Shalimar, meanwhile, is trapped in her own alternate reality. Not that she really knows it’s an alternate reality and it makes it difficult to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t.