“Understudy” is episode ten of season two of Mutant X.
Brennan and Shalimar are after three people in motorcycle gear with guns. A woman passing by in a car sees the shooting. Brennan and Shalimar attempt to stop the bikers, as they now have bikes, from escaping, when the woman from the car jumps in. She grapples with one of them and his gun shoots Shalimar in the leg and she falls. The bikers escape and the woman goes over to see Brennan and the injured Shalimar. Brennan asks who she is; Shalimar greets her by name – Nikki.
At Sanctuary, Shalimar has been treated and Brennan is with Nikki when Adam approaches. Brennan asks Adam how Shalimar is. The bullet missed the bone and tore up some muscle. Someone else would have lost her leg. Adam says if not for Nikki, Shalimar would have lost her life. Nikki was one of the first people Adam found when he was putting together Mutant X. She and Shalimar bunked together for more than a year when they were 15. Adam realised he needed a mix of talents for Mutant X and had to choose between Nikki and Shalimar. He got Nikki a foster home and tried to give her a normal life.
Nikki says she was just driving down the street, minding her own business. Now, she’s back where she started from. She’s worked for years developing her powers. Brennan doesn’t think she was fast enough, though. He doesn’t seem happy to see Nikki. Adam is glad to see her again, though.
Shalimar, in a wheelchair because Adam wants her to take it easy, heads to see Nikki. They reminisce a bit and Nikki says she quit her office job. Being a feral cooped up inside gets too much. Shalimar asks what sort of work Nikki is looking for. Because she knows of an opening. Shalimar heads to see Adam and suggests he take Nikki on whilst she’s out of action. Adam is concerned, because Nikki isn’t trained. Shalimar doesn’t see how they will take down the bikers without a full team.
Jesse briefs the others on what was stolen by the bikers. A particle decelerator. It completely freezes electron movement. Brennan realises that would shut down anything electrical and Emma asks what happens if it’s used on a person. It shuts down their brain and central nervous system. A death ray. Emma says that Nikki is their best lead. She can maybe help with a psionic memory scan. Nikki doesn’t like the sound of that but Emma reassures her. This lasts until Nikki sees the contraption, but Emma and Jesse reassure her again. They get the facial features of the shooter, those bits that aren’t hidden by the helmet, including a tattoo under an eye. Nikki removed the device before it was completely finished and Emma has a quiet word with Jesse. There’s something Emma isn’t certain about.
The bikers are now with a woman who is calling someone, perhaps the buyer for the device.
Emma is with Adam and is showing him the image of the biker. She asks why he chose Shalimar over Nikki. When pressed, because he was avoiding the answer, Adam says he was sure Shalimar could control herself but wasn’t so sure about Nikki. After seeing Nikki handling herself, Adam thinks that maybe they could use her. He heads to find Shalimar and Nikki and invites Nikki to join until Shalimar is back on her feet. She agrees.
The shooter is now heading back to his apartment to get some more weapons, against the wish of the woman in charge.
Shalimar heads to see Nikki and asks about her life. Nikki says the people Adam placed her with great, but that only lasted a few months. The agency then placed her with another family, and they were perfect. They made her feel special. Unseen by Shalimar, Nikki has some nasty scars on her back.
Jesse has an ID for the shooter, Dylan Carter, just out of prison. They have an address, unless he’s lying to his parole officer. Brennan, Nikki and Jesse head there. Adam, meanwhile, contacts someone, asking who would be after the particle decelerator. Jurgen Bardo, German arms dealer. Recruits local talent, underpays them, sells to the highest bidder. Sometimes the same people he stole from. Lots of people would be happy to see him taken down.
Brenna, Jesse and Nikki arrive at the address. Brennan tells Nikki to wait outside. She argues, but agrees. Until he and Jesse are out of sight. Carter is grabbing guns from his apartment – a stupid place to leave guns that are illegal for a normal person, let alone a parolee – when Nikki arrives. She grabs him and threatens to kill him, unless he shares information. He shares. However, he also reveals that she aimed the gun at Shalimar and pulled the trigger. Which results in Carter being thrown out the window.
From the looks of things, Nikki’s second fostering went very badly wrong and has left her with some serious issues. She’s managing to turn the others around into liking her, but Shalimar is becoming more distrusting. Rightfully so, though it doesn’t look like that.