MUTANT X'S "THE BREED"

"The Breed," a new episode of Mutant X, will air in syndication this week. The episode is written by Michelle Lovretta and directed by Jorge Montesi.

Below the photos is a thorough plot synposis, with spoilers. (Click on the thumbnails for larger images).

Dr. Vincent Arrigo (Ron Lea) bursts through a door into a hallway wearing a blood-stained lab coat and looking over his shoulder in fear. Hearing a noise behind him, Arrigo bangs frantically on a nearby door, but the people refuse to open it. Terrified, he runs to his lab and locks himself inside causing the mysterious thing that's been chasing him to slam into the door.

At Sanctuary, an alarm suddenly sounds and Jesse (Forbes March) works feverishly on the computer to shut it off. Just as the sound stops, the Mutant X team is shocked to see a petrified Arrigo appear on the monitor. Believing he's talking to Adam on a one-way distress call, Arrigo says that the project they were working on has gone awry and sends through video footage of his location. As the team watches they see blurred images trying to break into the lab, but the signal quickly goes dead.

Jesse discovers Arrigo is a former Genomex employee who Adam helped get a job in gene-based research for the Army at Fort Perry. Lexa (Karen Cliche) enters and says her contacts claim Arrigo was working on a weaponized plague and Mutant X must go to the base to answer his distress call.

As the team approaches the base in the Double Hhelix, Shalimar (Victoria Pratt) notices a heavy military presence and are soon ordered to land. As Major Klein (Tony Craig) approaches them and demands to know who they work for, Lexa's cell phone rings and after looking at the ID, she hands it to Klein. After a tense phone conversation, Klein reluctantly agrees to let Mutant X inside and walks them towards the electrical fence surrounding the base. He tells them that the infection contaminating the base is passed through broken skin and that they will be quarantined inside until a cure is found.

Brennan (Victor Webster), Shalimar and Lexa are led through the fence while Jesse remains outside to help get the team out if needed.

Brennan, Shalimar and Lexa walk towards the main building stepping over several corpses along the way.

Suddenly, PVT Peter Morton (Aaron Poole) is chased toward them by two infected soldiers, one of which slashes him and he falls to the ground. Lexa blasts one soldier with a flash of light and Brennan hits the other with a tesla coil, before grabbing Peter and racing inside the building.

They reach Arrigo's lab and after telling him they got his distress call to Adam, he lets them in. As Brennan lays Peter on a medical table, Arrigo tells them the base is infected by a parasite he had created to take control of its host, which was intended solely for use against enemy forces. He claims things went wrong when his assistant Rachel accidentally infected herself.

A loud crash from the next room draws their attention and they rush in to find Peter on the ground, infected. As they strap Peter to the table, he hands Lexa a vial of insulin.

Lexa tells Brennan and Shalimar that Peter was trying to get the insulin to the woman he was hiding with in the base kitchen. Wanting to help the woman, Brennan and Shalimar head out with a load of medical supplies. Arrigo tells Lexa that he was working on a treatment for the parasites, but can no longer access his files. When Lexa calls on Jesse to assist, he discovers that the base's power is being routed into the fence so he links the lab's computers to the helix.

Meanwhile, Brennan and Shalimar are making their way toward the kitchen, when a shot rings out from above and a woman named Gina (Alex Castillo) demands they prove they're not infected.

After Shalimar tells her that Peter sent them with insulin and medical supplies, Gina takes them to the kitchen.

Back in the lab, Peter tells Lexa that Arrigo's assistant Rachel was his sister and he doesn't believe it was by accident that she became infected.

A short time later, Arrigo reenters and tries a treatment on Peter, but the parasites react negatively. Back in the kitchen, an infected woman suddenly jumps out of the shadows and rakes her nails across Brennan's neck. He throws her off and Gina shoots her until she falls to the ground dead.

Shalimar uses her comlink to tell Lexa about the attack, and Lexa insists Brennan return to the lab immediately.

Without notice, Brennan knocks Shalimar to the ground and runs off.

Meanwhile, Jesse identifies that the parasite they're fighting is related to one that causes malaria. After some research, he tells Lexa he's found a treatment that involves dousing the host with rotating electromagnetic fields, which should causes the iron in the parasites' bodies to twist until they rupture. He sends this information, along with Rachel's autopsy report to Lexa, just bomber planes appear on his sensors.

As Shalimar searches for Brennan, he leaps out at her wild-eyed and she races off and hides in the hallway. She contacts Lexa, who tells her Arrigo believes the only cure for Brennan is to get him to form a tesla coil and then throw him against the electrical fence.

Shalimar gets Brennan to chase her out to the fence, and as Brennan rolls up a tesla coil, she kicks him into it. Brennan convulses in pain before falling to the ground. Shalimar rushes to his side and is relieved to see he's been cured.

Meanwhile, General Klein informs Jesse that the base is going to be bombed to prevent the infection from spreading. Inside the lab, Brennan forms an electro-magnetic energy ball and spins it around Peter, knocking him out and curing him.

Jesse tells them he will switch the power back to the base in order to give Brennan the energy he needs to cure everyone at once. As Breannan and Shalimar lure the infected into a power room, Lexa informs Arrigo that Rachel's file proves that it was no accident -- she had been infected intentionally. Arrigo grabs a tranquilizer gun and shoots Lexa in the neck, but before he can do anything else, Peter grabs a gun and shoots him.

In the power room, Brennan takes hold of the generator as Jesse routes power back to the base. Brennan rolls up an electro-magnetic ball that spins furiously around the room. The infected people writhe in agony as Brennan holds on for as long as he can. Monitoring everything from the helix, Jesse races to Klein and proving to him there are no more infected people on the base, tells him to call off the bombers.

X-MEN 2
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