DISCLAIMER: all I own in relation to Dark Angel is my DVD box sets. Characters and settings are the rightful property of James Cameron and 20th Century Fox, no copyright infringement is intended. I'm just scribbling for fun.
Chapter One: I can talk her into liking anything… except me.
"So you'll talk to Max about it?" the rat-faced trans-human asked.
"I'll argue your case, yeah," Alec agreed sliding the crumpled fifty into his pocket. "I know she'd pay attention to it through normal channels, though, and I make no guarantees that she'll turn this into her next crusade."
"We're not looking for a crusade, we just need something done," the shorter chimera said, wrinkling his nose for emphasis, "Sparky wasn't the first in our building to be inconvenienced by the glitch, he was just the first to be injured by it."
"I said I'd do something, Caesar, and I will, word of honor," the X-5 promised. Caesar smiled, showing off large rodent teeth.
"I knew we could count on you, Alec," he said, "Thank you."
As the trans-human left his office, Alec prepared to close up shop. It was nearly seven-thirty and he felt a twelve hour day should be sufficient, even for Terminal City's only alderman.
"Max know you're on the take?" asked a feminine voice from his doorway.
"Huh?" he articulately inquired, looking up at the gorgeous brunette blocking his exit.
"I asked if my sister knew you took bribes to 'bring things to her attention'," Jondy elucidated.
Alec rolled his eyes and returned them to his desk, packing up his files. "Max is the one who gave me the job, endorsing Alderman Alec the way she did. With over a thousand transgenics in TC, her extreme hands-on approach to leading would never work. Theoretically that's still how she runs her game, anyone can come to her at anytime and if she thinks they need help, she'll solve their problem, but Max is smart enough to know that she's the savior of the entire planet. If she'd taken this seat on the Common Council, they'd have deferred to her until they got sick of deferring, and issues wouldn't get properly checked out, so she gave me the official sticker."
"And that's got what to do with you taking bribes?" the female X-5 asked, grinning and making herself comfortable on Alec's sofa.
"No one thinks their concerns are worth Max's time. Well, that's not entirely true, those of us who were on her de facto command crew before and during the siege aren't intimidated by a little thing like her single handed halting of Armageddon. Still, you apparently heard Caesar. Sparky, his cousin, has second and third degree burns on twenty percent of his body from when his space heater exploded during a power surge—symptom of a faulty generator that's been wreaking havoc on their building for almost a week. Caesar doesn't think it's worth Max crusading. He wouldn't have gone to Max with it at all, but me, I'm easy to talk to."
"So you take their money and everyone's too afraid of Max to report you?" she teased. Jondy really did like Alec, so she kept the laughter in her voice. She didn't want him to think she was really accusing him of anything.
"Paying me makes them comfortable," he answered without malice, "it gives me a motivation for helping that they can understand and keeps me from being some unapproachable saint. Plus, sometimes I have to earn it. Caesar's problem is something Max is bound to notice in the reports when they're filed tomorrow afternoon, all coming to me really did was move it up in the queue-- it will get solved tonight, but… tag along to Max's office with me," he suggested, rising with his briefcase in hand.
"Alright," she said, getting up and following him.
"You'll see when we talk," he stated, then said nothing else, because he was knocking on Max's door, about a hundred feet away from his own.
"Yeah?" a muffled voice called through the door.
"I've got a pizza here for the mayor of Terminal City, but no one will tell me who that is," Alec said, smirking as he plopped into a chair across from her desk. Jondy made herself comfortable in another red chair. She liked Max's office better than Alec's, even though it lacked a sofa. Alec's was posh—leather and black metal—everything was expensive and showed good taste, but at the same time slightly uncomfortable. She could tell that he kept his office to impress others, while Max's was to make visitors comfortable. Her chairs for visitors were plush, if not overstuffed, her surfaces were all hardwood, and her curtains were drawn wide to show a beautiful moon rising out over the Space Needle.
"Quitting early?" Max asked Alec, not looking up from her papers. Jondy looked at Alec curiously. He showed no sign of being hurt, but then it wasn't a very sharp barb. Jondy knew her sister didn't expect others to be able to work 24/7 the way she could, but she didn't really hear a joke behind her words.
"Oh Maxie, you know I just can't wait for these little chats of ours, that's the only reason I ever cut out early, it's the best part of my day," Alec responded, far too much sincerity in his voice for it to be the truth.
"Don't call me Maxie," she snapped. Then she sighed, putting her combat boots up on her desk comfortably. "What's up?"
"Plenty," Alec answered cheerfully. "But talking is such thirsty work, I'm not sure I'll be able to manage without some sort of refreshment."
Max rolled her eyes and reached into a refrigerator behind her desk, tossing a soda to Alec. "You want anything baby sister?"
"Sure," Jondy said, once again surprised by the way her sister treated Alec. She'd arrived in Terminal City at long last a week ago. Max was, in some ways, exactly as she remembered her. They'd talked for hours together, exactly as they had back at Manticore, when lack of sleep let them bond closer to each other than they had with any of their other siblings. She was still Max, she still had that indefinable something that made it impossible to know her and not love her. They were instantly intimate, and Jondy felt like an idiot for staying away so long.
At first it had been necessity. Zane, in charge since Zach's disappearance and apparent death during the attack on the genetic lab, had ordered the '09ers to stay away from Seattle during the siege unless it was clear Max was going to need help. Max could take care of herself and she had a veritable army of X5s shut up with her, according to the news reports. Krit had more reliable reports from Logan Cale saying that everything would be fine, but the escapees still massed in Canada, waiting to see if they could help. They didn't want to set anything off, but they would be there if their sister needed them.
Then, when everyone else had gone in, after the siege was over and Max was a world-wide heroine, Jondy had remained. She was afraid that she wouldn't know her sister after everything that had gone down. She was afraid that in finding a new Max, she would lose the Max she'd been searching for ever since the escape. Jondy felt like an idiot because in every way that mattered, Max was still her sister—a perfect combination of brutal honesty, keen observation, and genuine feeling. That was why Jondy couldn't believe how mean she was to Alec.
"Coke?" asked Max, tossing her one as she nodded. "So, Mr. Alderman," Max asked, popping her soda under Alec's nose to emphasize the A in alderman before putting her feet back on the desk, "What do you have for me?"
"To start off, Fred is running low," Alec began, his voice cheerful and upbeat, although something in his eyes told Jondy he wasn't starting with this because it would be the easiest sale.
"Already?" an unhappy Max protested. "We just managed to score four for him last month and those things don't come cheap!"
"Yeah, Max, but you forget Doc milked him for venom about twelve times this month. It isn't his fault that he gets hungry, and I know he tries to supplement with other things. I've seen him eat chicken eggs, even though he claims they make him queasy and you can't deny that he can't keep anything other than eggs down at all." Alec argued, keeping his voice light, as though no one could possibly see another side to this situation.
"Four a month is just plain expensive, Alec," Max stated dangerously.
"It is expensive," he agreed, "but Fred needs to eat. He's a useful guy to have around, Doc says his venom is absolutely fascinating, and he put his training to good use during the siege. It isn't his fault that he isn't an artist and doesn't look normal enough to get some crummy ordinary job that will let him buy his own Ostrich eggs at a hundred bucks a pop—if he's lucky."
"And we can't afford him creating a scandal by getting a job that would allow him to put his skills as an assassin to use," Max said, apparently finishing a thought—or this wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation. "I'll bump it up to a priority one acquisition."
"Thanks," Alec said, shooting her a grin.
"He eats ostrich eggs? Gross!" Jondy said, feigning disgust.
"That's what I said," Max agreed, with a triumphant grin. "I don't know why Manticore would make it so physiologically difficult for him to survive on anything else."
"It was a mistake, I'm sure," Alec observed, ignoring the sarcasm.
"Shut it, pretty boy; unless that's all you've got for me, in which case you can feel free to vacate my office, even if you did deliver my sister." Max waved her can angrily in Alec's direction, but she wasn't mad enough to take her feet off the desk, so he ignored her.
"The generator for the apartment building on the corner of Oak and Tinga is on the fritz," he began.
"Why didn't they file with Tech Ops?" cut in Max. Jondy knew her sister, and although there was a rude, almost irritated note in her voice, she could tell it was there because she cared about the residents, not because she was unsympathetic.
"They did, two days ago, but for some reason, no one's checked it out yet. Caesar, a--"
"I know him," Max said, cutting Alec off again, "Trans-human, quiet, writes poetry."
"That's him," Alec agreed, "anyway, he had some engineering back at Manticore, not enough for Tech Ops, but some, and he tried to fiddle with it himself to keep it going before Dix's boys got to it. Whatever he did started surges, which blew out a space heater in one of the apartments, seriously injuring another trans-human named Sparky."
"Will he be okay?" the hard-assed, leather- bound dominatrix inquired with no small concern.
"Second and third degree burns, but he should be back to normal in a few weeks," Alec answered promptly.
"Why didn't I know about this?" Max then asked, slightly irritated.
"You didn't know yet because it happened an hour ago. Caesar shut off the generator entirely and came to me. I'm sure Doc will have a report for you shortly, although I doubt you'll get it until tomorrow, you know how these things go—people who aren't you like to sleep during this night-time thing." Alec smirked and Max pulled a book from the shelves behind her and tossed it at his head. He dodged and it clattered harmlessly against the wall.
"I do not have unreasonable expectations! I just like to know when someone gets hurt," she growled, snapping up the phone on her desk.
"Hey Luke," she said after a second of silence, "What are you doing about the power situation for the apartments on Oak and Tinga?"
There was a pause while Luke obviously made some reply. "Right, but the generator had to be taken down entirely earlier tonight, it wigged and the surge caused somebody to get hurt pretty badly. Right, I'll talk to Mole about that, but security isn't our only concern. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I hope you do, too. You'll go yourself? Thanks. No really, I mean it, you're wonderful. Without you TC would fall to ruin. Thanks, same to you." Max hung up her phone.
"He's got it covered," she said, unnecessarily. Alec didn't seem to mind having their little meeting interrupted because Max wanted to fix something immediately. Jondy imagined that it happened often enough, her sister wasn't really one for waiting.
"What I don't get is why Alec came to you first anyway," Jondy stated. "Couldn't you have just called Luke?"
"Could have, but I'm not Max." Alec explained without actually explaining anything. "He'd have gone if I asked, but not as quickly. And we all know Max'll follow this up, visit Sparky in the hospital, inspect the generator herself no later than tomorrow morning, and generally work the job. Me, I'm going to go out for a drink, maybe find a pretty X4 who's terribly impressed by my position and have a fabulous night, which would be utterly spoiled by actually having to do work."
"Because you're a bastard," Max finished conversationally.
"Indeed." Alec agreed. "Speaking of bitches, the Naturalists came to see me again today."
"I'm going to ignore your segue in favor of asking what they wanted." Max said her feet moving themselves to the floor while she leaned over her desk with genuine interest.
"The same thing they always want. Shalala's heat is in a week or two so I think she's feeling more anxious than usual."
"Sorry to butt into TC business," Jondy interrupted, "but who are the Naturalists?"
"They're a group, mostly X series, who believe we aren't like humans, and thus should abandon the human morals and societal practices we were raised with," Max answered. "At least, that's their party line. In practice they want females to have the choice to wander freely while in heat. I'm not about to let that one happen until we have a two thirds male vote in favor of the idea."
"Male vote?" asked Jondy.
"No female ever died—or killed anyone—after being exposed to another female in heat," Alec explained with his trademark cheer.
"I think they're complete idiots for wanting to be out and about during their heat while it's not actually driving them crazy, but I try not to let my personal opinions influence policy," Max said, tossing a light grin at her sister.
"You've just never gone into heat with another X-5," Jondy answered, a little leer crossing her lips.
"And you have?" Alec inquired. "Do tell!"
"Yes," Max agreed, not entirely disinterested, "please satisfy Alec's over stimulated libido with randy tales featuring one of my brothers. Was it Zach?"
"Krit, actually," Jondy grinned, "We were about sixteen. Every other time I've gone into heat has been vaguely, or not so vaguely, dissatisfying, but Krit was different. Hell, it was so good I almost disobeyed Zach's direct order that we split up."
"What happened?" Max asked.
"I was kicking it as a pickpocket in a gang in Nevada at the time," Jondy said, getting into her story, "when I went into heat. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and I wasn't too happy about it, but I figured it caused a whole lot more of a headache when I fought it, so I didn't lock myself up or anything stupid like that."
"Anything stupid like my current mandates on TC?" asked Max innocently.
"You know that's different," Jondy answered, rolling her eyes at her defensive sibling. "Anyway I went out to a bar looking for action, a scenario I'm sure my sister is familiar with. I found it, some muscle bound twenty something that was more than willing to grope me on the dance floor and seemed perfectly happy with the prospect of taking me home. Then some little Hispanic boy about my age walked right up to us and pulled him off of me as though he was a piece of lint stuck to my shirt. I wasn't at all displeased, not even when my 'date' took offense and tried to fight the little usurper, and the little boy handed him his ass. I stopped him from killing the guy, but I wasn't even thinking about it that way, I just wanted him in my apartment immediately. It wasn't until we started to come down, after two days of solid sex, that we even said hi, although we'd seen one another's barcodes by then. We hung around together for one truly amazing month."
"But wait a sec," Alec interrupted, "Krit is mated with Syl, isn't he?"
"Did you hear me say we fell in love and bought a house to set out making babies?" Jondy inquired sweetly.
"No, just," Alec frowned, "Usually if you don't end up mated after going through heat together you don't stay a couple. Not that I know much about those 'lasting relationship' things."
"Well, whatever that's about, Krit was also my brother, who I'd just discovered after being alone for six years. The sex was mostly a side dish—a really, really good side dish that made hanging around with him a whole lot more fun," Jondy answered. "But after about a month, Zach showed up. He'd found us, he said, because looking for two X5s was a lot easier than looking for one. He told us we had to split up and leave Nevada, and after a whole lot of arguing, we all agreed. There were no promises between us, and I'm certainly not hurt that Krit wound up with Syl, they're perfect for each other."
"So you had a good experience," Max said, giving her sister a phony smile and a thumbs up, "Good for you. If Zach had been in town a month before he showed up, we'd have one less brother than we do now."
"Like I said, Max," her sister said, holding up two hands in a placating gesture, "I've got nothing against your voting system. The TC situation is totally different from being one of twelve X5s in the real world. All I'm saying is, I can understand the desire your Naturalists are feeling, whether or not it's incredibly selfish. Heat isn't just about finding a mate."
"Although all the mated couples walking around in perfect bliss aren't really doing much to keep the ranks of the Naturalists down," Alec muttered. "Every female in Terminal City seems to be looking for a mate." Then he shot a guilty look up at Max. Jondy wondered if he was about to be punished for misogynistic behavior, but her sister was staring out the window at the moon.
"Do you think she's prettier than me?" the unofficial mayor asked without turning from the window.
Jondy suddenly had absolutely no idea what her sister was talking about.
"Yeah, Max," Alec rolled his eyes comically, "in spite of the fact that you were perfectly designed to be someone's ideal of beauty and she's the third rate inheritor of some random blonde hair genes, there is something inexplicable about her that renders her a nymph compared to mortals."
Blonde hair clicked, and Jondy remembered what Max had said about "the first love of my life" and some virus thing that kept them from touching—he had a fiancé that Max called Blondie. While this revelation was occurring to Jondy, Max was shooting Alec a dirty look.
"You went for her," she muttered.
Alec leered at his beautiful friend. "Max, we all know my criteria: pulse, breasts, and willing. Apparently, Logan's standards are just as low as mine."
Max shook her head. "I'm being stupid again. Asha's a good woman. S1W, strong in the struggle, I like Asha. I'm just being petty."
"From what you told me, you've been hit hard," Jondy frowned at Alec's sarcasm, starting to understand why Max was mean to him, like it would hurt him to offer a sympathetic ear right now.
"I never said I'd been hit hard," Max said, her eyes flicking nonchalantly between Jondy and Alec. Jondy noticed, but she kept going, hoping to shame the male transgenic for his casual attitude toward her sister's pain.
"No," she agreed, "You just said you'd embarrassed yourself rather spectacularly by confessing that you loved him and never wanted to be with anyone but him once you realized that he was serious enough about Blondie to propose. And then he dropped you on your ass and told you it was over, that he didn't love you anymore, still wanted to be your friend, and hoped you'd stand up in his wedding in some random capacity. Right, that sounds like a glancing blow to me."
Jondy was rather surprised when the secretly dirty look she was shooting at Alec was met by a very brief, very angry look from the other transgenic.
Max forced a smile, not looking at either of them, "Yeah, I guess that counts as a hit, but Logan and I had been broken up for months—hell, a year even—before it came to that. We were never even like that; anyway, it was just mostly wishful thinking on my part."
"Bullshit, Max," Alec cut in softly, "you know he's only settling because he can touch her. You know that, even if he hasn't said it. You're still his perfect woman, and you have every right to be upset that he didn't live up to his knight in shining exoskeleton billing."
"Logan wouldn't be with her if he didn't love her," Max argued. Apparently she was arguing with the window, because she still wouldn't look at either transgenic.
"He loves her alright," Alec growled, causing Max to wince, "just not as much as he loved you."
"I really don't want to talk about this anymore," Max cut in, her voice suddenly firm and her eyes meeting Alec's. "If you don't drop it, I'm going to remember that just because I don't have a Zero Tolerance policy when it comes to your existence, I was never really in favor of it—unless you want me to teach you the meaning of the word defenestrate."
"Hey, you were the one who brought it up," Alec pointed out defensively. Max stared at him, cocking one eyebrow. "But I am more than willing to prove I am the bigger person by dropping it immediately," he added quickly. "What do you want to do about Shalala?"
"I suppose I should go and talk with her, see if I can make her understand," Max answered, propping her feet back up on the desk, a seeming sign that everything was alright. "If she insists on it, we could be facing another vote. Do you think anything has changed since the last one?"
Alec shook his head. "Maybe a few of the swing votes will—well—swing, but she's still only got about a third of the male X5s in her camp. I don't see any reason for her to want another vote; it won't come out any different."
"Right, well then it's up to me to make her see the sense of the vote, even if she doesn't like the outcome," Max murmured. "That shouldn't be a whole lot worse than pulling teeth."
"Better you than me," Alec smirked.
"Whatever," Max bit out, her feet returning to the floor. "You got anything else for me, or did you save the best for last?"
"That's everything for today," Alec said, his manner businesslike and impersonal.
"Great," Max returned, looking at the time, "I was worried I'd be stuck in here with you for a lot longer." She grinned and turned to Jondy, "I should talk to the Naturalists now, big sister, but if you want we can meet up at The Tourniquet later for a game of pool?"
"Sure thing," Jondy grinned back. 'And I can poke you until you tell me why you act the way you do around Alec,' she added mentally.
Max left the two in her office with a cheerful "Later" that seemed to be directed entirely at Jondy. The female transgenic turned to her male counterpart, confusion written plainly on her face.
"What?" Alec asked without looking at her. He lifted his briefcase to his lap.
"Just wondering why Max is the sister I love and remember perfectly unless we're around you—when she morphs into someone I barely recognize," the woman answered, shrugging and tossing her dark hair out of her face.
"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," Alec informed her, standing up and heading for the door. Jondy followed.
"You're her Alderman, her official whatever, kicking it to her—doing her a favor if you look at it like that—and she didn't even say bye to you," she observed. "That's way harsh. That's not Max."
"Maybe you don't know Maxie as well as you think you do," Alec murmured. That pissed Jondy off because it cut; it reminded her of the time she'd wasted that could have been spent getting to know her favorite sibling. Alec didn't know Jondy very well at all, though.
"You're really very good at that," she complimented. He looked sideways at her. "If I didn't get what you were doing, I'd be shouting right now. Hell, I might even be trying to kick your ass. You did even better with Max, earlier; I couldn't even tell what you were doing." She shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry I messed it up. I thought you were being an insensitive prick."
"I am an insensitive prick," he murmured. "I like it. It works for me."
"No, you realized that Max was dealing and didn't want to talk about it—not really—which I didn't, even though she's my sister. I'm sorry I was too focused on the weirdness between the pair of you to see what you were doing," she apologized, hoping it would be enough because she really wasn't into this whole swallowing-her-pride thing.
He looked at her with clear green eyes. "It's cool," he murmured. "She needs to get it off her chest every so often. It never hurts to talk, right?"
"Guess you know her pretty well, then?" she asked casually. "You can talk her into buying eggs and out of depression. So why didn't she say goodbye to you?"
"Yeah," Alec said, his pace speeding up just slightly, "I can talk Max into anything. I can make her like any idea. I just can't get her to like me, and I don't know why."
Jondy stopped, instinctively knowing he wanted to be left alone, and she let him walk hurriedly away from her.