Title: Three Chimeras

Author: Nefertiry

E-mail: scorpy282003@yahoo.com

Rating: PG, maybe PG-13

Summary: Max lost one of her sisters 13 years ago. Now she's back in her life. She might have answers to many questions, but is she a friend or foe? Post 'Freak Nation'

Disclaimer: definitely not mine. The characters belong to James Cameron and FOX. But Jessica is ABSOLUTELY mine. I don't make any money using these characters.

Timeline: In the "Prologue", it's during and after "Designate This". In the next chapters – after "Freak Nation".

A/N: Warning: this story is COMPLETELY result of my imagination. Any similarity to other authors' plots, characters, or events is PURELY COINCIDENTIAL AND ABSOLUTELY UNINTENTIONAL.

Looking for Answers

Part 2

"BLOODY HELL!!!" shouted Jessica, when Alec turned around. Then she whispered. "Ben…"

Max heard her: "No, Jess, it's Alec, Ben's twin brother. Wait, how did you know what Ben looked like? Have you seen him?"

Jessica ignored the questions and stared at Alec. Max saw shock and bewilderment in Jessica's eyes.

'Damn, she looks much better in life than at her ID picture. She is even hotter than Max. Why is she looking at me like that?' all these thoughts flashed through his mind when he looked at her.

"Max, do you have a twin too?" asked Jessica still staring at Alec.

"Yeah, her name is Sam, X5 453. Do you have a twin, Jess? Look, you two, stop staring at each other! Alec! Wake up! First Sketchy, then you. What is the matter with you?"  

"No, I'm the only child in the family. I hope." Jessica finally looked at Max and smiled. She came up to the switch and turned on the light in the kitchen.

Logan noticed the light in Jessica's apartment and understood that something had gone wrong.

"Max, what's going on? Why did you turn on the light?"

"Jess, who are you? Where have you been? Who are you working for? What's with the 'Lydecker' name on your ID?" Max finally got a chance to ask Jessica all these questions. "I'm not leaving until I get some answers."

"Max, you know, you should have made a list of questions and faxed it to me." Jessica's good mood seemed to return to her.

"Ha-ha, very funny. " Max also wasn't very upset.

"Ok, you'll get your answers. By the way, tell your boyfriend, who's sitting in that crappy car near the building, to come up. I'm not gonna tell my story twice."

"Logan, come up. She's at home and she knows you're in the car. She'll explain everything." Logan heard Max's voice in his earpiece.

He got out of the car, locked it, and entered the building. He saw the unconscious concierge and thought 'Alec or Max? Probably Alec. Yes, definitely Alec.'

He entered the elevator and pushed the button "20". When he arrived at the 20th floor, he saw the entrance door open and came in.

"Max? Jessica? Anyone?"

The owner of the apartment came out of the living room and said. "Come in, we're here."

Logan entered the room and saw Max, sitting on the couch, and Alec in the armchair. Both had glasses in their hands.

"Here, you might need a drink before you hear what I'm about to say." Jessica gave Logan a glass of scotch, took hers (scotch, too) and sat down on another couch. Logan sat near Max, (well, not very near). Still, they were sitting on the same couch.

"What was the first question, Max?" asked Jess and sipped her scotch.

"Who are you and where have you been?"

"That's two questions, Max", remarked Alec.

"I know math, thank you", retorted Max. "Should I repeat my questions?"

"Nope, I heard them pretty well. Ok, here it goes. And don't interrupt me." Jessica took a deep breath and began.

"My real name is Jessica Lydecker. Yes, Max, Donald Lydecker is my genetic father; at least I have a tiny bit of his DNA in my gene "cocktail". Actually, I have a really complicated "cocktail". Anyway, I used this name only when I worked for Manticore. For the rest of the world I'm Jessica Jordan. "

"What about 'Jordan Christensen, NSA'?" asked Alec. "And what's with the diplomatic immunity?" added Logan.

"Patience, people, I'll get to that. Wait a second, how did you find out about my 'diplomatic immunity'?" Jessica looked at Logan inquiringly.

"Um, Max wanted to find something about you and I hacked into the DMV's and Immigration service's databases", answered Logan, feeling uneasy under Jessica's gaze.

"You know, Max, 'curiosity killed the cat' and…oops, I forgot, you have cat's genes in your "cocktail" so that doesn't surprise me." Jessica really wasn't surprised and continued her story.

"As you remember, Maxie, one fine day in '08 when we returned from the class on explosives, Lydecker entered the dorm and told me to follow him. He took me to his office and said: "X5-407, from now on you will no longer be in your unit. You will have an individual training program and you will be transferred to the base in the Cheyenne Mountains. Immediately." I was so shocked that realized what had happened only when arrived at this Manticore base. The training program was hard. Together with martial arts, weapons and other stuff I studied foreign languages. I was trained to be a soldier and a diplomat, a scientist and a linguist, a psychologist and a doctor; it looked like they wanted to make me a walking encyclopedia and 'Jack-of-all-trades'… "

"What base at the Cheyenne Mountains? Was there another Manticore base?" interrupted her Max and Logan simultaneously.

"Three months after the "'09 great escape from Manticore" the Gillette base was shut down, its staff reassigned around the country. Officially it was an Air Base. That's how it appeared on DOD books. A month later the base was opened again. This time it was a V.A. hospital. The whole staff from the Cheyenne base was transferred there. Including me. When I was 14, Lydecker explained why he had taken me away from my unit: when I was created, he added a bit of his DNA, as well as his wife's, into my DNA, so technically I was his child. He didn't want me to get under your, Max, influence, and get 'wacky' ideas about freedom and escape. Like anyone could influence me. Duh. So, Lydecker wanted me to be as far as possible from you, Zack and others. He gave me his name and that was how I got that ID. I wasn't very happy to have a father who had no mercy for his soldiers, who once were my friends, so I didn't have any feelings for him that a daughter would have."

Jessica made a pause and looked at Max. No reaction. "Max, are you listening to me?"

"Yes, and I can't believe what I'm hearing. You're Lydecker's daughter! And he told me that he would never pollute the gene pool. Ew!"

"Huh, the part of his DNA is so tiny that it doesn't pollute my genes. Besides, he made me look like his late wife. I don't complain about my looks…"

"I couldn't agree with you more, Jess", interrupted Alec.

"…and I have this determination, persistence, and stubbornness", continued Jessica.

"Lydecker said that I had been inspired by his wife, which means that I'm kinda your sister", said Max, thinking about what it would be like to have a real genetic sister, even if that sister had a father, who had been chasing Max and her runaway siblings for 10 years.

"Ok, back to the story. For some reasons Lydecker didn't want me to contact other transgenics at the base. When I was 17, he sent me on a mission to Chicago. I spent there a month when he suddenly called me back and I received another assignment. Paris, France. I lived in Paris until last September, when I had to return to the States. End of story. Now, Max, how have you been all these years?" asked Jessica, getting tired of talking and willing to do some listening for a change.

"Well, escaped from Manticore, lived in foster families, escaped from foster parents, ended up in Seattle, met Original Cindy, got my job at Jam Pony, two years ago met Logan, got killed when tried to blow up Manticore, had a heart transplant, then escaped from Manticore (again)… 

"Hm, I'm seeing a pattern in these escapes from Manticore, Max", noted Jessica.

"… finally burnt the freaky place to the ground, returned to Seattle, got exposed, lived in the Terminal City for some time, became some sort of a leader of all transgenics in the neighborhood and finally met a long lost sister, whom I presumed dead, and who turned out to be the daughter of one of my worst enemies. This is my life in a nutshell. Nothing special. In other words a 'simple life of a simple girl'", said Max, drinking her scotch.

"Oh, my life was really boring as compared to yours, Max." Jessica's sarcasm was too obvious.

"Ladies, as much as I like your competition 'whose life was more boring', let's get back to the subject", said Logan, trying to get the attention of two incredibly beautiful girls who completely ignored two men present. Alec, on the other hand, enjoyed every second of that 'competition'.

"By the way, Max, how are our runaway brothers and sisters doing?" asked Jessica, ignoring Logan's statement.

Max's face got serious. "Well, Krit and Syl are fine, Jace is somewhere in Mexico. She has a baby, which is about a year old now, I think. Brin…I actually don't know where she is, Zane is in Los Angeles, Jondy is in San-Francisco…" Max stopped.

"What about Zack, Tinga, and Ben?" Jessica took her glass and sipped scotch.

"Uh, Zack gave me his heart, I mean, literally; then he tried to kill Logan, I stopped him and as a result he lost his memories. Now his name is Adam Thompson and he lives at some farm. I don't know where it is." Max stopped again.

"Max, go on." Jessica sensed that she was about to hear something bad.

"Tinga is dead. That bitch Renfro murdered her. And Ben…." Max couldn't continue.

"What about Ben?" asked silently Jessica. She seemed calm, but she held her glass so tightly, that her knuckles became white.

"Jess, he is dead too." She felt a tear run down her cheek.

"WHAT?" her voice was full of pain. "WHY? HOW?"   

"Jess, he was a serial killer. He had killed 11 people before I managed to stop him." Max looked straight into Jessica's eyes and saw something besides pain.

"What do you mean 'stopped him'?!"

"I killed him. I had to kill him. He asked me to." The sound of crushing glass startled everyone. Jessica's palm was covered in blood; pieces of glass got stuck in the flesh. Max was crying. Logan and Alec froze and didn't dare to move.

"What do you mean 'he asked me to'? What, he came up to you and said: "Hey, Max, kill me"?" ignoring the pain in her palm and dripping blood screamed Jessica.

"We were in the woods. He was hurt. Manticore was closing in on us. He didn't want to go back there. Death was the way out for him." Max was too afraid to look at Jessica who grabbed Alec's glass, stood up, and smashed the glass against the wall.

"You know, Jess, if you keep destroying your whisky glasses like that, you'll soon run out of them", remarked Alec, trying to ease the situation in the room. Furious Jessica looked at him, then at Max who was sitting on the couch and cried, and then at Logan, whose heart was breaking when he saw crying Max. She sat down on the floor, covered her face with bloodstained hands, and began to cry, bitterly and silently.

Alec realized that something had to be done. He stood up, came up to Logan, and said. "I'll try to comfort Max, and you take care of Jessica's cuts."

Logan hesitated, but then understood that Alec had a point. He couldn't touch Max but could help her sister. He came up to crying Jessica and whispered. "Hey, Jess, you need to clean your cuts. Show me where you keep your 'first aid' kit."

"In the bathroom."

"Let's go to the bathroom, you can wash your face and I'll take care of your palm", said Logan, putting an arm around her shoulders and making her get up.

"OK", murmured Jessica, standing up and leading Logan to the bathroom.

In the bathroom

Jessica turned on the cold-water tap and washed her face. She noticed blood. "Where the hell is blood from?" she asked Logan, who tried to find bandages, antiseptic and forceps to remove pieces of glass from her palm.

"You've destroyed one of your glasses, no, actually two. Now, give me your palm", said Logan, taking the forceps.

"Wow, I haven't noticed."

"Look, why did you freak out when Max told you that she had killed Ben? I mean, she did a good thing, stopped a killer, even if he was her brother." Logan took out the pieces of glass and bandaged her palm.

"Logan, shut up, or you'll find out what it is to mess up with the furious transgenic", warned Jessica.

Meanwhile in the living room

"Max, c'mon, calm down, we've been over that thing with Ben. I understood what you had done and forgave you. I'm sure Jess will do the same."

Alec hugged Max, stroking her hair and gently rubbing her back.

"You don't understand. When we were at Manticore, Ben and Jessica were best friends and I've killed her best friend", sighed Max, wiping away her tears.

"How close were they?" asked Alec, still holding Max in his arms.

"I think, they were more than just friends, but they were only 8-year olds." Max finally calmed down. "Where's Logan?" she noticed his absence in the room.

"He's taking care of Jessica's cuts, I think."

"You think?!"

"Hey, Ben's killer, I'm back." Jessica seemed to be calm and didn't look like an angry cat. "Logan, could you grab a couple of cups from the kitchen? I have only two glasses left", said Jessica, when the man appeared in the doorway. "Sure, no problem."

"Do you have only four glasses?" asked Max, wondering 'why the sudden change of mood?'

"Actually, I had six, but when I moved in, I accidentally broke two and today two - that makes four. I never liked the set anyway, not my style." Jessica took the bottle of scotch and poured the brown liquid into the remaining two glasses.

"Why the hell did you buy it?" Max was seriously worried about Jessica's sanity.

"I didn't. It was the gift from the real estate broker, who was so happy that someone had finally bought this disgustingly expensive penthouse, that decided to make me a present. Ah, the cups. Thanks." She poured scotch into the cups and raised her cup. "A toast. To the family reunion. Bottoms up!"

"Jess, what's wrong with you?" asked Max.

"What's wrong with me? Well, it's not every day you find out that the only love of your life had been murdered by your sister." Jessica tried hard not to break down in tears.

"WHAT???"

TBC

A/N Please, read and review. That will make me incredibly happy.