AN: I told you I'd be back soon! And here's a nice long chapter, too!

Chapter 23: The Jacobs Connection

Jesse quickly toweled his hair dry then tossed the wet towel into the laundry hamper in the corner. It had been easier to take a shower than to try and clean all the individual streaks of blood from his hands, arms, chest and face. Reaching into his dresser, he pulled out a pair of boxer briefs, then pulled a blue button down shirt and a pair of khakis out of his closet. After getting dressed, and not feeling particularly inclined to wear actual shoes, he slipped his feet into a pair of sandals as he walked out the door.

Coming down the metal staircase into the common room/computer lab area, he saw Shalimar sitting at one of the computer terminals beside Lexa. He wasn't surprised to see her. After Brennan and Katie had left, he had gone to work fixing the external communications and repairing whatever other damaged the power outage had created – which wasn't much. It was only when the computer screen indicated that the Helix was returning to the hanger that Jesse realized that he hadn't yet cleaned of the blood from his now healed wounds, and he was about 30 seconds away from Shalimar fussing and fretting over him. He had dashed upstairs to take a shower. So, now that he was done and back downstairs, he wasn't surprised that she was back. He was surprised that Brennan was standing behind the blond feral, massaging her shoulders obediently.

"Hey Shal." He bent down to kiss her cheek. "I see you got back in one piece. Any injuries I should know about?" he asked as he bent down and started fidgeting with and looking at the research Lexa was doing.

"Nothing that can't heal on its own, Dr. Jesse." She smiled when he stopped his meddling and frowned at her. "Relax. Just a couple of bruises, and, no offense, but I'm not too fond of the idea of my molecules being rearranged every time I fall down and bump my knee. So, if it's all the same to you, you just stay over there."

Jesse conceded with a smile. "Fine. So, did they catch you up on what happened?"

"Sure did. Lexa and I are digging around for information on Jessica Woodbury."

"And what's Brennan doing?" Jesse asked, indicating his friend, who was still rubbing Shalimar's shoulders and hadn't spoken a word since Jesse had come downstairs.

"Brennan's being punished."

Had Jesse been drinking anything, he would have choked. "Excuse me?"

Shalimar smirked, and Jesse could see that Lexa was trying to hide a laugh. "Brennan's being punished for attacking me at the safehouse in New York and you in the hanger. He has to give me a massage whenever I want and has to take me shopping next time we have a break."

"Um, Shal, dear, first, I think that part about the massage any time was a little too much information. Second, you do know he was basically under mind control at the time, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

Jesse lifted an eyebrow.

Shalimar said nothing, but then finally she cracked. She put on a pout behind which she was clearly laughing "Spoilsport," she said to Jesse. Then, to Brennan, "I guess you're off the hook."

Brennan dropped his hands from Shalimar's shoulders. "I knew that."

By now, Lexa's smile had turned into a full blown laugh. Brennan glared at her. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Lexa said to him in between gasps of air. "It's just that she's got you wrapped around her little finger. So bad."

Jesse saw the beginnings of a blush creep into Brennan's cheeks. And though he was just as amused as Lexa, the code of male ethics and the situation dictated that he get everyone back on track. "All right, all right. You've had your fun. Any luck finding information on Jessica Woodbury?"

"I've got something that may pan out," Lexa said. "Shalimar's checking our copies of Genomex records for me, and we just may get lucky." Then she yelped when Jesse pinched her hip when she said the phrase "get lucky." She elbowed him playfully but seriously. "Anyway," she drawled out. "I'll probably have something in about 10 or 15 minutes. Why don't you go help Adam do – whatever it is Adam's doing."

Shalimar was surprised to see Jesse hesitate for a moment before taking Lexa's suggestion and go across the room into medbay. She looked over to Lexa for an explanation, but the woman had her own eyes on Jesse's retreating form before returning to her work. Not being able to catch her eye, Shalimar looked over to Brennan. He had been watching Jesse too, and when she caught his gaze, she could tell that Brennan knew something about his friend's momentary awkward pause. Brennan shook his head lightly, indicating that now wasn't the time to talk about it.

Shalimar sighed, but turned back the computer. She knew that finding information about the attack on sanctuary took precedence right now, but that didn't mean she was going to let the subject drop. She made a mental note to talk to Brennan later, shook her blond curls slightly, and opened the next file pathway.

Jesse stepped into the medlab at the same time Katie entered from the other door on the other side of the room. Looking down, he saw that she carried several vials and test tubes in her hand. Behind her was David, who was carrying a medium sized piece of equipment Jesse recognized as a telescopic chemical analyzer from the science lab down stairs.

"Good to know that thing's still in one piece," he joked lamely.

David recognized Jesse's effort at humor, though clearly neither of them felt it. "Yeah, it's a mess down there. What, you felt you had to land on the biggest pile of glass possible?"

Jesse indicated the analyzer with a nod of his head. "Adam ask you to bring that up?"

"Yeah, he wanted to work closer to Jessica, be able to keep an eye on her." David set the analyzer on the countertop, where Adam indicated, then went and sat in one of the other chairs in the room. The attempt at humor from moments before was gone, and he was practically motionless now.

Katie and Jesse both watched him sit down, where he proceeded to stare at Jessica's prone form. The two siblings glanced at each other for a moment, and Katie nodded her head in David's direction, before moving to help Adam. Jesse walked over to the chairs and sat beside his friend.

After a moment, he asked, "So how much do you remember about her?"

David continued to stare at Jessica, and said nothing. After a few more moments, just as Jesse was beginning to wonder if he would need to prod him again, David did speak, but it wasn't aloud. "She was the youngest one there."

Jesse nodded. Obviously, David didn't feel comfortable enough to talk aloud about the subject yet, meaning he didn't want the others in the room to know. "Adam and the others didn't do many more genetic alterations after they did mine. I think the last person they worked on is 23 years old now. Not much younger than me."

"And only five years younger than me. I was 19, almost 20 when I was at Genomex. She was only 14. That's not so much of a difference now, but it was 8 ½ years ago. We were usually paired off with someone during the tests. Whenever I was paired off with her, I remember thinking how childish she was acting. I mean, most new mutants I've met mature before their time because of, well…circumstances. I chalked up her behavior to the fact that she was so young, but what I'm seeing now is making me wonder."

Jesse nodded his head in understanding. "She's probably been unstable most of her life. And then being a fourteen year old psionic undergoing test with people several years older than you, in a place like that… That's enough to drive all but the strongest of people off the edge. Anyone who can survive Genomex has to be a strong person." The inflection in Jesse's "voice" made it clear he was directing the comment at David.

David gave a wry chuckle. "Sometimes I wonder. I keep thinking about what she said to me in the hallway."

Jesse gave him a look that was both questioning and prompting. It took David a moment to remember that Jesse hadn't been in the hallway when they'd confronted Jessica. He replayed the memory for Jesse. "She said that I ruined it for them all. It makes me wonder what kind of changes were made after I left. How would things have been different if I had stayed."

"David, playing "what if" like that is not a good idea. You're only one person, and the things that happened at Genomex are not your fault."

"Yeah, I know, but I can't help thinking how things might have been different if I hadn't been so weak. Those three scientists that I killed –"

"Hey!" Jesse interrupted. "I've been through your memory of that. There were a lot of mistakes that day, but none of them were yours. Jacobs was crazy to think that he could work with mutants with abilities like yours and not have people get hurt. You were upset because you thought I was dead – it was obvious from your behavior – yet he still insisted on running tests that day. As a scientist, he should have known better than to try doing tests on an upset psionic. To top it all off, based on the records and your sensory memory, someone turned off your subdermal governor remotely before you were even out of the pod – which was completely against protocol and the stupidest thing someone could have done in those circumstances."

David said nothing, but Jesse could tell that he was replaying the memories of his escape from Genomex, trying to distance himself and see the events from someone else's perspective. It took a while longer, but Jesse saw the change in David. The psionic looked up at his friend. "Maybe you're right," he said aloud.

"Who's right?"

David and Jesse looked up at the sound of Shalimar's voice. She, Brennan and Lexa had just walked into the room. Lexa was carrying some printouts in her hand.

"Jesse's right," David answered.

Shalimar shrugged and a teasing smile graced her features. "He usually is. Doesn't it suck?"

David laughed. "Yeah, it does. What brings you guys in here? I thought you were scrounging up information on Jessica."

"We were, and we did," Lexa said, holding up the printouts.

Shalimar put both hands on the back side of her hips. "And we've got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

Jesse stood and started meandering around the room. But he stayed in the part of the room opposite Adam, Shalimar noticed. "How about the good news first," he said. "That way I can be happy before I get depressed."

"Okay, then," Lexa said. "The good news is that we found files on Jessica Woodbury. The name Lisa Osman was clearly an alias, and once I was able to track the origin of the file we had on her, I found that it was created 3 ½ months ago, right about the time the dominion facility went kablooey."

"Any idea on who created it?" Jesse asked.

Lexa made a noise. "I had a hard enough time finding the origin of the file…but I did manage to find the identifying origin code on the file. And it belongs to the dominion. The problem is that it's one of the most generic access codes in the entire system. Any one of two hundred people could have created that file."

Brennan frowned. "And this is the good news how?"

Lexa shook her head. "It's not, really. It's a complete dead end, and we can forget about it if our other lead pans out."

"And that other lead is…" Jesse prompted. As he spoke, he had one hand inside the other, cracking his knuckles. Lexa recognized the gesture. It was something he often did when he was frustrated. Shalimar, though, remembered the history behind Jesse's knuckle cracking. When Jesse had first come to Sanctuary, and Adam was putting the young molecular through his paces, Jesse often got frustrated. To keep himself from inflicting his anger towards Adam – which could be fatal given the nature of his powers – Jesse had taken to massaging and cracking his knuckles. After a time the habit died out as Jesse matured and his emotions faded and were redirected. But it seemed now that the habit had returned. Sparing an unnoticed glance toward Adam, Shalimar tried to recall when Jesse had resumed the habit, but found that she couldn't. Damn. Lexa's voice brought her back to the present.

"The other lead is Jessica's mother. See, she said that her mom needed her to finish. The simplest solution was that she was actually talking about her mother. According to encrypted dominion files, Jessica's mother is Holly Jacobs."

The name caught David's attention. "Any relation to Michael Jacobs?"

Shalimar answered the question. "According to the records we were able to find, Holly married Dr. Michael Jacobs – Genomex scientist extraordinaire – about 12 years ago. They met when she and her ex-husband – whom she had recently divorced – had brought their 4 year old daughter to the Genomex in an effort to have her autism treated or reversed. All hubby's idea, by the way."

Adam frowned. "I don't remember her. One of my colleagues must have worked with her case. Wait, no. She should at least be familiar. Autism wasn't something we worked with often, and I went through every single case later when I was trying to figure out the source of the genetic mutations."

"Well, there's a reason for that," Lexa said. "Anyway, because her father was still a part of her life at the time, Jessica kept his name when mommy later remarried. Jessica was treated successfully, and then went to live with her father. He died when she was 13. We did a background check on him – completely clean. So that's a dead end. But after he died, she went to live with her mother and Jacobs. So we do a search on her. She worked for Genomex, and later for the dominion… ever since she brought Jessica in. The first seven years she worked under her maiden name of Holly Frost."

"That name I remember," Adam interjected. "She was a secretary in the records office. She didn't have any technical or academic training, but she could manipulate with the best of the powers that be. And she was just as cold as her name implied."

Lexa nodded. "That goes along with what we found out about her. Her name didn't appear on many files, but she sure as hell benefited from a lot of the policies and programs. Three months after Jessica came to live with her, Genomex changed the minimum age requirement for psionic studies from 16 to 13. Two months later, a loophole was put in place, allowing children of Genomex employees to be included in the programs without a psychiatric evaluation, which was one of Genomex's so-called 'precautions.' Twenty-four hours after that, Jessica was in Jacobs' program, housed in the Genomex facility…"

"Meaning the pods," Jesse mumbled under his breath. Only David heard him, and that was because Jesse was transmitting the same thing over their mental link.

"… and completely off Holly's hands. At least until Jacobs' program was curtailed. Then, best we can tell, Jessica went back to live with her mother, and all her records were deleted from inside the agency. Probably by mommy dearest."

"Jesus," Brennan muttered. Then, louder, "Sounds like Madam Jacobs didn't care for her daughter too much, you know, handing her off to her father and then to Genomex. I wouldn't think Jessica would give a flying fu – fig about her mom too much after that. But you really think that when she screaming earlier about her mom needing her to finish she was actually talking about her mother?"

Lexa shrugged. "It's our best lead. But as far as Jessica goes, we don't really know what kind of condition she's in mentally. She never had a psychiatric evaluation before going into Jacobs' program, and as Adam said earlier, the medication she was taking indicates that she's borderline schizophrenic. But my guess is yes, Holly Jacobs is the one pulling her strings, and likely the one behind all the attacks on the psionics in Jacobs' program."

Jesse crossed his arms. "Great. All we need to do now is find Holly."

"That's where the bad news comes in. After Genomex folded, Holly went to work for the Dominion. I remember her name from the manifest list. Herein lies the problem: when Dominion HQ went all kablooey, lady Jacobs disappeared along with hundreds of other scientists, security personnel, etc. No traces. No addresses. Nothing. There hasn't been enough time since then for them to make a misstep that might give us information."

"Maybe not."

The others turned at the sound of David's voice. He had been silent up to this point. "What do you mean?" Brennan asked.

"Well, I'd say Jessica failing to do whatever she planned to do and us capturing her is a pretty big misstep, wouldn't you?"

Katie put down the vials she had been labeling for Adam. "Well, yeah, but what exactly are we supposed to get from it? We can't exactly question her right now. Adam said that the reaction to the phenobarbital will probably keep her unconscious for a few days. We don't know when or if she'll wake up once we get the duridexol back in her system."

"But think about it," David said, walking up to Jessica's bedside. I went into Brennan's consciousness earlier. Why couldn't I do the same here?"

"Oh, no," Adam protested. "Last time you went in before I could give adequate protest. I know you're Jesse's friend and all, but based on what he's told me, and the records I've read, you don't yet have the type of control or experience needed for something like this."

"But I've already done it. I went into Brennan's mind, and we got the information we needed and everything was fine."

"I'm still against it. Brennan's mind is perfectly stable. Jessica's is not. There's no telling what might happen if you go in there." The tension in both Adam and David's voice was obvious. Adam's voice was even rising in volume to match David's.

"I've worked with her before. I have a shield that I can put up so she can't do anything to me."

"Exactly, you have a shield against her. In order to make contact with her, you're going to have to lower or destroy that shield. We have no idea what might happen then!"

"We have to try something! Whoever is after us is attacking the other mutants in the program again, even though they're going into the underground. There's a mole or a traitor out there somewhere!"

The others heard Lexa's sharp intake of breath. "How did you know that? I haven't had a chance to tell you guys about that yet."

"Sorry about that, Lexa," David said, not dropping his gaze from Adam. "The telepathic contact hasn't faded yet."

"But it's been almost three hours. I thought you said it would go away in an hour."

"Usually, it does. Sometimes it takes longer."

"This is exactly why you shouldn't try this, David," Adam pointed out. "Even you don't know the scope and limitations of your abilities."

"What if he had an anchor?"

Adam and David stopped glowering at each other when they heard the voice coming from the corner of the room.

"What do you mean, Jesse?" Shalimar asked.

"I mean…what if David had an anchor. Someone who could keep him grounded and help pull him out if necessary."

Adam scratched the side of his head. "Well, I guess I could give the okay if that were the case. But there aren't exactly many psionics in the area with that kind of training. It takes months to build up that kind of strength. In fact, the only psionics I know who have that kind of training work for the Dominion. And as Lexa said, we don't exactly have their phone number on speed dial."

"I could do it," Jesse said evenly

The room was silent.

Finally, Adam spoke. "Look, Jesse, I know you want to help, and I know you were with David in Brennan's mind. But those were extenuating circumstances. You knew the minds of all those involved, and even then it was a tremendously risky thing to do. But to do it for Jessica? You don't have that training, you don't have the experience, and you're not a psionic."

"I've been trained. Why else do you think I encouraged David to enter Brennan's mind in the first place? And why I went with him? I knew I could pull him out if I needed to."

Shalimar's brow furrowed and she hesitated in confusion. "But, Jesse, where would you get that kind of training? And when? Hell, from who?"

Jesse said nothing, but he shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably.

Adam walked around the biobed and put a hand on Jesse's shoulder. Jesse flinched and avoided his mentor's gaze. "Jesse," he said squarely. "What do you mean you're trained?"