Fic: Deja Vu - Chapter Seven
Jensen is half way across the dusty red sand in between the mountains that house the Bio Domes and the lava tunnels on the far side of the Pyramid mine, when Venusville blows up. He staggers forward and almost loses his footing, but Jay’s hand shoots out to press against his hip, helping him stay upright.
There are twelve of them making their way across the expanse of rocky red dirt to the lava tunnels and Jensen hopes that the explosion is enough of a distraction that no-one looking down from the Upper Dome notices their passage. Their suits are painted rusty red for camouflage and there’s enough of a dust storm to cut visibility substantially, but thankfully not enough of a storm to make being outside dangerous. The wind is fairly gentle and the dust levels are well within the limits that their space suits can cope with.
Dust storms are a fact of life on Mars and they range from fairly benign storms like the one today to planet-wide dust hurricanes. There are frequent dust devils on Mars too, small swirling dervishes that are visible from the upper and middle levels of the Dome on a daily basis. The tornados are less frequent, but they can be terrifying. The small ones-no more than a mile high-aren’t so bad, but the big ones, the ones that tower 12 miles into the sky; when they hit the Dome it’s like something out of the Badlands on Earth.
Genevieve Cortese, who’s leading the assault team, holds up a hand and the troop comes to a halt. They’re walking single file to hide their numbers and Jensen watches from his place at second-from-the-rear as a small dust devil whirls across their path. A second one follows, just a little up ahead and Gen cocks her head to one side. She’s a small dark-haired woman with two keratin lumps on her forehead, and her toes are all fused together and encased in keratin too. Add in her small tail and it’s easy to see why people with her set of mutations are nicknamed demons.
Gen is a close friend of Jared’s and growing up she and all her demon friends, siblings and cousins spent so much time following Jared around that it earned him the nickname the Boyking. Jensen understands it completely. There’s something about Jared that makes people want to be in his orbit; people just gravitate to his warm, friendly nature. Jensen had initially thought that Jared and Gen were an item and he can admit now, he’d been a little bit jealous. Jared had laughed when Jensen had referred to her as his girlfriend and told him very solemnly that Jared and Jen was far more likely than Jared and Gen, which had confused the hell out of Jensen until Jared had rolled his eyes and explained that while he was pansexual like most mutants, he tended to lean toward partners with a penis because he really, really liked being fucked.
Jensen grins to himself behind his face mask. Jared had disappeared with a gaggle of demon friends after making that pronouncement and left Jensen achingly hard and not entirely sure whether Jared was interested in him specifically or not. Several weeks of flirting and innuendo had followed until, finally, high on adrenalin after a well-executed job, Jensen had backed Jared against a wall and kissed the living daylights out of him. Jared had told him that it was about damn time and then he’d-
Behind him, Jared clears his throat and says, very quietly, “Dude. You’re broadcasting.”
There’s a snigger from somewhere up ahead and Jensen sighs and tries to shore up his mental defences. Goddamn psychics.
The party arrives at the entrance to the lava tunnel and Gen’s second-in-command, Ty Olssen, keys in the code to slide back the fake rock fascia and then opens the reinforced steel airlock door and ushers everyone into the sally port.
Once everyone is inside, Ty pulls a hand-held dustbuster out of his pack and cleans up every trace of dust clinging to the outside of everyone’s suits and packs, and whatever dust had blown inside when the door was open.
Breathing in Martian dust is not good. It’s a very fine red powder and contains perchlorates, gypsum, silicates, turbinium and virosuspulvis all of which can make a person sick or dead or trigger genetic mutations.
Once every trace of the red dust is gone, everyone takes off their space suit and Ty opens the airlock on the other side of the sally port. Each member of the party makes their way past him and into the tunnel beyond.
“Jensen,” Ty nods at Jensen as he passes. “You look younger and way cuter without the beard,” he eyes the grey overalls with the Morgan Corp logo on the top pocket that Jensen is wearing and grins. “Oh baby, you can come fix my air filters any time.”
Jensen rolls his eyes. Ty is a big bear of a man and they’d played around some when Jensen had first been trying to find a way into the MRA. Of course, like most of the big, well-built men who Jensen has fooled around with, he’d taken one look at Jensen’s wide green eyes and full plush lips and assumed that Jensen would bottom. Once they’d cleared up that misunderstanding, it was obvious they weren’t going to be compatible, but they managed to stay good friends.
“Never gonna happen, Ty,” Jensen says, and Jared glares at the man until he holds his hands up in apologetic surrender.
“All right, people,” Gen says. “Let’s do this!”
They all put on their facemasks, un-holster their weapons, and begin the descent into the mine.
The Pyramid mine is one mile deep and covers a total area of around 2,000 acres. There are two main tunnels, each one five miles long and ten yards wide, and those tunnels are connected by twenty-four cross-tunnels with numerous cavernous offshoots all over the place.
The MRA has created its own access tunnel into an old abandoned offshoot of the mine where the turbinium has all been extracted.
Once they’re in, they edge carefully into main tunnel number one and follow the sound of hydraulic excavators until they come to the current extraction site.
“Nobody move!” Ty bellows. “We’re here to take possession of this mine for the MRA!”
In the chaos that follows, Jensen and Jared slip away. They jog down the hollowed-rock tunnel, Jared in the lead, and the sound of their footfalls is completely obscured by the deafening thrum of the big drills and hydraulic excavators and by all the gunfire.
Jensen keeps his eyes focused on the long grey-clad legs jogging ahead of him and is hit by a sudden sense of déjà vu. He ducks reflexively, expecting bullets to start zinging into the rock walls beside him and then swallows hard when Jared reaches up and yanks the filter cover off the air duct in the tunnel’s ceiling. Jared hauls himself up into the duct space and Jensen watches his strength appreciatively. Still, this is where it all went wrong last time, and when Jay reaches a hand down to pull him up Jensen can’t help looking around furtively before he takes it. His hand aches in memory, but there is no bullet this time, no security personnel forcing him to his knees at gunpoint. With Jared’s help Jensen drags himself into the air duct and then they check the schematics before starting the long crawl toward the Middle Dome’s maintenance workshop.
They make good time and arrive above the workshop after only an hour of crawling through the duct space. Jensen sits and waits while Jared does his thing; well…one of his things, anyway. He has many things that he does, some of them a lot of fun, like that thing he does with his tongue where-
“Dude!” Jared hisses, voice soft but clearly irritated. “Not helping. I’m trying to focus.”
Jared is currently reading the minds of everyone down in the workshop; learning who they are and what they know and getting a feel for their minds so they’ll be easier to manipulate later. There’s not much for Jensen to do but watch their six as Jared leans down over the air vent and concentrates. Jensen does his best not to let his mind wander to places that might break that concentration.
“Okay,” Jared says eventually. “No mutants or psychics down there. The co-ordinator is called Chandra and she just sent the last team of engineers out on a job, so now is a good time to go down.”
The fewer people Jared has to manipulate, the better. He really can’t do more than four at a time and manipulating that many people in one hit really takes it out of him.
Between them, they remove the cover of the air duct and then Jared swings himself down into the workshop below, his bulging shoulder muscles visible, even through the thick fabric of his overalls. He hangs for a moment and then drops as lightly as a cat onto the floor below. Jensen’s drop isn’t quite as controlled, the four inch height difference between them making a difference.
Jared smiles at him. “Follow my lead,” he murmurs, before straightening and heading into the workshop’s small office.
Jensen follows him and watches as the co-ordinator’s face registers surprise and alarm, before smoothing into blankness and then, at last, recognition.
“Sam, right?” she says.
Jared grins, wide and goofy. “You finally remembered! That’s a lot better than New Guy,” he leans forward and smiles conspiratorially and Jensen almost laughs at the way Chandra melts under his gaze. “You got a job for us?” he asks.
“Not right now,” Chandra shakes her head regretfully.
“Really?” Jared gives her the puppy dog eyes. He looks so sad that Chandra logs into the maintenance system again, just to have another look for service calls. There aren’t any, but Jared manipulates her mind into believing that she can see a new maintenance call for an air filtration system in the Upper Dome. He then puts her into a trance while he creates a work order that gives them permission to enter the municipal area of the Upper Dome, where all of the utility departments are situated, as well as the Courthouse, the head office of Morgan Corp, the Mars Intelligence Agency and the Ambassador’s residence. He also creates a couple of new ID badges, one for Sam Campbell and one for Alec McDowell.
Jared leans down and whispers in Chandra’s ear, “When I snap my fingers, you’ll wake up. You won’t remember seeing me or my partner.”
She nods vaguely, her expression vacant.
They head out into the hallway and Jared turns and snaps his fingers. Chandra blinks and begins to stir and they hurry away.
“You and your Jedi mind tricks,” Jensen snorts when they’re well away. “One day you’re gonna get the opportunity to say ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for’ and it’s gonna be awesome.”
Jared rolls his eyes. “You and your ancient movies. Oh, hey, did you see they’re doing a holo re-make of the Star Wars movies?”
“Yeah,” Jensen says sourly. “No live actors, all digital imaging. Sacrilege,” he holds a hand out and stops Jared. “Jay… I can take it from here by myself, if you want.”
Jared’s eyes narrow. “You’re kidding.”
Jensen shakes his head. “It’s gonna be dangerous and there’s a really high possibility that we won’t come back from this-”
“I know you’re just trying to protect me,” Jared interrupts, “but don’t.” He bites at his bottom lip. “If you don’t come back from this, I don’t want to either. I couldn’t take losing you again.”
Jensen’s expression is unreadable, but he nods. “Okay then. Let’s go and meet Chris.”
Jensen stares at the front door of apartment 306, Residential Block D, North East Corridor, all too aware that this could go very wrong. He steels himself, takes a slow deep breath, and knocks on the door.
The man who opens it is stockier than Jensen remembers him. His hair is darker and it’s longer too, almost shoulder length. His eyes widen and his mouth goes completely slack, as if he’s just seen a ghost; which isn’t exactly far from the truth.
“Hey, Chris,” Jensen says. “It’s been a while.”
Chris’s eyes flick from Jensen to Jared and back again.
“Guess you better come in,” he says, and his voice twangs just the way Jensen remembers it.
He and Jared step through the door when Chris holds it wide for them and there’s a moment’s silence once the door is shut.
Chris rubs a hand over his chin and then says, “Sonofabitch. They said you’d been killed in the line of duty, fighting the Rebels,” his gaze flicks to Jared again.
Jared nods almost imperceptibly and it’s the go-ahead Jensen’s been looking for.
“Nope,” he says. “Reports of my death were a little exaggerated. But it’s a long story; you mind if we sit down?”
Chris’s apartment has three rooms; a living room/kitchen, a bathroom/laundry and a bedroom. He leads them further into the living room and directs them to a couple of cushion-seats, before filling a brazier with coals and lighting it. “Coffee?” he says, but he doesn’t wait for Jensen’s affirmative answer before getting a stone mortar and pestle down from a cupboard and beginning to grind some spicy cinnamon Martian coffee.
Jensen holds his hand out for the mortar and pestle and Chris gives it to him to grind, while he fills a long-necked jebena with water and puts three finjal onto a tray.
Chris finally sits. He takes the ground coffee from Jensen and puts it on to brew.
“You still smoke?” Chris asks Jensen. “I can get the hookah out?”
Jensen stills him with a hand to his arm. “This isn’t really a social visit, Chris,” he says.
Chris nods. “When Mama said you were back, I thought… but then you didn’t visit and I heard on the grapevine that you were working for the Agency,” he shakes his head. “I couldn’t believe it. After everything….” he trails off. “But then I thought, maybe they turned you, down on Earth,” he shrugs. “And then I heard you were some kind of mole, tryin’a take down the MRA and,” Chris runs a hand over his face. “I think I hated you then.”
“I was working for the Agency,” Jensen confirms. “But I wasn’t their double agent; I was the MRA’s. It wasn’t the MRA I was trying to take down, Chris; it was Morgan Corp.”
Chris’s face morphs from dejected to triumphant. “I knew it!” he crows. “I fuckin’ knew it! No way my boy Jensen Ackles went darkside.”
The coffee begins to bubble and Chris pours it out.
“Barakah Bashad,” he says.
“Shukriya,” Jensen and Jared respond, as they pick up their cups.
Chris inclines his head toward Jared. “Who’s the yeti?”
“My boyfriend, Jared.”
Sorrow flashes briefly across Chris’s face, but he schools his expression quickly into a friendly smile.
“I got a boyfriend too,” he says. “Steve. He’s a musician; lives down in the Lower Dome.”
Jensen fiddles with his cup. “That’s great,” he looks up and meets Chris’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Chris. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone on Mars when I was at boarding school and when I got back here, I wanted to come and see you, I did. But I couldn’t risk it. They had to think I was completely reformed and-”
Chris cuts him off. “I get it, Jen, I do. It’s okay.” he clears his throat. “So what’s really going on in Venusville? They said on the Holo that you guys cut off the air and killed everyone before blowing the place up, but no-one believes it.”
Between them, Jared and Jensen explain what’s happening and what they’re trying to do and then Jensen explains what he needs from Chris.
Alan Ackles accepted the position of Ambassador to Mars when Jensen was seven years old. Before that, Jensen’s father had been an Emissary for the Office of the President of the Unified Territories and he’d hardly ever been home, because his job involved frequent trips around the Earth, as well as to Earth’s Orbital colonies and the Colonies on Mars and Titan. It was too painful for him to stay at home, the staff would say. Amelia Ackles had been the love of his life and losing her to cancer when Jensen was just a baby had left a deep wound in Alan’s soul.
Jensen didn’t remember his mother. There was a huge painting of her that hung in the foyer of their house and he had a file on his i-band that contained a whole bunch of holograph images of her, but to him she was just the ghost that kept his father away.
In truth, Jensen didn’t know his father all that well either. He’d been raised by the household staff and secretly he thought of the housekeeper, Kim, as his mother; she was the one who soothed his nightmares; the one he ran to with his skinned knees; the one to whom he told his heartaches and triumphs. Kim Rhodes was part Martian and she was the only one of the staff who came with them when they moved to Mars. She was the one who told him stories of his parents in their younger years, how happy they’d been, told him that he reminded his father too much of his mother, that looking at him made his father sad. She also told him tales of growing up on Mars and when they landed, it felt a little to Jensen like coming home.
Jensen quickly became close to the Martian staff, and Chef Kane’s son Chris, who was only a year older than Jensen, soon became his best friend. His father disapproved, of course, but Alan worked such long hours that he could do little except frown at Jensen and lecture his son about the perils of fraternizing with those of a lower class. His father’s attitude made Jensen sick; so-called lower class people had brought him up, taught him right from wrong and been there for him in ways his father never had.
Jensen was forbidden to leave the Ambassador’s residence without half a dozen security guards, so he and Chris spent their spare time exploring the residence and its grounds at length. One day, when they’d been messing around in the root cellar, they’d found a hidden door which led to an underground passageway. The passage had come out at a utility hole cover in Melrose Laneway, where the Upper Dome’s most exclusive tailors and fashion houses had their boutiques. Chris was keen to introduce Jensen to the Middle and Lower Domes and Jensen immediately recognized the disparity between the small number of very wealthy people in the Upper Dome and the vast numbers of poor people in the Lower Dome. In the Upper Dome, there were never food or water shortages, there was never air rationing and there were never power brownouts, all of which happened regularly in the lower domes. Jensen was outraged by some of the injustices he saw and by the corruption and abuses of power he witnessed. He and Chris heard rumblings of a rebel group, but there were no obvious, overt signs of rebellion.
At fourteen, Jensen was forced to attend a State Dinner with his father. He made some pointed comments to the Chief Security Officer about the lack of access to justice in the lower domes and the Ambassador had been both embarrassed and furious with his son. He threatened to send Jensen to Boarding School on Earth, if he didn’t learn to butt out of complicated things that were beyond his understanding.
Jensen stopped speaking to his father.
The final straw for the Ambassador, though, was finding Jensen and Chris kissing.
Earth was undeniably homophobic; a lot of religious leaders preached that the rapidly worsening climate was God’s punishment for the twenty-first century’s increased acceptance of sinful lifestyles, claiming that the storms and planetary upheavals started at around the same time that same-sex marriage started to be widely allowed, and that was proof. Enough people believed them for anti-discrimination laws to be pushed back and for many gay people to retreat into the closet. According to the Mars Mission manifesto, which was rigorously adhered to in the Upper Dome, sexual relations were to be between a man and a woman for the purposes of growing the colony.
Jensen hadn’t thought too much about it; he wasn’t interested in girls but he figured it was something that would come with time. He was only fourteen, after all. Visiting the Lower Dome and seeing same-sex couples kissing and holding hands had finally allowed Jensen to understand the giddy feelings of anticipation and the swooping excitement in his tummy whenever he saw Chris. Chris said there was no point in not being yourself when you were around psychics most of the time. He said that psychics always knew who you were and what was inside of you and that mutants knew what mattered about a person and what didn’t. To Jensen, sexuality was just another thing that the ruling class were wrong about, another way they controlled people and denied them their rights. When he realized that his feelings for Chris were returned, he acted on it and they were soon making out as often as they could and even, occasionally, being brave enough to shower together so that they could touch each other.
When Jensen’s father caught them in a fairly tame make out session, he immediately put Jensen on the next flight back to Earth and fired Chris. Chris, at fifteen was working as Apprentice Chef to his mother and was pretty much set for life as a privileged member of Household Staff for a VIP Upper Dome family. After the Ambassador fired him, Chris’s mama got him a job working at one of the classier diners in the Spaceport, but he’d paid a heavy price for his relationship with Jensen.
Jensen hopes he won’t pay an even heavier price.
Chris should be safe; all he’s given Jensen is information; confirmation that the secret passageway from the root cellar in the Ambassador’s residence out into town is still there. Felicia and Chad have already checked the building’s schematics online and it doesn’t show. It really does appear to be a bolt hole, only known about by the Ambassador and their family. And Chris and his younger sister.
Their IDs and the work-order get Jared and Jensen into the service personnel elevator and allow them to access the Upper Dome. They keep their heads low and their eyes on their tool boxes and no-one pays them any attention. Once they’re in the Upper Dome, it’s a different story. There are security checks on every corner and Jared has his hands full mind-whammying security officers into believing that they don’t recognize either of them. By the time they make it to the laneway where the escape tunnel comes up, Jared is sweating hard and Jensen is relieved when they’re able to lift up the utility hole cover and climb down into the underground tunnel, out of reach of prying eyes.
They open their toolboxes and assemble their guns as soon as they’re underground and then move cautiously down the tunnel with their weapons drawn until they get to the trap door into the root cellar. Jared looks at Jensen and he nods. Jared pushes up the trap door, while Jensen covers him, but the root cellar is dark and quiet and as they make their way inside it appears they’ve gotten into the Ambassador’s residence completely undetected. From here, they’ll grab hold of Jensen’s father and force him to upload diplomatic protocols onto their i-bands, before leaving him tied up and gagged. The next step is for Jensen to change into an expensive Upper Dome suit and bluff his way into Morgan Corp Headquarters as a member of the embassy staff, with Jared in tow as a maintenance tech, who he has brought to help him with a computer problem.
They make their way up the root cellar’s stairs and into the kitchen and Jared gasps. The kitchen is four times the size of their entire yali and is ornately decorated with granite and marble shipped from Earth and large chrome appliances. There’s a giant well-stocked walk-in pantry and when he sees it, Jared murmurs, “Holy shit,” under his breath.
Jensen feels all his old shame come rushing back. “I know, right?” he says. “It’s obscene.”
Jared harrumphs. “I can’t believe you gave all this up to live in an underground hole with me.”
“We don’t go hungry, Jay,” Jensen says. “And there are other things I’m hungry for that I could never get in this world. Besides, it really is obscene that some people have so much when some people have so little.”
They’re only talking quietly, but Jensen didn’t really expect to walk through Chef Kane’s kitchen undetected. Even so, her quiet gasp surprises him. He smiles at her and puts a finger to his lips. She looks uneasily at his gun, but he shakes his head and hopes she understands that he’s not here to hurt anyone. She nods and retreats to her quarters which are just off the kitchen. Chef Kane is on duty twenty-four hours a day and she has to be readily at hand in case anyone rings the bell wanting food or beverages.
The mansion is every bit as grandiose as Jensen remembers it; large spacious rooms with ornate chandeliers, tastefully decorated with stylish wooden furniture from Earth and carefully-selected works of art-paintings, tapestries and sculptures. They see a houseboy in one hallway and a maid in one of the living areas, but beyond startling briefly, both are content to simply ignore them. Jensen wonders if Chris gave his mama a heads up or if the staff here are simply pro-rebellion.
They find the Ambassador in his study, sitting at his desk chair, which is spun around facing the door.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Alan says, gesturing at the CCTV monitor behind him. “After I sent you to Earth, I heard from somebody that you’d been seen down in the Lower Dome so I figured there must be a secret way out of here that had been forgotten about. I had the place searched and when we found it, I had a security system put in.”
Jensen nods. “I thought this was all too easy. If I turn around, will Morgan’s goons be behind me, waiting to put a bullet in me?”
Alan’s expression is pained. “No-one except me and my staff know that you’re here,” he says.
Jensen is surprised and it must show on his face because Alan harrumphs and looks a little disgruntled. “I suppose I deserve that,” he says. “Look, I know we haven’t been on the best of terms, but I don’t want you dead, son.”
Jared gives Jensen an ‘I told you so,’ look and a brief nod to let Jensen know that his dad is being truthful. The Ambassador sees the look that passes between them and his lips quirk in a sad smile. “I can’t say I understand it, but you’re old enough now to know your own mind,” he rubs at the back of his neck in a gesture that Jensen does himself when he’s feeling insecure. “It took me until you came back to Mars as an adult to figure out that you were the one dragging Chris into trouble back when you were kids, not the other way around,” he looks up at Jensen and smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his expression almost proud. “A strong-willed trouble-maker,” he says. “Just like your mother.”
“Right,” Jensen scoffs. “That’s why you got Morgan to have me turned into a real man, somebody more like the son you always wanted.”
Alan shakes his head. “They were going to kill you, Jensen. They only way I could think of to save your life was to suggest a Ghost persona that Morgan may just believe I’d consider a favour; and one that was sufficiently amusing to him too. I probably don’t have to tell you how delighted he was by the prospect of the sophisticated, highly educated Jensen Ackles wearing plaid, working construction and thinking he hadn’t even managed to finish High School.”
Jensen’s hackles rise. “There’s nothing wrong with construction work,” he says. “It’s an honest trade. And education is a privilege that not everybody has, so-”
Alan holds up a hand to stop Jensen’s tirade. “I know,” he says. “That was Morgan’s opinion, not mine.”
Jensen isn’t quite ready to stop glaring. He truly wants to believe that he has his father’s love and support, but he has over a decade of anger and resentment to contend with.
“Yeah, well,” he sneers. “Morgan fucked up didn’t he? Implanting someone against their natural orientation can cause the implant to fail. Bet you didn’t know that, huh?”
Alan raises an eyebrow. “Of course I did, Jensen. I was counting on it.”
Jensen feels his face go slack and he’s pretty sure that his eyebrows just disappeared into his hairline too.
“You…were?” he says. It comes out a lot more ‘little boy lost’ than he’d intended.
His father frowns. “And I say again, they were going to kill you. I did what I could on short notice to save your life and give you a chance to come back to yourself in time.”
“What about the trigger?” Jared speaks for the first time.
Alan looks puzzled and asks Jared what he’s talking about. Jared explains that Jensen had been programmed to kill any man he had sex with.”
“Huh,” Alan says, stroking his chin. “Maybe it was some sort of fail safe? You know, if the Ghosting failed enough for you to remember your natural orientation and act on it, then you’d end up arrested for murder.” He rubs a tired hand over his eyes. “And speaking of arrests, there are warrants out for the pair of you. The security camera in the hotel caught you,” he nods at Jared, “gunning down the security team sent to retrieve my son and it caught you, Jensen, shooting Michelle Borth.”
“Who?” Jensen frowns.
“The woman you shot point blank.”
“Carmen? You’re telling me her real name was Michelle?”
Alan shrugs. “That’s not really important right now. What’s important is the fact that you are both wanted for murder and terrorism. Your being here right now is beyond foolhardy. So why are you here?”
Alan is saddened, but not surprised, to learn that Morgan Corp was behind the Venusville deaths. Jensen doesn’t give his dad the full truth, doesn’t tell him that in fact the people of Venusville are safe in the MRA’s New Dome, because he isn’t completely sure yet that his dad can be trusted.
But the Ambassador’s reaction does seem very genuine. He slumps in his seat and shakes his head. “I did some digging around when there was that incident in Morganville. People were saying that Morgan ordered the area cut off from the air supply, but I couldn’t find any proof.”
“We have proof,” Jensen says. “Of what happened in Morganville, of what happened in Venusville and some other atrocities too. We just need to get into the satellite control room so that we can broadcast the proof to Earth. We figure, we do that, no way will the President be able to keep ignoring what’s going on here.”
Jensen explains the way they plan to get into the satellite control room and Alan shakes his head. “You need authorisation from Morgan himself to get into that room. You’ll never get near it,” he fiddles with the cuff of his shirt. “However,” he says, “I have authorisation to enter the satellite control room. If I take you both with me, I have every confidence that I can bully the staff into letting me take my maintenance staff with me. They’ll report it to Morgan, of course, who’ll immediately figure out who you are and come after you, but it should buy you enough time to broadcast your files to Earth.”
Jensen looks at Jared, who nods, indicating that his father is telling the truth.
“Okay,” Jensen says decisively, “let’s do it.”
Alan huffs out a breath. “You realize that this is probably a suicide mission? Once we’re in that room the only way out is the way we came in. Morgan’s troops will be waiting there to arrest us all for treason. And worse in your case.”
Jensen is counting on Jared to be able to persuade the security staff outside the satellite control room that they didn’t see anyone, but he doesn’t want to let his dad know that Jared has psychic abilities until he’s absolutely sure he can trust him.
“I don’t wanna die, Dad,” he says. “Neither of us do. But Morgan has to be stopped.”
He father looks him in the eye for a very long time and then nods. “Okay,” he echoes Jensen’s earlier words. “Let’s do it.”
Jensen, his father and Jared step through the heavy steel front door of the Ambassador’s residence and into a street that is far too quiet. It sets Jensen’s nerves tingling and has him reaching for his gun even before Jared cocks his head to one side and stiffens.
By the time several dozen armed security officers have stepped out of the shadows and trained their weapons on the trio, Jensen already has his gun pushed against his father’s spine.
“Put down your weapons and lay on the ground,” says the lead officer.
Jensen grips his father’s arm and jams the barrel of his gun even harder into his back. “Back away slowly,” he says, “and the Ambassador will stay safe.”
He’s bluffing, obviously. He may not trust his father entirely, but his dad didn’t turn them into the Agency; Jensen knows genuine surprise when he sees it. Jensen isn’t going to shoot his father; he just hopes Morgan’s guys don’t call his bluff.
“Put down your weapons,” the officer repeats. “Or we will shoot.”
Jensen is tucked in behind his father and there’s no angle that a sharpshooter can get him from. Jared, however, is beside him, out in the open, and probably has a sniper rifle pointed at his chest right now; unlike their movie counterparts, real snipers don’t use red dots to advertise the fact that they’re poised to kill you.
Jensen licks at his lips. “The President ain’t gonna like it if his Ambassador gets his spine blown out, so I suggest you back away now.”
“Please,” Alan says. “My son’s not well. The Ghost program broke his mind. He will kill me.”
The officer puts a hand to his earpiece and after a moment Jensen lip reads a ‘Yes, sir’.
Jared lowers his head and murmurs, “Morgan’s on his way. And some guy called Sterling Brown’s coming too.”
Alan’s intake of breath is sharp and Jensen really hopes he’s genuinely on the level about being on their side, because Jared just let Alan know that he’s psychic and that’s knowledge Jensen would rather keep from their enemies.
Despite the Upper Dome being kept at a pleasant, comfortable temperature, Jensen can feel sweat running down his spine. Morgan could give the order to shoot Jared at any moment and Jensen isn’t entirely convinced he wouldn’t be prepared to gun down the Ambassador to get to Jensen.
When Morgan finally appears, Gordon is walking beside him.
And okay, Jensen had figured out that Gordon was an Agency employee, but it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might be here on Mars and not on Earth.
Morgan is dressed in a charcoal grey silk suit, with an open-necked white shirt. His hair is artfully tousled and his salt-and-pepper beard is neatly trimmed. His wrists are weighed down by heavy silver bracelets, a hefty old-fashioned wristwatch, also silver, and he’s wearing a chunky ring on every finger.
His liquid brown eyes roam over both Jared and Jensen and Jensen thinks (not for the first time) that Morgan would have very sexy bedroom eyes if it wasn’t for the expression in them; there isn’t any. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then Morgan doesn’t have one.
“Two choices,” Morgan says. “One: I give the order and my man here shoots all three of you, right here, right now.”
Alan starts to protest but Morgan shushes him. “You’re an acceptable loss, Alan,” he says. “Collateral damage. Unfortunate, but there you go.” He turns back to Jensen. “Choice two: You and your Boy Toy give yourselves up and your father lives,” he pauses and smiles genially at Jensen. “You and the Yeti will both die, of course, but then you knew this was a suicide mission, didn’t you?” Morgan looks at his watch. “You have…thirty seconds to decide.”
Jared immediately holds his hands up in surrender and Jensen relaxes a little. Whatever Jared’s been able to pick up from the minds around them, he must feel confident that they’ve still got options, even if they give themselves up.
Jensen sets his gun down and steps away from his father, who edges back into the house. Jensen raises his arms slowly, palms out.
Morgan smiles, or at least sneers and bares his teeth. He tells them to get down on their knees and put their hands behind their heads and then nods at Gordon who steps forward, cracking his knuckles and grinning nastily.
“Sometimes my job sucks,” Gordon, or Sterling, Jensen supposes, says. “Like that time I had to hang out with a fag for six weeks. Shoulda known when I couldn’t get you to look twice at a set of tits. Still, sometimes the job has compensations.” Jensen sees the punch coming, but the best he can do is move enough to make it a painful glancing blow rather than a knockout punch. Gordon’s follow up sends him sprawling to the ground and the kick to his stomach has him curling in on himself.
“Enough,” Morgan says, tone bored.
Sterling turns to Jared. “What sort of a freak are you?”
Jared is hunched over and doing the wide-eyed puppy dog thing. It makes him look small and vulnerable and nothing at all like the mountain of muscle and fury that gunned down half a dozen of Morgan’s elite security team.
“I got an extra toe on my left foot,” Jared says. Which is true. “And I got a twelve inch cock.” Which is…not quite true.
Sterling raises an eyebrow and whistles, low and faux-impressed. He turns to Jensen, who has managed to get back up on his knees. “He fuck you good with that monster mutant cock, Fag-boy?”
He doesn’t, that’s not how it is between them, but Jensen lets his smile turn dirty, like he’s remembering being ridden hard and put away wet. “Why?” he says to Sterling. “You jealous?”
It earns him another punch, but at least it keeps Sterling’s attention on him and away from Jared.
“You can play later, Brown,” Morgan chides. “Search them.”
Jensen leans into Sterling’s touch and moans like it’s turning him on to have the man’s hands on him. He’s hoping to unsettle him enough that he only does a perfunctory search, but unfortunately Sterling is a professional and finds the data chip that Jensen had in the back pocket of his overalls, as well as the backup sewn into the cuff of the overalls. He finds the two that Jared has secreted in his clothing as well, and the one in his hair.
Morgan’s smile is gloating as Sterling hands him the five chips. He drops each of them in turn to the floor and grinds them all beneath the heel of his boot.
“Bring them,” he says to Sterling, nodding at Jared and Jensen.
<
| NEXT>>
Return to MasterPost
There are twelve of them making their way across the expanse of rocky red dirt to the lava tunnels and Jensen hopes that the explosion is enough of a distraction that no-one looking down from the Upper Dome notices their passage. Their suits are painted rusty red for camouflage and there’s enough of a dust storm to cut visibility substantially, but thankfully not enough of a storm to make being outside dangerous. The wind is fairly gentle and the dust levels are well within the limits that their space suits can cope with.
Dust storms are a fact of life on Mars and they range from fairly benign storms like the one today to planet-wide dust hurricanes. There are frequent dust devils on Mars too, small swirling dervishes that are visible from the upper and middle levels of the Dome on a daily basis. The tornados are less frequent, but they can be terrifying. The small ones-no more than a mile high-aren’t so bad, but the big ones, the ones that tower 12 miles into the sky; when they hit the Dome it’s like something out of the Badlands on Earth.
Genevieve Cortese, who’s leading the assault team, holds up a hand and the troop comes to a halt. They’re walking single file to hide their numbers and Jensen watches from his place at second-from-the-rear as a small dust devil whirls across their path. A second one follows, just a little up ahead and Gen cocks her head to one side. She’s a small dark-haired woman with two keratin lumps on her forehead, and her toes are all fused together and encased in keratin too. Add in her small tail and it’s easy to see why people with her set of mutations are nicknamed demons.
Gen is a close friend of Jared’s and growing up she and all her demon friends, siblings and cousins spent so much time following Jared around that it earned him the nickname the Boyking. Jensen understands it completely. There’s something about Jared that makes people want to be in his orbit; people just gravitate to his warm, friendly nature. Jensen had initially thought that Jared and Gen were an item and he can admit now, he’d been a little bit jealous. Jared had laughed when Jensen had referred to her as his girlfriend and told him very solemnly that Jared and Jen was far more likely than Jared and Gen, which had confused the hell out of Jensen until Jared had rolled his eyes and explained that while he was pansexual like most mutants, he tended to lean toward partners with a penis because he really, really liked being fucked.
Jensen grins to himself behind his face mask. Jared had disappeared with a gaggle of demon friends after making that pronouncement and left Jensen achingly hard and not entirely sure whether Jared was interested in him specifically or not. Several weeks of flirting and innuendo had followed until, finally, high on adrenalin after a well-executed job, Jensen had backed Jared against a wall and kissed the living daylights out of him. Jared had told him that it was about damn time and then he’d-
Behind him, Jared clears his throat and says, very quietly, “Dude. You’re broadcasting.”
There’s a snigger from somewhere up ahead and Jensen sighs and tries to shore up his mental defences. Goddamn psychics.
The party arrives at the entrance to the lava tunnel and Gen’s second-in-command, Ty Olssen, keys in the code to slide back the fake rock fascia and then opens the reinforced steel airlock door and ushers everyone into the sally port.
Once everyone is inside, Ty pulls a hand-held dustbuster out of his pack and cleans up every trace of dust clinging to the outside of everyone’s suits and packs, and whatever dust had blown inside when the door was open.
Breathing in Martian dust is not good. It’s a very fine red powder and contains perchlorates, gypsum, silicates, turbinium and virosuspulvis all of which can make a person sick or dead or trigger genetic mutations.
Once every trace of the red dust is gone, everyone takes off their space suit and Ty opens the airlock on the other side of the sally port. Each member of the party makes their way past him and into the tunnel beyond.
“Jensen,” Ty nods at Jensen as he passes. “You look younger and way cuter without the beard,” he eyes the grey overalls with the Morgan Corp logo on the top pocket that Jensen is wearing and grins. “Oh baby, you can come fix my air filters any time.”
Jensen rolls his eyes. Ty is a big bear of a man and they’d played around some when Jensen had first been trying to find a way into the MRA. Of course, like most of the big, well-built men who Jensen has fooled around with, he’d taken one look at Jensen’s wide green eyes and full plush lips and assumed that Jensen would bottom. Once they’d cleared up that misunderstanding, it was obvious they weren’t going to be compatible, but they managed to stay good friends.
“Never gonna happen, Ty,” Jensen says, and Jared glares at the man until he holds his hands up in apologetic surrender.
“All right, people,” Gen says. “Let’s do this!”
They all put on their facemasks, un-holster their weapons, and begin the descent into the mine.
The Pyramid mine is one mile deep and covers a total area of around 2,000 acres. There are two main tunnels, each one five miles long and ten yards wide, and those tunnels are connected by twenty-four cross-tunnels with numerous cavernous offshoots all over the place.
The MRA has created its own access tunnel into an old abandoned offshoot of the mine where the turbinium has all been extracted.
Once they’re in, they edge carefully into main tunnel number one and follow the sound of hydraulic excavators until they come to the current extraction site.
“Nobody move!” Ty bellows. “We’re here to take possession of this mine for the MRA!”
In the chaos that follows, Jensen and Jared slip away. They jog down the hollowed-rock tunnel, Jared in the lead, and the sound of their footfalls is completely obscured by the deafening thrum of the big drills and hydraulic excavators and by all the gunfire.
Jensen keeps his eyes focused on the long grey-clad legs jogging ahead of him and is hit by a sudden sense of déjà vu. He ducks reflexively, expecting bullets to start zinging into the rock walls beside him and then swallows hard when Jared reaches up and yanks the filter cover off the air duct in the tunnel’s ceiling. Jared hauls himself up into the duct space and Jensen watches his strength appreciatively. Still, this is where it all went wrong last time, and when Jay reaches a hand down to pull him up Jensen can’t help looking around furtively before he takes it. His hand aches in memory, but there is no bullet this time, no security personnel forcing him to his knees at gunpoint. With Jared’s help Jensen drags himself into the air duct and then they check the schematics before starting the long crawl toward the Middle Dome’s maintenance workshop.
They make good time and arrive above the workshop after only an hour of crawling through the duct space. Jensen sits and waits while Jared does his thing; well…one of his things, anyway. He has many things that he does, some of them a lot of fun, like that thing he does with his tongue where-
“Dude!” Jared hisses, voice soft but clearly irritated. “Not helping. I’m trying to focus.”
Jared is currently reading the minds of everyone down in the workshop; learning who they are and what they know and getting a feel for their minds so they’ll be easier to manipulate later. There’s not much for Jensen to do but watch their six as Jared leans down over the air vent and concentrates. Jensen does his best not to let his mind wander to places that might break that concentration.
“Okay,” Jared says eventually. “No mutants or psychics down there. The co-ordinator is called Chandra and she just sent the last team of engineers out on a job, so now is a good time to go down.”
The fewer people Jared has to manipulate, the better. He really can’t do more than four at a time and manipulating that many people in one hit really takes it out of him.
Between them, they remove the cover of the air duct and then Jared swings himself down into the workshop below, his bulging shoulder muscles visible, even through the thick fabric of his overalls. He hangs for a moment and then drops as lightly as a cat onto the floor below. Jensen’s drop isn’t quite as controlled, the four inch height difference between them making a difference.
Jared smiles at him. “Follow my lead,” he murmurs, before straightening and heading into the workshop’s small office.
Jensen follows him and watches as the co-ordinator’s face registers surprise and alarm, before smoothing into blankness and then, at last, recognition.
“Sam, right?” she says.
Jared grins, wide and goofy. “You finally remembered! That’s a lot better than New Guy,” he leans forward and smiles conspiratorially and Jensen almost laughs at the way Chandra melts under his gaze. “You got a job for us?” he asks.
“Not right now,” Chandra shakes her head regretfully.
“Really?” Jared gives her the puppy dog eyes. He looks so sad that Chandra logs into the maintenance system again, just to have another look for service calls. There aren’t any, but Jared manipulates her mind into believing that she can see a new maintenance call for an air filtration system in the Upper Dome. He then puts her into a trance while he creates a work order that gives them permission to enter the municipal area of the Upper Dome, where all of the utility departments are situated, as well as the Courthouse, the head office of Morgan Corp, the Mars Intelligence Agency and the Ambassador’s residence. He also creates a couple of new ID badges, one for Sam Campbell and one for Alec McDowell.
Jared leans down and whispers in Chandra’s ear, “When I snap my fingers, you’ll wake up. You won’t remember seeing me or my partner.”
She nods vaguely, her expression vacant.
They head out into the hallway and Jared turns and snaps his fingers. Chandra blinks and begins to stir and they hurry away.
“You and your Jedi mind tricks,” Jensen snorts when they’re well away. “One day you’re gonna get the opportunity to say ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for’ and it’s gonna be awesome.”
Jared rolls his eyes. “You and your ancient movies. Oh, hey, did you see they’re doing a holo re-make of the Star Wars movies?”
“Yeah,” Jensen says sourly. “No live actors, all digital imaging. Sacrilege,” he holds a hand out and stops Jared. “Jay… I can take it from here by myself, if you want.”
Jared’s eyes narrow. “You’re kidding.”
Jensen shakes his head. “It’s gonna be dangerous and there’s a really high possibility that we won’t come back from this-”
“I know you’re just trying to protect me,” Jared interrupts, “but don’t.” He bites at his bottom lip. “If you don’t come back from this, I don’t want to either. I couldn’t take losing you again.”
Jensen’s expression is unreadable, but he nods. “Okay then. Let’s go and meet Chris.”
Jensen stares at the front door of apartment 306, Residential Block D, North East Corridor, all too aware that this could go very wrong. He steels himself, takes a slow deep breath, and knocks on the door.
The man who opens it is stockier than Jensen remembers him. His hair is darker and it’s longer too, almost shoulder length. His eyes widen and his mouth goes completely slack, as if he’s just seen a ghost; which isn’t exactly far from the truth.
“Hey, Chris,” Jensen says. “It’s been a while.”
Chris’s eyes flick from Jensen to Jared and back again.
“Guess you better come in,” he says, and his voice twangs just the way Jensen remembers it.
He and Jared step through the door when Chris holds it wide for them and there’s a moment’s silence once the door is shut.
Chris rubs a hand over his chin and then says, “Sonofabitch. They said you’d been killed in the line of duty, fighting the Rebels,” his gaze flicks to Jared again.
Jared nods almost imperceptibly and it’s the go-ahead Jensen’s been looking for.
“Nope,” he says. “Reports of my death were a little exaggerated. But it’s a long story; you mind if we sit down?”
Chris’s apartment has three rooms; a living room/kitchen, a bathroom/laundry and a bedroom. He leads them further into the living room and directs them to a couple of cushion-seats, before filling a brazier with coals and lighting it. “Coffee?” he says, but he doesn’t wait for Jensen’s affirmative answer before getting a stone mortar and pestle down from a cupboard and beginning to grind some spicy cinnamon Martian coffee.
Jensen holds his hand out for the mortar and pestle and Chris gives it to him to grind, while he fills a long-necked jebena with water and puts three finjal onto a tray.
Chris finally sits. He takes the ground coffee from Jensen and puts it on to brew.
“You still smoke?” Chris asks Jensen. “I can get the hookah out?”
Jensen stills him with a hand to his arm. “This isn’t really a social visit, Chris,” he says.
Chris nods. “When Mama said you were back, I thought… but then you didn’t visit and I heard on the grapevine that you were working for the Agency,” he shakes his head. “I couldn’t believe it. After everything….” he trails off. “But then I thought, maybe they turned you, down on Earth,” he shrugs. “And then I heard you were some kind of mole, tryin’a take down the MRA and,” Chris runs a hand over his face. “I think I hated you then.”
“I was working for the Agency,” Jensen confirms. “But I wasn’t their double agent; I was the MRA’s. It wasn’t the MRA I was trying to take down, Chris; it was Morgan Corp.”
Chris’s face morphs from dejected to triumphant. “I knew it!” he crows. “I fuckin’ knew it! No way my boy Jensen Ackles went darkside.”
The coffee begins to bubble and Chris pours it out.
“Barakah Bashad,” he says.
“Shukriya,” Jensen and Jared respond, as they pick up their cups.
Chris inclines his head toward Jared. “Who’s the yeti?”
“My boyfriend, Jared.”
Sorrow flashes briefly across Chris’s face, but he schools his expression quickly into a friendly smile.
“I got a boyfriend too,” he says. “Steve. He’s a musician; lives down in the Lower Dome.”
Jensen fiddles with his cup. “That’s great,” he looks up and meets Chris’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Chris. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone on Mars when I was at boarding school and when I got back here, I wanted to come and see you, I did. But I couldn’t risk it. They had to think I was completely reformed and-”
Chris cuts him off. “I get it, Jen, I do. It’s okay.” he clears his throat. “So what’s really going on in Venusville? They said on the Holo that you guys cut off the air and killed everyone before blowing the place up, but no-one believes it.”
Between them, Jared and Jensen explain what’s happening and what they’re trying to do and then Jensen explains what he needs from Chris.
Alan Ackles accepted the position of Ambassador to Mars when Jensen was seven years old. Before that, Jensen’s father had been an Emissary for the Office of the President of the Unified Territories and he’d hardly ever been home, because his job involved frequent trips around the Earth, as well as to Earth’s Orbital colonies and the Colonies on Mars and Titan. It was too painful for him to stay at home, the staff would say. Amelia Ackles had been the love of his life and losing her to cancer when Jensen was just a baby had left a deep wound in Alan’s soul.
Jensen didn’t remember his mother. There was a huge painting of her that hung in the foyer of their house and he had a file on his i-band that contained a whole bunch of holograph images of her, but to him she was just the ghost that kept his father away.
In truth, Jensen didn’t know his father all that well either. He’d been raised by the household staff and secretly he thought of the housekeeper, Kim, as his mother; she was the one who soothed his nightmares; the one he ran to with his skinned knees; the one to whom he told his heartaches and triumphs. Kim Rhodes was part Martian and she was the only one of the staff who came with them when they moved to Mars. She was the one who told him stories of his parents in their younger years, how happy they’d been, told him that he reminded his father too much of his mother, that looking at him made his father sad. She also told him tales of growing up on Mars and when they landed, it felt a little to Jensen like coming home.
Jensen quickly became close to the Martian staff, and Chef Kane’s son Chris, who was only a year older than Jensen, soon became his best friend. His father disapproved, of course, but Alan worked such long hours that he could do little except frown at Jensen and lecture his son about the perils of fraternizing with those of a lower class. His father’s attitude made Jensen sick; so-called lower class people had brought him up, taught him right from wrong and been there for him in ways his father never had.
Jensen was forbidden to leave the Ambassador’s residence without half a dozen security guards, so he and Chris spent their spare time exploring the residence and its grounds at length. One day, when they’d been messing around in the root cellar, they’d found a hidden door which led to an underground passageway. The passage had come out at a utility hole cover in Melrose Laneway, where the Upper Dome’s most exclusive tailors and fashion houses had their boutiques. Chris was keen to introduce Jensen to the Middle and Lower Domes and Jensen immediately recognized the disparity between the small number of very wealthy people in the Upper Dome and the vast numbers of poor people in the Lower Dome. In the Upper Dome, there were never food or water shortages, there was never air rationing and there were never power brownouts, all of which happened regularly in the lower domes. Jensen was outraged by some of the injustices he saw and by the corruption and abuses of power he witnessed. He and Chris heard rumblings of a rebel group, but there were no obvious, overt signs of rebellion.
At fourteen, Jensen was forced to attend a State Dinner with his father. He made some pointed comments to the Chief Security Officer about the lack of access to justice in the lower domes and the Ambassador had been both embarrassed and furious with his son. He threatened to send Jensen to Boarding School on Earth, if he didn’t learn to butt out of complicated things that were beyond his understanding.
Jensen stopped speaking to his father.
The final straw for the Ambassador, though, was finding Jensen and Chris kissing.
Earth was undeniably homophobic; a lot of religious leaders preached that the rapidly worsening climate was God’s punishment for the twenty-first century’s increased acceptance of sinful lifestyles, claiming that the storms and planetary upheavals started at around the same time that same-sex marriage started to be widely allowed, and that was proof. Enough people believed them for anti-discrimination laws to be pushed back and for many gay people to retreat into the closet. According to the Mars Mission manifesto, which was rigorously adhered to in the Upper Dome, sexual relations were to be between a man and a woman for the purposes of growing the colony.
Jensen hadn’t thought too much about it; he wasn’t interested in girls but he figured it was something that would come with time. He was only fourteen, after all. Visiting the Lower Dome and seeing same-sex couples kissing and holding hands had finally allowed Jensen to understand the giddy feelings of anticipation and the swooping excitement in his tummy whenever he saw Chris. Chris said there was no point in not being yourself when you were around psychics most of the time. He said that psychics always knew who you were and what was inside of you and that mutants knew what mattered about a person and what didn’t. To Jensen, sexuality was just another thing that the ruling class were wrong about, another way they controlled people and denied them their rights. When he realized that his feelings for Chris were returned, he acted on it and they were soon making out as often as they could and even, occasionally, being brave enough to shower together so that they could touch each other.
When Jensen’s father caught them in a fairly tame make out session, he immediately put Jensen on the next flight back to Earth and fired Chris. Chris, at fifteen was working as Apprentice Chef to his mother and was pretty much set for life as a privileged member of Household Staff for a VIP Upper Dome family. After the Ambassador fired him, Chris’s mama got him a job working at one of the classier diners in the Spaceport, but he’d paid a heavy price for his relationship with Jensen.
Jensen hopes he won’t pay an even heavier price.
Chris should be safe; all he’s given Jensen is information; confirmation that the secret passageway from the root cellar in the Ambassador’s residence out into town is still there. Felicia and Chad have already checked the building’s schematics online and it doesn’t show. It really does appear to be a bolt hole, only known about by the Ambassador and their family. And Chris and his younger sister.
Their IDs and the work-order get Jared and Jensen into the service personnel elevator and allow them to access the Upper Dome. They keep their heads low and their eyes on their tool boxes and no-one pays them any attention. Once they’re in the Upper Dome, it’s a different story. There are security checks on every corner and Jared has his hands full mind-whammying security officers into believing that they don’t recognize either of them. By the time they make it to the laneway where the escape tunnel comes up, Jared is sweating hard and Jensen is relieved when they’re able to lift up the utility hole cover and climb down into the underground tunnel, out of reach of prying eyes.
They open their toolboxes and assemble their guns as soon as they’re underground and then move cautiously down the tunnel with their weapons drawn until they get to the trap door into the root cellar. Jared looks at Jensen and he nods. Jared pushes up the trap door, while Jensen covers him, but the root cellar is dark and quiet and as they make their way inside it appears they’ve gotten into the Ambassador’s residence completely undetected. From here, they’ll grab hold of Jensen’s father and force him to upload diplomatic protocols onto their i-bands, before leaving him tied up and gagged. The next step is for Jensen to change into an expensive Upper Dome suit and bluff his way into Morgan Corp Headquarters as a member of the embassy staff, with Jared in tow as a maintenance tech, who he has brought to help him with a computer problem.
They make their way up the root cellar’s stairs and into the kitchen and Jared gasps. The kitchen is four times the size of their entire yali and is ornately decorated with granite and marble shipped from Earth and large chrome appliances. There’s a giant well-stocked walk-in pantry and when he sees it, Jared murmurs, “Holy shit,” under his breath.
Jensen feels all his old shame come rushing back. “I know, right?” he says. “It’s obscene.”
Jared harrumphs. “I can’t believe you gave all this up to live in an underground hole with me.”
“We don’t go hungry, Jay,” Jensen says. “And there are other things I’m hungry for that I could never get in this world. Besides, it really is obscene that some people have so much when some people have so little.”
They’re only talking quietly, but Jensen didn’t really expect to walk through Chef Kane’s kitchen undetected. Even so, her quiet gasp surprises him. He smiles at her and puts a finger to his lips. She looks uneasily at his gun, but he shakes his head and hopes she understands that he’s not here to hurt anyone. She nods and retreats to her quarters which are just off the kitchen. Chef Kane is on duty twenty-four hours a day and she has to be readily at hand in case anyone rings the bell wanting food or beverages.
The mansion is every bit as grandiose as Jensen remembers it; large spacious rooms with ornate chandeliers, tastefully decorated with stylish wooden furniture from Earth and carefully-selected works of art-paintings, tapestries and sculptures. They see a houseboy in one hallway and a maid in one of the living areas, but beyond startling briefly, both are content to simply ignore them. Jensen wonders if Chris gave his mama a heads up or if the staff here are simply pro-rebellion.
They find the Ambassador in his study, sitting at his desk chair, which is spun around facing the door.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Alan says, gesturing at the CCTV monitor behind him. “After I sent you to Earth, I heard from somebody that you’d been seen down in the Lower Dome so I figured there must be a secret way out of here that had been forgotten about. I had the place searched and when we found it, I had a security system put in.”
Jensen nods. “I thought this was all too easy. If I turn around, will Morgan’s goons be behind me, waiting to put a bullet in me?”
Alan’s expression is pained. “No-one except me and my staff know that you’re here,” he says.
Jensen is surprised and it must show on his face because Alan harrumphs and looks a little disgruntled. “I suppose I deserve that,” he says. “Look, I know we haven’t been on the best of terms, but I don’t want you dead, son.”
Jared gives Jensen an ‘I told you so,’ look and a brief nod to let Jensen know that his dad is being truthful. The Ambassador sees the look that passes between them and his lips quirk in a sad smile. “I can’t say I understand it, but you’re old enough now to know your own mind,” he rubs at the back of his neck in a gesture that Jensen does himself when he’s feeling insecure. “It took me until you came back to Mars as an adult to figure out that you were the one dragging Chris into trouble back when you were kids, not the other way around,” he looks up at Jensen and smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his expression almost proud. “A strong-willed trouble-maker,” he says. “Just like your mother.”
“Right,” Jensen scoffs. “That’s why you got Morgan to have me turned into a real man, somebody more like the son you always wanted.”
Alan shakes his head. “They were going to kill you, Jensen. They only way I could think of to save your life was to suggest a Ghost persona that Morgan may just believe I’d consider a favour; and one that was sufficiently amusing to him too. I probably don’t have to tell you how delighted he was by the prospect of the sophisticated, highly educated Jensen Ackles wearing plaid, working construction and thinking he hadn’t even managed to finish High School.”
Jensen’s hackles rise. “There’s nothing wrong with construction work,” he says. “It’s an honest trade. And education is a privilege that not everybody has, so-”
Alan holds up a hand to stop Jensen’s tirade. “I know,” he says. “That was Morgan’s opinion, not mine.”
Jensen isn’t quite ready to stop glaring. He truly wants to believe that he has his father’s love and support, but he has over a decade of anger and resentment to contend with.
“Yeah, well,” he sneers. “Morgan fucked up didn’t he? Implanting someone against their natural orientation can cause the implant to fail. Bet you didn’t know that, huh?”
Alan raises an eyebrow. “Of course I did, Jensen. I was counting on it.”
Jensen feels his face go slack and he’s pretty sure that his eyebrows just disappeared into his hairline too.
“You…were?” he says. It comes out a lot more ‘little boy lost’ than he’d intended.
His father frowns. “And I say again, they were going to kill you. I did what I could on short notice to save your life and give you a chance to come back to yourself in time.”
“What about the trigger?” Jared speaks for the first time.
Alan looks puzzled and asks Jared what he’s talking about. Jared explains that Jensen had been programmed to kill any man he had sex with.”
“Huh,” Alan says, stroking his chin. “Maybe it was some sort of fail safe? You know, if the Ghosting failed enough for you to remember your natural orientation and act on it, then you’d end up arrested for murder.” He rubs a tired hand over his eyes. “And speaking of arrests, there are warrants out for the pair of you. The security camera in the hotel caught you,” he nods at Jared, “gunning down the security team sent to retrieve my son and it caught you, Jensen, shooting Michelle Borth.”
“Who?” Jensen frowns.
“The woman you shot point blank.”
“Carmen? You’re telling me her real name was Michelle?”
Alan shrugs. “That’s not really important right now. What’s important is the fact that you are both wanted for murder and terrorism. Your being here right now is beyond foolhardy. So why are you here?”
Alan is saddened, but not surprised, to learn that Morgan Corp was behind the Venusville deaths. Jensen doesn’t give his dad the full truth, doesn’t tell him that in fact the people of Venusville are safe in the MRA’s New Dome, because he isn’t completely sure yet that his dad can be trusted.
But the Ambassador’s reaction does seem very genuine. He slumps in his seat and shakes his head. “I did some digging around when there was that incident in Morganville. People were saying that Morgan ordered the area cut off from the air supply, but I couldn’t find any proof.”
“We have proof,” Jensen says. “Of what happened in Morganville, of what happened in Venusville and some other atrocities too. We just need to get into the satellite control room so that we can broadcast the proof to Earth. We figure, we do that, no way will the President be able to keep ignoring what’s going on here.”
Jensen explains the way they plan to get into the satellite control room and Alan shakes his head. “You need authorisation from Morgan himself to get into that room. You’ll never get near it,” he fiddles with the cuff of his shirt. “However,” he says, “I have authorisation to enter the satellite control room. If I take you both with me, I have every confidence that I can bully the staff into letting me take my maintenance staff with me. They’ll report it to Morgan, of course, who’ll immediately figure out who you are and come after you, but it should buy you enough time to broadcast your files to Earth.”
Jensen looks at Jared, who nods, indicating that his father is telling the truth.
“Okay,” Jensen says decisively, “let’s do it.”
Alan huffs out a breath. “You realize that this is probably a suicide mission? Once we’re in that room the only way out is the way we came in. Morgan’s troops will be waiting there to arrest us all for treason. And worse in your case.”
Jensen is counting on Jared to be able to persuade the security staff outside the satellite control room that they didn’t see anyone, but he doesn’t want to let his dad know that Jared has psychic abilities until he’s absolutely sure he can trust him.
“I don’t wanna die, Dad,” he says. “Neither of us do. But Morgan has to be stopped.”
He father looks him in the eye for a very long time and then nods. “Okay,” he echoes Jensen’s earlier words. “Let’s do it.”
Jensen, his father and Jared step through the heavy steel front door of the Ambassador’s residence and into a street that is far too quiet. It sets Jensen’s nerves tingling and has him reaching for his gun even before Jared cocks his head to one side and stiffens.
By the time several dozen armed security officers have stepped out of the shadows and trained their weapons on the trio, Jensen already has his gun pushed against his father’s spine.
“Put down your weapons and lay on the ground,” says the lead officer.
Jensen grips his father’s arm and jams the barrel of his gun even harder into his back. “Back away slowly,” he says, “and the Ambassador will stay safe.”
He’s bluffing, obviously. He may not trust his father entirely, but his dad didn’t turn them into the Agency; Jensen knows genuine surprise when he sees it. Jensen isn’t going to shoot his father; he just hopes Morgan’s guys don’t call his bluff.
“Put down your weapons,” the officer repeats. “Or we will shoot.”
Jensen is tucked in behind his father and there’s no angle that a sharpshooter can get him from. Jared, however, is beside him, out in the open, and probably has a sniper rifle pointed at his chest right now; unlike their movie counterparts, real snipers don’t use red dots to advertise the fact that they’re poised to kill you.
Jensen licks at his lips. “The President ain’t gonna like it if his Ambassador gets his spine blown out, so I suggest you back away now.”
“Please,” Alan says. “My son’s not well. The Ghost program broke his mind. He will kill me.”
The officer puts a hand to his earpiece and after a moment Jensen lip reads a ‘Yes, sir’.
Jared lowers his head and murmurs, “Morgan’s on his way. And some guy called Sterling Brown’s coming too.”
Alan’s intake of breath is sharp and Jensen really hopes he’s genuinely on the level about being on their side, because Jared just let Alan know that he’s psychic and that’s knowledge Jensen would rather keep from their enemies.
Despite the Upper Dome being kept at a pleasant, comfortable temperature, Jensen can feel sweat running down his spine. Morgan could give the order to shoot Jared at any moment and Jensen isn’t entirely convinced he wouldn’t be prepared to gun down the Ambassador to get to Jensen.
When Morgan finally appears, Gordon is walking beside him.
And okay, Jensen had figured out that Gordon was an Agency employee, but it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might be here on Mars and not on Earth.
Morgan is dressed in a charcoal grey silk suit, with an open-necked white shirt. His hair is artfully tousled and his salt-and-pepper beard is neatly trimmed. His wrists are weighed down by heavy silver bracelets, a hefty old-fashioned wristwatch, also silver, and he’s wearing a chunky ring on every finger.
His liquid brown eyes roam over both Jared and Jensen and Jensen thinks (not for the first time) that Morgan would have very sexy bedroom eyes if it wasn’t for the expression in them; there isn’t any. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then Morgan doesn’t have one.
“Two choices,” Morgan says. “One: I give the order and my man here shoots all three of you, right here, right now.”
Alan starts to protest but Morgan shushes him. “You’re an acceptable loss, Alan,” he says. “Collateral damage. Unfortunate, but there you go.” He turns back to Jensen. “Choice two: You and your Boy Toy give yourselves up and your father lives,” he pauses and smiles genially at Jensen. “You and the Yeti will both die, of course, but then you knew this was a suicide mission, didn’t you?” Morgan looks at his watch. “You have…thirty seconds to decide.”
Jared immediately holds his hands up in surrender and Jensen relaxes a little. Whatever Jared’s been able to pick up from the minds around them, he must feel confident that they’ve still got options, even if they give themselves up.
Jensen sets his gun down and steps away from his father, who edges back into the house. Jensen raises his arms slowly, palms out.
Morgan smiles, or at least sneers and bares his teeth. He tells them to get down on their knees and put their hands behind their heads and then nods at Gordon who steps forward, cracking his knuckles and grinning nastily.
“Sometimes my job sucks,” Gordon, or Sterling, Jensen supposes, says. “Like that time I had to hang out with a fag for six weeks. Shoulda known when I couldn’t get you to look twice at a set of tits. Still, sometimes the job has compensations.” Jensen sees the punch coming, but the best he can do is move enough to make it a painful glancing blow rather than a knockout punch. Gordon’s follow up sends him sprawling to the ground and the kick to his stomach has him curling in on himself.
“Enough,” Morgan says, tone bored.
Sterling turns to Jared. “What sort of a freak are you?”
Jared is hunched over and doing the wide-eyed puppy dog thing. It makes him look small and vulnerable and nothing at all like the mountain of muscle and fury that gunned down half a dozen of Morgan’s elite security team.
“I got an extra toe on my left foot,” Jared says. Which is true. “And I got a twelve inch cock.” Which is…not quite true.
Sterling raises an eyebrow and whistles, low and faux-impressed. He turns to Jensen, who has managed to get back up on his knees. “He fuck you good with that monster mutant cock, Fag-boy?”
He doesn’t, that’s not how it is between them, but Jensen lets his smile turn dirty, like he’s remembering being ridden hard and put away wet. “Why?” he says to Sterling. “You jealous?”
It earns him another punch, but at least it keeps Sterling’s attention on him and away from Jared.
“You can play later, Brown,” Morgan chides. “Search them.”
Jensen leans into Sterling’s touch and moans like it’s turning him on to have the man’s hands on him. He’s hoping to unsettle him enough that he only does a perfunctory search, but unfortunately Sterling is a professional and finds the data chip that Jensen had in the back pocket of his overalls, as well as the backup sewn into the cuff of the overalls. He finds the two that Jared has secreted in his clothing as well, and the one in his hair.
Morgan’s smile is gloating as Sterling hands him the five chips. He drops each of them in turn to the floor and grinds them all beneath the heel of his boot.
“Bring them,” he says to Sterling, nodding at Jared and Jensen.
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