Fic: Deja Vu - Chapter Six
Jared is laying on his back on their bed, with one knee bent, his arms folded above his head and his eyes closed. Jensen kind of can’t help himself. He takes a running jump and bounces onto the bed beside his lover.
Jared opens his eyes. “Dork,” he says fondly.
Jensen grins. “Yeah, but I’m your dork.”
Jared rolls onto his side. “Do you think Morgan’s gonna come after us?”
“Yeah. And this time I think there’ll be a big show trial before,” Jensen makes a gun with his thumb and forefinger and then places it against his head.
Jared’s eyes widen. “Everyone knows how much good we do; everyone knows who’s really to blame for all the shit on Mars. If he says a whole bunch of crap about us and then, you know,” he imitates Jensen’s gun gesture, “then the rebellion is only gonna get worse.”
Jensen reaches out and entwines his fingers with Jared’s. “If it does, then he just gets to crack down on the population even more. You gotta realize, Jay, everyone on Mars may know what’s going on, but the show trial wouldn’t be for us. It’d be for Earth. And no-one on Earth realizes how bad things are here. Down there, we’re being painted as the bad guys. Most of the shit that Morgan does to the workers gets blamed on the Rebels.”
Jared’s eyes widen even further. “The people on Earth can’t believe that, right?”
Jensen’s mouth is a grim line. “They believe what they’re told and the media on Earth is in Morgan’s pocket. People turn on the HV and what they see is a report telling them that the Martian rebels destroyed part of the Lower Dome; they see lots of footage of dead Martians and Morgan looking all concerned citizen while he promises to stamp out the terrorist rebels. No-one on Earth even stops to consider that maybe part of the Lower Dome collapsed and killed all those people because Morgan Corp didn’t want to waste time venting gases safely when they could be digging up profits.”
Jared’s eyes are liquid with concern. “Then we need to get the truth out there; need to let everyone on Earth know what’s really going on here.”
Jensen bites at his bottom lip. “I’m not sure they’d care,” he says. “So long as they get their fast, cheap energy and the materials to make their electronic components, I think they’re willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses we’re suffering here on Mars. We’re ‘the other’. And the fact that so many of us are mutants just makes it even easier for them to believe that we’re less than human. And if we’re not really human, if we’re not like them, then it’s easier for them to believe that we’re the bad guys. It makes them feel less guilty when they turn their backs on us.”
Jared shakes his head. “I don’t believe that. People are basically decent. Maybe they get scared sometimes, and lash out at things they don’t understand, but if they knew down on Earth what was really going on up here, they’d care.”
Jensen sighs. “You’ve got more faith in humanity than I do, Jared.”
Jared leans in and kisses him gently. “Liar. I can read your mind, remember.”
Jensen decides that he’s had enough of heavy topics so he grins and waggles his eyebrows, and counts on Jared skimming his thoughts.
Jared laughs. “Oh really?” he says. “We can do that. We should probably shower first, though.”
They shower and wash thoroughly and Jensen decides that he can’t wait to make good on the promise he’d thought at Jared and ends up falling to his knees under the cascading water and eating Jared out until the younger man is a whimpering mess, begging for a hand on his cock. Jensen finally relents and stands up, sliding easily into the younger man and then reaching around and fisting his hard, hot dick. After all the teasing, Jared comes quickly and when he’s done, Jensen presses him into the glass of the shower wall and fucks him hard and fast, pulling out at the last moment and coming over the globes of his ass, before washing the spunk away.
They dry off and dress in sweats and tees and Jensen spots a platinum ring sitting on the table next to the bed. He picks it up and turns it over in his hand, remembering the day that he and Jared exchanged rings and promised each other forever. It wasn’t legal, of course, but it meant something to them.
He also remembers the last time he took the ring off, just before he left to go on that final, fateful mission.
He feels Jared come up behind him and then his lover reaches around and takes the ring from his hand.
“Allow me,” Jared says and slides the ring onto Jensen’s finger. Jensen swallows. He doesn’t trust himself to speak right now.
“C’mon,” Jared links their hands together and leads him into the kitchen.
Jared rounds up a loaf of flatbread, and a bunch of dried meats, pickles and cheeses. He dumps them on the dining table while Jensen fetches plates and cutlery and then inspects the contents of the fridge.
“Next time we go shopping,” Jensen says, “we should get some beer.”
Jared stills and then turns to stare at him. “Beer?” he says. “You don’t like beer.”
“Yes I do.”
Jared frowns. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard you say, ‘beer tastes like cold piss’. Now, suddenly, you like it?”
Jensen scowls. “I don’t know, okay! Dean likes it. So I can remember liking it. But I can also remember not liking it. I just want to have a freakin’ beer and see whether I like it or not, okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” Jared said calmly. “Now come over here and tell me if you still like moldy cheese.”
Jensen stays beside the fridge for a beat and then makes his way over to the table and sits down across from Jared. “I’m sorry,” he says. “This whole Dean/Jensen thing is a little confusing. I’m trying to keep him in his own private box inside my head, but sometimes he gets out, and then I’m not entirely sure who I am for a minute.”
Jared just listens and nods and then hands Jensen a piece of flatbread slathered with crumbly blue-veined cheese.
The sharp, creamy taste bursts across his tongue and Jensen raises his eyebrows and nods. “Good,” he says. “Misha made it, right?”
“You can tell that, just from the taste?”
Jensen launches into a lecture about cheese making techniques and Jared smiles at him fondly. Jensen’s far too astute not to realize what Jared just did and he’s very grateful to his partner for giving him an opportunity to remember his own tastes and access his own memories.
“Maybe you and Misha should start brewing beer,” Jared says impishly.
Jensen tilts his head. “Maybe. Craft beer and micro-breweries are pretty popular in the Upper District on Earth.”
“Give it a go,” Jared says. “And if you fuck it up, hey, at least we’ll have some bottle bombs for the cause, right?”
Jensen throws a pickle at him.
Jared’s i-band chirps and Jared answers it in visual mode. A hologram of Misha appears in the room.
“Well hello you two crazy love-birds,” Misha says. “Jensen,” he cocks his head. “I think I liked you better with the beard. Hope you enjoyed your vacation on Earth, because shit’s about to get hectic.”
“It wasn’t a vacation, asshole,” Jensen growls, even though he knows that Misha’s just trying to get a rise out of him. “I had my life stolen.”
“Well Morgan wants to steal it again,” Misha says. “Permanently this time. He cut off the air to Venusville about five minutes ago and then rode in on his broomstick to send us a ‘Surrender Dorothy’ message.” The Misha holo runs a hand through its messy hair and looks grim. “Morgan says the air is gonna stay off until you two give yourselves up.”
Jensen draws in a deep shuddering breath. He’d known this moment would come; had made his peace with it. He just hadn’t realized it would come so soon. He glances at Jared. Not even a lifetime spent with Jared would be enough. He’d need several at least. He reaches out blindly and pulls his lover into a hug. He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s scared.
Jensen was recruited by the Martian arm of the Galactic Intelligence and Security Agency straight out of college. He’d done a double bachelor degree; Criminal Justice-Law Enforcement and Psychology; and then he’d done a Masters in Homeworld Security and Inter-planetary Issues. He’d also worked his father’s connections, played croquet with the right people and taken the right internships. Mars Intelligence was the employer he’d been molding himself for and he’d been delighted when they approached him.
At 24, after ten years exile on Earth, he was ready to head home. Maybe Mars wasn’t his planet of birth, but it was the home planet of the people he considered his true family; the planet where he’d spent most of his childhood; and it was dying under the weight of all the corruption. He wanted to do something. To fix things.
He’d been so young and naïve.
Jensen learned quickly that Morgan Corp owned Mars Intelligence, as well as the rest of Mars, and that he was never going to be able to disable the corruption on Mars from within the system. So Jensen kept his ear to the ground and eventually, he heard rumblings about the MRA. As best as he could figure, they were some kind of underground resistance group, although just exactly what they did, he couldn’t quite work out.
Unfortunately Jensen’s interest in the MRA came to the notice of Jensen’s boss, Director of Mars Intelligence, Amanda Tapping. The more Morgan Corp squeezed the populace for profits, the more people talked about The Angel, The Boyking and the MRA. Graffiti began to appear. Mining equipment began to break down. Production kept being halted. Profits began to suffer.
Because Jensen already had some contacts; people who knew people who knew people; and because those people seemed willing to talk to him, Tapping assigned him the task of infiltrating the MRA and bringing them down.
That had been a little over four and a half years ago. It had taken him eighteen months to work his way into the inner circle and then another six months to decide that he could trust Jared with the truth. It took him a further year to persuade Jared into his bed and that’s when Jared confessed that they’d been on to him from the start.
“Psychics, man,” he’d shrugged. “Not much gets past people who can read your mind. Although it took us a while to realize that you actually, genuinely wanted to help us; you kept that buried pretty deep.”
Jensen shrugged. “Mars Intelligence employs psychics too. I had to be careful. Luckily, psychics are just people, and people are usually happy to believe what they want to believe. Most of the time they’ll take the stuff on the surface at face value if it fits what they think they know.”
Jared nodded. “I’ve gotta be honest, once we’d seen the incriminating stuff on the surface of your mind we didn’t bother to dig too deep either.”
Jared had then gone on to explain that Loretta had done a deep probe shortly after Jensen first told them the truth, to confirm that he genuinely wanted to help the MRA and to make sure that Mars Intelligence hadn’t implanted any psychic time bombs in his head.
Before Jensen was arrested and charged with treason, he’d been really and truly in; a trusted member of the MRA. He’d even had his own code name-The Jackal-which sounded all kinds of badass, but was actually just based on his name in a deliberate ‘fuck you’ to his father.
Still, despite the year and a half that he’d spent as Jared’s partner and a member of the inner circle, he’d known that there were things he didn’t know about; a clearance level that he didn’t have.
So right now, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Jensen’s mind is completely blown.
“But,” he says, looking around at the massive bio-dome set up inside an impressively large cavern, “this can’t possibly be part of the main Dome structure.”
“It’s not,” Misha says gleefully. “And nor are any of the Resistance quarters, as far back as the second secret door. Our great grandparents set all this up themselves with parts pilfered from the Spare Parts storage unit. We’ve been building for three generations. This part,” he gestures at the hydroponic farm that Jensen calculates has to be at least sixty square feet, “is only known about by a handful of people.”
“Nine,” Jared says.
Misha regards him coolly. “And some of our people have nine fingers,” he says. “So handful is appropriate.”
“I was just clarifying the exact number for Jensen,” Jared says. “Although I guess now that he knows about it too, it’s actually ten.”
“And we’re about to make it a lot more,” Misha says. All the levity is gone from his demeanour and his blue eyes are suddenly commanding and intense.
“Is there more on the other side of the farm?” Jensen asks.
Misha nods. “A lot more.” He leads them through the farm, which is growing an impressive array of produce, and even has a beehive, which Misha coos at rather alarmingly. There’s a sliding door into a sally port and then another sliding door into what can only be described as an empty Dome town.
Jensen whistles. “This is amazing. Morgan has no idea that this is all here. You guys could secede; become completely self-sufficient.”
“That’s the plan,” Jared says. “This section isn’t quite ready yet, but it’s close enough.” He turns to Misha. “We should join Jim and the others and talk tactics.”
When the Holo image of Misha had told them that Morgan was demanding their surrender in return for turning the air back on in Venusville, Jensen had started to mentally prepare himself for death. He wasn’t okay with voluntarily handing himself over for execution; far from it. And he was even less okay with the thought of Jared dying. But he could never put his life before the lives of the thousands of men, women and children who lived in Venusville. When he asked Misha how long Morgan was giving them, Misha rolled his eyes and told Jensen that he was being far too melodramatic. And then he told them to meet him at the back wall, which turned out not to be wall, but rather yet another secret door.
Jared and Jensen are lagging behind Misha, because Jensen is so busy boggling at everything. He can’t believe all this got built right under his nose. By the time they get to a small room, furnished only with a conference table, Misha is already sitting at its head. Jared goes and sits down next to him and motions Jensen toward the seat beside him.
Jensen takes careful note of the other people in attendance: Sam Ferris and Charles Malik Whitfield who are Resistance Security; Felicia Day and Chad Lindberg who are IT; Loretta Devine, the Resistance’s most powerful psychic; and Steve Williams and Jim Beaver. Jensen’s not quite sure what Steve and Jim do for the Cause.
He walks around the table and hugs Felicia. He remembers Dean meeting her and he knows she must have found it painful to look at a guy wearing his face who wasn’t him and who didn’t remember her.
“Jensen?” she says and he nods. Her face breaks into a wide smile and she squeezes him tighter. “Welcome home, soldier,” she says.
He thanks her before taking his seat beside Jared.
Jensen is welcomed to the inner, inner circle. He’s welcomed back to himself and there’s a brief de-briefing about his Ghosting, primarily so that Loretta can reassure a very skeptical Steve that Jensen isn’t any kind of psychic danger to them; that they can trust everything that’s in his noggin; even the Dean bits.
Steve grudgingly accepts Loretta’s expertise in the area and the discussion moves to the people of Venusville who are rapidly using up their little remaining air.
Misha has a plan and Jensen has to admit that it’s (mostly) a good one. As soon as the meeting breaks up, the MRA will begin moving people into the New Dome a few at a time. Morgan Corp has the whole area under CCTV surveillance, but some of the MRA operatives currently out there in Venusville are going to shoot out the cameras in a ‘fuck you, you don’t get to watch us die’ kind of gesture that Morgan won’t find out of character. Morgan Corp will figure that they can still monitor the life sign readings anyway, so when life signs start disappearing, they’ll just figure that people are dying.
When all the life signs are gone, the MRA will blow up Venusville in a way that doesn’t expose the rest of the Dome to any danger, but does put a sizeable amount of rubble between the Original Dome and the New Dome, effectively sealing the MRA and the people they’ve rescued in their own separate silo.
“We should take holo footage,” Jared says, “as proof of what Morgan Corp is actually doing here.”
Jensen nods his agreement. “How do we plan to access the Original Dome going forward?” he asks. “Because I’d bet money that at some point we’re going to need to rescue more people from over there.”
Steve looks to Misha and at his nod, Steve explains about the bio-dome construction they’ve put together inside the lava tunnels on the far side of the Mine. “Once we blow Venusville and lose our direct connection to the Original Dome, we’ll have to put our suits on to get to the tunnels,” Steve says, “but once we’re in there, we can get through to the rest of the Original Dome via the mines. It’s how we plan to liaise with Alona Tal and her team.”
“Alona?” Jensen doesn’t know the name.
“My step-daughter,” Sam Ferris says. “Dean knows her as Jo Harvelle.”
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “So she’s not really a Chief Engineer?”
Sam looks highly unamused. “Of course she is. She’s also a member of the Resistance. Did you stop being a real spy when you started working for us?”
Jensen wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, kinda. I was an undercover operative. I don’t really get to do that anymore. But, I take your point,” he turns back to Steve. “So you’re what? The Chief Bio Dome Engineer?”
Steve nods. “My Great Granddaddy built the Original Dome, was out there every day in the field supervising. Of course, we didn’t realize back then that exposure to the dust would cause mutations. When his kids were born mutants, the family was bounced down to the Lower Dome. My granddaddy and my daddy didn’t get no proper College schooling, but they taught me everything I know. I did get a little schooling, which is how I met Jim,” he nods at the bearded man sitting next to Misha.
“Are you an Engineer too?” Jensen asks.
Jim shakes his head. “Chief Agriculturist. And non-mutant. I was born in the Middle Dome, met Steve at college and, well, let’s just say I didn’t like the rampant Muto-phobia he faced. He really opened my eyes to the corruption here on Mars and, well, the rest, as they say, is history.”
Jensen nods. He can relate to Jim’s story.
Turning back to Steve, Jensen licks his lips. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but having to suit up and go topside to get people out of the Original Dome seems like pretty poor strategy. It won’t do for large scale movement of people.”
“I know,” Steve says, “but until we can remove Morgan Corp from power here, it’s the best we can do.”
“Morgan Corp is out there right now,” Jared says, his fist pounding on the table, “killing thousands of our people. Not just armed rebels, but children and nursing moms and old folk. Surely, if the President on Earth knew the abuses that were going on here, he’d withdraw his support of Morgan. Surely.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t know?” Jensen asks. “And what makes you think he’d have any interest in seeing proof? Don’t forget, Morgan funded his campaign.”
Jared shakes his head and Jensen can see his despair. Jared has a good heart. He always wants to believe the best of people. Jensen, though, he knows how cruel and uncaring people can be; especially those whose chief desire is power.
“He still needs people to vote for him,” Jared says stubbornly. “If we show the people what Morgan’s up to out here, the President’ll have to take action against him, even if he is a major campaign donor.”
“Sure,” Jensen says, “let’s get the media on that. Oh, wait. Morgan owns the media.”
Felicia clears her throat. “Satellite transmissions can be hacked Jensen.”
“Remotely?”
Felicia licks her lips. “Maybe,” she looks at Misha who nods.
“Get on that,” Misha says. “Both of you,” he nods at Chad too, “see what you can do.” He pauses, head tilted. “Sam and Charles; put together a rescue crew. Bring over a few people at a time, like we discussed. Jim and Steve; get a team together to get the New Dome ready to go live. Jared, I want you and Jensen to get holo footage of Venusville, close ups of the ventilation systems so viewers will be able to see they’ve been shut off. Show the people’s suffering. Show us rescuing them. Any questions, anyone?”
There’s a general shaking of heads and then people begin to slip out. Misha gestures Jensen back down into his seat when he goes to stand. Jared hovers, looking at Jensen questioningly and Jensen lets him know with just a glance that he’s okay, that Jared can go and start getting organized and Jensen will meet him back at home.
Misha sits with his head cocked and stares at Jensen like a man who has nothing better to do with his time.
“I’m fine, Misha,” Jensen says.
They’re not close and they don’t know each other well, although they do share an appreciation of good cheese. It had actually taken Jensen a very long time to work out that Misha was in charge. As best as Jensen can tell he manages things by wandering vaguely about with his hands in his pockets, having coffee with people, and casually reading their minds.
Blue eyes stare into green.
Jensen refuses to fidget or look away.
Misha slaps his hands down on the table and grins. “Good talk,” he says. “And Jared’s right; we should definitely start a micro-brewery.”
Jensen blinks and then raises an eyebrow. “Are we done?”
“Yes,” Misha says gravely. “We’re done.”
Jensen gets to his feet. “Okay then,” he says and makes his way to the door of the conference room
“Jensen?” Misha’s voice stops him with his hand on the door handle.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t remember the last mission you did with Jay.”
It’s a statement not a question so Jensen doesn’t answer. It’s mostly true; he remembers bits of the mission, but the memory of what they were doing out in the mines and whether or not they achieved their goal is still missing from his mind.
“Are you gonna tell me?” Jensen finally asks Misha.
Misha inclines his head, birdlike and assessing.
“You were looking for some ancient equipment.”
It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone.
“Did we find it?”
Misha nods. “You did. And you were able to ascertain that the equipment was damaged before you were forced to flee.”
“What was it?” Jensen asks. “Mining equipment?”
“I wonder why this particular memory is lost to you,” Misha muses.
“No clue,” Jensen shrugs. “It’s not the only gap. Are you gonna tell me what the equipment was?”
Misha tilts his head again. “The original terra-forming equipment that Morgan Corp said was irreparably damaged in a landing accident, back when the colony was first formed.”
Pain slams into Jensen’s skull and he cries out and smacks the palm of his hand against his forehead. He’s sees the equipment, scored with laser blasts, and he shakes his head and gasps out something about sabotage. There’s a quiet flutter and then Jensen feels something soft wrap around him. He opens the eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed and is surprised to find that Misha is standing before him with his arms encircling, but not touching him.
“Dude,” he says, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Wrapping you in my wings.”
Jensen’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “Your…wings?”
Misha tilts his head. “Can you not feel them?”
Softness tickles across his face and Jensen pulls away. “What the hell?”
“They’re not visible in this dimension,” Misha says. “Not unless you’re a psychic.”
“Can you fly?”
Misha shrugs, his expression melancholy. “I’ve never had occasion to try. The tunnels don’t really lend themselves to flight,” his face brightens. “My wings did earn me my nickname though.”
The Angel. Jensen nods. He had wondered.
“Misha? What does MRA stand for? I still can’t remember and it’s been bugging me.”
“Ah,” Misha looks sheepish. “We still can’t agree. I wanted Mars Reclamation Activists, Jim wanted Mars Rebel Agriculturalists. Or was it Revolutionary Agriculturalists?” Misha frowns. “Castiel wanted Misha’s Renegade Angels and the media decided MRA stood for Martian Rebel Army. What do you think?”
“What about the people who started all this?” Jensen asks. “Your great grandparents or whatever. Didn’t they have a name for themselves?”
“Oh yes,” Misha nods. “Our grandparents called themselves The Concerned Citizens Committed to Completion of the Original Mission, which we felt lacked a certain pizazz for a revolutionary movement.” he shrugs. “And it doesn’t really lend itself to graffiti tags either.”
Jensen nods and then frowns. “Who’s Castiel? I don’t think I know…him? Her?”
Misha shakes his head. “You’re not ready to meet Castiel.”
Jensen waits to see if Misha will add anything, but he doesn’t, so Jensen nods and excuses himself and heads back to the yali he shares with Jared; which he’s just learned isn’t actually part of the official Martian bio-dome, and how cool is that?
Jared has weapons laid out on their bed and is sitting in their midst playing around with a small hand held camera that Jensen has never seen before.
“Hey,” he looks up and smiles when Jensen walks in. It’s not quite his full-wattage smile and Jensen figures that Jared isn’t sure whether Jensen is going to be pissed that his partner didn’t tell him about the New Dome project.
“I’m an intelligence agent,” Jensen says, “I worked for Morgan Corp for four years,” his voice is shaded with disgust as it always is when he thinks about his time working for Morgan. “So I’m familiar with the concept of ‘need to know.’ Would I have liked to know about the New Dome? Hell, yeah. Did I need to know? Was my ability to do my job for the MRA compromised by not knowing about it? No. So,” he gestures at the weapons and the recorder. “How are we gonna do this?”
Jared looks at him for a beat and then nods. “I’ll record, you watch my back. I doubt that Morgan will send his black ops troops in, but if we’re gonna be wandering around in Venusville, then we’re gonna be armed.”
They change into black jeans and Kevlar vests, strap on shoulder holsters and ankle holsters and then Jared watches with hooded eyes as Jensen straps on his thigh holster.
Jensen smiles. “Down, boy,” he says. “We don’t have time.”
Jared pulls him close and kisses him thoroughly.
“Have I ever told you how fucking sexy you look wearing that thigh holster?” he says when he pulls away.
Jensen nods. “Only every time I put it on,” he eyes Jared’s kiss-bruised mouth hungrily. He suspects his own lips look every bit as debauched and his jeans get a little bit tighter. Jared’s eyes glint and he reaches down and begins to palm Jensen through the coarse fabric.
Jensen bites back a whimper and reminds himself that he passed Christopher Heyerdahl’s ‘Withstanding Torture’ class. Although maybe, Jensen bites his lower lip, if Sergeant Heyerdahl had Jared’s puppy dog eyes and penchant for sucking Jensen’s dick he wouldn’t have graduated top of the class.
“C’mon,” he says gruffly. “We’ve gotta go.”
“But Jensen,” Jared pouts, “I really, really want to suck you.”
Jensen really, really wants that too, but they truly don’t have time.
“People are dying, Jared,” he says.
That’s all it takes to get Jared back on track, albeit with a very obvious reluctance to drag himself away from the bulge in Jensen’s jeans. They gather up their remaining weapons, the holo-recorder and their oxygen masks, and head out.
“Don’t think there won’t be payback for getting me like this before a job,” Jensen tells his partner, adjusting himself surreptitiously as they leave their yali.
Jared smirks. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
For the first ten minutes of the operation equal numbers of people move in and out of Venusville, through the tunnel into the New Dome. The first people who come through into the New Dome are MRA and have some idea what to expect as they go through the tunnel. And then it’s civilians being moved through; the ill, the young and the old first. Chad has confirmed that the CCTV cameras are all out and he and Felicia have hacked Morgan Corp’s security system and knocked out the infrared too. The Life Signs reader is still active, but it can only detect the number of life signs within a designated area, not where exactly they are.
Jared and Jensen go into Venusville with the first group and Jensen dutifully watches Jared’s back while Jared records everything that’s happening on the handheld Holo-recorder.
He also keeps an eye on the people. Most are simply traumatized. It’s one thing to know intellectually that the Governor of Mars is a ruthless oligarch who will put profits before people every time; it’s quite another to have him deliberately try to kill your entire town as a means to an end. Some of the people sagging listlessly on the floor and trying to keep their breathing shallow, are obviously angry and Jensen has Jared take still shots of them. Jensen will talk to Charles and Sam about recruiting them for Security, or at the very least keeping an extra close eye on them. Loretta and her team of Psychics will have their work cut out for them, counselling all these traumatized people.
“Jared,” one of the security staff approaches quietly. “We’ve got a problem with a group of people down this way. Could do with a psychic to keep an eye on the mindset and maybe influence the ringleaders.”
Jared lowers the camera and he and Jensen follow the security officer to a small gathering of men, women and children sitting inside a house of worship.
Jensen swears under his breath. “Please don’t tell me they’re refusing to leave; that they think the Lord’s gonna save ‘em.”
“No, nothing like that,” the security officer says. “These guys all have spouses, parents, what-have-you who are on shift down at the mine right now. They want to know if they’re going to be able to reunite with them at some point.”
“Fuck,” Jensen touches his ear-piece. “Felicia, any chatter at Morgan Corp about the workers who are on shift in the mine right now?”
Felicia says she’ll let him know. Jared meanwhile, is moving through the people, sharing his oxygen mask with those who aren’t doing so well and getting people’s stories. Jensen watches him work with the sappy feeling of adoration that Jared’s kindness always invokes in him.
“He’s yours?” a woman looks up at him from where she’s sitting on the floor beside a pew. She’s tiny, Jensen doubts she’s more than four and a half foot, and she has the exquisite features of an ebony porcelain doll, face framed with black ringlets.
“Yeah,” Jensen says.
The woman smiles. “My girl’s in the mine. And when we’re all…gone, Morgan’s gonna be down a shit-ton of mine workers. You really think he’s gonna let them stop working?”
“What’s your name?” he asks and she tells him that it’s Shandy.
“We’ve got people on it,” Jensen says. “Dying in here ain’t gonna help your girl any. Let us get you safe, and then let us get them safe.”
His words seem to reassure both Shandy and a number of the people sitting nearby. They allow the security people to move them to safety and Jared comes across and wraps an arm around Jensen’s waist. “Look at you,” he says, “being ‘Mr People Skills’.”
Jensen rubs self-consciously at his chin. “Yeah. Well. Just channelling my inner-Dean. He was a bit better with people than I am.”
Jensen’s i-band beeps and when he answers it, the news isn’t good. Felicia hacked Morgan Corp’s HR records and found out that Morgan is planning to keep the current mine shift working until a shipment of replacement Ghost workers arrives from Earth. She also hacked into the Dome Newsfeed, which Venusville has been cut off from, and learned that Morgan has the media blaming the MRA for the Venusville lockdown. “The official word is that we’ve cut off the air and that we’re threatening to kill everyone if Morgan doesn’t hand over control of the Mines to us. Apparently we’ve rigged the whole place to blow so that if Morgan’s troops attempt a rescue, everyone will die.”
Jensen looks around at the people they’ve got laying charges. “Semi-accurate,” he says with a shrug.
Felicia huffs. “Misha says to finish up the relocation as planned and then meet back in the conference room for another planning meeting.”
Jared and Jensen finish recording the evacuation and then help to move as many useful supplies to the New Dome as they can manage. The security guys are still rigging Venusville to blow and Jensen finds himself a lot more interested in the process than he would’ve been, pre-Ghosting. Jensen only has basic explosives training and he blames his inner-Dean for the fact that he gravitates to the side of one of the explosives experts and starts asking questions.
“Didn’t know you were interested in explosives,” Jared says, coming across and slinging a possessive arm around Jensen’s shoulders.
“Sure,” Jensen says, not missing the evil eye that Jared casts over the explosives guy. He slips a hand around Jared’s waist. “Who doesn’t like things that go bang?” he asks with a truck load of false innocence.
The explosives guy clears his throat. “Y’all might like to head back to the New Dome, if you’ve finished your own jobs. We like to clear all non-essential personnel from the area before we go boom.”
“C’mon, Jay,” Jensen murmurs. “We’ll have our own private explosion later.”
Jared swallows and if Jensen puts a little bit more of a swagger into his exit than strictly necessary, it’s only because he knows that Jared’s staring at his ass and he does owe the man a little payback, after all.
It’s organised chaos in the New Dome.
The area where the refugees were camped out earlier has been cleared of people and is now being used for storage. In the brand new area that has just been opened for business, there are people everywhere. There are MRA members with clipboards assigning housing and first aiders helping out those who are still suffering breathing difficulties. There are Psychics moving through the crowds calming and reassuring people. Even so, there are some tears and the occasional squabble. Mostly though, people are stunned; at the staggering scale of Morgan’s Corp’s betrayal; at the impressive scope of the MRA’s secret New Dome project.
When Jared and Jensen join the rest of the inner circle in the conference room, the mood is grim. As soon at they’re seated, Felicia wastes no time.
“The supply ship carrying the Ghost workers is scheduled to arrive in ten days. Until then, the workers currently on shift will be kept hopped up on Provigil and worked until they drop. Also, we hacked into the Main Dome Newsfeed again. Out there, we’re being blamed for Venusville and Ambassador Ackles,” she gives Jensen an apologetic look, “has been on the Holo conveying Earth’s full support for any action the Governor needs to take to deal with the ‘terrorist threat’ posed by the MRA.”
Jensen feels everyone’s eyes on him as he stares a hole in the top of the table. “Not unexpected,” he says. His voice has to navigate the lump in his throat and it comes out harsher than he intended. “Morgan’ll declare martial law next.”
“How are we going to get the miners out?” Jared asks.
The grim reality of the situation is that they can’t. Once they blow up Venusville there’s just no easy way to move large numbers of people from the Original Dome into the New Dome.
“Can we halt the detonation?” Jared asks.
Charles shakes his head. “We need to prevent Morgan’s troops from moving into the area and not seeing a bunch of dead bodies. We’ve gotta blow the place and,” he checks his i-band, “we’ve gotta do it soon.”
“We attack the mine,” says Sam. “We blow Venusville and, at the same time, we send an assault force out in suits to get into the mine through the lava tunnels. We take the workers ‘hostage’ so that they can’t be forced to work.”
There is a general murmur of approval, but Jensen shakes his head. “And then what? What happens when the Ghost workers turn up and the ‘hostages’ become expendable?”
“By then,” Jared says, lifting his chin defiantly, “we’ll have got the word out about what’s really going on here. Right Felicia?”
Felicia’a shoulders are hunched and her eyes flick first to Jared’s, then to Jensen’s.
“Yeah, about that. The satellite that handles interplanetary transmissions isn’t networked.”
“What does that mean?” Jared asks.
“It means,” Jensen says, “that someone has to go into Morgan Corp and initiate a transmission from inside the satellite control room.”
<
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Jared opens his eyes. “Dork,” he says fondly.
Jensen grins. “Yeah, but I’m your dork.”
Jared rolls onto his side. “Do you think Morgan’s gonna come after us?”
“Yeah. And this time I think there’ll be a big show trial before,” Jensen makes a gun with his thumb and forefinger and then places it against his head.
Jared’s eyes widen. “Everyone knows how much good we do; everyone knows who’s really to blame for all the shit on Mars. If he says a whole bunch of crap about us and then, you know,” he imitates Jensen’s gun gesture, “then the rebellion is only gonna get worse.”
Jensen reaches out and entwines his fingers with Jared’s. “If it does, then he just gets to crack down on the population even more. You gotta realize, Jay, everyone on Mars may know what’s going on, but the show trial wouldn’t be for us. It’d be for Earth. And no-one on Earth realizes how bad things are here. Down there, we’re being painted as the bad guys. Most of the shit that Morgan does to the workers gets blamed on the Rebels.”
Jared’s eyes widen even further. “The people on Earth can’t believe that, right?”
Jensen’s mouth is a grim line. “They believe what they’re told and the media on Earth is in Morgan’s pocket. People turn on the HV and what they see is a report telling them that the Martian rebels destroyed part of the Lower Dome; they see lots of footage of dead Martians and Morgan looking all concerned citizen while he promises to stamp out the terrorist rebels. No-one on Earth even stops to consider that maybe part of the Lower Dome collapsed and killed all those people because Morgan Corp didn’t want to waste time venting gases safely when they could be digging up profits.”
Jared’s eyes are liquid with concern. “Then we need to get the truth out there; need to let everyone on Earth know what’s really going on here.”
Jensen bites at his bottom lip. “I’m not sure they’d care,” he says. “So long as they get their fast, cheap energy and the materials to make their electronic components, I think they’re willing to turn a blind eye to the abuses we’re suffering here on Mars. We’re ‘the other’. And the fact that so many of us are mutants just makes it even easier for them to believe that we’re less than human. And if we’re not really human, if we’re not like them, then it’s easier for them to believe that we’re the bad guys. It makes them feel less guilty when they turn their backs on us.”
Jared shakes his head. “I don’t believe that. People are basically decent. Maybe they get scared sometimes, and lash out at things they don’t understand, but if they knew down on Earth what was really going on up here, they’d care.”
Jensen sighs. “You’ve got more faith in humanity than I do, Jared.”
Jared leans in and kisses him gently. “Liar. I can read your mind, remember.”
Jensen decides that he’s had enough of heavy topics so he grins and waggles his eyebrows, and counts on Jared skimming his thoughts.
Jared laughs. “Oh really?” he says. “We can do that. We should probably shower first, though.”
They shower and wash thoroughly and Jensen decides that he can’t wait to make good on the promise he’d thought at Jared and ends up falling to his knees under the cascading water and eating Jared out until the younger man is a whimpering mess, begging for a hand on his cock. Jensen finally relents and stands up, sliding easily into the younger man and then reaching around and fisting his hard, hot dick. After all the teasing, Jared comes quickly and when he’s done, Jensen presses him into the glass of the shower wall and fucks him hard and fast, pulling out at the last moment and coming over the globes of his ass, before washing the spunk away.
They dry off and dress in sweats and tees and Jensen spots a platinum ring sitting on the table next to the bed. He picks it up and turns it over in his hand, remembering the day that he and Jared exchanged rings and promised each other forever. It wasn’t legal, of course, but it meant something to them.
He also remembers the last time he took the ring off, just before he left to go on that final, fateful mission.
He feels Jared come up behind him and then his lover reaches around and takes the ring from his hand.
“Allow me,” Jared says and slides the ring onto Jensen’s finger. Jensen swallows. He doesn’t trust himself to speak right now.
“C’mon,” Jared links their hands together and leads him into the kitchen.
Jared rounds up a loaf of flatbread, and a bunch of dried meats, pickles and cheeses. He dumps them on the dining table while Jensen fetches plates and cutlery and then inspects the contents of the fridge.
“Next time we go shopping,” Jensen says, “we should get some beer.”
Jared stills and then turns to stare at him. “Beer?” he says. “You don’t like beer.”
“Yes I do.”
Jared frowns. “I don’t know how many times I’ve heard you say, ‘beer tastes like cold piss’. Now, suddenly, you like it?”
Jensen scowls. “I don’t know, okay! Dean likes it. So I can remember liking it. But I can also remember not liking it. I just want to have a freakin’ beer and see whether I like it or not, okay?”
“Of course it’s okay,” Jared said calmly. “Now come over here and tell me if you still like moldy cheese.”
Jensen stays beside the fridge for a beat and then makes his way over to the table and sits down across from Jared. “I’m sorry,” he says. “This whole Dean/Jensen thing is a little confusing. I’m trying to keep him in his own private box inside my head, but sometimes he gets out, and then I’m not entirely sure who I am for a minute.”
Jared just listens and nods and then hands Jensen a piece of flatbread slathered with crumbly blue-veined cheese.
The sharp, creamy taste bursts across his tongue and Jensen raises his eyebrows and nods. “Good,” he says. “Misha made it, right?”
“You can tell that, just from the taste?”
Jensen launches into a lecture about cheese making techniques and Jared smiles at him fondly. Jensen’s far too astute not to realize what Jared just did and he’s very grateful to his partner for giving him an opportunity to remember his own tastes and access his own memories.
“Maybe you and Misha should start brewing beer,” Jared says impishly.
Jensen tilts his head. “Maybe. Craft beer and micro-breweries are pretty popular in the Upper District on Earth.”
“Give it a go,” Jared says. “And if you fuck it up, hey, at least we’ll have some bottle bombs for the cause, right?”
Jensen throws a pickle at him.
Jared’s i-band chirps and Jared answers it in visual mode. A hologram of Misha appears in the room.
“Well hello you two crazy love-birds,” Misha says. “Jensen,” he cocks his head. “I think I liked you better with the beard. Hope you enjoyed your vacation on Earth, because shit’s about to get hectic.”
“It wasn’t a vacation, asshole,” Jensen growls, even though he knows that Misha’s just trying to get a rise out of him. “I had my life stolen.”
“Well Morgan wants to steal it again,” Misha says. “Permanently this time. He cut off the air to Venusville about five minutes ago and then rode in on his broomstick to send us a ‘Surrender Dorothy’ message.” The Misha holo runs a hand through its messy hair and looks grim. “Morgan says the air is gonna stay off until you two give yourselves up.”
Jensen draws in a deep shuddering breath. He’d known this moment would come; had made his peace with it. He just hadn’t realized it would come so soon. He glances at Jared. Not even a lifetime spent with Jared would be enough. He’d need several at least. He reaches out blindly and pulls his lover into a hug. He’s not ashamed to admit that he’s scared.
Jensen was recruited by the Martian arm of the Galactic Intelligence and Security Agency straight out of college. He’d done a double bachelor degree; Criminal Justice-Law Enforcement and Psychology; and then he’d done a Masters in Homeworld Security and Inter-planetary Issues. He’d also worked his father’s connections, played croquet with the right people and taken the right internships. Mars Intelligence was the employer he’d been molding himself for and he’d been delighted when they approached him.
At 24, after ten years exile on Earth, he was ready to head home. Maybe Mars wasn’t his planet of birth, but it was the home planet of the people he considered his true family; the planet where he’d spent most of his childhood; and it was dying under the weight of all the corruption. He wanted to do something. To fix things.
He’d been so young and naïve.
Jensen learned quickly that Morgan Corp owned Mars Intelligence, as well as the rest of Mars, and that he was never going to be able to disable the corruption on Mars from within the system. So Jensen kept his ear to the ground and eventually, he heard rumblings about the MRA. As best as he could figure, they were some kind of underground resistance group, although just exactly what they did, he couldn’t quite work out.
Unfortunately Jensen’s interest in the MRA came to the notice of Jensen’s boss, Director of Mars Intelligence, Amanda Tapping. The more Morgan Corp squeezed the populace for profits, the more people talked about The Angel, The Boyking and the MRA. Graffiti began to appear. Mining equipment began to break down. Production kept being halted. Profits began to suffer.
Because Jensen already had some contacts; people who knew people who knew people; and because those people seemed willing to talk to him, Tapping assigned him the task of infiltrating the MRA and bringing them down.
That had been a little over four and a half years ago. It had taken him eighteen months to work his way into the inner circle and then another six months to decide that he could trust Jared with the truth. It took him a further year to persuade Jared into his bed and that’s when Jared confessed that they’d been on to him from the start.
“Psychics, man,” he’d shrugged. “Not much gets past people who can read your mind. Although it took us a while to realize that you actually, genuinely wanted to help us; you kept that buried pretty deep.”
Jensen shrugged. “Mars Intelligence employs psychics too. I had to be careful. Luckily, psychics are just people, and people are usually happy to believe what they want to believe. Most of the time they’ll take the stuff on the surface at face value if it fits what they think they know.”
Jared nodded. “I’ve gotta be honest, once we’d seen the incriminating stuff on the surface of your mind we didn’t bother to dig too deep either.”
Jared had then gone on to explain that Loretta had done a deep probe shortly after Jensen first told them the truth, to confirm that he genuinely wanted to help the MRA and to make sure that Mars Intelligence hadn’t implanted any psychic time bombs in his head.
Before Jensen was arrested and charged with treason, he’d been really and truly in; a trusted member of the MRA. He’d even had his own code name-The Jackal-which sounded all kinds of badass, but was actually just based on his name in a deliberate ‘fuck you’ to his father.
Still, despite the year and a half that he’d spent as Jared’s partner and a member of the inner circle, he’d known that there were things he didn’t know about; a clearance level that he didn’t have.
So right now, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Jensen’s mind is completely blown.
“But,” he says, looking around at the massive bio-dome set up inside an impressively large cavern, “this can’t possibly be part of the main Dome structure.”
“It’s not,” Misha says gleefully. “And nor are any of the Resistance quarters, as far back as the second secret door. Our great grandparents set all this up themselves with parts pilfered from the Spare Parts storage unit. We’ve been building for three generations. This part,” he gestures at the hydroponic farm that Jensen calculates has to be at least sixty square feet, “is only known about by a handful of people.”
“Nine,” Jared says.
Misha regards him coolly. “And some of our people have nine fingers,” he says. “So handful is appropriate.”
“I was just clarifying the exact number for Jensen,” Jared says. “Although I guess now that he knows about it too, it’s actually ten.”
“And we’re about to make it a lot more,” Misha says. All the levity is gone from his demeanour and his blue eyes are suddenly commanding and intense.
“Is there more on the other side of the farm?” Jensen asks.
Misha nods. “A lot more.” He leads them through the farm, which is growing an impressive array of produce, and even has a beehive, which Misha coos at rather alarmingly. There’s a sliding door into a sally port and then another sliding door into what can only be described as an empty Dome town.
Jensen whistles. “This is amazing. Morgan has no idea that this is all here. You guys could secede; become completely self-sufficient.”
“That’s the plan,” Jared says. “This section isn’t quite ready yet, but it’s close enough.” He turns to Misha. “We should join Jim and the others and talk tactics.”
When the Holo image of Misha had told them that Morgan was demanding their surrender in return for turning the air back on in Venusville, Jensen had started to mentally prepare himself for death. He wasn’t okay with voluntarily handing himself over for execution; far from it. And he was even less okay with the thought of Jared dying. But he could never put his life before the lives of the thousands of men, women and children who lived in Venusville. When he asked Misha how long Morgan was giving them, Misha rolled his eyes and told Jensen that he was being far too melodramatic. And then he told them to meet him at the back wall, which turned out not to be wall, but rather yet another secret door.
Jared and Jensen are lagging behind Misha, because Jensen is so busy boggling at everything. He can’t believe all this got built right under his nose. By the time they get to a small room, furnished only with a conference table, Misha is already sitting at its head. Jared goes and sits down next to him and motions Jensen toward the seat beside him.
Jensen takes careful note of the other people in attendance: Sam Ferris and Charles Malik Whitfield who are Resistance Security; Felicia Day and Chad Lindberg who are IT; Loretta Devine, the Resistance’s most powerful psychic; and Steve Williams and Jim Beaver. Jensen’s not quite sure what Steve and Jim do for the Cause.
He walks around the table and hugs Felicia. He remembers Dean meeting her and he knows she must have found it painful to look at a guy wearing his face who wasn’t him and who didn’t remember her.
“Jensen?” she says and he nods. Her face breaks into a wide smile and she squeezes him tighter. “Welcome home, soldier,” she says.
He thanks her before taking his seat beside Jared.
Jensen is welcomed to the inner, inner circle. He’s welcomed back to himself and there’s a brief de-briefing about his Ghosting, primarily so that Loretta can reassure a very skeptical Steve that Jensen isn’t any kind of psychic danger to them; that they can trust everything that’s in his noggin; even the Dean bits.
Steve grudgingly accepts Loretta’s expertise in the area and the discussion moves to the people of Venusville who are rapidly using up their little remaining air.
Misha has a plan and Jensen has to admit that it’s (mostly) a good one. As soon as the meeting breaks up, the MRA will begin moving people into the New Dome a few at a time. Morgan Corp has the whole area under CCTV surveillance, but some of the MRA operatives currently out there in Venusville are going to shoot out the cameras in a ‘fuck you, you don’t get to watch us die’ kind of gesture that Morgan won’t find out of character. Morgan Corp will figure that they can still monitor the life sign readings anyway, so when life signs start disappearing, they’ll just figure that people are dying.
When all the life signs are gone, the MRA will blow up Venusville in a way that doesn’t expose the rest of the Dome to any danger, but does put a sizeable amount of rubble between the Original Dome and the New Dome, effectively sealing the MRA and the people they’ve rescued in their own separate silo.
“We should take holo footage,” Jared says, “as proof of what Morgan Corp is actually doing here.”
Jensen nods his agreement. “How do we plan to access the Original Dome going forward?” he asks. “Because I’d bet money that at some point we’re going to need to rescue more people from over there.”
Steve looks to Misha and at his nod, Steve explains about the bio-dome construction they’ve put together inside the lava tunnels on the far side of the Mine. “Once we blow Venusville and lose our direct connection to the Original Dome, we’ll have to put our suits on to get to the tunnels,” Steve says, “but once we’re in there, we can get through to the rest of the Original Dome via the mines. It’s how we plan to liaise with Alona Tal and her team.”
“Alona?” Jensen doesn’t know the name.
“My step-daughter,” Sam Ferris says. “Dean knows her as Jo Harvelle.”
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “So she’s not really a Chief Engineer?”
Sam looks highly unamused. “Of course she is. She’s also a member of the Resistance. Did you stop being a real spy when you started working for us?”
Jensen wrinkles his nose. “Yeah, kinda. I was an undercover operative. I don’t really get to do that anymore. But, I take your point,” he turns back to Steve. “So you’re what? The Chief Bio Dome Engineer?”
Steve nods. “My Great Granddaddy built the Original Dome, was out there every day in the field supervising. Of course, we didn’t realize back then that exposure to the dust would cause mutations. When his kids were born mutants, the family was bounced down to the Lower Dome. My granddaddy and my daddy didn’t get no proper College schooling, but they taught me everything I know. I did get a little schooling, which is how I met Jim,” he nods at the bearded man sitting next to Misha.
“Are you an Engineer too?” Jensen asks.
Jim shakes his head. “Chief Agriculturist. And non-mutant. I was born in the Middle Dome, met Steve at college and, well, let’s just say I didn’t like the rampant Muto-phobia he faced. He really opened my eyes to the corruption here on Mars and, well, the rest, as they say, is history.”
Jensen nods. He can relate to Jim’s story.
Turning back to Steve, Jensen licks his lips. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but having to suit up and go topside to get people out of the Original Dome seems like pretty poor strategy. It won’t do for large scale movement of people.”
“I know,” Steve says, “but until we can remove Morgan Corp from power here, it’s the best we can do.”
“Morgan Corp is out there right now,” Jared says, his fist pounding on the table, “killing thousands of our people. Not just armed rebels, but children and nursing moms and old folk. Surely, if the President on Earth knew the abuses that were going on here, he’d withdraw his support of Morgan. Surely.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t know?” Jensen asks. “And what makes you think he’d have any interest in seeing proof? Don’t forget, Morgan funded his campaign.”
Jared shakes his head and Jensen can see his despair. Jared has a good heart. He always wants to believe the best of people. Jensen, though, he knows how cruel and uncaring people can be; especially those whose chief desire is power.
“He still needs people to vote for him,” Jared says stubbornly. “If we show the people what Morgan’s up to out here, the President’ll have to take action against him, even if he is a major campaign donor.”
“Sure,” Jensen says, “let’s get the media on that. Oh, wait. Morgan owns the media.”
Felicia clears her throat. “Satellite transmissions can be hacked Jensen.”
“Remotely?”
Felicia licks her lips. “Maybe,” she looks at Misha who nods.
“Get on that,” Misha says. “Both of you,” he nods at Chad too, “see what you can do.” He pauses, head tilted. “Sam and Charles; put together a rescue crew. Bring over a few people at a time, like we discussed. Jim and Steve; get a team together to get the New Dome ready to go live. Jared, I want you and Jensen to get holo footage of Venusville, close ups of the ventilation systems so viewers will be able to see they’ve been shut off. Show the people’s suffering. Show us rescuing them. Any questions, anyone?”
There’s a general shaking of heads and then people begin to slip out. Misha gestures Jensen back down into his seat when he goes to stand. Jared hovers, looking at Jensen questioningly and Jensen lets him know with just a glance that he’s okay, that Jared can go and start getting organized and Jensen will meet him back at home.
Misha sits with his head cocked and stares at Jensen like a man who has nothing better to do with his time.
“I’m fine, Misha,” Jensen says.
They’re not close and they don’t know each other well, although they do share an appreciation of good cheese. It had actually taken Jensen a very long time to work out that Misha was in charge. As best as Jensen can tell he manages things by wandering vaguely about with his hands in his pockets, having coffee with people, and casually reading their minds.
Blue eyes stare into green.
Jensen refuses to fidget or look away.
Misha slaps his hands down on the table and grins. “Good talk,” he says. “And Jared’s right; we should definitely start a micro-brewery.”
Jensen blinks and then raises an eyebrow. “Are we done?”
“Yes,” Misha says gravely. “We’re done.”
Jensen gets to his feet. “Okay then,” he says and makes his way to the door of the conference room
“Jensen?” Misha’s voice stops him with his hand on the door handle.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t remember the last mission you did with Jay.”
It’s a statement not a question so Jensen doesn’t answer. It’s mostly true; he remembers bits of the mission, but the memory of what they were doing out in the mines and whether or not they achieved their goal is still missing from his mind.
“Are you gonna tell me?” Jensen finally asks Misha.
Misha inclines his head, birdlike and assessing.
“You were looking for some ancient equipment.”
It’s like trying to get blood out of a stone.
“Did we find it?”
Misha nods. “You did. And you were able to ascertain that the equipment was damaged before you were forced to flee.”
“What was it?” Jensen asks. “Mining equipment?”
“I wonder why this particular memory is lost to you,” Misha muses.
“No clue,” Jensen shrugs. “It’s not the only gap. Are you gonna tell me what the equipment was?”
Misha tilts his head again. “The original terra-forming equipment that Morgan Corp said was irreparably damaged in a landing accident, back when the colony was first formed.”
Pain slams into Jensen’s skull and he cries out and smacks the palm of his hand against his forehead. He’s sees the equipment, scored with laser blasts, and he shakes his head and gasps out something about sabotage. There’s a quiet flutter and then Jensen feels something soft wrap around him. He opens the eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed and is surprised to find that Misha is standing before him with his arms encircling, but not touching him.
“Dude,” he says, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Wrapping you in my wings.”
Jensen’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “Your…wings?”
Misha tilts his head. “Can you not feel them?”
Softness tickles across his face and Jensen pulls away. “What the hell?”
“They’re not visible in this dimension,” Misha says. “Not unless you’re a psychic.”
“Can you fly?”
Misha shrugs, his expression melancholy. “I’ve never had occasion to try. The tunnels don’t really lend themselves to flight,” his face brightens. “My wings did earn me my nickname though.”
The Angel. Jensen nods. He had wondered.
“Misha? What does MRA stand for? I still can’t remember and it’s been bugging me.”
“Ah,” Misha looks sheepish. “We still can’t agree. I wanted Mars Reclamation Activists, Jim wanted Mars Rebel Agriculturalists. Or was it Revolutionary Agriculturalists?” Misha frowns. “Castiel wanted Misha’s Renegade Angels and the media decided MRA stood for Martian Rebel Army. What do you think?”
“What about the people who started all this?” Jensen asks. “Your great grandparents or whatever. Didn’t they have a name for themselves?”
“Oh yes,” Misha nods. “Our grandparents called themselves The Concerned Citizens Committed to Completion of the Original Mission, which we felt lacked a certain pizazz for a revolutionary movement.” he shrugs. “And it doesn’t really lend itself to graffiti tags either.”
Jensen nods and then frowns. “Who’s Castiel? I don’t think I know…him? Her?”
Misha shakes his head. “You’re not ready to meet Castiel.”
Jensen waits to see if Misha will add anything, but he doesn’t, so Jensen nods and excuses himself and heads back to the yali he shares with Jared; which he’s just learned isn’t actually part of the official Martian bio-dome, and how cool is that?
Jared has weapons laid out on their bed and is sitting in their midst playing around with a small hand held camera that Jensen has never seen before.
“Hey,” he looks up and smiles when Jensen walks in. It’s not quite his full-wattage smile and Jensen figures that Jared isn’t sure whether Jensen is going to be pissed that his partner didn’t tell him about the New Dome project.
“I’m an intelligence agent,” Jensen says, “I worked for Morgan Corp for four years,” his voice is shaded with disgust as it always is when he thinks about his time working for Morgan. “So I’m familiar with the concept of ‘need to know.’ Would I have liked to know about the New Dome? Hell, yeah. Did I need to know? Was my ability to do my job for the MRA compromised by not knowing about it? No. So,” he gestures at the weapons and the recorder. “How are we gonna do this?”
Jared looks at him for a beat and then nods. “I’ll record, you watch my back. I doubt that Morgan will send his black ops troops in, but if we’re gonna be wandering around in Venusville, then we’re gonna be armed.”
They change into black jeans and Kevlar vests, strap on shoulder holsters and ankle holsters and then Jared watches with hooded eyes as Jensen straps on his thigh holster.
Jensen smiles. “Down, boy,” he says. “We don’t have time.”
Jared pulls him close and kisses him thoroughly.
“Have I ever told you how fucking sexy you look wearing that thigh holster?” he says when he pulls away.
Jensen nods. “Only every time I put it on,” he eyes Jared’s kiss-bruised mouth hungrily. He suspects his own lips look every bit as debauched and his jeans get a little bit tighter. Jared’s eyes glint and he reaches down and begins to palm Jensen through the coarse fabric.
Jensen bites back a whimper and reminds himself that he passed Christopher Heyerdahl’s ‘Withstanding Torture’ class. Although maybe, Jensen bites his lower lip, if Sergeant Heyerdahl had Jared’s puppy dog eyes and penchant for sucking Jensen’s dick he wouldn’t have graduated top of the class.
“C’mon,” he says gruffly. “We’ve gotta go.”
“But Jensen,” Jared pouts, “I really, really want to suck you.”
Jensen really, really wants that too, but they truly don’t have time.
“People are dying, Jared,” he says.
That’s all it takes to get Jared back on track, albeit with a very obvious reluctance to drag himself away from the bulge in Jensen’s jeans. They gather up their remaining weapons, the holo-recorder and their oxygen masks, and head out.
“Don’t think there won’t be payback for getting me like this before a job,” Jensen tells his partner, adjusting himself surreptitiously as they leave their yali.
Jared smirks. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”
For the first ten minutes of the operation equal numbers of people move in and out of Venusville, through the tunnel into the New Dome. The first people who come through into the New Dome are MRA and have some idea what to expect as they go through the tunnel. And then it’s civilians being moved through; the ill, the young and the old first. Chad has confirmed that the CCTV cameras are all out and he and Felicia have hacked Morgan Corp’s security system and knocked out the infrared too. The Life Signs reader is still active, but it can only detect the number of life signs within a designated area, not where exactly they are.
Jared and Jensen go into Venusville with the first group and Jensen dutifully watches Jared’s back while Jared records everything that’s happening on the handheld Holo-recorder.
He also keeps an eye on the people. Most are simply traumatized. It’s one thing to know intellectually that the Governor of Mars is a ruthless oligarch who will put profits before people every time; it’s quite another to have him deliberately try to kill your entire town as a means to an end. Some of the people sagging listlessly on the floor and trying to keep their breathing shallow, are obviously angry and Jensen has Jared take still shots of them. Jensen will talk to Charles and Sam about recruiting them for Security, or at the very least keeping an extra close eye on them. Loretta and her team of Psychics will have their work cut out for them, counselling all these traumatized people.
“Jared,” one of the security staff approaches quietly. “We’ve got a problem with a group of people down this way. Could do with a psychic to keep an eye on the mindset and maybe influence the ringleaders.”
Jared lowers the camera and he and Jensen follow the security officer to a small gathering of men, women and children sitting inside a house of worship.
Jensen swears under his breath. “Please don’t tell me they’re refusing to leave; that they think the Lord’s gonna save ‘em.”
“No, nothing like that,” the security officer says. “These guys all have spouses, parents, what-have-you who are on shift down at the mine right now. They want to know if they’re going to be able to reunite with them at some point.”
“Fuck,” Jensen touches his ear-piece. “Felicia, any chatter at Morgan Corp about the workers who are on shift in the mine right now?”
Felicia says she’ll let him know. Jared meanwhile, is moving through the people, sharing his oxygen mask with those who aren’t doing so well and getting people’s stories. Jensen watches him work with the sappy feeling of adoration that Jared’s kindness always invokes in him.
“He’s yours?” a woman looks up at him from where she’s sitting on the floor beside a pew. She’s tiny, Jensen doubts she’s more than four and a half foot, and she has the exquisite features of an ebony porcelain doll, face framed with black ringlets.
“Yeah,” Jensen says.
The woman smiles. “My girl’s in the mine. And when we’re all…gone, Morgan’s gonna be down a shit-ton of mine workers. You really think he’s gonna let them stop working?”
“What’s your name?” he asks and she tells him that it’s Shandy.
“We’ve got people on it,” Jensen says. “Dying in here ain’t gonna help your girl any. Let us get you safe, and then let us get them safe.”
His words seem to reassure both Shandy and a number of the people sitting nearby. They allow the security people to move them to safety and Jared comes across and wraps an arm around Jensen’s waist. “Look at you,” he says, “being ‘Mr People Skills’.”
Jensen rubs self-consciously at his chin. “Yeah. Well. Just channelling my inner-Dean. He was a bit better with people than I am.”
Jensen’s i-band beeps and when he answers it, the news isn’t good. Felicia hacked Morgan Corp’s HR records and found out that Morgan is planning to keep the current mine shift working until a shipment of replacement Ghost workers arrives from Earth. She also hacked into the Dome Newsfeed, which Venusville has been cut off from, and learned that Morgan has the media blaming the MRA for the Venusville lockdown. “The official word is that we’ve cut off the air and that we’re threatening to kill everyone if Morgan doesn’t hand over control of the Mines to us. Apparently we’ve rigged the whole place to blow so that if Morgan’s troops attempt a rescue, everyone will die.”
Jensen looks around at the people they’ve got laying charges. “Semi-accurate,” he says with a shrug.
Felicia huffs. “Misha says to finish up the relocation as planned and then meet back in the conference room for another planning meeting.”
Jared and Jensen finish recording the evacuation and then help to move as many useful supplies to the New Dome as they can manage. The security guys are still rigging Venusville to blow and Jensen finds himself a lot more interested in the process than he would’ve been, pre-Ghosting. Jensen only has basic explosives training and he blames his inner-Dean for the fact that he gravitates to the side of one of the explosives experts and starts asking questions.
“Didn’t know you were interested in explosives,” Jared says, coming across and slinging a possessive arm around Jensen’s shoulders.
“Sure,” Jensen says, not missing the evil eye that Jared casts over the explosives guy. He slips a hand around Jared’s waist. “Who doesn’t like things that go bang?” he asks with a truck load of false innocence.
The explosives guy clears his throat. “Y’all might like to head back to the New Dome, if you’ve finished your own jobs. We like to clear all non-essential personnel from the area before we go boom.”
“C’mon, Jay,” Jensen murmurs. “We’ll have our own private explosion later.”
Jared swallows and if Jensen puts a little bit more of a swagger into his exit than strictly necessary, it’s only because he knows that Jared’s staring at his ass and he does owe the man a little payback, after all.
It’s organised chaos in the New Dome.
The area where the refugees were camped out earlier has been cleared of people and is now being used for storage. In the brand new area that has just been opened for business, there are people everywhere. There are MRA members with clipboards assigning housing and first aiders helping out those who are still suffering breathing difficulties. There are Psychics moving through the crowds calming and reassuring people. Even so, there are some tears and the occasional squabble. Mostly though, people are stunned; at the staggering scale of Morgan’s Corp’s betrayal; at the impressive scope of the MRA’s secret New Dome project.
When Jared and Jensen join the rest of the inner circle in the conference room, the mood is grim. As soon at they’re seated, Felicia wastes no time.
“The supply ship carrying the Ghost workers is scheduled to arrive in ten days. Until then, the workers currently on shift will be kept hopped up on Provigil and worked until they drop. Also, we hacked into the Main Dome Newsfeed again. Out there, we’re being blamed for Venusville and Ambassador Ackles,” she gives Jensen an apologetic look, “has been on the Holo conveying Earth’s full support for any action the Governor needs to take to deal with the ‘terrorist threat’ posed by the MRA.”
Jensen feels everyone’s eyes on him as he stares a hole in the top of the table. “Not unexpected,” he says. His voice has to navigate the lump in his throat and it comes out harsher than he intended. “Morgan’ll declare martial law next.”
“How are we going to get the miners out?” Jared asks.
The grim reality of the situation is that they can’t. Once they blow up Venusville there’s just no easy way to move large numbers of people from the Original Dome into the New Dome.
“Can we halt the detonation?” Jared asks.
Charles shakes his head. “We need to prevent Morgan’s troops from moving into the area and not seeing a bunch of dead bodies. We’ve gotta blow the place and,” he checks his i-band, “we’ve gotta do it soon.”
“We attack the mine,” says Sam. “We blow Venusville and, at the same time, we send an assault force out in suits to get into the mine through the lava tunnels. We take the workers ‘hostage’ so that they can’t be forced to work.”
There is a general murmur of approval, but Jensen shakes his head. “And then what? What happens when the Ghost workers turn up and the ‘hostages’ become expendable?”
“By then,” Jared says, lifting his chin defiantly, “we’ll have got the word out about what’s really going on here. Right Felicia?”
Felicia’a shoulders are hunched and her eyes flick first to Jared’s, then to Jensen’s.
“Yeah, about that. The satellite that handles interplanetary transmissions isn’t networked.”
“What does that mean?” Jared asks.
“It means,” Jensen says, “that someone has to go into Morgan Corp and initiate a transmission from inside the satellite control room.”
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