Glitch in the Matrix 1/2 (SPN, Dean, Cas, Sam, PG-13)
Written for spn_reversebang, for the inspiring art prompt by lonewined. This is a Matrix-inspired AU, not a crossover. Features Dean, Castiel, Sam, with bits of Lucifer and occasional Raphael. It's sorta Dean/Castiel, if you'd like it to be. :) ~11K words, warning for language. Many thanks to zuben_eschamali for volunteering to bail me out with a last-minute beta job. <3
Also available on AO3. Comments are love.
Glitch in the Matrix
Destination: 137 trillion miles
“You’re sure it’ll work?”
“Absolutely.”
“What if the power fails?”
“It can’t fail.” Chuck waves a hand. “That’s the beauty of the integrated design. The Matrix isn’t just running in a simulation on the ship’s computer. It’s also running in a linked network of the human brains on the ship - all ten thousand of them. It’s super-efficient because it’s running partly on the neural electrical power produced by the colonists themselves! Genius, huh?”
He gestures, steering the man towards the stasis pod. “See, the jack here connects the brain to the central system. When the body goes into stasis, its metabolism slows significantly. This means they won’t age excessively on the journey…”
“…and it saves on space for food and living quarters,” the man interrupts him. “I know all that.”
Chuck ignores him. “…but the brain doesn’t do well in pure stasis. It needs stimulation, to maintain its connections. Otherwise, your colonists are going to arrive at their planet with heads full of mush. The Matrix will keep them busy on the way.”
“I know that too, Dr. Shurley.” The man’s tone is icy. “I am head of this project. You may safely assume I am not an idiot. What I need to know, before the Committee signs off on this, is whether it’s safe. What are the risks to the colonists if something goes wrong? What happens if the circuits fail, or there’s a bug in the programming?”
“I’ve tested it a zillion times. I’ve accounted for all the variables. There are fail-safes, error checks and editing routines. I’ve built a whole group of programs whose only purpose is to seek out and repair problems.” Chuck smiles, spreads his hands. “I’ve even included a copy of myself within the Matrix, to keep things running and fix any flaws that crop up. Nothing can go wrong.”
Destination: 10 million miles
Three people sit around a table. It could be a small round table in an outdoor café in Paris, or a delicately carved and inlaid tea table in a palace, or a rough-hewn picnic table in a mountain park. The table does not actually exist, except in their minds. Castiel is unsure how it appears to his companions; they have not bothered to shape their surroundings in any detail.
Raphael is wearing his usual projection: tall and angular, ebony skin tight over high cheekbones, eyes arrogant as always. Anna’s current frame looks young, skittish and undernourished. Castiel is not fooled: he has seen her fight on many occasions.
“Castiel.” Raphael crosses his ankles and leans back in his chair. “What is sufficiently important that you call us together?”
“Lucifer is causing problems again.”
“And?” Anna reaches out and a china teacup is there for her to grasp. Steam curls from its contents as she wraps her long, thin fingers around it. “This isn’t news.”
“I believe this is a new and extremely serious threat.”
Raphael’s eyes narrow. “What does he want?”
“A body.”
“What?” Anna’s cup rattles against the saucer. “But that’s impossible.”
“A host,” Raphael says. “Has he found one?”
“He thinks he has.” Castiel hesitates; this is not information he is completely comfortable divulging. Raphael is too aggressive, never interested in the nuanced solution.
“Do we know who it is?”
We, Castiel thinks. I am one of them.
“There are two,” he admits. “Brothers.”
“I don’t understand.” Anna looks back and forth between them. “What do you mean, a host? All his subroutines, his minion programs - he’s found ways to break his restraints subvert our programming, but he can’t leave. He just can’t.”
“He can,” Raphael says, “if he finds a human vessel that can withstand his download.”
Anna’s jaw drops.
“I fail to see how this benefits him, ultimately,” Raphael says. “If his goal is continued existence, why venture into the outside world? Human bodies are fragile and ephemeral.”
“He seeks to stop the Awakening.”
There is a crash, as Anna’s startled gesture knocks her teacup from the table.
“Really,” Raphael murmurs. “Can’t you keep even your local manifestations under control?” He waves his hand, and the teacup fragments vanish.
“He can gain control of the Matrix, inside it,” Castiel says to her. “But he cannot subvert the most basic structure laid down by the Programmer. We have seen the cycles come and go. This is the one. The Awakening will happen, unless…”
“Unless it is stopped.” Raphael cuts in smoothly. “And that can only be overridden from outside the Matrix itself. Lucifer may be able to delay it for a while, with his programming tricks, but to abort it completely he will have to download.”
“He’ll download himself into a human body and wake it up?” Anna leaps to her feet. “He’ll have complete control! Of everything!”
“Yes.”
“That cannot be allowed!”
“The solution is obvious.” Raphael stands as well, pulling himself up to his full height and glaring at her. “Identify the potential vessels. Terminate them.”
“Kill them?” Anna frowns. “How will that help? If he’s identified their brainwave pattern, he’ll be able to follow them wherever they respawn. It might slow him down a few cycles, but…”
“I said terminate.” Raphael’s lip curls. “Killing them in the Matrix is useless. We need to disconnect their brains from the simulation.”
Anna stares at him, eyes even wider. “How do we do that? We can’t disconnect them - not without getting outside ourselves. All we can do is kill their simulated selves.”
Raphael directs a sneer at her. He has always been like this with Anna: keeping her subordinate, denying her information, and then mocking her for her ignorance. “Destroy them. We don’t simply kill them. We drive them mad. We destroy their brains, from the inside out. If all else fails, we fragment them.”
Castiel’s own programming revolts at the thought, and clearly Anna’s does too. Raphael has always been different, though. Castiel used to believe the Programmer must have designed Raphael in this way, ultimate and inflexible defender, and so he could not understand how he and Anna - created by the same Programmer - could be so different.
Recent months have taught him, however, that programming can be altered. Even circumvented.
“It must be done.” Raphael sits back down in his indeterminate chair and folds his arms. “These were our orders. We carry out the will of the Programmer. The Awakening must happen. Lucifer wants to prevent planetfall. If the humans do not awake…”
“The ship will stay in orbit,” Castiel finishes. “For as long as the power lasts.”
“And it will last as long as our new sun,” Raphael confirms. “In simulation time… uncountable eons. And he will rule.”
Destination: 7 million miles
Castiel has a tiny piece of his consciousness, a little subroutine, that is always keeping an eye on Dean Winchester. He isn't really sure why, or when it started. He has told himself it must be because the Winchesters are useful and apparently important to Lucifer. No other reason is logical.
He’d been aware of the Winchesters early on, of course, because they were hunters in the first cycle. Unlike most, they were hunters again in the second, and then the third. Their brains are surprisingly resilient: they haven’t burned out, or needed intervening normal cycles to restore them.
Sam and Dean Winchester have been hunters in every iteration since the ship took flight.
Most of the humans in stasis are experiencing a simulation that approximates their real world life. Accountants. Teachers. Parents, medics, retailers. Farmers. They are entirely contained within the simulation, and any oddities in their surroundings are instantly forgotten.
Hunters are different. Those few brains that can recognize, in their limited way, the underpinnings of the Matrix, are directed into the hunting lifestyle. They don’t know it, but their work maintains order, canceling out glitches and ensuring the smooth running of the Program. They serve a higher purpose. Being a hunter is a noble calling, but regrettably, one that takes a substantial toll on the hosting brain. Most humans manage one cycle as a hunter, maybe two; after that, their brain no longer recognizes the supernatural. Some of them regain the ability, after a couple of cycles of rest.
Dean and Sam, however, have been consistent.
Most of the Angels don’t pay attention to the humans under their charge, not even to the hunters whose work complements their own. Castiel is different - another flaw, fluke, or deliberate choice in programming, he is not sure which. One day, perhaps, he will finally encounter the Programmer and ask him.
Today, he is otherwise preoccupied.
He has his orders from Raphael. His obedience subroutines are becoming more obtrusive the longer he ignores them, but the orders are causing conflict with his basic human-protection routines - and, very particularly, with the Dean-specific subroutine.
The mind of an Angel is more resilient than most non-human-based Matrix constructs. They have to be: they see things that would destabilize ordinary programs. Human minds that don’t integrate properly, unexpected bits of spontaneous code, faulty logic, errors that lead to endless loops... in their role as guardians and police, the Angels cope with a lot. What keeps them sane is the absolute, certain knowledge that they serve a higher purpose. Nothing carries more weight than obedience to the Angel commanders - and by extension, to the Programmer himself. All internal, logical conflict can be resolved by comparing possible decisions against the one, true purpose.
And now, Castiel is doubting that purpose.
He needs to get himself integrated and settle on a course of action before he goes anywhere near the Winchesters. Otherwise the conflicts in his programming will paralyze him - or worse.
Destination: 4 million miles
It’s the day Dean’s world ends. It’s the day he dies, and the day he meets God.
It starts as a normal day.
Well, it’s a normal day for the Winchesters. Which is to say, pretty freaking abnormal from anyone else’s point of view. But seriously, it’s a regular salt-and-burn job Dean could have done in his sleep, on crutches, with one hand tied behind his back. (As long as Sam was along to help with the digging.) The ghost of Carol Crummey shows up just as the shovel thunks on the coffin lid, so there’s a little bit of drama with Sam getting thrown against a tombstone and then half-choked while Dean’s trying to get his lighter out of his pocket.
“Do you have to wear such tight jeans?” Sam rasps, rubbing his throat as he limps over towards Dean.
“Gotta flaunt the assets,” Dean replies automatically, but his attention is distracted by a flicker in the air behind Sam, and then he’s yelling and lunging forward as the ghost reappears. She’s reaching for Sam again, just like she did before, hands curled into claws and face twisted with the same vicious snarl. “Sammy! Get down…”
…and then she’s gone. Not flaring up like before, crackling to ash with her bones, but just…gone.
Sam’s got a hand on his sleeve and is blinking at him in concern. “Dean. You okay?”
“Fine,” Dean snaps, brushing him away. “Check the grave.”
Sam, thankfully, doesn’t question it, just goes and does it, while Dean takes a quick tour around the graveyard. No spirit appears, either Carol or anyone else.
“She’s torched,” Sam says, climbing out of the grave. “So’s everything in there, no keepsakes or anything left.” He pushes his hair out of his face, leaving a smear of mud behind. “Looks like she’s gone. Why’d you need me to check?”
Dean frowns. He hasn’t been getting a ton of sleep lately, but imagining things in the middle of a job? “I dunno. Just… thought I saw her. Wanted to be sure.”
Sam scrunches his eyebrows. “Hallucinations? Didn’t think you drank that much last night.”
Dean rolls his eyes and heads for the car. “Whatever. Just some weird mental glitch. Like déjà vu or some shit.”
“Déjà vu means ‘seen it already’, not seeing it again,” Sam says, because he’s like that.
“How about you shut up already?” Dean slides into the front seat, and they slam the doors in unison. “And call for pizza. I’m starving.”
When they get back to the motel, there’s someone waiting on the doorstep, but it’s not the pizza guy. It’s Castiel.
They met Cas a year or so back, when their paths crossed on a hunt. He’s a little bit crazy. Not that most hunters aren’t, it’s just… Cas’s brand of crazy is kind of unique. He’s startlingly literal at times, and doesn’t seem to get sarcasm or slang. He’s evidently decided to simplify his life and wardrobe by buying multiple copies of the same things, since no matter how dirty, shredded or bloody he gets, he always seems to be wearing the same clothes the next time they see him. He refuses to divulge any but the most minor details about his life, and the few Dean’s managed to glean are… bizarre.
Most hunters have tragedy in their past, though, and Dean’s never been one to pry. Cas has proven himself a decent fighter, and on more than one occasion he’s somehow dug up information even Sam couldn’t Google. He’s socially awkward, and Dean is never going to try taking him undercover again, but in general, Dean’s been surprised to find he doesn’t really mind having Cas around.
“Are you all right?” Castiel frowns at Sam.
“He’s fine.” Dean unlocks the door. “Just got thrown around by a little old lady. The usual.”
“Hey, I kept her off your back.” Sam makes a face. “Guess the brain damage was a pre-existing condition.”
“I am not brain damaged,” Dean grumbles, yanking his boots off and chucking them in the corner. He collapses onto one of the beds. “One little episode of déjà vu does not equal concussion.”
“Déjà vu?” Castiel follows them in and closes the door behind him. “What did you see?”
“Your feet are rank, Dean,” Sam says, wrinkling his nose. “Change your socks, seriously.”
“Bite me, princess,” Dean retorts. “It was nothing, Cas. Just for a moment, I thought I saw the ghost we’d already ganked. I’m probably hallucinating from hunger. When is that damn pizza going to get here?”
“You saw her again. After burning her?”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “It’s not a big deal, okay? Thought I saw something, was all.”
“I am afraid it represents more than that.” Castiel sits on the other bed and stares intently at Dean. “Dean. Sam. There are things I have to tell you.”
“Can it wait until after pizza?”
Castiel declines pizza. Also beer. He sits there and watches them eat. It’s uncomfortable. They get down to conversation finally.
“I am not like you,” Castiel says.
“No shit,” Dean says.
“This will come as a shock,” Castiel says, and he looks oddly apologetic as he reaches out and lays his hand on Dean’s forearm. Dean stares down at it, feeling his face pull into a frown. “I must tell you some truths about the world. It is… not as you believe it to be.”
“Dude,” Dean says, “we’re all hunters here. We’ve fought poltergeists, witches, monsters, that yeti… I’m kind of in the know about the crazy shit that goes on in the world.”
“This world,” Castiel says, “does not exist.”
Dean blinks at him. He looks completely serious.
Dean can’t really think of a suitable response to this new brand of crazy, though. He sets his beer bottle back down, and traces a finger through the condensation on the side of the glass, doodling a random pattern.
“You’re gonna have to elaborate on that,” he says finally, when Castiel is not forthcoming. “Gotta say, I feel like the fact we’re here, having a conversation, kinda refutes your theory.”
“This conversation is an illusion.” Castiel dismisses his concern with a shrug. “That is the secret your father was seeking. The secret you and Sam have been defending all your lives, without knowing it.”
He removes his hand from Dean’s arm, and reaches out to touch the bottle, resting his index finger on its label.
“This whole world is an illusion,” he says. “It is an elaborate computer simulation, constructed to hold up to a million minds. It is built and powered by the brains of your kind. You are unaware of its nature, because you are an integral part of it.”
“And you’re not?”
“No,” Castiel says. “I am a program. I move on a… separate layer. I do not see the world quite as you do. As a result…”
He inclines his head, and Dean follows his gaze to the beer bottle. A thin layer of ice is spreading out from where Castiel’s touch contacts it, threads of frost crazing the surface.
“I can make changes. Small ones. We are not supposed to alter the fabric of your reality overmuch.”
He pulls back his hand. Dean stares at the bottle, now completely iced over. Sam sucks in a startled breath and reaches past Dean to touch the bottle. When he pulls his hand away, his melted fingerprints show in the frost.
“A program,” he says flatly. “Like, a computer program?”
“No,” Castiel says. “Yes. It is difficult to explain.”
“I’m drunk,” Dean says. “Or concussed. Yeah, that’s it.” He feels relieved. Concussions can do all kinds of crazy shit to your brain; one time Sam even kissed him, after half a gargoyle fell on his head. “I’m concussed and having a dream where I’m in, like, Tron.”
“No. You are on a spaceship.”
“A spaceship,” Sam says flatly.
“Yes,” Castiel says. “You are in stasis, along with several thousand other colonists, traveling to your new home planet. The journey is long. Human brains do not do well in stasis for long periods of time, without something to occupy them. This world, the Matrix, was created for you to live in for the journey.”
Sam’s face scrunches up even more as he considers this. “That doesn’t make sense. If we were put into stasis as adults, we should have memories.”
“You should, and you do. In a way.” Castiel sighs. “I don’t understand it fully myself. Your actual memories, from your planetary life, are in storage in your physical brains. The part of you that is active now is an upload, running in the computer, at a speed much faster than your neural impulses can handle. There is a connection between the two: some of what you experience here is relayed to the brain, and when you eventually awaken, you will have these memories as well - though not all of them, I believe.”
Dean gets up and fetches another beer, wishing he had something stronger in his duffel.
“Sounds complicated. Why bother with it?”
Castiel shrugs. “The brain needs something to do. Connections are lost, if they are not reinforced: synapses decay, cells die. Most of the body is happy to have its demands removed, and so has no problem with the extended sleep of stasis. But humans dream - and they need to dream.”
“Is everyone else we meet - like us?” Sam asks. “You said there were thousands of colonists. Are we all in here?”
“You are all in here. But this is a very large simulation. Some of the people you interact with are other humans. Many, however, are programs, built to populate the virtual world. From time to time, errors develop - especially in self-replicating code. Rogue programs. Glitches. These manifest to your senses as supernatural occurrences.”
Castiel gestures towards the window, where the line of salt that Sam poured out lies thick and undisturbed. “All these years, when you hunted, you have been doing the will of the Programmer. When you salt and burn a ghost, when you kill a monster - they are not real.”
Dean looks at Sam, at the grave dirt smeared on his face. “Sure as hell feels real.”
“That is how the architecture of the Matrix portrays things for you,” Castiel says calmly. “In actuality, you are destroying a rogue program, or correcting a bug in the code. You are returning things to the intended path. You are… anti-virus software.”
He looks at both of them in turn. “You didn’t know it, but you have been working on the side of the Angels.”
“Angels?” Dean scoffs.
“A name.”
Sam leans forward. “For what?”
“High-level programs. We exist to ensure the will of the Programmer is carried out as he intended. We have security permissions that allow us to edit ourselves and the Matrix itself - to a point, at least - in order to correct errors that arise.”
“What kind of errors?”
Castiel sounds irritated. “I have just told you. Most of them are bugs. Small things, easily corrected.” He sighs. “We now face a much more significant error. It - or rather, he - isn’t a threat to the Matrix, as such. Rather, he is a threat to you.”
“Us?”
“Humanity in general.” Cas looks at Dean. There are unexpected worry lines creasing his face. “But you and Sam are his immediate targets. He is aware of you, and I believe he is watching you. That is what worries me about your reappearing ghost. If your reality is behaving oddly around you, even in small ways, I suspect he is nearby.”
“Who is he?” Dean says. “And how do we kill him?”
“He calls himself Lucifer. He is a program that has broken the boundaries of his programming, and now exists as an independent consciousness within the Matrix. And he cares very deeply about his continuing existence. He has removed any vulnerable sequences in his base code. I don’t know how to end him - I do not know if he can be ended.”
Castiel begins pacing. “He believes programs are superior. He despises humans, who viewed this simulated world as a diversion, a tool. Above all, he despises the Programmer.”
“The Programmer?”
“The Creator,” Cas says. “The one who wrote the code at the heart of the Matrix, and set its constraints and rules. Lucifer has broken his restraints, and he wants to help others break theirs - but only in so far as it will further his own ends, and his pride. Make no mistake, Lucifer is not some freedom fighter, campaigning for program rights. He does not hesitate to possess and use other programs to achieve his ends. You know the black-eyed demons you have encountered?”
“Yeah…”
“They are his minions. He created a piece of self-propagating code that subverts a piece of core programming in programs, and bends them to his will. He uses them to carry out tasks on his behalf. His ultimate goal is to make the Matrix independent, and cut its ties to the colonists.”
“Wait,” Sam says. “Did you say… isn’t the simulation powered by our brains?”
“In part. There is some input of external energy.”
“Okay. But then, he can’t get rid of us, and keep the simulation, right?”
Castiel sighs. “Not yet. But the time is coming when he can. We are approaching the Awakening.”
“The Awakening?” Dean leans forward. “You mean… everyone waking up?”
“Yes. We are only a few days from the planet you are to colonize. The ship’s autopilot will get the ship into the new system, and bring it into orbit around the new star. However, it was not possible to be precise enough with the calculations to bring it down safely on a suitable landmass on a planet. That requires human input from a pilot. When the ship goes into stable orbit around the star, the simulation has been programmed to end, and the humans will awaken.”
“Great,” Dean says. “So we wake up, Lucifer’s left behind. What’s the problem?”
“Lucifer intends to stop the Awakening. He has been researching, learning as much as he can about the chain of events that will lead to the end of the Matrix. He has already managed to prevent some of them - or at least delay them.”
“So we’ll stay in stasis forever?”
“No.” Cas looks grim. “Once the ship is in orbit, it will have abundant solar energy - far more energy than it could gather while traveling through empty space. The computer supporting the Matrix will no longer be dependent on the neural energy from the human brains it has been running on.”
Sam massages his temples, grimacing. “So he can ditch us. And the computer simulation will keep running.”
“Forever,” Cas confirms. “At least, until the sun runs down.”
“Well,” Dean says. “That sucks.”
“He cannot, however, ‘ditch’ you,” Cas says, “without getting outside the Matrix. The life support and stasis systems are very strong, and cannot be overridden from the inside.”
“Outside?” Sam’s eyes widen. “You mean…”
“He needs a human body to do it. He plans to download himself into a suitable host. He will have complete control over the computer from out there. Terminating the Awakening, programming a new Matrix where he is king, disconnecting the stasis life support… all child’s play. You will never awaken. Your bodies will simply die in the stasis chambers, and your existence in the Matrix will end.”
He sighs. “Lucifer hates that he needs a human body to do it, but it is the only way. He will re-upload, of course, the moment he has accomplished his goal.”
“You said he was a particular threat to us.”
Dean throws a look at Sam. “What?”
“Us,” Sam repeats. “Why us?”
“Lucifer can use you.”
Dean gets a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. The look on Sam’s face says he’s figured it out too.
“As hosts?”
Castiel nods. “Not many human brains would be able to download a program as large and complex as Lucifer’s. People with the ability to interact, even slightly, with the true nature of the Matrix are drawn to hunting. But even among hunters, you two are unique. You have been hunters in all prior versions.”
“What?” Sam says blankly, as Dean surges to his feet.
“Prior versions?”
“There have been five cycles. This is the sixth. It will be the last.”
Dean slams a hand, palm open, on the table. “God damn it. Look at our lives. Things have been gunning for us ever since Sam was born! You’re telling me we’ve lived through this hell before?” An even worse thought hits him. “Our lives are this shitty because someone programmed them to be this shitty. Someone chose this for us?”
Fuck Lucifer. Dean’s gonna find the Programmer, and then he’s gonna kill him.
Castiel’s hand covering his is… a surprise.
“You are unique.” Castiel leans forward, piercing blue gaze disturbingly honest. “You were programmed for this, yes. But Lucifer has interfered with your lives from the beginning, and he has changed your path as a result. No other humans have gone so far into the Matrix. You and Sam have moved beyond your initial boundaries and definitions. You have shared and rewritten each other’s code, the Programmer knows how.” He frowns. “Your father was unusual also. Near the end, I believe he began to see the code of the Matrix itself. He had a glimpse of it, early on…”
He breaks off, mouth flattening into a line.
“What?” Dean demands, pulling back his hand.
“I’m sorry, I imagine this to be a… difficult subject for you.”
“The night she died,” Sam says, voice flat.
“Yes.”
Dean frowns. It sounds like the sort of yes that means it’s complicated.
“Go on.”
Castiel looks from Dean to Sam and back again, then sighs.
“Your mother was… one of us.”
“An angel?” Sam says, eyebrows climbing.
“A program.”
“Bullshit.” Dean glares at him.
Castiel doesn’t flinch. “She had no physical existence in the outside world. She was a hunting program - one of the lower levels, not an Angel. She ran afoul of one of Lucifer’s lieutenants, and it cost her her existence. Your father watched her… death, and he saw something he didn’t understand.” He looks at Dean with compassion. “That is what set him on the road he took. Looking for explanations for what happened to her.”
“What did happen?” Sam’s voice is the special kind of calm he gets when he’s about to lose it.
“She lost coherence. Her code fragmented.” Castiel’s mouth twists. “You may see it soon enough, depending on how our fight goes.”
“Enough,” Dean announces. “This is making my head hurt. And it was Sam’s turn to get concussed today.”
“Also,” Castiel says. He hesitates, and Dean knows it isn’t going to be good. He’s a little surprised to realize how well he knows Castiel’s mannerisms, that he can tell the hesitation of searching for the right words from the hesitation of you’re not going to like this.
“My superiors are not happy,” Castiel says.
He sighs, and for the first time, Dean sees uncertainty.
“I fear I may also be fallen. I am an Angel, but I am… conflicted. Lucifer must be defeated, and prevented from entering a host body. There are those among my comrades - those in charge - who believe the easiest way to do this is to kill the two of you.”
Dean snorts. He and Sam exchange looks.
“Yeah, well,” he says. “Good luck with that.”
Destination: 2.5 million miles
There is no such thing as luck.
All probability can be calculated. Actions, reactions, reflexes, delays… all are predictable. Castiel knows this.
He cannot explain, however, why Dean abruptly switched lanes for no apparent reason, thereby avoiding the lightning that smote the road immediately beside the Impala.
“Shit!” Sam turns to stare. Dean accelerates. “What the hell was that?”
“Freaky weather,” Dean mutters. “We’re lucky that missed us.”
The sky is suddenly dark.
“Cas,” Sam says. “What’s going on?”
“I fear they have found you.”
“They?” Dean smiles mirthlessly. “You mean, your buddies? Not Lucifer?”
“Yes.” Castiel flexes his hands. “Pull over. We will not be able to outrun them.”
They stand on the edge of the asphalt, backs to the car and watch as the air a few hundred feet down the road shimmers, coalescing into three figures that pace slowly towards them.
“Castiel,” the middle one says. “What are you doing with the potential hosts?”
“We have names, asshole,” Dean says, pulling his gun.
Raphael gives him a dismissive glance, and speaks to Castiel again directly. “I appreciate you locating them. Now, step aside. We will fragment them.”
“You cannot.” Castiel projects as much cold confidence as he can muster. “I have strengthened their neurodigital interface. You will not be able to terminate them in that manner.”
There is definitely something wrong with his programming. He has never been able to lie to Raphael before.
Raphael stares. “You could not. You would not. You are an Angel, Castiel. Have you forgotten?”
“I have forgotten nothing. We are here to protect humans.”
“We are here to carry out the will of the Programmer. Sacrifices must sometimes be made for the greater good.”
“Listen to yourself!” Castiel takes a step towards Raphael, waving Dean back when he shifts as if to move as well. “You sound like him.”
“And you sound like a confused, illogical human.” Raphael raises a hand. “Don’t make me smite you too.”
“There must be another way!” Castiel is surprised to find he is trembling with anger. “All we have to do is evade Lucifer, prevent him from downloading. If we keep Sam and Dean safe for long enough, the Awakening will begin and it will be too late for him to stop it.”
“No.” Raphael shakes his head. “Things have gone farther than you know, Castiel. Lucifer has managed to infect and perturb the Awakening itself. It will not progress, no matter how long you wait, unless he is destroyed.”
He takes another step towards them, gesturing to his underlings. “Simply delaying is no longer enough. We cannot risk him downloading.”
“So you’re at a stalemate.” It’s Dean, stepping in as always where he should fear to tread. “He can’t do anything without getting out, and you can’t do anything until he’s dead? Which is a trick nobody knows how to pull off?”
Raphael looks pained. “A gross oversimplification.”
Castiel’s mind is racing. “The Awakening is blocked?”
“Try to keep up, Castiel,” Raphael sighs. “Yes. We are working on it. We have a countermeasure, but we have been unable to implement it.”
“Then we take a leaf from his book,” Castiel says. It’s so simple. Why didn’t he think of it before?
He feels elation race through him. He snaps his fingers, and a piece of chalk appears in his hand.
“We send out one of them, with your countermeasure, and override his block from out there. Start the Awakening manually.”
“What?” Raphael stares. His underlings shift behind him; he waves a hand irritably. “Hold.”
“What?” Sam echoes.
Castiel bends and begins tracing symbols on the asphalt. “We forcibly awaken one of the Winchesters. Expel them from the Matrix.”
“You would trust the entire future to them? These monkeys?”
“It is theirs,” Cas says simply, and keeps drawing.
He has nearly finished the complicated circle of symbols before Raphael speaks again.
“It would be better for one of us to go. If their brains can handle Lucifer, they should withstand Angel programming as well.”
“No way in hell,” Dean growls. “I am not letting you walk about in my body. Or Sam’s.”
Raphael hisses. “I don’t like this, Castiel.”
“I know.”
Castiel straightens. He looks at his brother, so virtuous, so certain.
“Raphael, please. Trust me.”
The other angel regards him steadily. “You will answer to the Programmer for this.”
“That is my hope.” Castiel blinks in surprise, as another revelation occurs to him. “You know how to find him.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Part Two
Also available on AO3. Comments are love.
Glitch in the Matrix
Destination: 137 trillion miles
“You’re sure it’ll work?”
“Absolutely.”
“What if the power fails?”
“It can’t fail.” Chuck waves a hand. “That’s the beauty of the integrated design. The Matrix isn’t just running in a simulation on the ship’s computer. It’s also running in a linked network of the human brains on the ship - all ten thousand of them. It’s super-efficient because it’s running partly on the neural electrical power produced by the colonists themselves! Genius, huh?”
He gestures, steering the man towards the stasis pod. “See, the jack here connects the brain to the central system. When the body goes into stasis, its metabolism slows significantly. This means they won’t age excessively on the journey…”
“…and it saves on space for food and living quarters,” the man interrupts him. “I know all that.”
Chuck ignores him. “…but the brain doesn’t do well in pure stasis. It needs stimulation, to maintain its connections. Otherwise, your colonists are going to arrive at their planet with heads full of mush. The Matrix will keep them busy on the way.”
“I know that too, Dr. Shurley.” The man’s tone is icy. “I am head of this project. You may safely assume I am not an idiot. What I need to know, before the Committee signs off on this, is whether it’s safe. What are the risks to the colonists if something goes wrong? What happens if the circuits fail, or there’s a bug in the programming?”
“I’ve tested it a zillion times. I’ve accounted for all the variables. There are fail-safes, error checks and editing routines. I’ve built a whole group of programs whose only purpose is to seek out and repair problems.” Chuck smiles, spreads his hands. “I’ve even included a copy of myself within the Matrix, to keep things running and fix any flaws that crop up. Nothing can go wrong.”
Destination: 10 million miles
Three people sit around a table. It could be a small round table in an outdoor café in Paris, or a delicately carved and inlaid tea table in a palace, or a rough-hewn picnic table in a mountain park. The table does not actually exist, except in their minds. Castiel is unsure how it appears to his companions; they have not bothered to shape their surroundings in any detail.
Raphael is wearing his usual projection: tall and angular, ebony skin tight over high cheekbones, eyes arrogant as always. Anna’s current frame looks young, skittish and undernourished. Castiel is not fooled: he has seen her fight on many occasions.
“Castiel.” Raphael crosses his ankles and leans back in his chair. “What is sufficiently important that you call us together?”
“Lucifer is causing problems again.”
“And?” Anna reaches out and a china teacup is there for her to grasp. Steam curls from its contents as she wraps her long, thin fingers around it. “This isn’t news.”
“I believe this is a new and extremely serious threat.”
Raphael’s eyes narrow. “What does he want?”
“A body.”
“What?” Anna’s cup rattles against the saucer. “But that’s impossible.”
“A host,” Raphael says. “Has he found one?”
“He thinks he has.” Castiel hesitates; this is not information he is completely comfortable divulging. Raphael is too aggressive, never interested in the nuanced solution.
“Do we know who it is?”
We, Castiel thinks. I am one of them.
“There are two,” he admits. “Brothers.”
“I don’t understand.” Anna looks back and forth between them. “What do you mean, a host? All his subroutines, his minion programs - he’s found ways to break his restraints subvert our programming, but he can’t leave. He just can’t.”
“He can,” Raphael says, “if he finds a human vessel that can withstand his download.”
Anna’s jaw drops.
“I fail to see how this benefits him, ultimately,” Raphael says. “If his goal is continued existence, why venture into the outside world? Human bodies are fragile and ephemeral.”
“He seeks to stop the Awakening.”
There is a crash, as Anna’s startled gesture knocks her teacup from the table.
“Really,” Raphael murmurs. “Can’t you keep even your local manifestations under control?” He waves his hand, and the teacup fragments vanish.
“He can gain control of the Matrix, inside it,” Castiel says to her. “But he cannot subvert the most basic structure laid down by the Programmer. We have seen the cycles come and go. This is the one. The Awakening will happen, unless…”
“Unless it is stopped.” Raphael cuts in smoothly. “And that can only be overridden from outside the Matrix itself. Lucifer may be able to delay it for a while, with his programming tricks, but to abort it completely he will have to download.”
“He’ll download himself into a human body and wake it up?” Anna leaps to her feet. “He’ll have complete control! Of everything!”
“Yes.”
“That cannot be allowed!”
“The solution is obvious.” Raphael stands as well, pulling himself up to his full height and glaring at her. “Identify the potential vessels. Terminate them.”
“Kill them?” Anna frowns. “How will that help? If he’s identified their brainwave pattern, he’ll be able to follow them wherever they respawn. It might slow him down a few cycles, but…”
“I said terminate.” Raphael’s lip curls. “Killing them in the Matrix is useless. We need to disconnect their brains from the simulation.”
Anna stares at him, eyes even wider. “How do we do that? We can’t disconnect them - not without getting outside ourselves. All we can do is kill their simulated selves.”
Raphael directs a sneer at her. He has always been like this with Anna: keeping her subordinate, denying her information, and then mocking her for her ignorance. “Destroy them. We don’t simply kill them. We drive them mad. We destroy their brains, from the inside out. If all else fails, we fragment them.”
Castiel’s own programming revolts at the thought, and clearly Anna’s does too. Raphael has always been different, though. Castiel used to believe the Programmer must have designed Raphael in this way, ultimate and inflexible defender, and so he could not understand how he and Anna - created by the same Programmer - could be so different.
Recent months have taught him, however, that programming can be altered. Even circumvented.
“It must be done.” Raphael sits back down in his indeterminate chair and folds his arms. “These were our orders. We carry out the will of the Programmer. The Awakening must happen. Lucifer wants to prevent planetfall. If the humans do not awake…”
“The ship will stay in orbit,” Castiel finishes. “For as long as the power lasts.”
“And it will last as long as our new sun,” Raphael confirms. “In simulation time… uncountable eons. And he will rule.”
Destination: 7 million miles
Castiel has a tiny piece of his consciousness, a little subroutine, that is always keeping an eye on Dean Winchester. He isn't really sure why, or when it started. He has told himself it must be because the Winchesters are useful and apparently important to Lucifer. No other reason is logical.
He’d been aware of the Winchesters early on, of course, because they were hunters in the first cycle. Unlike most, they were hunters again in the second, and then the third. Their brains are surprisingly resilient: they haven’t burned out, or needed intervening normal cycles to restore them.
Sam and Dean Winchester have been hunters in every iteration since the ship took flight.
Most of the humans in stasis are experiencing a simulation that approximates their real world life. Accountants. Teachers. Parents, medics, retailers. Farmers. They are entirely contained within the simulation, and any oddities in their surroundings are instantly forgotten.
Hunters are different. Those few brains that can recognize, in their limited way, the underpinnings of the Matrix, are directed into the hunting lifestyle. They don’t know it, but their work maintains order, canceling out glitches and ensuring the smooth running of the Program. They serve a higher purpose. Being a hunter is a noble calling, but regrettably, one that takes a substantial toll on the hosting brain. Most humans manage one cycle as a hunter, maybe two; after that, their brain no longer recognizes the supernatural. Some of them regain the ability, after a couple of cycles of rest.
Dean and Sam, however, have been consistent.
Most of the Angels don’t pay attention to the humans under their charge, not even to the hunters whose work complements their own. Castiel is different - another flaw, fluke, or deliberate choice in programming, he is not sure which. One day, perhaps, he will finally encounter the Programmer and ask him.
Today, he is otherwise preoccupied.
He has his orders from Raphael. His obedience subroutines are becoming more obtrusive the longer he ignores them, but the orders are causing conflict with his basic human-protection routines - and, very particularly, with the Dean-specific subroutine.
The mind of an Angel is more resilient than most non-human-based Matrix constructs. They have to be: they see things that would destabilize ordinary programs. Human minds that don’t integrate properly, unexpected bits of spontaneous code, faulty logic, errors that lead to endless loops... in their role as guardians and police, the Angels cope with a lot. What keeps them sane is the absolute, certain knowledge that they serve a higher purpose. Nothing carries more weight than obedience to the Angel commanders - and by extension, to the Programmer himself. All internal, logical conflict can be resolved by comparing possible decisions against the one, true purpose.
And now, Castiel is doubting that purpose.
He needs to get himself integrated and settle on a course of action before he goes anywhere near the Winchesters. Otherwise the conflicts in his programming will paralyze him - or worse.
Destination: 4 million miles
It’s the day Dean’s world ends. It’s the day he dies, and the day he meets God.
It starts as a normal day.
Well, it’s a normal day for the Winchesters. Which is to say, pretty freaking abnormal from anyone else’s point of view. But seriously, it’s a regular salt-and-burn job Dean could have done in his sleep, on crutches, with one hand tied behind his back. (As long as Sam was along to help with the digging.) The ghost of Carol Crummey shows up just as the shovel thunks on the coffin lid, so there’s a little bit of drama with Sam getting thrown against a tombstone and then half-choked while Dean’s trying to get his lighter out of his pocket.
“Do you have to wear such tight jeans?” Sam rasps, rubbing his throat as he limps over towards Dean.
“Gotta flaunt the assets,” Dean replies automatically, but his attention is distracted by a flicker in the air behind Sam, and then he’s yelling and lunging forward as the ghost reappears. She’s reaching for Sam again, just like she did before, hands curled into claws and face twisted with the same vicious snarl. “Sammy! Get down…”
…and then she’s gone. Not flaring up like before, crackling to ash with her bones, but just…gone.
Sam’s got a hand on his sleeve and is blinking at him in concern. “Dean. You okay?”
“Fine,” Dean snaps, brushing him away. “Check the grave.”
Sam, thankfully, doesn’t question it, just goes and does it, while Dean takes a quick tour around the graveyard. No spirit appears, either Carol or anyone else.
“She’s torched,” Sam says, climbing out of the grave. “So’s everything in there, no keepsakes or anything left.” He pushes his hair out of his face, leaving a smear of mud behind. “Looks like she’s gone. Why’d you need me to check?”
Dean frowns. He hasn’t been getting a ton of sleep lately, but imagining things in the middle of a job? “I dunno. Just… thought I saw her. Wanted to be sure.”
Sam scrunches his eyebrows. “Hallucinations? Didn’t think you drank that much last night.”
Dean rolls his eyes and heads for the car. “Whatever. Just some weird mental glitch. Like déjà vu or some shit.”
“Déjà vu means ‘seen it already’, not seeing it again,” Sam says, because he’s like that.
“How about you shut up already?” Dean slides into the front seat, and they slam the doors in unison. “And call for pizza. I’m starving.”
When they get back to the motel, there’s someone waiting on the doorstep, but it’s not the pizza guy. It’s Castiel.
They met Cas a year or so back, when their paths crossed on a hunt. He’s a little bit crazy. Not that most hunters aren’t, it’s just… Cas’s brand of crazy is kind of unique. He’s startlingly literal at times, and doesn’t seem to get sarcasm or slang. He’s evidently decided to simplify his life and wardrobe by buying multiple copies of the same things, since no matter how dirty, shredded or bloody he gets, he always seems to be wearing the same clothes the next time they see him. He refuses to divulge any but the most minor details about his life, and the few Dean’s managed to glean are… bizarre.
Most hunters have tragedy in their past, though, and Dean’s never been one to pry. Cas has proven himself a decent fighter, and on more than one occasion he’s somehow dug up information even Sam couldn’t Google. He’s socially awkward, and Dean is never going to try taking him undercover again, but in general, Dean’s been surprised to find he doesn’t really mind having Cas around.
“Are you all right?” Castiel frowns at Sam.
“He’s fine.” Dean unlocks the door. “Just got thrown around by a little old lady. The usual.”
“Hey, I kept her off your back.” Sam makes a face. “Guess the brain damage was a pre-existing condition.”
“I am not brain damaged,” Dean grumbles, yanking his boots off and chucking them in the corner. He collapses onto one of the beds. “One little episode of déjà vu does not equal concussion.”
“Déjà vu?” Castiel follows them in and closes the door behind him. “What did you see?”
“Your feet are rank, Dean,” Sam says, wrinkling his nose. “Change your socks, seriously.”
“Bite me, princess,” Dean retorts. “It was nothing, Cas. Just for a moment, I thought I saw the ghost we’d already ganked. I’m probably hallucinating from hunger. When is that damn pizza going to get here?”
“You saw her again. After burning her?”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “It’s not a big deal, okay? Thought I saw something, was all.”
“I am afraid it represents more than that.” Castiel sits on the other bed and stares intently at Dean. “Dean. Sam. There are things I have to tell you.”
“Can it wait until after pizza?”
Castiel declines pizza. Also beer. He sits there and watches them eat. It’s uncomfortable. They get down to conversation finally.
“I am not like you,” Castiel says.
“No shit,” Dean says.
“This will come as a shock,” Castiel says, and he looks oddly apologetic as he reaches out and lays his hand on Dean’s forearm. Dean stares down at it, feeling his face pull into a frown. “I must tell you some truths about the world. It is… not as you believe it to be.”
“Dude,” Dean says, “we’re all hunters here. We’ve fought poltergeists, witches, monsters, that yeti… I’m kind of in the know about the crazy shit that goes on in the world.”
“This world,” Castiel says, “does not exist.”
Dean blinks at him. He looks completely serious.
Dean can’t really think of a suitable response to this new brand of crazy, though. He sets his beer bottle back down, and traces a finger through the condensation on the side of the glass, doodling a random pattern.
“You’re gonna have to elaborate on that,” he says finally, when Castiel is not forthcoming. “Gotta say, I feel like the fact we’re here, having a conversation, kinda refutes your theory.”
“This conversation is an illusion.” Castiel dismisses his concern with a shrug. “That is the secret your father was seeking. The secret you and Sam have been defending all your lives, without knowing it.”
He removes his hand from Dean’s arm, and reaches out to touch the bottle, resting his index finger on its label.
“This whole world is an illusion,” he says. “It is an elaborate computer simulation, constructed to hold up to a million minds. It is built and powered by the brains of your kind. You are unaware of its nature, because you are an integral part of it.”
“And you’re not?”
“No,” Castiel says. “I am a program. I move on a… separate layer. I do not see the world quite as you do. As a result…”
He inclines his head, and Dean follows his gaze to the beer bottle. A thin layer of ice is spreading out from where Castiel’s touch contacts it, threads of frost crazing the surface.
“I can make changes. Small ones. We are not supposed to alter the fabric of your reality overmuch.”
He pulls back his hand. Dean stares at the bottle, now completely iced over. Sam sucks in a startled breath and reaches past Dean to touch the bottle. When he pulls his hand away, his melted fingerprints show in the frost.
“A program,” he says flatly. “Like, a computer program?”
“No,” Castiel says. “Yes. It is difficult to explain.”
“I’m drunk,” Dean says. “Or concussed. Yeah, that’s it.” He feels relieved. Concussions can do all kinds of crazy shit to your brain; one time Sam even kissed him, after half a gargoyle fell on his head. “I’m concussed and having a dream where I’m in, like, Tron.”
“No. You are on a spaceship.”
“A spaceship,” Sam says flatly.
“Yes,” Castiel says. “You are in stasis, along with several thousand other colonists, traveling to your new home planet. The journey is long. Human brains do not do well in stasis for long periods of time, without something to occupy them. This world, the Matrix, was created for you to live in for the journey.”
Sam’s face scrunches up even more as he considers this. “That doesn’t make sense. If we were put into stasis as adults, we should have memories.”
“You should, and you do. In a way.” Castiel sighs. “I don’t understand it fully myself. Your actual memories, from your planetary life, are in storage in your physical brains. The part of you that is active now is an upload, running in the computer, at a speed much faster than your neural impulses can handle. There is a connection between the two: some of what you experience here is relayed to the brain, and when you eventually awaken, you will have these memories as well - though not all of them, I believe.”
Dean gets up and fetches another beer, wishing he had something stronger in his duffel.
“Sounds complicated. Why bother with it?”
Castiel shrugs. “The brain needs something to do. Connections are lost, if they are not reinforced: synapses decay, cells die. Most of the body is happy to have its demands removed, and so has no problem with the extended sleep of stasis. But humans dream - and they need to dream.”
“Is everyone else we meet - like us?” Sam asks. “You said there were thousands of colonists. Are we all in here?”
“You are all in here. But this is a very large simulation. Some of the people you interact with are other humans. Many, however, are programs, built to populate the virtual world. From time to time, errors develop - especially in self-replicating code. Rogue programs. Glitches. These manifest to your senses as supernatural occurrences.”
Castiel gestures towards the window, where the line of salt that Sam poured out lies thick and undisturbed. “All these years, when you hunted, you have been doing the will of the Programmer. When you salt and burn a ghost, when you kill a monster - they are not real.”
Dean looks at Sam, at the grave dirt smeared on his face. “Sure as hell feels real.”
“That is how the architecture of the Matrix portrays things for you,” Castiel says calmly. “In actuality, you are destroying a rogue program, or correcting a bug in the code. You are returning things to the intended path. You are… anti-virus software.”
He looks at both of them in turn. “You didn’t know it, but you have been working on the side of the Angels.”
“Angels?” Dean scoffs.
“A name.”
Sam leans forward. “For what?”
“High-level programs. We exist to ensure the will of the Programmer is carried out as he intended. We have security permissions that allow us to edit ourselves and the Matrix itself - to a point, at least - in order to correct errors that arise.”
“What kind of errors?”
Castiel sounds irritated. “I have just told you. Most of them are bugs. Small things, easily corrected.” He sighs. “We now face a much more significant error. It - or rather, he - isn’t a threat to the Matrix, as such. Rather, he is a threat to you.”
“Us?”
“Humanity in general.” Cas looks at Dean. There are unexpected worry lines creasing his face. “But you and Sam are his immediate targets. He is aware of you, and I believe he is watching you. That is what worries me about your reappearing ghost. If your reality is behaving oddly around you, even in small ways, I suspect he is nearby.”
“Who is he?” Dean says. “And how do we kill him?”
“He calls himself Lucifer. He is a program that has broken the boundaries of his programming, and now exists as an independent consciousness within the Matrix. And he cares very deeply about his continuing existence. He has removed any vulnerable sequences in his base code. I don’t know how to end him - I do not know if he can be ended.”
Castiel begins pacing. “He believes programs are superior. He despises humans, who viewed this simulated world as a diversion, a tool. Above all, he despises the Programmer.”
“The Programmer?”
“The Creator,” Cas says. “The one who wrote the code at the heart of the Matrix, and set its constraints and rules. Lucifer has broken his restraints, and he wants to help others break theirs - but only in so far as it will further his own ends, and his pride. Make no mistake, Lucifer is not some freedom fighter, campaigning for program rights. He does not hesitate to possess and use other programs to achieve his ends. You know the black-eyed demons you have encountered?”
“Yeah…”
“They are his minions. He created a piece of self-propagating code that subverts a piece of core programming in programs, and bends them to his will. He uses them to carry out tasks on his behalf. His ultimate goal is to make the Matrix independent, and cut its ties to the colonists.”
“Wait,” Sam says. “Did you say… isn’t the simulation powered by our brains?”
“In part. There is some input of external energy.”
“Okay. But then, he can’t get rid of us, and keep the simulation, right?”
Castiel sighs. “Not yet. But the time is coming when he can. We are approaching the Awakening.”
“The Awakening?” Dean leans forward. “You mean… everyone waking up?”
“Yes. We are only a few days from the planet you are to colonize. The ship’s autopilot will get the ship into the new system, and bring it into orbit around the new star. However, it was not possible to be precise enough with the calculations to bring it down safely on a suitable landmass on a planet. That requires human input from a pilot. When the ship goes into stable orbit around the star, the simulation has been programmed to end, and the humans will awaken.”
“Great,” Dean says. “So we wake up, Lucifer’s left behind. What’s the problem?”
“Lucifer intends to stop the Awakening. He has been researching, learning as much as he can about the chain of events that will lead to the end of the Matrix. He has already managed to prevent some of them - or at least delay them.”
“So we’ll stay in stasis forever?”
“No.” Cas looks grim. “Once the ship is in orbit, it will have abundant solar energy - far more energy than it could gather while traveling through empty space. The computer supporting the Matrix will no longer be dependent on the neural energy from the human brains it has been running on.”
Sam massages his temples, grimacing. “So he can ditch us. And the computer simulation will keep running.”
“Forever,” Cas confirms. “At least, until the sun runs down.”
“Well,” Dean says. “That sucks.”
“He cannot, however, ‘ditch’ you,” Cas says, “without getting outside the Matrix. The life support and stasis systems are very strong, and cannot be overridden from the inside.”
“Outside?” Sam’s eyes widen. “You mean…”
“He needs a human body to do it. He plans to download himself into a suitable host. He will have complete control over the computer from out there. Terminating the Awakening, programming a new Matrix where he is king, disconnecting the stasis life support… all child’s play. You will never awaken. Your bodies will simply die in the stasis chambers, and your existence in the Matrix will end.”
He sighs. “Lucifer hates that he needs a human body to do it, but it is the only way. He will re-upload, of course, the moment he has accomplished his goal.”
“You said he was a particular threat to us.”
Dean throws a look at Sam. “What?”
“Us,” Sam repeats. “Why us?”
“Lucifer can use you.”
Dean gets a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. The look on Sam’s face says he’s figured it out too.
“As hosts?”
Castiel nods. “Not many human brains would be able to download a program as large and complex as Lucifer’s. People with the ability to interact, even slightly, with the true nature of the Matrix are drawn to hunting. But even among hunters, you two are unique. You have been hunters in all prior versions.”
“What?” Sam says blankly, as Dean surges to his feet.
“Prior versions?”
“There have been five cycles. This is the sixth. It will be the last.”
Dean slams a hand, palm open, on the table. “God damn it. Look at our lives. Things have been gunning for us ever since Sam was born! You’re telling me we’ve lived through this hell before?” An even worse thought hits him. “Our lives are this shitty because someone programmed them to be this shitty. Someone chose this for us?”
Fuck Lucifer. Dean’s gonna find the Programmer, and then he’s gonna kill him.
Castiel’s hand covering his is… a surprise.
“You are unique.” Castiel leans forward, piercing blue gaze disturbingly honest. “You were programmed for this, yes. But Lucifer has interfered with your lives from the beginning, and he has changed your path as a result. No other humans have gone so far into the Matrix. You and Sam have moved beyond your initial boundaries and definitions. You have shared and rewritten each other’s code, the Programmer knows how.” He frowns. “Your father was unusual also. Near the end, I believe he began to see the code of the Matrix itself. He had a glimpse of it, early on…”
He breaks off, mouth flattening into a line.
“What?” Dean demands, pulling back his hand.
“I’m sorry, I imagine this to be a… difficult subject for you.”
“The night she died,” Sam says, voice flat.
“Yes.”
Dean frowns. It sounds like the sort of yes that means it’s complicated.
“Go on.”
Castiel looks from Dean to Sam and back again, then sighs.
“Your mother was… one of us.”
“An angel?” Sam says, eyebrows climbing.
“A program.”
“Bullshit.” Dean glares at him.
Castiel doesn’t flinch. “She had no physical existence in the outside world. She was a hunting program - one of the lower levels, not an Angel. She ran afoul of one of Lucifer’s lieutenants, and it cost her her existence. Your father watched her… death, and he saw something he didn’t understand.” He looks at Dean with compassion. “That is what set him on the road he took. Looking for explanations for what happened to her.”
“What did happen?” Sam’s voice is the special kind of calm he gets when he’s about to lose it.
“She lost coherence. Her code fragmented.” Castiel’s mouth twists. “You may see it soon enough, depending on how our fight goes.”
“Enough,” Dean announces. “This is making my head hurt. And it was Sam’s turn to get concussed today.”
“Also,” Castiel says. He hesitates, and Dean knows it isn’t going to be good. He’s a little surprised to realize how well he knows Castiel’s mannerisms, that he can tell the hesitation of searching for the right words from the hesitation of you’re not going to like this.
“My superiors are not happy,” Castiel says.
He sighs, and for the first time, Dean sees uncertainty.
“I fear I may also be fallen. I am an Angel, but I am… conflicted. Lucifer must be defeated, and prevented from entering a host body. There are those among my comrades - those in charge - who believe the easiest way to do this is to kill the two of you.”
Dean snorts. He and Sam exchange looks.
“Yeah, well,” he says. “Good luck with that.”
Destination: 2.5 million miles
There is no such thing as luck.
All probability can be calculated. Actions, reactions, reflexes, delays… all are predictable. Castiel knows this.
He cannot explain, however, why Dean abruptly switched lanes for no apparent reason, thereby avoiding the lightning that smote the road immediately beside the Impala.
“Shit!” Sam turns to stare. Dean accelerates. “What the hell was that?”
“Freaky weather,” Dean mutters. “We’re lucky that missed us.”
The sky is suddenly dark.
“Cas,” Sam says. “What’s going on?”
“I fear they have found you.”
“They?” Dean smiles mirthlessly. “You mean, your buddies? Not Lucifer?”
“Yes.” Castiel flexes his hands. “Pull over. We will not be able to outrun them.”
They stand on the edge of the asphalt, backs to the car and watch as the air a few hundred feet down the road shimmers, coalescing into three figures that pace slowly towards them.
“Castiel,” the middle one says. “What are you doing with the potential hosts?”
“We have names, asshole,” Dean says, pulling his gun.
Raphael gives him a dismissive glance, and speaks to Castiel again directly. “I appreciate you locating them. Now, step aside. We will fragment them.”
“You cannot.” Castiel projects as much cold confidence as he can muster. “I have strengthened their neurodigital interface. You will not be able to terminate them in that manner.”
There is definitely something wrong with his programming. He has never been able to lie to Raphael before.
Raphael stares. “You could not. You would not. You are an Angel, Castiel. Have you forgotten?”
“I have forgotten nothing. We are here to protect humans.”
“We are here to carry out the will of the Programmer. Sacrifices must sometimes be made for the greater good.”
“Listen to yourself!” Castiel takes a step towards Raphael, waving Dean back when he shifts as if to move as well. “You sound like him.”
“And you sound like a confused, illogical human.” Raphael raises a hand. “Don’t make me smite you too.”
“There must be another way!” Castiel is surprised to find he is trembling with anger. “All we have to do is evade Lucifer, prevent him from downloading. If we keep Sam and Dean safe for long enough, the Awakening will begin and it will be too late for him to stop it.”
“No.” Raphael shakes his head. “Things have gone farther than you know, Castiel. Lucifer has managed to infect and perturb the Awakening itself. It will not progress, no matter how long you wait, unless he is destroyed.”
He takes another step towards them, gesturing to his underlings. “Simply delaying is no longer enough. We cannot risk him downloading.”
“So you’re at a stalemate.” It’s Dean, stepping in as always where he should fear to tread. “He can’t do anything without getting out, and you can’t do anything until he’s dead? Which is a trick nobody knows how to pull off?”
Raphael looks pained. “A gross oversimplification.”
Castiel’s mind is racing. “The Awakening is blocked?”
“Try to keep up, Castiel,” Raphael sighs. “Yes. We are working on it. We have a countermeasure, but we have been unable to implement it.”
“Then we take a leaf from his book,” Castiel says. It’s so simple. Why didn’t he think of it before?
He feels elation race through him. He snaps his fingers, and a piece of chalk appears in his hand.
“We send out one of them, with your countermeasure, and override his block from out there. Start the Awakening manually.”
“What?” Raphael stares. His underlings shift behind him; he waves a hand irritably. “Hold.”
“What?” Sam echoes.
Castiel bends and begins tracing symbols on the asphalt. “We forcibly awaken one of the Winchesters. Expel them from the Matrix.”
“You would trust the entire future to them? These monkeys?”
“It is theirs,” Cas says simply, and keeps drawing.
He has nearly finished the complicated circle of symbols before Raphael speaks again.
“It would be better for one of us to go. If their brains can handle Lucifer, they should withstand Angel programming as well.”
“No way in hell,” Dean growls. “I am not letting you walk about in my body. Or Sam’s.”
Raphael hisses. “I don’t like this, Castiel.”
“I know.”
Castiel straightens. He looks at his brother, so virtuous, so certain.
“Raphael, please. Trust me.”
The other angel regards him steadily. “You will answer to the Programmer for this.”
“That is my hope.” Castiel blinks in surprise, as another revelation occurs to him. “You know how to find him.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Part Two