The Sword of Stars: Chapter 2, Part 1 (J2 AU, NC-17 Fic)

[paleogymnast]

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Chapter 2:

Jared walked away from the Monastery feeling uneasy, and very, very unsettled. It was one thing to know textbook facts about a place-a culture-and quite another to see them in action and really understand what they meant. He knew the color of his robes gave him a superior status to the Lost Son-Jensen-but he hadn’t expected it would give him so much control, power.

In Minuet, the city where Jared had lived since he was six years old, everyone was more or less equal. And it wasn’t just that everyone had equal rights on paper or that everyone was the same. No, it was more that despite myriad different jobs and family histories, everyone was more or less in the same boat. The Scientists had many amenities, but fairly limited resources meant no one really over-consumed, and everyone looked out for one another. Kids were encouraged to ask questions and learn and grow and try to find what made them happy-but more or less every possible life and future was open to every child, if it was within the child’s abilities. People’s lives definitely weren’t determined by what their parents did or had done-Jared’s own mother was a microbiologist and his dad was an elementary school teacher, and yet here he was topside working an assignment.

But seeing how Jensen had recoiled when he’d taken in Jared’s copper-colored tunic and cloak-the complete shift in his demeanor from awed and friendly to utterly dismayed and ashamed-no amount of training or book-learning could have prepared Jared for that experience or the whirlwind of interactions that had followed.

Thinking back to Jensen’s behavior in Father Peleggi’s chambers, he could tell Jensen didn’t want to be his friend, or at least that Jensen was afraid of Jared befriending him-like it was too much to bear-but Jared understood now that Jensen had no choice in the matter. Jared would even hazard a guess that Jensen seemed to think it might make a good form of penance for his ‘crime.’ Once Jared had made the overture, Jensen had to accept.

Jared shook his head. It was hard to believe that a single scroll touching the ground and not even getting dirty, because Jensen got knocked over by Jared being a ridiculously clumsy, unlucky oaf, was considered a crime.

It boiled down to an imbalance of power that grated against Jared’s insides, twisting in his stomach. He didn’t like it, didn’t want that kind of power over anyone, but it was a responsibility he had to accept. He really should have known better though.

Jared’s mom had warned him. She’d tried time and time again to impress on him the idea that the Scientists’ world wasn’t like most places. She’d pointed out again and again that back on Carillon, one of the original Zyretan Colonies and the world where Jared had lived until he was six, there was a lot more tension and unrest. Some people had more, and some people had less-money, power, education, opportunity, security. On Carillon children starved sometimes, and some people thought science brought more harm than good.

The idea had seemed crazy to Jared as a child. After all, life in Minuet and the other cities like it spread out deep under the surface of Zyreta and connected by a spider web of tunnels, wouldn’t be possible without the technology they’d developed through scientific research. They needed it to clean the air and light the caverns and recycle waste and water. So how could someone think science was bad?

Jared had started to comprehend more when he got older and he learned more about Scientist history, Zyretan history, and the history of the Colonies. He didn’t think he’d ever really understand the kind of fear and hatred that led people to conclude that some ideas and some people were just evil no matter how they were applied or what they did. Even when the Zyretans were threatening Scientist cities or kidnapping Scientists living topside, Jared didn’t hate them. The Zyretans were still people, even if they were very, very strange, and would categorically declare Jared evil.

And after all, that’s what the doctors Ackles had given their lives for, right? They’d been trying to figure out a way to save Zyreta-all of Zyreta, above and below ground alike-and all of the Colonies from another attack. The Ackleses had wanted the Zyretan people to know what had really happened to their world 300 years ago. They wanted everyone to have another chance-to pick a path through life, to get along, and to survive. And they’d been killed for it, and their son lost. Wasn’t that a legacy worth honoring? An ideal worth fighting for?

Jared had gotten hooked on the idea of the Lost Son when Jared was just a little kid. It had started when the remaining members of the Ackles family had made their way to Carillon and settled. Jared had turned five the day they’d arrived. It was only a little over a year before his parents had moved the entire family to Minuet, and Jared didn’t remember anything else from his birth planet, but he remembered that day, and the story that came with it.

He remembered the newsvids of the little Ackles baby, and the big brother, and their aunt and grandparents landing at the spaceport, and being taken to the hospital. And he’d heard the newscasters’ words about the child that had been kidnapped by the Zyretan Council, whereabouts unknown, stuck behind on Zyreta. Jared thought about how similar they were to his own family, and found himself trying to imagine what it would be like to be taken-lost and all alone, separated from his parents and brother and sister, and everyone he loved and knew-’cause after all, the Lost Son, as they were calling him, was the same age as Jared.

It was impossible to imagine what that would be like, yet it had started a fire inside Jared. He would find the Lost Son. He dreamed he could befriend him and reach out to him, and together they would save the galaxy, or at least both peoples of Zyreta and the four Colonies.

What had started out as a childhood fantasy of friendship and swashbuckling adventure had stayed with Jared and transformed as he grew from wide-eyed boy to gangly teenager to uncommonly tall man. The more he understood about what Jensen Ackles represented to the ten million Scientists on Zyreta and the fifteen billion people spread throughout the four Colony worlds, the more he became enamored with finding Jensen for Jensen’s sake. He cared about Jensen as an individual, a boy, a man, a person… and not just some idealized folk hero.

And with that desire, a plan had formed. Systematic. Achievable. Little steps Jared could take that would put him closer and closer to being in a position where he could be involved or responsible for finding the Lost Son.

At first, it was little things. Be top of his Zyretan history class in middle school. Excel in physical education in high school. Take cryptography. Study Zyretan dialects and accents in college. Apply to the Intelligence Academy. Make top of his class at the Academy. Pass the field agent exam. All along the way he’d kept an attitude of ‘I’ll just see how this goes. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just do something else.’

Yet much to Jared’s disbelief, he’d succeeded; met every challenge-well, almost every, he’d only been third in his class at field agent training-impressed the right people, shuffled his way through the system, passing test after test until suddenly he was twenty-four and they were two years out from the “point of no return”-the last possible moment to either begin planetary evacuation or fend off the coming attack. The fate of their civilization was hanging in the balance, and Director McDonnell and Deputy Director Morgan had summoned Jared for a private meeting to discuss his first assignment topside.

-And the assignment was finding the Lost Son. Suddenly Jared had that fairytale he’d always dreamed of, only it was real and scary, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Because if he failed… Jared couldn’t really think about failing.

He shook his head again. Here he was, and he didn’t know what to make of the situation, because he was pretty sure he’d just knocked down his childhood hero, and in his place, found the most lost soul he’d ever imagined.

So, yeah. Knowing about Zyretan society and what their caste system and social conditioning could do to people was one thing, but seeing it in person- Jared shuddered. This assignment was infinitely harder than he had ever thought possible.

Jared drifted out of his contemplation and took in the scenery around him. It really wasn’t wise to go wandering around an unfamiliar, hostile city and not pay attention to where one was going. Furthermore, Jared had only the roughest conscious idea of which monastery entrance he’d been led to when exiting. He’d paid close attention to the twists and turns they’d taken to get there, matching up the pattern of the streets with the maps of St. Pious he’d learned and memorized. But once inside, he was convinced Brother Benedict had done his best to disorient them and get them lost-well, maybe not get Jensen lost, since Jared presumed Jensen knew the place.

Jared had no doubt the path taken was supposed to inspire awe and make it clear that visitors were upon the mercy of the Council, and reinforce the religion’s superiority and magnificence in the minds of its followers. For Jared, all the ostentatious and arrogant display had really done was annoy him and help cement his already-negative view of the Zyretan Church.

While Jared might not have been aware of his position upon exit, his training had clearly come through, because Jared found he now recognized his surroundings and was headed in the right direction to reach Ferris’ Tavern, his cover and base of operations for this assignment.

He really had to be more careful. He had both great training and ample skill in subconsciously orienting himself to maps and locales, but he shouldn’t put himself in a situation where he was forced to rely on that, especially not here, in the Zyretan capital where tensions, scrutiny, and protocol were at their highest and tightest-a missed or improper show of deference to someone of a higher caste could get him in a shit load of trouble or at the very least, interest the Church in looking into his past. And that, was something he really couldn’t afford.

A bird, a mittenswoop, as his training had drilled into him, twittered in the afternoon air, and drew his attention to the land around him. Being outside was strangely disconcerting. He felt more relaxed than he had in the monastery, yet Jared was used to living underground, looking up and seeing blue and green and yellow glow emanating from the cavern-sky outside the softly lit buildings and sometimes glaringly harsh lights of the high speed tramways. Sometimes the many subspecies of bioluminescent elchani slugs were clustered all in groups of one color, other times, they seemed sprinkled in at random, the teals and lemons all mixed in together with a smattering of apple green. He’d even been to Sonata a few times, and there were murals there where the artists had enticed the elchani to cluster in patterns, painting vivid scenes across the cavern-sky.

Up here, topside, there was no rock up above, no natural elchani glow, instead an intense blue sky cast gold and red by the light of the strange binary stars, Dea Prima and Deus Secundus-the Goddess and the God, as the Zyretans called their suns. Even after three years of training, and dozens of brief trips above ground (first to test out the special contacts that helped his eyes process the bright light and then for increasingly complex recon), the openness of it all still made Jared a little breathless and almost paralyzed if he thought about it too hard. Much safer to keep his eyes near the ground.

The monastery lay in the Southeastern portion of St. Pious, at the base of the city’s hill, just outside the outermost concentric ring street. The city walls made a jog outward to accommodate the sprawling complex, whose internal network of winding paths and irregular streets, was in great contrast to the rigid regularity and order of the city proper.

The monastery grounds had been almost empty as Jared passed through them. Even when lost in his head, he had kept alert enough to register those around him, and there had been almost none. There was a solemn-looking acolyte in the palest purple robes Jared had yet seen tending to the plants around a small pond. He hadn’t looked Jared’s way, so Jared hadn’t needed to worry about making the right bow. And he’d passed a high ranking member of the educational sect, if he recalled his robe colors and insignia correctly, who’d appeared to be meditating to the suns, and had his back turned toward Jared as he’d passed. Everyone else was probably still at the Festival, where he was supposed to be; where Jensen was supposed to be.

A forceful wave of remorse swept over Jared when he thought about what could have happened. To Jensen. He gave an involuntary shudder and imagined Jensen’s innocent, sorrowful face and too-thin frame wearing the yellow robes of a slave, and being beaten or executed for his failures. And it would be Jared’s own foolish, carelessness that had put him there. He could have killed Jensen-the Lost Son-his purpose.

Jared forced the thought from his mind and walked on. It hadn’t happened; he needed to make sure nothing like it happened again. And he really needed to report the events of today to his superiors.

As the twisting path he was on flowed onto a broad, gently curving cobblestone street, he realized he’d let the monastery grounds and rejoined the outermost ring street. He was following it counterclockwise, which meant he was moving from southeast to northeast around the edge of the city. Only, he was much farther north than he expected to be. He was approaching a broad junction where Obedience Place crossed the outer ring on its curved path up the city’s hill to the plaza. Off to his right about 200 meters away, he could see the corresponding city gage and its armed, ceremonially dressed guards in their Imperial Purple robes.

Up ahead he could see the wall curve to his left parallel to the ring street as it skirted the massive bulk of the hill. Every few hundred meters or so, a new road branched off on his left, heading straight up the hill, steadily climbing, crossing the ever-narrower concentric ring streets as it went.

The buildings on the hill were awash with light and color, some of it reflected from the suns, but some of it actually painted onto the buildings, especially the farther up the hill he looked, towards the wealthier more powerful sectors. There were all shades of purple and brown and green and orange and blue and olive-Jared knew the color usually reflected the type of business or caste of the residents that were housed within.

Further down the hill and closer to Jared were buildings that looked more natural-off-white wad and dauble walls with visible timbers framing them and holding them up and neatly-trimmed thatch for roofs. Those were the homes of common laborers, peasants, and other people who probably wore burgundy clothes, like Jensen, and worked hard to build themselves a better life. Jared liked those buildings better. They were less ostentatious-some of the colorful buildings were like miniature castles out of a childhood fairytale book-the ones with illustrations showing brilliant cerulean skies with two suns, the ones from before the Fall that came from legends of Old Zyreta-with battlements and turrets and towers.

It wasn’t just the size or fanciness of the buildings that bothered Jared. He knew the colors were a lie, supplied by “magic” that was really hidden science. In the time when Zyreta had looked like this before, those colors would probably never have appeared, because the technology to refine those pigments didn’t exist-not a few thousand years ago, before the Zyretans’ and Scientists’ ancestors had figured out how to generate electricity or learned to fly in their own atmosphere, when diseases and wildfires both spread and destroyed huge swaths of the globe, and Zyreta had looked like this for real.

A tall woman in a cornflower blue dress with metallic embroidery tipped her hat at Jared as he passed. He hurriedly dipped into the proper bow-a ninety degree bend at the waist, with hands clutched to his body front and back-for a member of the restaurateurs’ guild to show to a member of the nobility, while his mind poked at why that last thought didn’t sit right.

The problem was, this Zyreta was very real. Jared was beginning to understand that. It wasn’t some fantasy world. Almost everyone Jared had encountered believed very strongly the confines and intricacies of Zyretan society were necessary and genuine obstacles placed their by the gods. They weren’t play acting. In real life, the castes weren’t arbitrary categories imposed from the outside that were oppressing people and keeping them in place-but necessary realities that people had to live and function within. He could tell Jensen believed wholeheartedly in his circumstances. Jensen had been genuinely horrified and blamed himself when he’d-when Jared had-knocked that scroll to the ground. That kind of fervor and faith wasn’t something Jared was prepared to deal with.

He quickened his steps and continued the long walk to Ferris’. It might be faster to try to cut over the side of the hill rather than following the ring street all the way around the hill’s base and then heading up the spoke street that led directly to the tavern, but Jared would likely encounter more people that way, even if the populace was mostly still at the festival, and he really wanted to be alone with his thoughts.

In St. Pious, many of the streets were actually indicated by tiles and glass laid out in intricate patterns among the regular cobblestones. About a half hour later, Jared spotted the pattern that signaled the start of Patience Road, the street Ferris’ was on. He directed his steps to cross the ring street-not needing to dodge a single transport or cart, it was still that empty-and began the steep ascent up the hill.

As Jared climbed higher and higher, the ring streets were spaced closer and closer together. The buildings also shifted from more agricultural and rural uses to those of a more urban focus as wheelwrights’ shops and chicken goops gave way for clothiers and taverns. The spoke streets also grew closer together as they approached the apex of the hill. The combined effect made it feel to Jared like the city was closing in on him, swallowing him whole.

It reminded him a little of a time when he’d gone on a camping trip with his older brother, and he’d taken a dare to crawl in an undeveloped part of one of the natural caverns outside of Minuet. All of the sudden, the tall, broad cave had narrowed and the ceiling had dropped to the point he’d had to crawl. Young Jared had almost panicked as the cave enveloped him and squeezed him; he thought he’d be crushed and stuck for good. Upper St. Pious gave him the same feeling, only with buildings and people and narrower streets. Too much crammed in tighter and tighter into too little space.

And the people were coming out of the woodwork-or more likely, returning from the Festival. The red sun-Dea Prima-was already noticeably lower in the sky than at its peak, and the gold sun was dipping further, its distance from the red sun growing as the day progressed. Jared wasn’t sure what time it was and only barely suppressed the reflex to check his chrono, which, of course, wasn’t on his wrist-that was exactly the type of behavior Zyretan surveillance looked out for.

Breathing deeply to settle himself, Jared wanted safety, solitude. A few minutes away from this bright, harsh, alien world that was both paralyzingly big and open and suffocatingly small and enclosed all at the same time. His answer came when, about two-thirds of the way up the hill, the artfully carved sign with carefully polished copper leaf came into view proclaiming “Ferris’ Tavern: Good Food and Spirits.”

A small part of Jared bitterly wondered why the Zyretans hadn’t banned alcohol along with everything else, but then again, wine was part of the Zyretan rituals and Zyretan beliefs did spell dire consequences if the wrong person abused any form of alcohol.

Jared shoved the griping from his mind and pushed open the door, its strap hinges giving with a squeaky groan. It was dimmer inside the clean and cozy tavern, and the strain on his eyes was immediately lessened. Even with the help of the special lenses, being out in the Zyretan sunlight hurt. Morgan and McDonnell insisted he’d adapt, get used to it over time, but so far he still found himself squinting if out in the light of the suns for more than a half-hour or so, and staying out all day tended to give him headaches. It was a little ironic that Jared, one of the few agents in Scientist Intelligence, who hadn’t started out his life living underground, was one of the most sensitive to living topside. But then again, Carillon was farther out from the suns and the light wasn’t so bright there, so despite his childhood years spent above ground, he had never before been exposed to light of this brilliance and intensity.

He paused to take in the now-familiar surroundings. The tavern was small, with seven tables scattered around a long room of medium width. There was also a long, polished-oak bar, with rough-hewn, low-backed stools pushed up along its length. Stained glass lanterns hung from the ceiling, and Jared could smell their lamp oil from the doorway. There were also dimmer, copper-tinted “godlamps,” as the locals called them, which Jared knew were actually electric lights recessed in the ceiling and covered by copper-colored glass that itself had been tinted with synthetic pigments provided by the Zyretan government. It was a symbol of status and rank that the tavern had such magic marvels.

The tables were empty, and with rich copper-and-chocolate-colored curtains drawn over the windows, Jared felt the safest and most at ease that he had since he’d gone topside.

Another squeak and a thump drew his attention to the space behind the bar, which glittered in the reflected lamp light with the colorful display of liquors, wines, and beers-at least the Zyretans didn’t insist on color-coding and classifying their drinks as well-although Jared had noticed most beers tended towards richer browns and honeys and stayed away from anything truly yellow. There was also no penalty or restriction on someone of Jared’s apparent caste drinking say, a purple or blue or green concoction.

“Hey Sam!” He called out with a mixture of relief and excitement when the source of the noise revealed herself in the form of a tall, handsome woman with honey-brown hair pulled back at the base of her neck and wearing a tailored, copper-and-charcoal dress. She stood and turned towards Jared, settling the heavy-looking keg she’d been rolling. She met Jared’s eyes with a dangerous glare.

“Boy, do not call me that again,” she growled. “To you it’s Madam Ferris or Ma’am or boss.” She gestured, pointing her finger back and forth between herself and Jared.

“Sorry, S- Ma’am,” Jared answered, catching himself, a little taken aback. He strode forward cautiously, approaching the bar with tentative steps.

Samantha Ferris, patroness of Ferris’ Tavern, gave a barely perceptible, furtive glance around the room before leaning forward on the bar, resting her weight on her elbows and clasping her hands together.

“Master Lecki,” she began, jerking Jared to attention with the formality of her greeting.

He was only Master Lecki in Zyreta. Back home, he was Jared Padalecki. Occasionally Mister Padalecki, but never Master, and definitely not a Lecki. The name was the closest cover they could manage to his real name since no ‘Padalecki’ had lived on Zyreta for at least a hundred years before the Fall. Lecki, on the other hand, was actually an uncommon, but established Zyretan surname. The substitution was convenient, and it had stuck.

“I know you’re new here,” she gave the word a little vocal nudge that said it encompassed far more than the Tavern or even St. Pious. She continued, dropping her voice low and quiet, “but you have to remember, there are eyes and ears everywhere-if you disrespect me, it reflects badly on you and me, and that has bad consequences for everyone.” She paused, looking Jared deep in the eye. “You are the orphaned child of my dead husband’s sister. Don’t forget that.” She paused significantly, letting the information sink in.

That was Jared’s cover story all right, how they’d gotten him into Zyreta, into St. Pious, without raising too many alarms or warning signs. But in reality, he’d known Sam since long before he’d really formulated his dream of going into intelligence. Sam was one of his mom’s best friends, after all.

“You can call me Aunt Samantha when we are in a family setting, but it is not appropriate while we are in my tavern,” she finished sternly.

“Yes Ma’am,” Jared said more certainly, slipping back into his role, his persona while topside. “I am sorry, Ma’am, I meant no disrespect,” he said a little louder, in case there were listening devices active nearby. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. It was okay to get stressed out, he couldn’t not feel, but at the same time, he couldn’t risk blowing his cover and exposing the mission just because he’d had a bad morning and afternoon. “I’ve just had a troubling day,” he added by way of explanation.

Sam perked up at that, her eyebrows first shooting up her forehead, then drawing together in a deep, concerned furrow. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked cautiously, her eyes glancing to the door and then scanning quickly around the empty room, flicking to the clock and then landing on Jared again. She finished with a tiny tilt of her head. The entire process had only taken a second.

Jared had always been awed at how good Sam was at her job-just how effortless she made being an intelligence agent seem. Jared had the test and training scores to show that he was skilled and talented, and he certainly knew how much hope and expectation was riding on him. But on days like today, when he’d felt completely out of his depth all day long and worried that he was failing miserably, it was a relief to spend time round someone who could take the lead and offer guidance and reassurance without making a big deal of it.

Taking Sam up on her offer, Jared stepped around one of the wooden stools and sunk down onto it, propping his elbows on the counter and resting his head on his hands, fingers running through and tugging at his hair.

“I went to the Festival today, but it didn’t go as planned,” he began cautiously, raising his head to rest it wearily on his right hand.

“Oh?” Sam queried cautiously.

Jared nodded, trying to convey his conflicted emotions with his eyes.

“Why do I have a feeling we’re going to need some of my best Goddess Ale for this?” she asked knowingly, straightening up and turning back to the keg she’d set down minutes before.

Jared chuckled ruefully as Sam deftly tapped the keg and retrieved and filled two tall, narrow glasses.

“Probably because you’d be right?” Jared hedged. “You weren’t at the Festival?” It occurred to him that maybe Sam already knew what had happened. Maybe she’d been there and seen or heard what had happened if there was gossip or commotion afterwards. Maybe she already knew at least part of the story.

Sam shook her head though, setting down one glass in front of Jared and taking a sip from the other. “I was praying and meditating in my personal quarters, preparing for the post-Festival crowds and asking the Goddess for grace and guidance,” she responded after a long draw on the glass.

Jared nodded again, recognizing her explanation for its true meaning. Sam had been in the sub-ground Ops center, or one of the other rooms in the complex, talking to the Scientist support staff that made up the rest of their cell, checking offworld comm and transport logs from the sound of it. Her excuse was a good one though; as a tavern keeper, the high Festivals and monthly scroll readings were always accompanied by higher traffic-most people celebrating or perhaps taking a new opportunity afforded by a caste promotion or monetary reward; a few others trying to stealthily drown their sorrows or stifle their disappointment with one of the only vices allowed by the Council. In fact, Tavernkeepers were one of the few professions that could get away with not attending a High Festival without attracting any attention-that was a big part of why Scientist Intelligence so often used the Tavernkeepers’ guild and caste for long-term missions. Because of the subject of their trade, Tavernkeepers had to be ‘morally strong and resilient,’ otherwise they couldn’t be trusted with intoxicating brews and controlling their distribution. Thus, the Tavernkeepers were the highest merchant guild, almost on par with the nobility, and thus had access to a wide variety of places and resources that most other castes did not. They weren’t nobles, in part because they worked, and most nobles had sufficient wealth to not need to work, and more importantly for the Scientists purposes, Tavernkeepers guildspeople tended to attract slightly less scrutiny from the Government. It wasn’t as difficult to manufacture a new tavern keeper, but it was incredibly challenging to manufacture a new noble person.

“Ah,” Jared acknowledged, speaking only after several moments, when he realized he’d been sitting there staring into his reddish-orange ale without speaking. He took a big gulp, savoring the cool slide of liquid over his tongue and down his throat, bubbles tickling as they passed, thinking of the oblivion that would follow if he drank too much. Jared couldn’t afford to lose control like that, but even the hint of relaxation promised by one glass of ale had him letting go of some of the tension he’d been carrying.

“So, I was walking towards the dais,” he began, recapping the story in a low monotone, trying to keep his emotions in check. He knew they were still shining through, slipping out of his mask of impassivity in ways Samantha was trained to read. He forged ahead, just kept talking, relaying the entire tale. Father Peleggi and the dropped scroll; Jensen’s timid, fearful behavior, his apparent sincere belief in who he was and the correctness of Zyretan law and religious doctrine; the trip to the Monastery; the audience with Brother Benedict; Jared’s obligation to punish Jensen and his insistence that Jensen become his friend-Jared told it all. His words carried his fears and embarrassment, his anxiety, and his horror at discovering exactly how much power he had over Jensen, even if his expression and his tone never revealed his emotional distress. “Jensen, he, he has no idea who he is or even what his last name is,” Jared concluded with a frustrated sigh, carding his fingers through his hair and tugging.

“Are you sure it’s him?” Sam asked. “I mean-could it be a coincidence or maybe a convenient ruse by the Zyretan government?”

“I… I don’t know, not for sure,” Jared admitted, stammering. “But how… how would they even plan that? This is definitely the Jensen we got intel on. It’s the same guy as the dossier surveillance ops put together; he’s the person I was brought here to meet. Just-I don’t think anyone could have anticipated me literally bumping into him on the street.”

Sam chuckled a little, even if the laugh was dry and bitter. “No, no, I don’t think anyone would have anticipated that.” She said it in that half-affectionate, half-exasperated voice Jared recognized from his childhood, when his parents used to have Sam over to their home for dinner once a week.

“Investigation is imperative. We just have to find out more about him.” He stared down into his ale as if it might hold the answers to the universe, or at least the perplexing puzzle that was Jensen. “I don’t have any objective proof that the Jensen I met, the Jensen in the dossier, is indeed Jensen-” Ackles, he mouthed the last name just to be on the safe side.

Sam nodded for him to continue.

“But well… I don’t have any better leads or any evidence to the contrary, and if you’d seen him…” he shook his head.

“What? He’s a dead ringer?” Sam queried, quirking her eyebrow in curiosity.

“That and then some,” Jared mumbled into his glass. When Sam didn’t say anything he continued, looking up to meet her gaze and slowly ticking off the points on his fingers, “He’s got green eyes, pale skin, dark blond hair with red highlights, and freckles, hundreds of freckles. He’s about 1.85 meters tall and… small,” Jared moved his hands together in a squeezing cupping motion, “compact. I mean, it was hard to tell under the clothes he was wearing-all textbook appropriate for the Burgundy Caste, by the way-but that was the sense I got. I mean, it’s kind of why he-and the scroll-went down so hard. I probably had at 20 kilos on him, easy.”

“I don’t doubt you there, Master Lecki, but what you’ve described could depict a lot of people-”

“He looked like holos of Donna at his age, and really close to the holos of Joshua from when he was twenty-five,” Jared interrupted, speaking rapid-fire, voice quiet, and cutting off Sam’s protests. “If he’s not our Jensen, then they went to extraordinary lengths to… replicate him,” he glanced around surreptitiously and lowered his voice before continuing. “And I’m doubtful even the Council’s magic is up to that level of exactitude.” Jared met Sam’s eyes again until he saw the understanding there.

She gave him a long blink to show she understood and a tiny twitch of the head-not really a nod-to show her agreement. Message received and acknowledged.

“It’s him. It’s definitely him. But he doesn’t know who he is,” Jared sighed.

“If he doesn’t know who he is, how is he…” Sam began before changing her mind with a shake. Her demeanor changed almost instantaneously. She straightened herself up, flashed Jared an endearing smile, and said, “It sounds like you have had a most distressing day, Master Lecki, would you like to retire to your quarters for a rest before the evening meal?”

“Yes ma’am. Yes indeed,” Jared agreed, pulling himself to a stand and downing the rest of his ale, resting the empty glass gently on the counter.

“You can go on along yourself, Jared,” Sam replied, “I’ve got a tavern to mind, and celebrants will be coming through those doors any minute now.” She flashed him another smile, but her eyes were serious and firm. She trusted him to get this right, and was letting him go on his own.

Well then. “Yes ma’am,” Jared echoed again, giving her a small bow before striding towards the end of the room farthest from the door.

Continue to Chapter 2, Part 2

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