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laniew1The cops gave them their first real clue on what might have happened to Dean. If Dean had been there he would probably have laughed himself silly from the irony of it.
Title: The Importance of Genetics
Fandom:Supernatural/Dark Angel
Pairings: Sam/Jess, Alec/Max (mentions of Logan/Max)
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: So totally AU that it isn’t even funny. Instead of John Winchester going to Jericho, Dean went instead and subsequently disappeared.
The Importance of Genetics – Pt 3
The cops gave them their first real clue on what might have happened to Dean. If Dean had been there he would probably have laughed himself silly from the irony of it.
Especially since he’d spent a fair portion of his life pretending to be one and dodging them at the same time. Sam had never quite worked out how Dean had managed to do that, to pretend to be a cop, interact with them and never get found out, but he thought that it really didn’t matter.
Going to the police had been Jess’ idea. Whispered to Sam as John had been getting ready for bed, because John had made it no secret that he didn’t like nor require the help of cops to find his oldest son.
Sam thought he was wrong about that and his mind kept flashing back to Dean’s room with the blood on the floor and the broken furniture and he prayed that he was at least still alive.
Calls to the morgue and the hospital had yielded no clues which had been about the point where Jess had insisted that no matter what John thought Dean had been gone for days and it was time to get law enforcement involved.
Sam hadn’t said yes or no, he just hadn’t stopped her when she’d made the call. He didn’t say a word when she called herself his wife and Dean her brother-in-law and insisted that the police help them do something to find him.
Officer Dick Moran arrived at the motel to talk to them and it took everything within him to keep the Dean part of his subconscious from chortling Officer Moron under his breath.
He’d do it later, in the bathroom, with the water running.
And try not to cry or claw his eyes out because he could see Dean in his minds eye doing the same exact thing.
Jess flashed a picture of Dean at him and Officer Moran nodded in recognition.
“I remember him,” he pulled his hat off, ran a hand over his short cropped hair and shoved it back on. “Hector Aframian, he told us to call him Dean. Middle name or something I guess,” he shrugged it off, obviously thought the fact inconsequential.
“Did anything strange happen while he was here?” Sam winced even as the words left his mouth and both Jess and Officer Moran eyed him strangely.
“Well there was all them murders out on Centennial Highway, heard tell that he thought he knew what was causing them…” Officer Moran bit his lip and stared at them. Sam thought they were being measured and he wondered why this cop thought he had the right when Sam was Dean’s blood.
“There was this… incident,” he started quietly. “Down at the pool hall about a week ago, there was these guys in suits following your brother around. Well-dressed and truth be told they looked more like cops then your brother did, thought he was playing us for a while but he seemed to know what he was doing so I let it slide.”
Sam and Jess exchanged a confused look.
“There was a fight down at the pool hall anyway, your brother got dragged into it and these three guys they just sat there in their booth in the back watching, didn’t interfere, didn’t try to break it up or nothing. And the funny thing is they weren’t watching any of the regulars, they was watching your brother, ‘bout the time we managed to get it all sorted out and I looked for them again they were gone. A couple of days later so was your brother.”
Sam drew a deep breath and wondered what three well-dressed men had wanted with Dean.
************************************************************
The only thing that kept John from blowing his lid after finding out that they’d talked to the cops was that they had at least found out something useful.
Not that they were at all certain what three men that no one could even remember well enough to give them any sort of helpful description had to do with Dean.
Everyone they talked to could only remember that they were well-dressed and very polite.
No one had gotten any names, no one could tell them whether they had dark hair or light hair or if they were black or white. Sam thought that the entire town might be comprised of idiots but he managed to not say that to anyone’s face.
At least until a waitress at the local diner said they had reminded her of professional military men, all polite and courteous and she could have sworn that one of them had called another ‘Sir’ and ‘Colonel’ and John’s eyes had lit up.
An ex-Marine, he still had some contacts that he could draw upon and he was calling in favors before they were even out of the diner.
There was a brief idea forming that Dean might have drawn the attention of someone. John would decide later that it couldn’t be military, at least not the one that he’d served in.
The military that he’d served in would not attack his oldest son in his motel room leaving blood and a mess behind.
No, John would decide, this was something else. Something more sinister.
It was a puzzle that they wouldn’t even have all the pieces for until something like 20 years later, and then Sam would worry that it was too late to solve it.
Too late to put it together and rescue the brother that had always, before, rescued him.
************************************************************
They would be in the middle of nowhere when the pulse hit, they wouldn’t even have any idea of how badly it had destroyed America until months after.
Thankfully John had long since stopped trusting in bank institutions to protect his money and had kept the majority of it on him or in safe locales for years.
Jess’ father, had almost pulled her credit cards and her debit cards and closed her checking account when she’d up and vanished with Sam. It had taken an actual face to face visit with him to get him to relent.
She’d dreaded the visit and had bodily dragged Sam and John along with her. By that point John had been training her, much in the same way that he must have trained Sam and Dean when they were kids, and she could do that.
Besides her glare was fairly impressive and all she had to do was murmur the words ‘menstrual cycle’ and they both went along with anything docilely enough.
Jess had thought a day, two at tops, before they could escape. But then John had to go and get along famously with her dad, they’d hit it off immediately and had disappeared into her dads office with two bottles of scotch and Jess staring after them in horror.
The next morning they’d both been bleary eyed and hung-over but whatever John had told her father had caused him to transfer money into her checking account twice a week, to keep her credit cards open and to hire a private detective to search for any and all leads on Dean Winchester.
Maybe John had hit upon a nerve, what if it had been her that had gone missing. Wouldn’t he do whatever it took to find her?
They still found no leads though, at least nothing concrete enough to nail down and by the time the Pulse hit John had her as paranoid about the banks stealing her money as he was so she’d been withdrawing from it in $300 increments for months.
It was a good thing to, because with her money and John’s numerous stashes they were okay, they could still function and hunt and continue the search for Dean.
Jess thought they would be searching for Dean until they were old and grey and she wondered if any of them truly thought there was a chance he was still alive.
************************************************************
Seattle wasn’t anything like Jess remembered it. She’d visited it several times, a couple with her family, twice more while hunting with Sam and John.
She wasn’t even sure why they were there now; Sam had been less than forthcoming on the news. She didn’t think it was hunting trip because John looked as confused about why they were there then she did.
And then there was the fact that those Manticore soldiers, the ones that looked human and the ones that decidedly did not look human seemed to have been using Seattle as their home base.
While Jess and John trailed after him growing more and more confused Sam seemed to be gaining energy and momentum and he pushed open the door of what Jess hoped was a place of business and not Sam deciding to add breaking and entering to his list of achievements.
“Mr. Calvin?” he called out, belatedly knocking on the door. Jess smirked because it was so like him to become so wrapped up in what he was doing that he totally neglected the niceties that were needed to get you into polite society.
“Mr. Winchester,” a man appearing to be just a few years older than John came down the stairs looking pleased and startled to see them all at once. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“We made good time,” Sam said simply. Jess rolled her eyes because that was otherwise known as Sam not obeying any of the posted speed limits.
“Indeed,” Mr. Calvin waved a hand and ushered them into what Jess assumed was his office, as she looked around curiously she realized suddenly that this was the private detective that her father had hired to find Dean.
Pictures of Dean were taped to an old white board, notes in illegible handwriting all around them.
He handed a folder to Sam, that Sam just clenched in his hands and didn’t open and she willed him with her mind to move because she was dying of curiosity.
Had they finally found him, found Dean after all this time?
She peered over Sam’s shoulder, cursed him for his height and then ducked under his arm, John moving up alongside him and Sam drew a deep breath and then flipped open the folder.
Jess pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from gasping or screaming because it all made so much sense now.
A picture of Dean, a young Dean, younger then he’d been when he’d been taken away stared at them.
Sam flipped the page and the next and the next, barcode information, Manticore information. How Mr. Calvin had got it all Jess didn’t want to know.
John’s breathing was unsteady and she could feel Sam’s heart beating frantically against her back.
“They cloned my son?” John finally managed to ask, his voice sounded weak and Jess glanced over at him.
Mr. Calvin sat behind his desk, pulling a half-full bottle of whiskey from a desk drawer. Four glasses of questionable cleanliness lined up next to it and he very neatly distributed it between the four glasses.
He waited for John to take his, for Sam to close the folder and clench it in one hand as he took his and for Jess to make her weak ‘I don’t drink anymore’ statements before she claimed hers, then he continued.
“Rumor has it that the clones, the X series anyway, used genetic DNA from 57 donors. 50 of those genetic donors were deceased family members of Manticore or other family members of personnel much higher up the food chain. Rumor also has it that 7 of those donors were live, possibly unwilling donors.”
“We’re not the only ones that had someone taken?” Sam asked quietly, Jess sipped at her drink. The whiskey burning down the back of the throat and she welcomed the haziness it would bring.
Because other families had gone through this? Gone through the hell and torment that they had of hitting two dead ends for every lead they got?
“No, I’ve found six other incidents of similar circumstance right around the time your brother was taken.”
“What does this mean?” Jess asked softly. Sam was looking shell-shocked, possibly feeling the pain of those other six families. John just looked stunned. She seemed to be the only one that was even capable of speaking.
“It means that Manticore was hunting, for genetic donors for their warriors and they found Dean when he was doing what he did best and they just took him. Without a care in the world for his family or his friends.”
Sam flipped the folder back open, staring hard at the picture right on top.
“X5-494, Alec McDowell,” he read. “This is not my brother.”
“No,” Mr. Calvin shook his head. “He’s the one surviving clone of your brother though. All my contacts insist that the 7 live donors that Manticore used are still alive, they just can’t tell me where any of them are.”
Sam looked up in surprise, hope blooming on his face. John had the same expression. Jess just wondered if this was ever going to be over.
“He,” Mr. Calvin gestured at the folder. “Might be able to lead you to him, or at least point you in the right direction.”
“How do we find him?”
“They’re holed up in Terminal City, cops guarding their side of the entrance. Transgenics and Transhumans guarding their side of it. I’m not sure how you’re going to get in, or if you’d even want to.”
“If there is even a chance that my son is still alive and that thing knows where he is,” John hissed angrily.
Mr. Calvin nodded slowly, “I’ll see what I can do.”
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 |
| Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 |
| Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 |
| Chapter 22 | Chapter 23 | Chapter 24 | Chapter 25 | Chapter 26 | Chapter 27 | Chapter 28 |
Title: The Importance of Genetics
Fandom:Supernatural/Dark Angel
Pairings: Sam/Jess, Alec/Max (mentions of Logan/Max)
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: So totally AU that it isn’t even funny. Instead of John Winchester going to Jericho, Dean went instead and subsequently disappeared.
The Importance of Genetics – Pt 3
The cops gave them their first real clue on what might have happened to Dean. If Dean had been there he would probably have laughed himself silly from the irony of it.
Especially since he’d spent a fair portion of his life pretending to be one and dodging them at the same time. Sam had never quite worked out how Dean had managed to do that, to pretend to be a cop, interact with them and never get found out, but he thought that it really didn’t matter.
Going to the police had been Jess’ idea. Whispered to Sam as John had been getting ready for bed, because John had made it no secret that he didn’t like nor require the help of cops to find his oldest son.
Sam thought he was wrong about that and his mind kept flashing back to Dean’s room with the blood on the floor and the broken furniture and he prayed that he was at least still alive.
Calls to the morgue and the hospital had yielded no clues which had been about the point where Jess had insisted that no matter what John thought Dean had been gone for days and it was time to get law enforcement involved.
Sam hadn’t said yes or no, he just hadn’t stopped her when she’d made the call. He didn’t say a word when she called herself his wife and Dean her brother-in-law and insisted that the police help them do something to find him.
Officer Dick Moran arrived at the motel to talk to them and it took everything within him to keep the Dean part of his subconscious from chortling Officer Moron under his breath.
He’d do it later, in the bathroom, with the water running.
And try not to cry or claw his eyes out because he could see Dean in his minds eye doing the same exact thing.
Jess flashed a picture of Dean at him and Officer Moran nodded in recognition.
“I remember him,” he pulled his hat off, ran a hand over his short cropped hair and shoved it back on. “Hector Aframian, he told us to call him Dean. Middle name or something I guess,” he shrugged it off, obviously thought the fact inconsequential.
“Did anything strange happen while he was here?” Sam winced even as the words left his mouth and both Jess and Officer Moran eyed him strangely.
“Well there was all them murders out on Centennial Highway, heard tell that he thought he knew what was causing them…” Officer Moran bit his lip and stared at them. Sam thought they were being measured and he wondered why this cop thought he had the right when Sam was Dean’s blood.
“There was this… incident,” he started quietly. “Down at the pool hall about a week ago, there was these guys in suits following your brother around. Well-dressed and truth be told they looked more like cops then your brother did, thought he was playing us for a while but he seemed to know what he was doing so I let it slide.”
Sam and Jess exchanged a confused look.
“There was a fight down at the pool hall anyway, your brother got dragged into it and these three guys they just sat there in their booth in the back watching, didn’t interfere, didn’t try to break it up or nothing. And the funny thing is they weren’t watching any of the regulars, they was watching your brother, ‘bout the time we managed to get it all sorted out and I looked for them again they were gone. A couple of days later so was your brother.”
Sam drew a deep breath and wondered what three well-dressed men had wanted with Dean.
The only thing that kept John from blowing his lid after finding out that they’d talked to the cops was that they had at least found out something useful.
Not that they were at all certain what three men that no one could even remember well enough to give them any sort of helpful description had to do with Dean.
Everyone they talked to could only remember that they were well-dressed and very polite.
No one had gotten any names, no one could tell them whether they had dark hair or light hair or if they were black or white. Sam thought that the entire town might be comprised of idiots but he managed to not say that to anyone’s face.
At least until a waitress at the local diner said they had reminded her of professional military men, all polite and courteous and she could have sworn that one of them had called another ‘Sir’ and ‘Colonel’ and John’s eyes had lit up.
An ex-Marine, he still had some contacts that he could draw upon and he was calling in favors before they were even out of the diner.
There was a brief idea forming that Dean might have drawn the attention of someone. John would decide later that it couldn’t be military, at least not the one that he’d served in.
The military that he’d served in would not attack his oldest son in his motel room leaving blood and a mess behind.
No, John would decide, this was something else. Something more sinister.
It was a puzzle that they wouldn’t even have all the pieces for until something like 20 years later, and then Sam would worry that it was too late to solve it.
Too late to put it together and rescue the brother that had always, before, rescued him.
They would be in the middle of nowhere when the pulse hit, they wouldn’t even have any idea of how badly it had destroyed America until months after.
Thankfully John had long since stopped trusting in bank institutions to protect his money and had kept the majority of it on him or in safe locales for years.
Jess’ father, had almost pulled her credit cards and her debit cards and closed her checking account when she’d up and vanished with Sam. It had taken an actual face to face visit with him to get him to relent.
She’d dreaded the visit and had bodily dragged Sam and John along with her. By that point John had been training her, much in the same way that he must have trained Sam and Dean when they were kids, and she could do that.
Besides her glare was fairly impressive and all she had to do was murmur the words ‘menstrual cycle’ and they both went along with anything docilely enough.
Jess had thought a day, two at tops, before they could escape. But then John had to go and get along famously with her dad, they’d hit it off immediately and had disappeared into her dads office with two bottles of scotch and Jess staring after them in horror.
The next morning they’d both been bleary eyed and hung-over but whatever John had told her father had caused him to transfer money into her checking account twice a week, to keep her credit cards open and to hire a private detective to search for any and all leads on Dean Winchester.
Maybe John had hit upon a nerve, what if it had been her that had gone missing. Wouldn’t he do whatever it took to find her?
They still found no leads though, at least nothing concrete enough to nail down and by the time the Pulse hit John had her as paranoid about the banks stealing her money as he was so she’d been withdrawing from it in $300 increments for months.
It was a good thing to, because with her money and John’s numerous stashes they were okay, they could still function and hunt and continue the search for Dean.
Jess thought they would be searching for Dean until they were old and grey and she wondered if any of them truly thought there was a chance he was still alive.
Seattle wasn’t anything like Jess remembered it. She’d visited it several times, a couple with her family, twice more while hunting with Sam and John.
She wasn’t even sure why they were there now; Sam had been less than forthcoming on the news. She didn’t think it was hunting trip because John looked as confused about why they were there then she did.
And then there was the fact that those Manticore soldiers, the ones that looked human and the ones that decidedly did not look human seemed to have been using Seattle as their home base.
While Jess and John trailed after him growing more and more confused Sam seemed to be gaining energy and momentum and he pushed open the door of what Jess hoped was a place of business and not Sam deciding to add breaking and entering to his list of achievements.
“Mr. Calvin?” he called out, belatedly knocking on the door. Jess smirked because it was so like him to become so wrapped up in what he was doing that he totally neglected the niceties that were needed to get you into polite society.
“Mr. Winchester,” a man appearing to be just a few years older than John came down the stairs looking pleased and startled to see them all at once. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”
“We made good time,” Sam said simply. Jess rolled her eyes because that was otherwise known as Sam not obeying any of the posted speed limits.
“Indeed,” Mr. Calvin waved a hand and ushered them into what Jess assumed was his office, as she looked around curiously she realized suddenly that this was the private detective that her father had hired to find Dean.
Pictures of Dean were taped to an old white board, notes in illegible handwriting all around them.
He handed a folder to Sam, that Sam just clenched in his hands and didn’t open and she willed him with her mind to move because she was dying of curiosity.
Had they finally found him, found Dean after all this time?
She peered over Sam’s shoulder, cursed him for his height and then ducked under his arm, John moving up alongside him and Sam drew a deep breath and then flipped open the folder.
Jess pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from gasping or screaming because it all made so much sense now.
A picture of Dean, a young Dean, younger then he’d been when he’d been taken away stared at them.
Sam flipped the page and the next and the next, barcode information, Manticore information. How Mr. Calvin had got it all Jess didn’t want to know.
John’s breathing was unsteady and she could feel Sam’s heart beating frantically against her back.
“They cloned my son?” John finally managed to ask, his voice sounded weak and Jess glanced over at him.
Mr. Calvin sat behind his desk, pulling a half-full bottle of whiskey from a desk drawer. Four glasses of questionable cleanliness lined up next to it and he very neatly distributed it between the four glasses.
He waited for John to take his, for Sam to close the folder and clench it in one hand as he took his and for Jess to make her weak ‘I don’t drink anymore’ statements before she claimed hers, then he continued.
“Rumor has it that the clones, the X series anyway, used genetic DNA from 57 donors. 50 of those genetic donors were deceased family members of Manticore or other family members of personnel much higher up the food chain. Rumor also has it that 7 of those donors were live, possibly unwilling donors.”
“We’re not the only ones that had someone taken?” Sam asked quietly, Jess sipped at her drink. The whiskey burning down the back of the throat and she welcomed the haziness it would bring.
Because other families had gone through this? Gone through the hell and torment that they had of hitting two dead ends for every lead they got?
“No, I’ve found six other incidents of similar circumstance right around the time your brother was taken.”
“What does this mean?” Jess asked softly. Sam was looking shell-shocked, possibly feeling the pain of those other six families. John just looked stunned. She seemed to be the only one that was even capable of speaking.
“It means that Manticore was hunting, for genetic donors for their warriors and they found Dean when he was doing what he did best and they just took him. Without a care in the world for his family or his friends.”
Sam flipped the folder back open, staring hard at the picture right on top.
“X5-494, Alec McDowell,” he read. “This is not my brother.”
“No,” Mr. Calvin shook his head. “He’s the one surviving clone of your brother though. All my contacts insist that the 7 live donors that Manticore used are still alive, they just can’t tell me where any of them are.”
Sam looked up in surprise, hope blooming on his face. John had the same expression. Jess just wondered if this was ever going to be over.
“He,” Mr. Calvin gestured at the folder. “Might be able to lead you to him, or at least point you in the right direction.”
“How do we find him?”
“They’re holed up in Terminal City, cops guarding their side of the entrance. Transgenics and Transhumans guarding their side of it. I’m not sure how you’re going to get in, or if you’d even want to.”
“If there is even a chance that my son is still alive and that thing knows where he is,” John hissed angrily.
Mr. Calvin nodded slowly, “I’ll see what I can do.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-28 07:13 am (UTC)Anyway I can't wait to continue to see where your going with this, excellent work, update soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-09 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-26 02:59 am (UTC)