Chapter Text
When Detective Dean Winchester arrived Thursday morning at his office door, A. Samandriel was waiting outside. Dean chose to ignore the pale, skinny specimen and shoved into his office anyway. The detective sat down at his desk, emptied his briefcase and then checked his phone and inbox for any new files or messages he might have received while off shift. Finally, after about five minutes of awkward silence and unblinking stares, Dean turned and growled.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The boss wants to see you, Dean,” A. Samandriel told him evenly. “Right away. As soon as you come in.”
“Alright.” Dean waved him off, but A. Samandriel continued to stare at him vacantly. Dean barked, “I said, ‘alright’! Go away!”
At that command A. Samandriel turned sharply on his heels and left to go about his regular duties. Dean grumbled under his breath. The detective wondered who had been replaced to make room for A. Samandriel and why the department couldn’t have gotten a man to do the work. He sighed resignedly and got up to see what the big boss wanted with him.
“Hold the elevator!” Officer Deacon Green called out just before the doors closed. Dean obliged.
“Thanks, Dean.” Officer Green said when the doors whimpered closed behind him. He selected the floor he wanted and stepped back. “Oh, I think the boss wanted to see you.”
“Yeah, I know.” Dean sighed again. “A. Sami told me.”
Officer Green snorted. “I’d kick his ass if I wasn’t worried about breaking a foot.” He paused then added solemnly, “I saw Brian Wilcox the other day.”
“Yeah?”
“Came looking for his job back or any job the department’s willing to give him.” Officer Green said, “What could I tell him? A. Sami is doing the work now. I told him he should check in food service. Deliveries is always hiring.”
Food production and services wasn’t the most glamorous job. Wilcox had been a bright kid, too. Everybody liked him. Dean agreed that it was a waste of talent. He shrugged awkwardly and said, “That’s just the world we live in now.”
Officer Green got off one level before Dean and the detective waved good-bye before he continued up to the higher offices. His boss had a private office with “Robert S. Singer” written in beautiful letters the glass door. Underneath was written, COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, CITY OF SIOUX FALLS. The door was half open so Dean knocked twice and entered.
“You wanted to see me, commissioner?”
Bobby Singer looked up.
Whether it was out of sentimentality or because of hair loss, the commissioner always wore a greasy ball cap when he was working. He claimed it helped him focus, like a good luck charm or a literal thinking cap. It was only after taking in the shock of the spectacle of the hat that one could study the rest of his face, which fit the general description of “cranky old man”. He had a short beard and creases staking a claim around his eyes. Dean suspected the lines and creases were the result of an almost continuous surly expression.
Bobby had a strange attachment to antiques and old things. Dean understood in a way. He liked old rock music and old TV shows like Star Trek. Dean figured Bobby felt a sort of kinship with antiques and a grudging respect that, as old as they may be, they were probably still going to outlast the old man.
Bobby pulled on the knot of his tie nervously and motioned for Dean to sit down. Dean obeyed stiffly and waited.
“How are Sam and Jess?” Bobby asked trying to dispel some of the tension in the air. “You boys should drop by sometime. I know we haven’t got together much since your daddy died, but Ellen would appreciate it.”
“Sure.” Dean replied without much feeling. It was a false start and he knew it. Bobby and his wife might have been Dean’s godparents, but in this office Bobby was his boss. Dean instinctively knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming so he changed the subject. “I wish you wouldn’t send A. Sami as the messenger.”
“I know how you feel about those things, Dean.” Bobby told him. “But he’s here now and we gotta make use of him for something.”
“But it’s just weird, Bobby,” Dean complained. “He tells me what you want and then just stands there.”
“Oh,” Bobby said. “That was my fault. I forgot to tell him specifically once the message was delivered to get back to his job.”
Dean gave him a look. “You see what I mean? The guy’s practically useless.”
“Write your congressman,” Bobby snapped without sympathy. “Experts say we’re saving the tax payer dollar by giving grunt work to grunts that don’t need sleep or a paycheck while creating higher paying jobs in manufacturing and assembly. Where’s the fault in that?”
“Yeah?” Dean pressed. “And how did Wilcox feel about that speech? Or did you just hand him the government pamphlet and saved your breath?”
Bobby didn’t say anything and just stared the younger man down. They glared at each other for another minute, exchanging some silent dialogue, before Dean finally surrendered. Dean crossed his arms in a manner that conducted by a lesser man would have been called a pout.
“Anyway, why did you want to see me?” He asked civilly.
Bobby stood up and turned around. In a half retreat of his own, the commissioner walked up to the wall behind his desk and pressed a hidden switch making the back wall become transparent. Dean blinked against the sudden surge of natural light.
In the old days all rooms had things like this. Windows, Dean half remembered. He thought they were called “windows”. Writers often reminisced about windows and skylights in the historical novels his younger brother liked to read.
“Come take a look,” Bobby ordered.
Dean fidgeted for a moment, but then did what he was told. There was something indecent about exposing a private room to outside view. To Dean’s surprise it was raining. He soon became lost in the hypnotic view of water just falling from the sky.
“Had these installed last year,” Bobby explained with a touch of pride. “Beautiful, isn’t it? It calms me down. Lord, knows I’ve needed it the last couple of days.”
Against his better judement, Dean had to admit that it was impressive. In his thirty-two years Dean had rarely seen the rain or any work of nature for that matter. Hardly anybody did. It was indecent. It belonged to a less civilized age.
“It seems like a waste for it to fall down on the city like that,” Dean muttered. “It should keep itself to the reservoirs.”
“Dean,” Bobby scolded. “You’re thinking like a modernist. There was a time when people lived out in the open and I don’t mean just farmers. In cities too they kept in touch with nature. It was better, healthier even. They celebrated rain.”
It was starting to sound like a lecture from Sammy, his brother. Sam and Jess were all for bringing back nature into the modern life. They ate “organic” whenever they could. Dean disagreed. Just because a food company could smack a fancy label on it didn’t mean the food was homegrown goodness. Human bodies just weren’t built to live past a hundred years. Dean figured he’d live to see seventy-five or eighty, but the prime of his life was right now. If he wanted some processed artificially sweetened fruit-flavored goodness, then he was going get it and enjoy it. Dean reasoned that when he was old with missing teeth and his mind was going- well, he’d think back on that awesome pie and still enjoy the memory of it.
Dean did the math in his head. It was about another week an a half before his sugar quota reset and he could have a real slice of pie. Sam always complained about Dean blowing his alcohol and sugar quotas within the first week, but with a job like law enforcement Dean figured they made a mistake in calculating his rations.
People needed the city governments to regulate resources. There were nine billion individuals on Earth and without the regulations people just didn’t know how to be civil. Without the laws the way they were there wouldn’t be anybody looking out for the little guy, the regular Joe. History had proved it time and time again. The way the laws were written the state owned everything, the city regulated it, and the people were just the grease that kept the wheels going. The mayor hadn’t had a raise in 200 years. Inflation had slowed to a crawl. Unemployment wasn’t tolerated. Homelessness wasn’t an even option. Instead you were sent to the barracks.
Dean remembered the barracks from his childhood. A communal existence just bearable enough to exist on and that’s what you did. You existed. His family (himself, brother and declassified father) didn’t have any privileges. Dean didn’t know the details, but after his mother had died in a freak accident, he was four and his brother just a baby, his dad just stopped caring. The man withdrew into himself, stopped caring about his work, and didn’t pay much attention to anything beyond the bare minimum with his kids. It didn’t take long for his employer to find the grounds to dismiss him.
In the modern age you didn’t get fired, axed, or laid off. You got “declassified”. The word was supposed to be an encouragement. It was supposed to be a reminder that, given the proper effort and following through on the proper channels, one could become reclassified. John Winchester never did. He died declassified when Dean was 17. After jumping through some hoops and Bobby pulling some strings, Dean was able to graduate early and enter the police academy. Once he graduated he took custody of Sammy who had been made a ward of the state after their father’s death. Bobby and Ellen had been supportive, but neither was eligible to adopt Sam because they weren’t together at the time and Ellen was a single parent.
The rain stared to let up drawing Dean out of his thoughts. “Bobby,” he said. “You’ve talked about everything except what you called me in here for. It’s making me nervous.”
“I’m getting to it,” Bobby grumbled.
“Do me a favor and just come right out then.” Dean told him. “Is it more trouble with the A’s?”
“In a way,” Bobby admitted. He tapped the glass. “I didn’t install these to let the light in. I did it to let the city in so I could look at it and wonder what’ll happen after I retire.”
“You’re too stubborn to retire, old man.”
Bobby snorted but didn’t deny it.
Outside the city of spires reached skyward as if stretching out a desperate hand up to a faceless god, begging to be pulled free from the Earth and sin. Up and up the towers grew, faceless, windowless and as undistinguished as the A’s expressionless faces. The city’s lifeblood, its people, moved along the tubes and ramps that connected the towers in tight crowds. It was a medium sized city. 159,908,212 residents lived in Sioux Falls and the commissioner was responsible for the safety of every one.
“In a few moments, when the rain clears, you can see Sterling Town.”
Dean blinked and glanced north into the gray mists that still covered half the city. “I know what Sterling Town looks like,” He said.
“I like the view from here.” Bobby defended grumpily. “Unlike us they build out instead of up. Each family has their own living unit and some space in between. One family, one house. In the old days they called them, ‘subdivisions’. Have you ever talked with a colonist, Dean?”
“Once or twice.”
“I might just be getting philosophical in my old age,” Bobby began. “But it always seems like its ‘we’ and ‘them’. Always, even in history.”
Dean shrugged. “So? Colonists have their own worlds. They can do whatever the hell they want, but there’s no way you can convince nine billion Earth natives to pack up and spread out in little white domes. We’re too set in our ways.”
“Not everybody is tolerant of the differences.” Bobby reminded him.
“Yeah, so what?”
“A colonist was killed three days ago.”
Dean’s blood turned cold. “A virus?” he tested hopefully. Colonists took great pride in having “bred out” susceptibility to diseases. The irony of an Earth bug doing a colonist in wouldn’t have been lost on the commissioner.
“Yeah, a new breed of virus that kills its victims with a shot to the chest.” Bobby drawled sarcastically.
“A colonist?” Dean asked again incredulously.
“Yup.”
“Who? How?!”
“Colonists say it was a Terrestrian.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Why?” Bobby asked. “You don’t like them. I don’t like them. Who on Earth does? Somebody just liked them a little less than what was healthy.”
Dean frowned. “Is this some kind of joke? A colonist was killed three days ago. They think it was one of ours and nobody’s said anything about it in the news. Nobody’s said anything! The city would implode with that kind of gossip.”
Bobby groaned. “They’re keeping this quiet, Dean. Real quiet. I spent the last two days in Washington with the mayor and the head of Terrestrial Bureau of Investigations.”
“What did the TBI’s say?”
“It’s our investigation.” Bobby said. “Sterling is within Sioux Falls city limits.”
“What’s the catch?”
“The colonists requested to invoke extraterritorial rights.” Bobby advised. “They want one their own to help with the investigation.”
“Great. Just great.” Dean threw his arms up and moved to sit back down. “What you meant to say is it’s their investigation. Not ours. Jesus, Bobby. Why not just let them run the show?”
“Because if my train hadn’t been delayed that morning I would have been the one who discovered the body!” Bobby shouted. He instantly calmed down. “I had an appointment with Mr. Novak.”
“The vic?” Dean asked horrified. Bobby nodded.
“I was off by five minutes,” Bobby said hauntedly, “They met me at the station. It was brutal, real brutal.”
Dean murmured sympathetically.
“It’s a tight spot, Dean.” Bobby sighed. “If they wanted to, the colonists could hold their own investigations and send whatever reports back to their home government. The outer worlds could sue for indemnity.”
“I get it, okay.” Dean replied. “We don’t want their soldiers walking around like they own the place because the colonists think they need the extra protection.”
“The thing is, Dean,” Bobby sat down at his desk and rubbed his temples. “I’m not so sure they don’t need the protection. People don’t like colonists or their A’s. It’s as simple as that. Factories are being attacked by arsonists. There are workers’ riots in Moscow and Berlin. Protest marches in New York. If the discontented become organized then we’ll have a real problem on our hands.”
Dean’s heart palpitated as he came to realize the scale of the situation. He cleared his throat.
“Why doesn’t the TBI handle it then? They could-“
“TBI won’t touch it with a ten foot pole.” Bobby interrupted. He gave Dean a hard gaze. “If this thing goes south, boy, we all lose our jobs.”
“All of us?” Dean pretended that his voice hadn’t cracked when he said it. “What’ll they do then? Pull some fresh faces out of the academy? How do they plan to replace over fifty trained officers?”
“The A’s, Dean.” Bobby said. “They have the A’s.”
“What?”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Bobby warned. “A. Sami was just the start. The A's could do your job and mine. We’d be declassified and I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I'd even be hired to make deliveries at this age.”
“When did all this talk about replacement come up,” Dean demanded.
“It’s been happening,” Bobby told him. “For the last 25 years. Ever since the colonists came back to reconnect with Earth, it’s been happening. It starts at the lower jobs and works its way up.” He pointed a finger at Dean’s nose. “But if we play our cards right we might just save our hides and prove what an invaluable resource human ingenuity is. It’ll be a big break for you.”
“What.”
“I’m putting you in charge of the investigation.” Bobby clarified.
“Me? I’m only Class 5!” Dean protested. “This is way above me!”
“You want to be Class 6.” Bobby pointed out. “Here’s your chance to make the grade.”
“There’s half a dozen men ranked above me who are more than qualified,” Dean argued although a Class 6 rating was more than tempting. It meant he could finally move out. Well technically, it was Sam and Jess who had moved in to his family unit until Sammy could work his way up in the law firm. With a classification upgrade Dean could just sign over the living unit to Sam and apply for a nice single’s unit. “Yeah, I want it, but what happens if I can’t crack the case?”
“You’ll be fine.” Bobby assured him. “You’re one of my best guys and someone I can trust unequivocally. Plus I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” Dean asked.
“The colonists agreed to let us handle the investigation. They promised not to go public.” Bobby paused. “But they want their agent to assist. He’ll be your partner.”
“Sounds like they don’t trust us.”
“It’s a tough situation for them too,” Bobby explained. “If this gets botched they’ll be in trouble with their governments.”
“I’ll take a colonist as my partner.” Dean agreed. “Was that it?”
“You got a big place right? 3b2b family unit? Three adults, no kids?” Bobby asked.
Dean paled. “What? No. Not happening, Bobby. The guy can stay in Sterling or a hotel. I’m not bringing him home.”
“Do this for me and I’ll do what I can to bump you up to Class 7.” Bobby promised urgently. “He won’t be any trouble.”
“Fine.” Dean sulked. “I’ll do it.”
“Great. Good.” Bobby adjusted his tie. “There’s just one more thing.”
“What is it?” Dean asked tersely.
“The guy’s name…” Bobby said slowly.
“What about it?” Dean asked.
“The colonists are being really particular about it.” Bobby fumbled with his explanation, “The guy they’re supplying isn’t… well he’s not exactly… ” Bobby trailed off hesitantly.
Dean jumped out his seat. “Now hold on a god damn minute!”
“Dean,” Bobby pleaded. “There’s a lot on the line here. I can’t trust anybody on this but you. You’ll be partnered with one of their A’s. If he breaks the case before we do, then he can report our incompetence to his superiors and we’re screwed! I need your full cooperation on this and I need you to be the one to break the case. Not him.”
The detective weighed his options. The gamble was worth it. A Class 7 upgrade was worth it. Dean didn't find any fault in his skills as a detective. So what it all really came down to was if he was willing to work with one of "them".
“Okay.” Dean drew in a deep, resigning breath. “I'll do it. What’s his name?”
“A. Castiel.”
“Drop the bull, Bobby.” Dean snapped. “I’m working with him so let’s call him by what he is. Android Castiel.”