electricalgwen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
electricalgwen) wrote2011-03-01 10:10 am
electricalgwen) wrote2011-03-01 10:10 am
Give A Dog A Bone (J2 AU, PG-13)
When the claiming excitement was whirling around for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
j2_everafter, I got caught up in the energy (and, let's face it, glee and mild wackiness surrounding a Disney fest) and thought, "OMG, how much would I love to see Princess!Jensen and Assistant Pigkeeper!Jared? A LOT." And I signed up for The Black Cauldron.
This is loosely inspired by that movie. A little more so by the books. But when I went back to the source (which for me was actually the books, plus Wikipedia) I realized that a) I was simply not up to writing the level of crack that would be required to set it in Prydain, b) Eilonwy annoyed me a heck of a lot more than I remembered, and also, c) the original holds some special memories for me (and my husband) and I ran the risk of messing that up if I wrote a parody.
So! The setting is different, the style is different. But those who know the source characters may recognize the shapes of the companions, of Achren and Arawn, and of course the oracular HenWen. The Assistant Pigkeeper is still on a journey of self-discovery, and the Cauldron's version of immortality is still a curse fervently sought. And this is probably the crackiest thing I've written (at least in this fandom.)
Warnings for: moderate amounts of crack, mild schmoop, improbable science, rapid-fire exposition, rolling happily around in mad scientist clichés, language not ordinarily heard in a Disney movie, and making Genevieve (Cortese) Padalecki a villain again. I bear her no ill will whatsoever, but one needs villains, and Ruby and Lucifer fit the bill!
Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dancetomato for beta-reading this, especially when it expanded from its original draft of ~2K to be over 10K words. She is a pretty, pretty princess. ♥ Also, very many thanks to the mods of j2_everafter who kindly set aside today as a free-for-all, catch-up posting day for those of us who missed our assigned date. That is a beautifully generous gesture, which made me feel a whole lot better when I was ill on/around my original posting date. ♥
Give A Dog A Bone
“Morgan’s gonna kill you when he finds out.”
Jared shoves his hands through his already untidy mop of hair and stares wild-eyed at Chad. “This is all your fault!”
“Mine?” Chad snorts and swings his feet up on Jared’s kitchen table, muddy sneakers and all. They’d already trekked around half the city, including the dog park, before Jared got the bright idea that LeeLee might have headed home. “You’re the one who let his precious pooch fly the coop.”
“That’s birds, dumbass.”
“It’s a metaphor, dumber-ass.”
“That’s not even a word.”
“Is too.”
“Whatever.” Jared kicks the leg of Chad’s chair. “You’re the one who said, just tie her up outside, we’ll only be a minute!”
“Yeah, well, you’re the one who did it.”
Jared sinks down into the other chair and drops his forehead onto the table. “Morgan’s gonna kill me.”
“Yup,” Chad agrees.
“I’m gonna have to go tell him. Now.”
“Yup.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“What? No way, man!”
Jared knocks Chad’s feet off the table and stands up. “Someone’s got to bring my dismembered body home for my momma to bury.”
“Like I could carry you,” Chad scoffs, but he follows Jared out the door.
Thing is, Jared’s job kind of sucks.
It’s not that the job itself is so bad. He doesn’t have to wear a tie, he gets to spend a lot of time outdoors, and he genuinely loves animals. The hours are flexible – except for having to get up stupidly early on Mondays – and he can pretty much do whatever he wants on weekdays. All he has to do is pick LeeLee very early on Monday mornings and bring her back fed, groomed and exercised Friday evening. Mr. Morgan always takes her out of town on the weekends, to his cottage or skiing or wherever.
It’s more that being Assistant Dogwalker is not exactly a job that brings in the money. Or the guys. Girls, maybe – Jared’s read the articles that explain how chicks are drawn to guys with dogs because owning a dog shows the guy is caring and responsible, and after all that’s how he and Sandy first met, when LeeLee jumped all over her in the park – but that’s not much use to Jared.
Assistant Dogwalker’s not a real job, and no matter how much he dresses it up to his momma, hinting that it’s a step towards veterinary school, or even owning his own dogsitting company, she’s still on his case to do something with his life.
“You have so much potential, baby,” she’ll sigh, and Jared will grip the phone tighter and stare out the window and grit his teeth and wait for her to move on to talking about Josh’s latest accomplishment.
Maybe he has potential. He just doesn’t have the faintest clue what for.
Losing valuable dogs, apparently.
He gulps and rings Mr. Morgan’s doorbell.
The housekeeper’s eyebrows go up when she sees him, plus Chad and minus LeeLee, but she doesn’t say anything about the absence of dog. She ushers them into the huge foyer, instructs Chad to remove his sneakers – Jared was already kicking off his flip-flops – and waves them to the door on the far left.
“Wait in the library. I’ll fetch Mr. Morgan.”
Jared’s been in the library only once before, during his interview for the position of Assistant Dogwalker. Chad’s never even been inside the front gate of Morgan’s drive, and he lets out a long whistle at the high-ceilinged room with its huge oak bookshelves and massive leather couches, all bathed in the sunlight streaming in floor-to-ceiling windows along the south wall.
“Now these would be awesome for sex,” he says, throwing himself full length on the nearest sofa.
“Shut up, Chad!” Jared hisses. “And get up! He’ll be here any minute!”
“Your friend’s right,” Mr. Morgan says with mocking amusement, “they really are.”
Jared spins round, arms flailing, and narrowly misses hitting his – probably former – employer.
“You’re back early.”
“Yeah.” Jared gulps. “I, uh. I – there’s a – ”
“He lost your dog,” Chad says. “It was my fault. Kind of. Don’t kill him. He can’t afford a funeral, you pay him shit.”
Mr. Morgan takes the news surprisingly well, even when he finds out that Jared left LeeLee outside a comic book store so he and Chad could check out the latest edition of Wolverine.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
Jared nods miserably. “I know. I’m a failure at being responsible.”
“The hell you are,” Chad says. “You’re way more responsible than me.”
“No offense, Chad, but a four year old’s more responsible than you.”
Mr. Morgan clears his throat and they both shut up.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why I hired a dogwalker?”
Chad shrugs. “You’re a rich dude. You probably have business deals and stuff all day. Jared’s got nothing better to do.”
Jared glares at Chad, but doesn’t protest because really, it’s true.
Mr. Morgan is shaking his head. He gestures to Jared to sit down on Chad’s couch, and takes a seat opposite them.
“Like you said, I’m a rich man. Rich enough that I could easily take time off to walk my own dog. However, it was best that LeeLee not be seen with me. Around here, I’m constantly being watched.” He shakes his head. “It might have been better to send her away altogether, but I needed to work with her on the weekends. We were getting close to discovering the secret.”
Jared keeps his face neutral. Mr. Morgan had never struck him as a paranoid lunatic, but then, Jared hadn’t been asking the questions during their interview. He should have seen it coming, maybe; crazy rich sometimes equals just plain crazy.
“LeeLee is no ordinary Irish setter. You couldn’t have been expected to know what makes her so special.”
“She has a good pedigree?” Jared ventures, uncertainly.
“Oh, she does, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Mr. Morgan leans forward, elbows on knees and hands clasped, and eyes Jared intently. “She hasn’t always been my dog.”
Jared’s mind is spinning as he walks down Mr. Morgan’s long driveway.
“Let me get this straight,” Chad says, yet again. “LeeLee belonged to a mad scientist?”
“I guess.”
“A mad scientist who discovered the secret of immortality?”
“Claimed to have.”
“And who used to brag that his dog knew all his secrets.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mr. Morgan is a government agent?”
“That’s the part that throws me,” Jared agrees.
“And he adopted LeeLee when her mad scientist owner transported away?”
“Okay, that part really throws me,” Jared says. “They didn’t know where Dr. Pellegrino’s lab was; they raided his house. If he zapped out to get away from them, the equipment would have had to be there. Don’t you think that if the government had found a transporter device, it would have been on the news or something?”
Chad gives him an are-you-really-too-dumb-to-live look. “Dude. They covered up Roswell, didn’t they? And all those assassinations? I bet the Men in Black seized the transporter.”
“That was a movie.”
“The truth is out there.”
“Or maybe the device was portable,” Jared muses. “Like a Time Agent wrist-strap.”
“Maybe that’s why he had to leave the dog,” Chad says. “It’s not cool to abandon your animal sidekick. Dr. Evil wouldn’t have been caught dead leaving Mr. Bigglesworth behind.”
Jared stops and stares at Chad.
“What?”
“I’m not used to you being right,” Jared says.
“Shut up, bitch,” Chad says. “I’m awesome, and you know it.”
He scratches his stomach. “Also, I’m starving. Can we get tacos?”
“We have to get over to campus right away!” Jared says. “If Mr. Morgan’s right about who took LeeLee, there’s no time to lose!”
“But I’m hungry,” Chad whines. “There’s a Taco Bell on campus. It’ll just take a minute.”
“That’s what you said about the comic book store.” Jared glares. “We’re going straight to the lab.”
“You don’t even know where it is!”
“That’s what campus maps are for, Chad.”
As it turns out, it’s not that hard to get directions to the lab of Dr. Cortese. The first person Jared encounters in the science complex knows who he’s talking about. Apparently, everyone knows who he’s talking about.
“Oh man, are you in her undergrad class?” the guy says. “I barely survived that. She is such a Nazi. You know her colleagues call her ‘Achtung’ Cortese behind her back? She failed over half our class for not being able to design a novel cellular repair mechanism. That’s, like, post-doc level stuff! I can’t believe they’re still letting her teach here.” He points a finger at Jared’s chest. “Or that people still sign up for her classes! Didn’t you hear any of the rumors?”
Jared shrugs. “I’m kinda new on campus.”
The guy looks at him, looks Chad up and down, and shakes his head. “You still have a couple of days before the withdrawal deadline. Honestly? Quit now.”
“That’s the plan.” Chad scratches the back of his head. “Just have to get her to sign our forms. So if you wouldn’t mind telling us where we’re headed…?”
“Oh, right.” The guy gestures down the hall. “Stairwell on the left at the end of the hall. Her office is on the fourth floor.”
“Great, thanks,” Jared says. “See you around.”
“If we survive,” Chad grumbles.
“Nah, she won’t bite your head off for withdrawing.” The guy shrugs. “Honestly? She’ll probably be thrilled. I swear she hates undergrads.”
“Sounds like it’s mutual,” Chad mutters as they head for the stairs.
Dr. Cortese isn’t in her office. Her assistant doesn’t know when she’ll be back.
“She’s teaching freshman biology,” the assistant says, “because she cares about the young scientists of today and the future of research in this country. I don’t know when she’ll be back. Sometimes, she stays after class for hours, providing extra help. She’s such a giving person.”
It might possibly have been more convincing if she didn’t look like a frightened mouse and sound like a robot repeating a script. Or if they hadn’t met the guy downstairs.
“It’s okay,” Jared says, smiling. “We’ll wait.”
“There aren’t any chairs,” Chad hisses. “And I haven’t eaten yet!”
“Oh, you can’t wait in here,” the girl stammers. “This is a secure area. Labs and… stuff.”
“Outside,” Jared clarifies, backing out the door and dragging Chad with him. “We’ll wait outside. Downstairs or something. See you later!”
“I still don’t see why we have to talk to her,” Chad mutters. “She sounds like a prize bitch. If she’s the one who stole LeeLee, it’s not like she’s gonna tell us. Or just give her back.”
“We haven’t got any other leads,” Jared points out. “Besides, all I really want is to make sure LeeLee’s okay. If she thinks LeeLee can lead her to Dr. Pellegrino’s secret lab, fine, whatever. I don’t care about that. I just care about my dog.”
“Morgan’s dog.”
“She’s my dog!” They’re several feet down the hallway now; Jared slides down the wall to sit on the floor, and knocks his head back against the wall. “She was my friend, not just my responsibility. But I’m the Assistant Dogwalker who lost her, and I’m going to get her back. And if that means talking to scary professor lady, that’s what I’ll do. What’s the worst she can do to us, anyway?”
“Kill us?”
“Ha ha.”
“Kick us out of her class?”
“We’re not actually in her class, Chad.”
“Heh. Right.” Chad’s stomach gurgles. “You think there’s a vending machine in this building?”
“Oh, for… LeeLee’s more important than your stomach!”
“Yeah, but she’s not here, and my stomach is.”
Jared sighs. “I don’t want to miss her, okay? You go if you want.”
Chad sighs in turn and slumps to the floor beside Jared.
“Friends don’t abandon friends to the mercy of mad scientists.”
“She’s not mad. That’s Dr. Pellegrino.”
“She thinks a dog is going to lead her to an underground lair,” Chad says. “She’s mad.”
“Point,” Jared says. “So, wanna play I Spy?”
“Oh my God,” Chad groans, but starts looking around anyway.
They slump further and further down the wall as time passes. This mostly serves to annoy passing post-doctoral students who trip over Jared’s long legs.
Forty-five minutes later, they hear a woman coming up the stairs, high heels clacking.
“Hey,” Jared whispers, nudging Chad. “Get up.”
A cell phone rings.
“Cortese.”
The footsteps stop.
“No, of course not, you idiot!” The footsteps start again. “I need him to give me the answer to the telomere problem. You can kill him after that.”
Jared’s mouth drops open. He turns to Chad, who’s wearing a similarly horrified expression. He looks around frantically. It’s a long hallway; no way they’ll make it to the other end in time.
“Come on!” he mouths silently to Chad, and stands as quietly as he can. They tiptoe along the corridor and duck into the broom closet just beyond Dr. Cortese’s office. Jared pulls the door nearly shut, leaving a thin crack of light. They can still hear her talking, louder now as she rounds the top of the staircase.
“The clones don’t generate fast enough. If they’re to be a viable fighting force, we need to shorten production time… Well, obviously, if I get my hands on that bit of information, we won’t need new ones, but the fucking bitch isn’t cooperating!”
“…No, I’ve tried that… You think I haven’t? Hold on.”
She pushes open her office door and barks at her assistant. “Get her ready! We’ll try again.”
“Keep him locked up for now,” she says into the phone. “If I need him, I’ll call you.”
She flips the phone shut and drops it into her bag.
The assistant backs out of the doorway, apparently struggling against a force that’s trying to pull her back into the office on the end of a dog leash.
“LeeLee!” Jared mouths to Chad.
“Give me that, you useless thing,” Dr. Cortese snaps, and takes the leash from her mousy underling. She hauls firmly on it, and LeeLee emerges into the corridor, claws scraping the floor as she’s dragged out on her butt.
Dr. Cortese bends down and stares LeeLee right in the eyes. “Now you listen to me, bitch.”
LeeLee sniffs.
And her ears twitch. Jared recognizes the movement.
She’s scented something familiar.
He prays she’s as intelligent as Mr. Morgan claimed.
“You are going to take me home. You understand? Take me where you belong. Take me to Pellegrino’s lab.”
She stands up and looks down at LeeLee in disdain. “Or I will fricassee you.”
LeeLee cocks a back leg and scratches behind one ear. It seems an ordinary move, but it tilts her head so she’s looking directly at the crack of Jared’s closet door.
He gives her a thumbs up, nodding and silently mouthing, “Good girl. Do it.”
He has no idea if she can see him.
LeeLee jumps to her feet, tail wagging, and barks twice.
Dr. Cortese looks shocked, but rallies quickly. “Excellent choice. Lead the way.” She turns to her assistant. “The office is closed for the rest of the day. Lock up.”
Jared gives Dr. Cortese and LeeLee twenty seconds to get out of sight down the stairwell before following. He gestures to Chad to duck as they sneak past the office.
“I still haven’t had lunch,” Chad moans, as they walk down the main street away from the university. “Who knows how long this is going to take? Can we at least get drive-through?”
“We’re not driving. And I’m not letting them out of my sight!”
Chad sighs. “If I faint from hunger, you’ll have to carry me.”
“Yeah, because that won’t draw the attention of a crazy killer scientist at all.”
That makes Chad shut up and keep pace.
LeeLee leads Dr. Cortese down the steps of the first subway station they encounter.
They get on a northbound train. Jared and Chad – after a brief, panicked search through their pockets to dig up enough money for tickets – get on at the far end of the car and slouch way down in their seats, which for Jared means having his knees up around his ears.
Fortunately, Dr. Cortese doesn’t sit down, and he has no trouble keeping her in sight. Several stations later, he sees her move towards the door before it opens, in time for him and Chad to join the group exiting at the other door.
LeeLee doesn’t join the general exodus to the stairs. She heads to the far end of the platform.
The rest of the exiting passengers are out of sight. Jared and Chad are the only ones left on the platform when Dr. Cortese looks round. They pretend to be reading the wall-mounted schedule and arguing over it.
When Jared dares to cast a glance back over, both the scientist and the dog are gone.
“Damn it!” He races to the far end of the platform.
There’s a door. It looks like an unremarkable, maintenance door; probably you’d assume the space beyond held a signal box, or cleaning supplies. Except now, the door is swinging very slowly closed, and so Jared can see that it’s an extraordinarily thick, reinforced metal door, and beyond it is a diffusely lit hallway with curving walls that looks like no subway tunnel he’s ever seen.
He pushes the door open again and steps through. Immediately inside the door, there’s a matte black plastic panel on the wall, from which the glowing imprint of a paw is very slowly fading.
“Identification, please,” a female voice says.
Chad blinks. “Isn’t that the chick from Resident Evil?”
This guy has one hell of a security system.
“Biometric identification, please,” the voice repeats.
The door clicks shut behind them.
“Failure to identify. Screening.”
“What the hell do we do now?” Chad looks around frantically.
“Human,” the voice says. “Subjects. Remain where you are.”
“Run!” Jared says, and they do.
They manage to evade the guards for approximately ninety seconds.
Jared is frog-marched through a maze of corridors. At some point, the knot of guards surrounding Chad peels off and heads in a different direction. Jared would call out, promise Chad he’ll fix things, but one of the guards has a gloved hand firmly over his mouth.
A few minutes later, they stop in a corridor lined with doors. A guard opens one, and Jared is shoved through forcefully. He staggers, regains his balance and turns as fast as he can, lunging for the door, but it’s already locking. Muffled footsteps recede.
They hadn’t said a word to him.
Floor, walls, even ceiling appear to be a smooth mass of poured concrete. The steel door through which he entered contains a sort of mailbox, presumably for shoving food in. Its surface is otherwise unmarred; any lock or handle must be on the outside. The only other breaks in the concrete are two high, barred openings on each side wall that might be air vents, and a drain set into the floor by the back wall. The floor slopes very gently down towards it from all directions.
Jared tries not to think too hard about why Dr. Pellegrino might need to hose down his dungeons occasionally.
He walks around the extremely small cell, runs his hands along the door frame and pokes at any imperfections on the wall, but it’s hopeless and he knows it. Even if the locking mechanism were in plain sight, he hasn’t got a clue how to go about picking it or programming it or whatever the hell thieves do in these high-tech days.
“Chad?” he calls out, but there’s no answer; his own voice echoes briefly off the concrete and gets swallowed in the stillness.
Finally he sits down next to the drain, peering at it briefly, but even if he had a screwdriver to remove the cover, he couldn’t fit so much as a hand down it.
He leans his head back against the wall and sighs.
“Great job, Jared,” he mutters to himself. “Must be all that potential.”
There’s only one thing he’s really good at that’s applicable to this situation. Namely, the ability to fall asleep any time, anywhere.
He pulls off his sweatshirt, rolls it into a makeshift pillow, and sprawls out with his back to the wall. Whatever awaits him, he’ll probably face it better rested.
He sleeps like a rock, until he’s woken an indeterminate amount of time later by something hitting him on the head.
“Wha’?” he manages, rolling over and sitting up. He raises one hand to the side of his head. It’s sore just above his left ear, but there’s no blood.
“Someone in there?” a male voice says from somewhere above him. It sounds startled.
“Who’s there?” Jared cranes his neck but can’t see anything except the concrete and bars. He shifts his hand to balance himself as he turns, and it hits something hard that skitters away across the floor.
“Hey, careful!” the voice says in alarm. “That’s a delicate piece of equipment.”
“What is it,” Jared says angrily, “a torture device?”
He stands, hugging the wall. The object is four feet away from him. It looks like… a wristwatch, actually. The expensive, chunky kind that can tell you the time in Dubai three hundred feet underwater.
“What? No,” the voice says, now indignant. “What kind of stupid question is that?”
“I’m not telling you anything.” Jared takes a cautious, silent step forward, then another.
“I don’t work for him, you idiot. I’m locked up too.”
“Really?” Jared cranes his neck, looking around. “Where?”
“In the cell to your right.”
Jared frowns. “Which right?”
There’s a sigh. “Are you always this dumb? The door’s the front of the cell. Face it.”
Jared does, and looks to the right.
“I thought that was an air vent,” he says.
“It is,” the voice says, “but they connect the cells. It would be inefficient to have separate vents for each cell on a level.”
“There’s more than one level?”
“Regrettably, yes.”
Jared groans and sinks his fingers in his hair. “I’m on a rescue mission! My friend’s somewhere in here! And my dog! How am I going to find them?”
“Your dog?” The unseen person snorts. “You brought your dog on a rescue mission?”
“No, she was already here.” Jared turns and starts pacing. “I’m an Assistant Dogwalker. The dog is the rescue mission!”
There’s a pause.
“Oh,” the voice says, confused. “I assumed that was your friend.”
“No, he came with me to rescue the dog.”
“What the hell does Pellegrino want with your dog?”
This time Jared pauses.
“I don’t think I should tell you,” he says finally. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Easily solved. My name’s Jensen. Jensen Ackles. I’m a PhD student in genetics and molecular biology. What’s your name?”
“Jared. Padalecki.”
“Nice to meet you, Jared Padalecki. Now will you tell me?”
Jared frowns. “You’re a scientist?”
There’s an exasperated huff. “Yes, but not an evil one. Hence, the being locked up.”
“You could still be part of an evil science team,” Jared points out. “He could have locked you up after an internal power struggle.” An idea strikes him. “Oh! Or you’re faking being locked up to gain my trust.”
“Clearly that would have been a sucky plan,” the voice – Jensen – grumbles. “Only it wasn’t a plan. I’m actually locked up in here and now that I’ve dropped our only way out, it looks like we’re stuck that way.”
Jared looks over at the watch-thing on the floor again.
“It won’t electrocute me or anything?” He moves toward it.
“Be careful with it, Assistant Dogwalker!” There’s the noise of a fist hitting the wall in frustration. “It’s a unique piece of scientific equipment!”
Jared picks it up and takes a look. Closer up, it’s like… a miniaturized iPhone seamlessly attached to a woven metallic band, with numerous small buttons down one side.
“What is it?”
“It’s a wrist computer. Don’t push anything!”
“What does it do?”
“A lot. I mean it, don’t push anything!”
“I’m not going to.” Jared strokes the screen lightly.
“Analyzing,” the thing says. “Human.”
“I told you not to touch it!”
“It’s, like, a tricorder,” Jared breathes, grinning widely.
“That was one of the inspirations,” Jensen admits.
“Does it transport?”
“No.”
“Darn.”
“But it does have a transmitter.” Jensen sighs. “I was trying to amplify the signal. The cells are all locked down through a central mechanism, with wireless transmission. I deciphered the code and transmitting frequency. If I can get a signal that’s strong enough, I can unlock everything here at once.”
“Why did that involve dropping it on my head?”
“The bars,” Jensen explains. “I was trying to get it in position so the strap would short-circuit through a couple of the bars, and boost the output. The vents are too high, though, and I don’t have anything to stand on. I could just about reach with my fingertips, but I didn’t have a good grip, and as I was positioning one end of the strap, it fell through.” He sighs again. “Sorry about your head. I didn’t realize there was anybody in there.”
“I was sleeping,” Jared says. “I can probably reach the bars, if you can tell me what buttons to press.”
Jensen scoffs. “You’re not gonna be able to reach them. I’m a little over six feet, and I could barely manage on tiptoe. I don’t want it being dropped again.”
Jared can’t quite keep the smile out of his voice. “Yeah, well. I’m six five.”
“No way,” Jensen scoffs.
“Yeah-huh.”
“Really?” For the first time, Jensen doesn’t sound grumpy; there’s a hint of excitement in his voice. “You think you can reach?”
Jared stretches his left arm up. He can just about reach the bars. Standing on the balls of his feet, he can rest his wrist on them and splay his fingers across the vent. “Yup.”
“Awesome,” Jensen enthuses. “Okay. Um. Do exactly as I tell you.”
Jared watches in fascination as the screen comes to life. Code trails across the screen and tiny lights flicker as Jensen talks him through a series of instructions.
“Now hold it up,” Jensen says, “and get the strap bridging the bars. If you can get the computer bit to touch two of them, so much the better.”
Jared can.
There’s a quiet click behind him, and his door swings open.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
“Whoa,” an answering voice says behind him.
He spins around.
The guy standing in the doorway is ridiculously beautiful, even in the bleaching, artificial light of the hallway. He’s got spiky light brown hair, stunning green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a body that…
“Are you sure you’re a scientist?” Jared blurts.
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “Thought I just proved that.”
“You could be a spy or secret agent,” Jared says, taking the computer off the bars. “You look more like that. Do you know Mr. Morgan?”
“No.” Jensen cocks his head. “Are you certifiably insane, or just recreationally weird?”
“We’re in a mad scientist’s lair,” Jared says. “I don’t think I’m the weird part of all this. You don’t look like a scientist.”
“I have glasses.”
“Fair enough.”
“You don’t look like an Assistant Dogwalker.”
Jared considers. “What do you think an Assistant Dogwalker looks like?”
“Never really thought about it,” Jensen says, “but I dunno, I guess I didn’t think you’d be so… tall.”
Jared blushes a little under Jensen’s intense scrutiny.
“You’ve got amazing bone structure. Tall, but well-proportioned. Look at those hands! And your eyes.”
Jared ducks his head self-consciously, glancing back at Jensen through his bangs. Gorgeous guys don’t usually say things like that to him.
Jensen shakes his head and lets out a long breath. “You’ve got an extremely favorable genetic make-up, dude.”
Jared laughs. “Uh. Thanks, I guess?” So Jensen’s just interested in a scientific way. Good to know.
“I wish I’d had you around for the cloning project,” Jensen adds, and Jared’s good mood vaporizes.
“Cloning?” he spits out, and holds Jensen’s wrist computer up out of reach. “Are you with Dr. Cortese?”
“…No,” Jensen says, with a second’s hesitation. “Look, we need to get out of here before someone raises the alarm. Give me my computer and I’ll plan our route.”
“You’re lying,” Jared says. “I will do my best to smash this.”
“She’s my thesis supervisor,” Jensen admits.
“Ah ha!”
“It wasn’t my idea! Or, well, it sort of was, but I didn’t know I’d get assigned to her.”
Jensen sighs and looks beseechingly at Jared.
“I’m smart, okay? I put a really great proposal forward for an NIH grant. It’s a… um, basically it’s a model for DNA programming and repair using nanotech. It isn’t a cloning project per se, but it uses cloning technology, stuff like blunt-end PCR and hybrid vectors. The NIH was really excited about it until they found out I didn’t even have my PhD yet. Dr. Cortese’s one of the leaders in that field, and the NIH assigned me to work under her supervision. The models are complementary, and I guess they thought it would be a good way to develop my project without giving a lowly grad student freedom to run his own lab.”
Jared tries to look like he understood even a fifth of that. “Sounds like it?”
“Except she wanted to use my idea to build a zombie clone army,” Jensen says.
Jared opens his mouth, blinks, and shuts it again.
“That would be bad,” he finally says.
“You think?” Jensen’s tone is acerbic. “I didn’t know what was going on at first. I mean, everyone has times when they think their PhD supervisor is evil, but, you know, in a metaphorical way!”
He rubs at one temple. “I got the nanomachines working in her stem cell culture model. Next thing I know, she’s taking me to her secret underground lab and talking to me about this whacked-out super-soldier cloning project. She took my tech and incorporated it into a clone model she’d secretly developed, to make mindless killing machines that are extra strong and don’t feel pain.”
“That’s…” Jared’s vocabulary fails. “Really bad.”
“Yeah. The best part? Now she also wants them to be immortal.”
Jared hasn’t got anything to say besides, “Oh shit.”
“Yeah. First, even if I could do that, I wouldn’t give it to her. And second, I can’t do it.”
“But she thinks Dr. Pellegrino can,” Jared nods. “Or has.”
“Yeah. He claimed to have made this big breakthrough. She decided to come here and steal it.” He frowns. “She didn’t know how to find him, but I guess she figured it out.”
Jared opens his mouth to explain, but then thinks better of it; he wants to hear the rest of Jensen’s story.
“I’d told her I wouldn’t help her, so she had me locked up in her lab. Then a few hours ago, four of her clone slaves came and got me. They told me she’d ordered them to bring me here, and for me to bring my telomere nano-editors.”
“Telomeres,” Jared says. “Huh.”
Jensen blinks. “You’ve heard of them?”
“No need to sound so surprised,” Jared says. “I am an Assistant Dogwalker.”
“Uh-huh.” Jensen doesn’t look impressed.
Jared sighs. “Um, actually I just heard about them today. Yesterday? I’m not sure what time it is.”
“Around two a.m.”
“Yesterday, then,” Jared says. “I was hiding in a broom closet outside Dr. Cortese’s office and I heard her on the phone. She said she needed the answer to the telomere problem and that…”
He trails off as he connects the dots, staring at Jensen.
“What?” Jensen says irritably.
Jared swallows. “She said, uh. She said, you can kill him after that.”
Jensen grimaces. “Great.”
“I won’t let that happen!” Jared declares.
“You and what army?” Jensen says sarcastically, but he looks pleased and Jared’s heart warms. “Come on. We really do need to get moving.”
“Right.”
Jared hands over the computer. Jensen wraps it around his wrist; the strap seals together seamlessly, and the screen lights up at the skin contact.
“Whoa,” Jared says again.
“I designed it myself. I’m also kinda good with computers,” Jensen says, faint pink staining his cheeks. He points to the left. “That way.”
“So why’d you end up locked up here too?” Jared says, as they move rapidly down the corridor.
“We got caught,” Jensen says. “Pellegrino’s got a pretty awesome security system. The clones triggered it. They’re strong, but they’re not supersmart, and they ended up telling Pellegrino’s goons who I am. They took me to Pellegrino. He’d been following my work, and he basically offered me a job working for him instead. I turned it down, he had me locked up, I started trying to break out, you know the rest.” He sighs. “Pellegrino’s hunting for Cortese. He knows she’s in the building; I told him so. If she wasn’t planning to kill me before, she certainly will be now.”
“Wouldn’t it look suspicious if her PhD student turns up murdered?” Jared says. Jensen holds up a hand to pause as they reach an intersection, then nods and gestures right. “I mean, she probably doesn’t want anyone investigating her.”
Jensen shrugs. “Depends how I died. She’d probably stage an elevator accident. Or have me mugged. Or hang me from the ceiling dressed all in black and write a fake suicide note about how I’m so depressed because my project failed and I’ll never have my own lab and I’m gay and I can’t get a date.”
“Like anybody’d believe that,” Jared scoffs. They turn again. Jensen opens a side door and waves Jared up a set of stairs.
“I am gay,” he says, as they emerge into an identical hallway.
“Yeah, but you’re gorgeous. And smart. I bet you get all kinds of dates.” Jared blushes. “I’m gay, too, actually.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says. “I kind of guessed. What with the shirt and all.”
Jared looks down at himself.
“I could just really like unicorns,” he says.
“I ran the statistics,” Jensen says. “Your sexuality would have been an exceedingly sure bet.”
Jared looks at the computer. “When did you do that?”
“I did it in my head.”
“Really?”
Jensen smirks. “It wasn’t hard.”
“That’s what she said,” a familiar voice says, and Chad steps out of a side corridor.
“Chad!” Jared barrels forward and wraps him up in a hug.
“Get off me, I’m fine,” Chad grumbles, shoving at Jared. “This place is a maze! Where’ve you been?”
“One floor down,” Jared says. “We have a map.”
“Who’s we?”
“This is Jensen.” Jared beams. “He’s a genius geneticist.”
“Evil geneticist?” Chad gives Jensen a squinty look.
“Not evil at all.”
“I do occasionally double park,” Jensen says. “But never in handicapped zones.”
“He was a prisoner too.” Jared explains. “He’s getting us out of here. That’s how your cell door got unlocked.”
It’s then he notices the other guy, leaning against the wall beyond Chad. He’s tall, with a piercing stare, unkempt hair, and a vibe that is definitely somewhere in the rainbow of crazy.
Jared hadn’t gotten a very good description of Dr. Pellegrino.
“Uh,” Jared says. “Chad. Who the hell is that?”
“Misha.”
“Bless you.”
“That’s his name.” Chad steps back and slings an arm around the guy’s shoulders. “He’s a hobo.”
“I’m not actually a hobo,” Misha says, removing the arm. “Nor am I your boyfriend.”
Jared laughs. “Did you give him food?”
“Snickers bar,” Chad confirms.
“Sorry, man,” Jared says, “he’ll be stuck to you till suppertime at least.”
“You look like a hobo,” Jensen says.
“Thanks.” Misha nods. “I was trying.”
“What the hell for?”
Jared wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but he’s curious too.
“I’m working on a performance art project,” Misha explains. “It involved being temporarily homeless. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong doorway to sleep in.”
“You wandered into a hidden underground lair by accident?”
“Just into the entrance.” Misha shrugs. “I went to sleep, and the next thing I knew, evil henchmen were hauling me inside and planning to remove vital organs.”
Jared gasps.
“They didn’t, obviously.”
“How come?”
“They interrogated me first. Dr. Pellegrino decided I might have other uses.”
“Not to belittle your, uh, profession,” Jensen says, “but how did he think a homeless artist was likely to contribute to his projects?”
“He’s working on mass hypnosis via the internet.”
“And you could be useful how?”
“I’m a freelance musician.” Misha shrugs. “Social media manipulation is how we live.”
“Not following,” Jensen says.
“Let me guess, geneticists don’t use MySpace.”
Jensen looks blank.
“Twitter?”
“I’ve heard of Twitter,” Jensen says. “Some internet thing?”
Misha nods. “Yes, exactly. And DNA is some genetic thing. We all have our own specializations.” He smiles. It’s not the most reassuring expression. “I don’t need to build myself a zombie clone army. I control over a hundred thousand minions.”
Jared gives him a suspicious look. “How do you know about the zombie clone army?”
“There’s one here.”
“What?” Jensen’s eyes widen. “Where? How do you know?”
“There was fighting outside my cell.” Misha points upward. “I was incarcerated much nearer the central core. Half an hour ago, a horde of identical, zombified guys came through there, taking out Pellegrino’s guards.”
“Fighting their way to the command center,” Jensen says, tapping at his wrist strap. “I guess Cortese summoned the whole army.”
“It was the only time I was happy to be locked up,” Misha says. “Shortly after, the cell door spontaneously opened. I started working my way out from the center, hoping to find an exit, and encountered your friend.”
He nods back down the hallway, in the direction Jensen and Jared had come. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“We were looking for you.” Jensen swipes a finger across the computer screen. “I guess now we can look for the exit.”
“Not without LeeLee,” Jared says firmly. “She’s the reason we came here, and I’m not leaving without her.”
Jensen whirls to look at him. “LeeLee? You mean Dr. Pellegrino’s dog?” He narrows his eyes and starts backing away from Jared. “And you were accusing me of being on their side! What’s your connection to him?”
“I don’t have one!” Now it’s Jared’s turn to look beseechingly at Jensen. “I ended up with a job looking after LeeLee after Dr. Pellegrino left her behind when the government was after him! I never even knew who he was, or who she was, until Dr. Cortese stole her!”
“He left his dog behind?” Misha’s eyes darken. “What kind of supervillain does that?”
“Seriously,” Chad agrees. “Not cool. Especially when she can lead you to his secret lair.”
“So we have to rescue her,” Jared says. “My honor as an Assistant Dogwalker is at stake! Who’s with me?”
Chad’s hand goes up. So does Misha’s.
They all look at Jensen.
Jensen looks at Jared.
“Oh, fine,” he sighs. “For you. But if I die, I’m gonna haunt you.”
“I think I’d kinda like that,” Jared says slyly, and Jensen blushes.
Chad groans. “Can we go? I’d rather be dealing with zombies.”
The halls leading to the command center are thankfully zombie-free. The reason for this becomes clear when they get there.
Jensen’s map has brought them to a door that opens into the upper level of the core, on a carpeted catwalk that runs around the top of a large, open room. There’s a platform in the room’s center that contains a large bank of computers, a huge glass desk, a couple of futuristic office chairs, a giant tank of tropical fish and, looking rather out of place, a wilted spider plant.
Also Dr. Pellegrino. Jared assumes. The lab coat, goggles, black latex gloves, gloating expression and maniacal laugh are strongly suggestive.
Dr. Cortese is on the floor below, surrounded by her army. They, however, seem to be having problems, flailing about in uncoordinated ways.
Actually, now Jared looks more closely, they’re…
…dancing?
He slips as unobtrusively as possible through the open door and crouches behind the frosted glass railing of the catwalk. He feels Chad push by him on one side, and then Jensen’s warmth brackets him on the other.
Jensen smells nice.
Jared needs to focus.
“That’s my music!” Misha hisses from behind him. “He’s transmitting it to the army on a modified frequency to control their movements!”
Jared hadn’t realized the electronic sounds in the background qualified as music; he’d thought they were all part of the computer set-up.
“It’s distracting them temporarily,” Jensen whispers, “but I can’t see how it’s going to incapacitate them. Whatever it’s doing to them has to wear off soon.”
“Maybe distraction’s enough,” Chad whispers. “Look.”
A few of Pellegrino’s henchmen are moving among the clones. They’re briefly touching each on the neck, and moving on.
“Hypospray,” Jensen breathes.
“So much for your army, Doctor Cortese!” Pellegrino crows. “You may have modified them to make them super-strong and resistant to toxins, but I control the inner workings of life and death! I don’t need to hit them over the head to kill them.”
The army begins collapsing all around her, leaving Dr. Cortese standing alone in an ever-widening circle of fallen clones.
She shrieks in frustration.
“Do you know how long it takes to generate them? I’ll fucking kill you, you piece of shit!”
“Telomeric shortening,” Dr. Pellegrino says, and sketches a florid bow. “I know your model, my dear. It was a simple matter to design something to edit their DNA. I told you, you’d either join me, or regret it.”
“Join you?” she spits. “Be your slave, more like.”
“You say tomato,” he mocks, as the last zombie clone hits the floor with a dull thud. “I say… goodbye!”
He pushes a lever on the floor beside his desk.
A panel opens up in the lower floor beneath her, and she drops away. Her scream is cut off as the panel slides back into place.
“Wow,” Chad breathes. “This guy goes for all the clichés.”
Dr. Pellegrino snaps a glove.
“Does he ever,” Jared agrees.
“Get down to the cells,” Pellegrino says to his goons. “Bring me Ackles. Let’s see if this little display will convince him.”
The men leave the room through a door on the lower level.
Dr. Pellegrino whistles.
Jared’s heart leaps as LeeLee comes bounding into the room, on the far side from them. She picks her way through the clones and leaps up onto the platform.
“Sit,” Pellegrino says curtly, and she does. He turns away and starts scanning through some papers on his desk.
“We need to get her now!” Jared hisses. “Before those guys come back and tell him you’re not there!”
“How?” Jensen mutters. “He’s got all the controls! All he has to do is…”
He trails off. His mouth drops open, his eyes widen. “Hang on.”
He starts working on his wrist computer again, fingers tapping and swiping wildly.
“If I can just…” He looks up. There’s another barred vent in the wall above them.
“You, hold this on the vent,” he says, undoing the strap and handing it to Jared. “You guys, hold my feet on the railing. I’ll need to keep reprogramming to keep ahead of him.”
“What are you doing?”
“Basically, jamming his computer, but it’d take too long to explain the details. Trust in science,” Jensen says, grinning. “Trust me.”
Jared doesn’t hesitate. He stands, reaches up to his full height, and smacks the computer against the bars. Jensen jumps onto the railing and leans into the wall, against the vent. One hand locks around Jared’s wrist for support; the other is poised over the screen. Chad and Misha are still crouching down, heads behind the railing, but each has a death grip on one of Jensen’s legs.
The commotion, not surprisingly, attracts Dr. Pellegrino’s attention. He whirls around.
“Ackles!”
“Surprise,” Jensen smirks.
“How did you…” Dr. Pellegrino rushes to his computer and hits a button dramatically. Nothing happens.
“I’ve got control now,” Jensen says.
Jared gulps. He’s spread-eagled against the wall, with Jensen gripping one wrist hard, and he really wishes Jensen were talking to him.
Pellegrino swears. Jared hears him tapping rapidly at his own controls.
“No good,” Jensen says, watching his own display and responding. “I’ve blocked comms. And don’t even bother trying to get the alarm system functional.”
Jared doesn’t dare move much, for fear of letting the wristband slip, but he manages to turn his head enough to glimpse LeeLee. She’s still sitting obediently behind Dr. Pellegrino, but she’s watching him.
“Chad,” he hisses. “I can’t get her. You’ll have to do it!”
“Dude!” Chad looks horrified. “I can’t go down there! Just call her! She always comes for you.”
Dr. Pellegrino activates another screen, hits a few buttons, and swears.
“Oops, did I disrupt the laser targeting?” Jensen taunts.
Jared gulps. Chad’s right. He’d just really hoped he wouldn’t have to risk drawing Dr. Pellegrino’s attention to himself.
“LeeLee!” he shouts. “Here, baby! We haven’t got much time!”
She barks twice, and stays where she is.
Dr. Pellegrino looks up at that.
“Well, well,” he says, hands still moving on his controls. “So you know LeeLee, do you? You must be the Assistant Dogwalker who couldn’t even keep track of his own dog.” He chuckles. “Cortese mentioned you. All brawn, no brains. I suppose I should thank you for your incompetence. It made it much easier for LeeLee to get home – and she brought me Cortese as a bonus.”
Jared grits his teeth.
Pellegrino shoves at his goggles and pulls another lever.
There’s a soft, hissing noise.
Chad lets go of Jensen’s ankle and slumps to the floor.
“Misha, stand up!” Jensen barks, and furiously works at his computer. “Damn it…”
Misha does, still holding Jensen’s leg. Jared looks down and notices the tiny nozzle in the wall near his knee.
“The gas is heavier than air, it sinks,” Jensen gabbles, “just let me… There!”
The hissing stops.
“It’ll dissipate soon.” Jensen looks down at Jared, relaxing the grip on his wrist. “Jared… I’m sorry, but I don’t know how long I can keep ahead of things.”
Jared nods, words clogging his throat. They’re clearly at a standoff – and LeeLee’s chosen her side.
“Can you get us out of here?” he finally manages.
“I hope so,” Jensen says grimly. “I’m getting through some of his defenses, but I don’t know how many there are before the core processor, and I’m not sure what else he’s got up his sleeve.”
As it turns out, Pellegrino decides to show them. Literally.
He rolls up the sleeves of his lab coat and Jared sees he’s also wearing a Time Lord-style wrist strap.
“You’re good, Ackles,” he calls. “Not as brilliant as me, but very good! Good enough that I’ll extend my offer, one last time. You were wasted with Cortese. Forget the NIH! Come with me, you can work on whatever projects you want!”
“I said no.” Jensen’s grip on Jared’s wrist tightens again.
“What are you doing with these losers? A so-called artist? An Assistant Dogwalker who loses his dog?”
Pellegrino extends both arms, as if to embrace Jensen.
“Join me!” he carols. “Think what good you could do for humanity!”
Jensen’s laugh is devoid of amusement.
“You think humanity wants immortality?” he says. “You think that’s a good thing to spring on a world that’s overflowing and massively inequitable? Who gets it, Pellegrino? You? Me? The highest bidder?”
“Whomever you want,” Pellegrino purrs. “You. Your boyfriend there.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Jensen scoffs, and Jared flinches briefly; it’s not like he thought he had a chance in hell with Jensen, not really, but the dismissive tone still hurts. “You can’t buy me, you maniac.” He does something complicated to the screen; sparks flash from the wristband. Tiny shocks race up Jared’s arm, but he doesn’t let go. “And I’m nearly in.”
Dr. Pellegrino sighs, melodramatically. “Oh, well. Too bad.”
He brings both hands together across the computer’s main touchscreen in a complicated move. The screen goes dark. Simultaneously, the main lights in the room go out, leaving only two weakly glowing “EXIT” signs.
Jensen swears.
“Auto-destruct engaged,” the pleasant female security voice says.
“Did you do that?” Jared whispers.
“No!”
“You’ll never stop me! Or take my secrets! This place is set to blow in ten minutes!” Dr. Pellegrino laughs. “All my notes, everything. The only copy that matters is in here!” He points to his head. “You’ll be destroyed, and I’ll be free to start over. And this time, I won’t be leaving any loose ends behind.”
LeeLee sits beside him. His left hand is resting on her head.
“He must have to touch her for transporting,” Jensen hisses. Jared looks at him in horror.
“LeeLee!” He lunges for the railing but Jensen has him in an iron grip. “No! Here, girl!”
He struggles against Jensen’s hold. “Let me go! You said you’d help me!”
“Jared, it’s too dangerous!” Jensen looks pleadingly at him. “I can’t risk y…I can’t let you do it!”
Dr. Pellegrino laughs his evil laugh and presses a button on his wrist strap. A tiny red light starts blinking.
“Farewell, you fools!”
The light is blinking faster.
Jared is still staring helplessly at LeeLee. The others have their eyes fixed on Dr. Pellegrino, and so Jared’s the only one who notices her shift, gathering her hind legs under her into a crouch.
“A pity you wouldn’t join me, Ackles. But if you choose to side with that group of misfits, you can’t be half as smart as you claim.”
The light is flashing almost too quickly to make out.
“Bye bye,” Dr. Pellegrino says mockingly, and raises his arm to wave.
LeeLee jumps, leaping across in front of him, high into the air.
He curses and grabs for her, but he’s beginning to shimmer in and out of solidity. It really is like the transporters on Star Trek.
As he enters the more solid phase, her jaws close unerringly around the computer attachment on his wrist. There’s a crackle and flash.
LeeLee lands on the far side of the platform and spins around. There’s light between her teeth; Jared realizes she’s torn the computer free from the band still around Dr. Pellegrino’s wrist. The band, however, is still flashing.
“NO! BAD DOG!” The scientist starts toward her.
He starts fading again.
LeeLee bites down.
Sparks arc from her mouth to the band. Dr. Pellegrino’s translucent form is momentarily electrified, light like neon racing down his limbs, and then he fades completely. His agonized yell fades with him.
There’s a moment where everyone stands there, frozen in place.
The dog who just saved the day spits out the mangled computer, hangs out her tongue and whines.
Jared shakes off his disbelief, and Jensen’s grip.
“LeeLee!” He races down the stairs. “Did you burn yourself, baby? C’mere!”
She gathers herself once again and leaps from the platform, landing beside him. He kneels down and hugs her, hard, burying his face in her fur and scrabbling her behind the ears. “Good girl! Clever girl! You want some water?”
“What the hell just happened?” a shaking voice says, and Chad lifts his head from the catwalk floor.
Jared’s pretty keen to know that himself. He looks up at Jensen, who’s heading down the stairs towards him.
“She destroyed the computer in the middle of a transport. I don’t know exactly how the thing worked – I wish I’d had a chance to get a better look at it – but I’m guessing the targeting system needs to be active throughout transit in order for the process to complete. Without programming instructions, the waveforms won’t produce molecular assembly.”
Chad rolls over and blinks. “In English?”
“He’s probably stuck being dematerialized.”
“Awesome,” Chad mumbles. “Why aren’t my legs working right?”
“We still have to get out of here,” Misha reminds them all. “Let’s run!”
“It must be starvation,” Chad muses weakly. “Everything’s gone dark. I told you, Jay.”
“I need to find the nearest exit,” Jensen says worriedly, poking at his wrist strap. “At least, the nearest one where I can override the controls. This place is on lock-down.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jared places a hand on Jensen’s, stilling his motions, and smiles at him. “We’ve got a girl on the inside.”
He looks at LeeLee. “Get us out of here?”
She does, with over three minutes to spare.
They cover a lot of ground in those three minutes, even with Jared hauling Chad. When the blast comes, it’s a muffled implosion a few blocks behind them.
The shockwave that arrives a few seconds later ripples through the pavement and knocks Jensen into Jared. Jared does his best to stay upright, but he’s still mostly supporting Chad, and they all go down in a heap.
“Um,” he says, slightly cross-eyed from trying to focus on Jensen’s face, which is extremely close to his.
Jensen has freckles.
Jensen also has a mildly alarmed expression and is scrambling to get away from him. “Sorry, man.”
Jared ignores the pang in his chest and gets to his feet.
“No problem,” he says with a smile. “Anything else you want to drop on me?”
Jensen smiles, warm and startled, and Jared’s chest aches again.
“Nah, I’m good.” The smile fades. “I should get over to the lab. I don’t know for sure if Dr. Cortese summoned the whole army, or if there are stragglers left, but there’s gonna be some clean-up needed anyway.”
“Who cares?” Chad says. “Let the police deal with it.”
Jensen shakes his head. “When she doesn’t show up for things, someone’s going to start investigating her disappearance, and her lab. I don’t want them to find anything but the legitimate experiments. I’m not gonna risk losing my NIH grant – my future – as a result of her insanity.”
“It’s, like, three a.m.” Jared says. “Can’t it wait? You should eat. Or something.”
“I should eat,” Chad says plaintively. “Why don’t you ever worry about me?”
He turns to Misha, who’s just standing there with a faint smile. “Hey man. Do you need somewhere to stay? I don’t have a spare room, but you can have the couch.”
“I’m not actually homeless,” Misha reminds him. “The doorway sleeping was for research purposes only.”
He looks at Jared and Jensen. “Sounds like we all have things to do. I have to go sleep somewhere; you have evidence to destroy; you have a dog to return. Still, we should celebrate some time. I suggest we exchange phone numbers.”
“Great idea,” Jensen says, and turns to Jared. “What’s yours?”
Jared reels it off and watches Jensen tap it into his wrist computer.
Pellegrino was right, about one thing at least. They are very different people. Jensen’s a genius and Jared…
Jared’s a loser.
“You got anything to write with?” Jensen is saying. “I’ll give you mine. Call me. We should hang out sometime we’re not in mortal peril.”
“I’m not sure that would work out,” Jared says, not meeting Jensen’s eyes. He’s afraid what Jensen might see in his. “You’re probably gonna be pretty busy.”
“…Okay,” Jensen says, after a short pause. “Well. We should get together at least once. Celebrate, like Misha said.”
“Sure thing,” Jared says lightly. And if his hand shakes as he scribbles down Jensen’s phone number on the back of a candy wrapper, well. It’s probably delayed shock.
He nods to Misha – Chad’s acquired his number, so they’re all set – and turns to go, whistling for LeeLee.
“Jared?”
He looks back.
“Thanks for the rescue,” Jensen says. “Take care of yourself.”
Jared manages a smile and a nod goodbye.
“You’re an idiot,” Chad says, after they’ve gone a couple of blocks.
“That’s the problem.”
“That’s your problem,” Chad corrects him. “Not his. That guy is stupid over you.”
“Your face is stupid,” Jared says grumpily.
Chad sighs. “Dude, whatever. I’m telling you, I’m right.”
“When are you ever right?”
“I was right yesterday.”
“So you’ve used up your quota for the month.”
Chad sighs again. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yup. Wanna get tacos?”
LeeLee barks her agreement even before Chad voices his approval of that plan.
Mr. Morgan’s glad to get his dog back. He’s not as glad to hear that Dr. Pellegrino’s secrets are lost to humanity. Jared thinks humanity’s better off without them, but he has the sense not to say so. He’s pretty sure Mr. Morgan can tell what he thinks anyway, but he gets to keep his job and receives a nice bonus.
It’s weird to think he’s working for a secret government agent, but at least he knows the man really does care about his dog. She’s nothing special now Pellegrino’s gone, and he still wants the best for her.
He’d thought that blowing up a largely underground building inside the city would be hard to hide. The news, however, glosses briefly over the unfortunate gas main explosion, describes the temporary subway rerouting, and promptly moves on to Lindsey’s latest exploits.
“I told you, you can’t trust the government,” Chad intones. They’re in their favorite bar, where Jared is using a small chunk of his bonus to buy everyone involved in the Great Rescue drinks.
He’s surprised he had the courage to call Jensen and ask him to meet them. He’s even more surprised that Jensen accepted.
“I told you so,” Chad had said, smugly. “I’m the one who had to watch him eyefuck you the whole time. He is fucking retarded over you.”
Jared doesn’t believe that – Jensen’s probably only thinking about Jared in terms of his potential for cloning – but he’s worn one of his nicest, unicorn-free shirts. Just in case.
“I mean, can you imagine if they got their hands on immortality?” Chad shudders. “I swear half of them are vampires already.”
Misha rests his chin on one hand and listens gravely as Chad continues to expound on the evils of government conspiracy.
“They’re quite a pair,” Jensen says, very near his ear.
Jared nods, downing the last of his beer.
“Another round?” Jensen gestures towards the bar and stands.
“Sure.” Jared stands. “But I’m buying.”
“You bought last round.”
“Mr. Morgan did.” Jared smiles. “Don’t worry. You can help carry them.”
They order, and wait at the bar in silence.
“I’m glad you called,” Jensen says. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Of course I would.” Jared shrugs. “I said we’d celebrate.”
Jensen smiles, a bit wistfully. “Yeah, of course.”
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Jared admits.
“Of course I would!” Jensen frowns. “I mean, I don’t get out of the lab all that much. But I wanted to see you. And this place is pretty cool.”
“You’re pretty cool. For a scientist.” Jared elbows him lightly in the ribs.
Jensen laughs. It’s completely adorable.
Jared is so gone.
“You’re cool too, Jared. I’m glad we’re… I mean, I know you said we have very different lives. But…” Jensen takes a deep breath, “I’d like us to stay friends.”
It would be easy to go with that.
But Jensen came to meet him. Jensen even seems nervous.
Maybe there’s potential after all.
Jared gathers up his courage. He faced down a mad scientist. He escaped from an exploding lab. He rescued the dog. He can do this.
“I’d like that. But I’d like it even more if we could be… more.”
“Really?” Jensen looks stunned. “I thought… but… you didn’t seem interested.”
Jared gapes. “You’re kidding, right? Have you seen you? And you’re funny, and nice… You’re a genius, you were kidnapped because you’re so amazingly smart, you’ve got your own NIH grant, and – ”
He looks down at his feet.
“And I’m just an Assistant Dogwalker.”
Jensen’s feet step into Jared’s field of view. Said field of view is pretty limited by his bangs, which he hasn’t cut in ages. Which means – Jensen is standing very close.
He raises his head. Jensen’s eyes are right there, gold-flecked green, miracles of genetics.
“It’s a very important job.” A smile is dancing around the corners of Jensen’s mouth. “You have to be caring and responsible.”
“I lost the dog.”
“Yes,” Jensen agrees, “and then you risked your life to rescue her. And you rescued me.”
He takes one more step. Their toes are almost touching. Jared can feel Jensen’s warmth all up his front.
“I get going on experiments, I’ll forget to eat, or sleep, or exercise,” Jensen says. “Do you think – how would you feel about a job taking care of me?”
Jared tries to keep his grin in check. “Does it pay well?”
Jensen’s eyes flash a dirty promise. “Depends on what you’ll accept as payment.”
“Do I get a new title?”
“Absolutely,” Jensen agrees. “How about boyfriend?”
Jared doesn’t answer, because his mouth is occupied in kissing the hell out of Jensen, but he’s pretty sure Jensen gets the message. He is a genius, after all.
♥♥♥
j2_everafter, I got caught up in the energy (and, let's face it, glee and mild wackiness surrounding a Disney fest) and thought, "OMG, how much would I love to see Princess!Jensen and Assistant Pigkeeper!Jared? A LOT." And I signed up for The Black Cauldron.This is loosely inspired by that movie. A little more so by the books. But when I went back to the source (which for me was actually the books, plus Wikipedia) I realized that a) I was simply not up to writing the level of crack that would be required to set it in Prydain, b) Eilonwy annoyed me a heck of a lot more than I remembered, and also, c) the original holds some special memories for me (and my husband) and I ran the risk of messing that up if I wrote a parody.
So! The setting is different, the style is different. But those who know the source characters may recognize the shapes of the companions, of Achren and Arawn, and of course the oracular HenWen. The Assistant Pigkeeper is still on a journey of self-discovery, and the Cauldron's version of immortality is still a curse fervently sought. And this is probably the crackiest thing I've written (at least in this fandom.)
Warnings for: moderate amounts of crack, mild schmoop, improbable science, rapid-fire exposition, rolling happily around in mad scientist clichés, language not ordinarily heard in a Disney movie, and making Genevieve (Cortese) Padalecki a villain again. I bear her no ill will whatsoever, but one needs villains, and Ruby and Lucifer fit the bill!
Many thanks to
dancetomato for beta-reading this, especially when it expanded from its original draft of ~2K to be over 10K words. She is a pretty, pretty princess. ♥ Also, very many thanks to the mods of j2_everafter who kindly set aside today as a free-for-all, catch-up posting day for those of us who missed our assigned date. That is a beautifully generous gesture, which made me feel a whole lot better when I was ill on/around my original posting date. ♥Give A Dog A Bone
“Morgan’s gonna kill you when he finds out.”
Jared shoves his hands through his already untidy mop of hair and stares wild-eyed at Chad. “This is all your fault!”
“Mine?” Chad snorts and swings his feet up on Jared’s kitchen table, muddy sneakers and all. They’d already trekked around half the city, including the dog park, before Jared got the bright idea that LeeLee might have headed home. “You’re the one who let his precious pooch fly the coop.”
“That’s birds, dumbass.”
“It’s a metaphor, dumber-ass.”
“That’s not even a word.”
“Is too.”
“Whatever.” Jared kicks the leg of Chad’s chair. “You’re the one who said, just tie her up outside, we’ll only be a minute!”
“Yeah, well, you’re the one who did it.”
Jared sinks down into the other chair and drops his forehead onto the table. “Morgan’s gonna kill me.”
“Yup,” Chad agrees.
“I’m gonna have to go tell him. Now.”
“Yup.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“What? No way, man!”
Jared knocks Chad’s feet off the table and stands up. “Someone’s got to bring my dismembered body home for my momma to bury.”
“Like I could carry you,” Chad scoffs, but he follows Jared out the door.
Thing is, Jared’s job kind of sucks.
It’s not that the job itself is so bad. He doesn’t have to wear a tie, he gets to spend a lot of time outdoors, and he genuinely loves animals. The hours are flexible – except for having to get up stupidly early on Mondays – and he can pretty much do whatever he wants on weekdays. All he has to do is pick LeeLee very early on Monday mornings and bring her back fed, groomed and exercised Friday evening. Mr. Morgan always takes her out of town on the weekends, to his cottage or skiing or wherever.
It’s more that being Assistant Dogwalker is not exactly a job that brings in the money. Or the guys. Girls, maybe – Jared’s read the articles that explain how chicks are drawn to guys with dogs because owning a dog shows the guy is caring and responsible, and after all that’s how he and Sandy first met, when LeeLee jumped all over her in the park – but that’s not much use to Jared.
Assistant Dogwalker’s not a real job, and no matter how much he dresses it up to his momma, hinting that it’s a step towards veterinary school, or even owning his own dogsitting company, she’s still on his case to do something with his life.
“You have so much potential, baby,” she’ll sigh, and Jared will grip the phone tighter and stare out the window and grit his teeth and wait for her to move on to talking about Josh’s latest accomplishment.
Maybe he has potential. He just doesn’t have the faintest clue what for.
Losing valuable dogs, apparently.
He gulps and rings Mr. Morgan’s doorbell.
The housekeeper’s eyebrows go up when she sees him, plus Chad and minus LeeLee, but she doesn’t say anything about the absence of dog. She ushers them into the huge foyer, instructs Chad to remove his sneakers – Jared was already kicking off his flip-flops – and waves them to the door on the far left.
“Wait in the library. I’ll fetch Mr. Morgan.”
Jared’s been in the library only once before, during his interview for the position of Assistant Dogwalker. Chad’s never even been inside the front gate of Morgan’s drive, and he lets out a long whistle at the high-ceilinged room with its huge oak bookshelves and massive leather couches, all bathed in the sunlight streaming in floor-to-ceiling windows along the south wall.
“Now these would be awesome for sex,” he says, throwing himself full length on the nearest sofa.
“Shut up, Chad!” Jared hisses. “And get up! He’ll be here any minute!”
“Your friend’s right,” Mr. Morgan says with mocking amusement, “they really are.”
Jared spins round, arms flailing, and narrowly misses hitting his – probably former – employer.
“You’re back early.”
“Yeah.” Jared gulps. “I, uh. I – there’s a – ”
“He lost your dog,” Chad says. “It was my fault. Kind of. Don’t kill him. He can’t afford a funeral, you pay him shit.”
Mr. Morgan takes the news surprisingly well, even when he finds out that Jared left LeeLee outside a comic book store so he and Chad could check out the latest edition of Wolverine.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”
Jared nods miserably. “I know. I’m a failure at being responsible.”
“The hell you are,” Chad says. “You’re way more responsible than me.”
“No offense, Chad, but a four year old’s more responsible than you.”
Mr. Morgan clears his throat and they both shut up.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why I hired a dogwalker?”
Chad shrugs. “You’re a rich dude. You probably have business deals and stuff all day. Jared’s got nothing better to do.”
Jared glares at Chad, but doesn’t protest because really, it’s true.
Mr. Morgan is shaking his head. He gestures to Jared to sit down on Chad’s couch, and takes a seat opposite them.
“Like you said, I’m a rich man. Rich enough that I could easily take time off to walk my own dog. However, it was best that LeeLee not be seen with me. Around here, I’m constantly being watched.” He shakes his head. “It might have been better to send her away altogether, but I needed to work with her on the weekends. We were getting close to discovering the secret.”
Jared keeps his face neutral. Mr. Morgan had never struck him as a paranoid lunatic, but then, Jared hadn’t been asking the questions during their interview. He should have seen it coming, maybe; crazy rich sometimes equals just plain crazy.
“LeeLee is no ordinary Irish setter. You couldn’t have been expected to know what makes her so special.”
“She has a good pedigree?” Jared ventures, uncertainly.
“Oh, she does, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Mr. Morgan leans forward, elbows on knees and hands clasped, and eyes Jared intently. “She hasn’t always been my dog.”
Jared’s mind is spinning as he walks down Mr. Morgan’s long driveway.
“Let me get this straight,” Chad says, yet again. “LeeLee belonged to a mad scientist?”
“I guess.”
“A mad scientist who discovered the secret of immortality?”
“Claimed to have.”
“And who used to brag that his dog knew all his secrets.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mr. Morgan is a government agent?”
“That’s the part that throws me,” Jared agrees.
“And he adopted LeeLee when her mad scientist owner transported away?”
“Okay, that part really throws me,” Jared says. “They didn’t know where Dr. Pellegrino’s lab was; they raided his house. If he zapped out to get away from them, the equipment would have had to be there. Don’t you think that if the government had found a transporter device, it would have been on the news or something?”
Chad gives him an are-you-really-too-dumb-to-live look. “Dude. They covered up Roswell, didn’t they? And all those assassinations? I bet the Men in Black seized the transporter.”
“That was a movie.”
“The truth is out there.”
“Or maybe the device was portable,” Jared muses. “Like a Time Agent wrist-strap.”
“Maybe that’s why he had to leave the dog,” Chad says. “It’s not cool to abandon your animal sidekick. Dr. Evil wouldn’t have been caught dead leaving Mr. Bigglesworth behind.”
Jared stops and stares at Chad.
“What?”
“I’m not used to you being right,” Jared says.
“Shut up, bitch,” Chad says. “I’m awesome, and you know it.”
He scratches his stomach. “Also, I’m starving. Can we get tacos?”
“We have to get over to campus right away!” Jared says. “If Mr. Morgan’s right about who took LeeLee, there’s no time to lose!”
“But I’m hungry,” Chad whines. “There’s a Taco Bell on campus. It’ll just take a minute.”
“That’s what you said about the comic book store.” Jared glares. “We’re going straight to the lab.”
“You don’t even know where it is!”
“That’s what campus maps are for, Chad.”
As it turns out, it’s not that hard to get directions to the lab of Dr. Cortese. The first person Jared encounters in the science complex knows who he’s talking about. Apparently, everyone knows who he’s talking about.
“Oh man, are you in her undergrad class?” the guy says. “I barely survived that. She is such a Nazi. You know her colleagues call her ‘Achtung’ Cortese behind her back? She failed over half our class for not being able to design a novel cellular repair mechanism. That’s, like, post-doc level stuff! I can’t believe they’re still letting her teach here.” He points a finger at Jared’s chest. “Or that people still sign up for her classes! Didn’t you hear any of the rumors?”
Jared shrugs. “I’m kinda new on campus.”
The guy looks at him, looks Chad up and down, and shakes his head. “You still have a couple of days before the withdrawal deadline. Honestly? Quit now.”
“That’s the plan.” Chad scratches the back of his head. “Just have to get her to sign our forms. So if you wouldn’t mind telling us where we’re headed…?”
“Oh, right.” The guy gestures down the hall. “Stairwell on the left at the end of the hall. Her office is on the fourth floor.”
“Great, thanks,” Jared says. “See you around.”
“If we survive,” Chad grumbles.
“Nah, she won’t bite your head off for withdrawing.” The guy shrugs. “Honestly? She’ll probably be thrilled. I swear she hates undergrads.”
“Sounds like it’s mutual,” Chad mutters as they head for the stairs.
Dr. Cortese isn’t in her office. Her assistant doesn’t know when she’ll be back.
“She’s teaching freshman biology,” the assistant says, “because she cares about the young scientists of today and the future of research in this country. I don’t know when she’ll be back. Sometimes, she stays after class for hours, providing extra help. She’s such a giving person.”
It might possibly have been more convincing if she didn’t look like a frightened mouse and sound like a robot repeating a script. Or if they hadn’t met the guy downstairs.
“It’s okay,” Jared says, smiling. “We’ll wait.”
“There aren’t any chairs,” Chad hisses. “And I haven’t eaten yet!”
“Oh, you can’t wait in here,” the girl stammers. “This is a secure area. Labs and… stuff.”
“Outside,” Jared clarifies, backing out the door and dragging Chad with him. “We’ll wait outside. Downstairs or something. See you later!”
“I still don’t see why we have to talk to her,” Chad mutters. “She sounds like a prize bitch. If she’s the one who stole LeeLee, it’s not like she’s gonna tell us. Or just give her back.”
“We haven’t got any other leads,” Jared points out. “Besides, all I really want is to make sure LeeLee’s okay. If she thinks LeeLee can lead her to Dr. Pellegrino’s secret lab, fine, whatever. I don’t care about that. I just care about my dog.”
“Morgan’s dog.”
“She’s my dog!” They’re several feet down the hallway now; Jared slides down the wall to sit on the floor, and knocks his head back against the wall. “She was my friend, not just my responsibility. But I’m the Assistant Dogwalker who lost her, and I’m going to get her back. And if that means talking to scary professor lady, that’s what I’ll do. What’s the worst she can do to us, anyway?”
“Kill us?”
“Ha ha.”
“Kick us out of her class?”
“We’re not actually in her class, Chad.”
“Heh. Right.” Chad’s stomach gurgles. “You think there’s a vending machine in this building?”
“Oh, for… LeeLee’s more important than your stomach!”
“Yeah, but she’s not here, and my stomach is.”
Jared sighs. “I don’t want to miss her, okay? You go if you want.”
Chad sighs in turn and slumps to the floor beside Jared.
“Friends don’t abandon friends to the mercy of mad scientists.”
“She’s not mad. That’s Dr. Pellegrino.”
“She thinks a dog is going to lead her to an underground lair,” Chad says. “She’s mad.”
“Point,” Jared says. “So, wanna play I Spy?”
“Oh my God,” Chad groans, but starts looking around anyway.
They slump further and further down the wall as time passes. This mostly serves to annoy passing post-doctoral students who trip over Jared’s long legs.
Forty-five minutes later, they hear a woman coming up the stairs, high heels clacking.
“Hey,” Jared whispers, nudging Chad. “Get up.”
A cell phone rings.
“Cortese.”
The footsteps stop.
“No, of course not, you idiot!” The footsteps start again. “I need him to give me the answer to the telomere problem. You can kill him after that.”
Jared’s mouth drops open. He turns to Chad, who’s wearing a similarly horrified expression. He looks around frantically. It’s a long hallway; no way they’ll make it to the other end in time.
“Come on!” he mouths silently to Chad, and stands as quietly as he can. They tiptoe along the corridor and duck into the broom closet just beyond Dr. Cortese’s office. Jared pulls the door nearly shut, leaving a thin crack of light. They can still hear her talking, louder now as she rounds the top of the staircase.
“The clones don’t generate fast enough. If they’re to be a viable fighting force, we need to shorten production time… Well, obviously, if I get my hands on that bit of information, we won’t need new ones, but the fucking bitch isn’t cooperating!”
“…No, I’ve tried that… You think I haven’t? Hold on.”
She pushes open her office door and barks at her assistant. “Get her ready! We’ll try again.”
“Keep him locked up for now,” she says into the phone. “If I need him, I’ll call you.”
She flips the phone shut and drops it into her bag.
The assistant backs out of the doorway, apparently struggling against a force that’s trying to pull her back into the office on the end of a dog leash.
“LeeLee!” Jared mouths to Chad.
“Give me that, you useless thing,” Dr. Cortese snaps, and takes the leash from her mousy underling. She hauls firmly on it, and LeeLee emerges into the corridor, claws scraping the floor as she’s dragged out on her butt.
Dr. Cortese bends down and stares LeeLee right in the eyes. “Now you listen to me, bitch.”
LeeLee sniffs.
And her ears twitch. Jared recognizes the movement.
She’s scented something familiar.
He prays she’s as intelligent as Mr. Morgan claimed.
“You are going to take me home. You understand? Take me where you belong. Take me to Pellegrino’s lab.”
She stands up and looks down at LeeLee in disdain. “Or I will fricassee you.”
LeeLee cocks a back leg and scratches behind one ear. It seems an ordinary move, but it tilts her head so she’s looking directly at the crack of Jared’s closet door.
He gives her a thumbs up, nodding and silently mouthing, “Good girl. Do it.”
He has no idea if she can see him.
LeeLee jumps to her feet, tail wagging, and barks twice.
Dr. Cortese looks shocked, but rallies quickly. “Excellent choice. Lead the way.” She turns to her assistant. “The office is closed for the rest of the day. Lock up.”
Jared gives Dr. Cortese and LeeLee twenty seconds to get out of sight down the stairwell before following. He gestures to Chad to duck as they sneak past the office.
“I still haven’t had lunch,” Chad moans, as they walk down the main street away from the university. “Who knows how long this is going to take? Can we at least get drive-through?”
“We’re not driving. And I’m not letting them out of my sight!”
Chad sighs. “If I faint from hunger, you’ll have to carry me.”
“Yeah, because that won’t draw the attention of a crazy killer scientist at all.”
That makes Chad shut up and keep pace.
LeeLee leads Dr. Cortese down the steps of the first subway station they encounter.
They get on a northbound train. Jared and Chad – after a brief, panicked search through their pockets to dig up enough money for tickets – get on at the far end of the car and slouch way down in their seats, which for Jared means having his knees up around his ears.
Fortunately, Dr. Cortese doesn’t sit down, and he has no trouble keeping her in sight. Several stations later, he sees her move towards the door before it opens, in time for him and Chad to join the group exiting at the other door.
LeeLee doesn’t join the general exodus to the stairs. She heads to the far end of the platform.
The rest of the exiting passengers are out of sight. Jared and Chad are the only ones left on the platform when Dr. Cortese looks round. They pretend to be reading the wall-mounted schedule and arguing over it.
When Jared dares to cast a glance back over, both the scientist and the dog are gone.
“Damn it!” He races to the far end of the platform.
There’s a door. It looks like an unremarkable, maintenance door; probably you’d assume the space beyond held a signal box, or cleaning supplies. Except now, the door is swinging very slowly closed, and so Jared can see that it’s an extraordinarily thick, reinforced metal door, and beyond it is a diffusely lit hallway with curving walls that looks like no subway tunnel he’s ever seen.
He pushes the door open again and steps through. Immediately inside the door, there’s a matte black plastic panel on the wall, from which the glowing imprint of a paw is very slowly fading.
“Identification, please,” a female voice says.
Chad blinks. “Isn’t that the chick from Resident Evil?”
This guy has one hell of a security system.
“Biometric identification, please,” the voice repeats.
The door clicks shut behind them.
“Failure to identify. Screening.”
“What the hell do we do now?” Chad looks around frantically.
“Human,” the voice says. “Subjects. Remain where you are.”
“Run!” Jared says, and they do.
They manage to evade the guards for approximately ninety seconds.
Jared is frog-marched through a maze of corridors. At some point, the knot of guards surrounding Chad peels off and heads in a different direction. Jared would call out, promise Chad he’ll fix things, but one of the guards has a gloved hand firmly over his mouth.
A few minutes later, they stop in a corridor lined with doors. A guard opens one, and Jared is shoved through forcefully. He staggers, regains his balance and turns as fast as he can, lunging for the door, but it’s already locking. Muffled footsteps recede.
They hadn’t said a word to him.
Floor, walls, even ceiling appear to be a smooth mass of poured concrete. The steel door through which he entered contains a sort of mailbox, presumably for shoving food in. Its surface is otherwise unmarred; any lock or handle must be on the outside. The only other breaks in the concrete are two high, barred openings on each side wall that might be air vents, and a drain set into the floor by the back wall. The floor slopes very gently down towards it from all directions.
Jared tries not to think too hard about why Dr. Pellegrino might need to hose down his dungeons occasionally.
He walks around the extremely small cell, runs his hands along the door frame and pokes at any imperfections on the wall, but it’s hopeless and he knows it. Even if the locking mechanism were in plain sight, he hasn’t got a clue how to go about picking it or programming it or whatever the hell thieves do in these high-tech days.
“Chad?” he calls out, but there’s no answer; his own voice echoes briefly off the concrete and gets swallowed in the stillness.
Finally he sits down next to the drain, peering at it briefly, but even if he had a screwdriver to remove the cover, he couldn’t fit so much as a hand down it.
He leans his head back against the wall and sighs.
“Great job, Jared,” he mutters to himself. “Must be all that potential.”
There’s only one thing he’s really good at that’s applicable to this situation. Namely, the ability to fall asleep any time, anywhere.
He pulls off his sweatshirt, rolls it into a makeshift pillow, and sprawls out with his back to the wall. Whatever awaits him, he’ll probably face it better rested.
He sleeps like a rock, until he’s woken an indeterminate amount of time later by something hitting him on the head.
“Wha’?” he manages, rolling over and sitting up. He raises one hand to the side of his head. It’s sore just above his left ear, but there’s no blood.
“Someone in there?” a male voice says from somewhere above him. It sounds startled.
“Who’s there?” Jared cranes his neck but can’t see anything except the concrete and bars. He shifts his hand to balance himself as he turns, and it hits something hard that skitters away across the floor.
“Hey, careful!” the voice says in alarm. “That’s a delicate piece of equipment.”
“What is it,” Jared says angrily, “a torture device?”
He stands, hugging the wall. The object is four feet away from him. It looks like… a wristwatch, actually. The expensive, chunky kind that can tell you the time in Dubai three hundred feet underwater.
“What? No,” the voice says, now indignant. “What kind of stupid question is that?”
“I’m not telling you anything.” Jared takes a cautious, silent step forward, then another.
“I don’t work for him, you idiot. I’m locked up too.”
“Really?” Jared cranes his neck, looking around. “Where?”
“In the cell to your right.”
Jared frowns. “Which right?”
There’s a sigh. “Are you always this dumb? The door’s the front of the cell. Face it.”
Jared does, and looks to the right.
“I thought that was an air vent,” he says.
“It is,” the voice says, “but they connect the cells. It would be inefficient to have separate vents for each cell on a level.”
“There’s more than one level?”
“Regrettably, yes.”
Jared groans and sinks his fingers in his hair. “I’m on a rescue mission! My friend’s somewhere in here! And my dog! How am I going to find them?”
“Your dog?” The unseen person snorts. “You brought your dog on a rescue mission?”
“No, she was already here.” Jared turns and starts pacing. “I’m an Assistant Dogwalker. The dog is the rescue mission!”
There’s a pause.
“Oh,” the voice says, confused. “I assumed that was your friend.”
“No, he came with me to rescue the dog.”
“What the hell does Pellegrino want with your dog?”
This time Jared pauses.
“I don’t think I should tell you,” he says finally. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Easily solved. My name’s Jensen. Jensen Ackles. I’m a PhD student in genetics and molecular biology. What’s your name?”
“Jared. Padalecki.”
“Nice to meet you, Jared Padalecki. Now will you tell me?”
Jared frowns. “You’re a scientist?”
There’s an exasperated huff. “Yes, but not an evil one. Hence, the being locked up.”
“You could still be part of an evil science team,” Jared points out. “He could have locked you up after an internal power struggle.” An idea strikes him. “Oh! Or you’re faking being locked up to gain my trust.”
“Clearly that would have been a sucky plan,” the voice – Jensen – grumbles. “Only it wasn’t a plan. I’m actually locked up in here and now that I’ve dropped our only way out, it looks like we’re stuck that way.”
Jared looks over at the watch-thing on the floor again.
“It won’t electrocute me or anything?” He moves toward it.
“Be careful with it, Assistant Dogwalker!” There’s the noise of a fist hitting the wall in frustration. “It’s a unique piece of scientific equipment!”
Jared picks it up and takes a look. Closer up, it’s like… a miniaturized iPhone seamlessly attached to a woven metallic band, with numerous small buttons down one side.
“What is it?”
“It’s a wrist computer. Don’t push anything!”
“What does it do?”
“A lot. I mean it, don’t push anything!”
“I’m not going to.” Jared strokes the screen lightly.
“Analyzing,” the thing says. “Human.”
“I told you not to touch it!”
“It’s, like, a tricorder,” Jared breathes, grinning widely.
“That was one of the inspirations,” Jensen admits.
“Does it transport?”
“No.”
“Darn.”
“But it does have a transmitter.” Jensen sighs. “I was trying to amplify the signal. The cells are all locked down through a central mechanism, with wireless transmission. I deciphered the code and transmitting frequency. If I can get a signal that’s strong enough, I can unlock everything here at once.”
“Why did that involve dropping it on my head?”
“The bars,” Jensen explains. “I was trying to get it in position so the strap would short-circuit through a couple of the bars, and boost the output. The vents are too high, though, and I don’t have anything to stand on. I could just about reach with my fingertips, but I didn’t have a good grip, and as I was positioning one end of the strap, it fell through.” He sighs again. “Sorry about your head. I didn’t realize there was anybody in there.”
“I was sleeping,” Jared says. “I can probably reach the bars, if you can tell me what buttons to press.”
Jensen scoffs. “You’re not gonna be able to reach them. I’m a little over six feet, and I could barely manage on tiptoe. I don’t want it being dropped again.”
Jared can’t quite keep the smile out of his voice. “Yeah, well. I’m six five.”
“No way,” Jensen scoffs.
“Yeah-huh.”
“Really?” For the first time, Jensen doesn’t sound grumpy; there’s a hint of excitement in his voice. “You think you can reach?”
Jared stretches his left arm up. He can just about reach the bars. Standing on the balls of his feet, he can rest his wrist on them and splay his fingers across the vent. “Yup.”
“Awesome,” Jensen enthuses. “Okay. Um. Do exactly as I tell you.”
Jared watches in fascination as the screen comes to life. Code trails across the screen and tiny lights flicker as Jensen talks him through a series of instructions.
“Now hold it up,” Jensen says, “and get the strap bridging the bars. If you can get the computer bit to touch two of them, so much the better.”
Jared can.
There’s a quiet click behind him, and his door swings open.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
“Whoa,” an answering voice says behind him.
He spins around.
The guy standing in the doorway is ridiculously beautiful, even in the bleaching, artificial light of the hallway. He’s got spiky light brown hair, stunning green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a body that…
“Are you sure you’re a scientist?” Jared blurts.
Jensen raises an eyebrow. “Thought I just proved that.”
“You could be a spy or secret agent,” Jared says, taking the computer off the bars. “You look more like that. Do you know Mr. Morgan?”
“No.” Jensen cocks his head. “Are you certifiably insane, or just recreationally weird?”
“We’re in a mad scientist’s lair,” Jared says. “I don’t think I’m the weird part of all this. You don’t look like a scientist.”
“I have glasses.”
“Fair enough.”
“You don’t look like an Assistant Dogwalker.”
Jared considers. “What do you think an Assistant Dogwalker looks like?”
“Never really thought about it,” Jensen says, “but I dunno, I guess I didn’t think you’d be so… tall.”
Jared blushes a little under Jensen’s intense scrutiny.
“You’ve got amazing bone structure. Tall, but well-proportioned. Look at those hands! And your eyes.”
Jared ducks his head self-consciously, glancing back at Jensen through his bangs. Gorgeous guys don’t usually say things like that to him.
Jensen shakes his head and lets out a long breath. “You’ve got an extremely favorable genetic make-up, dude.”
Jared laughs. “Uh. Thanks, I guess?” So Jensen’s just interested in a scientific way. Good to know.
“I wish I’d had you around for the cloning project,” Jensen adds, and Jared’s good mood vaporizes.
“Cloning?” he spits out, and holds Jensen’s wrist computer up out of reach. “Are you with Dr. Cortese?”
“…No,” Jensen says, with a second’s hesitation. “Look, we need to get out of here before someone raises the alarm. Give me my computer and I’ll plan our route.”
“You’re lying,” Jared says. “I will do my best to smash this.”
“She’s my thesis supervisor,” Jensen admits.
“Ah ha!”
“It wasn’t my idea! Or, well, it sort of was, but I didn’t know I’d get assigned to her.”
Jensen sighs and looks beseechingly at Jared.
“I’m smart, okay? I put a really great proposal forward for an NIH grant. It’s a… um, basically it’s a model for DNA programming and repair using nanotech. It isn’t a cloning project per se, but it uses cloning technology, stuff like blunt-end PCR and hybrid vectors. The NIH was really excited about it until they found out I didn’t even have my PhD yet. Dr. Cortese’s one of the leaders in that field, and the NIH assigned me to work under her supervision. The models are complementary, and I guess they thought it would be a good way to develop my project without giving a lowly grad student freedom to run his own lab.”
Jared tries to look like he understood even a fifth of that. “Sounds like it?”
“Except she wanted to use my idea to build a zombie clone army,” Jensen says.
Jared opens his mouth, blinks, and shuts it again.
“That would be bad,” he finally says.
“You think?” Jensen’s tone is acerbic. “I didn’t know what was going on at first. I mean, everyone has times when they think their PhD supervisor is evil, but, you know, in a metaphorical way!”
He rubs at one temple. “I got the nanomachines working in her stem cell culture model. Next thing I know, she’s taking me to her secret underground lab and talking to me about this whacked-out super-soldier cloning project. She took my tech and incorporated it into a clone model she’d secretly developed, to make mindless killing machines that are extra strong and don’t feel pain.”
“That’s…” Jared’s vocabulary fails. “Really bad.”
“Yeah. The best part? Now she also wants them to be immortal.”
Jared hasn’t got anything to say besides, “Oh shit.”
“Yeah. First, even if I could do that, I wouldn’t give it to her. And second, I can’t do it.”
“But she thinks Dr. Pellegrino can,” Jared nods. “Or has.”
“Yeah. He claimed to have made this big breakthrough. She decided to come here and steal it.” He frowns. “She didn’t know how to find him, but I guess she figured it out.”
Jared opens his mouth to explain, but then thinks better of it; he wants to hear the rest of Jensen’s story.
“I’d told her I wouldn’t help her, so she had me locked up in her lab. Then a few hours ago, four of her clone slaves came and got me. They told me she’d ordered them to bring me here, and for me to bring my telomere nano-editors.”
“Telomeres,” Jared says. “Huh.”
Jensen blinks. “You’ve heard of them?”
“No need to sound so surprised,” Jared says. “I am an Assistant Dogwalker.”
“Uh-huh.” Jensen doesn’t look impressed.
Jared sighs. “Um, actually I just heard about them today. Yesterday? I’m not sure what time it is.”
“Around two a.m.”
“Yesterday, then,” Jared says. “I was hiding in a broom closet outside Dr. Cortese’s office and I heard her on the phone. She said she needed the answer to the telomere problem and that…”
He trails off as he connects the dots, staring at Jensen.
“What?” Jensen says irritably.
Jared swallows. “She said, uh. She said, you can kill him after that.”
Jensen grimaces. “Great.”
“I won’t let that happen!” Jared declares.
“You and what army?” Jensen says sarcastically, but he looks pleased and Jared’s heart warms. “Come on. We really do need to get moving.”
“Right.”
Jared hands over the computer. Jensen wraps it around his wrist; the strap seals together seamlessly, and the screen lights up at the skin contact.
“Whoa,” Jared says again.
“I designed it myself. I’m also kinda good with computers,” Jensen says, faint pink staining his cheeks. He points to the left. “That way.”
“So why’d you end up locked up here too?” Jared says, as they move rapidly down the corridor.
“We got caught,” Jensen says. “Pellegrino’s got a pretty awesome security system. The clones triggered it. They’re strong, but they’re not supersmart, and they ended up telling Pellegrino’s goons who I am. They took me to Pellegrino. He’d been following my work, and he basically offered me a job working for him instead. I turned it down, he had me locked up, I started trying to break out, you know the rest.” He sighs. “Pellegrino’s hunting for Cortese. He knows she’s in the building; I told him so. If she wasn’t planning to kill me before, she certainly will be now.”
“Wouldn’t it look suspicious if her PhD student turns up murdered?” Jared says. Jensen holds up a hand to pause as they reach an intersection, then nods and gestures right. “I mean, she probably doesn’t want anyone investigating her.”
Jensen shrugs. “Depends how I died. She’d probably stage an elevator accident. Or have me mugged. Or hang me from the ceiling dressed all in black and write a fake suicide note about how I’m so depressed because my project failed and I’ll never have my own lab and I’m gay and I can’t get a date.”
“Like anybody’d believe that,” Jared scoffs. They turn again. Jensen opens a side door and waves Jared up a set of stairs.
“I am gay,” he says, as they emerge into an identical hallway.
“Yeah, but you’re gorgeous. And smart. I bet you get all kinds of dates.” Jared blushes. “I’m gay, too, actually.”
“Yeah,” Jensen says. “I kind of guessed. What with the shirt and all.”
Jared looks down at himself.
“I could just really like unicorns,” he says.
“I ran the statistics,” Jensen says. “Your sexuality would have been an exceedingly sure bet.”
Jared looks at the computer. “When did you do that?”
“I did it in my head.”
“Really?”
Jensen smirks. “It wasn’t hard.”
“That’s what she said,” a familiar voice says, and Chad steps out of a side corridor.
“Chad!” Jared barrels forward and wraps him up in a hug.
“Get off me, I’m fine,” Chad grumbles, shoving at Jared. “This place is a maze! Where’ve you been?”
“One floor down,” Jared says. “We have a map.”
“Who’s we?”
“This is Jensen.” Jared beams. “He’s a genius geneticist.”
“Evil geneticist?” Chad gives Jensen a squinty look.
“Not evil at all.”
“I do occasionally double park,” Jensen says. “But never in handicapped zones.”
“He was a prisoner too.” Jared explains. “He’s getting us out of here. That’s how your cell door got unlocked.”
It’s then he notices the other guy, leaning against the wall beyond Chad. He’s tall, with a piercing stare, unkempt hair, and a vibe that is definitely somewhere in the rainbow of crazy.
Jared hadn’t gotten a very good description of Dr. Pellegrino.
“Uh,” Jared says. “Chad. Who the hell is that?”
“Misha.”
“Bless you.”
“That’s his name.” Chad steps back and slings an arm around the guy’s shoulders. “He’s a hobo.”
“I’m not actually a hobo,” Misha says, removing the arm. “Nor am I your boyfriend.”
Jared laughs. “Did you give him food?”
“Snickers bar,” Chad confirms.
“Sorry, man,” Jared says, “he’ll be stuck to you till suppertime at least.”
“You look like a hobo,” Jensen says.
“Thanks.” Misha nods. “I was trying.”
“What the hell for?”
Jared wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but he’s curious too.
“I’m working on a performance art project,” Misha explains. “It involved being temporarily homeless. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong doorway to sleep in.”
“You wandered into a hidden underground lair by accident?”
“Just into the entrance.” Misha shrugs. “I went to sleep, and the next thing I knew, evil henchmen were hauling me inside and planning to remove vital organs.”
Jared gasps.
“They didn’t, obviously.”
“How come?”
“They interrogated me first. Dr. Pellegrino decided I might have other uses.”
“Not to belittle your, uh, profession,” Jensen says, “but how did he think a homeless artist was likely to contribute to his projects?”
“He’s working on mass hypnosis via the internet.”
“And you could be useful how?”
“I’m a freelance musician.” Misha shrugs. “Social media manipulation is how we live.”
“Not following,” Jensen says.
“Let me guess, geneticists don’t use MySpace.”
Jensen looks blank.
“Twitter?”
“I’ve heard of Twitter,” Jensen says. “Some internet thing?”
Misha nods. “Yes, exactly. And DNA is some genetic thing. We all have our own specializations.” He smiles. It’s not the most reassuring expression. “I don’t need to build myself a zombie clone army. I control over a hundred thousand minions.”
Jared gives him a suspicious look. “How do you know about the zombie clone army?”
“There’s one here.”
“What?” Jensen’s eyes widen. “Where? How do you know?”
“There was fighting outside my cell.” Misha points upward. “I was incarcerated much nearer the central core. Half an hour ago, a horde of identical, zombified guys came through there, taking out Pellegrino’s guards.”
“Fighting their way to the command center,” Jensen says, tapping at his wrist strap. “I guess Cortese summoned the whole army.”
“It was the only time I was happy to be locked up,” Misha says. “Shortly after, the cell door spontaneously opened. I started working my way out from the center, hoping to find an exit, and encountered your friend.”
He nods back down the hallway, in the direction Jensen and Jared had come. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“We were looking for you.” Jensen swipes a finger across the computer screen. “I guess now we can look for the exit.”
“Not without LeeLee,” Jared says firmly. “She’s the reason we came here, and I’m not leaving without her.”
Jensen whirls to look at him. “LeeLee? You mean Dr. Pellegrino’s dog?” He narrows his eyes and starts backing away from Jared. “And you were accusing me of being on their side! What’s your connection to him?”
“I don’t have one!” Now it’s Jared’s turn to look beseechingly at Jensen. “I ended up with a job looking after LeeLee after Dr. Pellegrino left her behind when the government was after him! I never even knew who he was, or who she was, until Dr. Cortese stole her!”
“He left his dog behind?” Misha’s eyes darken. “What kind of supervillain does that?”
“Seriously,” Chad agrees. “Not cool. Especially when she can lead you to his secret lair.”
“So we have to rescue her,” Jared says. “My honor as an Assistant Dogwalker is at stake! Who’s with me?”
Chad’s hand goes up. So does Misha’s.
They all look at Jensen.
Jensen looks at Jared.
“Oh, fine,” he sighs. “For you. But if I die, I’m gonna haunt you.”
“I think I’d kinda like that,” Jared says slyly, and Jensen blushes.
Chad groans. “Can we go? I’d rather be dealing with zombies.”
The halls leading to the command center are thankfully zombie-free. The reason for this becomes clear when they get there.
Jensen’s map has brought them to a door that opens into the upper level of the core, on a carpeted catwalk that runs around the top of a large, open room. There’s a platform in the room’s center that contains a large bank of computers, a huge glass desk, a couple of futuristic office chairs, a giant tank of tropical fish and, looking rather out of place, a wilted spider plant.
Also Dr. Pellegrino. Jared assumes. The lab coat, goggles, black latex gloves, gloating expression and maniacal laugh are strongly suggestive.
Dr. Cortese is on the floor below, surrounded by her army. They, however, seem to be having problems, flailing about in uncoordinated ways.
Actually, now Jared looks more closely, they’re…
…dancing?
He slips as unobtrusively as possible through the open door and crouches behind the frosted glass railing of the catwalk. He feels Chad push by him on one side, and then Jensen’s warmth brackets him on the other.
Jensen smells nice.
Jared needs to focus.
“That’s my music!” Misha hisses from behind him. “He’s transmitting it to the army on a modified frequency to control their movements!”
Jared hadn’t realized the electronic sounds in the background qualified as music; he’d thought they were all part of the computer set-up.
“It’s distracting them temporarily,” Jensen whispers, “but I can’t see how it’s going to incapacitate them. Whatever it’s doing to them has to wear off soon.”
“Maybe distraction’s enough,” Chad whispers. “Look.”
A few of Pellegrino’s henchmen are moving among the clones. They’re briefly touching each on the neck, and moving on.
“Hypospray,” Jensen breathes.
“So much for your army, Doctor Cortese!” Pellegrino crows. “You may have modified them to make them super-strong and resistant to toxins, but I control the inner workings of life and death! I don’t need to hit them over the head to kill them.”
The army begins collapsing all around her, leaving Dr. Cortese standing alone in an ever-widening circle of fallen clones.
She shrieks in frustration.
“Do you know how long it takes to generate them? I’ll fucking kill you, you piece of shit!”
“Telomeric shortening,” Dr. Pellegrino says, and sketches a florid bow. “I know your model, my dear. It was a simple matter to design something to edit their DNA. I told you, you’d either join me, or regret it.”
“Join you?” she spits. “Be your slave, more like.”
“You say tomato,” he mocks, as the last zombie clone hits the floor with a dull thud. “I say… goodbye!”
He pushes a lever on the floor beside his desk.
A panel opens up in the lower floor beneath her, and she drops away. Her scream is cut off as the panel slides back into place.
“Wow,” Chad breathes. “This guy goes for all the clichés.”
Dr. Pellegrino snaps a glove.
“Does he ever,” Jared agrees.
“Get down to the cells,” Pellegrino says to his goons. “Bring me Ackles. Let’s see if this little display will convince him.”
The men leave the room through a door on the lower level.
Dr. Pellegrino whistles.
Jared’s heart leaps as LeeLee comes bounding into the room, on the far side from them. She picks her way through the clones and leaps up onto the platform.
“Sit,” Pellegrino says curtly, and she does. He turns away and starts scanning through some papers on his desk.
“We need to get her now!” Jared hisses. “Before those guys come back and tell him you’re not there!”
“How?” Jensen mutters. “He’s got all the controls! All he has to do is…”
He trails off. His mouth drops open, his eyes widen. “Hang on.”
He starts working on his wrist computer again, fingers tapping and swiping wildly.
“If I can just…” He looks up. There’s another barred vent in the wall above them.
“You, hold this on the vent,” he says, undoing the strap and handing it to Jared. “You guys, hold my feet on the railing. I’ll need to keep reprogramming to keep ahead of him.”
“What are you doing?”
“Basically, jamming his computer, but it’d take too long to explain the details. Trust in science,” Jensen says, grinning. “Trust me.”
Jared doesn’t hesitate. He stands, reaches up to his full height, and smacks the computer against the bars. Jensen jumps onto the railing and leans into the wall, against the vent. One hand locks around Jared’s wrist for support; the other is poised over the screen. Chad and Misha are still crouching down, heads behind the railing, but each has a death grip on one of Jensen’s legs.
The commotion, not surprisingly, attracts Dr. Pellegrino’s attention. He whirls around.
“Ackles!”
“Surprise,” Jensen smirks.
“How did you…” Dr. Pellegrino rushes to his computer and hits a button dramatically. Nothing happens.
“I’ve got control now,” Jensen says.
Jared gulps. He’s spread-eagled against the wall, with Jensen gripping one wrist hard, and he really wishes Jensen were talking to him.
Pellegrino swears. Jared hears him tapping rapidly at his own controls.
“No good,” Jensen says, watching his own display and responding. “I’ve blocked comms. And don’t even bother trying to get the alarm system functional.”
Jared doesn’t dare move much, for fear of letting the wristband slip, but he manages to turn his head enough to glimpse LeeLee. She’s still sitting obediently behind Dr. Pellegrino, but she’s watching him.
“Chad,” he hisses. “I can’t get her. You’ll have to do it!”
“Dude!” Chad looks horrified. “I can’t go down there! Just call her! She always comes for you.”
Dr. Pellegrino activates another screen, hits a few buttons, and swears.
“Oops, did I disrupt the laser targeting?” Jensen taunts.
Jared gulps. Chad’s right. He’d just really hoped he wouldn’t have to risk drawing Dr. Pellegrino’s attention to himself.
“LeeLee!” he shouts. “Here, baby! We haven’t got much time!”
She barks twice, and stays where she is.
Dr. Pellegrino looks up at that.
“Well, well,” he says, hands still moving on his controls. “So you know LeeLee, do you? You must be the Assistant Dogwalker who couldn’t even keep track of his own dog.” He chuckles. “Cortese mentioned you. All brawn, no brains. I suppose I should thank you for your incompetence. It made it much easier for LeeLee to get home – and she brought me Cortese as a bonus.”
Jared grits his teeth.
Pellegrino shoves at his goggles and pulls another lever.
There’s a soft, hissing noise.
Chad lets go of Jensen’s ankle and slumps to the floor.
“Misha, stand up!” Jensen barks, and furiously works at his computer. “Damn it…”
Misha does, still holding Jensen’s leg. Jared looks down and notices the tiny nozzle in the wall near his knee.
“The gas is heavier than air, it sinks,” Jensen gabbles, “just let me… There!”
The hissing stops.
“It’ll dissipate soon.” Jensen looks down at Jared, relaxing the grip on his wrist. “Jared… I’m sorry, but I don’t know how long I can keep ahead of things.”
Jared nods, words clogging his throat. They’re clearly at a standoff – and LeeLee’s chosen her side.
“Can you get us out of here?” he finally manages.
“I hope so,” Jensen says grimly. “I’m getting through some of his defenses, but I don’t know how many there are before the core processor, and I’m not sure what else he’s got up his sleeve.”
As it turns out, Pellegrino decides to show them. Literally.
He rolls up the sleeves of his lab coat and Jared sees he’s also wearing a Time Lord-style wrist strap.
“You’re good, Ackles,” he calls. “Not as brilliant as me, but very good! Good enough that I’ll extend my offer, one last time. You were wasted with Cortese. Forget the NIH! Come with me, you can work on whatever projects you want!”
“I said no.” Jensen’s grip on Jared’s wrist tightens again.
“What are you doing with these losers? A so-called artist? An Assistant Dogwalker who loses his dog?”
Pellegrino extends both arms, as if to embrace Jensen.
“Join me!” he carols. “Think what good you could do for humanity!”
Jensen’s laugh is devoid of amusement.
“You think humanity wants immortality?” he says. “You think that’s a good thing to spring on a world that’s overflowing and massively inequitable? Who gets it, Pellegrino? You? Me? The highest bidder?”
“Whomever you want,” Pellegrino purrs. “You. Your boyfriend there.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Jensen scoffs, and Jared flinches briefly; it’s not like he thought he had a chance in hell with Jensen, not really, but the dismissive tone still hurts. “You can’t buy me, you maniac.” He does something complicated to the screen; sparks flash from the wristband. Tiny shocks race up Jared’s arm, but he doesn’t let go. “And I’m nearly in.”
Dr. Pellegrino sighs, melodramatically. “Oh, well. Too bad.”
He brings both hands together across the computer’s main touchscreen in a complicated move. The screen goes dark. Simultaneously, the main lights in the room go out, leaving only two weakly glowing “EXIT” signs.
Jensen swears.
“Auto-destruct engaged,” the pleasant female security voice says.
“Did you do that?” Jared whispers.
“No!”
“You’ll never stop me! Or take my secrets! This place is set to blow in ten minutes!” Dr. Pellegrino laughs. “All my notes, everything. The only copy that matters is in here!” He points to his head. “You’ll be destroyed, and I’ll be free to start over. And this time, I won’t be leaving any loose ends behind.”
LeeLee sits beside him. His left hand is resting on her head.
“He must have to touch her for transporting,” Jensen hisses. Jared looks at him in horror.
“LeeLee!” He lunges for the railing but Jensen has him in an iron grip. “No! Here, girl!”
He struggles against Jensen’s hold. “Let me go! You said you’d help me!”
“Jared, it’s too dangerous!” Jensen looks pleadingly at him. “I can’t risk y…I can’t let you do it!”
Dr. Pellegrino laughs his evil laugh and presses a button on his wrist strap. A tiny red light starts blinking.
“Farewell, you fools!”
The light is blinking faster.
Jared is still staring helplessly at LeeLee. The others have their eyes fixed on Dr. Pellegrino, and so Jared’s the only one who notices her shift, gathering her hind legs under her into a crouch.
“A pity you wouldn’t join me, Ackles. But if you choose to side with that group of misfits, you can’t be half as smart as you claim.”
The light is flashing almost too quickly to make out.
“Bye bye,” Dr. Pellegrino says mockingly, and raises his arm to wave.
LeeLee jumps, leaping across in front of him, high into the air.
He curses and grabs for her, but he’s beginning to shimmer in and out of solidity. It really is like the transporters on Star Trek.
As he enters the more solid phase, her jaws close unerringly around the computer attachment on his wrist. There’s a crackle and flash.
LeeLee lands on the far side of the platform and spins around. There’s light between her teeth; Jared realizes she’s torn the computer free from the band still around Dr. Pellegrino’s wrist. The band, however, is still flashing.
“NO! BAD DOG!” The scientist starts toward her.
He starts fading again.
LeeLee bites down.
Sparks arc from her mouth to the band. Dr. Pellegrino’s translucent form is momentarily electrified, light like neon racing down his limbs, and then he fades completely. His agonized yell fades with him.
There’s a moment where everyone stands there, frozen in place.
The dog who just saved the day spits out the mangled computer, hangs out her tongue and whines.
Jared shakes off his disbelief, and Jensen’s grip.
“LeeLee!” He races down the stairs. “Did you burn yourself, baby? C’mere!”
She gathers herself once again and leaps from the platform, landing beside him. He kneels down and hugs her, hard, burying his face in her fur and scrabbling her behind the ears. “Good girl! Clever girl! You want some water?”
“What the hell just happened?” a shaking voice says, and Chad lifts his head from the catwalk floor.
Jared’s pretty keen to know that himself. He looks up at Jensen, who’s heading down the stairs towards him.
“She destroyed the computer in the middle of a transport. I don’t know exactly how the thing worked – I wish I’d had a chance to get a better look at it – but I’m guessing the targeting system needs to be active throughout transit in order for the process to complete. Without programming instructions, the waveforms won’t produce molecular assembly.”
Chad rolls over and blinks. “In English?”
“He’s probably stuck being dematerialized.”
“Awesome,” Chad mumbles. “Why aren’t my legs working right?”
“We still have to get out of here,” Misha reminds them all. “Let’s run!”
“It must be starvation,” Chad muses weakly. “Everything’s gone dark. I told you, Jay.”
“I need to find the nearest exit,” Jensen says worriedly, poking at his wrist strap. “At least, the nearest one where I can override the controls. This place is on lock-down.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jared places a hand on Jensen’s, stilling his motions, and smiles at him. “We’ve got a girl on the inside.”
He looks at LeeLee. “Get us out of here?”
She does, with over three minutes to spare.
They cover a lot of ground in those three minutes, even with Jared hauling Chad. When the blast comes, it’s a muffled implosion a few blocks behind them.
The shockwave that arrives a few seconds later ripples through the pavement and knocks Jensen into Jared. Jared does his best to stay upright, but he’s still mostly supporting Chad, and they all go down in a heap.
“Um,” he says, slightly cross-eyed from trying to focus on Jensen’s face, which is extremely close to his.
Jensen has freckles.
Jensen also has a mildly alarmed expression and is scrambling to get away from him. “Sorry, man.”
Jared ignores the pang in his chest and gets to his feet.
“No problem,” he says with a smile. “Anything else you want to drop on me?”
Jensen smiles, warm and startled, and Jared’s chest aches again.
“Nah, I’m good.” The smile fades. “I should get over to the lab. I don’t know for sure if Dr. Cortese summoned the whole army, or if there are stragglers left, but there’s gonna be some clean-up needed anyway.”
“Who cares?” Chad says. “Let the police deal with it.”
Jensen shakes his head. “When she doesn’t show up for things, someone’s going to start investigating her disappearance, and her lab. I don’t want them to find anything but the legitimate experiments. I’m not gonna risk losing my NIH grant – my future – as a result of her insanity.”
“It’s, like, three a.m.” Jared says. “Can’t it wait? You should eat. Or something.”
“I should eat,” Chad says plaintively. “Why don’t you ever worry about me?”
He turns to Misha, who’s just standing there with a faint smile. “Hey man. Do you need somewhere to stay? I don’t have a spare room, but you can have the couch.”
“I’m not actually homeless,” Misha reminds him. “The doorway sleeping was for research purposes only.”
He looks at Jared and Jensen. “Sounds like we all have things to do. I have to go sleep somewhere; you have evidence to destroy; you have a dog to return. Still, we should celebrate some time. I suggest we exchange phone numbers.”
“Great idea,” Jensen says, and turns to Jared. “What’s yours?”
Jared reels it off and watches Jensen tap it into his wrist computer.
Pellegrino was right, about one thing at least. They are very different people. Jensen’s a genius and Jared…
Jared’s a loser.
“You got anything to write with?” Jensen is saying. “I’ll give you mine. Call me. We should hang out sometime we’re not in mortal peril.”
“I’m not sure that would work out,” Jared says, not meeting Jensen’s eyes. He’s afraid what Jensen might see in his. “You’re probably gonna be pretty busy.”
“…Okay,” Jensen says, after a short pause. “Well. We should get together at least once. Celebrate, like Misha said.”
“Sure thing,” Jared says lightly. And if his hand shakes as he scribbles down Jensen’s phone number on the back of a candy wrapper, well. It’s probably delayed shock.
He nods to Misha – Chad’s acquired his number, so they’re all set – and turns to go, whistling for LeeLee.
“Jared?”
He looks back.
“Thanks for the rescue,” Jensen says. “Take care of yourself.”
Jared manages a smile and a nod goodbye.
“You’re an idiot,” Chad says, after they’ve gone a couple of blocks.
“That’s the problem.”
“That’s your problem,” Chad corrects him. “Not his. That guy is stupid over you.”
“Your face is stupid,” Jared says grumpily.
Chad sighs. “Dude, whatever. I’m telling you, I’m right.”
“When are you ever right?”
“I was right yesterday.”
“So you’ve used up your quota for the month.”
Chad sighs again. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yup. Wanna get tacos?”
LeeLee barks her agreement even before Chad voices his approval of that plan.
Mr. Morgan’s glad to get his dog back. He’s not as glad to hear that Dr. Pellegrino’s secrets are lost to humanity. Jared thinks humanity’s better off without them, but he has the sense not to say so. He’s pretty sure Mr. Morgan can tell what he thinks anyway, but he gets to keep his job and receives a nice bonus.
It’s weird to think he’s working for a secret government agent, but at least he knows the man really does care about his dog. She’s nothing special now Pellegrino’s gone, and he still wants the best for her.
He’d thought that blowing up a largely underground building inside the city would be hard to hide. The news, however, glosses briefly over the unfortunate gas main explosion, describes the temporary subway rerouting, and promptly moves on to Lindsey’s latest exploits.
“I told you, you can’t trust the government,” Chad intones. They’re in their favorite bar, where Jared is using a small chunk of his bonus to buy everyone involved in the Great Rescue drinks.
He’s surprised he had the courage to call Jensen and ask him to meet them. He’s even more surprised that Jensen accepted.
“I told you so,” Chad had said, smugly. “I’m the one who had to watch him eyefuck you the whole time. He is fucking retarded over you.”
Jared doesn’t believe that – Jensen’s probably only thinking about Jared in terms of his potential for cloning – but he’s worn one of his nicest, unicorn-free shirts. Just in case.
“I mean, can you imagine if they got their hands on immortality?” Chad shudders. “I swear half of them are vampires already.”
Misha rests his chin on one hand and listens gravely as Chad continues to expound on the evils of government conspiracy.
“They’re quite a pair,” Jensen says, very near his ear.
Jared nods, downing the last of his beer.
“Another round?” Jensen gestures towards the bar and stands.
“Sure.” Jared stands. “But I’m buying.”
“You bought last round.”
“Mr. Morgan did.” Jared smiles. “Don’t worry. You can help carry them.”
They order, and wait at the bar in silence.
“I’m glad you called,” Jensen says. “I didn’t think you would.”
“Of course I would.” Jared shrugs. “I said we’d celebrate.”
Jensen smiles, a bit wistfully. “Yeah, of course.”
“I didn’t think you’d come,” Jared admits.
“Of course I would!” Jensen frowns. “I mean, I don’t get out of the lab all that much. But I wanted to see you. And this place is pretty cool.”
“You’re pretty cool. For a scientist.” Jared elbows him lightly in the ribs.
Jensen laughs. It’s completely adorable.
Jared is so gone.
“You’re cool too, Jared. I’m glad we’re… I mean, I know you said we have very different lives. But…” Jensen takes a deep breath, “I’d like us to stay friends.”
It would be easy to go with that.
But Jensen came to meet him. Jensen even seems nervous.
Maybe there’s potential after all.
Jared gathers up his courage. He faced down a mad scientist. He escaped from an exploding lab. He rescued the dog. He can do this.
“I’d like that. But I’d like it even more if we could be… more.”
“Really?” Jensen looks stunned. “I thought… but… you didn’t seem interested.”
Jared gapes. “You’re kidding, right? Have you seen you? And you’re funny, and nice… You’re a genius, you were kidnapped because you’re so amazingly smart, you’ve got your own NIH grant, and – ”
He looks down at his feet.
“And I’m just an Assistant Dogwalker.”
Jensen’s feet step into Jared’s field of view. Said field of view is pretty limited by his bangs, which he hasn’t cut in ages. Which means – Jensen is standing very close.
He raises his head. Jensen’s eyes are right there, gold-flecked green, miracles of genetics.
“It’s a very important job.” A smile is dancing around the corners of Jensen’s mouth. “You have to be caring and responsible.”
“I lost the dog.”
“Yes,” Jensen agrees, “and then you risked your life to rescue her. And you rescued me.”
He takes one more step. Their toes are almost touching. Jared can feel Jensen’s warmth all up his front.
“I get going on experiments, I’ll forget to eat, or sleep, or exercise,” Jensen says. “Do you think – how would you feel about a job taking care of me?”
Jared tries to keep his grin in check. “Does it pay well?”
Jensen’s eyes flash a dirty promise. “Depends on what you’ll accept as payment.”
“Do I get a new title?”
“Absolutely,” Jensen agrees. “How about boyfriend?”
Jared doesn’t answer, because his mouth is occupied in kissing the hell out of Jensen, but he’s pretty sure Jensen gets the message. He is a genius, after all.
♥♥♥
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Chad’s hand goes up. So does Misha’s.
They all look at Jensen.
Jensen looks at Jared.
“Oh, fine,” he sighs. “For you. But if I die, I’m gonna haunt you.”
“I think I’d kinda like that,” Jared says slyly, and Jensen blushes.
OMG, so much cuteness and crack and daring-do and RIDICULOUS FUN all wrapped up in one package!! Assistant Dogwalker FTW!! \o/ \o/ \o/
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I LOVED it! So charming and sweet. And imaginative!
Did I mention I loved it?
I'm pretty sure I did...
;-)
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A very fun and absorbing read. Well done!
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Is there anyone who isn't impressed with Jared's height? *g*
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So, so, so funny. I love that it was Genevieve and Mark Pellegrino who were the warring mad scientists. So fucking hilarious I almost choked on my samosa.
So seriously awesome.
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Thanks so much. This was fun to write; I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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transported with our favourite guys! Chad as Gurgli - ha ha! Thanks very much!
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Best. Line. Ever.
And the rest of the story was great, too. :)
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Loved it.
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chad is excellent, as are the mad evil scientists and all the techno speak! and jensen and jared are adorable. as always, i love your plotting. but i think misha and his command over social media stole my heart. well done!
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YAY, I am so glad you enjoyed this! *smishes you* Even if I left out Mikey, haha.
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Thank you so much for your fantastic contribution to the challenge!!! ♥
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I had so much fun writing this. I'm very glad you enjoyed it, particularly the humor, and it's great to hear that the dialogue worked. Thanks for checking it out and commenting!
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