Chapter 2: New World in My View
The two warning shots rang out and pinged off a nearby dumpster. Made both brothers jump. "What are you?" A disembodied, male voice demanded.
Dean stuttered with his hands over his head and tried to get his brain operating again.
"I said: What are you?"
"Whatta ya mean 'what'?" he asked with his brother's clipped breaths next to him. Unnoticed by Sam he'd moved an inch to the left and was blocking his right side from the shooters.
"Psychics or hunters?" shouted a woman.
Dean and Sam shared a look. A discussion was carried out silently and in seconds. Dean asking why psychics and hunters didn't get along. Sam asking how the hell he should know. Dean asking what he was supposed to answer. Sam thinking that Dean could say 'both' because it was kinda the truth. Dean telling him that was a stupid ass idea, to which Sam reiterates with a quick huff.
"Whichever won't get us killed?" he tried. Another shot rang out and ricocheted off the wall with a little phiewn. Dean and Sam unconsciously shuffled a little closer to each other. Just as they saw a shooter taking aim, Sam opened his mouth.
"Psychics! We're psychics!" He pleaded. With a 'dude, what the hell' look from Dean, he shrugged and moved forward.
"Prove it!" the woman shouted again.
Sam swallowed nervously. "Uhh, I ca- I can't."
Dean could feel cold sweat breaking out on his temples either from panic or indegestion. He was already starting to look for a way out of the situation or a toilet. Either would do.
"What's your power?"
"I can- I can see the future." Sam called back. "It just kinda happens sometimes."
Dean thought he heard someone mumbling great, another prophet before the woman spoke again. "And your partner?"
"He's… uhh." Dean and he shared a glance where Dean shrugged urgently.
"He can read minds."
"What!" Dean hissed in a high pitched voice. Sam shrugged apologetically.
"What am I thinking right now?" The woman called.
Dean swallowed and moved in front of Sam. "Uhh… It doesn't work from afar." he slowly defended.
"Alright. Weapons down!" the male voice from before called.
Dean released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and lowered his arms. Slowly a few of the people moved closer. Four people. Three men and a woman. The one who'd done the talking. A cute one too. Black hair, plump lips and perfect, round-
"So tell me; what am I thinking now?" the guy from before asked.
Dean swallowed thickly. "I uhh… I kinda lied- No wait, wait!" He hurried as weapons were realigned and Sam moved to flank him. "I'm not the psychic, he is. I just didn't want the hunters to get my brother." He had bullshit his way out of worse situations before.
The leader looked him over thoroughly. He was about Dean's age with short, dirty-blond hair, like Dean. He even wore a shirt over a t-shirt and a leather jacket. Also like Dean. "What are your names?"
"I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam." He gestured back.
He noticed a few scattered smirks.
"What?" Sam asked timidly from the back.
"It's just funny. You look like I imagined them and I bet Sam's moody one and you're the tough guy, right?" the woman asked with a smile on her face.
Dean was digging the slight Mexican accent. He frowned, not really understanding the joke. "Well… yeah." He took a breath and jerked a thumb at Sam, "He gets PMS-" He was promptly slapped on the back of his head.
The fourth guy huffed and turned back to his colleagues, walking away. "Wow, your parents must've been real fans."
The woman noticed Dean's confusion and explained. "Let's just say you're not the only ones with those names, but you're the first they've ever suited so well." She winked at Dean and turned. "Follow me, gentlemen."
With one last glance at each other the brothers followed her and were swallowed up by the team of armed men.
They walked through the desolate city and soon realized just how far into the future they really were. It turned out that, what had appeared a big city were really just the suburbs. The real sky-rises, the tallest several hundred meters high, peaked up over the horizon the closer they came to the city center. They popped up in all shapes, sizes and colors. One looked like a giant dome of glass. Another looked more like it belonged in a contemporary gallery. Buildings shaped like ovals and hexagons and cubes. Most of them half blown to hell.
Dean didn't remember any of it from any city he'd ever seen. "Where are we?" He asked the woman who had yet to give him her name.
"Old Detroit." she answered.
Several things made Dean's pulse beat faster. The fact that they were once again in the middle of the Devil's playground and that the town didn't look anything like the Detroit he knew. "Old? As in there's a New Detroit?"
The woman chuckled. "No. No it's just that it was abandoned after the blast and people just changed the name to… keep up with the times, I guess." She glanced back. "I'm Soledad, by the way."
Dean grinned quickly. "Sola for short?"
"Only my friends call me that."
"Ahh." Dean quickly backed off. "Nice to meet you, Soledad." Behind him Sam rolled his eyes.
"So uh, what's 'the blast'?" Sam asked sharing his concern with Dean through a glance.
Soledad stopped and turned with a perplexed frown, bringing her comrades up short as well. "Where the hell have you two been hiding?" She looked deeply at them both and waited for an answer. The three guys around her looked jumpy as they gripped their automatic weapons harder.
Sam and Dean shared a nervous look until the answer came to Dean. "We were raised in a bunker." He could almost feel his brother's fury and incredulity through the back of his skull. "Yeah… Our Dad was a bit of a war nut." He smiled to ease the tension.
Soledad seemed to believe him, amazingly – Fear and Loathing freakily – enough.
A shove at Sam had him smiling pleasantly as well. "Yeah. Not real big on…" He gestured vaguely around. "…everything."
"He fought in the war?" Soledad asked seriously.
Dean shrugged mentally. "Yeah." It wasn't a direct lie.
Soledad nodded and resumed her walking. Dean hurried up next to her. "So, Sola-" She glanced at him. "Soledad. Why are you after hunters?" He tried to keep his voice light and inconspicuous, but she glared anyway. Perhaps she didn't like flirty, good-looking men? Perhaps she's gay, Dean's mind supplied protectively.
"Jesus, you two really have been living under a rock, haven't you?"
"You could say that," Sam piped up in the back.
"Why the clash of the titans?" Dean asked.
She frowned, not understanding the reference, but understanding the question never the less. "Well I assume you know who Frederic W. Bush was?" She looked deeply at Dean.
He grinned. "Sure."
But almost as if seeing straight through his façade, she rolled her eyes. "The last president?" She guided gently.
"Right," Dean agreed.
"Well he suddenly up and decides one day, about sixty years ago, to do research into psychic antiterrorism. And I guess he found something he didn't like because one day he suddenly decreed that all psychics were enemies of the state." She seemed sadder, Dean noticed. "They were hunted down in their own homes and thrown into concentration camps. And not only psychics, but people suspected of being one. My mother was born in one." She looked at Sam. "Maybe your dad did the right thing, keeping you underground all this time?"
Sam and Dean shared a sad glance. Dean wasn't sure which feeling hid behind his brother's look, but saw it too in guys around them listening in.
Shit.
Sam was identifying with them, which meant emo-puppy-hug-the-world-eyes on overtime. It meant muddy waters and a grey area the size of Canada. I meant they were gonna have to bet on corners at some point and Sam was pretty far onto his already.
"Then at some point things spun out of control. The camps were a Petri dish of disease and I guess one day the right one escaped."
"Whatta ya mean?" Sam asked.
She turned to look at them again, this time not believing they didn't know. "The goddamn zombie virus that turns people into deranged killers. The damn disease they were injecting into psychics to create 'ultimate weapons' like some shit-movie." She looked at them as if they should just know.
Dean stopped and his heart began pounding faster and faster. "Not the Croatoan virus?" This stopped Sam short as well.
"The what?" Soledad looked confused.
"This disease, does it turn people's eyes red? Make them cut into each other?"
"But it doesn't have a name. It just is." She looked from one man to the other and probed when they continued to look concerned. "What? What's wrong?"
Dean felt his breath coming in quick huffs as he turned to look at his brother.
It was Sam who first spoke. "Dean, we failed…" He looked so sad. So endlessly guilty for something so beyond his control.
And Dean didn't know what to say.
"What are you talking about? Why did you call it 'the croatoan'?"
Dean ran a hand over his mouth and turned. "No reason. Just something our dad used to call it." He started walking again, hoping to ignore any and all questions about who they really were.
"Who the hell are you two?" Soledad mumbled at their side.
Dean's teeth grated together. "Just two brothers walking about." he answered quickly.
Sam lowered his head when she stared and didn't speak the rest of the trek back.
The building where the psychics resided was an abandoned sky rise. Two, actually. Two twin towers, mirroring each other. Creatively designed to look like they were wrapping themselves around each other in constant movement. Dean wondered how all the windows had managed to remain intact. Glass covered the fronts facing each other, as if they were leaning in to kiss. People with guns were waiting outside. A small army it seemed.
He was starting to worry they'd never find that damn book. In his mind the whole thing could've been avoided if Chuck had never started writing the damned things in the first place. He noticed armed men on the ledges and poked at Sam.
His brother didn't seem too happy about the situation either.
"I'm gonna take you to see the Governor and then see about getting you some rooms, if that's ok?" Soledad asked.
"Who's the Governor?" Dean countered.
"He's kinda the one in charge of all the civilians."
"Civilians?" Sam looked up.
"People who aren't psychic or who can't fight."
"You have people here that aren't psychics?" Dean asked.
"We brought you, didn't we?" She glanced back and frowned. "They're people who've left their families because they didn't believe in what they were doing. People who believe as we do, that we have a right to live as free men."
On the way in they saw dozens of people in the entry large hall. It looked like a market. Some were sitting around while others tried to peddle something to the general public.
The leader of their small group, who (to Sam) looked ridiculously like Dean, walked up to a group of soldiers and shook their hands. They traded quick greetings before he rejoined their group. The other two men were quickly dissolving into the throng of people.
"His name's Jason, if you're interested." Soledad said and pointed to her commander.
Dean nodded at him as did Sam. "I'm gonna follow you up and get debriefed." Jason said. They took the stairs instead of the elevator.
"Elevator's down?" Dean asked absently.
Soledad grinned. "It has been for quite some time."
"What about the people on the top floors?" Sam asked.
"They hardly ever leave." she looked back. "There's a reason they're hidden away from the public. Most of them are victims of the camps. Their minds are so broken they have no control over their powers." she explained. "Most of them are a danger to the public and choose to stay hidden to avoid any mishaps. The top ten stories are sealed off."
Again Sam and Dean shared a look, imagining quiet floors and a lot of locked rooms.
"We're only going up three floors." she finished.
At the second floor Sam and Dean were both huffing for breath. Sam, albeit a little more stealthily than his older brother. "You alright, man?" he grinned.
Dean eyeballed him and shoved past on his way up.
"The Governor is the one in charge of the people in this building. Jason is the one in charge of the battalion."
"You guys?" Dean clarified.
Soledad nodded.
"I don't actually have to be debriefed by Sonner, but I do it so he'll know what I know." Jason explained quickly. "Plus he's kinda a nice guy."
Dean nodded and followed them into a hall. Two unarmed men were guarding the door. "Why don't they have guns?" Sam asked.
Soledad glanced back. "They don't need them."
The double doors opened to a large office full of boxes. Out of some of them guns were showing. Dean did a double take when one caught his eye. "Is that a Gatling?"
Sonner smiled from behind his desk. "Jason asked me if I had room to store some of their supplies. I said yes." He was positively beaming out calm and friendly vibes. Even Dean could sense that. Sam practically melted.
"We'll have 'em outta here in a week or so, it's just that our armory is still missing a wall after last month's incident." He shrugged with a grin.
Sonner smiled. "Please, have a seat."
Dean and Sam sat in the two chairs in front of the desk while Soledad and Jason slouched on a couple of boxes.
"So. Sola tells me that you two just dropped outta nowhere?" He smiled, but that didn't stop the brothers from getting suspicious.
"How did you know that?" Sam asked with a glance back to her. She had no radio and hadn't left them since returning.
Sonner just smiled and looked down in thought. "It's part of my gift. I can feel those I'm closest to and hear their thoughts. Sometimes even experience what they do." He looked at the brothers calmly. "So, Sam. What's your power?"
Dean didn't at all like the way he was suddenly staring at his brother. From the look of things neither did Sam. "I sometimes see flashes of the future." He glanced at his brother.
"But you haven't had any for a long time, have you?" Sonner guessed and brought both brothers' eyes to rest on him.
"How did you-" Sam stopped himself.
"And that's not all, is it?" Suddenly something a little greedy slipped over Sonner's face, but it was gone in a second. "There's so much more to you, Sam."
Dean was suddenly acutely aware that this guy might know their last names. The Winchester name wasn't one you doled out lightly if you valued your life. Not in their own time and probably not in the future either. Dean didn't need this guy poking around his brain, looking for it. So he figured he'd throw the psychic for a loop. Instead of thinking of himself he started focusing on everything else. Thinking as clearly as possible. Table, chair, box, another box, and another, and another…
Sonner seemed amused; whether by his efforts or the situation in general, was unclear.
And slowly, like a needle working its way from his eyeball and into his skull Dean felt Sonner literally digging into his brain. A colorful thought insult later had him smiling and leaning back. He pointed to Dean. "You're a strange one, aren't you?"
Sam glanced over, but Dean didn't take his eyes off Sonner. "If you say so. Look we were just kinda hoping for a little rest and some food, if that's not too much to ask?" He glanced back at Soledad who nodded.
"No of course not." Sonner clasped his hands together and stood from his seat. "Sola, would you please see these men to a couple of rooms and make sure they've got everything they need.
"Sure." She rose simultaneously with Sam and Dean and led the way out. Two floors up were two spare rooms. Sola walked them each to their adjoining bedrooms. Before leaving she told them that food was scarce and would be served in the morning. Dean figured he'd never have the chance to eat a drop, if this time around was like the others and entered his room and looked around. It had grey plaster walls and a cot in the center. There was a little washing basin and a large window overlooking Detroit River and the Canadian border. A few minutes later Sam entered and closed the door.
"Nice view." He pointed out, coming to stand next to his brother. "Hey, you think it's coincidence Cass sent us here?" Dean asked out right.
"Nope."
"Yeah, I was afraid of that."
"You think we can trust them?" Sam countered.
"Not in a million years." he answered calmly.
"There's something about that Sonner guy."
"Yeah, I actually felt him poking around my brain." Dean growled. The sun was setting.
"You too?" Sam asked surprised.
He glanced over, slightly annoyed. "Yeah."
"You think he knows who we are?"
"Don't know. I've got no idea how this guy would react to us." He turned to face Sam. "Look we've no way of knowing what they'll do to either of us if they figure out who we are. For all we know they could be working with demons- hell Sonner could be a demon." he added as an afterthought.
"We should'a 'christoed' him." Sam said pensively.
"Mhm," he hummed, not really believing the man to be a demon, but conceding that the main goal of religion was to make you safe rather than sorry. "Think it can wait till morning though. I don't know about you, but I'm kinda ready to call it a night?"
"Yeah," Sam nodded slowly.
Dean knew from experience that Sam's look meant insecurity.
"What's wrong?"
"Just feels a little weird," Sam smiled, clearly a little embarrassed. "Sleeping apart." He was begging with his eyes for Dean not to cut him down where he stood. To just make a light joke and pretend it wasn't because they had both been tortured and conditioned into trusting only themselves.
Dean nodded seriously. "Yeah it does, man." and slapped his shoulder. He might have accepted that Sam wasn't a baby anymore, but he was still the baby brother. Still an open wound since returning from hell and still stuck in the same year-old patterns of behavior like Dean was himself. Then, to lighten the worries that plagued him: "You want me to get your binky, Samantha?"
Sam huffed and slapped his shoulder. "Nah I'll manage… jerk." He turned.
"Bitch," Dean sassed before he closed the door behind him. But yeah, it definitely felt weird not hearing the sound of his brother's snoring. Especially in a building full of strange new sounds.
Pulling the t-shirt over his head and slipping out of his boots, he sat on the bed. He took a moment to stare into the wall as he tried to block all the noises out. People were laughing and celebrating in a room down the hall. He could faintly hear Sam's footsteps in the adjoining room and clung to that. He heard the springs give on his brother's bed.
As reassurance for him he started humming Metallica in the hopes it would travel through the walls. Maybe he'd calm down a bit too. A while later, the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness seeped through the window. There was no electricity so all Dean had was the company of a thousand stars for the night.
Stuck in an unnaturally deep sleep he never heard the rustling sounds in the room next to his, as someone broke in and stole his brother from the bed.
