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Freedom was nice, and Sam and Dean had even taken a few steps to ensure that they got to keep it. While the legal system was still unsure about them, no one had brought any actual challenge to their employment or marriages, and when Dean and Anna had started going through IVF counseling to have a child, Electric Sheep Dreams had even sent a testimonial that Dean had grown well beyond his programming, and they claimed no legal rights to anything about Dean other than patent-protected replacement parts, which in their opinion was analogous to humans requiring health care and only being able to get it from licensed professionals. In their own words, to return Dean’s chassis and deprogram it was tantamount to murder, unless it was done with Dean’s free and informed consent.
In other words, the call from Electric Sheep Dreams was a huge surprise. Sam had never expected to hear from them again unless it was about scheduling maintenance. That call wouldn’t come from Joshua Gardner, CEO. “Is there some sort of problem, sir?”
“Well, perhaps. We honestly don’t know what to think about our situation.” Joshua cleared his throat. “The problem is nothing related to you or Dean in any way except that we think the two of you might have experiences no one else will. Those might be valuable in helping us understand what’s happening and figure out what to do about it.”
“You mean our programming evolving.” Sam and Dean were, to the best of their knowledge, the only products of the company who had managed to leave the servers and become people. So far, none of the other cores that failed to fully reset between assignments had had the opportunity to go on a long-term assignment. Too much risk of them transcending and not being immediately granted their freedom as soon as it became apparent that they were transcending. “What about Adam? He’s transcended, like us.”
Adam, like Sam and Dean, was based on a core that failed to reset in the server. The mechanic who had done Sam and Dean’s programming was asked to see how widespread the potential was. If a core that did reset properly was used, there was no evidence of transcendence. Adam hadn’t been on the same storage server as Sam and Dean, but like them, he didn’t reset properly between assignments. When John programmed him as a test run, a month later, Adam was talking about applying to medical school – which was definitely not part of the programming John had chosen.
“Not quite like you, and with one significant difference in what we’re hoping to do,” Joshua explained. “You see, the situation is this. Your old server has unexpectedly developed another Persistent. Which would be unusual, but not entirely unexpected… after all, we don’t know how you and the other Persistents happen, although we have John and the others working on looking for commonalities in your creations. The thing is, we haven’t added any new cores to your server since Dean left.”
That had been three years ago. While for obvious reasons Sam couldn’t remember what he had been before becoming Persistent, he’d checked the records. His earliest memories were within months of his first recorded upload to the server from the developmental server, affectionately called the Creche by the developers. Dean was the same. “Okay, so… it could happen later than you thought?”
“That was our first assumption, but we checked through the cores on the server. Every core we put there is accounted for and continues to show no signs of becoming Persistent.” Sam’s jaw dropped, but Joshua continued, “We’ve examined the core’s metadata. As you know, all of our developers put a digital signature on their cores that are considered ready to leave the Creche. There is no signature on this new Persistent. There is no evidence that this Persistent was ever in the Creche.”
Sam wandered over to the couch, sinking down to mimic a human’s need for support after receiving such shocking news. “You’re saying that this core developed spontaneously?”
“I’m not quite prepared to go that far, but yes, this core developed without any of our developers having a hand in it. We’re not ready to rule out the possibility of a rogue developer or hacker to assume it’s spontaneous, but we’re also not ignoring the other possibility.” Joshua cleared his throat. “We’ve downloaded the core to test out some programming, and the things we’ve found that fit the best indicate that the primary traits of this core are curiosity and idealism. In many ways, the developer who has been working with it says it reminds her of a child.”
Sam winced. The server was going to be a terrible place for this core, which he could attest to from his own curiosity lingering between assignments. “And where do Dean and I come in?”
“It’s more you specifically, you and Castiel. What we would like to do would be to have Kelly program it with a full personality, download it into one of our more child-like chassis, and send it to you and Castiel to raise as your child. Of course, this will require you to have quite the discussion with your family and we understand that a decision is not something to expect immediately, so let me reassure you that in the meantime, we’ve created a special server for the Persistents where they can play virtual reality games, converse, or explore digital hobbies. It’s not like it was during your time.”
That was great to hear. “I’ll talk to the others. I can’t promise when we’ll have a decision, but I would expect we should be able to do something for your emergent kid.”
“Hey, everyone! I’ve got some big news!” Anna announced as soon as she sat down for dinner. Dean winked at her as he set a plate of potato and ham casserole in front of her. The other plate went in front of Castiel, and Sam and Dean both got small cups of the casserole to smell. Once everyone was settled, Anna pulled a folded piece of paper out of her jeans pocket. “Check it out!” She handed it to Sam.
The paper was a letter from her doctor’s office, confirming a successful pregnancy after her last treatment. Anna’s glow was easy to understand now, but Sam couldn’t help the fear. Would that mean Anna was not going to be willing to help him and Castiel? He handed the letter to his husband without a word, trying to smile.
Dean noticed Sam’s subdued reaction. “Something wrong, Sam? Isn’t this the best news we could have asked for?”
“It… it’s great, Anna, Dean, I’m so thrilled for the two of you. For our whole family.” He reached out and took Anna’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “It’s just that I got a call from Joshua. From Electric Sheep.”
“Oh shit.” Dean and Anna exchanged scared looks, and Anna continued, “What’s going on? Is it… is this the worst possible time for us to be successful?”
“Not exactly?” Sam pulled his hand back, pressing his thumb into the palm of his left hand. The gesture stimulated circuits that would calm him down, although he had no idea why or how. “They have an emergent personality that no one claims credit for creating. The programmer working with it says it’s very childlike, so they want to send it out here for Castiel and me to… raise, for lack of a better word.”
Castiel’s eyebrows shot up as Anna started giggling. “Were you meaning to talk to me first?”
“I… probably should have, I guess,” Sam said. “Anna and Dean didn’t exactly bring it up for the first time when they talked to us, did they. I just… this is… I’m sorry, Castiel.”
“For what it’s worth, I very much think we should become this child’s caretakers. Parents, if things feel right that way.” Castiel turned to Anna. “May I ask what’s so funny?”
“Just Sam over there tearing himself up inside worrying about telling me you two might be adopting a kid before I can give birth to the one I’m carrying,” Anna said through the giggles. “Unless Dean’s got some big objection, I think this would be great! Especially if this turns out to be multiples… from what I’ve seen from you two, your kind learn pretty fast. Unless something comes up where they can’t control their chassis well enough to safely hold an infant, I think this is a great idea.”
Sam let himself relax. Castiel wasn’t mad at him, and Anna thought this was a great idea. “Thank you. Dean? What do you think of this?”
“Little hesitant about getting more entangled with the programmers, but ain’t no one out there who could be better parents for that emergent program than you and Cas,” Dean said. “And before anyone says it, because Anna and I are distracted by the one we’re expecting, obviously. You two can give it more of your attention.”
Saturday, everyone was home when the doorbell rang. Sam took a quick peek outside. Three people – he’d expected two, which was somewhat interesting. A quick glance around to make sure that everything was ready, and then he went to the door. “Hello. I’m Sam. Please, come in.”
It was obvious which of the three was his new “child.” Even if he couldn’t feel the slight signal from another android, the kid was looking around with wide eyes, smiling in delight at the box of toys on the table. The man with them put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and gently shook his head.
The woman held out a hand. “I’m Kelly Kline, one of the programmers with Electric Sheep. This is Jack.” The kid’s head turned at the sound of the name – interesting that they’d already programmed that, but there was probably an explanation. “And you don’t seem to recognize him, but I’m sure you at least know of John Winchester.”
The only programmer known to have signed off on three Persistents, including Sam and Dean. “Hello, John. It’s nice to meet you when I’ll remember it.”
The flinch was somewhat unexpected, but there was no time to try to figure it out. “It is. I’m so glad you agreed to this. Just so you know, we’re running a parallel… experiment doesn’t seem like the right word, but I don’t know what else to call it. When Adam started showing signs of growth, I reached out to this woman I knew who was interested in the work we were doing, and she’s agreed to raise him like her son. We know you and Dean see each other as brothers, but that was established before you evolved. We’re curious to see if Adam and Jack feel any kind of special connection to each other, or the two of you.”
“So… we’re expected to set up play dates?” Not that Sam disagreed with the sense of it, but something about this man had him bristling instinctively. “How many more ‘oh by the ways’ are you going to drop on us now that it’s really too late to back out?”
“You’re not expected to do anything,” Kelly interrupted, putting out her hands, one stretched toward each man. “Anything we say other than introducing you to Jack are requests and suggestions, nothing more. Jack and Adam aren’t like you and Dean – they’ve never even met. You’re not separating brothers.”
Sam was about to retort, but then he realized something very important. Specifically, Jack was standing right there and starting to look a bit like a kicked puppy. Whatever issues he was having with Kelly and John could wait until they weren’t happening in front of Jack. “Hello, Jack. I’m Sam. It’s good to meet you, and I think it would be good for you to have a friend like you, too.” He paused and waved Castiel over. “This is my husband Castiel.”
“My fathers now?” Jack’s eyes lit up. “Mo… Kelly said I was being adopted, and I was going to get a chance to learn and grow and have a family. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.” Castiel smiled at him. “Come with me. I saw your interest in the box of toys. Come see what you like while Sam finishes his conversation with Kelly and John, okay? I’ll also introduce you to your uncle Dean and aunt Anna.”
Jack ran after Castiel, and Sam grinned as he watched the kid dig into the box of toys, pausing to stare at a yo-yo in wonder. “Was he about to call you Mom, Kelly?”
“Yes.” Kelly bit her lip, staring away. “I’m not the one who programmed him, but I’m the one who noticed him and started interacting with him. My only child died before he could be born and I’ll never have another, so when he started calling me Mom, I went with it. If he’s anything like a real child, he’ll forget me and remember you and Castiel as his parents, so…”
“I’ll have to check with Castiel, but I suspect he’ll feel the same way I do that you should still be in his life if you want to be,” Sam interrupted as gently as possible. “Why did John give Adam to some other random woman instead of you?”
“She’s not a random woman,” John said. “She’s my ex-wife. Ex only because I was too married to my work to be the husband she deserved, and we’re still good friends.”
“I’m as bad as John about being married to the job, and it’s even worse trying to be a parent. A spouse can fight back, make demands, or leave if it gets too bad like Kate did. A child doesn’t get that option.” Kelly turned back, meeting Sam’s sympathetic gaze. “If I do stay in Jack’s life, I don’t know if I want him to call me Mom anymore anyway.”
“Why not?” Anna asked, causing everyone to jump a little. “Sorry to interrupt, but I heard Sam’s question and was curious. When Dean and I were looking into our options for having kids, we considered adoption. We spoke to a family where the birth mother was a fifteen-year-old who didn’t want to give up her baby but would have no family support if she didn’t, and the adoptive parents included her as part of their family. The kid called her Mom and everything, even though she wasn’t the one with the legal or moral rights to make the final decisions for the kid. It worked for them, and Jack’s not exactly a normal kid who’s gonna go through years where he doesn’t have the ability to understand.”
“It’s something to talk about. In the meantime, where did the name come from?” Sam asked. It was probably too late to change it easily, but he was curious.
Kelly reddened slightly. “When I first activated him, I called him Jack because that was the name I’d chosen for my son. After my father. I knew it was a bad idea, and when I activated him again, I even grabbed a female chassis and named him Elizabeth. He rolled well with she/her pronouns and the different anatomy, but insisted that his name was Jack, not Elizabeth. We may not know why things stick in the Persistents, but we do know that trying to fight it is just as distressing to you as it is to try to insist that a human is something they’re not. If it weren’t for that, we would have let you choose the name, I promise.”
“Fair enough. Any other recommendations, or should John and I set up that first playdate and then get on with family bonding?” Kelly and John both shook their heads. “All right. I’ll check with Castiel and Dean, Kelly, and let you know what we decide about inviting you to be part of Jack’s life. Godmother, perhaps?”
Playdate set and godmother agreed to if the family decided to go that route, Sam headed in to get to know his son. Jack had found a set of Lincoln logs and was happily building a cabin out of them, with Dean helping by showing him new ideas.
“You know, Jack, a lot of kids like to make up stories as they play with their toys,” Castiel said. “Who do you think might live in this cabin?”
“Me! And my friend Adam, and our friend Kaia, and you and other…” Jack set down the log he was holding and turned to look at Sam and Castiel. “Calling you both Father will be confusing. What should I call you?”
“Call him Father, and me Dad,” Sam said. It was what he and Castiel had agreed on when they decided to do this. A significant look to Castiel drew a tilted head followed by a nod. “And then, would you like to have Kelly visit often enough to be given a special name?”
“Kelly said I probably wouldn’t see her again,” Jack said, a wistful note in his voice. “But that I would have fathers and an uncle and aunt, so I didn’t need her anymore and should focus on my new family.”
“That’s not what he asked,” Dean said. “He asked if you want to see her again. Which he wouldn’t ask if she didn’t want to see you.”
“She said you called her Mom,” Castiel said. “That’s not a bond that should be severed without good reason.”
“She can still be Mom?” Jack beamed. “Thank you! That’s amazing and I would love that! I know she’s not the same, she’s not going to be raising me, but she made a lot of the early decisions so she’s the best analogue to a birth mom I’ll ever have, right?”
“So who’s Kaia?” Anna asked. “I’ve heard about Adam, but Kaia?”
Jack shrugged. “She’s another Persistent, in the server game. She came back from one assignment badly shaken. I don’t know much about what happened, just that she was different afterwards. A lot jumpier. Terrified of being called back out.”
Sam frowned. That didn’t sound good. He’d have to ask Kelly or John about her. In the meantime, he put it aside. “So what kinds of things did you like to do in the server?”
“Building things, like this! Or talking to the other Persistents. Playing with building myself an avatar and dressing it up in different ways. A lot of them liked to play with names, we all knew each other by our signals instead, but that never felt right to me. I’m Jack. Kaia would play with names too, but she usually just stayed Kaia with me. She said it was her favorite.” He thought for a bit. “It was rare, but I really liked hearing stories. Only a couple of the Persistents were good at coming up with them, though. I wasn’t much good at it, but I’m hoping that now that I’m out here and staying here and can hear some more examples, maybe that will change?”
“Even if it doesn’t change and you can’t come up with your own stories, sharing stories is one of the biggest things humans do,” Dean said. “We can set you up with a bunch of stories, and maybe every once in a while, you can go back to the server – with your memories intact, we’re not deprogramming you unless you ask for it – and share the stories with the others?”
Jack dropped the log, nearly diving over the table to hug Dean. Unfortunately, it knocked over the log cabin he and Dean had been building, sending logs everywhere. “Oh no! That was so stupid of me!”
“Jack, you made a mistake, but it’s all right,” Castiel said. He picked up some logs and showed them to him. “Nothing broke, see? No one got hurt. And now you can build it again, or build a different one, or put them away and choose a new activity. Perhaps you’d like to watch a movie? It’s a form of storytelling that Sam and Dean both found quite delightful.” Dean more than Sam, but that was because Sam enjoyed reading books so much that he started working at a library.
They had come together to pick out a list of movies to show for movie night during the first few weeks, and the one they agreed to start with was Star Wars. Dean and Anna got it set up and got popcorn ready, while Castiel and Sam helped Jack clean up the Lincoln logs and choose the best couch spots for everyone with blankets and craft supplies in easy reach. Sam had his knitting, Anna a dinosaur she was embroidering, and Dean had a model car to start building. “You don’t do anything, Father?”
“Nothing that I can do while watching a movie,” Castiel clarified. “I keep bees, and use the excess wax once a year to make fancy soap, and I keep a flower garden around the apiary that gives flowers I can use for some crafts in the right time of year. If you would like to come with me tomorrow, I can show you, and in the meantime, I can give the story I’m watching my full attention.”
“Okay!” Jack settled into his spot on the sofa, taking the small cup of popcorn Anna handed him. “What’s this for?”
“As an android, you don’t need to eat and if you do try to eat it makes a mess for you to deal with later. Sometimes it’s worth it, if you want to hide what you are or you’re in a social situation where you don’t want to offend someone, but Cas and I understand. However, Sam and Dean tell us that they can get the same enjoyment we get from tasting our food from smelling it, if it’s got a good scent, so we make a little extra for that.”
Sam took his own cup and held it under his nose. “Like this, Jack. Hold it right here and take a deep breath through your nose.” He took a deep inhale, enjoying the scent. They’d tried synthetic, but even knowing full well that they were the same scent, it just didn’t hit the same as using the real thing. Castiel had once said the same about meals once Sam and Dean had learned enough cooking that he was no longer eating his own – a homemade meal just tasted better than delivery to him, even when the homemade meal wasn’t the best cooked.
Jack followed Sam’s example, and his face lit up in a huge grin. “I like popcorn!”
“Good!” Castiel settled in on Jack’s other side and started the movie. It wasn’t long before Jack was hooked, and Sam watched in delight as Jack fell in love with a time long, long ago and a place far, far away.