Thanks to kro, my irreplaceable editor!
This is a really ambitious project. And probably the only one of its kind too. It will require a considerable amount of efforts, time and character study, so prepare yourselves to wait patiently because I still have to figure out its plot, but it sure has a huge potential…
After this short, cryptic introduction, everything left to say is: have fun!
ED
Fort Meade
His name was Larkin, Bryce Larkin. He was a spy.
And he was running as fast as his legs allowed him to.
He had just knocked out half a dozen guards, straight after saying goodbye to the Intersect computer, and now things were getting more and more dangerous.
Each hundredth of second that passed meant ten thousand less chances to get out of here alive.
He glanced over his shoulder at the soldiers that were stubbornly following him in that crazy chase on the roof. There was only one thing left to do… he had to send all the Intersect files to someone he could blindly trust.
Someone who'd always do the right thing.
It was a pity that in his job he had never met anyone who fit that description…
As he reached the end of the roof he jumped down bravely, landing gracefully on the ground as he had been trained to do. Then he glided down a metal pipe, and with another jump he reached the solid asphalt of the parking.
He scrolled through the address book of his smart-phone until he got to the name he was searching for. But suddenly he felt a powerful blow on his chest along with a loud gunshot. He was hurled back by a mysterious force, and landed roughly on his back.
"Don't move." Major Casey ordered.
First shoot, then ask questions… or order to surrender. An effective, though simple, rule to survive.
Doing his best to ignore the piercing pain that was spreading throughout his chest, Bryce said defiantly "Too late, Casey."
A simple message stood out on the screen of his mobile, 'SENDING TO…'
With a last, great effort Bryce turned his head to the small screen, just in time to see the phone self-destruct after completing the transmission.
'CHUCK'
And then everything went black for the last time.
Burbank, Los Angeles
The door opened slowly and a hushed drunken singing came into the room. "Haaappy biiirthday tooo… oh!" the man stopped.
He scratched his head and a thought ploughed through his ruffled hair and the alcoholic mist that was clouding his mind. He burped. "This is not the right door."
No, that definitely wasn't the bathroom. Even though the darkness of the room was broken just by the pale moonlight that seeped through the shutter, he could see that there was a bed. The man sniggered. Who would be so dumb to put a bed in the bathroom?
"Huff, I'm burshthing, I need a pee. Maybe I drank a bit too mouch for my bll-blal… bladder…" he drawled to no one in particular.
Blip.
The man frowned, "Uh?"
All of a sudden, the monitor on the desk came to life, displaying the icon of a new e-mail message.
"For me? Thanksh, um, Bryce!" he muttered gratefully and bent on the keyboard, fumbling for the mouse.
When he opened the mail a single line showed up on the screen. "'The terrible troll raises his sword'?" he repeated in a low voice, with an inquiring tone. "This must be some kind of riddle… That's good, I looove riddles! Let's see…"
He read the sentence once again. And then a few more times. "Hold on, what's a 'troll'? I feel like I should know it, but I can't remember right now… whatever."
He tried typing 'Kiss troll' and pressed ENTER.
'Wrong answer. 4 tries left.'
He winced with disappointment, next attempting 'Offer troll a dinner in a cheap snack-bar and then bring him/her to your motel room making sure he/she brings with him/her at least a couple of gorgeous and uninhibited girls' ENTER.
He huffed as another text appeared on the black screen, 'Wrong answer, exceeded maximum text length. 3 tries left.'
"I see, this means that I'll have to get tougher… You asked for it!" he declared with menacing tone, cracking his knuckles, and typing 'Kick troll's selfish ass' ENTER.
'Wrong answer. 2 tries left.'
Gritting his teeth, he tapped heavily on the keyboard 'Attack troll with ninja nunchaku' ENTER.
'Wrong answer. 1 try left.'
"Damn, man, this game is really boring." he complained, sulky and annoyed.
He made another random attempt, writing 'Attack troll with knife'.
Wait, he suddenly remembered, the troll in The Lord Of The Rings was a really nasty beast! Reeeaally nasty. So maybe… yep, nasty…
He shrugged and frantically corrected his line, 'Attack troll with nasty knife'. He gave a defiant nod at the black screen and ceremoniously lowered his forefinger on the ENTER key.
A wide satisfied smile spread on his face as the email disclosed its secrets -literally- to him, but then his expression froze as a hypnotizing succession of pictures started flashing frantically in front of his eyes.
Charles Irving Bartowski Bedroom
The alarm clock on the bedside table was buzzing, while its digits were indicating 7:01 a.m.
"Chuck!" a familiar voice called him.
Let me sleep some more, El, he thought, but then he forced himself to open his eyes to a foggy world.
"Chuck!" the voice repeated.
He blinked a couple of times. C'mon, last night I had an endless, awful and unwanted birthday party, please… As his sight got less and less blurry, he noticed that it wasn't his sister calling him, but someone else. Not as pretty…
"Dude?" the head of a small bearded man was overbearing his face, occupying almost every corner of his awakening-tightened visual field. "Dude, are you okay?"
"Morgan?" he mumbled in a low voice.
"Yeah, man, yeah it's me!" the bearded man smiled, but a concerned look spread again on his face as he inquired "What happened?!"
"Why are you asking?" Chuck replied, not really getting why his best friend was so worried about him.
The other raised his eyebrows and cleared his throat, exclaiming "Well, dude, 'cause Jeff's sleeping on the floor right in front of your desk!"
"What the heck…?!" he rolled hastily down off the bed and jumped up quickly, staring at the pair of legs that leant out from behind the corner of his bed. "Is… is he alive?" he finally dared asking with a shaky voice, glancing at Morgan.
"Yes, I guess... I'm not a doctor, but I don't think that a dead body should be able to snore like that. Perhaps he fainted from an excessive dose of porn…" Grimes hinted, "You know, I can't believe that you let him use your pc to do that." he complained straight after.
"Morgan…" Chuck tried to say.
"I've asked you almost a thousand times since my laptop had that… incident with the washing-machine!" the friend whined.
"Morgan! Listen, I didn't let him, I was sleeping in my bed and I thought that he had gone home after the party." Chuck affirmed, stepping forward and staring with wide-open eyes at the fainted man that was lying on the carpet of his bedroom. "You know, this is kinda creepy…"
He didn't know why, but this particular situation was giving him a weird feeling.
That's it! A Jeff-Intersect. Surprised? Amused? Intrigued? Honestly, I hope so!
Use this green button down here to review and, above all, to give me any suggestion/hint that crosses your mind (you can PM me too, if you want).
To be continued…