Disclaimer : None of this is mine, or even original. I'm just tweaking the Chuck-verse for my own pleasures, none of which are monetary.
Preface (Nearly thousand words long!):
The idea for this story came to me about a year back as I was working up the nerve to watch the final season of Chuck for the third time in the last four years. (Which I still haven't managed to by the way). As I was watching the twentieth episode of Season Two - 'Chuck Versus the First Kill', I felt my heart break at the expressions and reactions from Jordana Brewster, when Chuck and Jill go to their engagement party and the goodbye scene when she knows she is probably seeing her parents for the very last time. I was intrigued by the what-if possibilities and searched for any AU stories on this site that looked at Jill Roberts' character objectively and I found two very good stories - Chuck the College Years by Wepdiggy and Chuck vs the Simple Twist of Fate by I Am Not Amused.
About the story itself, funny thing is, this is actually an AU of an AU idea I had. The original idea was what if Chuck really had a genius level intellect as his wiki profile mentions and if the uploading of the Beta Intersect in his nine-year old brain helps him develop a near-eidetic memory? His college years would be definitely different and he would have come under the radar of his professors starting from his freshman year itself.
What if Jill had been less of a coward and told her Fulcrum bosses where to stuff it, when they told her to break it off with Chuck after Bryce accused him of cheating on his mid-terms? Of course, the two decide to make a run for it, but Jill gets shot and Chuck goes off grid, deciding to adopt a new identity and joins the CIA two years later to bring down Fulcrum. It was going to be a Chuck/Sarah pairing.
Then I thought, what if, Jill didn't take that chance and ended up further and further into Fulcrum's clutches with no way out? I foolishly thought this idea unique in the fandom, until I came across Jill Vs The Wedding by MAC the misc writer, about a week back. By that time, I had already constructed a rough plotline for my story idea, which was kickstarted by yet another awesome story by ygbsm - A Good Man Goes to War, and had even managed to write up a 25K words, 38 pages long chapter for 'Chuck Versus the Ex'. I just couldn't keep everything in my head at that point. So, I have everything between the pilot and the Gravitron episodes mapped out for this plot, but I stopped thinking ahead and got down to fleshing my idea into words.
Boy! Was it one of the hardest thing I have ever done! It took me two weeks to finish the 'Chuck vs the Ex' episode and I realized how clunky and laborious my writing style really is! One example being the many many instances I keep using 'realize' and 'just' in my far too long constructs.
Well, there wasn't much I could do about it at this point, so, when one of my friends asked me what I'd been working on for the last two weeks, I gave him a glimpse and he seemed interested in the beginning of the story. So, a big thanks to my unnamed friend as well, who gave me the much needed kick in the backside to start this one from the beginning. The only reason I did publish my half finished first chapter on this site was for my friend to be able to read what I had got so far. He didn't like the beginning, and neither did I; like I say somewhere at the end of this episode, 'Beginnings are always a shaky place'!
It would also be entirely remiss on my part, if I don't point out another big influence on Sarah Walker's inner thoughts in this chapter during her first meet with our protagonist - Becoming by Arya's Prayers.
Fair warning though, this one won't be a Chuck-Sarah story, I've already put a warning in place in the story intro. IMO, there are far too many of them on this site and I wanted to do something different. Having said that, I also like the scenario where Jill Roberts and Chuck Bartowski are two star-crossed lovers whose story would never have a happy ending.
Chuck Versus the Night Shift by JustMyLuckiness is one of my favorite stories on this site by far, so I would like to explore my own take on Carina Miller's character here. My original intention was to imitate this author's style by including only the relevant details where the Butterfly Effect comes into play. But looking at the 27000 words it took me to finish just the pilot, I'm not sure how much I will be able to stick to that plan.
So, in a nutshell, expect very very slow updates, I'm extremely lazy.
Please remember, this Chuck will not be as much in awe of Sarah Walker's beauty or her kick-ass ninja skills as he is in the original TV show. I don't think anyone who has seen the show previously or read ygbsm's story will find this a spoiler, but at this point of his life, Chuck has seen his fair share of lethal and beautiful femme fatales and special agents, so Sarah Walker won't be unique in that regards. Nor would he have enough patience with the dithering on Sarah's part about whether to commit herself emotionally to him or not.
So, without further ado ...
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18 September 2007
It was a warm and sunny Tuesday morning in southern California, with a hint of breezy autumn winds on the horizon today; the kind of weather that makes you wish you didn't have to go to work or school, but take off for an impromptu picnic on a nearby beach, where you could kick back and relax with your friends or family or loved ones. One, Devon Woodcomb, had similar thoughts going through his mind, as he looked on at his longtime girlfriend of almost nine years now, who was matching him pace for pace on their run this morning. He was thankful for some of the simpler pleasures in his life, where he and his girlfriend were in a position to even think about taking a day off from their daily routines and indulge in this daydream. For Devon Woodcomb and Eleanor Bartowski, his aforementioned girlfriend, were both doctors doing their Residencies at the UCLA medical school attached primarily to the Veteran Affairs hospital in Los Angeles and it would be rare otherwise for their schedules to match, if he had gone with his original plans to accept his father's recommendation and be a private resident at the Westside Medical Hospital. Granted, his current pay was far less than what he could've been earning at Westside, but he also didn't have to worry about the considerable student loans he would be burdened with otherwise. Not to mention, it also came with the added benefit of being close to his lovely girlfriend. He had seen how tired and hectic the life of some of his fellow residents was, the frequent night-shift rotations did take a toll on one's social life, whereas him and Ellie only had to be available for those duties once in six weeks. Add to it the satisfaction and excitement of doing something worthwhile in his life, giving something back to his country, no matter how small his contribution be, he couldn't be happier at how his life had turned out. The only way to make his life perfect now would be when he finally found the right moment to pop the big question and ask Ellie to marry him.
He turned left to look at his other companion, one Charles Irving Bartowski, Ellie's brother and her only family member still around whose opinion really mattered to him or Ellie for that matter. Charles, or Chuck as all his friends and family called him, was concentrating hard on regulating his breath and making sure to avoid any oncoming joggers in their path. Devon always marveled at how effortlessly Chuck could always maneuver in and around the various obstacles on their jogging trail and sometimes envied Chuck at his ability to be so observant. He had just then slowed down a bit, stepped on the end of a discarded plastic water bottle someone had thrown carelessly about in their path, jimmied it up his foot, tossed it up ahead slightly and finally dropped it in a nearby trashcan with a neat kick, all without losing his footing and had resumed his pace nonchalantly. Devon shook his head a little and wondered once again if all those instances of Chuck's clumsiness in public were nothing but a front, considering the glimpses he sometimes got of when Chuck was so well-coordinated.
It had been barely three months before, when he had been able to convince Chuck to join him and Ellie on their morning runs and now it looked as if they had been doing this together for years, not months! He was already looking forward to the next part of their routine where they would hit the gym, before they went about getting ready for their respective jobs. Their time together at the gym was something Devon treasured, for it had given him and Chuck an opportunity to strengthen the bond between them. He was well aware of the string of personal tragedies this young man had faced so far in his short life; a lesser man in his shoes would have folded and given up by now, but not Chuck, never him. Devon was sure he himself wouldn't have the strength, resiliency and mental fortitude Chuck had shown; it was amazing how he still got up and tackled each day ready to face whatever new hurdle life decided to throw his way and he was extremely proud of his almost brother-in-law.
The object of Devon's reflections, Chuck Bartowski, did not however share the same sentiments as his friend right now. His thoughts were all a jumbled mess and his mood currently was dark and cloudy in stark contrast to the cheerful weather today. He knew Devon and Ellie, especially, worried about him constantly and if Ellie even got a hint about all the morbid and depressing emotions he was feeling right now, she would start fretting over his mental health and frame of mind and start on him again about how he needed to move on and stop living in the past; how he had so much potential and to stop wasting his life. He warded off all his grim thoughts and forced a small smile on his face; he did not want Ellie to think something was wrong, especially today on his birthday and hoped he would be able to avoid any more of her sermons. He loved his sister dearly, but she was a force of nature when she got started and it would be impossible to escape the resulting lecture otherwise. Soon, they had slowed down to a brisk walk and were doing some stretches to relax their muscles and cool down, and he let out a breath of relief that he had not given himself away after all! He knew, however, this was only a temporary reprieve because Morgan had let slip a few days before that Ellie had planned a big surprise party for him tonight. Frankly speaking, he was in no mood to celebrate anything today, but had resigned himself to grin and bear it for the sake of his family. It was rare for him to be home on his birthday for the last few years and he couldn't really begrudge Ellie this chance to throw a party for her little brother.
His mood had somewhat improved later while he was manning the BuyMore Nerd-Herd desk. All his friends and even Big Mike, the BuyMore's manager, had wished him on his birthday. He had helped a lot of customers today so far and was currently in the process of assuring a distressed teenager that her life was not ruined and he would be able to recover all the photos and songs from her crashed laptop in no time at all. He did not notice the appreciative looks he was getting from some of the nearby female customers, no doubt admiring the way he had expertly calmed down the girl and was smiling warmly at the way she was giggling right now at some joke he had made.
Anna Wu, his nerd-herd colleague, heard more than a few sighs around her, when Chuck finally finished recovering the data, handed it over to the teen and gave her the patent Bartowski grin as she called it. She made her way to the desk to guide the poor girl towards the display of new laptops, for she knew the effect the full blast of that grin had on the unsuspecting female population and could see the blushing teen needed help until she got out of her daze. Chuck really had no idea how his unassuming nature and charming personality affected other people. She was more or less immune from it now after so many years of knowing him personally, but it still caught even her unawares at times. Looking at her current charge, she could see the beginnings of a crush developing and laughed a little thinking about Chuck's reaction, when she told him about his latest fan. She turned when she saw her customer's expression change from almost reverent to a deep frown, and noticed yet another female in her late twenties had stolen Chuck's attention and was flirting with him, hinting heavily she wouldn't mind him calling her once he finished fixing her phone. She could see Chuck starting to retreat into his shell automatically, but he still kept up his smile and sent her on her way once he had her phone fixed.
Anna had no idea if Chuck had even noticed the customer's flirting, he was that dense, but was sure that even if he did, he had no intention at all of taking her up on her offer. She had seen countless such examples in the past few months, some of the women had even asked him out outright, but Chuck never responded positively to any of their attempts, he was still mourning his lost love. Chuck had complained to her how Ellie and Morgan had been on his case on a regular basis to start dating again and had upped the ante so to speak as his birthday had approached. She had merely patted his shoulder sympathetically and told him they were right in a way and were just looking out for him and wanted him happy, but to take his time if he felt he was not yet ready to see someone new.
Giving a sad shake of her head, she finished ringing up the teenager's purchase and went to see if she could relieve Chuck from his current duties. He would be overwhelmed by the customers waiting in the line, most of whom suspiciously consisted of quite good-looking single female patrons. She had already noticed Sally, one of their regular customers now, lurking in the back of the line, holding her frequently malfunctioning laptop and snorted, wondering how many of these women were having genuine problems with their electronic devices and how many were here just to get a chance to flirt with Chuck. Really! That man did not have any idea how popular he was with the opposite sex.
For his part, Chuck had definitely caught on to his customer's over the top flirting, but was highly uncomfortable at the attention he was seemingly getting now a days. His previous good mood vanishing, he looked around frantically for someone to take over from him. When he saw Anna approaching, he gave a sigh of relief and a big smile of gratitude to her for helping him out of the tight spot he was in.
Anna pulled him down by his ear so she could whisper to him directly, "Chuckles, I'm doing you a favor because today is your birthday, but keep in mind, I won't be doing this again starting tomorrow! You really need to stop hiding yourself and let go. All these fetching ladies are going to be pissed at me now for taking away the star attraction of this store and I'm tired of bearing the brunt of all their hostile stares. Capiscé?"
Chuck straightened rubbing his ear a bit and replied sheepishly, "Yeah, capiscé! No more free passes from tomorrow, I get it. I'll see you tonight at the party, Brutus!"
With that he vaulted over the nerd-herd desk, tipped an imaginary hat to Sally, and made a beeline towards the employee break-room in search of his supervisor, Lester Patel. He was going to let him know in no uncertain terms, he was done with manning the tech-desk and to make sure he was assigned on as many offsite installs as possible in the future, but stopped suddenly, recalling the horribly embarrassing experience he had had the last time he went alone on a distress call. He shuddered and thought morosely, at least here at the BuyMore, he was in public and there was no risk of some horny cougar trying to molest him in the privacy of her home! Shaking his head to purge his brain of the memory of that horrific encounter, he changed directions to find out what Morgan was up to. He would need help from his little buddy to come up with a plan for a proper distraction tonight, just in case the atmosphere at the party became too much and he needed to escape for a short while.
Later that night, he was doubly glad he had gotten a chance to talk to Morgan beforehand and veto some of the outlandish ideas that passed off for a distraction in Morgan's mind. The party was more or less a success, considering the number of people that had showed up and he didn't really know anybody other than his BuyMore friends, and it was still going strong. He had mingled and socialized for a while, keeping a tight lid on his emotions. That was until his old friend, Eric 'Ricky' Nelson had sent him a text wishing him a happy birthday. Like always, he had remembered today's date and he knew he would start getting birthday wishes from his other friends soon. His mood had deteriorated rapidly since and he signaled Morgan and Anna that he needed a break to gather himself together. He was bang on target, as soon as he had escaped to his room for a bit of solitude, he started getting calls from his old friends.
He had just finished talking to Amy and was nursing a beer lost in his melancholy thoughts, when Ellie knocked once and entered his bedroom, "Chuck, what are you doing here all alone? People outside are wondering where the birthday boy's at!"
"Just wanted to be alone answering the calls from my old friends. That was Amy who called in last, she said she already spoke with you earlier and was in complete agreement with your methods to cheer me up." He finished snidely.
She started dragging him outside, "Don't take that tone with me, young man! Come with me, you're going to be social and you're going to meet new people tonight. You are funny, you are handsome and you are a freaking genius! You are going to be at your charming best and wow all these single women I've invited tonight and I won't take no for an answer! And God help you Chuck Bartowski, if you blow them off without making an effort to appear at least a bit interested, you will have me to answer to, understand?"
Chuck sighed resignedly as they reached the courtyard, "Yes sis, I understand. Oh, there's Captain Awesome."
Ellie pinched him hard, "Don't call him that!"
Chuck yelped a bit and made a beeline to where Devon was standing surrounded by quite a few women he seemed to have vetted already.
"And there he is, the birthday boy! Ladies, I give you Chuck Bartowski, the most awesome brother anyone can have! Chuck, you stay here and talk to these awesome ladies and I will go grab a beer for myself." Chuck gave Devon a stink eye, but he just winked and left Chuck alone to work his magic.
He tried his best really, but then someone from their group had broached the topic of Stanford and it all went downhill after that. She had apparently graduated the same year as he would've normally and asked if he knew this great guy from engineering who ran track and was a gymnast too! Chuck knew immediately she was talking about none other than Bryce Larkin and it brought forth all the bitter memories he kept suppressed from his time at Stanford. He needed to wrap this conversation and escape soon if he didn't want to spiral into another bout of depression and self-pity
But the brunette was nothing, if persistent, "What's he doing these days, any idea?"
Chuck shrugged and replied in a blasé tone, "I think he's an accountant or an investment banker or something on the east coast. We haven't ever talked in the last five years."
The brunette was definitely disappointed in Chuck's answer, "Oh, that's too bad. So, umm, do you have a girlfriend?"
Chuck was annoyed by now and fell back to his tried and tested method when he wanted to shut down someone, "No, I did a while back at Stanford. Her name was Jill and we met freshman year."
"Oh, that was a while back!"
"Yeah, I remember when I met Jill, it was an economics class and it was love at first sight, you know! Bryce, Jill and I, we were like the three musketeers, always hanging out together and having the time of our life. We were so happy back then. Until one fine day, Bryce Larkin decided to stab me in the back and accused me of cheating on a mid-term and did his damned best to get me thrown out of college. And if that was not enough, he twisted the knife further by sleeping with my girlfriend, whom he knew I was about to propose! So, yeah, sorry to disappoint you and all that, but I haven't really kept in touch with that douchebag since then."
The brunette was speechless and stammered, "Uh, umm, so sorry to hear that! I, uh, I will just, oh there's Millie calling me over. I will go see what she wants," and made a hasty exit.
The rest of the women standing around were totally uncomfortable now, but Chuck was in no mood to continue with this charade. When one of them placed her hand on his arm, he shrugged it off and excused himself, "I'm sorry if I'm being rude, but I am not in a mood to be cordial anymore. Thanks for the birthday wishes and I appreciate you all taking the time to come to this party. Have a good night!"
He stormed away towards his room and when Ellie tried to intercept him, growled, "Not now, Ellie!" and continued towards his safe haven.
Bryce Larkin, who was clearly not an accountant or an investment banker, was currently in the process of breaking into a very secure and off the books DNI facility manned by an army of NSA agents. He had succeeded in evading all of the guards and entered the central room where the top-secret Intersect computer was housed. He thanked his lucky stars that he had met his genius friend back in college, who had lent him the only compression program in the world that could compress the tens of thousands of Terabytes of images in the Intersect database by a magnitude of ten million, to a measly few Megabytes in comparison. If his friend was to be believed, the algorithm was not only 99.9998 percent lossless, but was superfast as well. Well, he wouldn't need to worry about the speed, he would after all be using the Intersect Supercomputer for his purpose. At least, this gave him some leeway to make the necessary modifications to the plan he was supposed to follow, to ensure the Intersect data was not lost after tonight. The alarm would start blaring as soon as he accessed the computer and he needed to be ready.
He linked his PDA to the system, ran the compression program and started setting up the charges that would blow up the whole room in two minutes. He saw the compression was already complete and frowned, the final result was around 80 MB or so and he knew he would have to use his contingency plan; he doubted his friend's email provider would allow such a huge file as an attachment. Downloading the file on his PDA, he opened a secure FTP connection with a server he had setup at a rented storage unit in Denver and began the transmission. As soon as the file transfer was complete, he deleted it from his PDA, opened the text based program, Zork, that he and his friend had designed back in college, and added the ftp server link and password to the saved game and took off. There were only a few seconds left on the timer and he would need to be as close to the door as possible to escape, when the resulting explosion would blow the locked door outwards.
After getting out relatively unharmed, he ran through the corridors and the stairways, knocking out whatever few guards he encountered, all the while going through his contacts to pull up the name of his friend, whom he planned to send the information for safekeeping. He thought he was home free as he reached his car and finally pulled up his friend Chuck Bartowski's email address, selected it and was about to hit send, when he was hit with a bullet just inches above his heart. Looking up, he saw it was the NSA agent, John Casey, who had had the honor of taking his life.
Hitting the send button, he smirked, "Too late, Casey!" and gave in to the blackness enveloping him, assured that the self-destruct mechanism would be activated as soon as his small utility finished sending the email.
Back at the Echo Park apartment complex, the party had winded down and all the guests had left. Morgan and a couple of his BuyMore friends were helping Devon in the clean up, while Chuck was sitting at the fountain dejected and a little disappointed in himself. It looked like his little outburst had not gone unnoticed and word had soon spread amongst Ellie and Devon's friends of what had really happened five years back at Stanford. That was a real mood-killer and looking at all the dismal faces, Ellie had sensed it was time to wrap things up for the night.
She grabbed a beer for Chuck and joined him at the fountain, "Chuck, I didn't know Stanford is still a hot button for you! You need to let it go, little brother. Stanford was five years ago. I thought you had already moved on from that!"
Chuck sighed and took a long swig from his beer, "Ellie, truth be told, I'm not even that angry with Bryce or Jill anymore. I've long since made peace with whatever had happened back then. But when that brunette, Cindy or Cynthia or whatever, continued to push me asking about Bryce, I just couldn't help be bitter, you know. It was like a reminder or a reality check that Chuck Bartowski would always come second to Bryce Larkin, when it came to girls."
"I'm sorry Chuck, but you are wrong! Nobody in their right mind that knows you, would think you are second-best, least of all to Bryce Larkin!"
"Please Ellie! You are just saying that because you are biased. Back in college, he was always the one whom girls found exciting and wanted to be with. Look at what happened with Jill! I sometimes wonder why she kept up the farce of our relationship for three long years. She should have gone out with Bryce from the beginning, at least it would have saved us all the heartache and betrayal."
Ellie was frustrated and replied heatedly, "Don't say that, Chuck! What you two had was beautiful and you should cherish those memories. Yes, she left you at the most inopportune time when you needed her to believe in you and support you, and I would probably always hold her partially responsible for the direction your life took since then. But, I never truly believed your story about Jill cheating on you with Bryce. She was totally in love with you and would never pick Bryce over you, get that through your thick skull! I am not saying she didn't break your heart regardless, but don't go accusing her of being unfaithful on mere hearsay!"
Chuck looked at her incredulously, "Umm, Ellie, I distinctly remember Jill telling me so herself!"
Ellie was even more adamant now, "I'm sure that was just a misunderstanding on your part, Chuck! She told me so herself some time back when I ran into her. She had no idea you thought she was dating Bryce; poor girl was so distraught, she was ready to go to Paraguay to confront you and tell you the truth!"
Chuck was stunned to say the least, "What? Where did you two meet? I'm surprised you would rather believe her over me on this! How do you know she wasn't just lying to avoid any awkwardness?"
Ellie snorted, "Oh please, Chuck! You know how easily I can figure out if someone is lying to me! Trust me on this, she was definitely telling the truth. As for how and where we met, that's not relevant to our discussion. Besides, are you saying you are still cut up about that incident? Weren't you happy with your life until recently? What's keeping you from dating someone now? Are you merely afraid that you will trust the wrong person with your heart?"
Chuck immediately went on the defensive, "No, that's not it, Ellie! This has nothing to do with Jill and you know it! I just think it's too soon after Argentina… after...," and he choked up.
Gathering himself, he continued, "Look, I'm not saying I will be staying this way forever, just give me some time to sort myself out, okay? That's not too much to ask for, is it?"
Ellie softened her voice, "Chuck, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to remind you of Argentina again. I know you are still hurting, but it's time to stop blaming yourself. You can't keep pushing people away and make excuses all the time. Amy said the same thing earlier, Chuck! We just want you to be happy and move forward with your life again!"
Chuck could see Ellie was in no mood to give up, "Alright, alright! I know when I have been beaten. I have been brooding and moping long enough now. I'll give it a serious shot starting tomorrow, okay?"
Ellie looked hopeful, "Promise?"
He smiled at her softly, "I promise! Happy?"
She grinned brilliantly in response and hugged him tightly, "Very!"
Calling out his goodbyes to Devon and the others, he slipped into his apartment and yawned before entering his bedroom. He started to change into his sleepwear, but Morgan followed him into his bedroom and started to pester him about what he heard from the last part of his and Ellie's conversation, "Ellie's right, you know, you just need to start somewhere. Or did you just say all that only to get her off your back?"
Taking a deep breath, he threw himself on his chair in front of his computer and turned it on, "Morgan, I realize what Ellie says is true, which is why I made her that promise. You know I never break my promises if I can help it."
Morgan nodded and started playing the Call of Duty game he had saved earlier while Chuck was busy going through his emails and replying and thanking all those who had sent him birthday greetings. Suddenly, Chuck gave a startled shout and exclaimed, "What the heck!"
Morgan stopped playing his game and came over to stand at his desk, "What? What happened?"
Chuck replied bemusedly, "I don't believe it! Bryce frikkin Larkin sent me an email today! Five years and not a single line, and he sends me this on my birthday today? Wow!"
"Uh .. aren't you going to open it, dude?"
"I don't know, Morgan, I have half the mind to just ignore or delete it."
"Umm, yeah, wouldn't blame you buddy, really, especially after what happened earlier in the courtyard, but aren't you even a little bit curious what he has to say? I know I would."
Chuck thought about it for a while and decided to give it a go, he clicked on the email and noticed there was an attachment 'stanford . zrk' in the email. Thinking it to be some sort of an ecard, he opened it only to be presented with a black screen flashing with the words, 'The terrible troll raises his sword.'
Morgan appeared baffled, "Uh, what is this dude?"
Chuck laughed a little, "You remember that old text based video game, Zork? Back in our freshman year, Bryce and I had programmed our own version of it using a TRS-80. This is his idea of a joke it seems, I have to enter a password to find out what he really wants to tell me. A simple greeting card wishing me a Happy Birthday would be too ordinary for him I suppose."
"And you don't know the password?"
"I don't remember it right now, maybe it will come to me tomorrow if I bother. Anyways, good night Morgan. I'm going to sleep and you should too."
"Yeah, good night buddy!"
When Morgan left for his room, Chuck started to change into his pajamas, but his mind kept going back to the email Bryce had sent him. Of course, he remembered what the password phrase would be, but he didn't want to open the attachment in front of Morgan. When he had looked at the logs from his anti-malware program, it had alerted him to an executable embedded inside the file, not just a simple greeting card after all! Curiosity getting the better of him, he sat at his computer once again and downloaded the file without opening it. As he started to analyze the code of the executable, he noted that it was a simple utility that was designed to open a secure channel to a remote server as soon as the password was entered and would download a single file from the server to his machine. He ran a trace on the server's location and raised his eyebrows as he was getting bounced between various locations across the globe. He scoffed at the standard program Bryce used to mask his location, a no-brainer for someone with his capabilities. Homing it down, he saw the address Bryce went to such great length to hide was just a plain old storage unit in Denver! Shrugging, he decided to go ahead and download the file thinking even if it was a virus, his security software would definitely catch it and nullify the threat. He entered the password snickering at how stupid it all sounded now, 'Attack troll with nasty knife' and waited for the download to complete.
As soon as he saw the filename - 'SFP_EYES_ONLY . cbkep', Chuck knew this would be related to his old dabblings in the darknet, Bryce was the only one who knew what SFP stood for really, even if he was known with a simpler moniker in the hacker world. He was more astonished by the fact that Bryce had used his personal compression algorithm, one which he had created on a lark his junior year; he had forgotten he gave it to Bryce once. He fiddled with his mouse for a few moments deciding what to do, but gave in finally and started uncompressing the file.
His eyes were rooted to the computer screen and he was unable to look away as a multitude of images and videos started playing one after the other in such a quick succession, Chuck wasn't sure he would be able to remember anything from it later on, in spite of his near-eidetic memory. After a few minutes, his brain simply stopped processing any other thoughts as it was being overloaded with the constant bombardment of the cacophony of visual and audio files being displayed in front of him.
19 September 2007
The next morning, Chuck woke up groggily as his alarm sounded, finding himself strewn on the floor with a massive headache. He stumbled around totally disoriented and sat down on his bed holding his head, waiting for the sudden migraine to pass. When he closed his eyes, he saw a few completely random blurry images, he was unable to make heads nor tails of. This was so disconcerting, he groaned and let himself fall back on his bed and decided to just relax for a few minutes until he was more coherent. Morgan knocking on his door roused him from his state and he sluggishly got up deciding he needed to get ready anyways and there was no point in murdering Morgan today morning. As he opened the door, Morgan came in looking ready to start his day, which was a first, because by this time, Chuck would have finished his early morning run and workout and be back for a shower. Morgan would usually get up only after Chuck had to bang on his door two or three times, "Uh, what time is it Morgan? How come you are up so early today?"
Morgan laughed at him, "Dude, you okay? Looks like you had one too many beers last night. I am not the one who is up early! It's you who is late today, which is quite unusual if I say so myself. Come on and hurry up! We will be late otherwise!"
Chuck shook his head attempting to clear the cobwebs, "Alright, alright, no need to be so pushy, man! I am going, jeez!"
As he was taking a shower, Chuck experienced an instantaneous recall of random and unrelated images while listening to the news on the radio. While he was getting ready, he pondered on what was happening to him. Where did those images come from and why was he lying at the floor instead of his bed this morning? And as he looked at his computer closely, he added one more question to his mind, why in the hell was there smoke coming out of his machine? Panicked, he took out his trusted screw-driver and opened up the CPU and sighed despondently, his machine was totally fried, for Christ's sake! How did that happen? He tried to recall what, if anything, he was doing last night at his computer, but it completely escaped him. Heck! He couldn't even remember the particulars of his conversation with Ellie at the fountain! Boy, looks like Morgan was right! He did have too much to drink yesterday. Frustrated, he just got up and decided to look at his computer later tonight after he came back home.
Morgan kept chattering about something related to the video game he was playing, but Chuck was in no mood to listen today and had to shout to make himself heard, "Morgan!" He winced as this aggravated his migraine, but continued in a raspy voice, "Morgan, buddy, I have got a really splitting headache and I would appreciate some quiet and silence right now. In fact, do you mind driving the herder today? Just do me a favor and stay off the I-5, okay? The cops are in a … phased … deployment," he finished totally confused. 'Huh, where did that come from?'
Morgan goggled at him, "You are asking me to drive? Me? Uh, okay buddy, you look like you are still hungover a bit from yesterday, so why not?"
Finally they had reached the BuyMore and started off their day, Chuck went through the daily BuyMore bulletin to look for any alerts and found one priority communication in his inbox. The Irene Demova virus! 'Ugh, it just had to be today of all days, didn't it?' He signaled Lester, told him to gather all their fellow nerds and updated them about the new threat and to be ready for an upswing in call volumes and footfall at their desks. The internet was a real deadly place at times.
He was right in his assumptions, the nerd-herders were kept completely busy throughout the morning because of all the panic calls the Serbian pornstar's website had caused. When he saw the former Allied Commander of NATO, General Stanfield, on the breakfast news, he experienced another weird feeling of deja-vu or something of the sort; he didn't really know how to explain what was happening to him right now. How else would he know for sure that the General was already here in LA and was not arriving later tonight as the news caster reported?
Elsewhere, at the now destroyed DNI facility in Maryland, Langston Graham, Director of the CIA and General Diane Beckman, Director of the NSA were reviewing the information presented to them by NSA field agent, Major John Casey. It was the usual run of the mill politics being played, where each agency tried to put the blame of the failure on the other. When Beckman pointed out that Bryce Larkin, who was responsible for the destruction of the Intersect, was a CIA Agent, Graham was not far behind accusing the NSA of being lax in their security and simply killing the rogue agent instead of capturing him to question him. Graham and Beckman were both fretting about how this would look really bad if it got out and their superiors, or worse, the press got wind of the incident. Casey smirked at that and replied, "Don't worry, ma'am, sir, I have the situation contained. Not a single NSA agent from last night will breath a word of this to anyone. So, what exactly did this computer do?"
Beckman explained, "This computer did everything. After 9/11, the CIA, the NSA and all the other three letter agencies from the alphabet soup were told to play nice and share their intel. This is how we did it. Every scrap of data we had went into this database. There was a smart program which mined for patterns in the chatter, saw things which our army of analysts missed. The data was encrypted into hundreds of millions of images to make hacking into it almost impossible. But our technical experts were able to go through the logs of the computer before it was blown up and found an unauthorized program run by Larkin. He used it to compress each and everything from the database and downloaded it into an external device. Major Casey, you said Larkin was found with a handheld device which he was using before getting shot. Were you able to find anything more about that? Did he manage to send that file out? Whoever has that file got all of our secrets. Find those secrets, Casey," she finished with a glower.
Graham looked surprised and interrupted, "With all due respect, General Beckman, the PDA you found on Larkin could not have a large enough memory. How would it be able to hold the data from this supercomputer as it contained all of the intel from all the US agencies?"
Beckman looked reluctant to disclose this particular information, but relented, "Director Graham, Larkin used a highly classified and proprietary compression algorithm in NSA's possession since 2001. One of our NSA scientists developed it and it has the ability to compress any large image or video file by a degree of ten million with a 99.99 percent retrieval rate. It looks like along with the Intersect information, Larkin somehow got a hold of this program as well."
Graham smirked, "Looks like there is a leak somewhere in the NSA as well then, huh? Casey, be sure to follow up on this lead too, won't you?."
Casey grumbled, "I don't have to be told twice! We found that Larkin sent this compressed file to a server at a rented storage unit in Denver, Colorado. There was also another email sent from his PDA shortly thereafter. He tried hard to mask both the locations, but our techies were able to crack the masking program easily and found the addresses. The NSA team broke into the unit and recovered the server, but it was designed with a self-destruct program similar to one in Larkin's PDA. The team, however, was able to trace another entry from the router logs, showing that the file was downloaded from the server out of the same location where Larkin sent his email - in Burbank, Los Angeles. Which is perfect … I've been feeling a little pasty."
Before Beckman could comment, Langston interjected, "This time Agent Casey, please bring in the person alive for questioning. I don't want another dead body on my hands, understood?"
Casey fumed at being talked down by the CIA director, but upon getting a slight nod from Beckman, acquiesced, "Fine, doesn't mean I won't rough him up a little bit so he co-operates easily. I will text you the exact address shortly," and left whistling to himself.
Graham turned to his NSA counterpart and gave her a dubious look, "Is this the type of NSA agent in charge of your investigation? He has got the subtlety of a rampaging rhino. We don't know where in LA this information is at currently. What if it is a civilian area? Remember Beckman, we don't want to broadcast this failure to the world. Ask your agent to control his Rambo impulses, otherwise both of our asses will be on the line."
Beckman bristled at the insinuation that her best NSA agent was incompetent, but sensed the grain of truth in her CIA colleague's recriminations, "I understand, Graham, and will advise Agent Casey to exercise utmost caution. Have a good day!"
As soon as he was out of the building and back in his car, Langston took out his secure cell and dialed a number from memory, "Graham secure."
The CIA agent on the other end replied immediately, "Walker secure, but in public."
"Agent Walker, we have a code red situation on our hands. Are you still in California?"
"Yes sir."
"Good, you are the closest agent I have on my hand whom I can trust completely. You know Larkin went off the grid six months back and there were indications he turned rogue starting three months ago?"
There was a slight hitch in the agent's voice, "Uh, yes sir."
"Well, as of last night, we definitely know for sure that he is a traitor. He broke into a DNI secure facility yesterday and stole some very important intel that in the wrong hands would mean a complete clusterfuck. He then proceeded to blow out the entire room housing that information and tried to escape, before he was shot dead by an NSA agent."
"Oh! Bryce is … dead?"
"Yes Sarah. John Casey shot him in the chest. Luckily for us, he was able to find out the location Larkin sent the intel to. It's somewhere in Burbank, Los Angeles. I will text you the address. I want you to go to this location and retrieve the information as soon as possible, before the NSA gets a hold of it."
"Yes sir! If I may ask, what is the intel about?"
Graham sighed, "Sarah, you are cleared for this information because of your past association with Project Omaha. The intel is actually each and every scrap of data from the Intersect computer. Larkin was somehow able to get hold of a highly classified NSA program which helped him in compressing the entire database into a manageable file. He sent the entire thing to his contact by an email for crying out loud."
"Oh God! You are absolutely right, sir! In the wrong hands, this information would be catastrophic. I'll get right on it. Please have the company analysts send me whatever information they can find on the mark."
"Sarah, one more thing before you go. This operation needs to be handled with utmost subtlety and caution. We can't have the press get a wind of this or else we will all be in the proverbial soup. Beckman has so far successfully kept out every other agency from having direct access to the Intersect, citing it to be a SIGINT operation. The CIA has only been allowed whatever limited access we have because we were the feeders for the human intersect program. If you get a hold of this information before the NSA, the CIA will finally have a direct say in who and when someone gets the access to this data going forward. I repeat, get this intel before Casey does, at any cost. Do you understand your orders, Agent Walker?"
"Yes sir, clear as crystal!"
"Good, Graham out," with that he disconnected the call and forwarded the address of Larkin's contact to his agent. Dialing his most trusted senior Collection Officer in Langley, Graham instructed him to find out everything he could about the person who owned the computer at the address he sent him and report to Agent Walker. His job done for now, he sat back and relaxed, confident that he had his best people working on the problem and this fiasco was sure to be resolved in CIA's favor.
Back in the Burbank BuyMore in California, it was well past their afternoon break time and all the nerd-herders were finally taking a respite after the many many calls they had to attend through the day, battling the dangerous and lethal Irene Demova virus. Chuck Bartowski was on phone with the office of one of their corporate clients waiting for their feedback from today's service call, but was put on hold by the secretary until she could get a hold of someone from their IT department. Chuck hated this part of the job, but acknowledged the necessity of someone like him handling it. God forbid, the job went to someone like Jeff Barnes! That would be an unmitigated disaster!
Meanwhile, Agent Sarah Walker of the CIA had reached the parking lot of the BuyMore at 9000, Burbank Boulevard, where she was told three hours back, the mark and his roommate both worked at currently. When she expressed her surprise that Larkin's contact could be working at such an uninteresting place, her CO Jerry had warned her that usually the best cover job was so mundane, no one would think of you as being anything else than what you appeared at the first glance or suspect if you are involved in something more nefarious.
The information Langley had been able to dredge up on her mark was too sketchy so far - Charles Irving Bartowski, 6 feet 4 inches tall, age 26 as of yesterday, brother to Dr. Eleanor Faye Bartowski, MD, age 29 and six months, son of Mary E. Bartowski and Stephen J. Bartowski; staying presently at 1838, Echo Park, Franklin Avenue in northwest LA downtown with his roommate and childhood friend Morgan Grimes, while his sister lived in the apartment next door with her boyfriend, Dr. Devon Woodcomb, MD, age 30. He had an excellent credit score and no record, not even a parking ticket. Both apartments were under the ownership of Charles and his sister. The sister and the boyfriend were currently residents at the UCLA Medical school. Charles Bartowski went to Stanford and would have graduated in Computer and Electrical Engineering in 2003, but was expelled after he was caught cheating on an exam in October 2002. His passport entries showed random trips to South America, South-east Asia and South Africa, in between working at the BuyMore, and that had raised all kinds of flags in their minds. Jerry had been apologetic he was unable to find anything more substantial, but promised to keep digging and keep her informed. She had thanked him and asked to see what his connection with Bryce was and any information he could find out about past and present girlfriends.
She had been waiting in her car for a while for the call from Jerry with an update, reminiscing how she came to be in California today and over the last eight years of her adult life. Getting to attend Harvard with CIA sponsorship that Graham had arranged for her had given her life a new direction and purpose. At that time, she was just a bright-eyed kid just shy of her eighteenth birthday, in her last year of High School. All the fantasies she had concocted in her mind, thinking she would be a valuable member of the US intelligence community, doing her part in making this world a safe place from terrorists and criminals alike, how naive she was!
Oh, she definitely did all that, she was one of the very best at the company after all, but she had never counted on the price she would have to pay on a personal level. Being the best of Graham's wild card enforcers didn't leave your soul whole or uncorrupted. But it was a choice she had made early on in her career. As one of her only friends back from her days at the Farm had explained, they made these reprehensible choices and took on these ignominious responsibilities for the greater good, so that the good people in the world could carry on with their lives and not be required to make such choices themselves. This is what they had signed up for when they became a secret agent working for the government. Agent Walker was well aware of the many compromises she had had to make to reach this point in her adult life, compartmentalizing the emotions which would bubble up whenever she was required to do something unsavory and went against her own set of values and principles, leaving behind nothing but a hollowed out shell with each successful assignment or mission. But morality had no place in her line of work. In the field, she was purely a tool - sometimes blunt, but often times a surgical instrument for her superiors, to be used to further their agenda, which she fervently hoped tied in with that of the United States government. Otherwise, there would be no justification for many of the distasteful and repugnant acts she and countless others like her had to carry out on a daily basis. Hindsight being what it was, she knew her actions could be and would be justified as being absolutely necessary at that point in time, but in retrospect, could have been handled much better to get to the same outcome as what they had today.
Shaking her head at the direction her thoughts had lead to, she wondered if it was really Bryce's death that had unsettled her so much. Life for an agent in the field was not as rosy as the movies depicted. They all knew how short their life expectancy really was. Any moment could be their last and they had to learn to take each day as it came, sending a prayer of thanks each night before going to bed, that they lived to see another sunrise. But they all had known there was a bullet somewhere with their name written on it. Bryce had finally found his, it seems. How ironic that it was from the gun of a fellow colleague from a sister agency. His betrayal still stung on both personal and professional fronts, three months back when Graham told her about Bryce going rogue, she had scoffed at him and not believed him at all. But the proof was all there, neatly laid out in front of her and she was unable to refute it. It had all gone to hell in a handbasket after that.
For the first time in three years, she had been forced to work with a handler for an operation that was insulting and more than a bit demeaning for someone with her skillsets and track record. Graham had assured her this was temporary and would only last until they managed to get a hold of Larkin and the needle of suspicion no longer pointed at her due to her partner's actions. He looked genuinely sorry that it had come to this. His hands were tied and he couldn't help her any further. She had reluctantly accepted the assignment in Budapest, vowing to do her absolute best no matter what and weather this shitstorm Bryce had landed her in, due to his foolish actions. And look how that turned out to be! After all was said and done, there was a litany of dead bodies of the Hungarian mafia she left behind in the room she had infiltrated and proceeded to fulfill her primary mission objective - retrieve the package her handler, Keiran Ryker, had asked her to.
Never in a million years, she could have anticipated that the package would be a three-month old girl of the two bankers that were slain earlier by the same mafia bosses. Alarm bells had started ringing in her mind and it didn't take long for her to come to the conclusion that Ryker had been playing both sides and knew beforehand what or who the real package was. She was not sure how he had planned to use the baby to get hold of the fortune for which she was now the sole beneficiary, but she didn't waste much time to contemplate his actions. She had taken the baby and given the slip to everyone, including the CIA, and went off grid, finally reaching California. After she had made sure the baby would be in safe hands, only then had she reported to Langley to debrief her bosses of the real objective of Ryker's mission.
She was itching to go back and teach him a lesson for using her in such a way, but Graham had warned her not to go out seeking revenge. Too many things had gone wrong lately and he had no longer been able to keep a lid on things. The OIG office had taken over the investigation and she had been advised strongly to co-operate with the CIA Special Agents or Detective Spooks as they liked to call themselves. She hadn't even known the CIA had its own investigation department until then or what their jurisdiction was, but she had co-operated and told the AIC of the investigation every little detail that she recalled from her brief time in Budapest. Well, almost every little detail. She left out the part where she had in the end recovered the package and ensured its safety. She was sure AIC Eric Nelson knew she had left out that part from her statement, some of his questions and observations hit too close to home for her comfort. She was equally impressed and unnerved, how quickly he had punched holes in a few of her stories, but ultimately let her off the hook, citing that all his conjectures were just that, wild guesses on his part. As she was stepping out of the conference room where she was being questioned, the brilliant detective had stopped her and wished her good luck in her future, giving her a knowing wink. She had gone through their entire conversation countless times in her mind, analyzing and evaluating every single expression or facial tic of his muscles, and she was sure that the AIC knew she had a hand in retrieving the little girl and hiding her somewhere safe. His parting shot of how he missed sunny California was a dead giveaway, but she had resisted the urge to relocate the baby yesterday, when she watched her mother from her binoculars, taking care of the little girl from a few hundred yards away. If he had not reported her actions to his superiors even after a month, she rationalized she still had some time to come up with a better plan, than to hastily secure her only living family worth their salt in some godforsaken place off the map.
She was still not sure what game or angle Nelson was playing at. She had dug out his records with the help of some of her agency contacts and it painted an impressive picture of his accomplishments so far, but it had also told her of an honest and good person who had refused to give in to the cynicism and jaded outlook most of the field agents like her developed early on in their careers. Resolving to keep an eye out on this variable in her plans, she had hoped to get out of San Diego and confront Nelson face to face, but Bryce had once again gone off the reservation and put a spanner in all her plans. He had a habit of doing that more often than not, improvising wildly but creatively, ensuring her best laid plans were all for naught. She had had to save his hide almost every single time in the field, it was irksome and reminded her of her only friend from her training days, Carina Hansen. But she had learnt to live with it, tolerating his quirks and foibles and after a brief struggle to remain professional, had given in to his charms and roguish attitude.
That vacation in Cabo two years ago was an eye-opener, however. In a rare moment of truth between the two spies, he had let his guard down and she had realized his devil-may-care attitude and carefree, go-getter nature was just a mask he put on to fool people, including her. She had never really called him out on that, but it had felt like a betrayal at some level, and things were never the same between them after that on a personal level. She had decided then and there, she would never make the same mistake again of foolishly hoping there could ever be any chance for people like her to find something real, especially amongst her peers. Once she had put her walls back up, she had found it easy to continue their relationship, no matter that they were together just for the sake of convenience and nothing more. Agent Walker was firmly back in saddle, but the girl inside her had whimpered and been heartbroken at losing another chance to be let out. She wondered if that was the reason, she didn't particularly feel too sad at the loss of her longest partner to date. At the end of the day, Bryce Larkin had made his own bed and had to lie in it.
She was broken out of her ruminations by the ringing of her secure cell, she answered on the second ring, "Walker secure."
"McGuire secure."
"So, Jerry, you sure this kid's got the intersect? What have you been able to dig so far?"
She found it a bit amusing that she referred to the mark as a kid, he was only a few months younger than her, but she had done and seen things not many could imagine or even begin to understand, least of all Charles Bartowski.
"Yes Agent Walker, our tech guy was able to confirm the information from his NSA counterparts checked out. As for Charles Bartowski, we talked to some of his old classmates and professors from Stanford under the guise of a company looking to employ him and needing a character verification. Every single one of them recalled him to be a tall, good-looking and charming fellow, always ready to help out others, modest and well-liked by everyone, but not as charismatic as some others. When we brought up how he was expelled, the Dean told us they only gave him a show-cause notice, but Bartowski never showed up for the inquiry after two weeks, most probably out of disgrace. None of the people we talked to could believe Bartowski would cheat in any exam, let alone a mid-term, when his professor, Mr. Fleming, accused him of such. One of his professors even went on to theorize that if he did, Bartowski may have stolen the answers for the test in order to help out a fellow struggling classmate; he was that kind-hearted." He paused a moment to recover from his snort. "Sorry about that, but it's kind of hard to believe most of the claptrap these people spouted. Anyways, Bartowski is apparently some sort of a scary smart genius when it comes to computers and has an exceptional memory; he was on his way to graduating with honors if he had come back to finish his year. One of his classmates told me he came into a substantial sum of inheritance in 2001, so he's also rich where it matters. That matches with the time he bought the two Echo Park apartments outright as well as how he finances his various globetrotting vacations on a BuyMore salary."
Sarah went over the new information and was forced to reevaluate some of her earlier preconceptions, "What about his social life and his connection to Bryce Larkin?"
"Bartowski had a longtime girlfriend of three years in college, but she reportedly dumped him after the cheating incident. Unfortunately, we were unable to find out about any existing one's so far. He hasn't kept in touch with any of his old college friends after pulling the vanishing act. We contacted a couple of ex-BuyMore employees that worked with him and they too told a similar story - a genial and helpful fellow in nature, but kept his private life strictly private. He is more of a part time worker and the manager there is used to him disappearing on his backpacking trips for months on end. They never saw him with a girlfriend ever. However, we have been advised to talk to either Anna Wu, his protégée of sorts, or Morgan Grimes, his childhood friend for any details regarding his social life. We couldn't grill them any further as we didn't want to spook them and risk them alerting our target. As for Bartowski's connection with Larkin, they were in the same fraternity and pursuing the same degree until their senior year, when Bartowski dropped out of college and Larkin changed majors to Economics. The two were best friends since freshman year, but the cheating incident was supposedly the end of their friendship."
Sarah was thrown off by that little tidbit at the end, "Huh, I never knew Bryce was studying computers and only changed his major in his last year!" Heck! She hadn't even known Bryce had attended Stanford, he had told her he had graduated from UC Berkeley! Yet another nail in the coffin of their long dead relationship. Sarah was coming to accept the fact that she had never known anything real about Bryce Larkin apart from his name. To be fair, considering she had never told him hers, she concluded that none of them had trusted the other with anything real ever!
Jerry cleared his throat and continued as if she hadn't spoken, "Anyways, prima facie, our target appears to be your typical laid back California geek - brilliant but underachieving and unmotivated, whose heart was broken by the girl he loved in college. I am sending you the DMV photo we have on file. But be careful, Agent Walker. Like I said before, everything need not be as it seems. This mark is far different from your usual targets, so approach with caution."
Sarah had locked her car and started towards the entrance to the BuyMore, when she saw the photo Jerry had sent her on her secure phone. Her first reaction after looking at it was 'cute with a goofy smile, but definitely not her type', just the average unassuming person she and her father had exploited in her teenage years to pull a con on them.
Without thinking, she smirked, "Piece of cake! Don't worry Jerry! You guys keep digging deep until you find out all you can about him and his family," and walked over to the desk her mark was standing at, the predatory gleam in her eyes being replaced with an assuring warmth in a split second, all thanks to her lifelong experience in adopting a persona, either for a con or a mission. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed and evaluated his two companions, they must be Anna Wu and Morgan Grimes, but her mark's attention was clearly being held by a good-looking brunette who was smiling at him while walking down the aisle on his right. Chuck Bartowski was no womanizer according to his dossier Jerry had built, but looking at the shy and crooked smile he had returned to the woman, he didn't appear to be the typical clumsy and lonely geek either, who had never gotten over his ex-girlfriend, as she had previously assumed.
Five minutes into the call, Chuck was still on hold, with Anna and Morgan waiting patiently for him to finish so they could take their break, when Morgan exclaimed out of the blue, "Stop the presses! Who is that? Vicki Vale."
Chuck, while still holding the phone, had his eyes glued to the alluring, well-endowed brunette who was smiling back at him. His subconscious registered Morgan's comment, however, and he started rapping under his breath, "Vicki Vale, Vick-Vicki Vale, Vickity-Vickity, Vicky Vale, Vic-Vicki Vale." As Morgan pinched his elbow and gave it a jerk, he turned around to look at him and finally noticed the gorgeous blond haired, blue eyed model that had walked up to his desk and was fighting hard to control her fit of laughter at his expense. Chuck was dazed and dumbstruck for a few moments, for there was no other way to describe the woman in front of him than a magazine cover model, and flushed in embarrassment at the thought of her having heard his idiotic singing. He straightened up abruptly, letting the phone receiver drop, and squeaked, "Hi!"
Sarah smiled, "I hope I'm not interrupting."
Chuck was flustered and stammered, "Uh … No, not at all! That's … it's from Batman!"
"'Cause that makes it better," she didn't know why she was being so snarky, assured that it had nothing to do with a little bruising of her ego. No! She was not even a little bit miffed that the brunette had been on her mark's mind, in spite of a beautiful woman like her stepping in front of him and waiting for him to look at her with that cute, shy smile of his.
Chuck chuckled nervously, but started rambling, "Well, my friend here called you Vicki Vale, when I think he really meant Kim Basinger, because both of you are hot, blue eyed, golden blondes, whereas Vicki Vale is really supposed to be more of a strawberry blonde with green eyes, and I will stop talking now before I make more of a fool of myself than I already have!"
Chuck had recovered by now and was grinning at her sheepishly.
Poor Anna could hardly hold her giggles and left quickly, guffawing at the entire spectacle.
Sarah's smile had widened during his monologue and a thought came unbidden to her mind, 'He is so endearing when he rambles on like that. Wait, what? Get your head in the game, Walker!'
Morgan introduced them, "Hi, I'm Morgan and this is, uh, this is Chuck, and the lovely lady who just left is Anna Wu."
"Wow! I didn't think people still named their kids Chuck, or Morgan for that matter."
Chuck began their standard age-old routine whenever someone commented on their names, "My parents were sadists ... and carnival freaks found him in a dumpster," while Morgan finished the joke solemnly, "But they raised me as one of their own."
Still smiling, Chuck asked, "So, how can I help ... you?"
"Sarah."
"How can I help you today, Sarah?"
Sarah Walker pulled out the faulty cell phone she had picked up precisely for this purpose, "It's my phone! I don't know what's wrong with it?"
She complimented him on his expertise as Chuck fixed her phone within no time at all, "Wow! You geeks are good!"
Then Chuck had flashed that sweet, earnest grin at her and gently corrected, "Nerds, actually. We prefer to be called nerds."
She lost her train of thought completely, when he smiled at her like that and she looked up into those dreamy and soulful chocolate brown eyes, 'God! When did it get so warm in here all of a sudden?' Trying to come up with something to break the spell he had put on her, she was rescued by a distraught looking father and his ten year old daughter in a pink tutu, "Excuse me, excuse me! I have an emergency. I don't know what I did wrong, I shot the entire recital, but now it won't play back!"
Sarah saw the change in Chuck's demeanor immediately as he spoke self-assuredly, "Okay, okay, no need to panic. Let me take a look and uh, it looks like you don't have a tape in here!"
The young girl's father was stumped, "But it's digital!"
Morgan rolled his eyes, "Oh boy!"
Chuck wondered at the level of stupidity some of his customers regularly displayed and replied, "Right, but you still need a digital tape!"
"Oh no! Her mom's going to kill me!"
The little ballerina looked about ready to cry now and Chuck couldn't help but feel sad for the poor girl. Thinking for a few moments, he snapped at Morgan to get the wall ready and get Anna to start recording. He turned to Sarah, gave her his most sincere smile so far and shrugged, "I'm so sorry, but I gotta go. Your phone is fixed anyways and the service would be totally complimentary for such a lovely lady, it was a minor fix after all. Have a nice day!"
Frankly speaking, Sarah was a little stunned and peeved that she had been dismissed in favor of a ten year old girl, by a man whose highlight of the day should have been that a very seductive temptress had flirted with him. When was the last time something like this had happened to her? Never before! So she waited and watched the whole event unfold and marveled at the way Chuck had calmed the little girl, talking to her in a soothing voice and expressing his confidence in her ability to do her first solo ballet in front of a large audience. When the girl was still looking unsure, he asked her what the problem was.
"Well, I'm usually in the back row."
"Why?"
"Because I'm too tall, I block the other ballerinas."
Chuck crouched down to her level and said in a conspiratory tone, "Can I tell you a secret? But you can't tell the other girls."
Seeing her nod, he continued, "Real ballerinas are tall!"
Chuck gave her a brilliant grin, which caused the little girl to light up and she started her ballet moves confidently. By now, a small crowd had gathered to watch the impromptu performance and when she had finished, everyone started clapping and cheering wildly. Sarah Walker found herself getting caught up in the moment and joined the cheering crowd. She may be a superspy with an exciting and dangerous life, one who may or may not have saved the day completing her missions, but it was just a job for her and others like her. But for this man, it was purely an opportunity to have some fun, the friendly gesture making the day of that ballerina and her father and helping them save a priceless memory. And all this for what? Just for the chance to see that tiny bit of happiness and joy blossom once again on the little girl's face? How could someone be so nice! When the little girl came over to thank Chuck and kissed him on his cheek blushing madly, she sighed and realized she wasn't the only one. Any advantage or assumptions she may have had when she approached the desk, she was now aware that she had completely lost them. She was no longer in control of the situation, judging by the fact that she had started referring to the mark as simply Chuck in her mind. And on top of that, she thought he was cute, endearing and nice! She needed to get away quickly and get her head back on straight, otherwise she would never find out the truth about his involvement with Bryce.
Anna had detected the stunning and pretty blonde from earlier, standing amongst the crowd looking impressed and enamored with Chuck. She decided to go over and help move things along, Chuck could definitely do worse than her, "There goes another victim falling to the patent Charles Bartowski charm! Look at all these women making googly eyes at Chuck! It's a shame he is too damn oblivious to their interest in him."
Sarah looked at her and resolved to grab the opportunity presented to her on a platter, "That was such a heartwarming and kind thing to do. It's difficult to imagine people like him still exist!"
Anna nodded and remarked, "Chuck Bartowski is one of a kind, a gem really! You will be hard placed to find a better man. Doesn't hurt that he is easy on the eyes either. I'm Anna, by the way."
"Sarah, and I think I would like to find out if what you are saying is true.'
Anna gave a small squeal and clapped her hands, "Ooh, so you are interested in our boy after all! Glad I wasn't mistaken then. Keep in mind, you may have to end up making the first move. Like I said, he is too dense to notice any subtle signals. But you better be quick, or he may end up getting snagged by someone else in no time at all!"
Sarah smirked, "Why not? I'm honestly surprised someone like him is still single though."
She was obviously fishing for more information. If she had expected Anna to reveal any more details, she was left disappointed however. Anna looked extremely sad and pensive all of a sudden, but looked at her calculatingly. Finally coming to some sort of a decision, she leaned in and spoke quietly, "There's a story there that's not mine to tell. Chuck's a very private person, but he has been hurting for a while. If you are really interested in him and ready to look past that, you will find that you will never meet anyone else who is as fun, lovable and kind as him. He has a natural presence about him that pulls you in, leaving you wanting for more. He has more goodness in his heart than everyone I have ever met combined."
She broke off suddenly, "I could go on and on listing all of his great qualities, but I'm pretty sure you are dying to find out about them yourself, aren't you?", she smiled knowingly at Sarah.
Sarah was once again reminded of Jerry's earlier reaction on the phone and she was convinced all those comments his old classmates and professors had made, had not been a load of claptrap at all!
This was just the way anyone who ever met and knew Chuck Bartowski, even for a little while, would describe him. Not wanting to come off as too eager, she professed to stick to her previous plan of retreating for now and regrouping before she approached Chuck again, "Unfortunately, I have to run as I'm late for an appointment with a realtor and it looks like Chuck is too busy right now talking with his colleague there. Why don't I leave my card with you so you can make sure he gets it?"
Anna laughed aloud, "Smart move, Sarah! Using an insider to worm your way through, I like your style! Rest assured, I will make sure Chuck gets your number. I'll see you around." She winked and skipped away to join her colleagues and Sarah made her escape, pausing outside to catch her breath. Jerry was right in one aspect at least, this guy was nowhere remotely similar to any of her usual marks. She wondered how just fifteen minutes in his presence had turned around all her assumptions about this curly-haired nerd, completely on it's head.
Chuck, who had been accosted by his assistant manager, Harry Tang, barely managed to remain civil when he was accused of using the BuyMore resources for personal reasons and to show off. Chuck was hard pressed to understand why Tang always seemed jealous of him for no reason whatsoever. He left the AssMan fuming by plainly asking him to take it up with Big Mike in case he had any concerns or complaints. Chuck knew he and Big Mike had an understanding, one where he could be gone for months on end from this job and still be welcomed back with open arms, whenever he felt like. Big Mike had once told him, whatever little time Chuck spent at this job was a bonus for him. Not only had Chuck trained half the store's nerds and brought them up to snuff, but he was also responsible for making sure Lester Patel had shaped up and taken over the responsibility of being a Nerd-Herd supervisor. Tang would just have to live with it as usual.
Anna and Morgan teased him mercilessly about the attention he had given that pretty brunette from before and the interest the blonde beauty, Sarah Walker, had shown in him later. He was convinced his cheeks were permanently red from blushing due to all the innuendos and insinuations the two were piling on. Anna had somehow managed to even procure Sarah's card where she had written down her number, clearly expecting a call back from him. He had finally managed to persuade Anna that he would think about it and let the matter drop, but he should have known there was no way that Morgan would take a hint. He kept on pestering him even as they reached home and parked their car, "Why wouldn't you call this girl? Look, you promised Ellie yesterday, you were ready to start dating again and today this totally hot Vicky Vale walks into the store, flirts with you and gives you her number? That's not just a sign, that's providence!"
"Morgan, I really don't remember much about last night. Like you said in the morning, I had one too many beers to have been rational or lucid. But I'll take your word for it. Besides, I'm not really sure I want to call this girl, have you looked at her really? She looks like someone who stepped out of a magazine cover. I just … don't think I'm her type!"
Morgan scoffed and continued arguing, "Oh puh-leeze, Chuck! You just think she is not your type! I saw you tagging that buxom brunette before Sarah walked in. I'm telling you, you should stop looking at a girl's hair and look at the complete package man! Get out of your comfort zone!"
"Morgan! I do not judge a person based on how they look and I definitely don't have a type. Let's just drop it, okay?", Chuck replied heatedly before stomping off.
Morgan scrambled and followed him to his bedroom, "Whatever you say, Chuck! Then why don't you prove me wrong and just call that … blonde … Aphrodite," Morgan trailed off when he finally noticed why Chuck had stopped abruptly upon entering his bedroom. There was an intruder in their home dressed in all black ninja gear, whose hands were currently occupied by Chuck's computer. Upon seeing the two owners had returned, the intruder placed the computer down on the floor and took up a stand similar to a seasoned martial artist. Nobody moved, each occupant of the room was waiting for the other to make the first move.
Chuck whispered through his gritted teeth, "Morgan, do exactly as I say, understand?"
Morgan was spooked but was bright enough to know his friend could handle the situation far better than him, "Yes, buddy. You're the boss!"
Chuck relaxed his posture, made himself as nonthreatening as possible and raised his hands, "Ok, ok, you are clearly here only for robbing the place and didn't expect us to get home early. There's no need for guns or any violence. We haven't seen your face and there's no way we can identify you. So, we are both just going to get our phones out, very very slowly, so you know we are not calling the cops and you can take whatever you want. If you want, you can let your partners in crime know we are totally harmless and there will be no problems for you. How about that, huh? This place is completely insured, so we won't even call the 911 until ten minutes after you leave. No heroics from either of us, promise."
As the intruder slowly stepped back and picked up the computer, Chuck had to say something, "Err, sorry to be a pain, but that machine is kinda useless right now. See, I opened it up earlier today. Its hard drive, RAM and motherboard are totally fried. You would be better off just taking the monitor, keyboard and the speakers. They are very high end Bose speakers, will fetch you at least $500 in the second hand market."
At this, the intruder placed the CPU on a nearby shelf and turned to look at the machine, he found the mother board circuitry fused together and a lot of parts turned to silver. Frustrated, he turned around and threw a punch at Chuck, who had by now closed the distance between them hoping to subdue the robber. Chuck blocked it and had to immediately duck to avoid a roundhouse kick. The next few minutes were a blur of kicks and punches from the intruder and an equally dogmatic defense from Chuck. He was able to land a single open-handed palm strike on the intruder's chest, which forced the breath out of the attacker and caused him to stumble a couple of steps back. That was when Chuck registered his attacker was a woman! The intruder too, noticed Morgan was not in the room anymore and figured the cops would be here in a few minutes. She needed to escape soon and intensified her attacks, forcing Chuck to be completely on the defensive. It quickly became apparent to the attacker that she was unable to land any good hit and the other person was just stalling until the cops had arrived on the scene. Giving Chuck a final push, she increased the distance between them and jumped out of the window she had entered from. Chuck hesitated to follow in case the intruder pulled out a gun and decided to go check on Morgan in case there were more of the robbers.
Morgan was waiting for him in the living room near the phone, "You okay, buddy? Did he get you?"
Chuck went to his fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, "Uh, Morgan, that was definitely a she! And no, she didn't get me. I was only able to land one hit, she was that good! She kept attacking me and I just kept blocking and jumping and ducking. How soon will the cops be here, anyways? We need to make sure there aren't more of the robbers."
"I hear the sirens, man! The robbers would have scrammed by now, they wouldn't want to stick around. Wow! Never really expected to come home to a break-in, you know? This is Burbank, for Christ's sake! Wait till I tell the guys at the BuyMore about this, we will be celebrities!"
Chuck was dismayed how lightly Morgan was taking this, "Uh, Morgan, please, I would really like to keep this silent. That means no mention of any of this at work, at all! You know how much I like my privacy. There won't be any mention of this in tomorrow's papers or the local cable news, will there?"
Morgan was abashed and toned down his exuberance, "Umm, okay dude, whatever you say. You are the homeowner, I just pay the rent. Wonder why the robber was only interested in your computer though. Weird, huh?"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh come on! Do you see anything missing from the living room? This female ninja went straight for your computer."
"Hmm … or maybe, that was the first thing she had grabbed and we interrupted her?"
Morgan just shrugged, "Possibly."
Morgan clearly did not appreciate the gravity of the situation yet and Chuck had to spell it out for him, "Morgan, you need to take the security seriously, man! We can't keep the alarm system turned off just because you keep forgetting the code and then use the Morgan door for getting in and it sends false alarms! This is exactly the situation I wanted to avoid when I installed the security in the first place! What if that person had pulled a gun and shot us instead of listening to me? That's it! I am putting my foot down! If you want to continue being my roomie, you need to follow the rules. I'm going to get some new locks tomorrow from LargeMart and fix that window for good."
"Alright, alright buddy! I know I've always taken it lightly, but I won't anymore. Tonight has shown me how foolish I was. We will do it your way from now on. So, we good?"
"Yeah, we're good. Come on, let's go talk to the cops."
Ellie and Devon along with a few other nosy neighbors had joined in to see what the whole fuss was about, when they finished giving their statements to the cops. Chuck once again reiterated to his neighbors his intention of keeping this incident away from the local press and they all agreed willingly. Nobody wanted the reputation of their apartment complex to take a nosedive just because someone had foolishly left their security system disarmed.
Sarah Walker, meanwhile, had been left frustrated and disoriented at how well her target had been able to defend himself from her attacks. Sure, she had made the initial mistake of underestimating him and gotten the wind knocked out of her for a few moments. But that had only infuriated her further and she had intensified her attacks on Chuck with no effect at all. He had been able to defend himself exceedingly well, considering she was one of the best in the trade and had not pulled any punches at all after that first misstep. How in the heck did a BuyMore employee become so well versed with martial arts anyways? And more importantly, why would he feel the need to? Had Jerry been right and there was more to this guy than what appeared at first glance? Could he be knowingly involved with Bryce's treachery after all? That wasn't the impression she had gotten from him earlier this evening. Maybe he was just an innocent bystander in whatever plan Bryce had cooked up. Just because a person had learnt to defend himself, it did not mean he had to be involved in something shady! The computer she had tried to steal, Chuck was right, it had been totally useless and now she had reached another dead-end in her investigation. She would have to wait until tomorrow for a call back from Chuck. She was sure Chuck had been affected by her presence before they were interrupted by the harried father and daughter. She refused to acknowledge that the feeling was completely mutual, in fact, she may have been more affected by his presence instead! Anna had promised she would ensure Chuck would call her and judging by the way his friend Morgan had been speaking before he stepped into Chuck's bedroom, she was pretty confident of her chances. Now, if only Chuck would take the hint and asked her out! Otherwise, she would have to approach him tomorrow regardless.
AN : Quick Question : I don't know where the 'Carina Hansen' name came from. I have seen it used multiple times in fanfiction, but have failed to find any reference in regular canon so far. Can anyone help me out please? I'm very very curious about it.