You know what? Screw this. We will get the party started. One way… or the other.
Chapter 3: Two's A Crowd...
"Training in martial arts. Top of the line gadgets, weapons and electronics. No living next of kin, at least in this dimension. As close to a mansion as one can get in New York. Tons of money, apparently…" I count on the fingers of my hand.
"Am I Batman?"
Barry lets out a soft rumble that's probably supposed to be a laugh. "Hardly, sir."
"You're right, I think I'm not depressed enough," I quip.
"I fear… you won't have time to… remedy that. We need you… immediately, Mr Gerthson."
I snap around to the stiff figure of the G-Man. His face of course is bare of any emotion, as always.
"G-Man, he's not ready yet. We didn't have the chance to train even a single time," Barry argues.
"We are aware of… his state, agent," the alien dispatcher says coolly and acknowledges the butler's interruption with an icy look. "We are prepared for this… eventuality, too."
He reaches into a pocket of his suit and pulls out a pair of sunglasses that are eerily familiar, but I can't place where I've seen this kind of glasses already.
"Another universe has… achieved a flawed version of… this device. Don't worry, I've designed this one myself," he adds with a very creepy half smile. "I've taken the… liberty to add… more data about this universe among… other useful things. You might know these as… the Intersect glasses."
Oooh, that's why they looked familiar. Originating from the Chuck universe, this miniature supercomputer uploads itself into the human brain via encoded images. Placed into the subconsciousness, it can only be accessed through a special trigger, like saying the name of a person whose file is in "the Intersect", or showing the image it was encoded with. The data that can be stored varies from personnel files over correspondences up to muscle memory, language memory and so on.
Which is pretty awesome, if you ask me. You can know Kung Fu or French, for example, in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, this data is only available for a relatively short amount of time, such as for the duration of a fight. Otherwise, your brain would overload with all the information you accessed over time. Well, the electric impulses it sends out do fry your brain, eventually. At least they do in the version I know, which G-Man has fittingly described as flawed. I rather like my brain, actually, so I really, really hope he knows what he's doing.
"Anything special to look out for?" I ask, giving in to my fate.
"Be aware that the… first upload will be slightly… overwhelming."
No kidding…
I take the glasses from him, take a deep breath and put them on. However, instead of starting with the upload immediately, it first scans my eyes, changing from red to green and displaying "Identity confirmed" on both lenses afterwards.
Then the upload starts.
Images flash by, leaving behind a small digital imprint in my brain's neural network. I see everything from a baby with a teething rattle to torture and cruise missiles, from scary clowns to storks on a roof.
It goes on for about an hour or so, then the display reads "Upload successful" before fading to black again. I pull off the now fried glasses and shake my head.
"How long was that? I've spent an hour with that thing, didn't I?" I groan.
"Hardly. You've been… uploading for the past… three minutes and forty-seven seconds. The Intersect has… most likely interfered with your… perception of time."
"Alrighty then," I get out before the world starts spinning around me and everything turns black.
I wake up with a gasp when I feel icecold water drenching my face and my clothes. Standing above me is Barry, holding an empty bucket in his hand.
"Look who's awake," he greets me with a grin.
"And to think I considered you a potential father figure in this dimension just moments ago," I growl back, to which the butler only laughs.
Not that I'm not a morning person. Very much so, in fact, but everything is worse with a headache worthy of a hangover of the year award.
"I hope this piece of sh… iny technology was worth this mother of all headaches! How long was I out?" I ask.
Barry smirks when he answers. "As long as it took me to find the bucket, fill it with water and come back."
Ugh, this man is infuriating. "My parents taught me to be respectful to my elders, but you are really tempting me to act against my upbringing."
Barry only laughs even harder. He turns around and walks into the mini dojo, obviously expecting me to follow. I shortly consider defying him, but it isn't worth the effort. If he worked with greater nutjobs than I am, which he apparently did as he said himself, it wouldn't even piss him off in the least. I sniff at the fact that I'm very, very bad at being a bad boy.
When I enter the room I only hear a sharp whistling from my right. I sidestep the wooden practice sword and pull the perpetrator at his hands grasping the hilt right into my elbow.
"That. Was. AWESOME!" I exclaim staring at my hands in disbelief.
"Depends on who you ask," Barry mutters as he stands up. He sounds a bit muffled, mainly because his hand covers his nose and mouth. "At least we know now that the Intersect works."
Only then I see the little droplets of blood seeping through his fingers. "Oh, my god. Did I break your nose? I'm so sorry, Barry!" I exclaim, not even sarcastically.
His muffled voice sounds distinctly disgruntled. "I'm fine. Or rather, I had worse, sprog. Here's your mission."
I take the folder he pushes against my chest and open it. A mugshot falls out, along with an address with a time, and a shortened criminal record, which identifies the face as appendant to a known terrorist bomber, a currently wanted one at that.
"I take it I am to stop him?"
"I knew you were a quick learner. Leave him alive and bring him to the backdoor of the building. There, I will wait with the car. We'll see to it that he falls into the hands of the FBI."
I shrug in response. "Sounds good to me. When do we go?"
I could swear I see an evil glint in his eyes when he answers. "How about… now?"
When he pulls up about fifty yards away from the address, I see a banner hanging at the building front, advertising the event happening this evening, a book release party for… 'Storm Fall'?
"Ooooh… shit…"
I do have to say that I rather like writing cliffhangers :)
It is very convenient to have an alien agent at your beck and call. It can explain very, very much. :)