AN: Thanks as always to everyone who reviewed (or favorite or alerted).
Here are some things that you might want to know:
In Anniversary Chuck is shown to have a plaid comforter with matching lamps.
The first transatlantic helicopter flight was made by from July 15-31, 1952 by Capt. Vincent H. McGovern and 1st Lt. Harold W. Moore. They flew from Westover, Mass., to Prestwick, Scotland (3,410 mi). The trip included five stops, and had a flying time of 42 hr., 25 min.
According to Wikipedia, the plural of Real, the currency of Brazil, is Reais.
I have never been snowboarding and any comments on skiing or snowboard contained within this chapter are based on information from the internet.
Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or Vertigo Comics. I also do not own Alias or Batman.
Chuck and Sarah versus The Imperfect Mirrors Part III
August 28, 2008
At Sao Paulo he, Sarah and Casey had just had a few minutes outside of Paola and her men's hearing to decide whether or not they should go with her or attempt an escape. They had made the decision to follow Paola into her helicopter in order to find her base of operations and hopefully a bit more about what had happened to the information she had stolen. But they hadn't anticipated the flight would take them out of the country, much less off of the continent.
Chuck hadn't known that you could fly a helicopter from Brazil to Switzerland. After having spent the last thirty-six hours crammed into the small space, he still couldn't understand why you would want to. They all piled out of the thing only to realize that the climate here was the complete opposite of what they were dressed for. If Rio didn't realize it was supposed to be in Winter, it appeared that the area of the Swiss Alps where Paola' s hideaway was didn't realize it was supposed to be its summer. Snow covered the ground, reflecting up the mid-morning sun.
"I'm sure you'll all find it easy to rest up here. As my guests." Paola told them.
"Guests? Really? Then if you don't mind I should probably call the office. Let them know we're taking a little ski holiday." Sarah snapped back. Being cooped up together for the last day and a half hadn't exactly made Sarah any less irritated by Paola.
Chuck walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close in an effort to calm her and help both of them stay warm for the walk up to the Chateau .
"I'm afraid the Chateau has no phone or internet service. The better to be a true refuge from the troubles of the modern world." Or, Chuck thought, a very posh prison for three American spies. Unfortunately, they weren't exactly outfitted for the climate, and the Chateau appeared to be the only building for miles, so even if they wanted to, they couldn't really make an escape now.
"What about Blaine, won't he be coming after us?" Casey asked.
"Perhaps. But if he does, I think he'll find that were more than ready to deal with him." She said with a smile. She turned around then, unlocking and opening the double door theatrically. "Blaine has his exotic creature for protection, I have mine."
Standing in front of them was a line of women all wearing skimpy black outfits. His arms were still around Sarah and he gave her a little squeeze, looking at her nervously. A jealous Sarah tended to be a distracted and slightly angry Sarah, and far more dangerous to him and others than Paola's entire army of Amazons undoubtedly was.
"Ladies, say hello to our guests," Paola announced. "John Casey, Sarah Walker, and," Chuck quickly interrupted.
"Charles Carmichael." He didn't like the idea of Paola knowing his current alias, or being able to connect Irving Charles with Charles Carmichael, but it was better than having an entire room of unknown and most likely criminal women find out that Agent Charles was still alive.
"Hi Charles." The women chorused. Chuck took another nervous glance towards Sarah and slipped his arm from around her waist, so that he could grab her hand, interlacing their fingers.
"Thanks for the hospitality, but we better focus on Blaine. What the hell was he up to back in the jungle?" Casey asked.
"All in good time, Agent Casey." Paola told him.
"Major Casey, actually." Casey corrected with a growl.
"My apologies Major Casey. We can discuss it over lunch. Ladies if you'll escort our guests to their rooms, they can freshen up and change before lunch."
As soon as Paola had left them alone in their room, he and Sarah headed to the bathroom. Sarah turned the shower on and in hopes it would allow them to talk without worrying they would be overheard by whatever bugs Paola had inevitably placed in their room.
"Should we try to explore now, or wait until tonight." He asked as loud as he dared over the water.
"We'll have more time tonight, if we don't show up at lunch Paola will know something is up." Sarah reasoned.
"And if we do she might just poison us." He pointed out.
"No, she wants something. She won't kill us until either she gets it or she has to." Chuck nodded.
"Tonight then." He agreed. Sarah glanced towards the shower a second, then back at them.
Then she began stripping down and shifted the shower dial to hot before stepping in. Chuck peeled off his now very ripe clothes and followed. The hot water felt incredible after everything they'd been through in the last two days. Grabbing the soap he began lathering up Sarah's back. He worked his hand down and started to try to knead out the knots formed on the long flight. As he reached her lower back they both suddenly froze.
"We probably shouldn't do anything more than get clean inside an evil shower, should we?"
XXX
When they made their way out of the bathroom, Sarah decided to check the closet in hopes of finding something that didn't smell like sweat and Jungle river water. Inside was a dress in her size similar to those she had seen the other girls wearing and a suit for Chuck. Not exactly the kind of clothes they would be able to escape in, but still better than putting back on their Rio wear. Paola had even left them underwear. Which was slightly creepy considering that meant Paola had somehow gotten to know her bra size. All other things aside, Chuck did look rather dapper in his suit through.
When they made their way to the dining room, Casey was already there.
"Where the heck have you two been?" He asked. Chuck pretended to sniff the air around their partner before scrunching up his nose.
"You really didn't take a shower, did you?" Casey glared.
"I hope you're hungry." Paola said, opening the dining room's double doors. "Lunch is served." Inside, Sarah was surprised to find Paola's security-women were also sitting down at the table.
"I thought you said we'd be discussing Blaine over dinner. Don't you think that's better done in private?" Casey said, voicing her own thoughts.
"My girls are like family." Paola said smoothly. "I trust them with my life. I suggest you do the same."
Paola spaced the three of them around the table with her security seated in between. In the interest of keeping Paola happy and, hopefully, chatty Sarah reluctantly allowed herself to be seated to Paola's right while Chuck was placed down the table on the other side. One of the few men she had seen in the Chateau delivered their food. At this point she suspected cardboard would smell good, but she couldn't help but remember Chuck's concern as she picked up her silverware. Looking over towards the others at the table, she didn't see any difference in the dishes between what was served to her and the others. She and Chuck shared a look over the table, and he gave her shrug and took a bite. Taking a breath she did the same.
XXX
Chuck made his way through the vents towards the sounds of Sarah fighting. He knew that thwack anywhere. When he reached the opening in the hallway closest to Paola's room he saw his girlfriend sliding a knife into the door handles, presumably to lock Paola in.
The meal hadn't killed them, but afterwards Paola had separated them. Two of the girls had gone to show Casey the weapons room. While Sarah had gone with Paola, he'd been escorted back to their room. All that Paola had told them about Blaine's work at lunch was that it he had been working on some sort of cloning project so when she invited Sarah for a private meeting in her room Sarah had given him a meaningful glare not to interfere.
He had been brought back to their room to find it filled with half a dozen scantily glad women. He still didn't like fighting women, and he really hadn't wanted to fight an entire roomful should it turn out it was a trap. So after awkwardly telling them he had a girlfriend he made his way to the bathroom and locked the door. After a few minutes he decided it was as good a time as any to begin exploring the house, and headed up the vent. He had only made it a few feet before the acoustics in the ventilation system carried along them the sound of a fight, and he began to head towards it.
After looking out of the vent opening, and making reasonably certain Sarah was alone he called out to her.
"Sarah." She looked around a moment before her eyes fell on the vent. He gave her a little wave that she returned. She then moved towards the opening. Sarah pried the grating off and he helped pull her in before heading in the opposite direction from the one he had come from.
They eventually found Casey attempting to recreate the axe scene from The Shinning on one of the Chateau's doors. Casey had managed to steal the keycard of one of the guards sent with him after lunch. When Chuck flashed on the card, he was able to get the layout of the Chateau. Based on that they decided to head towards the computer hub. According to the plans he had flashed on Chuck should be able to control the Chateau's security from the hub. Since the hub was two floors down, they decided to leave the vents and attempt to get to one of the staircases. As they were sneaking down one of the halls, however, they heard two male voices.
"But Blaine said to dismantle it once the final stage had been reached. Which should have been an hour ago." One of the men said.
"And I'm still waiting for Paola to call and confirm that. Maybe something happened. But you could always go ask him yourself. He's just down the hall." The other one countered.
So Blaine was here, along with whatever he had been working on. In fact, he probably had been here even before they had arrived and Paola knew it. Suddenly the various questions about Paola, their odd rescue and her current plan coalesced into a realization in Chuck's mind. They had been the distraction.
All of the CIA and NSA's information had indicated that Blaine had been meeting with representatives from the lab he had worked for right after he had completed his dissertation at Disneyland. That, perhaps, had been correct. What had happened at the jail wasn't a rescue or an extraction but an abduction. Once the Ring had realized that Blaine was stuck somewhere they could get to him, they had moved in and grabbed him. Blaine had taken them to his lab for the same reason they had followed Paola, because it got him out of a cell. It may or may not have been The Ring that used the guard to set the trap for him, Sarah and Casey, but Blaine had certainly used it to his advantage. Blaine had arranged for Paola to help them escape and while the Ring agents at his little jungle base had been looking for them, he had slipped away to go to his secondary lab here.
The reason for their rather unique and time consuming choice of escape transport was not just to throw the Ring off of their trail, but to make sure that Blaine would have enough time to use his lab before they arrived. Also, Chuck realized, it would mean that if the Ring did catch up to them, not only would Blaine have already had the time to empty his lab, but he would have three American agent there to take care of his enemies for him.
It only took a few seconds for all three of them to decide they needed to try and stop Blaine. Quietly they made their way towards the door the guards had indicated during their argument. Sarah used a gadget to listen in at the door and once she had given the all clear Casey swiped the card he had stolen and they ducked inside.
The inside of the room looked like something out of a science-fiction movie completely with some sort of human sized pod. The grey metal aesthetic was marred somewhat by Blaine's body lying on the floor in a large crimson pool of his own blood, dead. Looking away from the grisly sight, Chuck's eye caught on a computer terminal on the other side of the room.
"Sarah, do you still have that mini-camera on you?" he asked, turning towards her.
"This isn't the time for a photo op, Bartowski." Casey told him.
"Blaine dragged us half-way across the world, twice, and was killed for whatever was in this room. I don't know about you but I want to know as much about it as possible." Chuck countered. Casey grumbled but stepped back over Blaine's body so that he was in a better position to guard the door. Sarah wordlessly pulled out the tiny camera she had carried with her and began snapping pictures of the equipment.
Their cover as they had climbed up to the base of The Redeemer had been as tourists. As such he had carried with him a wallet filled with a Fake I.D., reais and a little toy that Manoosh had given him to test months ago but which he had not yet had the opportunity to use in the field. It was a high capacity USB drive with various bits of software and hardware meant to increase its upload and download speed exponentially. At least that was the theory. Chuck just hoped that Manoosh's claim that it was water-proof was accurate. Sticking the device in, he began to attempt to download the information from the lab's computer.
At first it appeared to be working as planned, but even before the download was half-way done, Chuck realized that something was wrong. Moving over to the other terminal, he quickly discovered that a not very subtle virus had been eating away at the lab's server since before they had even finished lunch. Most likely it was some sort of failsafe Blaine had installed to prevent his work from being stolen, and had been triggered inadvertently by whoever had killed Blaine. Chuck could only hope that there was enough uncorrupted data left that they could figure out what Blaine had been up to.
"Bartowski." Casey called gruffly. Chuck looked up from the terminal and realized that Paola's women were now banging on the door.
"Just a second." He said. Chuck hurried back over to the other computer. He stopped the download and pulled the drive out then looked around quickly, thinking back on the floor plan he had seen when he had flashed on the stolen security badge.
"Vents?" He suggested, pointing upward. Sarah gave a nod. Casey gave a shrug. Chuck knelt down and laced his fingers together, forming a perch for Sarah to step up on in order to remove the grating and pull herself back into the ventilation system. He followed, jumping and pulling himself up. Casey was last. He had just pulled his foot back up through the opening and replaced the grate when the girls finally made it through the door into the room.
XXX
Despite it being used as a lab by Blaine, Paola, it seemed, couldn't resist taking advantage of the fact that the Chateau's location allowed for both winter and summer skiing. Chuck had used the floor plan he had flashed on earlier to find a route to the equipment room. There they had found, winter gear and skiing and snowboarding equipment and weapons.
All three of them chose to use snowboards. She and Casey so that they would have their hands free to shoot. Chuck for maneuverability. He still didn't want to actually use one of the guns. Instead he forced a flash on maps and satellite photos of the terrain. The way he described it, information flashes, unlike skill flashes didn't fade. Remembering one was more like remembering something he had read. He promised her that that meant that he could keep the maps in mind, even as he used the Intersect's snowboarding skill program to make his way down the mountain and that he would be use the terrain against Paola and Blaine's men and women.
They were about halfway down the mountain when Paola's girls began to shoot at them. A few minutes later Blaine's men joined in. She and Casey separated, each taking a group and trying to hit or topple their respective targets. When she had a slight break she looked over towards Chuck and saw that, slightly to her surprise, his plan was working. Maybe even a bit too well for his taste, she suspected. One side of the run they were heading down ended in steep drop off. She watched as Chuck made a sharp turn a few feet away from the edge, knowing Chuck, he had hoped the move would make the man following him slow down, or force himself to fall into the snow in order to stop. Instead the man flew right past the point at which Chuck had turned and then off the cliff.
Eventually Chuck joined back up with her and she was able to lean against him so that she could turn around fully and shoot at Paola and her guards. The move not only took out the remaining two girls, but allowed her to hit Paola and cause her to crash into a tree.
At the bottom of the mountain they found a small compound composed of a couple of quonset huts and a few trucks manned by a guard in Blaine's employ. It was surprisingly easy to neutralize them, however, and afterwards She, Chuck and Casey had been able to get to the compounds communication equipment to contact Beckman. She gave them directions to an area where they could be extracted.
As they piled into one of the trucks, Chuck kept looking back towards the mountain.
"I don't think they'll be coming for us." She told him.
"Why?" He asked, surprised.
"Hecht and Denitov were using mercenaries. Hecht we know is dead, and that dive Walker made Denitov take into a tree probably knocked her out, and may have killed her. With no one left to pay them, they don't have a reason to follow us." Casey explained quickly. "Now get in the truck."
August 29, 2008
Chuck stared at the wall in front of him, trying to decide where in the web of multi-colored cards and strings to place it the card he was currently holding. It wasn't, perhaps, the smartest idea to write out everything he knew about the future and the various bleedovers from other dimensions, let alone make them into a giant wall-sized chart. But even the Intersect needed a bit of help keeping something so complex straight and as his girlfriend readily admitted, Sarah did even more. So, not long after he had told Sarah his secret, they had begun to create a chart of this timeline, the other timeline, all the differences between them and all the things that didn't fit in either on a wall in his father's Batcave in Encino.
Last night after a truck, helicopter and a plane ride, he, Sarah and Casey finally made it back to Burbank. He and Sarah had gotten a bit of sleep on the plane, but it had still been a welcome relief to be able to come back to their apartment and collapse onto their own bed. This morning had come far too soon. His alarm had gone off at seven, reminding him that he had not only his shift at the Buymore this morning but also was scheduled to cover Skip's and Anna's shifts, since they had both covered for him while he was "playing hooky" over the last few days.
After peeling himself off the bed and taking a disappointedly lonely shower he had headed to the strip mall to herd his nerds. He had been in the middle of explaining the difference between water resistant and water proof to a customer who couldn't understand why his camera had stopped working when he got the call from Beckman. After passing the customer onto Lester, Chuck had headed over to the backroom of the Orange Orange.
Beckman and Graham had revealed what they had been able to determine from the information he had downloaded. Unfortunately he had been correct in his initial assessment. Most of the data had already been corrupted by the virus Blaine had built into his computer. Even with some of the best people they had trying to reconstruct the data, they still hadn't been able to get much.
On the plus side, they didn't think that whoever had killed Blaine had gotten much either. Not enough, at least, to replicate the Blaine's equipment and process.
On another plus side, in exchange for information on Paola, the French had allowed them access to the information they still had on the tech they believe she had stolen. By comparing that with what he had downloaded, Beckman and Graham believed they knew what Blaine was attempting to do.
Blaine had created a device that would take DNA from a donor individual and splice it into a recipient in order to give the recipient the physical attributes of the donor. His device made someone into a duplicate of someone else. Like on Alias.
Chuck's first thought, after wondering if Graham was joking, was that this technology had to have been created by an intrusion from another reality because there was no way the Universe as he knew it in this timeline, or the one he had left would have created something like that.
Sarah's first thought, in contrast, was to ask if it possible that Hecht used the technology to fake his own death. If the man they had found may not have been Blaine. Beckman had told her no.
While they had only been able to reconstruct a percentage of the data from Blaine computer, they had determined that Blaine had used the machine twice before his death and that, while they hadn't had enough of a DNA profile to identify who had been the machines test subjects, they had been able to determine that the DNA donors and recipients were all female.
After the debriefing, he and Sarah had decided that they would meet at the house after he finished up his final shift. By the time he had arrived in Encino it was nearly ten. Sarah had been standing in front of their wall, with take-out from Bamboo Palace and a new package of color coded index cards.
So far they had come up with a rough timeline of when everything leading up to their most recent mission more likely had to happen.
Sometime between when he had caused this timeline to split off in fall of 2001 and when Interpol had finished collecting technology to be neutralized in winter 2003 someone had either discovered the schematics for something similar to Blaine's machine on a computer at the site of an intrusion or had actually received a memory about the technology from another reality.
They had tried to use this information initially but when Interpol had then determined that the technology wasn't something they wanted anyone to get a hold of, they had somehow been able to give up the technology to Interpol. Then Paola had stolen the information from Interpol and given it to Blaine, who had combined it with his own research and other stolen technology to form what they had found in the Chateau.
At some point The Ring had found out about it, and decided to abduct Blaine to get it. He had tried to give them the slip only to be confronted by someone, maybe even someone from the Ring, at Paola's Chateau. They had had Blaine use the machine twice. As a test to make sure the equipment worked, maybe. Then they had killed him and tried to take the information from his lab, only to trigger the virus he had installed. But they still couldn't answer what had originally been sent over via the bleedover, whether the original "inventor" would be able to create something similar or who was now walking around with someone else's face.
Behind him, Chuck heard a slight snort. Turning around he saw that Sarah had fallen asleep on the small couch they had dragged down here. He smiled slightly. Sarah continued to refuse to admit that she snored. Taking one last glance at the board, he finally stuck the final card into a small, blank, niche somewhere during 2002. Without being able to contact his father, they would simply have to wait until they had been given more information by the NSA or CIA before they could answer their remaining questions. Walking over to Sarah he leaned down, and scooped her up, careful not to wake her. He gently walked with her up out of the basement, and hit the light switch with his elbow, closing the basement door before bringing her to his old room.
Laying her down on his childhood bed, he debated, briefly, whether or not he should lie down next to her. She sleepily reached out and grabbed his arm mumbling something about Orange Juice and he realized he didn't really have a choice. He quickly took off as much of his clothing as he could manage with only one free arm, and lay down next to her, snuggled up beside her on top of the slightly worn plaid comforter.