A/N - Sorry for the extreme delay but work has been completely consuming my time the past few weeks. It doesn't look like it'll get any better until mid November either. Thanks for your patience.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Chuck
Chapter 14 – The Mute King Arthur
"This isn't good." Sarah mumbled as she looked at one of the video feeds at Casey's apartment.
"And you had to bring them to me, great job Walker." Casey grumbled, his arms crossed in front of him as he sat on his sofa.
Sarah was staring at a monitor that had four separate windows showing various feeds from different security cameras. The upper left footage was focused on the street right outside the apartment complex. The focus of Sarah's annoyance was a navy colored Crown Victoria with two dark silhouettes sitting inside.
"Have they interviewed you yet?" Sarah asked as she turned the chair around.
"Nope, but they probably will now that they've seen you come here."
"Whatever, we're just two concerned friends worrying about a missing friend."
"Are we interrupting anything?" General Beckman stated as the LCD screen flicked to life.
"No ma'am." Sarah quickly responded while Casey just gave a short grunt as he stood up.
"So this has nothing to do with the local LA police searching through all available databases for a Sarah Walker?" The General growled out, but blew out a breath of air before continuing. "But that can wait. We've got an update."
Sarah stood up straighter, her back going rigid. Director Graham leaned into the camera, "Bryce contacted us last night, he and a few of his group were called in to meet at a designated spot where they would then be taken to further.
"He assumed that they might be taking them to where Chuck is, but he's not sure. His boss said that they're going to provide extra security at a facility, but they think this is the big one."
"Do we know where they met their contacts?" Casey asked.
Graham nodded, "San Francisco, we had a surveillance team keep eagle eye on their progress but they weren't able to completely follow them. We only know they went north from there."
"That at least narrows our search area somewhat now." Sarah thought out loud as she brought up a map of areas north of San Francisco.
Half a block down, in the Crown Victoria that was seen in the video feed, another conversation was being had.
"What does Walker do on her day off, right after she finds out that her good friend has gone missing?" Detective Parnickey absently said as she looked through a set of binoculars.
"Visit her new boyfriend?" Ward responded, a frown spreading her across her face as she looked through documentation in a folder. "Walker is coming up squeeky clean."
"We're not going to get permission to tap her phone are we?" Parnickey asked while looking at her partner.
"Nope, but get this." Ward said as she kept flipping back and forth between a few pages, "She's been staying at the same place for the past few months. And the place is a hotel."
"Hotel?"
"A pretty nice one by the looks of it too. I highly doubt Weinerlicious pays her the type of dime required to keep staying at a place like this."
"Independently wealthy?"
"Not sure. We'd need a little more in-depth financials than what we got."
"Let's call that in then, we've got nothing else to go on."
Chuck was immediately set into a panic the moment the cloak of darkness descended on him. After a few seconds he realized that it was not totally dark, there was the illumination from the computer screen and the blinking servers against the wall.
"I would assume it's too late to tell you not to panic." Stone stated as he brought out the head harness that allowed Excalibur to interface with its human counter part. "We don't have much time, I think 15 minutes at most before they come barging through that door. I've shut all power in this room except for the hardware linked to Excalibur. All their surveillance in this room is powered down as well."
Stone stopped right in front of Chuck, their eyes glimmering slightly from the ambient light. "Trust me. I'm not going to be using this to find any of your secrets."
"K..." Chuck squeaked out, still looking rather nervously as Stone placed the contraption over his head.
Stone quickly turned back and sat in front of the computer as he began typing and talking as quickly as possible, "Excalibur is not complete, at most it's only 50 programmed and 50 theorized algorithm. Yet even in its current state it is far more efficient and capable than Zebra.
"I haven't been converting Excalibur into some sci-fi thought reading device that these people wanted me to, nor have I been working on Excalibur as I had initially intended when I was brought here. I've actually been encoding all the information and the programming of Excalibur into the images localized on this machine.
"I know you have the Intersect in you Chuck."
Chuck sucked in a harsh breath, "What.. how..."
"You don't work for the CIA, you're not a company man, anyone can see that. But I noticed your blank stares when I had first asked you questions about Excalibur and Harbor. You see, I'm not a very well known commodity as I'm kept a pretty deep secret, so you either have extremely high level clearance or something completely odd ball has happened.
"From the information that you had provided from my questions I pretty much figured out that you have the same data that the Intersect had in it before it was destroyed. My concern then, was whether you were an enemy agent who had stolen the Intersect. And honestly, I don't see that at all."
Both men's head snapped to the door as they began to hearing banging sounds and people shouting.
"I've completely locked us in, but they're bound to just cut or blast that door open." Stone said as he turned back to the machine. "One of the small sub-set of data that I had initially tested on was the use of humans as deciphering agents for encoding agents, that's what I assumed allowed you to consume the Intersect. I need to ask you, how fast was your input rate for the images that you were shown?"
"Umm... really fast? They just blinked quickly through, none of them stayed longer than a split second. I kind almost passed out though." Chuck responded, his head trying to adjust to the awkward device. The goggles that were attached to the contraption blurred his vision and he wasn't able to get a good view of Stone or the computer's screen.
Stone turned back towards Chuck after only a few more keyboard strokes, "I'm going to feed you all the information about Excalibur, its algorithms, all the notes I've documented, and all the information that has been uploaded in the initial dataset for Harbor. I don't know how long it'll take.
"But before I do that, I need you to tell you a few things and make sure that you remember them. There's more to the hack that shut off the power to this room. It's pretty much an escape plan that will shut power off to this whole building and bringing certain sections back online for short periods of time. I've documented everything in one of the encoded images. The trigger word for this, remember this, is gillyweed, simple. Your Harry Potter knowledge should come in handy.
"The trigger word for Excalibur's programming, algorithms, and notes is an important piece of advice that Dumbledore gave Harry. Don't trigger the data until you're safe and secure. Excalibur is built to destroy all current existing patterns and rebuild relationships from there based on known information. I don't know what will happen to you when this will happen."
"Why?" Chuck desperately asked, "Why are you helping me?"
"In helping you, I'm also helping myself. You are the walking embodiment of my life's work, my professional legacy. I don't know how long it will take for you to absorb all this information but I'm hoping this little blackout will be enough for it so we can make an escape afterwards."
Stone went back to computer, "Are you ready?"
Chuck nodded and immediately after Stone typed in a command and pressed enter, the goggles came to life and images began to scream through. He immediately went into a trance, his whole world now focused on the images flashing before him. Time held no meaning for him and eventually his world became black as he fell into unconsciousness.
"How'd you get rid of your tail?" Casey asked as he sat at a computer console.
Sarah turned away from the stack of photos in front of her. "Got another agent to cause a distraction, tied up traffic behind me and got scott free."
She looked down at her watch and frowned. It had been 4 hours since their debriefing at Casey's apartment and they only just got in the air 30 minutes ago, headed for San Francisco.
"We've got a team pulling all surveillance footage from traffic and gas station cameras in a 20 mile radius from the spot that our eagle eyes lost visual contact. We've got another team sifting through all that footage looking for them, it's only a matter of time before we find them."
Sarah could only nod as she looked back out the window before the co-pilot's voice came through the intercom.
"Incoming from our team on the ground."
"This is Walker, go." Sarah activated the communication console.
"This is Agent Duncan, leading the surveillance team. We've had 3 positive Ids of the vehicle and have it moving North East of San Francisco on route 80. Last ID was in Berkeley." A muffled voice covered by static spoke out.
Casey brought up the map on his laptop as he pointed to location on it.
"Roger that. Move mobile command to San Pablo. " Sarah responded, "Pilot?".
The man nodded, "They're prepping a helicopter at San Fran when you arrive."
"Roger that."
Chuck stirred awake, his chest tight with pain as he groggily opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he was in a different room and the second thing he noticed sent him into a furious panic as terror and dread slammed through him.
Ten feet from him was the body of Dr. Victor Stone, faced down, a large pool of blood under him.
"You'll be in that same position if you don't cooperate with us Mr. Carmichael." Colonel Westing said from Chuck's right side.
"I.. don't know what you're talking about..." Chuck stammered. He wasn't able to pull his eyes away from Stone's body.
"We've watched you and the programmer and we know he showed you Excalibur. Did he finish it? Did he show you how to use it?" Westing demanded.
Chuck slowly tore his eyes away from Stone's body and looked at Westing. "He didn't show me anything, I swear!" He realized that he was sitting in a chair, his chest tied tightly to the back of the chair by thick bands of rope. His arms and legs tied down to the chair arms and legs by a zip tie at the wrist and ankle. He could feel how tightly they had closed them off, biting into his flesh.
"I'm pretty sure that's not the case." Agent Woods stated as he walked up from the other side.
Chuck strained against his restraints, giving out a whimper and a grimace as the zip ties dug further into his skin. The immediate pain allowed him to refocus on his current situation, his panic slightly decreasing. His vision began to clear.
"Seriously, I think I might be able to think better if these things weren't tied so tightly." Chuck griped as he waggled his fingers.
"You have a few pieces of information that we need. First, where you obtained all that data during that raid. Second, the state of Excalibur, and third, how to operate it." Woods spoke as he walked in front of Chuck and knelt down. "Come on Carmichael, let's skip all the torture and spy tactics. You tell us what we want and we might even hire you. There's no need to have someone with your expertise and knowledge be wasted, right?"
"How's the health plan?" Chuck joked. "I'm not too sure I like my benefits plan right now."
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Woods stated as he got up and nodded to someone behind Chuck.
Chuck saw another man walk past him and head to a table on the far wall and pick something white up. As the man turned around Chuck's eyes were about to burst out of his head, his breath sucked from his chest.
Bryce had a hard look on his face as he leaned against the table, slowly wrapping white hand tape around the knuckles of his right hand.
Sarah and Casey were running to the helicopter, having landed 30 minutes after their communication with the ground team. There hadn't been any further communication and that only meant that they hadn't had any more identifications of the target vehicle. As they seated themselves into the helicopter the co-pilot tapped his headset.
Both agents put their headphones on as the co-pilot started talking, "Ground team just made another positive ID. Video feed from a street camera, catching another car that was running a red light in Crockett on route 80."
Sarah leaned over to look at the map that Casey had brought out.
"Patch us through to ground team and mobile command." Casey said as he moved the map further north, his finger pointing at Crockett, California.
The co-pilot gave a thumbs up as the helicopter took off.
"This is Agent Walker to ground team and mobile command. Move mobile to Vallejo, it looks like they're still heading North East."
"Roger that." A voice crackled over the line.
"We'll meet up at Vallejo. Over."
"Come on Carmichael, you can't take much more of this. We know you're not some regular CIA agent. Just tell us." Woods drawled as he sat on the far table. He watched Brian, also known to Chuck as Bryce, slowly back away, nursing his bloody right hand.
Chuck felt like shit. His lips were a bloody mess, his eyes all but swollen shut. Bruised and bloodied he spit a chunk of blood out, "What's your 401K plan like? ... Seriously?" He coughed out, blood drooling from the corner of his mouth. "I need to make sure I'm taken care of... in my old age."
Woods jumped off the table and gave an exasperated sigh. He had opened his mouth, about to say something when his phone rang. Looking at the caller id he answered it and stared at the video camera in the ceiling, "Woods."
After a quick few seconds, "Understood."
Woods looked to Brian, "Try something a bit more painful."
Chuck looked over at Bryce as he unwrapped the bloody hand tape from his hands. In some odd way, he felt that this was more like what their real relationship should have been like. Instead of Bryce going behind his back covertly sabotaging his life, he should have just done things to him face-to-face. At least he would had known what was coming.
But just as he thought that, he saw the hand tool that Bryce picked up. He sucked in deep gasps of air as the sound of the hand drill spun to life. At this particular time, it was not a good moment to know what was coming at him.
"Couldn't you... at least find a ... smaller bit?" Chuck warbled out.
Sarah was staring at a large display of Northern California, "I want teams to start looking at surveillance footage of all rest stops and gas stations from Crockett and north along route 80. We can focus our search there since we haven't seen any instances other than route 80."
"I want a team to start scanning footage of areas around Leisure Town where 80 and 505 intersect." Casey called out.
"I've got a team looking through the Sacramento area as well." Agent Duncan stated as he walked by them.
"Good." Sarah responded. She started to walk towards one of the video feeds when her phone rang. Looking at the caller, she didn't recognize the phone number. Sarah quickly sat at one of the computers and typed in the number she saw on her phone.
"Who is it?" Casey asked as he walked up behind her.
"Dectective Parnickey, is trying to get a hold of me it seems." Sarah answered as she leaned back into her chair.
"They're starting to get annoying. I got a call from them as well, not sure how they got my cell."
"Probably from Ellie or Morgan." Sarah stated.
Half an hour later and to the west of where the task force was actively searching, Chuck's voice had already given. His throat feeling as if coarse sand paper had ripped through it. But that wasn't the major issue that he had. His whole body was red, each shallow or deep hole drilled into this arm or legs wouldn't stop bleeding. When Bryce had taken a break, the blood dried up, coating some of the wounds with a thing semi-hard layer. They didn't last long as the drilling would begin again and he would be trying with all his might to move away, jerking his body.
Bryce was standing back, his breath heavy and sweat coming down from his forehead. Chuck needed to find a way out of this. He had hoped he would have passed out by now, but they kept waking him every so often with smelling salts.
What had Stone said, the trigger word for the escape plan... what was it. Chuck looked Bryce in the face, he remembered now. "Gillyweed." He whispered so softly.
Images, schematics, as well as instructions flashed before his eyes as he zoned out momentarily. Bryce noticed the vacant expression, noticed the telltale sign of the flash and moved in front of Chuck, blocking him from Woods' view.
As Bryce walked towards him again, his hand drill starting to rise, Chuck's hoarse voice cried out, "Ok, ok, I'll talk."