A/N This whole canon episode was sort of front-loaded, so my last chapter had an awful lot of stuff in it, while these next chapters will probably be a bit light. All they really do here is the Weap-Con stuff. I'll do what I can with that.

"You don't seem fine."

"He likes you, he trusts you."

"We got really lucky."

"You'll have your chance."

"Okay," said Casey, as they gathered around the table. They had to figure out what to tell the General before they could tell the General anything. If it really wasn't what they thought it was he'd rather they figure that out themselves than have some labcoat at Langley do it for them. "First things first. What was that?"

"It looked like an Intersect upload to me," said Chuck, who was, admittedly, no expert on what those looked like from the outside. He opened up his laptop to review the footage.

"At least one skill set," added Sarah. "I don't know how we could tell if there was any data involved, beyond what he needed for that skill set."

"True," said Chuck. "I guess I was assuming."

"Understandable," said Casey. "Just don't do it again. Think like a spy. What are you seeing, not what you think you're seeing. This guy's got minimal coordination, almost no muscle mass to speak of…"

"He was pretty sloppy with those nachos," said Chuck, nodding absently.

"Exactly. Most people can handle moving food from plate to mouth better than that. But then we see him put on a pair of glasses very much like ours and suddenly he's a kung-fu expert." Casey looked at his partners. "What are the odds he's always been a kung-fu expert, and he's been playing us this whole time?"

"Not high," said Sarah, their own resident mistress of martial arts. "An expert with that level of control would have been practicing longer than the subject has been alive. Given that parameter, he'd have had to have been in training for this since he was out of diapers. Not to mention we've all seen him in his skivvies." She shuddered.

"Minus time spent at MIT, minus time spent on video games, I don't see that happening," said Casey, who didn't shudder, but also hadn't had to lie in bed next to the guy.

"I'm seeing lots of activity from the lenses when he put the glasses on," said Chuck, staring closely at his monitor. "Langley should be able to verify if it's Intersect-type activity."

Casey popped up his own screen and keyboard. "I'll get started with a report for the General. Let them worry about that while we go after the little weasel. Send me that file with your notes. Sarah–"

Casey's station on the board made a beeping sound, and Sarah got up to check it out. "We've got activity on the subject's credit card."

"What did he say his IQ was again?" asked Casey, still typing. This Manoosh character may know everything in his world but he lived in a pretty small world.

Sarah must have missed that part. "Enough to buy a ticket to Dubai."

Casey smiled, Chuck frowned. "What's in Dubai?"

"A convention that's as much fun for me as Cyber-SAFE would have been for you," said Casey. He sent a link to Chuck's machine, and Chuck clicked it. "Weap-Con. I go every year, very relaxing."

"I didn't get to go to Cyber-SAFE," said Chuck, staring at the odd juxtaposition of bikini-clad women and heavy weaponry. "It scares me that you have this link so ready-to-hand."

"And I'm very broken up about that Chuck, really I am," said Casey mildly. "I probably won't be able to do any practice shooting, through all the tears."

"You probably won't be able to do any practice shooting through all the reports," said Sarah. "This is official government business, not a vacation."

The disintegration of Casey's happy grin was a terrible thing to see. "Nuts!"

Someone knocked on Morgan's office door. "Come in."

The door opened, and Hannah was there. "Got a second, boss?" she asked, before her ears caught up with her mouth. "Is that Swan Lake?" Somehow she didn't think classical music was Morgan's default mode.

"Yeah," he said. "You said you liked it, so I'm giving it a try." For a second she looked touched. Then he kept talking. "What's the deal with all the numbers? Why call it number four four instead of number seven, or whatever it is?"

She smiled. At least he was trying. "Did you try googling it?"

"Of course not," he said, shocked. Then, "Yes. Yes, I did, but I don't speak French."

"None of you do, it's pathetic," she said with a laugh, and he laughed with her. "It sounds like you should have gone on that Paris install instead of Chuck."

Morgan stopped chuckling. "The what?"

"The Paris install," she said again. "Rich client, sends him to Paris and changes his mind before Chuck can even get off the plane?" She stopped there, not sure what to make of the variety of expressions that played across his face. "Sorry, I know I wasn't supposed to talk about it, but you probably know everything anyway."

"Oh," said Morgan, in a tone of great enlightenment. "That Paris install." He smiled, waving a hand. "I was busy that day."

"Wow, that's…generous."

"He'd do the same for me. That's what being a best bud is all about." Morgan cleared his throat. "Look, um, Hannah, is there something you wanted to see me about?"

It took her a second to get her boggled mind back on track. "Uh, yeah, Skip asked me to ask you for the shrink wrapper?" She pronounced those words as if they were a foreign language of their own.

"What? Oh, yeah, sure. It's over there, by the player."

She looked where he pointed and saw a small machine next to the case for the Swan Lake CD. She gathered it up, along with the roll of plastic. "Thanks, boss."

He looked up as she opened the door. She smiled at him, and he smiled back automatically. He didn't notice as she left. Chuck was in Paris?

The shortest commercial flight time from LA to Dubai is just short of sixteen hours. When pursuing a man with technology in his pocket that could easily destabilize the power structure in one of the most volatile regions of the world, Federal Agents could move a little faster than that. Which put them on the ground ahead of him, but still waiting on proper intelligence before they could make their move. Weap-Con was the most likely destination, and they prepped that way, but that was only a best guess. A smart man might have a direct client sale ready to complete, and a patron after that, with no one the wiser. Sarah watched arrivals, Chuck pulled up floor plans for the arena where the show was being held, and Casey, as always, prepared his weapons, when his phone rang.

The call was brief, but useful. "It's not an Intersect," Casey said when it was done. "Whatever Orion did to destroy the 2.0 didn't damage the skill components as badly, since he didn't make those. Some of those circuits have disappeared from storage, and most likely Manoosh reverse engineered his glasses from them. Unfortunately for him, he knew what he had."

Chuck thought back to Manoosh's blithe dismissal of his Ring contacts, in the bar. "But he doesn't know what he doesn't have."

Morning in Dubai is nighttime in LA, and Ellie was on her way home. As her brother had requested, she stopped off at the laundry room to pick up his stuff. His apartment was empty, even Morgan was out somewhere, so she used her own key and went in. Her original intention was just to leave the stuff on his bed, but her maternal instincts/reflexes took over, and before she knew it she was put his folded clothes away for him.

An empty paper coffee cup sat on his desk, spoiling the order and symmetry of his workspace. Her brother, what a slob. She picked it up and went looking for the wastebasket.

In the end, they were too late. Weap-Con was held in a very large space, but even so the tanks had to be parked outside. Inside the place was jammed, display spaces showing off light, portable, and semi-portable weaponry, patrons for whom death-dealing devices were essentially sex toys and patrons for whom they were not, and hucksters trying to tell them apart and pitch their spiel accordingly.

Casey kept falling behind.

It didn't help that Manoosh's attendance at the event wasn't part of the program, so none of them knew where to find him. Then they heard loud laughter coming from a closed off demonstration area. "That'll be him," said Casey, shoving a receipt into his pocket in spite of Sarah's best efforts to keep him on track. "He'll be counting on them underestimating him, that's his selling point. 'Buy my glasses and make an army in a week', that sort of thing."

"Every small nation will want them," said Sarah, free to think about strategy instead of tactics now that they were in motion.

"Operative word being small," said Casey. "And of course the big ones won't want to turn around and find their neighbors suddenly walking on stilts."

"Does he even know what kind of a feeding frenzy he's starting?" asked Chuck. Casey was a good man, motivated by patriotism, and whatever touches of human kindness he could pass off as patriotism. If he saw this future, so could the men in that room, and they were inspired mostly by greed.

"Doubt it," said Casey. Amateurs. "Might solve our problem, though."

Chuck bristled. "He's my asset–"

Sarah put a hand on Chuck's shoulder, speaking quietly and forcefully over both of them. "He's of more use alive, and that's how we'll take him. Understood?"

"Understood," said Casey. "Although from the look of things in there, a bullet from me would be a mercy."

Sarah didn't look at Chuck. "Last resort."

Casey didn't either. "Fine."

Backstage…

"Okay," said Casey. "We've got five minutes before anyone's gonna be missing this guy. Plenty of time."

"I hope so," said Chuck. "I don't know that I've ever been blessed with the gift of gab, except, you know, in a sort of keep-talking-til-they-surrender sort of way…"

"Shut up," said Casey, as Manoosh came into the room, heading straight for the tower of nachos. He started chowing down on the chips, deafening himself. Casey kept his voice down. "Do the job and don't get soft. Remember I'm always behind you if you do."

"Chuck, remember," said Sarah, giving Casey a bit of a dirty look. "The only way any of us will be safe, including Manoosh, is for us to bring him in. He may not have the freedom you were given–"

"But it's a hell of a lot better than what he'll get from one of those warlords out there."

"I can control him," said Chuck. Somebody had to, and it seemed like he was the only one who had Manoosh's welfare in mind.

"Then do it. Time's up."

Chuck stepped out of concealment, and Manoosh noticed, running for the exit, but Chuck easily got there first. Manoosh's fear was replaced by surprise when he recognized the visitor. "Chuck?"

"Hi, Manoosh," said Chuck. "I'm here to protect you, to stop you from making a horrible mistake, although it seems you've already made it, so now I can only try to pick up the pieces, and hope that you aren't one of them." He took a breath. "We know about the glasses."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Oh, sorry, I guess I should have led with that," said Chuck. "I'm your friend, but I'm also with the CIA."

"The CIA?" Manoosh looked around, alittle late, for whatever agents had him surrounded. "You tracked me, tricked me? This whole friendship thing was fake?"

"No, Manoosh, I tracked you because this whole friendship thing is real," said Chuck, waving his comrades out of hiding. Casey's gun was still out, but at least not aimed. "Y the Last Man really is my favorite graphic novel, you think some Fed could simply fake that?"

"And that," said Manoosh, pointing rather insultingly at Sarah, "Was that real?"

"Uh, no, Manoosh, that was fake, sorry," said Chuck. "What? I'd never ask someone to do that, it's disrespectful, and she'd beat the crap out of me just for suggesting it."

"Got that right," muttered Casey.

"So you cheapen our friendship," said Manoosh summarizing at ever higher volume. "Outright lie to me about my biggest score ever, and now you want to take away my money too?"

"Don't you get it, Manoosh?" said Chuck. "Those glasses will throw this whole region, maybe even the world, into chaos."

"You want to know something else my glasses have going for them, Chuck?" Manoosh dodged around Chuck with unexpected agility. "Long shelf life."

Manoosh plunged through the curtains, Team B hot on his heels, right into the crosshairs of the Ring team Manoosh had left behind him at the Buy More.

"Thank you, Manoosh," said the Ring leader as his men disarmed the team of agents. "Your demonstration was very effective."

"You wanted me to be here?"

"Why do you think we wanted them ourselves?" said the boss. "We can destabilize this whole area, and make a nice profit doing it, especially now that we don't need you anymore. We would never have paid you, you know, any more than those people outside would. You're debris. Give me the glasses."

"I tried to tell you," said Chuck.

Manoosh took the glasses out of his pocket and dropped them, crushing them under his heel. "Oops."

The man sighed. "As you wish." His gun pointed lower down. "A painful death."

"Uh. Mister Ring Bad Guy," said Chuck, raising his hand. "Before you kill him slowly, do you mind if I ask Manoosh here a question?" He took a pen out of his pocket and grabbed a discarded flier, prepared to write.

"What is it?" snapped the man. Manoosh turned to look at the only man who had ever really been his friend.

Chuck flashed. "Manoosh, what's the third rule of combat?" He pressed the stud on his pen, popping out a short sharp blade.

"Um…" Manoosh's eyes bugged out. "Duck!" He dropped. Chuck threw his razor tipped knife into the Ring leader's hand, as Sarah and Casey made short work of his team.

Manoosh ran for the exit, through the crowd as Team B came out after him. Casey had a gun and he wasn't afraid to use it. "Manoosh, stop!" yelled Chuck.

"Don't worry, Chuck," said Casey. "Right behind you."

Chuck spotted a display of non-lethal weapons and pounced. In no time he had the next-gen tranq gun assembled, loaded, and aimed. With perfect accuracy he put the needle in Manoosh's back, and the smaller man crumpled to the ground a few steps from freedom.

"Congratulations," said the huckster. "You beat the fastest load and fire time on record for this little beauty. You win!" He even sounded happy about it, and why shouldn't he? His sales would double after this. "Would you like it gift-wrapped?"

A/N2 Why would the Ring tie them to chairs and leave them there? More efficient simply to kill them. I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you think of this rewrite so far.