A/N This is my revision of the Hackoff, the first and in canon the last part of the Decker conspiracy, which continued without Decker. I wish I knew why they blew him up like that. Maybe the actor needed to go elsewhere, I don't know, but in this story he's not going anywhere. This conspiracy continues through the Curse and into the Santa Suit, so we have a little way to go, yet.

"It appears Fate has intervened."

"That was quick."

"'My Mom, the Diversion.'"

"Murder."

Late in the evening…

Vivian Volkoff set her phone down with a gentle thump, very much at odds with the anger in her soul that found expression in a mild, ladylike, "Blast."

"Something wrong?" asked Decker, always keen to hear other people's bad news.

Oh, it wanted only this. "You will eventually find out anyway, so I may as well tell you now," said Vivian, not turning around. "My primary agent in ridding me of that McHugh girl has failed, rather spectacularly." She began to tremble, so badly did she want to smash something, but no… "He was defeated in full view of the staff and patrons at her favorite restaurant, by two waiters, with a rancid bottle of wine." She seized a bottle of a somewhat better vintage, her knuckles white about the neck, and… poured herself a glass.

Decker smirked. He liked smirking. "You have others, I presume?"

"I have other moles in the FBI, yes, and elsewhere," said Vivian. She could feel the burn of his amusement. "But using this one meant the risk was little enough. Agent Johnson had a vendetta that served my purposes, and his main usefulness to me was low." As a shield for one of her primary distributors into the US, he'd also failed spectacularly. She still didn't know why, but they had to have removed him from Miami, just prior to detonating Mr. St. Germaine and all his works, for some reason.

"Your man will talk," said Decker. "They all do." He flicked his paper, as noisily as possible. Salt in the wound. "So all your 'power of command' got you was a large sign, telling the world that you tried to kill Agent McHugh. A billboard would have been cheaper."

"Not the world," said Vivian. Her intermediaries had intermediaries. "Just Agent Charles, and whomever he chooses to tell." She held the glass, watching the surface of the wine. Not a ripple.

Clyde shrugged. "It's not like he needs any more reasons to want you dead."

She set the glass down before the wine spilled. "Yes, thank you, Mr. Decker, and perhaps you'd like to inform me as to how your team has fared?"

Decker threw his paper to one side and rose from the sofa, walking behind the bar. "You want to know the truth, Vivian? I thought your attempts to strike at Agent McHugh were silly, childish spite." He poured himself a glass of something harder than rancid wine.

She hated it when he was right. She loved it when he tried to divert. "You don't know, do you?"

Decker surprised himself by not breathing out smoke. She didn't flinch. Didn't even blink. Dammit! He tried to shrug it off. "I'll know when the Viper succeeds, and he never fails."

"So you have no contingency plans?" asked Vivian. She raised her glass to her lips, the wine inside a placid pool.

Decker scowled, trapped behind the bar. "What do you know, Miss Volkoff?"

Sip. "I know that one of my operatives was among those dispatched by the FBI to take their traitor into custody, and no, he took no action against Miss McHugh." Sip. "I know that there was a second attempt on her life before they arrived, which was countered by the sudden appearance of Frost."

"Why would Mary Bartowski be there?" said Decker, slamming the plug into the decanter's neck.

"Unknown at this time," said Vivian, who hated not knowing things, especially about Frost. Sip. "What I do know is that she was found standing over a number of bodies minutes later, and was taken into custody, claiming self-defense."

Decker smiled, and toasted his glass against hers gently, making it ring.

She reached up a hand to still the sound. She hated it when he smiled. It meant he was about to be clever. "So you approve of my actions against Agent McHugh after all?"

"No," he said. "Still silly, still childish. But useful, for all that, so I don't care." He drained his glass, and set it on the bar for someone else to clean up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few phone calls of my own to make." Frost in custody was not an opportunity to be wasted. It should be used, savored. Prolonged.

That same night, at Verbanski Corp. HQ (because HQ sounds so much more macho than headquarters)…

His report delivered, briefing given, traitors and Vipers and Frost, oh my, John Casey strolled around the office of the CEO with a drink in one hand and an unlit cigar in the other. A Costa Gravan Royale was a special cigar for a special night, but this night had Gertrude so he didn't need it.

The first display he stopped at was the nearest, and dearest to his heart, taken from him in 1995. "Gladys."

If Gertrude thought it silly that he gave his guns girls' names, she didn't show it. "Mm-hmm."

John stroked the barrel with a finger, found a sheen of oil. "You take good care of her."

"Every day," said Gertrude. "She's ready to fire." She looked down. "Are you going to…take her with you?"

John raised her face up, to look into her eyes. "Not just yet," he said. "I'll let you say goodbye first."

Visiting hours at the city jail, the next day…

"Don't worry about me, dear," said Mary Bartowski, looking as serene in her orange-jumpsuit-and-shackles ensemble as she did in her expensive Russian furs. "I've been in lots of prisons, most of which aren't as nice as this one."

"It's different now, Mom," said Chuck. "You're not the law. You're not a spy. You don't have the Government or Volkoff protecting you anymore…" He waved his hand around the dayroom, and all the other inmates chatting with their visitors.

"Chuck, it's the city jail, not C-Block," said Mary. She looked around, sounding wistful. "Actually, I'd almost prefer C-Block."

"How can you say that?"

"At least in C-Block you know what everyone in there with you is like. Here you don't have that luxury, and I'll have you know I'm far from the worst inmate here."

She was a government spy. She secret ran Volkoff's entire criminal empire, and was responsible for uncounted deaths in the name of that service. Not that anyone needed or wanted to remind her of that fact. "So who's the worst?" asked Sarah.

"That would be her," said Mary, pointing across the room. A young woman sat talking with some other young ladies at a table, shaking her head about something. "She drugged her friend for years to keep her subordinate, but got caught out when the friend was in a car accident. She doesn't deny it, but she doesn't think she did anything wrong, either. She'd do it again in a heartbeat, in fact that's what she got caught doing."

Mary, on the other hand, mourned her dead, and would until the day she died. "Okay, that's bad," said Sarah, appalled.

Apparently her friends thought so too, rising from their chairs with expressions compounded of disgust and dismay even before the loudspeaker announced the end of visiting hours.

"Don't worry, Mom," said Chuck, giving her an awkward kiss on the cheek, "We have everyone on the team doing whatever they can to get you out of here."

"That's an awful lot of firepower, dear," said Mary, who knew better than to expect a kiss from Sarah. "It's a simple case of self-defense. I know they have only my word for it–" for a second they all basked in the pride of her accomplishment, taking down six opponents, all armed to the teeth, before they could get off even a single shot "–but the evidence will justify my actions. I'll be out of here in no time, you'll see."

Some guards came up within hearing range to escort her back to her cell, and that was that.

Outside, on the phone…

"What do you mean there's no evidence?" said Chuck. He stopped walking in the middle of the parking lot outside the 'correctional facility', as it was so euphemistically called. Sarah took an extra step, stopped and turned, eyebrow raised, as he continued freaking out. "She killed six assassins. She was found standing over their bodies. All their gear. All their guns. How can that much evidence just disappear?"

"Unknown at this time, Chuck," said Hannah, who was glad enough for something interesting to do. "I'm checking for a rubbed out paper trail, but I'm not finding one. The evidence may have been sidetracked en route."

"Be easier to just destroy the chain of whatever they call it that makes it evidence in the first place," said Chuck. He stepped back to allow a prison van to exit the gate.

"Custody," said Sarah, following him.

"Custody, right," said Chuck to Hannah. "Without that all those…things…could be sitting on the courtroom floor and they'd be meaningless."

"That's true," said Hannah, who watched a lot of cop shows on TV and knew those rules already, "But I'm still not seeing any sudden additional weapons cache in the evidence room inventory, with or without correct documentation."

"Thanks, Hannah." Chuck looked at Sarah, and saw her Agent Mask slip into place at the tone in his voice, the look in his eyes. For the first time he began to wonder if he had an Agent Mask of his own. Or if he should. "Keep on it. Call if you need help."

"I will, Agent Charles."

Chuck prepared a summary even as he put his phone away, but Sarah was right there with him, as she always was and would always be. "Chuck, without those weapons as evidence, your mother's not getting out of jail."

He wouldn't have minded a little more tact, though. "She's a sitting duck," said Chuck, heading back into the visitor's office.

"Visiting hours are over, folks," said the new guard on duty.

Must have been a shift change, too, but that could be made to work in their favor. This guard wouldn't remember them as family members. Chuck held up his ID. "Federal agents, Guard… Bishop. We'd appreciate a word with your superiors about the security arrangements for one of your prisoners, Mary Bartowski."

Bishop entered the name into the system, to get the pertinent details before he went to the bother of calling anyone about anything. "How do you spell that last name again, sir?" He entered it letter by letter, as Chuck went through the usual ritual of spelling his last name. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not seeing any prisoners with that name in our system."

Manoosh woke up, surrounded by friendly, beeping machines. He felt the constriction of the Governor on his wrist and raised his arm. Nothing wrong there. He still wore the waiter's shirt, hopefully the pants too, anything but the paper dress. He made a fist. Nothing wrong there either, except that he felt ridiculously weak. Even the watch was heavy on his arm, and he put it down again.

Ellie pushed through the door. "Hey, Manoosh."

Of course she knew he was alert. Manoosh scanned the area around his head and spotted the sensors for the scanner easily. Too easily, and too many. "What are all these?" he asked, moving his head. No problems there.

"All those new sensors we just installed in the Intersect Room," said Ellie. "Chuck and I moved them here last night, when they brought you in."

'They' who? "Alex…?"

Ellie shook her head. "Casey and Carina. Alex and Morgan are out of the loop on our location." She blushed. "Or did you mean, how is Alex? You saved her, again. Morgan finished him off after you collapsed, but if you hadn't been there to stop that guy in the first place–"

Yeah, he remembered that. Not the fight, but definitely the waking up afterward, seeing those two in each other's arms. Lucky bastard. Or…maybe not so lucky. "Does he really have two commendations for valor?"

"Yes he does," said Ellie, wishing she had an excuse to be writing stuff down. "And he earned them both." Sort of. Behind the scenes, and not by doing any of the things he was awarded them for.

"Probably just for having the guts to date Casey's daughter."

"Actually, dating Casey's daughter got him out of the action-hero game," said Ellie. "With all the danger and risk in her life, and her father's life, she needs a safe place to call home, and he's it." She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. "Or he would be, if he'd stop dragging his feet and ask her already. Honestly, I don't know what he's waiting for."

Morgan was yanked from sleep by a commotion in the hall. Several sharp knocks on someone's door and of course Mrs. P making it louder than it had to be, trying to keep the noise down. He reached out a hand, but no Alex. She'd gone with her father and Carina to give her report to her Director, rather than go in with a bunch of FBI guys she didn't know. Not when they already had one traitor, and no one believed Agent Johnson was working alone, but she was safe, for now.

He would have gone back to sleep then and there, but the word 'police' has a rousing effect on some people, and Morgan was one of those people.

He shuffled to the door and pressed his ear against it, so Mrs. P wouldn't see him. He heard some hesitant male voice say "we're here for Furry-con" and was instantly jealous. None of the other managers wanted to switch shifts with him for that weekend. Dammit.

"My wife?" said the voice. "She went out last night, to meet some of her cadre. She's not here right now, though."

"'Cadre', sir?" asked a flat policeman-ish voice.

The husband's, got low, confidential. Embarrassed. "They get together every con we go to, but I stay out of it. She's much more militantly anti-brony than I am…"

"Do you know where she was supposed to meet these, uh, friends?"

"No." The husband was beginning to sound worried. "She mentioned dinner, but she didn't say where…"

The policeman began his practiced, unemotional, "Sir, We're going to have to ask you to accompany us to the station…" but Morgan turned away from the door at that point and headed back to bed. Whatever trouble this guy's My Little Pony-hating wife got herself into, he was sure she deserved it.

Meanwhile, at Carmichael Industries…

"What are you talking about, Bartowski?" snapped Casey. Fortunately last night left him in a good mood. "This is America. Our prison systems don't just lose people."

"And they didn't this time, either, Big Guy," said Chuck. "Hannah found the transfer order, but it was for a specific prisoner designation, which I saw on my mother's jumpsuit. The corresponding record for that prisoner has been wiped."

"I'm not gonna ask how you know that," said Casey. "Any ideas on who wiped it?"

"Technically? No," admitted the Piranha. "I'm not the only really good hacker in the world, but between me and my dad I think we can find out soon enough."

"So who hired him, that's the question," asked Carina.

"Three guesses," said Casey. "And as long as one of them is 'Decker' you'd be right. He's working with Vivian, and we know he hired the Viper."

"I never should have sent my mother to deliver the Governor," said Chuck.

"You had to, Chuck," said Sarah. "The Viper would never have believed anyone else could be the assassin she was really looking for."

"And now she's in his hands," said Chuck. "And his hands are Vivian's hands."

"Nah," said Casey. "That's not his style. Decker's hands are the situation. Vivian's hands are the threat."

Something started flashing in the bottom of the screen. "What's that?" asked Carina, far enough away that the flashing light was the most obvious thing on the board.

"What's what?" asked Chuck, looking around his screen. Ah. "Incoming message." He clicked it. "It's Ellie." Fingers tapped with machine-gun speeds. "Oh, no."

"What's 'oh no'?" said Sarah, leaning in close. "Oh no."

Casey loomed over them both. "Speaking of threats…"

Carina flung herself from her chair. "What's going on?"

Chuck tapped Ellie's message on his screen. "She just got an email from Clyde Decker. He wants to meet."

One unconscious abduction later…

Carina sat on a crumbling parking block outside a crumbling warehouse, where Decker had abandoned them after making his demands. No doubt the rest of the team would be here soon, now that Chuck's many trackers weren't blocked, but for now her head was spinning as badly as if she'd just been freshly tranqed.

"Well, that explains the overkill," said Chuck, staring at the decaying structures around them.

"A virus that can destroy all the data in the world before you can hit the Back button," said Carina. "Who would make such a thing?"

He sat next to her with a grunt. "We'll find out when we get there, I guess."

"And Decker expects us to just give it to him?" asked Carina. "The guy can't organize his sock drawer without being evil."

Chuck, who knew a thing or two about evil sock drawers, tossed small stones out into the light, click-click-click. "I know that, Carina."

She put her hand over his. "Don't worry, Chuck, we'll find your mother."

Chuck laughed, once. "It's not my mother I'm worried about," he said. "It's Clara, and Devon, all the innocents that are getting drawn into this thing because of me. How do I keep them safe?"

"You'll think of something, Chuck," said Carina, with solid faith. "And I'm sure that when you do, pretty high up on the list will be a step that says 'don't give people like Decker a virus named Omen'."

A/N2 My counterpart to Lester here is a much nastier piece of work, not that what Lester did in canon wasn't his nastiest piece of business in the series.

They never said what became of the husband in the bunny suit after Sarah knocked him out, or how the Viper practiced her trade while married to him, or what he did when she was killed. I decided to fix those oversights, and discovered a neat little bit of serendipity. Way back in episode two of this season, I mentioned that Morgan put My Little Pony in a Super-Mario Bros. background and made it the desktop on his phone. Just a throwaway joke at the time. Then when I googled the question of rivalries in the anthropomorphic fandom for this chapter (and discovered that there actually are some), one of them turned out to be with the 'bronies', My Little Pony fans. A totally unexpected little connection to the beginning of this series.