A/N – Thank you everyone for the positive reviews, they mean a lot. The usual disclaimers etc. apply, don't own Chuck yada-yada. If you aren't already a member I'd like you to join us over on Fb, we won't bite, usually. I have a serious question, would you like me to include the last few lines of the previous chapter to help remind you what just happened? Or are you ok with what I've been doing? I tend to read pretty quickly so I've usually got prior events in my head still. Drop me a PM which you'd prefer. Here we go then.
Chapter 12.
Despite her mother's objections, the two women reluctantly decided to head back to the city. The sun had begun setting fast and the two friends still had a three hour drive to get home to L.A after what had been a wonderful relaxing day with Carina's parents. Once they'd left the local strip malls behind, the friends settled into a peaceful silence as the miles and their thoughts settled into the fading light.
About an hour from L.A. they pulled Zondra's sleek black Mustang into a gas station, a wide eyed pimply attendant stared at the car as it skidded to a halt. The kid was even more awestruck as the two beautiful friends climbed out like they'd just stepped out of some 90's music video, telling him to fill the tank as they headed inside.
Grabbing some bottled water, the redhead pulled out her phone and began to scan her emails. Spotting one from her boss, she sighed and thought about leaving it unopened until the morning, reluctantly she opened it anyway.
"Son of a bitch…" she growled moments later.
The brunette appeared at her shoulder quickly, a tube of Pringles in her hand. Pulling open the top she offered Carina some chips. The redhead ignored the outstretched snack, staring angrily at the screen. Zondra's brow lifted and she put the can down temporarily "What's up Red? You look like your mom was trying to set you up with that geeky neighbour of theirs."
Carina frowned and gestured with the phone "Here…" she thrust it into Zondra's hand and began to head for the counter. Leaving Zondra to read the message.
"They suspended you?" Zondra muttered as the redhead strode away, grabbing her snacks she quickly caught up and frowned almost as hard as her friend when she handed the phone back. The kid was still putting gas in the car, so they talked freely.
"…yeah, apparently four of our factories have been hit with some kind of cyber-attack and our IT guys have tracked it back to my email." She shook her head and fought the tremble in her voice. "…Z, this shutdown will cost my bosses millions." She gasped "I'm sooo getting fired."
The attendant walked back in and raced to the counter, the two women just stood staring at each other, neither noticing his return. "Carina, none of this is your fault." the brunette said as she paid for their gas and snacks, ushering her distraught friend back to the car. "The timing of all this is a bit weird, I mean, first Sarah and now you, that can't be a coincidence. I wonder if it's the same guy. Neo?" she offered looking at her friend reassuringly she continued "…maybe Chuck can help"
A fire lit in Carina's eyes briefly as she picked up her phone again, quickly dialling Sarah's number. There was no way that this asshole was getting away with putting people's lives, or her own career at risk and in that moment she was laser focussed on revenge. Unfortunately the call went straight to voicemail. In frustration, the redhead shoved it back into her purse angrily "Z, get us back to L.A. FAST!" Zondra floored the gas and they peeled away from the rest stop.
Sarah padded silently through the dark apartment, crossing from the bedroom to the kitchen, she smiled and glanced at a nearby clock, noting that it was barely midnight. The silence of the apartment enveloped her, but her usual late night wandering mind was focussed on the sound of Chuck's light snores from the other room. After their earlier declarations of love, the couple had been drawn inexorably to her bed and after another wonderful couple of hours between her sheets they'd fallen asleep wrapped around each other.
As she poured herself a glass of water she felt the remnants of his warmth ebb from her feet. She'd recently found that wrapping them between her boyfriends a wonderful way to heat her habitually chilly toes, but standing barefoot in the kitchen, more than twenty feet from his slumbering form, she wondered once again why she'd never bought under floor heating. She glanced towards the room longingly, even in sleep his warmth somehow made her heart flutter. His kindness, and pure heart constantly protected her from the world outside, and the realisation made her ache to climb back into bed. Swallowing the rest of her drink, she started back.
Across the room she heard the tell-tale buzz of her phone break the silence. Heading towards the sound, she pulled the offending piece of technology from between the couch cushions and thought about ignoring whoever was stopping her getting back to Chuck. She frowned at the screen when 3 voicemails and several messages from both Carina and Zondra stared back at her. Knowing that neither would contact her this late unless it was an emergency. She pondered why they had both been trying to contact her? The blonde felt a flutter of panic that something had happened to Carina's family, all day she'd felt a little guilty that her two friends had gone without her to visit her teenage guardians, and now Sarah just hoped that they were OK. She quickly unlocked the phone. Listening to the first voicemail, her heart began racing for her friend, she quickly moved onto the second, hoping that this one wasn't quite so cryptic and would let her know Carina's parents were ok. The blonde bit her fingernail nervously and began to flick through the text messages as well.
10.45pm – Carina – "Call me ASAP, we need to talk"
Sarah quickly flicked to the next,
10.49pm – Carina – "Answer your phone Blondie."
The blonde's rolled her eyes and went to the next one,
1055pm – Zondra – "Is Chuck with you? Carina needs him."
That piqued her interest, "What could they want with Chuck?" but at least she had an answer, they were ok, thank God.
She'd zoned out from the other voicemails, they were repeated in the texts she'd just read and she almost missed Carina's final words on the last one "…oh for God's sake, tell Chuck to put some pants on, we're coming over" the redhead had declared.
As the message ended, Sarah looked towards the bedroom and frowned, her heart raced so she put the phone down and stood up, quickly reaching the bedroom in a few long strides. She looked at her boyfriend warmly for a second before leaning over him and whispering "…Chuck, wake up." She nudged his shoulder gently, her face inches from his.
He opened his eyes just a crack "I must be dreaming, we were just…" he gazed a little lower as she placed a fingertip on his lips, silencing him.
"This isn't a dream Chuck, this is a nightmare." She sat back as he lifted himself up and rubbed his sleepy eyes.
Blinking the sleep from his eyes, Sarah put the voicemails on speaker for him to hear, reading out the messages in between them. He looked around the floor as he heard the last one, searching for his pants. She turned on the bedside lamp to help and when he spotted them, he jumped up and pulled them on. He smiled at her and gestured with his head at her own boy shorts and t-shirt "Maybe you should get dressed too."
Sarah pouted at first shaking her head, but soon grinned back at him, reaching into a nearby drawer and picking out something to wear. Chuck was just pulling on his socks when someone knocked loudly on the door Rat, ta, ta, tat, tat…
He smiled at the familiar beat and mumbled under his breath "…2 bits" as he strode to the door.
A visibly upset Carina pushed past him, followed by Zondra, shutting the door he followed them in as they all settled on the sofa. Sarah sat between the two women, her arm draped across Carina's shoulder comfortingly "Ok Red, tell us what happened?"
The redhead simply handed her phone to them and sighed, running her fingers through her hair. Sarah passed the phone to Chuck and watched him expectantly.
"Can you help?"
Zondra looked at him hopefully "…we think it's HIM again." Carina nodded in agreement and he suddenly felt like a deer in headlights.
All three women were looking at him, their combined gaze making the nerd extremely nervous. For years, he'd managed to keep the Piranha a closely guarded secret, but now there were three more people that could potentially have him locked up for the rest of his life. He swallowed loudly and nodded, having already made the decision, the hacker would never allow Neo to hurt another person he cared for. Sarah's friends may have been difficult for the nerd to figure out but they were important to the woman he loved, so by extension they were important to him "…Not here. I'll need my computer. I'd better head home" he muttered.
He offered them all a tight smile, standing up "Sarah? Have you got any Rombauer?" he gestured at the kitchen.
She furrowed her brow, "Why do you want wine?" they all began looking at him, puzzled.
"It's better if you don't know what happens next…" he smiled at her as she stood up and went to the kitchen, quickly returning and handing him a bottle "…I shouldn't say any more, it's not safe. I could get, you know…" he trailed off, gesturing both hands bound together.
Carina pulled a scrap of paper from her purse and scribbled something on it, pushing it into his hands "…you'll need this. It should help" she said, and sat back down, Zondra laying her hand on the redhead's shoulder again reassuringly.
Sarah grasped his still outstretched hand as they started for the door, she was still pouting that he was leaving but had a hopeful glint in her sapphire eyes. Chuck's racing mind had gone far past saving Carina's career, he was already trying to work out if he could put an end to Neo once and for all.
A short while later, he was sat in his bedroom cracking his fingers, waiting for his computer to start. He glanced around the room, his eyes settling on the vintage Tron poster that dominated the wall in front of him. He thought about his dad briefly, the poster always brought out a sense of melancholy as he thought about the childhood he and Ellie should've had. He didn't have time to ponder that right now. Chuck thought quickly of the movie instead before shaking his head, Please let Flynn be on my side right now.
Crumpling up the slip of paper with Carina's login details on, he smirked knowing that it'd have only taken him seconds to access the system anyway, the Piranha REALLY didn't need her password, but, gift horse and all that. He found her password laughable to be honest, but if you'd ever met the redhead, it was absolutely obvious. He opened the chilly bottle of Rombauer and took a swig, it was looking like it was gonna be a long night.
He cracked his fingers again and began scrolling through the myriad of emails she sent, or received on a daily basis, the sheer number made him wonder how she didn't need glasses, then he had to shake the image of Carina with a schoolmistress vibe from his mind. He found four possibilities that had unusually large attachments and isolated them from the others, copying them onto a portable hard drive and deleting the originals. The hacker's fingertips began to move quickly across the keyboard, like a spider scurrying over hot desert sand as he compared the four to her usual correspondence and then, Bingo. Three of them were just regular spoof mail, annoying, but easily dealt with. That left one. He ran it through the same program he'd used only a few days earlier, quickly recognising The Omen's base code. Tapping the mouse briefly and reaching for the bottle, he took a large gulp of the wonderful liquid. Rombauer usually gave him such a buzz as it somehow focussed his mind through a long coding session, but right now he just needed something to wet his lips.
His fingers began to blur again as he let his temper grow, it sickened the nerd that Neo was apparently targeting the people in his life, and he briefly worried for his sister. Ok, the three other women had only recently entered his inner circle but he'd already begun imagining a future filled with amazing adventures with the stunning blonde, and her friends were pretty cool. He briefly stopped to wipe his face and clear some grit from his tired eyes. Exhaling loudly, he continued, the sound of his typing seemingly amplified in the complete silence of his apartment. Only sixty minutes earlier he'd been snuggled up with his lovely girlfriend, but now his exhaustion simply added to the frustration of dealing with Neo again.
As he finished sterilizing Carina's account, he moved higher up the food chain and realised the extent of the Omen's infection, four automated factories had been completely held to ransom by Davis' creation. It took him a number of hours to clear every last trace of the virus from their system, and as he finished, he felt a little déjà vu, Piranha two, Neo zip did have a nice ring to it though. The hacker smiled at his achievement. I've never purged a virus from four locations, all in one night, from one computer. Go me…
The bottom of his screen suddenly began to pixelate, his favourite wallpaper fading away, a subtle green glow beginning to appear. After a few seconds the green coalesced into the rolling code that he'd first seen rolling across a computer screen way back in 1999. Neo wanted to talk apparently…
"I know your secret." It said briefly before the green letters began scrolling vertically down his screen, forming a silhouetted face. If it weren't so cliché, Chuck would've been impressed, but REALLY?
Chuck noticed the little green light on his webcam and understood that Neo was watching him, so the hacker tried keeping his cool. Underneath he was beginning to freak out a little though. It had been years since anyone had been able track him back to his own computer, and that had been the legendary Orion, the so called father of all hackers.
"You've been looking for me…" an automated approximation of Keanu Reeves' voice came through his speakers "Nice to meet you…" it said, oozing a sickly charm.
Furrowing his brow, Chuck smirked I bet, but responded with a thin smile "Neo? I'm impressed."
"This is just a courtesy call, stay out of my way…" the automated voice somehow sounded smug "...I knew the Piranha, would be the only one that could stop the Omen."
He swallowed loudly before responding "…I'm sorry, who? …and what is the Omen?" the nerd chuckled to himself. At least Neo hadn't used his real name, he really wasn't sure if Neo was recording the footage to expose his secret later, just out of spite. Chuck's fingers began moving on the keyboard again, not needing to see the screen at the moment to work his magic, but wondering how Neo had found him so quickly.
"Really? Do you think I'm an idiot?" the voice intoned, sounding as wooden as Keanu had in Johnny Mnemonic now. "I can see you, remember…" it said in a flat menacing tone.
Chuck snorted and lifted a finger to his mouth to suppress an obvious reply "Well… you seem to have me at a loss Mr. Anderson." He replied, still playing along with his ruse and flicking his gaze to the keyboard "…you seem to know who I am, but I don't know who you are, yet." Keep talking asshole.
"And you never will." It answered, almost smugly "Keep your nose out of my business, fish-boy." Chuck had to hold in a snort again that Neo had used an old nickname for his hacker alias, hearing it after all this time was somehow familiar.
Pausing his fervent typing for a second he looked at the screen, puzzled for a second when it began to fade away, flickering back to his familiar 1973 Shazam wallpaper, Chuck knew that while Neo may have gone, the nerd's fingers had been doing their job brilliantly during the brief conversation, sending a tracking program back through the connection. A status bar was pulsing away in the corner of the screen now, and Chuck breathed out a sigh of relief that Neo hadn't got away too early. He lay back and relaxed.
Now that he'd stopped clicking on the keyboard the sound of his own racing heartbeat felt deafening, eventually it settled enough that he could hear the sounds of the outside world waking around him, which made him furrow his brow and pull his pillow over his head.
Chuck looked at his clock on his bedside table briefly, its large neon numbers screaming that he'd only get maybe an hour of sleep before having to get up and begin his usual Monday morning routine, shower, shave, get stuck in traffic and nine hours in the office, wonderful. The crepuscular dawn crept over the city and the nerd felt the growing light coming through his window draining the last of his energy, exhaustion began crashing over him like a freak wave. Damn Neo…
He wondered if Morgan could cover for him again but knew that Casey would go ballistic if he skipped work a second time this month, the hacker resigned himself to a very long day.
Saving Sarah's friend was worth every second of his exhaustion though, and he hoped above all else that the three women could keep his secret. Now that Neo had seen his face, he was worried about retaliation too.
The Piranha really needed to disappear for a while, not only because Neo's failed attacks would definitely bring the FBI and NSA to town, but he didn't want to put the people around him in any more danger. The whole thing made Chuck nervous again, he'd stopped "officially" hacking a long time ago and promised Ellie that he was done with it all, to stop exactly this kind of thing from happening. He only dipped in when necessary to stop an injustice, but stopping Neo would be VERY high profile, he'd read the NSA's reports and they considered the hacker extremely dangerous. If nothing else, both government agencies would want to know how the two companies fixed their systems, having never been able to stop the Omen from running amok.
He took one last slug of the wine before lying back and slipping into unconsciousness.
"Dude, dude ya ok? Wake up" Morgan chirped, leaning over and shaking his friend's shoulder vigorously "Sarah called me and told me that you'd missed her calls." He frowned at Chuck, when the lanky nerd tried to hit him with a pillow.
"…Ss' too early man." The nerd replied, opening his bleary eyes and looking at the clock "…how'd you get in?"
The smaller man thumbed over his shoulder to an open window "through my door man"
"I wish I'd listened to Ellie and nailed that shut" he grumbled and sat up, reaching for his phone. Apparently his girlfriend had been trying to get in touch.
Morgan smiled "Well if I hadn't seen your car still parked up you'd be late for work, again." He offered a warm smile and sat at Chuck's desk, glancing at the still active monitor "…busy night Fish Boy?"
The nerd frowned at the nickname, suddenly reminded about Neo "You have no idea." He stood up and stretched his lean form, cracking his shoulders and back as he reached over his head. He quickly typed a message to his girlfriend and waited for a response. It only took a few seconds before if buzzed in his hand and he got a reply.
7.15am – Sarah – "You're amazing. I'll thank you later" followed by the wink emoji.
He smiled distractedly and tried to sit down, wondering what exactly his gorgeous girlfriend had planned.
"Well come on big guy, you've only got half an hour to get us to the station, so get in there" he pushed his reluctant friend towards the bathroom. After a few minutes, the nerd was pulling on his Chuck Taylor's and dragging Morgan out the door, his hair still damp.
Chuck smirked as he saw Morgan's bike leaning next to his door "…is that all I am to you? A lift?"
The small man looked mock offended, holding a hand to his chest "Moi? No..." as they both reached Chuck's Matrix he began walking to the passenger side.
"You know what? Can you do me a favour?" He threw the keys to the bearded man and walked to the other side "I've got a splitting headache, and I need to close my eyes for a bit."
Morgan caught them easily, a surprised grin on his face "Woah, woah, woah…are you serious? You're trusting me to drive the Matrix?"
"It's not a big deal buddy, it's just a car" he chuntered.
"Yeah, but it's not just a car. I mean, hooptie's a hooptie homeboy..." he gestured at the wheels "…this baby's sittin' on chrome, or plastic." He opened the car and got in, Chuck quickly jumping in the other side and closing his eyes.
"Let's just get there in one piece hey buddy?" he sighed and began rubbing his temples.
A/N – I hope you enjoyed this chapter, for the first time in a while I managed to get it done ahead of my usual schedule. Yay me, lol. If you liked it, please R&R, I appreciate every single review, thank you all. Stay safe and take care. D.