Chapter 6
A Wild 'Bartowski' Appears
A/N
A couple things:
First: apologies for the delay in getting this chapter out. In spite of its brevity, I spent a lot of time trying to make it a little more polished, a little less confusing, a little less clunky. I know it's been difficult to follow all the different perspectives and narratives that the characters are spinning about the Intersect project et cetera, and in fact I plan on issuing a 'where are we now' interlude tomorrow to sum up what's going on so far. Hopefully it's not so difficult that the story so far isn't even readable :)
(I also hurt my arm on Wednesday, making it hard for me to write for a couple days :/ )
Special thanks to a guest reviewer who pointed out that they had trouble believing Beckman. It helped me think a lot more critically about each character's motivations, and while I contend that Beckman's actions so far are consistent with where I want her emotional state to be, I agree it's not necessarily easy to believe. I will be including character profiles in tomorrow's interlude, which will hopefully help readers understand the characters as they are in 2032.
As always, thank you for reading! Reviews, as critical as you desire, are always welcome :)
I
Robin couldn't see.
She had spent the last three hours paralyzed, deprived of her vision in the black body bag, making do only with the sounds from her transport. Shortly after leaving her quarters in Langley, she had been thrown quite carelessly into a freezing cold truck (which might have given her hypothermia had the bag not been well-insulated for her warm body) and driven for "a long time" (she had no metric for measuring it, other than the fact that she still couldn't move by the time it finally stopped).
She heard the cabin door squeal open, then felt herself lifted with the grunt of that brute from earlier and carried about two hundred steps before being unceremoniously plopped onto the snowy earth.
She listened to the heavy footsteps crunching through the frost, and waited until she heard the truck's engine rev. When the noise faded off, her brain sent a signal to her arms to claw themselves upward to the bag's zipper.
Nothing happened.
Robin took a deep breath. She focused on her dominant arm. If she could just move it an inch….
The bag was tight enough against her body; combined with her paralysis, claustrophobic thoughts weren't difficult to form.
Her arms started getting heavier and heavier against her chest. She couldn't breathe. Desperately, she attempted to suck air in, but started to feel dizzy. Was she oxygen-deprived? Was she suffocating? Anxious thoughts consumed her.
Finally, she stopped trying to move, closed her eyes, and did the 4-7-8 routine a psychiatrist had taught her in middle school: take a deep, 4-second-long breath; hold it for 7; then release for 8. It helped her overcome her fear back then; it must help her now.
Then she realized: she was taking deep breaths. Her heart was beating fast. Under the Tetrodotoxin, this hadn't been possible earlier. She must have, in fact, been coming out of it.
Just take your time, she thought. You haven't suffocated yet; you're not going to now.
Finally, after a few more breaths, she tried again: she focused on her left arm. If it took her an hour, she was going to get it up above her head.
Her index finger twitched. It was working!
Slowly, methodically, she pulled her arm up. It was, in fact, quite challenging in the enclosed space, but eventually, she got it up and started pulling down the zipper.
She was greeted by a full moon peeking through barren tree limbs and small, fast-moving clouds. The stars, more than she had seen in a long while, twinkled briskly. The air was bitterly cold, the clothes on her back (the same she had worn since the car crash, for she still had not been able to return to her actual apartment to change) woefully insufficient to insulate her.
The top priority was shelter. Robin struggled hard to sit up. She heard the wind howl around her – or maybe it was a wolf? Looking around her, she found the forest awash in the cold blue light of the moon. But it was not just a forest: it was a graveyard. Body bags strewn everywhere; an uncountable number in her field of view alone. Robin took this as a sign the US had a lot of enemies, but if only she knew who lay among her….
Slowly, she managed to stand. Her legs were still weak: they held her weight, but preferred not to move with her. After a couple falls back to the frosty forest floor, and a bit of hobbling, it eventually got easier. Robin slowly trudged up, back to the road from which she was carried, then pushed on against the cold of night to find Breezewood (and perhaps, if she was lucky, a change of clothes).
II
Julia couldn't see.
It was pitch black wherever she was, and her eyes needed to adjust after being out for a period of time she could not comprehend. (In reality, it had been around fourteen hours since she was rushed to surgery.)
She was laying down in a bed. She couldn't remember how she got there. She felt her left leg hanging above her, propped up by something. She tried to move her arms: they were shackled.
Then she remembered.
The terror of it all.
The gunshots ringing in her ears.
The blood splattering across her face.
The excruciating pain in her leg from that psychopath's bullet.
The gory scene as Agent Ling broke into pieces, as Julia kept shooting and shooting and shooting, she couldn't stop shooting, she couldn't stop shooting!
A door flung open. Julia's whole body flinched.
The light blinded her, just after she had gotten used to the darkness. She squeezed her eyes shut as the unknown figure turned the lights on in the room.
She heard footsteps approach her. A chair grated against the floor, then thunked over to her right. The person sat.
Julia slowly readjusted. Her guest said nothing until she finally managed to open her eyes.
The Director, in spite of her petite stature, towered over Julia.
An intense hatred welled within the young woman as she stared at the fiend who brought her here, who put her through this torture, and who ordered her execution.
The Director, to her credit, returned Julia's icy stare with one of compassion, though Julia doubted its legitimacy.
"I see your leg has healed nicely. How are you doing?" Beckman struggled to contain her guilt and deliver her words calmly.
"Bite me."
Beckman sighed. "I've disabled the monitors in this room," she started, gesturing toward the camera opposite the bed which, Julia could confirm, was unplugged from the wall. "They think that I'm… well, I don't know what they think but it doesn't matter. You deserve to understand what's really going on here.
"There's a conspiracy within the CIA. A group called the Guardians walks among us. I've been undercover, trying to take them down for nearly two decades now. We—"
"Oh sure, so you ordered me killed as an act, is that it?" Julia took offense at the outrageous excuse.
"I… I never sanctioned what Agent Ling tried to do," Beckman lied. "You don't have to trust me, but… Agent Ling was a Guardian. That cruelty, that viciousness: it's part and parcel of what any one of them is capable of. Now that they know you flashed, that they know you're capable of retaining the Intersect, you're in a very precarious position.
"The official word is, you're under arrest for murdering an innocent government agent. When we take the Guardians down, we'll be able to correct the record. Until then, whether you like it or not, your only choice is to cooperate with us.
"I truly am terribly sorry for the predicament in which you've been placed."
Without another word, Beckman stood, re-enabled the security camera, and left the room, shutting out the lights as she closed the door.
Julia sat there in the darkness, thinking hard. She saw through the veneer of compassion immediately, but this thing about a conspiracy… why would the Director lie about something that sounded so absurd in the first place?
Beckman, outside the door, took a moment herself. Everything had gotten so complicated: all these people, all these lies, all these intricate stories… the web was so tangled, she wasn't sure it could ever come undone.
III
How did this happen? How could this HAPPEN?!
Betelgeuse was in shock. He had been tracking the girl constantly since her adoption, making sure she was safe, making sure that woman she called 'mom' didn't screw everything up. To suppose he had made any mistakes was simply preposterous. And yet….
He had been careless back in Wisconsin. He should have taken Julia to his cabin; he should have waited for the test results before letting her go….
No, no no, that wouldn't have worked – the moment he took her, he put his safety at risk. They would only have traced him to his cabin sooner.
Maybe he should have disappeared her. But then they'd have redoubled their pursuit. Betelgeuse could barely keep everyone hidden as it is. Eventually he'd mess up, or die, and they'd find a candidate.
Suffice it to say… there was no better course of action than what he'd taken. He was simply out-maneuvered, his best-laid plans scuttled by random chance.
That DAMN flash! That piece of shit Director!
Now there was nothing left to do but….
Betelgeuse felt the explosive weigh heavily in his breast pocket.
Suddenly, he realized: he was so obsessed with being thwarted, with his own brilliant mind failing to conjure up a foolproof plan for taking down the CIA… he didn't even consider the one he had lost.
One of his own, one of the Bartowskis, had been abandoned almost from the start. The government didn't have her, or else they wouldn't need Julia. Could that mean…?
Betelgeuse pressed hard on the accelerator, watching the trees go by faster and faster, trying to force the sun to rise early. One way or another, he would end this.
He saw the sign for the PA Turnpike, and prepared to take the junction in Breezewood hard; until he noticed: a twenty-something redhead sat under the sign, casually sipping from a Dunkin' coffee cup, adorned in layers of the branded garb of a nearby TA Truck Stop.
Is that…?
He slammed the brakes hard, pushing his car up to the curb to avoid blocking traffic, nearly running Robin over in the process.
Betelgeuse took a moment, staring blankly at the agent, then unlocked the passenger door.
Robin stood up, casually walked toward the car, and entered.
Betelgeuse introduced himself: "Your last name isn't Bartowski, is it?"
Robin shot the driver a quizzical look. "Miller."
"Figures," he sighed back. "So what are you doing all the way out here, Miller?"
"Agent Miller, thank you. Director Beckman wanted to meet with you; I have the address…" Robin ruffled through the new clothes she had purchased at the truck stop hours before, and finally pulled out the scrap of paper the Director had left her. She handed the slip to Betelgeuse.
"Oh joy, can't wait to see that bitch again," Betelgeuse muttered thoughtlessly.
Robin started: aside from having a general pet peeve about men casually using sexist language like that, she would not let stand an insult to her distinguished superior. "Excuse me? You got something to say, old man? Don't you dare disrespect the Director of the CIA like that."
Betelgeuse scoffed at the young agent's naïveté, but pondered carefully the dynamics of the situation. It was probably unwise to make an enemy of Agent Miller. Although… perhaps he could turn her? This agent seemed pretty loyal to the agency he despised; maybe if he told her about Beckman's attempt on Julia's life, she'd open up a bit to his perspective?
Then again, Betelgeuse only had a real-time feed of the CIA's closed-circuit monitors: there was no recording of Beckman's kill order to show Robin. Additionally, continued access to that network of cameras could prove useful for his final plan; giving it up would be like sacrificing your rook for a chance at your opponent's pawn.
Fortunately for him, Robin didn't think to ask about how Betelgeuse knew to turn himself in.
Finally, he resolved to apologize: "I'm sorry. I – I have a history with your Director. With your agency, even. It… it's pretty difficult to explain."
"Well, we have a couple hours," Robin replied, softening her tone. "Speaking of which—" she gestured to the steering wheel.
Betelgeuse realized he had just been sitting on the curb a few minutes now. He started the car and got back on the road. "What do you know about the Intersect?" he asked as he turned onto Interstate 70.
"That's classified," Robin bluntly replied. She thought for a moment. "What do you know about it?"
Betelgeuse contemplated the question. He couldn't give everything away, but he resolved at least not to lie: "It's essentially, l-like a computer that implants intel directly into the human brain. I was a part of the Intersect project for many years, but… back in 2012, they – they changed course. It was initially supposed to be used to train agents, but – but then they decided they wanted to use it for a much wider audience. The the the machine isn't currently capable of use for most people but… if they could change that… they could, they could implant anything they wanted into anyone's memory.
"They wanted to use it for propaganda. MKULTRA redux. Mind control."
Robin shot Betelgeuse a look that screamed you're insane.
"Look, you – you don't have to believe me. Just just just… understand where I'm coming from. I put my entire family underground. For twenty years. I haven't seen my wife, I haven't seen my—"
Betelgeuse choked up thinking about the Bartowski he had lost.
Robin watched a tear roll down the driver's face, to his quivering lip. It felt genuine. She wondered if, perhaps, it was all a big misunderstanding? The Guardians were pushing for the Intersect project; that much she knew. Perhaps Betelgeuse is telling the truth; perhaps it's them who are trying to do this mind-control stuff? Perhaps, in the end, Betelgeuse and Beckman could ally to destroy this cabal? Perhaps this pitiful man could get his life back?
The pair thought hard about the future as they drove in silence to the address Beckman provided.
IV
Beckman didn't get any sleep. She stood in a dingy warehouse just outside of D.C., waiting for Agent Miller's return. It was still dark at seven A.M. that Christmas Eve. Snow fell lightly outside.
Wrapped in a thick, intimidating wool coat, with a heavy ushanka overhead and thick leather boots underfoot, Beckman was well-protected against the cold. Yet she still shivered.
She heard a car roll up outside. They were early.
Unable to maintain her composure, Beckman sweated over what she would say, how she would say it.
How could she say it?
She hadn't seen Chuck in almost two decades. Not since her once-dependable subject – friend? – had revolted against her. Not since the Meissa Bellatrix project.
Not since she had betrayed him.
Her spine sprung erect when she heard the latch move on the door. She froze, facing away from the subjects walking in. She was too afraid to look him in the eye.
With every ounce of will, she kept her voice steady. "Chuck Bartowski," she announced. "Nineteen years to the day, isn't it?"
"Wrong on two counts."
That voice.
Beckman's heart stopped. She recognized it… but it wasn't Chuck's.
She turned her head to face the Ghost.
"Merry Christmas, Director," growled the raspy, decrepit voice of Stephen Bartowski.
A/N
If you are kind enough to leave a review, please don't spoil Betelgeuse's real identity :)