"Chuck will you please tell me what the hell this is all about?" Morgan asked, clearly unsettled.

Chuck and Morgan had slipped out from the video game tournament during the chaos that had ensued after the games were shut down by the second mysterious message Chuck had encountered. He had no doubt the message was meant for him, but he had no idea how whoever was sending them was managing to do so. After leaving Large Mart, the pair had made their way back to the Buy More, which was closed for the night so they didn't need to go to Castle for privacy. They were at the Nerd Herd desk where Chuck had plugged in his computer that he'd brought from home. He had checked it over thoroughly after it had seemingly acted on its own to give him the first message. He hadn't been able to find anything unusual either within the hardware, or inside the computer system itself, but after the appearance of a second message, he was doubling down on his search effort, hoping to find some kind of clue as to what in the world was going on.

"Morgan, I already told you if I knew anything I would tell you. I don't know who sent the message at the tournament, and I can't find anything on my computer to explain the first message either. Who ever sent them is either insanely brilliant with computers or from another galaxy using technology we've never encountered."

Morgan didn't laugh at Chuck's attempt at humor.

"Chuck whoever did this knew we were there. That means they knew I was there! What if they come after me? Or worse, what if they go after Alex?"

"Morgan I seriously doubt they have any interest in you unless they're plotting to steal your job as Burbank Buy More's store manager. This is clearly directed towards me and I really want to know why someone is messing me with me."

"Well let's not forget I had that intersect thing in my head for a bit and even if its not me they're after but Chuck, that doesn't mean its you. Maybe it's Alex they're after. She is the daughter of John Casey after all. Maybe we should move her down to the spy base for safety."

"Morgan, relax. You weren't even around for the first message, which, may I remind you was directed to me by NAME. Whatever or whoever this is, it involves me. Trust me, I wish it didn't, but you can't exactly argue with the facts."

Morgan let out a deep breath.

"Alright, but if you find anything that connects this, whatever computer, hacker, cyber, thing with me in any way, you have to promise to tell me right away. No delays. I mean it. Swear it on our friendship."

Chuck looked up from his computer and looked Morgan in the eyes, his expression very serious.

"Morgan, I promise you that I will. You know I will."

Morgan visibly relaxed and gave Chuck a nervous smile.

"Thanks buddy. It just really freaked me out, you know? I mean I know it's not like we've never been in danger before, but things are so different now, you know with me and Alex living together and fewer people around watching our backs, I don't know, I just feel more exposed somehow"

Chuck gave Morgan a reassuring smile and pointed to his head.

"Hey as long as we have this thing on our side I'd bet on us anytime."

"Chuck are you referring to your intersect superpowers or are you just trying to brag about your intelligence?"

"Sorry that answer's top secret" Chuck replied, grinning widely.

Morgan gave Chuck a playful punch in the shoulder.

"Hey, I told you tonight would get you out of your rut. Ok, maybe not quite how I planned it but you gotta admit it worked right?"

Chuck turned his attention back to his computer before replying.

"That depends. Hopefully this is all some kind of stupid elaborate prank because I prefer being in a rut to being in someone's crosshairs, especially the crosshairs of someone as smart as our mysterious message sender seems to be."

"Are you gonna call in Casey and She-Casey on this one?"

"She-Casey?" Chuck asked, amused. "Interesting nickname. Though for Gertrude I gotta admit it does kinda fit."

"Like Hulk and She-Hulk."

For the first time in what felt like ages, Chuck laughed.

"Carina, I'm moving towards the rear entrance, do you have any activity out front?"

"No" came the response from the radio. "They're still all inside, like sardines in a can."

"Perfect. Let's move."

Sarah crept towards the back door to the small seemingly abandoned warehouse. Appearances were deceiving however. The CIA had discovered it was being used as a hideout for a small group of black market hackers that The Ring had under contract. Since The Ring was no longer in operation, the hackers had started doing their own work, which had caught the attention of the CIA. After the initial discovery of the group, it didn't take long to connect them to The Ring, which was why Sarah and Carina were now moving in to detain them. A group of CIA operatives were also close by in case backup was needed. No one was taking any chances when it came to former Ring associates.

Sarah reached the door, which was an old metal door covered in rust. She hoped it was unlocked, but if not she felt confident she could kick it open. It looked ready to fall off its hinges anyway. She slowly and carefully tried to turn the knob and was pleased to find it unlocked.

Not unexpected for a group who thinks they're completely off the grid Sarah thought to herself.

She slowly pushed the door open, hoping the old metal wouldn't creak and give her away before she was ready. Her luck held, the door opened silently. She opened it about a foot or so and peered inside. There were banks of computers, servers, and wiring that filled most of the warehouse, and a small living area. Sarah saw a few people working at the computers, and a few more in the living area. Sarah quickly counted the number of people.

Eight. Most of them have probably never even seen a real gun. Carina and I can handle this.

She clicked the small radio attached to her belt twice to signal Carina the situation was one they could handle and gave her the green light to burst through the front door. In her earpiece she heard two clicks back confirming. After mentally counting to three as they had planned in advance if the signal was given, Sarah jumped up, pulling out her gun as she did. At precisely the same time Carina appeared as the front door was flung open.

"CIA! Nobody move!" they yelled almost in unison.

Most of the people did exactly that. Then, almost in slow motion Sarah saw two people at the computers look at each other, one nodding to the other. They both simultaneously jumped up from the seats they were in and made a beeline for a small server, isolated from the rest, that was sitting in the corner of the warehouse to Sarah's right. Sarah immediately realized their intent was to destroy the server, and that meant it must be extremely important for some reason.

"FREEZE!" She yelled as loudly and threateningly as she could, while instinctively stepping forward, intending to run towards the server, hoping to beat them to it or at least stop them. As she did she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A small stairwell was tucked in next to the wall. It was situated to the left of the door she had come in through, so with the door open it had been shielded from her view. It only led to a small, empty elevated platform, but it also concealed the existence of a ninth person in the building, who had apparently been on the stairwell as she entered, and who was now rushing at her with an object in his hands. Sarah reacted as quickly as she could, twisting her torso and changing the direction of her second step as far to the left as she could to try to bring her gun to bear on the man, but he was too close and she couldn't fully turn in time. She could only watch as the man swung a wide light colored object at her and couldn't prevent it from slamming into the side of her head. The force of the blow and the sudden pain that exploded in her skull knocked her to the floor. She remained conscious and instinctively rolled over on the ground to protect herself from a second swing from the assailant. But it never came. Instead, the air was pierced by the sound of multiple gunshots being fired.

After a moment of silence, Sarah slowly rose to her knees, looking around, her head throbbing. The man who had attacked her was dead. So were the two people who she had last seen running for the server in the corner. A moment later Carina was standing next to her, a gun in each hand, which she pointed at the remaining people in the building. They all had their hands in the air and one look at their faces told Sarah they weren't going to try anything.

"You alright?" Carina asked her, never taking her eyes off the people she was holding her guns on.

"Yeah" Sarah replied, grimacing at the pain that still throbbed in her head, though it was beginning to lessen. "Where's my lipstick?"

"What?" Carina asked, confused. She risked a quick glance at Sarah who was getting back to her feet.

"My lipstick" Sarah replied. "I dropped it when I...I mean I used it to distract..." Sarah trailed off, a confused look on her face.

Carina risked another glance at her partner.

"Are you sure you're ok?"

"A total of six former Ring hackers captured. Once again I must congratulate you on a job well done"

"Thank you Director Avery" Carina responded.

"I see from the backup team's report that Agent Walker was injured."

"I'm fine" Sarah replied. "Just took a blow to the side of the head from a wooden board. I was cleared by the team's medical personnel. No concussion, just a headache."

"Glad to hear it. We will be examining the contents of all of their computers and servers, especially the one you reported they made an attempt to destroy. We will see if they contain anything of significance. Someone will be in contact with you with your next mission information soon. As usual, excellent work."

As soon as the video call was terminated, Carina turned to Sarah.

"Are you sure you're ok? I know they checked you out but you were talking about lipstick and not making any sense and haven't said anything about it since."

Sarah frowned and hesitated for a moment before replying.

"Carina, after you came over I had a moment where I swore I had just dropped out of an air vent and that I had dropped lipstick on the ground. I don't know why, and even thinking about it now it's all sort of fragmented. But it didn't feel like a hallucination. It felt too real."

Carina shrugged.

"I don't know, maybe it was just a side effect of getting hit in the head. I've heard stories of people claiming to have seen all kinds of weird things after getting a bump on the head."

Sarah shrugged.

"Yeah, maybe that was it."

Sarah was sound asleep when an alarm bell suddenly rang. She jerked awake mumbling "Lichtenstein is not a believable name for you" and then looked around, confused, as it was dark and for some reason she had expected to be in a bright office. After a few moments of confusion, her brain suddenly registered the alarm going off. She realized that alarm only went off for one reason: there was a priority message being sent that required her presence in the conference room immediately.

Sarah threw a robe on over her pajamas and headed for the conference room. As she entered she saw Carina was already at their primary computer, entering their clearance information so they could answer whoever was messaging them. Carina looked up as Sarah entered.

"I figured you'd beat me here, your room is closer." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Did something delay you?"

"It's nothing, I just couldn't find my robe." Sarah replied in a tone that told Carina she didn't want to be asked any follow up questions.

Carina looked at her a moment longer then turned her attention back to the computer, entering the last password. The big conference room screen came to life as the alarm stopped. They both looked up as the encryption program secured the video chat. A message appeared informing them the video call was connecting.

Sarah fully expected it to be the CIA director contacting them with urgent information. This had happened twice before. However, she nearly jumped in shock as the image of someone else appeared instead.

"General Beckman!" Sarah said with surprise evident in her voice. "This is unexpected."

"I apologize for calling you at this time of night" the general responded, diving right into the business at hand. "But this simply could not wait."

"Is something wrong?" Sarah asked, a nervous feeling beginning to form in the pit of her stomach.

"Frankly we don't yet know, but we have enough information to concern us. Have either of you heard of someone called the Overseer?"

"No" Carina replied, looking quickly at Sarah to confirm she didn't know anything either. "Should we have?"

"No, and it's doubtful many people have. We were analyzing the server the hackers attempted to destroy and found some very troubling information contained inside."

General Beckman paused, her expression as serious as Sarah had ever seen.

"It would appear..." she paused again, as though the information she was about to give them was physically weighing on her. She let out a breath.

"It would appear that we may not be as finished with The Ring as we believed."

"What?" Sarah blurted out, shocked. "But we've taken out all their core members and taken down just about every person or group they worked with. What could possibly be left?"

"According to the information on the recovered server, the hacker group you apprehended was in contact with a person known only as the Overseer. If the information is to be believed, the Overseer is actually the person behind The Ring."

"That's impossible" Carina replied in disbelief. "We took out all their leaders."

"You misunderstand" General Beckman responded. "According to the information we have, the Overseer was not actually a part of The Ring. They CREATED The Ring. In essence, The Ring worked FOR this Overseer person. Most of the members of The Ring did not even know of the Overseer's existence. Even high ranking members who had been there from the beginning. The Ring's Director and Elders may not even have known of the existence of the Overseer. The server you captured is one of only a handful that connect to the Overseer, and their locations were not listed in the data on the server. This Overseer is evidently very selective of the people they choose to contact. The hacker group you captured had two members within it that the Overseer communicated with. Unfortunately, they were both among the three men that were killed."

"Explains why they were so desperate to destroy it" Carina commented.

"Precisely. We are going through all of our data on The Ring to see if we can determine the identity of anyone else who may have had contact with this Overseer, but I'm not optimistic. The name has not appeared in any of our information regarding The Ring before now."

"General, how do we know for certain this Overseer wasn't taken out when we took out the rest of The Ring?" Sarah asked.

"Most of the messages the Overseer sent to their contacts within the hacker group were automatically deleted, and are likely unrecoverable. However, there were a few messages still on the server. They were sent less than 24 hours ago."

"Is there any way we can use the server to contact the Overseer and flush them out, or get a line on where or who they are?" Carina suggested.

"A good idea, but whoever this person is, they severed all communication to the server, likely the moment you infiltrated that group. Whoever this person is, they clearly have an eye on the people they are in contact with. They are taking no chances of being tracked."

"So essentially we're chasing a shadow" Sarah murmured, unnerved. "General do you think we should contact Cole Barker to help?

"Excuse me?" the general asked, looking surprised and confused. "Agent Walker I don't think that would help."

"Well I just figured since he's currently in the area that-"

"He's in the AREA?" the general looked genuinely bewildered now.

Carina turned to Sarah, looking equally lost.

"Sarah what in the world are you talking about?"

Sarah frowned, now feeling confused herself.

"Isn't Cole... I mean didn't he recently...I could swear we just worked with him on...something."

General Beckman removed her glasses and gave Sarah a long look, seemingly trying to evaluate her through the computer screen.

"Agent Walker, are you feeling alright?"

"Aside from feeling a little confused at the moment, I'm fine, why?"

"Agent Walker, Mr. Barker retired from MI6 TWO YEARS AGO." The general turned her attention to Carina. "Agent Miller, in your professional opinion, is your partner having any problems? I had my concerns bringing her back to active service but up until now all the reports I've received have been exemplary. Has anything changed recently?"

"She took a blow to the head during our last mission but she was cleared by medical. Not even a minor concussion. But she has had a few moments of confusion since then."

"Do you believe she is still fit for duty?"

"Well her judgment hasn't been impacted in my opinion and I don't believe it will impede her ability in the field." She turned to Sarah and smiled. "I'd still trust her with my life." She turned back to the general. "I believe she is still fit and able to fulfill her duties General Beckman."

General Beckman was silent for a moment.

"Very well. However if you at any point believe Agent Walker's status to be compromised, contact me immediately. I will be in touch with you both soon. I believe you will be instrumental in our next move but we still have some research to do on our end first. I will need you both at your best."

Without another word General Beckman ended the video call.

Carina turned and faced Sarah, her expression serious.

"Walker, I meant what I told the general, but you need to tell me what's going on. Clearly something is off about you and I want to know what it is."

"I'm trying to figure that out myself" Sarah admitted. "I'll let you know when I know."

"I'm gonna hold you to that" Carina replied, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Casey, Gertrude, if you're not decent, please change that because I'm coming in!" Chuck called out as he began descending the stairs into Castle.

Before he had even reached the bottom step Casey was there to meet him, an annoyed look on his face.

"I was cleaning gun barrels Bartowski, but to be clear if I were busy with Gertrude I'd lock you out before I let you walk in on anything."

"Okay, good, good, that's good. It's just the three of us have been working together for a bit now and we never really covered ground rules on...well let's just call it personal relationship activities in the workplace."

A growl from Casey stopped Chuck from saying anything further.

Just then Gertrude cleared her throat, and Chuck noticed her for the first time, sitting at a computer in the corner.

"Hi Chuck."

"Gertrude! Didn't see you there! Uh...so that conversation...that was meant for Casey... It wasn't meant to be about you...I mean it was, but I didn't know..."

"It's fine Chuck, I'm a big girl. I already had the big sex talk years ago. Plenty of experience too." She winked at Casey.

Chuck's eyes went wide and he turned away, face red. Just then the big screen came to life and the image of General Beckman appeared.

"Oh thank God!" Chuck exclaimed, grateful for the distraction.

"I wouldn't be thanking anyone for anything right now Mr. Bartowski" the general responded in a sharp tone.

"Sorry general you just called at the perfect time. Speaking of which, this is a nice surprise. I haven't seen you face to digital face in quite awhile. I'm hoping you're calling with good news for us? Is Carmichael Industries allowed to go back to business as usual now?"

"I'm afraid not. I can't get into any details with you since you are no longer government agents, but I wanted to make you aware that something is happening, and if any of you hear anything about the Intersect program, please contact me immediately and inform me about it. This is not a request."

"Who would we be hearing about it from?"

"I can't answer that Mr. Bartowski, all I can say is if you hear anything about the program, or if anything unusual happens that you find suspicious, let me know."

"Well general since you brought it up, I did get some weird messages sent to me, stuff about not trusting people, an Overseer, and not being safe, but I figured it was just-"

"Did you say Overseer?" the general interrupted, her face going pale.

"Yeah, it was part of a message that somehow got sent to my computer. It said beware the Overseer."

"Damn it, someone's connected you to this."

"To what?" Chuck asked. "I thought it was probably a weird prank or something."

"I can't tell you anything yet Chuck, but this changes everything. I need to make some calls. I will get back to you. As of this moment, you are not to speak a word about any this to anyone without my direct authorization. Consider Carmichael Industries now under contract with the United States government."

Sarah stood in the conference room, but something was nagging her. She couldn't put her finger on it but the room looked wrong somehow. It was exactly the same as it had been since she and Carina had moved in, but this morning it just somehow felt wrong.

She was interrupted by a notification from the computer that General Beckman was going to contact them in 2 minutes. She called for Carina then waited for the general to call. Carina joined her 30 seconds later.

"What's up Walker?"

"Beckman's about to call, figured you wouldn't wanna miss it."

Carina raised her eyebrows, amused.

"You still owe me a conversation Walker, don't forget."

Sarah returned the amused expression. Any further conversation was interrupted by the general suddenly appearing on their conference screen.

"Good morning Agent Walker, Agent Miller."

"General" Sarah replied politely with a nod.

"I've spent considerable time going over any possible alternatives to what I am about to tell you, but I reluctantly have come to the conclusion that this is the best course of action given the current circumstances. The two of you have 72 hours to pack up your base of operations, and to bring anything you will need with you."

"Where are we going?" Sarah asked.

The general sighed.

"Despite the fact I have serious concerns about this, I believe it is necessary. The two of you are to report to Burbank, California. I will be meeting you in person when you arrive. You are going to be working on what we are calling Project: Overseer, and you are going to be working with Carmichael Industries."

Chuck was standing inside the darkened Buy More, standing in front of the Nerd Herd desk, trying to fix one of the phones at the desk that Jeff had somehow managed to break, his back to the front of the store, when he heard the front doors open.

Morgan if you keep forgetting to lock the doors I swear I will set Casey on you Chuck thought to himself.

"Sorry for the inconvenience but the store is closed. That door was supposed to be locked. We open tomorrow at 9am" he called out to whoever had entered, not bothering to turn around. This had happened once or twice before, and the person always apologized and left without a fuss. However, he didn't hear the doors open again which would signal that the person was leaving. Instead he heard footsteps, slow but steady, making their way directly towards him. Chuck braced himself without moving, not wanting to give a hint to whoever was approaching that he was ready if they were looking for trouble.

As the footsteps reached what Chuck estimated was about ten to fifteen feet from him, he turned around, mentally preparing to flash whatever skills he would need to handle the intruder. However when he saw their face he froze, stunned. After a moment of the two of them silently looking at each other he found his voice.

"Jill?!"

A/N: Hope you enjoyed chapter 3. Fair warning: the next chapter might be a little slower for those who prefer action as it's going to be a lot of exposition, though I'm sure you can understand why!