October 28, 2071
Burbank, California
He said he would be here…
He'll be here, Ally, he promised…
You know Stephen, he just…
He said it was important, so it was. Have a little faith….
Faith. The word seemed to coalesce from the floating miasma of words sifting through Charles Bartowski's consciousness as he lay, his drug-induced slumber slowly becoming fitful as the noise increased. The rest of the chatter fell away, blended into a humming cacophony that sounded like background music. Every voice he knew, connecting each one instantaneously with its face, each face imprinted on his heart and mind. The noise was a comfort, like a lullaby keeping him calm as the darkness beckoned.
Faith, he heard again. Faith in other people. That was what he was hearing discussed, the topic of the conversations going on about him. His mind chased the thought down through the impending darkness, into a lighted place where he could see faces, shapes and colors. All of the voices in the room were people he loved, who loved him. This was his family-so much larger than when he had been young and had only his sister. They were not all of his blood, but they were of his heart. At the end of his life, the thought brought him comfort.
He searched through the noise, trying to focus on comprehending the words and the voices speaking them. His breath came slowly, rattling in his feeble lungs as his heart struggled to beat. Head aching, chest throbbing, and muscles failing, he forced his eyes open, the lids feeling heavy like lead. The light was soft, warm, filtering onto the walls from a small table lamp next to his bed. He felt numb, disconnected, remembering the nurse had given him morphine for the pain, and now a general fuzziness clouded his head, worse than just his old age fogginess. Somehow he knew he was artificially relaxed, but he leaned into the feeling, knowing the only alternative was unbearable pain that would detract from his ability to remember, or to feel.
It must be the Intersect, at work even now, almost 60 years since having downloaded it for the final time. After all, it had been designed by his father to mimic the way his brain had already worked, something Stephen Bartowski had learned by accident. His sister, a neurologist, had constantly told him she believed the Intersect had been working to keep his mind agile as he'd aged, among many other physical enhancements it had allowed over the years. Even with the stupor of the drug laying over him like a cloud, he could still feel the echo of his father, the part of himself in program form that had fused with the repaired Intersect.
Chuck, sometimes, I swear, the Intersect is keeping you young.
He had lost them all. Everyone he knew was gone and he was the last. He had outlived his mother, General Beckman, John and Gertrude Casey, Morgan and Alex, Ellie and Devon, Emma and even Molly.
Sarah.
The sound of her name inside his head shocked him awake, the morphine's effects fading to the background. Thousands of images danced through his mind, pictures blending into moving frames like a film that was in fact just his life-the life he had shared with his soul mate. A life that was at its end, because his greatest reason for living had gone. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he struggled to open them, his bright hazel eyes now filmed with age, bloodshot and sallow. The sorrow opened up a bottomless pit, an empty aching that swallowed him whole in its enormity and finality. He cried softly, no more reason to hold his emotions inside.
"Dad?" Chuck heard-a soft, tender, and loving voice. He felt a cool hand against his wrinkled cheek, slim fingers gently brushing his white hair back over his ear.
Chuck found her face, a pale circle in the fuzzy background of shadows that were his room, the bedroom in the house he had lived in with his wife and children. His daughter Allison reached down and held her father's palsied hand, knobby from arthritis, running her thumb gently over the fragile thin skin on the back of his hand. She was an old woman herself, he knew, but his eyes saw her younger, his head full of memories of her as a child. Her long blonde hair, now all gray, was pulled back gently into a bun on the top of her head. It was her eyes, always her eyes-ocean blue flecked with gold like the morning sky at sunrise-that pulled him in, so reminiscent of her mother it took what little breath he had away.
"So beautiful…" Chuck whispered, his voice cracking as he sobbed. "Just like your mother."
Allison closed her eyes, the tears streaming down both cheeks. She let them fall, unable to let go of her father's hand, even to wipe her eyes. The dark blue smudges under her eyes told of her past anguish, losing her mother and now her father only a few days later. Her mother had died three days ago, in her sleep, in the same bed where her father now lay dying as well, from as much of a broken heart as anything else that she could understand. Her twin sister and her older brother had begrudgingly agreed to have an ambulance standing by at their mother's funeral, heeding the advice of the funeral director. Too many times, he had told them, elderly people died at funerals. It had sounded so strange, such a bizarre thing to contemplate.
But she had understood, as her siblings had conceded as well. There was a technical term for it, colloquially known as dying of a broken heart. But that was unimportant. Understanding that it was possible was key, and if it was possible, there were no two people she knew of who needed each other to survive more than her parents. It was difficult on all of them-losing both parents at the same time. But the only imaginable end. Her father couldn't really live one day without her mother, any more than her mother could have lived without him, should the situation have been reversed.
As painfully alone as she felt right now, Allison could find peace in that. Watching her father collapse into her brother's arms in the church had overwhelmed her at the time, her husband Max holding her up on her feet as she had panicked. But it had been a strange sense of relief at the same time-her father's pain had been cutting into her soul, and now, that pain was coming to an end, after a blessedly short time.
"Abby, where the hell is Stephen?" Chuck heard, a sharp retort. Maxim Grimes, his son-in-law, Ally's husband. He could discern all the different voices, but still only could see Ally, seated close to him. They would all be here, he remembered. Ally and Abby, Max and Tom, Abby's husband. Noises in the hallway-his grandchildren, all eight of them, some young adults and some still children. Others too, names and faces fading even as he tried to focus.
"Stephen," Chuck murmured, knowing the one voice he hadn't heard yet was his son's. And the bits of filtered conversation he was intercepting seemed to reinforce that belief-Stephen wasn't here. Chuck was tired of fighting, tired of being in pain or feeling nothing so he could block the pain.
"Dad, Stephen is coming," Ally told him firmly, squeezing his hand. "He promised. Just hold on a little bit longer, Dad. I know it hurts," she whispered, raising his hand to her mouth and kissing it.
He closed his eyes, the darkness ending the piercing stabbing behind his eyes. He felt sleep calling, at the edge of his consciousness, sucking away the complex thoughts he was working through. But the Intersect was still there, still functioning. And his dreams filled the dark void.
September 27, 2021
Westside Medical Center, Los Angeles, California
Chuck was alone in the waiting area. He sat with his hands folded in front of his mouth, clenched together to keep him from wringing his hands. The air around him wreaked of astringent, antiseptic floor cleaner, and rubbing alcohol. Constant overhead paging of muffled, incomprehensible words and random beeping ran an irritating dance back and forth across his thoughts, distracting the logical progression of thought that could have calmed him. Sitting still was becoming more and more challenging. He had already paced back and forth through this hallway 15 or 20 times, telling himself it would take time, the tests they were running. The tests that his sister had ordered, to help answer some of the questions concerning what had appeared to be a flash that had happened at his son's ninth birthday party.
So unexpected, happening while Chuck had been listening to the evening news, it had stopped the gathering to a dead stop. Every adult in the room had suddenly stared at him with an open mouth, frightening his son, who hadn't understood at all the implications of what had happened. He and Sarah had panicked, but, expertly, Sarah had saved the day, so to speak. That was his Sarah, once a day saver, always a day saver. Only her methods had changed over the years.
Sarah had reigned all of that in, forcing everyone back to the party at hand, not wanting her son to be worried or dismayed in any way, least of all at his birthday party. Her pretending everything was fine had set the tone. Lots of forced smiles, overly staged conversations and laughter. Perhaps Stephen, being as observant and sensitive as he was, had realized they were just pretending. But being so young, it had been easy to be absorbed back into the realm of the other kids-excited about presents and cake. It had gone in and out of his mind with nary another thought, even as the rest of the adults at the party were sick with worry and anxious to speak freely. That had been the longest three hours of Sarah's life, waiting for the party to end. The guests had said goodbye, slowly trailing out little by little. John Casey, Diane Beckman, and Ellie were all that had remained when Sarah had sent Stephen upstairs to shower and get ready for bed.
Walking back down the stairs into the room, the air heavy with tension, she had been hit immediately. "What did we just witness, you two? What the hell is going on?" Beckman had demanded.
Chuck had looked blitzed, incoherent, still in shock and unable to speak. He had opened his mouth to answer, but no words would come out. Sarah had answered for him. "Somehow, my son has an Intersect. That's what you saw. I have no idea how that is even possible, General," she had said slowly, as much to calm herself down as to diffuse the situation.
Casey had been pacing, something Chuck had almost never seen. "This is crazy!" Chuck had suddenly exclaimed, gesticulating wildly with his hands. "He can't have an Intersect! He didn't download anything. There's nothing to download. No program, nothing. This makes no sense," he had ended, winded, spiraling down into panic again.
"Chuck, your brain is abnormal or whatever, right?" Casey had called.
"Not abnormal, John. Just different," Ellie had offered.
"Ok," he had added impatiently. "But is it such a stretch to think maybe he inherited that from you? Your sister has that same thing, doesn't she?"
Ellie had nodded, as if what he had said made perfect sense.
"I don't care what his brain looks like!" Chuck had yelled. "He can't have been born with encoded government secrets in his brain. End of story. I don't get it. You know I'm right, Ellie. Come on!"
Her eyes shifting to everyone who was suddenly staring at her, Ellie had begun hesitantly, "No, Chuck, you're right. But we saw what we saw. I don't know what it means, but something is going on. Something we may not understand." She had pressed her hands over her lips, thinking. Looking back up at him after a pause, she had added, "Chuck, bring him to the hospital on Monday. I'll run a barrage of tests. MRI, the works. I'll figure it out. I am still the Intersect expert, even nine years out."
Now two days, two endless and distracted days, and two sleepless nights later, here he sat, waiting, while his sister used all of her accumulated neurological research to find out how his young son could have flashed on intel concerning a ransomware attack on the Sacramento water supply.
The clicking sound of heels on the tile floor drew his attention, and he lifted his head, knowing by the cadence of the sound that it was Sarah approaching. She was professionally dressed, black dress pants and a green silk blouse. She had a language tutoring session after picking up the girls from soccer practice, he knew. She had left them with Morgan and Alex, done her lesson, then came straight here. She hurried to him, sitting beside him in the chair. He breathed in the scent of her perfume, wishing it would calm him as it filled his lungs, but knowing just her perfume wasn't enough, not now.
"Is he still in there?" Sarah asked, tilting her head forward, looking to meet his eyes.
Chuck nodded, his hands still pressed over his mouth. "It's been almost four hours, Sarah. I haven't heard anything. I'm freaking out," he said, using all his strength to steady the timber of his voice. Sarah could see the cuffs of his pine green shirt unevenly rolled on his forearms, knowing he had to have been fidgeting with the buttons on the cuffs as he sat still, a nervous habit he resorted to once in a while.
"He's with your sister. She'll figure it out. She just needs time. Way less than anyone else would, you know that," she said, trying to reassure him. She rested her hand against his knee, smoothing the rough surface of his jeans.
"What are we going to do?" he asked fretfully, disregarding her hopefulness.
"Chuck, you had an Intersect at his age, right?" she asked.
"I did, but not like that! I wasn't flashing. It was a beta version, no intel in it," he said excitedly, lowering the pitch of his voice to avoid being overheard should anyone walk by. He was using his hands just as much as his mouth to talk, also something he did more frequently when he was worried.
"Right, but it didn't hurt you. Your brain could take it, with no issues. You always could. It's not like the situation with the governor, Chuck," she added. Her husband was nothing short of amazing, for many reasons, only one part of that being the Intersect and how his brain could retain information.
The eyes that met hers were wide from his near hysteria. "That wasn't even what I was worried about, but, my God, Sarah, what if that's a thing? My father's dead! What if he needs something like that?" He was almost twitching, frantic, ready to jump out of his seat.
"Chuck, take it easy," she insisted, grabbing his bicep and holding firm. "One thing at a time. Let your sister figure out what's going on."
He shook his head back and forth, feeling the weight of the situation sitting on his shoulders like a wet blanket. "I can't get away from this, Sarah. It's still following us, haunting us. We will never be able to get away from this," he lamented, his voice losing its strength.
"Chuck," she said sharply, grabbing both of his hands in hers and squeezing, stopping his hand wringing. "We will get through this, the same way we got through everything else, ok? Together." After several seconds of the words sinking in, he sucked in his breath, steadying himself. As always, she could calm him when nothing else could.
He let out a shuddering breath, pulling his hands out of hers and reaching around to hold her hand instead. His palms were almost sticky; they were so sweaty, but she held tight.
Several minutes later, they both looked up as Ellie walked through the door, tucking her hands into her lab coat pockets as the door clicked shut behind her. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, the slightest hint of gray hair visible at her temples. She wore a simple purple sheath dress and almost no jewelry. She smiled, weakly, Chuck thought. Her eyes were haunted, misty. "Come into my office, guys," she said quietly, saying nothing else.
Chuck's legs felt like rubber when he stood, his knees almost buckling from his nerves. He had been afraid many times in his life, in terrible danger more times than he could count, but never could he remember being this fearful, because now it was his child in potential danger. Sarah held his hand, and his arm as they walked. She was just as scared, he knew, but she was forcing an air of calm to help keep him together.
"Please tell me you know what's going on, Sis," he said hurriedly as he sat down across from her in her office. While he was waiting for Sarah to sit, his eyes scanned the photographs on the shelf behind her desk chair. Her family-her husband and her children, Chuck and Sarah and their children. It was their whole life laid out frame by frame, prominently displayed in front of rows and rows of books.
"I do, Chuck," she said solemnly. Her demeanor was making Chuck more agitated, but Sarah held onto him, telling him with her eyes to be quiet until Ellie explained. Ellie reached towards a pile of manilla folders on her desktop, pulling the one on the top in front of her. She flipped the cover open. Chuck could see MRI scan images, something he was familiar with after having been privy to all the research his sister had done while subcontracting for the CIA before Stephen was born.
"This is Stephen's brain, Chuck. It's almost identical to yours. Same number of connections between hemispheres. Apparently, whatever aberration caused it in us is hereditary, at least in part," she said, gesturing to the same images he remembered from looking at his old ones.
"So his brain works the same way, then, Ellie?" Sarah asked, trying to make sense of it, and speaking for Chuck, who was barely comprehending what she was saying in the state he was in.
"Yes, and no, Sarah. His brain functions the way the Intersect computer always worked, just like Chuck's. He could handle the same amount of information and recall it immediately, just like Chuck," she said slowly.
Chuck's eyes darted back and forth between Sarah and his sister. "Say what you're not saying. There's something else. Something you don't want to have to tell us," he insisted.
"You were right, Chuck. He can't have been born with government intel in his brain. Even if I were to use the excuse that Sarah downloaded her Intersect while she was very early in her pregnancy with him, it wouldn't explain that. Intel doesn't transfer through the bloodstream," she said matter-of-factly.
"So then how is it there?" he insisted.
Ellie pulled her hands back, then reached up to cover her mouth, blinking back tears. Her makeup started running, a deep purple pool of liquid resting in the corners of her eyes. "When I removed the Intersect from Sarah...I had no idea this could have been a side effect at the time. I'm sorry, Chuck. I am."
"What are you saying?" he demanded. "What happened?" Her emotional state was troubling, and he internally chastised himself for sounding harsh, when he was just worried.
"The method I used, elongating the exposure to ease the stress on her system, created a kind of biofeedback loop. He was still in utero, subject to Sarah's neurological impulses. His brain was already developed, with the connections you can see. But the neural energy that he was responding to during that procedure amplified those connections," she explained, sounding remorseful and guilt-ridden.
"Ellie," Sarah began. "Please don't blame yourself for anything. You were trying to help us, help me. I could have started to lose memories again. You did the best you could while we were running out of time. We know that," she said, looking at Chuck out of the corner of her eye, seeing him nod along, agreeing with her.
Sarah's words seemed to comfort Ellie somewhat. He waited, then started again. "What does that mean for him? I still don't completely understand," Chuck said slowly.
"What it means, Chuck," Ellie said, unable to keep the dread from affecting her tone, "is that he is now the ultimate Intersect."
Chuck's alarm slackened his jaw. "Wha…" He turned to look at Sarah, whose eyes were wide and unblinking as she waited for Ellie to explain.
"The intel doesn't need to be downloaded like your Intersect. His brain pulls the intel from what he hears and sees, what he reads and what he understands. His brain has been doing that since he was a baby. Chuck, he remembers flashing at three. Although there's a…" She paused, searching for words. Chuck almost asked her what was wrong, but she continued before he could speak. "There's evidence that it was earlier than that. His flashes when he was that young were insignificant-cartoons, movie quotes, things like that. He was just a baby. He just never knew how abnormal that was. He thought everyone experienced life like that. He only started flashing about the things you do, you know, actual intelligence issues, recently. You know, his brain was maturing, things started making more sense to him while the news was on, things like that," she finished, stopping talking abruptly, as she saw her brother lose his composure in front of her.
He covered his face with both hands, hiding his face as he broke down. Sarah grabbed him, wrapped her arms around him, feeling his shoulders shake as he wept. His pain enveloped her, burning inside her chest and crushing the air out of her lungs, as if she was feeling it for herself. Seeing him so utterly broken down affected Ellie as well, tears streaming from her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Chuck. If I had known-"
"El, it's not your fault," he said finally, his voice muffled behind his hands and stuttering as he fought for strength. "Sarah was right. I could have lost her again if you hadn't done what you did when you did it. I just-" He pulled his hands down his face, revealing bloodshot, pink eyes, and his mouth twisted into a crooked line. "He's so little. I know nine isn't a baby, but he's...he's a little boy. Only now that's gone. He's getting bombarded by information that he doesn't even understand."
Ellie sat forward slightly, the doctor receding as the loving sister surged back. "Chuck, I can understand that you would feel that way. But he doesn't. It doesn't bother him at all. He never knew anything else. He's had this his whole life." She smiled, with two trailing tears, one on each cheek. "In fact, he feels better because he knows it happens to you too. You're his hero, Chuck. Did you know that?" Ellie asked, her face beaming despite the tears.
His only response was more tears, holding his hand against his chest and clutching it as if it physically hurt him.
"I do," Sarah said proudly. "We all do." She reached over, grabbed his chin and turned his face towards her. She couldn't disguise her own fear and concern from him, but the love he saw there as well reinforced him just the same. "Everyone in this family knows that. None of us would be here without you, at one time or another, Chuck."
He knew what she was trying to do, grinning weakly without his teeth visible. "I wanted to protect him, protect them all, from this. And now it's here and there's nothing I can do," he whispered.
I know, Son. It's how I felt too. Why I left all those years ago. But it found you anyway. Sometimes, fighting destiny is just a waste of energy. Maybe things are the way they are because they're supposed to be that way. It doesn't always fit your vision, what you want. But it ends up all right in the end. Trust me, Son. It will be alright.
"Chuck?" he heard, knowing Sarah was talking, realizing he had zoned out, as his father's voice took dominance in his thoughts as the Intersect overlay that contained the digital version of his father's mind interacted with his.
Shaking himself out of his stupor, both women stared, knowing why he had zoned out, in awe of that connection that surfaced from time to time. After another brief pause, reminded of a concern, he asked Ellie, "What about the deterioration I experienced without the governor? Or the key program? Is he in any danger?"
"No, Chuck. There's nothing to overload his neural energy. It's part of his brain configuration. He will never have any problems like that, I promise you," she assured him.
Comforted by that, and his father's words, his troubles eased a little. Sarah felt the muscles in his back relax and smiled at him comfortingly.
"Chuck," Ellie began, seriously somber, and bringing him up short. They both stared. "Do you completely trust General Beckman?"
Chuck narrowed his eyes, wary, dreading the reason for the question. "Now I do, implicitly. It wasn't always the case, in the beginning. But I have nothing but faith in her now. Why?" he asked sharply.
Ellie looked at Sarah, hoping her sister-in-law would understand the point she was trying to make without spelling it all out. "Oh my God," Sarah muttered under her breath as she surmised what Ellie was getting at.
"What?" he asked in alarm, shifting his gaze between the two of them.
"Your son's brain, Chuck," Ellie proclaimed direly. "How many bad actors would have loved to get their hands on the Intersect? How many tried? They couldn't build it or make it work for real no matter what they did. But if they had access to a walking, talking computer that could compile intel from every environment he was placed in…"
Chuck felt like the floor had tilted, like the building was shaking during an earthquake. "Oh my God," he reiterated, louder, his voice shaking.
"Chuck, no one knows but our family. And Beckman. She went to extraordinary measures to protect you, so that no one knew about you. She will do the same for him. You have to know that. She loves him like he's her family," Sarah insisted.
"Even with a weapon like that?" he asked, the horror of what he was saying glaring back at her from his eyes.
"Not any more, Chuck. You changed her, too, you know. We can trust her. I know we can," Sarah continued to insist.
"Nothing ever stayed a secret, Sarah," he countered.
"But we eliminated any threats. We will again if that happens," she swore to him.
"For the rest of our lives? He will never be safe, Sarah. Never," he fretted. "We can't do this again."
Feeling the despair as it settled on them, Ellie knew there was only one thing she could say. "Call General Beckman, Chuck. Let her know. She'll know what to do, to keep you all safe. You trust her. Let her help you," Ellie told them.
That was the best comfort Ellie could offer, and it was none. Sick with worry, he stood, grabbing Sarah's hand with a slick palm, ready to walk into the exam room to collect his son.
With no idea of what to do next, and no idea how he was going to hide his dismay from his son.
