chicanery shih-KAYN-uhr-ee; chih-, noun:
1. The use of trickery to deceive (especially in matters of law).
2. A trick or quibble.

Chicanery drives from French chicaner, to quibble, apparently from Middle Low German schicken, to arrange, with the sense "to arrange to one's own advantage."

"How'd it go?"

"Boring. Predictable. Nothing happened except at first, and even that was just a short little spurt of activity that wasn't repeated."

"I wasn't talking about your social life. I was asking about your private interview with Will Tippin."

"Very funny. So was I. He was so hyped up on meds that I don't think he'll remember our little interview when he wakes up again. Which means I get to go back and play mean guy again. It's no fun when you can't inflict physical harm to the subject."

"You mean you didn't break his nose? The first time we met, you broke my nose."

"You had an ugly nose. I did you a favor."

"So what're we gonna do with him when he's officially released from the hospital? What about his job at the newspaper? He can't just drop that, can he?"

"We're putting him on the staff of a smaller newspaper that does publications once a week at most. He'll be able to do a few articles a month or so to keep the image up while working his chubby little cheeks off as a gopher for the desk jockeys, who in turn cater to the needs of the field agents."

"You're just bitter that after that time in Bosnia you had to leave the exciting life of a field agent and become one of us lamentable desk jockeys."

"Remember, boy, I sign the paycheck of the man who signs your paycheck."

"No you don't."

"It sounded good."

"Most people here don't even think your division is real."

"I'm a myth. Like the Yeti."

"Ugly enough."

"Or the X-Files."

"Am I Scully?"

"That's the reason you're in the basement in the first place. You look awful in those heels."

"David Ducovny has a cute ass, though, according to my wife. You're missing out in that department. Yours is too big."

"I'm insulted. Why don't you go pick a fight with someone your own size?"

"Just because you could pound me in the floor like an ant with your huge ass you think I'm afraid of you?"

"Something like that."

"You can really read people."

"Thanks, it's something I picked up from my years as a hostage interrogator. You learn to tell when somebody is lying to get away from the pain and when somebody is lying from the pain."

"There's a difference?"

"I'll show you one of these days. Is that your pager or mine? I don't have my glasses and I can't tell from here."

"Mine. It's Bristow."

"Time to go be a handler to a mole. Doesn't that make you proud of your country?"

"Damn right it does."

"Maybe you could get together with Agent Vaughn and reminisce about your Bristows. You could probably compare notes on who has the better one."

"I can see that now. Agent Vaughn and myself in a drunken brawl at some bar on the outskirts of town, me yelling at him, 'My double agent is better than your double agent!'"

"Hey, whatever floats your boat. See ya."

"See ya."

Waking up for the first time had been hard enough. But waking up for the second times was even harder. When he woke up the first time, there was this slow, surreal quality to it. He didn't know what would be happening and it was an experience for him to test out. Now he knew what was in store for him and the dreading of it jarred him abruptly out of the half-sleep he was enjoying into the sterile whiteness of the hospital rooms.

Oh. God. No. Please, just let the headache leave him alone and go back to whatever hell dimension it came from. And please don't let anyone ever know that he'd watched Buffy so many times that he was bringing in her lingo. It wasn't his fault that Buffy happened to be the Sarah Michelle Gellar.

He hated hospitals. No, strike that. He hated the smell of hospitals. And, glancing around the room and taking in its sights and smells, Will had to admit that this hospital smelled pretty hospital-like. Just like when he was kid and had gotten his appendix out. Dear God, had they gone back for his tonsils?

He swallowed. No tenderness. Was that a good sign? Would there be tenderness? Will couldn't remember; he'd never had his tonsils taken out before, after all. Maybe he should reach up and . . . ah, his shoulder hurt. Could he remember why his shoulder hurt? Being ambidextrous had its advantages, Will thought as he switched from his left to his right arm and gingerly touched his neck. Nothing.

It must be the arm for which he was in this room. That was evil. What had happened? Time to think back. Let's see . . . He was in the safe house and very hungry. Come to think of it, he was still hungry now. So he knew that he hadn't eaten. That wasn't good, because a Will Tippin who hasn't eaten is not a fun Will Tippin to be around. He was not a Lara Flynn Boyle wannabe.

Oh. Look. An IV. And yet he was still hungry. Well, the world would never cease to amaze Will, but he was hardly surprised that even though he was getting nutrients he was still hungry. Wasn't there a story in the Wizard of Oz series about how the Woozy didn't like the Professor's eight-course meal pills because he couldn't taste them? Well, that was Will. Give him a Big Mac over a needle in his arm any day.

Actually, no, McDonald's was like the Gap; overrated junk. He'd go to Wendy's because he liked Dave Thomas over McDonald's any day of the week. Except when he had no money and McDonald's was doing those ninety-nine cent cheeseburgers. Then he was forced into eating there.

Oh. A little woozy. Maybe he should put his arm down and try to figure out what happened after he didn't eat. Let's see, after he didn't eat he opened the door. Or, rather, right before he didn't eat he opened the door. And what had he seen? Somebody standing with a gun. Wait, somebody with a gun? Had it fired?

Oh, great. Life is just great. He'd been shot by one of Syd's crazy friends. Well, not crazy friends. Maybe he could actually say he'd been shot by one of Syd's crazy non-friends, one of her enemies. In any way, Will was wishing at that moment that he'd never investigated Danny's murder.

No, strike that. He would never wish not to know why Danny would died. Will knew that just knowing the reasons behind Danny's death was important to him. Why was it? He wasn't certain. He was too tired. He sighed loudly, which caused his head to buzz in a not-all-that-unpleasant fashion. He decided that lack of oxygen was fun in small bursts.

"I was wondering when you were going to awake." The voice was vaguely familiar and oddly spine-tingling to listen to. It was exactly how Will envisioned horror writer Stephen King to sound until he saw Stephen King on a TV interview. That ruined it. Stephen King did not sound like Stephen King. But this guy did.

"Yeah, well, I'm a heavy sleeper," Will said. To his surprise, his throat sounded rough and overused. He wasn't normally a sleep talker, had he indulged while in this crazy place of smell? He tried clearing his throat.

"You had a tube down your throat for a while to help you breath, but it was taken away about two days after you were shot," the man said quietly.

"Ah ha!" Will said. Or at least, Will tried to say. It came out more of a shaggy breath with enthusiasm behind it somewhere. The words in his head kept coming, though, and he continued speaking them in his head. He knew he'd been shot. Hadn't he just come to that conclusion? Okay, at first he thought it'd been tonsillitis, but, hey, that was over and he was sure now that he'd been shot.

"I assume you are asking who I am?" the man continued. Will stopped in the middle of his thought-speech and looked at the man through still-focusing eyes. He was tall, but not overly so, with a dark mop of curly hair that seemed out of place on his balding head. He was of average weight and build, with nothing about him to suggest anything out of the ordinary. He could have been from about thirty years of age to about sixty, depending on how well he had taken care of himself. "I am an agent with the Central Intelligence Agency."

Uh oh. How did Will know that this man was telling the truth? For all he knew, he could be in Russia or Peru. Did the Peruvians participate in this sort of thing? The only thing Will could remember about Peruvians was a good friend he'd had in middle school, a girl named Renata who was a Peruvian born in France living in America since the age of one. The girl was tall, thin, exotic looking, and beautiful. He wondered what had happened to her. Was she like Sydney? An agent? Like this man claimed to be.

"You may call me Agent Johns," he continued. How long had Will's thought-train taken? "Or merely just Johns if you wish. I have no preference, but some of your superiors will appreciate it if you address them and others in their company who outrank you appropriately."

"Real?" Will managed to caw out. What he meant was, How can I be certain that you aren't out to trick me? How do I know that you aren't actually the enemy of my government? Why don't you convince me it isn't my government who is my enemy? Who do you work for? What use am I to you?

Johns strode forward in his unnoticeable blue suit and reached in his front pocket and withdrew a plain black wallet. Opening it up, he flipped through some cards before withdrawing one and showing it to Will. He didn't glance at it. It could easily be faked. Nice to know that they cared enough to try to deceive him, though. Made him feel appreciated. Not many strangers nowadays that would go out of their way to make you believe something. Wasn't there a word for that, really? Chicanery.

"Good enough for you?" Johns inquired of Will after a few moments, thrusting his card back into his wallet and shoving the wallet out of sight. Ah, so the man was impatient. Will could use that to his advantage, he was pretty sure. If he had been functioning at one hundred percent, he would have already started planning ways to annoy the man without getting killed. However, with half of his brain still under the numb from pain category, he decided that he'd have to wait on that.

"No," Will said. Johns laughed. And laughed. Would he ever stop laughing? If he didn't, would he float up onto the ceiling like that man from Mary Poppins? What was his name? Uncle Albert? Earnest? Would he need to hiccough, like Charlie and Grandpa in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just to get down? Or would the sad trick to it? Would he start crying so desperately from his sadness that he would wash away the path of his life, like in Alice in Wonderland? Or would he just merely stop?

Johns stopped laughing. Will smiled. His last guesses were always the best. "I like you, Tippin," the agent said. "That's why, when we were trying to figure out what to do with you, we didn't decide on witness protection." Johns let his fingers drop to the metal railings of Will's bed and trace the swirling patterns in the metal absently. "I said, Tippin's a bright kid. With a little training, I said, he could amount to something."

What did this man, claiming to be an agent, mean? Will got the general feeling from the man that he was asking to be trusted. In his head because he didn't trust his body Will gave a mirthless laugh. Trust him? A total stranger? Impossible. Will lost the ability to trust anyone except himself when he saw Sydney beat the crap out of the men who were torturing him.

Is she a part of this? He remembered asking that. Maybe it wasn't in those exact words, but that's what he'd asked. And what had Jack Bristow said? He had given Will the assurance that his daughter was not in the intelligence business. Jack had lied. No. You can't trust anybody.

Johns was talking. Had he missed something? Will didn't think so. "So, kid, you're in. Soon as you're good and healed, we're sending you to the offices in LA. We were gonna do DC but then somebody very politely reminded us that sending you to DC would be worse than the Program, because a certain agent would know that her friend was in the CIA. And we don't want her to know."

Ah. There was the kicker. Lie to Sydney. His best friend. Don't tell her that he works for the CIA. Dear God, had he actually said that? Was that what Johns had meant by the entire conversation? That Will was going to be an agent? Like, a spy?

"Do you understand?"

Will nodded. "I think so," he said carefully. "You want me to work for you in the CIA." Johns kept his face carefully blank. Was this a good or a bad sign? Will didn't like this guy. Should he continue? Probably. There was nothing else for him to do. It wasn't like he could prop up on an elbow and play X-Box. "And you don't want me to tell Sydney."

Johns nodded once.

Lie to Sydney and Francie? Become a spy? Betray your best friends by continually putting yourself in danger? The Will Tippin of last year would have been appalled. He would not have been able to fathom a situation where he would even consider the option. He would have turned it down immediately.

"I'll do it," Will said, "but I want full dental."