A/N1: Don't own...yeah, you know. Let's get on with it.
A/N2: Hi, guys. Here we go again. We are up to the thirtieth (30th) arc of this insanely long (seemingly) never-ending story. I'm calling this one the Mauser Arc. It is based on, well sort of based on, the canon episodes Chuck vs. Santa Claus (season 2, episode 11) and Chuck vs. The Suburbs (season 2, episode 13). The episodes are being smished together in this story. Hope that's ok.
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CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Director Graham sat at his desk and re-read the article from the Los Angeles Times. Castle Studios was making headlines with its new policies about sexual harassment. Corporate Vice President Rizzo had given a long interview to the reporter about the fact that women were crucial to the operation of the Studio and Studio management was hyper focused on the issue. The interview contained a stone-cold threat to anyone who thought they could get away with such behavior under this management. They had no intention of permitting the 'normal' Hollywood business-as-usual to continue there. The article had been picked up by other media and Rizzo was being called upon to give other interviews elsewhere.
Graham sighed and put down the paper. Glancing at his watch to calculate the time in Los Angeles, he looked up a number and called it.
"Hey, Langston," said the woman now known as Lisa Mattock.
"Hey, Peg. Saw you guys in the paper. I need you to stop it."
"Stop what?" she said, disingenuously. They both knew she knew perfectly well what he was talking about.
"Your crusade against the sexual harassment in Hollywood. As if you didn't know. Stop it. Stand down."
"No can do, boss," she said. "There's a lot of bullshit going on here. Actual rape for God's sake. Not going to happen. Not going to stop."
Graham's voice dropped slightly in volume, a sure sign of anger, but he also sighed sadly. "Peg, it's horrible, I agree. But let's remember our day job, ok. You run a secret spy facility. The key word here is SECRET. You understand? I can't have you bringing a ton of attention to the Studio. What if the press starts to look into your fictional past? What then? We have to shut off the spotlight."
She responded, with increasing anger of her own, "I understand, but I will not let rape take place when I can stop it with some legal documents and some fucking announcements in the press, for fuck's sake. Are you telling me I have to back off if I see something in the Studio that you and I, if left to our own devices, would castrate some bastard for? Is that what you are telling me? Because that is seriously fucked up...boss." She added the final word as an afterthought.
"Peg," he said, speaking at almost a whisper, "there are a hundred things I wish I could fix. Sexual harassment. Homelessness. Street crime. Racism. Inequality. Totalitarianism and war. Climate change. A hundred things. But I fucking can't. I can't. So, I do what I can do. I do my job, which, I think, makes our little corner of the world a safer place. And if someone working for me, like you and Rich, are not on the same page, I have to get you back onto the same page. Do you understand me? Stand down, Peg. Stand down. No more interviews. No more dramatic changes to Castle's operations. Fit in. Blend into the environment. You guys are spies for fuck's sake. You know better than anyone how this works."
"Ok, boss," said Lisa Mattock, grimly, as if through gritted teeth.
"Good," said Graham. He disconnected the call without another word.
Graham moved the paper aside. The last thing he wanted to do at the moment was look at the paper any more than he had to. The stock market was in free fall. Fuck, the entire economy was in fucking free fall. His job was to look for foreign intelligence, but the domestic events were certainly concerning, even if not his bailiwick. This was shaping up to be the worst economic disaster of the last eighty years. He put his head down and dedicated himself to finding out what America's enemies would do given the nation's sudden economic vulnerability.
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Castle Studios Commissary, Los Angeles, California
"Hey, Jeff," said Sarah with a smile, "can we join you?"
Jeff Barnes looked up from his salad (and the book he was reading) with a wide smile, "Hi, Sarah. I'd love that. Hey, Chuck. How're you guys doing?"
"Just great, Jeff. How're you doing?" asked Chuck.
"Just great. Actually, working with your buddy Bryce."
"Oh, yeah? On what?" asked Chuck, sitting down with his sandwich.
"Pilot of a new show called White Collar. Bryce is the stunt double for the lead, an actor named Matt Bomer."
"Cool," said Sarah.
"Yeah. Be nice if it gets picked up by the Studio," said Jeff. "I've never done this before and I'm learning a ton every day." Jeff started to laugh to himself.
"What's so funny?" asked Chuck.
"I was just thinking about Bryce. Well, Matt and Bryce. Matt doesn't like Bryce," said Jeff.
"Why not?" asked Sarah.
"Well, I think they look like twins personally, but Matt says they don't look alike. He says Bryce is too pretty to double for him."
"Too pretty?" Sarah started to laugh. "Oh, that's good. Wait til Casey hears about this." Now they were all laughing.
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Offices of Carmichael Industries, Castle Studios, Los Angeles, California
Chuck and Sarah thanked the Microsoft team that had come down to LA for the meeting and wished them a safe flight back to Redmond as they walked out of the offices. Once the others were gone, they stopped and looked at each other.
Chuck blew out a loud sigh and said, "Wow."
Looking fairly blown away herself, Sarah said, "Yeah."
"Let's find Casey." Sarah nodded. Stepping into a conference room, so as not to be observed by the receptionist, Chuck touched his watch and said, "Case, where are you?"
"Castle," came the immediate reply.
"We're coming to you."
Sarah and Chuck headed downstairs to the underground facility and found Casey reading the operating manual of a new night vision system that had been delivered that morning.
"What's up?" asked the older man.
"Just got finished with the Microsoft meeting," said Chuck.
"And?" asked Casey. "They want to hire us to troubleshoot the newest software? Big new contract, even with the economy cratering?"
"No," said Sarah. "They want to buy us. They want to buy Carmichael Industries. Bring what we do in-house,"
Casey gave a bark of laughter. "Heh. Not for sale."
"They offered three hundred million dollars," she said.
"And that was their starting offer," said Chuck.
The smile left Casey's face and he stared at his friends with surprise and a healthy amount of shock.
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Falls Church, Virginia
Anna Graham threw the dry cleaning in the back seat of the car and started it up. Just as she was pulling out into traffic, one of her cell phones rang.
"Anna Graham," she said, answering the call.
"Hey, Anna. It's Peg. I need to talk to you about something."
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Westside Medical, Los Angeles, California
Ellie sat at her desk and reviewed the test results of a patient who had suffered a fall and slight brain injury. The latest test indicated that the woman was making a nice recovery and should be back to her old life within a few weeks.
Her desk phone rang. "Dr. Bartowski," she answered.
"Hey, Ellie. It's Jack Bradshaw, over at LA County." He was referring to another hospital in the area.
"Hey, Jack. Good to hear from you. What's up?"
"I need a consult. Not a rush as the patient has died already, but there's some test results here that don't make any sense." Bradshaw was a neurologist and an old friend of Ellie's.
"OK. Talk to me."
"Fifty-four year old homeless man. Some heart disease. Liver shot. Malnutrition, but not acute. Brought in by emergency services. Presenting signs of a total neurological collapse. We did an MRI, and were moving him across the hall for a CAT scan when he passed. I hadn't even gotten the opportunity to look at the MRI results before it was too late. When I did...well, they are like nothing I've ever seen. A total mess. I asked around here and no one has ever seen anything like it. I thought of you. You are the smartest neurologist in Los Angeles."
With a smile in her voice, Ellie replied, "Now Jack, I was going to take a look anyway. No need to butter me up."
"Just call it as I see it, El. Balls and strikes," he said with a chuckle.
"Alright. Email me the MRI results."
"Here you go," he said.
While she was waiting for the email to hit she said, "How's the family?"
"Good thanks. My oldest has just left for college," he said.
"Oh, nice. Where?"
"Notre Dame. He's a football player and was recruited to play," he said.
"Oh, that's great. Good for him. Great team." There was a tone from her computer as the email arrived. "Ok. It just got here. Hang on a sec while I open it."
The test results showed up on her screen. She began to scroll through them. "History of epilepsy?"
"Not that we know," said Bradshaw. "Autopsy showed no signs."
"But that doesn't mean anything," said Ellie.
"No, it doesn't," he said.
"Tox screen?"
"Alcohol, but otherwise clean. And even that was minimal. He hadn't had a drink in at least 24 hours," he said.
Ellie continued to scroll through the scans, until she got to the one scan showing the cerebellum, the portion of the brain controlling the vital bodily functions like respiration and heart rate. There was some unusual activity shown. She gasped.
Bradshaw said, "You just got to the cerebellum, didn't you?"
Ellie was silent as she stared at the results of the scan. Finally, she managed to grunt affirmatively.
"What do you think?" asked Bradshaw.
"I've never seen anything like this in the cerebellum," she said after a long pause.
"Exactly. None of us have. What the hell could have done that?"
"Well," said Ellie, "it's no wonder he died. I'm surprised he lasted long enough for you to get the MRI done."
"Yeah," said Bradshaw. "Me too."
"Listen, Jack," she said, "I'd like to look into this some more. Can you get me the autopsy report and the report of the emergency services people who brought him in?"
"Sure, Ellie. It might take me a while to track down, but I can do that."
"Thanks, Jack. I'll look at that stuff too and get back to you with anything I can figure out."
"Thanks, Ellie."
"Bye."
"Bye."
Ellie disconnected the call and sat at her desk staring at the computer screen. Could she be imagining it? No, she didn't think so. So how did a homeless man end up with some version of an intersect in his head? One with a fatal flaw? She hadn't lied to Jack. What she was seeing in the dead man's cerebellum was a misplaced intersect program which obviously interfered with his basic bodily functions.
It wasn't her intersect. She was certain of that. None of the men and women working on the government's intersect could pull off a test without her knowing. That left only one choice.
While in Pakistan the team had learned that Fulcrum was intending to begin testing its own version of the intersect. What if this was the result of a test? What if, for whatever reason, they were conducting the tests with Los Angeles's homeless? She was about to leave for the day. She'd stop by Chuck and Sarah's tonight and talk to them about it.
Using a homeless man made sense. If the test went badly, the poor subject was unlikely to be missed by many. And she thought it unlikely that the autopsy would show any relevant cause of death. It was just a miracle that this man survived long enough to get to an MRI machine.
A miracle. So, if this individual was a miracle, what if there were others that died more quickly? What if he wasn't the first? Unlikely that he was.
She looked up a number and called the Chief Medical Examiner of Los Angeles County. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was after normal business hours. As she expected, the man's voicemail answered. She left a message for him to call her back in the morning.
She'd wait to see what he had to say. If there were other unexplained homeless deaths it might be sign that Fulcrum is testing a new intersect and disposing of dead, or almost dead, subjects on the streets of Los Angeles.
Ellie let out a long sigh. It might extend beyond the County as well. Between Santa Barbara and San Diego there were almost a dozen counties. There was no telling how many of those Fulcrum might be operating in.
Sitting back in her chair, she shook her head. She was getting far ahead of herself. On the basis of a single image on the screen, she had arrived at Fulcrum dropping intersected corpses like autumn leaves all over Southern California. Take one step at a time, Eleanor. Calm down.
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Falls Church, Virginia
Graham wearily exited his SUV, thanked his driver/bodyguards and trudged up the path to his front door. He had men and women working to track down the rumor that Russia was trying to influence China to take advantage of the cratering American economy and take steps in order to damage it further. Perpetual troublemakers.
Opening his door, he called out, "Hey. I'm home."
Dropping his bag on a chair by the door, he walked through the quiet house to the kitchen.
His wife was standing in the center of the room with her fists on her hips looking pissed off. More than pissed off, to tell the truth; the look on her face could have boiled water. She was clearly furious about something he'd done, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was.
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A/N3: According to On the Brink by Henry Paulson, the former Secretary of the Treasury, Russia did, in fact, try to convince China to dump Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds onto the market to further damage the American economy at a time of unprecedented weakness. China refused.
A/N4: You'll see (if you stick around). Going to be leaving canon far behind on this arc. Both episodes were very sweet (and I did really enjoy them), but also intentionally frustrating. Each was a step forward and a step back. I don't see any need to recap them here. As for Santa Claus, the bracelet is already Sarah's in New Day and he's already seen her execute Lizzie in cold blood in chapter 85, so there's no need for either of those plot points. As for Suburbs, we already have C&S co-habiting happily, so the nice domestic scenes from that episode aren't necessary in this AU either. But, more to the point, Fulcrum, in Suburbs, decided to kidnap and perform fatal experiments on the very agents sent to investigate a closed community. WTF? What kind of a plan is that? Are you simply begging to be discovered? And no one could figure out that there was a secret base under the residential neighborhood? What kind of idiots were looking into it? Neither episode made a lick of sense. So, I've decided to reimagine them in my own way. Hope you guys approve. I trust you to let me know.