NOTES: This story, Chuck vs. The No-Win Question, is not particularly angsty, it's more humor and drama, and in the way of an introduction to the post-S5 world of Chuck that I see in my mind. I'm planning some other stories set in the same world, earlier and maybe later in the time line, to explain in more detail how the world Chuck and Ellie live in in 2020 came to be, and how Chuck ended up as the father of our two charming little girls.
But there is certainly some angst implied by the situation and the recollections of our characters, isn't there? For ex, one reviewer mentioned that Sarah was stupid for waiting too long to come back after her memories returned. Well, in one sense yes. Sarah waited long enough for things to get...complicated...on Chuck's side of the bed. But does that make Sarah stupid? Remember, every story has more than one side. For example, why did Sarah not come back as soon as her memories healed? What would keep the giant blonde she-male away from her man, after everything they went through? Could there possibly be a reason that would make sense for the character of Sarah Walker? She was without her memories of Chuck and the clan for three months, after all. You can do a lot in three months, and have a lot happen to you. It's not hard to understand her divorcing Chuck while her memories are gone, is it? But why would she let that stand after she remembered? What stopped our Sarah from rushing home to fix everything while she still easily could?
What about our Chuck? What was he doing during the months while his Sarah was gone? You can do a lot of thinking in several lonely months. You can do a lot of action, too. Was Chuck just sitting in Burbank waiting and hoping for Sarah to show up? Or was he doing stuff on his own while he waited? How much did he know? What might he not have known that affected his choices and decisions?
When did Chuck and Sarah make Charlotte-Mary? Then there's the question of who teamed up with Chuck to bless the world with little Stephanie Bartowski, and how is that that happened at all?
Some of that will be revealed in this story, more of it will be hinted at. Exactly what happened with Sarah during the months after Quinn inflicted his damage on Clan Bartowski is complicated and messy enough to deserve a story of its own, and yes, there will be angst in that one.
Plus another question: if Charlotte Mary and Stephanie are within a month of the same age...that means our eagle scout, as Morgan refers to him, had Sarah and another woman pregnant at once! Yet his family still respects him, Ellie has not grounded him until the End of Time, and Sarah's mother and adopted sister still think Chuck is a fantastic guy and Devon considers Chuck to be awesome. How is it that Chuck did what he has to have done for Charlotte Mary and Stephanie to exist, and yet everybody still thinks of him as a straight shooter?
And of course there is Diane Beckman. She was present at the Bartowski gathering as a welcome guest. Yet this is a woman who repeatedly threatened to 'bunkerize' Chuck, and at one point actually ordered his murder. How did she end up as a welcome friend of the family?
So much can happen in eight years...
CHUCK vs. THE NO-WIN QUESTION Chapter 4: Business and Pleasure 2...
Aboard the catamaran Jennie Haniver off the coast of southern California, 12:05 p.m. local time...
"Ready, ladies?" Chuck Bartowski, also known to his all-female crew as 'Captain Chuck', asked.
"Ready, Captain!" his first mate (and eleven year old niece) Clara Whitcomb informed him.
"Ready, crew?"
"Do it Daddy!" Stephanie Bartowski cried, clinging to the railing with a huge grin on her six year old face.
"Ready, Captain!" Charlotte-Mary Bartowski cried, a huge smile lighting the face of the six year old.
The winds had been rising all morning, especially during the two hours since they had set sail, and now there was a fairly steady draft pushing them along, the twin hulls of the Jennie Haniver slicing the waves neatly. Chuck now adjusted the sail so that the wind caught it more squarely, while twisting the tiller to turn the Jennie. As Chuck had intended, the wind caught the sail and gave the Jennie Haniver additional thrust just as he twisted the tiller. The combination of the sharp turn and the force on the sail actually caused the Jennie to lift partly out of the water!
This was fine with Chuck, because a moment later he adjusted the sail again, reducing the force, and the catamaran fel back into the water with a tremendous splash! Fine spray rose from the sea, but the falling water did little to dampen the spirits of the children, who shrieked in terrified delight as the boat rose and fell.
"WHEEEE!" Chuck heard Clara cry out as the ship rose into the air, one hand gripping the railing white-knuckled, the other running through her long brown hair, trying desperately to keep the wind and motion from undoing her hairdo. The later was futile, because as the ship fell back into the water, a spray of moisture came back on the passengers of the vessel, adding to the effect of the brisk winds.
When the Jennie was on an even keel again, Charlotte-Mary yelled out, "Again! Do it again, Daddy! That was fun!"
"Yeah! Didja see the size a that splash?!" Stephanie said with a huge smile from where she sat next to her half-sister. "I think it got way up on the mast'n'sail!"
"Give it up, Clara, you can't get it back up there now! It's all wet!" Charlotte-Mary laughed, pointing at her cousin as the latter futilely tried to get her hair back into the intricate shape that she had managed to impose on it before they left the shore. "Guess you'll just haveta wait 'til we get back!"
Clara glared at her blonde cousin, then a furtive smile appeared on her face.
Chuck smiled himself. Clara was pushing twelve, and had begun showing signs of not being sure if she wanted to be a child or to grow up. Before their sailing trip, his niece had spent considerable time primping, she had her hair up and had chosen a color-coordinated T-shirt and swimsuit. Of course, it was pointless to primp before a sailing trip that was guaranteed to leave them all soaked, and now that the water had done its work Clara looked as if part of her wanted to be angry and part of her wanted to collapse giggling like Charlotte and Stephanie.
Enjoy your childhood, Clara, Chuck thought. Don't be in any hurry to grow up. Trust me, this 'adult' stuff isn't nearly as much fun as it looks.
Charlotte-Mary was letting the wind blow through her long blonde hair, and now she was climbing up the railing to get a better wind exposure.
"Char, get back down from there," Chuck ordered. "I've told you about trying to ride the railing!"
"But Daddy-"
"Now. Or early to bed tonight."
"All right, all right!" the blonde said as she slipped back into her seat.
"So who wants to see how fast we can go?" Chuck asked his feminine crew.
"ME!" Charlotte-Mary exclaimed. "Let's make it go faster than ever!"
"ME TOO DADDY!" Stephanie yelled.
"I guess it could be fun," Clara said, but her eyes were dancing.
"OK, my loyal crew, let's-"
Chuck was interrupted by the sound of a ringing telephone. Slightly irritated by the interruption, he pulled out his cell phone and immediately his mood became still worse. The symbol flashing on the screen meant it was from Carmichael Industries, specifically the Security Department.
"Carmichael here," Chuck said into the phone as he answered it. Clara sat up a little straighter, hearing Chuck refer to himself that way, and the younger girls became a little quieter. Clara also looked worried, she was old enough to know that hearing him refer to himself that way often meant trouble.
"Mr. Carmichael, this is Phillips in Security. We wanted to let you know we may have a possible Situation. We've intercepted the transmission pulses from one of the new CIA recognition units, the ones they only put in the field in the last six months. It's coming from the beach not far from from where you are now, and we have eyes on the subject. There's an unidentified female observing you from the beach.
"Can you get a team in there?" Chuck said, as he trimmed the sails and turned the Jennie Haniver to take it further out to sea...just in case. "In time to matter?"
"We've got men on the way, we lucked out, sir. Old Hand was leading a team back and coming through Burbank at the time. He's already on-site and says he can be in position to engage in under fifteen minutes."
"Good work, Phillips. Stand by."
Chuck set the phone aside, and said, "Girls, we're going to have a little change in plans. I'm sure it's probably nothing, but there's a woman on the beach who might be watching us, so we need to be careful."
Picking up the phone again, he asked, "Phillips, were exactly is she?"
When Chuck heard the precise coordinates, a sudden wild thought struck him. He had not realized he was so close to that particular spot, as they had moved along the coast, but now he realized that they were in fact just out to sea from a certain spot on a certain stretch of beach...and now a woman was sitting there watching them? It seemed to stretch coincidence. But how would she have known...?
"Charlotte-Mary," Chuck said, slightly sternly, "you talked to your mother last night on the phone, right?"
"Yeah, Daddy!"
"Did you by any chance mention that we were going sailing today?"
Charlotte-Mary blushed and looked down, then back at her father. "No, Daddy I didn't! Honest! I mean...not exactly, anyway!"
Chuck began to feel a sense of relief. "What does 'not exactly' mean, Charlotte?"
"Well...I know I wasn't s'posed to tell about it, but Mommy asked me what we were gonna be doin' today, and when I told her I couldn't tell her, she asked me when we'd be at the 'musement park! When I told her we wasn't gonna go to the amusement park, Mommy asked me something about visiting Grandma, and then when I asked her why she asked that she asked me somethin' else and I got confused! Then I realized I'd told her we was sailin' today before I even knew I did! Honest, Daddy! I didn't mean to tell but she...I got all...I mean before I knew it..."
"It's OK, baby," Chuck assured her. "Your Mom is good at that."
"Phillips, are your men in position?" Chuck asked the phone.
"Just about, sir!"
"Char, I want you to call your mother, and ask her if she's on the beach."
A beach near Burbank, CA, 12:40 local time...
"Sarah, is that you?" a very familiar male voice came from the phone a moment later.
"Yes, Chuck," Sarah said, after glancing at the screen of the phone to make sure the tiny symbol of a 'specially secure' connection was there. "It's me. I...well, I had a little time...the usual hurry up and wait...and I knew you were sailing today and I just wanted to see you all for a minute."
There was a momentary silence on the other side, then she heard Chuck's voice saying something that she could not make out, and she realized that Chuck was carrying on two conversations at once. On a hunch she looked toward Neil, and as she suspected he was apparently casually chatting on his own cell phone, and she was sure actually speaking into a wire. After a moment, he looked directly at Sarah, and began to walk toward her, both hands held out and clearly visible.
She let him draw within a few yards, and saw him speaking, as she had suspected, into a mini-mike.
"Eyes here, yes sir. I have visual confirmation, it's Goldengirl."
Sarah rolled her eyes as she heard the current codename CI Security had assigned her. Well, I guess it's better than BM1. Whatever that meant.
She recalled that CI Security had suddenly stopped using the 'BM1' codename, very suddenly, after Chuck had overhead it being used. Afterward, nobody but nobody had been willing to tell her where the innocuous-sounding letters had come from, or why they had been assigned to her.
"Sorry about that, Sarah," Chuck's voice came over the phone again, sounding apologetic. "I just had to be sure."
"I understand," Sarah said. "Believe me, I get it. I should have let you know I was going to be doing this."
"Just a moment," Chuck was saying, and she saw Neil carrying on his own conversation that she was sure was also with her ex-husband.
"I understand, sir," Neil was saying into his communicator. Then he looked up at Sarah and said, "Sorry, Ma'am. We had a false alarm from your recognition signal."
Sarah blinked. "What?"
"Your recognition signal," Neil said. All around them, the Carmichael Industries security people had begun to gradually depart from the beach, leaving as unobtrusively as they had arrived. "Your CIA transmitter. I'm authorized to tell you that we know how to detect that, when we picked up a CIA signal and got a matching report of somebody watching Mr. Carmichael, we couldn't take any chances."
"Wait a minute-I'm not carrying a transmitter! And who spotted me?"
Neil hesitated, then spoke into his collar communicator, "Sir, Goldengirl reports she doesn't know about the recognition transmitter. What am I authorized to say?"
"Chuck, what's he talking about?" Sarah demanded into her cell phone, even as she heard a garbled noise that she knew was Chuck talking to his security chief on the other line.
"Sarah, what's your current Company general clearance?" Chuck asked, suddenly sounding evasive over the phone. In the background she heard giggling.
"Mom and Dad are about to have a fight," she dimly heard Charlotte Mary saying to someone, giggling as she did. In her mind's eye, Sarah could clearly imagine her daughter and Stephanie listening avidly and waiting to hear something interesting.
"We are not about to have a fight," Chuck said, his voice dimming a bit as he spoke to the girls away from the phone. "we just need to talk about...what we can talk about...before we talk."
Meanwhile, Neil was looking at his watch, but she was sure it was not just a watch. "Sir, this is Eyes, I can confirm that Goldengirl is carrying one of the new rectrans units, the signal is there."
"What signal?" Sarah demanded, raising her voice slightly. "Eddie, what are you talking about?"
"No, no, there's not going to any fight," Chuck was saying on the other end of the phone line, and also carrying on a conversation with his security chief and trying to hold one with her. "Sarah, there's something you probably need to know but you probably also need to not know-no, Stephie, stop that-Clara, take the girls below deck-Eyes, ask Goldengirl if she-Sarah, I'm trying to-"
Listening to Chuck trying to carry on three conversations at once suddenly left Sarah torn between irritation at the situation and laughter. The boat was over the horizon now, but in her mind's eye she could see Chuck going back and forth between two phones, one in each hand, while also talking to the children and trying to keep three separate conversations straight. Suddenly, the memory of a Buy-More computer nerd spiraling jumped into head, the more she listened to Chuck on the phone the more she pictured that nerd inside 'Charles Carmichael' and her heart warmed as she did. It as an image those who only knew the cool, calm and in control 'Carmichael' façade never suspected.
I don't care about Carmichael. I don't even like Charles Carmichael. I like my nerd. Thank Heaven he's still there.
Even as her heart swelled, though, her mind was demanding answers to her questions, answers that were still not forthcoming, and that was irritating her.
"OK," Chuck finally managed, "now maybe I can manage to talk to two people at once, the girls are below deck. Sarah, I don't want to talk about this on the phone, even my phones. It's sensitive information, and apparently you haven't been cleared for it yet if you don't know about it. I'm mostly sure these lines are secure, but we need to talk about this face to face if we're going to talk about it at all. How much time do you have?"
"Not enough," Sarah said. "I'm supposed to be at a briefing in a few hours."
There was silence for a moment, then Sarah saw Neil tilt his head slightly to listen to his collar communicator. He nodded and said, "Yes, sir. Are you sure? Do you think we ought to ask-? If you think so...very well. Eyes off."
"Sarah," Chuck said over the phone, "Eddie's going to brief you. When he does you'll know why this is touchy. I wish I could do this in person, but by the time we could get to dock it would be too late."
"I don't want you to interrupt the girls' day," Sarah said. "I know Char's been looking forward to this for weeks!"
"Yeah, about that," Chuck said, and Sarah could see his face in her mind as he said that. "She wasn't actually supposed to be telling anybody about it, you know."
"Don't be mad at her, please, Chuck," Sarah said, suddenly wishing desperately that she could be with them on the boat. "I kind of...well...when we were talking I sort of..."
"You played your own daughter on the phone?" Chuck asked, laughter in his voice. "Manipulated her into telling you more than she was supposed to? Sarah, that's low."
"I haven't seen her face to face in five weeks, Chuck. A mother can get kind of desperate in that amount of time."
"Will you be in town long?"
"Probably a few more days, then I have to go out of town again."
"We could probably arrange some face time for you and Char in the next few days if you've got a few hours free," Chuck said, and Sarah felt her heart leap. "I know she wants to see you too."
"Chuck, I'd love to, but...I don't know if we can free up those hours. Don't tell Char until I know I can do it, okay? I don't want to get her hopes up and then let her down again."
"All right, you know how to contact me," Chuck said. "I'll...see you when I see you?"
"See you when I see you," Sarah confirmed, suddenly blinking back tears as they hung up.
She looked down at the phone in her hand and began to swear under her breath. Why? Why are you doing this, Sarah? Why the crap don't you just turn in your resignation and tell the CIA where they can stuff their missions?
"Ma'am," Edwin Neil said after a moment, "I'm authorized to answer some of your questions, if you wish."
Sarah focused her mind on the moment, and suddenly the questions from earlier came roaring back to the front of her mind, along with a surge of irritation. "Hell yes I wish!"
"Not in public," Neil replied. "Follow me, we'll get out of the open where we don't have to worry about boom mikes and drones, and I'll answer all...well, I'll tell you what my boss has authorized me to tell you."
The corner of his mouth quirked upward as he said this, and Sarah found herself smiling back. She remembered Neil's sense of humor from when he had been an instructor at Langley. He had always managed to find a wry humor in the byzantine secrecy of their work. As they left the beach, Sarah began to compose her mind so what when they were able to talk, she would be able to ask the right questions.
Naples, Italy, 9:40 p.m. local time...
["Ms. Carmichael,] the bartender said, ["would you like another?"]
["Yes, thank you,"] 'Elaine Carmichael' replied.
Ellie was sitting at the wet bar, watching the party with a practiced eye. There were perhaps one hundred and fifty people attending the event, most of them couples. The majority of the men were businessmen of one stripe or another, their female companions mostly a mix of wives and mistresses, though some of the female guests present were there on business as well. Plus, of course, a smattering of organized crime figures and worse.
The bartender handed her another drink, which she sipped casually as she let her eyes roam from face to face and couple to couple. As she did, she activated the Intersect and let the information flow from her subconscious into her waking mind. Several of the men and a few of the women triggered responses.
Ellie's eyes fell on an average-looking man in an expensive suit, he would have looked quite at home on Wall Street or in the City of London, he looked like an accountant or a stock broker. As she looked from the depths of her mind came a flow of information...40 years old...real name Salvatore Serra...'Ndrangheta lawyer...Italian authorities suspected him but no proof...suspected of involvement in nine murders...money laundering...FBI investigation of connections in New York City and Chicago...
His female companion appeared to be several years younger, with long flowing red hair and a figure that her tight dress showcased impressively. Information flowed from the Intersect files about her as well when Ellie rested her eyes upon her for a moment...real name Giuseppina Cattaneo...age 34...suspect in three murders...
Ellie turned her gaze across the room to a youngish man in a slightly loud suit with a bright blue tie. He looked to Ellie as if he ought to be in college, trying to get a date for the weekend, but the Intersect gave her a slightly more nuanced version...real name Piotr Bobrov...former SVR...reported having gone rogue May 2011...involvement in Eurasian organized crime 2013-2015...assassinations for hire in 2016 and 2018...Joint Intelligence Alliance kill on sight order issued November 2018 rescinded May 2019...whereabouts unknown...
'Elaine Carmichael' showed no outward sign of it, but inside she sighed wearily. Well, I know where he is. Charming.
She took another sip of her drink, which actually contained no alcohol at all. The bartender was a Carmichael Industries man, and he knew what his employer meant when she ordered a Manhatten in a certain tone of voice.
Ellie's gaze fell on a woman in her forties, who looked like a den mother except for her revealing dress. She had a pleasant face and an easy-going manner, she was attractive in a girl-next-door kind of way. The Intersect worked its mental magic and Ellie suddenly knew more...real name Barbara Preston...former CIA...former FULCRUM operative...served three years in a Serbian prison for torture murder of Serbian politician...current whereabouts unknown...
Ellie turned her casually watchful gaze across the room, where she spotted two of her men, clad in suits and under cover, 'casually' chatting with a third man who most certainly did not work for Carmichael Industries. The third man was tall, at least six feet six inches, and built very heavily. Once again, the Intersect supplied information...real name Karl Berger...age 52...retired NSA 'secret branch'...suspected of FULCRUM connections...suspected of performing 'wet work' for various agencies and private groups...closely associated with various high level German and French officials...
Ellie was impressed. The party guest list included a veritable rogue's gallery of trouble and potential trouble. Of course not all of them intended to make any trouble that particular night, and it was likely that most of the guests were there more or less independently of each other, doing their own business. She glanced unobtrusively around, assuring herself that her own men were in place...just in case. Another quick glance assured Ellie that Mr. Nachera was close at hand, and safe.
These parties were usually quite safe, of course. They were a splendid place to meet and greet and do business, both licit and illicit, trouble and disruption would only get in the way of that. Usually being the key word, of course, Ellie mused.
The problem for Mr. Nachera and his company was that his shipping outfit was just exactly the right size and in just exactly the right locations, or perhaps it would be better to say that it was just exactly the wrong size and active is just exactly the wrong places. It was big enough and had enough ships and other resources available to be valuable to certain people, if they could gain control of the company. It was small enough that gaining such control would not be immediately obvious to everyone.
Take secret control of Coca-Cola or Toyota, Ellie mused, and see how long that stays secret. Take control of a family owned business with ten employees and nobody may ever know.
Mr. Nachera's business was far bigger than that, of course. He had hundreds of employees and hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of plant and property. Even so, however, it was not that large compared to some companies in the same business. Like the porridge of the third bear, it was 'just right' from the point of view of a secret takeover.
Also, it was ideally located for certain purposes. The people infiltrating Mr. Nachera's company needed reliable transportation links across southern Europe, and his company had that, ready to go, if control could be taken.
The effort to take control had begun about six months earlier, Ellie estimated. Mr. Nachera had realized something was wrong within the first month, but had discovered that his family's traditional protectors, the organized crime groups operating in their main cities of activity, were unequal to dealing with his new enemies. Too many of the new infiltrators were former intelligence agents of one sort or another, too many of them still had useful and powerful, if illicit, connections to high level governmental and private players. It had become clear that the infiltrators they knew about were only the tip of a frightening iceberg.
Increasingly frightened, Mr. Nachera had reached out to contacts in the municipal government in Naples, in the Italian national government, and among the criminals had always before protected his family and business (for a price, of course). Some of these people knew people who knew people, and had led Mr. Nachera to hiring Carmichael Industries about three months earlier. Contact had been made, fees negotiated, and certain questions asked and answered. CI personnel had come to work with Mr. Nachera, and additional information had filtered up to the owners.
Which was, in turn, why half of Carmichael Industries and a number of her employees were present at this pleasant social gathering this night, instead of doing something she would genuinely have enjoyed. This might be a party, but it was not the sort of party Ellie (Bartowski) Woodcomb enjoyed, and doubly so when she was there to work.
She knew from her Intersect that it was now fast approaching ten p.m. Though such gatherings could run late, this was not scheduled to do so, and she knew that Mr. Nachera was scheduled to depart before eleven. Which meant that one way or another, she could depart soon. Either this had all been a false alarm and nothing would happen...or something would happen very soon. She was hoping for the former, but given some of the guests she had spotted at this gathering, increasingly afraid of the latter.
As she sipped her drink, she noticed something: the windows onto the balconies were now closed. Though she made no external sign, her heart rate rose slightly and she tensed inside.
Why would the hosts shut those doors so early? Ellie wondered. It's a mild night, a good view of the city, and some of the guests might want to take advantage of the balconies to do business, get some air, heck, maybe a couple might want to make out. And why did they wait until now to shut them if they were going to do it at all?
A motion of her body, a certain very careful motion, activated the transceiver in her collar. She subvocalized a question, , and the sensor in her collar, attuned to specially pick her up subvocalizations, transmitted the question to one of her men. His receiver amplified the message to a whispered level that permitted him to hear it. A moment later his reply came back, and the minute devices in her collar transmitted it, via bone induction, resulting in a 'silent whisper' inaudible to anyone else in the room.
"Ma'am, we'll check. Be advised that some of the doors appear to have been recently locked as well."
Crap, Ellie thought, looks like something's going to happen after all.
The question now became: stay or go? Would it be better to stand pat for the moment, given that they still did not know exactly what was happening, or hustle Mr. Nachera to safety immediately? There were problems with either choice. If things were about to go sideways, waiting could give the opposition time to do whatever they were about to do. On the other hand, it was always possible that the opposition was trying to goad them into acting and thus possibly revealing themselves and their preparations.
"Ms. Carmichael," another silent whisper came to her, "we have unknown subjects in motion on the ground floor, and coming in through an open balcony on the third floor. We make ten on the ground and six on the upper level, all heavily armed."
Well, that makes the decision for me, Ellie mused to herself.
["Mr. Nachera, we need to go,"] Ellie said, catching her principal by the arm and guiding him gently but firmly toward one of the doors. ["Right now."]
The Neapolitan shipping owner resisted her tug momentarily, then remembered why he had hired her company to start with and followed her willingly. ["What is happening?"]
["We're not perfectly sure,"] Ellie admitted. ["But better safe than sorry, as we say in America."]
As part of standard operational planning, once informed that their employer was going to be attending the party, Ellie and her men had mapped out the layout of the hall before the event, entrances and exits, windows and balconies, internal plans and closets and storerooms and kitchens and everything else. Usually, this sort of detail work went to waste, 99% of the time it went to waste...but the other 1% it was critical.
Now Ellie led Nachera down a particular corridor toward a particular junction, where they were to meet up with several employees of Carmichael Industries. She had three backup routes in her head if need be, and as it happened, they were needed. Ellie and Nachera came around a corner and face to face with several armed men, who immediately began to turn their weapons on the man and the woman.
Instantly, Ellie's Intersect went into emergency mode, and several things happened. She was dimly aware of a sudden fury of mental and bodily activity going on within herself, apparently slowly but actually very quickly...
...adrenaline output moderated but continuous...time perception accelerated...the men had become aware of the arrival of Ellie and Nachera...blood oxygenation increased...lactic acid removal accelerated...the first of the intruders had raised his pistol halfway to firing position...muscle tension increased but modulated for smoothness...another of the enemy team had a knife in one hand and was stepping forward even as the first man's gun rose another fraction...
Suddenly, to Ellie, the world seemed to slow down. The man with the gun was moving so slowly he seemed almost still, likewise the second man with the knife and the two men behind him who were moving forward. Behind her, Nachera seemed frozen, a look of terror and shock on his face. In an almost leisurely way, Ellie noted the position of the first man's arm and hand with the pistol, raised a leg and kicked the gun from his hands. From her perspective, she was moving only slightly faster than normal.
As the gun went flying, she followed up with a hard punch to the solar plexus, a punch made much harder than it would normally have been, because the Intersect had pumped her muscles past their normal 'safety limit', precisely regulating her bodily functions to bring out the latent strength most people never suspected they had. The man folded up like an accordion, gasping in agony, and she suspected she had damaged his intestines with her blow.
Before he finished sliding to the ground, Ellie was onto the man with the knife, a hard chop to his wrist removed the knife and rendered his hand momentarily numb. He made a lunge to grab at her, but it was trivial to evade with him moving in such extreme slow motion. She dodged to one side, and as he fell forward from missing her a chop to the neck put him out of action.
She dropped to one knee, picked up the fallen gun, and took careful aim and shot the third man in the leg. As he went down, the fourth man took off running, though in such a ludicrous slow-motion way that Ellie might have laughed...if her sense of humor had not been suppressed by the Intersect in combat mode. She pulled her tranq gun from beneath her party dress, aimed, and fired, two needles dropping the fleeing man instantly.
Her time perception returned to normal...and she said to the shaking Nachera, ["Come on, there are going to be more of them any moment!"]
Nachera looked at her, slack-jawed. As her time sense stabilized, Ellie realized that he had just seen her take down four armed men, all of them bigger and supposedly stronger than she was, in less than three seconds.
["I know,"] she said, as gently as she could. ["It's terrifying. I know you're scared of me. But remember that I'm on your side. I'll get you to safety, but we have to move fast."]
Screams began to echo through the building, along with the sounds of gunfire. That seemed to shake Nachera out of his state of shock, and he nodded. ["Al-all right! I'm ready!"]
Ellie and Nachera took off down the corridors, as more men came pouring into the main hall behind them.
"John," she subvocalized into her collar transmitter, "we could use a little help here!"
"No can do," the voice of John Casey came through in a 'silent whisper'. "Pinned down in the parking lot, snipers on the roof, repeat snipers on the roof. We'll have to take them out before I can get in there!"
Ellie pulled Nachera into a supply room, pulled the door shut, and pulled a heavy set of shelves, loaded down with heavy boxes, across the floor to block the door, which opened into the storeroom. She saw Nachera's eyes widen, and sighed.
He just saw a 120 pound woman drag a set of shelves that weigh at least that much like they were made of paper, she reminded herself. Remember how you felt the day you first saw Chuck using the Intersect, and that was one of the old versions.
["It's OK,"] she said, trying to sound reassuring. She had no desire for her client to be more scared of her than he was of the enemy! ["I can't explain it, it's a a secret, but I'm not a vampire or an alien. I'm still the same person you had lunch with today and who gave you the cookie recipe."]
["I-I-...I had heard rumors,"] Nachera said after a shaky moment. ["Wild stories about Carmichael Industries...but I never believed them!"]
Ellie smiled. ["We encourage that, it helps us with our work. But you have nothing to fear from me!"]
Ellie was using every trick of voice and manner that she had learned from Sarah, from John, from her mother, and from Chuck and from several years in this insane business...and also what she had learned being older sister and 'mother' to Chuck for years before that. She knew how to seem unthreatening, and a big smile never hurt.
[I'm beginning to believe that,"] Nachera said with a shaky laugh. ["So what do we do now?"]
["Normally,"] Ellie said, ["we'd wait right here until my people arrive. But this isn't a normal situation, so we're going to have to get moving in a moment. Fortunately, I picked this storeroom for a reason!"]
With that, Ellie went to the back of the storeroom, pulled out a key from a pocket concealed in her party dress, and shoved aside another set of heavy shelves to reveal a metal door, about a yard high and half that wide. She inserted the key in the lock...which was jammed. When she tried to turn the key, the key snapped off.
"Damn!" she cursed, rubbing her knuckles where the broken key had scraped them.
["Are we trapped?!"] Nachera demanded. He was sounding shaky.
["No,"] Ellie replied. From the same pocket that had held the key, she removed a small rectangular metal box, about the size and shape of an old-fashioned cigarette lighter, though thinner than most of those had been. Kneeling beside the door, heedless of the damage to her dress from her knee pressing into the floor, Ellie activated the device, and a tiny but intensely hot flame appeared.
She immediately set to work, the tiny cutting torch could hold only a tiny amount of fuel, after all, it would work for only a few moments. She sliced into the metal, cutting the lock out entirely, and managed to get the door opened just before the cutter ran out of 'gas'.
["Come on!"] she urged her client in Italian, and they went from the storeroom into an access corridor. It was thick was dust, it was obvious that nobody had passed that way in quite some time. Behind them, they heard footsteps in the corridor outside the storeroom.
["What is this place?"] Nachera asked.
["This building is riddled with old service tubes and corridors,"] Ellie explained, as they hurried down the old hallway. It was narrow and musty, but easy enough to get through, the one obstacle the occasional cobwebs. ["We made sure to plot them all out when we were told you would be coming to his party tonight, just in case!"]
Ellie looked back at her client and added, with a warm smile, ["We really are worth our fees."]
Nachera was still sounding shaky, but slightly less terrified and panicky, as he replied, ["I'm starting to believe that!"]
They reached the end of the old service corridor, which was shut by a heavy metal door, this one normal sized, with a combination lock. As she ran through the memorized combinations, she heard a loud sound, and realized to her embarrassment that Nachera had heard it too: her stomach was growling.
She blushed. It was natural, of course. She had not eaten much in hours, and she had burned up a day's worth of glucose in her fight earlier. The boosted strength and accelerated speed the Intersect could induce were not free. Her body could not burn energy at that rate without needing more fuel.
Still, it was embarrassing, and she was grateful that Nachera did not seem to have given it a thought.
After a moment the door opened, and Ellie and Mr. Nachera stepped into the cool night air outside.
TO BE CONTINUED...