A/N1 This chapter and one more. The next one will be (informally) an epilogue.
This one gets off to an...interesting start.
Don't own Chuck.
Chutes and Ladders
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots
The elevator doors opened….
….revealing a scene from World War Z.
Sarah heard Ginny gasp and Chuck groan. Sarah made no sound; her throat was closed; she was choking.
Beneath a few flickering fluorescent lights, bodies were strewn in dumbfounding disarray, a horrific counterpart of the scene in Sarah's kindergarten classroom at naptime, like when this all got started. But these were corpses - Big Sleepers, not little sleepers - and they were not arranged in neat lines but bizarrely oriented in different directions, some face-up, some face-down, some faceless (Dear God!); there were a few detached body parts strewn among the strewn corpses. Blood pooled the floor and gore spattered the walls…
And there were soulless, shuffling...bodies...now coming toward them.
Reanimated.
Ginny raised her gun to fire, terror on her face, but Chuck knocked her arm down. "No, Ginny, no...Look! People, not monsters."
The bloodied bodies approaching were all clothed, at least those who were clothed, in hospital gowns. Men, women, young and old. It was a group of maybe eight. Their eyes were mad, glazed and psychotic. Crazy - but not zombies. Not zombies, but at that moment they broke into a shuffling run, as if obedient to some inaudible command.
"Ginny," Chuck yelled, "your tranq gun!" Fast as thought, Ginny changed weapons. She fired into the group and three went down before the other five were upon them.
The next few moments eluded coherent description. Claws, hands, fangs, teeth, howls and feral cries, and gasps and guttural moans. Sarah fought in any way that she could, every way she could, overwhelmed, overwhelmed, overwhelmed - fists and feet, fists and feet, fists and feet. Punch, kick, punch, kick. Shove. Dodge.
She saw Chuck out of the corner of her eyes, also punching and kicking, spinning and ducking. Ginny had gone down beneath two large men, and they were tearing savagely at her.
Sarah got free of her attackers and dove on the back of one atop Ginny, a massive African-American man. He stood up with her on his shoulders, his hands punching and ripping at her. Chuck dove on the other man and the two of them went rolling across the blood-puddled floor.
Sarah heard Matthew in her ear. "Someone tell….som...ing! Wha...happen...? Where are...? Shit! …" The audio feed broke up into unintelligibility. Sarah struck down with all her strength on the man clawing at her, and he stumbled under the blow, slipped on the bloody floor and slammed to his knees.
Ginny was up. She fired into the man whose shoulders Sarah was on, then she turned precisely and fired into the man grappling with Chuck. She turned and fired three more times before the remaining three could reach her or Sarah or Chuck.
And it was over.
There were moans coming from the tranqed attackers as they all sank into torpor. Sarah could hear her own gasping, part exertion, part animal terror. She heard the same coming from Ginny and Chuck.
The next thing she knew, she was in Chuck's arms and he was patting her hair, whispering endearments randomly into her ear. She clung to him as her heart rate began to sink and her terror abate. She could feel his heart, hammering a moment before, slowing now against her.
"What the hell, Chuck?" Ginny. "What the hell?"
Chuck kept Sarah in his arms but lifted his head and turned toward Ginny, who was replacing tranqs in her gun. "The homeless folks Casey mentioned. This is them, or what remains of them. They've been...experimented on, Ginny. They're psychotic, drugged and crazed. They aren't responsible for what they are doing."
Ginny scanned the room, her lips settling into a sickened frown. "But Matthew's old program never did anything like this."
"No, this is FARMA's evil version of that, dark and cold and drug-addled."
Mentioning Matthew's name made Ginny start patting her ear, her earwig. "Matthew, Matthew, can you hear me?" After a moment, she gave up. "Nothing. I need to tell him we're okay. He's got to be frantic."
Chuck nodded and went to retrieve the computer bag that had come off in the attack. It dripped blood as he picked it up. Grimacing, he unzipped it. He grabbed the laptop. After a few seconds of furious typing, he looked at Ginny. "I can send him a message. What should I tell him?"
"Just tell him...we're okay." She glanced down at her abdomen, covered by partial, bloody handprints but otherwise uninjured, "we're all okay. And...tell him I love him."
Chuck nodded and typed away. "Big pink heart emoji?"
Ginny bared her teeth - but not in a smile. Chuck ducked his head and continued to type.
As Chuck did that, Ginny walked to the wall and hit the light switch. The fluorescent lights stabilized as the main room lights also came on.
The lights made everything better - and worse.
The carnage, no longer enshadowed, did not seem supernatural; but the carnage, now lit up, was clearly visible and unnatural. After a blinking second, it became obvious that the corpses belonged to two groups: the homeless experiment victims - and their victims.
There were nine homeless among the dead, as well as four others, three men in baggy suits and one man in a beautifully tailored one: the latter, Foxworth, the former, and his Ring goons. It had been a fierce fight, not long, likely, but bloody. Ginny rounded up three handguns and a machete. They had no idea why it was there, but it accounted for the detached body parts, and it must have been in various hands at various points in the battle.
The Ring goons had shot several of the homeless - but, from what could be made of the scene, their bullets, unless immediately fatal, had been less effective than Ginny's tranqs. The Ring agents and Foxworth had been overwhelmed, although they had killed many before they died themselves.
Chuck, done communicating with Matthew, joined them in assessing the scene. "I went ahead and briefly told Matthew what we found. He's contacting the ambulance and the black van guys."
Sarah went to the group Ginny tranqed and began to check them for wounds that needed attention. Ginny helped her, removing a first aid kit from her backpack.
Not sure what else to do, Chuck reluctantly rolled two corpses off of Foxworth's corpse. Beneath it, he found a briefcase. Inside it was a stack of files and a laptop. He showed the open briefcase to Sarah and Ginny, then he took the briefcase to the table, removed the laptop, and opened it. He went to work. He stared up at the ceiling.
"Hmmm….if I was Foxworth, what would my password be?" He stared for a moment, then shook his head. He typed. The laptop beeped to life.
Sarah looked up from bandaging an unconscious boy's arm. "You figured it out, first try?" There was pride in her voice. Chuck nodded. "So, what was it?"
"'Foxworth.'"
"I know, but what was his password?"
"No, sweetheart, that's the narcissistic bastard's password, his own damn name."
"You've got to be kidding..."
Chuck looked around them grimly. "Not really the time or place for kidding, even for me." He was typing machine-gun fashion, commenting absently to himself: "Narcissus. Pool. Self-reflection...'I' is a palindrome, both orthographically and psychologically...Bastard."
Ginny broke in. She was swabbing a cut on an unconscious woman's forearm. "Find anything on there?"
"It's encrypted. It'll probably take me...Oh, nope, got it, there it is. Hmmm. Well, well, well…"
"Chuck?" Ginny demanded.
"Give me a few minutes to decide what I am looking at."
ooOoo
Ginny motioned for Sarah to keep an eye on Chuck and then walked toward the far end of the long room. They had bandaged and done the triage they could do. At the far end was a door. Sarah watched Ginny's progress.
The end of the room that Sarah and Chuck occupied was lab space; the other end, the one Ginny was now in, was cell space: there were two long, low glass cages, one along each wall, a pathway between leading to the door.
Inside the cages, on the ground, were stained and rumpled bedrolls. Outside each were stacks of metal serving trays and a tower of buckets. It took Sarah a minute to understand the presence of the buckets, and when she did, she recoiled. The homeless had been treated like dogs in a shelter, probably not that well.
Sarah watched, puzzled, as Ginny looked carefully at the door of one of the glass cages, then the other before she went on. She exited the door on the far end.
Sarah reoriented on Chuck, but he was in a computing trance, working feverishly and raptly on Foxworth's laptop. Sarah tried not to look at the corpses or at the gleaming silver tables, with straps for arms and legs, scenes of actions she refused to contemplate. She stood and gazed at Chuck for a while, just doing so making her feel better, grounded. Safe.
The door on the far end opened and Ginny returned. She quickly walked back to Sarah and Chuck.
"The doorway leads to a long hallway. There are small rooms along both sides and a lounge, I'm guessing for lab workers, since I doubt folks came and went from here freely, even the ones uncaged. A large kitchen and supply room. There're showers, like at a high school gym." Ginny grimaced but quickly covered it. "The hallway leads to a service elevator. It takes you up to the loading dock. It is craftily concealed; I'll give them that. Hard to find from above and I had just gotten out of it. That's how they get supplies and...the kidnapped down here." She frowned disgustedly, wearily.
"Oh, I called Matthew while I was up there. Cleaners are almost here, and paramedics. Same basic drill as at the golf course." Ginny blew out a breath, her keyed-up, ultra-aware bearing slowly disappearing. "What a day! From clown heads to zombies. Weird day for a spy, more for a PI, still more for a kindergarten teacher...You know, for a second there, I thought a Stephen King-wannabe had taken over the story and wrested it from the Chandler- or Le Carre- or Lewis Carroll-wannabe hack who's obviously writing it."
Ginny paused and shook her head. She sighed with exhaustion. "I'm starving. I know, I know. But I'm a pregnant woman; I could eat anywhere, as I am about to prove..." She produced a granola bar from her backpack and snapped into it with relish. She extended the bitten bar toward Chuck and Sarah. Neither could think of eating; they waved it off politely.
Shrugging, Ginny studied Chuck as she crunched noisily. He had stopped typing. "So, what did you find, Chuck," Ginny asked around her bite of granola bar.
Chuck took a moment, then answered. "The Ring."
ooOoo
They were out of the building.
The cleaners and paramedics had taken over. An agent specifically tasked by Boosinger showed up to claim Foxworth's laptop. Chuck and Matt had been tinkering with it for a little while, chattering like squirrels. At a certain point, Matthew had taken over; Chuck was watching closely.
Matthew and Chuck gave the laptop up, and Foxworth's briefcase, and watched them both get into a car under the arm of Boosinger's agent. Two other agents were in the car, providing extra security. Ginny and Matthew seemed unconcerned, so Chuck stopped worrying about it. He turned to Ginny. He had his arm around Sarah's waist, her warmth against him a comfort.
Chuck finally took a moment. He let go of Sarah, shook his head and stomped his feet. "Shit. Shit. Shit. What happened down there before we arrived? That was some freaky Shaun of the Dead stuff. How did it happen?"
"The door to one of the cells was broken. Don't know how. But the drugged victims got out and opened the other cell door…. My best guess is that Foxworth and his guards were going to sneak out of the building, that Foxworth was going to run. A car is out near the loading dock. When they got off the elevator, the victims attacked them. It must've been a hellish scene...scratch that, we know it was a hellish scene, we lived through a version of it.
"The people Foxworth kidnapped and destroyed ended up destroying him and delivering the Ring to us. I'm not saying that makes it okay, it sure as hell doesn't…" Matthew took her hand and she gave him a hard look that softened into a smile. "The ones who attacked us, the ones I tranqed, they're getting medical attention. Matthew will see if he can help the doctors, give them some idea of what they are up against."
"Look, Chuck, Sarah - Matthew and I are going to downplay your contributions to all this. Not because we want to steal glory - not sure there's really any glory here to steal - but because we want to protect you. Sarah told me that Langston Graham recruited her once," Matthew looked shocked for a second, then re-looked at Sarah, and the shock vanished, "and Chuck is obviously Matthew's peer as a programmer. That means Boosinger will be...interested in you if we reveal too much. Let us take the lead in the debrief and stick with our story. It will be the truth, with a few omissions."
ooOoo
Chuck, Sarah, and Ginny cleaned up as much as they could. The black van guys, the cleaners, helped Chuck wash the blood off himself, and they had clothes that fit him in the van. Once Chuck was dressed, the three of them, plus Matthew, were debriefed by Boosinger. Video conference in the van. She turned out to be a thin, angular, grey-haired woman, all business but not unpleasant.
The laptop and files were on their way to her at Langley. She seemed to think, given what Matthew told her, that the Ring was going to be reduced nearly to nothing by what they had found. It was not just that the CIA now knew the identity of Ring agents, including moles still in the Agency, they also had a financial map of the organization and could shut down its real life-blood, money. When the conference ended, Boosinger made it clear that she was saying goodbye, unofficially, to Matthew and Ginny. Sarah and Chuck excused themselves from that moment.
ooOoo
As they got out of the van, Chuck's phone beeped. He had a message from Casey.
Odd, he normally texts. One word grunts. Or Old Yeller gifs.
Something had come up that was keeping Casey at work, but he wanted to know what was going on; his voice sounded strange - not bad, necessarily, but strange. He promised Chuck he'd get back in touch as soon as he could.
ooOoo
Chuck and Sarah got a ride from Matthew and Ginny back to Sarah's Porsche. They all made plans to meet again before Matthew and Ginny left town. All four were exhausted. Matthew and Ginny were going to pick up Sasha and then head to a CIA safe house for the night.
Sarah drove to Echo Park. Chuck asked her to spend the night there, and she happily agreed. He wanted her to see his place, Ellie's place, and he wanted to tell Ellie the news with Sarah there.
When they went inside, they were met immediately by a frazzled Ellie. "Chuck, Sarah! Thank God! I've been worried about you, baby brother. I did what you wanted: I didn't call or text." She looked at Sarah. "PI rules. PI's don't get calls from 'Mom'. But you headed to Sarah's Sunday afternoon, Chuck. It is now almost Tuesday." She stopped and looked Chuck up and down. "And whose clothes are those? They're not yours?" She looked at Sarah. "Sarah, what's going on? You both look exhausted and...battered. What happened?" Ellie grabbed Sarah's hand, giving her a laser-intensity stare.
Sarah sent Chuck a panicked glance. He pulled her to him gently. He responded to Ellie. "Look, Sis, we're both exhausted; you're right. We need a shower and maybe something to eat? We'll talk over food, after we've cleaned up?"
Ellie nodded, clutch engaged and visibly downshifting. She asked, "Sarah, do you have anything to wear?" The question was softer than the earlier ones.
Sarah shook her head.
"I have extra..pj's?" Ellie's inflection rose on the final word; she was not going to assume Sarah would spend the night.
Sarah smiled. "Sounds wonderful. I really want to get out of these clothes and get Chuck out of those…"
Ellie started to laugh. Sarah tried to explain. "I just mean those clothes are horrible. He'd look so much better out of them." Ellie laughed harder. "I mean I want him...I want...His underwear is better...Oh, I give up." Chuck was now laughing too. Sarah joined in their laughter. It was funny - and she was too tired to try any more explanations.
Chuck took her hand. "C'mon, let's get a shower."
Sarah balked. "The two of us? One shower? You're asking? At the same time? In front of your sister," Sarah bubbled incoherently as Chuck pulled her toward his bedroom. She heard Ellie laughing happily behind her.
Inside his room, Chuck undressed Sarah with deft care. At one point, there was a knock on the door; it opened, a hand thrust through the narrow opening, a hand full of pj's.
Chuck took them and shut the door, folding them on the bed. He shed his own clothes. He put a robe on Sarah and one on himself, then led her out of the room and into the bathroom.
She had been so engrossed in him undressing her and him undressing that she had hardly looked at his room. As they had left it, she had glanced around quickly, and as they went into the bathroom, she giggled. He shut the bathroom door. "What?"
"You really are a Tron boy. I like the poster." Chuck turned on the water. A few moments later, steam was rolling out of the shower.
He dropped his robe and took her hand, stepping under the water and gently tugging her into the shower. He pulled her against him and beneath the spray and they stood together under the hot water for a long, quiet time, holding each other and their promises to each other, and letting go of the darknesses of the past two days.
Tuesday, April 4, wee hours
Later, they were seated at the table with Ellie. Devon was working a night shift at the hospital. Chuck and Sarah had each wolfed down two sandwiches and drank two glasses of milk. They were both finishing with brownies Ellie made while they showered and changed.
Chuck had told Ellie about what had happened - the CIA-approved abridgment. She had listened to that, aghast. But she had also been proud, proud of Chuck, proud of Sarah, and proud of them together. And of Casey and Rhonda. When he finished, she looked at the two of them, her index finger on one hand tapping the table softly, keeping time with her thinking.
"But there is something you two haven't told me. You both look like you have a secret. I want to know what it is."
Chuck opened his mouth to tell her when Sarah jumped the line, her eyes glowing: "Chuck proposed. I said yes."
For a moment, time stopped. Ellie's finger hovered in mid-tap.
And then she had Sarah in a boa-constrictor hug. "I knew it! I knew you two were perfect for each other! I knew it! Show me the ring!"
Sarah shot another panicked glance at Chuck.
"I...uh...I didn't have it when I proposed," Chuck mumbled.
Ellie turned disbelieving eyes on him. "Chuck Bartowski! I've saved Mom's ring all this time…" She ran from the kitchen, down the hallway. Chuck looked at Sarah and started to say something when Ellie charged back in, a small, red and velvet box in her hand.
"Here, Chuck, make this right," Ellie ordered.
"Ellie," Sarah interjected, finally catching up with the proceedings, "it's okay. None of this was planned. And Chuck did give me something for our engagement." Ellie looked expectantly at Sarah. Sarah explained: "He gave me a car seat. You know, for a child."
Ellie rocketed to the ceiling, over the moon. It took Chuck and Sarah a long time to get her to understand.
ooOoo
Still later, they snuggled warmly in Chuck's bed. They wished they could make love but they were both too tired and the feeling of togetherness was enough. Sarah giggled, feeling warm and drowsy. "Do you think Ellie finally understood that I am not pregnant."
"Yeah, yeah, I think she finally did. After all, she's a doctor and reasonably good at math. There's hardly been time for that to have happened and us to have discovered it, and that would be true if we had...you know, on the first date."
"Right. But you know, about that first date. Even then, I woulda kinda...liked to….even if I didn't admit it to myself..."
"Why, Miss Walker, and you an educator, a bright and shining example to the knife-wielding, ninjagarten teachers of tomorrow…"
She burrowed closer against him. "I'm going to put the knives away, Chuck."
He was quiet for a minute. "Um...Do you think you could get them out once in a while, when it's just us, you know, just to keep me in practice?"
"Keep you in practice?" She could feel rather than see his eyebrows dancing. "You big goof."
"Oh, and while we're at it. That little black dress…."
"What about it?"
"Do you promise that I am the only one who will get to see you in it? I don't think I can stand the thought of anyone else seeing you in it."
"Jealous?"
"A skoosh, a smidgen, a mite…"
"A mite?"
"I'll have you know, I am a walking thesaurus."
"I thought that was Barney - the beat cop."
"No, he's a walking dinosaurus…"
"Chuck, there's no such word. You're worse than my kids. Oh, and about the dress. Yes, I promise. Gladly. Only you will see me in it...or out of it. Now, get some sleep, sweetie, I'm planning on you seeing me out of it in the morning, and responding vigorously to what you see. I have the day off and you, Chuck, are self-employed."
"Mmmmhmmmm. Okay, Sarah. But don't go to sleep yet.."
Sarah was almost asleep, her eyes closed. She whispered her response. "What, Chuck?" Dreams were beginning to enfold her.
She felt his hand gentle on her left hand, then his fingers soft on her ring finger; she felt him slip a ring - the ring - onto it. She clutched his hand with hers, her eyes still closed. My fiancé. She was dreaming awake, and falling, falling asleep. Her hand slowly released his.
Pause. Pause. Pause.
"Sarah, you've forgotten one thing: me."
Called back, she opened her eyes just a little. She recognized the line. The Big Sleep. Chuck as Vivian Rutledge.
Sarah pulled Chuck even closer to her. Sarah as Philip Marlowe. "And what's wrong with you?"
She could hear joy and confidence in his sleepy words as his hand settled around her hand, her ring, his hand home for hers. "Nothing you can't fix."
A/N1 Gotta love those two.
Remember, I have been calling this a Noir Farce. Consider the opening of this chapter the final installment of Noir, Intersect-style.
Sunny epilogue-ish final chapter to follow in the next few days or so. Still some questions to answer, some business to be done. By the way, for those interested, there may be a new MisEd chapter soon.
Thoughts? Reactions?
Thanks, everyone!
World War Z.