This wraps up my prequel story into the end of the real pilot episode.
Thanks to jagged1, MySoapBox, Kryptonian250, and tshdow for the review comments. I had fun doing this, hope it was fun to read.
PS: I've included the list of TV/movie/music/video game references I've worked in through the story at the bottom of this episode.
Wednesday 26th
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"Cik ir pulkstens?" Charlene mumbled while groggily fumbling around in the dark for her phone.
The time at the top of its screen read 23:42.
The phone number that appeared below indicated that Director Graham was attempting to reach her.
"Yes sir?" she asked trying to sound as alert as possible.
"There's been a change in plans. Assemble your team for a briefing."
Less than 20 minutes later she was dressed and the other two agents were sitting in her room.
She returned the call and put Graham on speakerphone.
"Your team's mission is being expanded," he said.
"There is a protected government asset located at your Buy More - an employee by the name of Chuck Bartowski."
"Recently an elevated threat to Bartowski has been brought to our attention. Since this asset is now under additional risk, we are stepping up our protection for as long as necessary until that threat is resolved."
"Due to the importance of this situation to both the CIA and the NSA, each agency has agreed to assign an upper-level field agent to provide primary protection detail. We will be assigning Agent Walker, while they will be assigning Major Casey."
"Because of your team's overall limited experience, you will act as a secondary background team. This will require you to continue to remain off of everyone's radar - including Bartowski, Walker, and Casey."
The last detail made Charlene blink in surprise. "Sir, even from Agents Walker and Casey?"
"Yes. We can't have anyone infiltrating the operating zone and seeing the two teams coordinating together. If an enemy agent involved with any of Walker's or Casey's past missions were to discover the group, it would be a disaster to the mission. Consider this a firewall between teams."
Charlene felt her excitement sink along with her chances to work with more experienced agents. "Yes sir. Will we be sharing our mission briefings?"
"No. All intel will be routed through me or General Beckman from the NSA. Your operation 'Plan B' will know whatever the primary team knows. Anything you discover will be routed back through us to them."
"Additional resources and information will arrive tomorrow morning."
Charlene answered for the group. "Understood sir."
Michael and Fernando left without feeling the need to discuss anything they had just heard.
Charlene knew better from experience - not all surprises were good - and this was quite the surprise.
She wasn't surprised that Chuck might be the civilian that might be involved in the information transfer. What she hadn't expected was that he was an important asset to both the CIA and the NSA.
Charlene would need to pay closer attention to understand what she might need to protect him against.
---------------
Casey had managed to calm himself down, at least a little.
"How dare that twirp think he could just walk away? He's property of the NSA."
He stood in front of his new apartment and glanced around the courtyard. His apartment would have a good view of the target area, while the design of the courtyard reduced the amount of potential pedestrian access.
"Not bad," he grunted as he walked in.
Putting his bag down, he stared through the window at the Bartowski residence.
If he had just been able to accomplish his mission objectives and stop Bryce Larkin in the first place, none of this would have happened. Now some loser was walking around with government secrets in his head.
The near catastrophe hovered over Casey's thoughts.
As the NSA 'movers' arrived with Casey's requested equipment, he refocused on his new objectives.
He would need to place this 'Chuck Bartowski' under constant surveillance. Casey desperately hoped this wouldn't be as bad as what he had to listen to on his last mission.
He allowed himself to smile mischievously. At least if portions of the mission became unbearable, he might be able to take it out on this nerdy 'asset'.
He grabbed his bag and began unpacking the few items that were inside.
Casey ceremoniously placed his first photo of President Reagan on the stand next to the chair he designated as his listening post.
He stood proudly and saluted to the picture. "I promise to uphold the safety of this country's sensitive information and secrets - no matter where they are currently located."
Casey felt the pride empower him - at least until he opened the next box the 'movers' had delivered.
"Ugh." He couldn't help but find the Buy More uniform absolutely appalling.
Thursday 27th
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Sarah's mind was still spinning - there was a lot to process. It was only a couple of hours into Thursday, and she hadn't been able to make much progress.
"How could you Bryce?" she wished she could ask him, "It's me. How could you do this to me?"
The silvery color of her hotel room felt particularly cold to her as she sat down on the bed.
It didn't make any sense. The two of them had worked side by side for long enough.
You were supposed to be able to trust your partner, and she had trusted Bryce.
It was that mutual trust that allowed them to depend and count on each other on dangerous and difficult missions. That trust meant they never abandoned one another.
Beyond that, Bryce was her boyfriend. She had believed in him - she believed in the two of them together.
Sarah felt her mistake become clearer. She had put herself out there for Bryce - something normal people did.
Her father wouldn't be proud of her right now. She had allowed herself to begin to trust Bryce completely, and in doing so had become easily misled.
Each wave of realization stung increasingly more.
Sarah wondered if her 'date' was handling his new situation any better. She couldn't imagine what he must be feeling right now.
He hadn't looked like he handled the shock at discovering his former classmate was a spy for the CIA well at all.
Learning that this same classmate had just put his life at risk with government secrets couldn't have made things any better. For his sake, she hoped he hadn't understood the full threat he faced. At least not yet.
Chuck had seemed so happy on their date.
"Poor guy" she said to herself. Had he known that it was her that had broken in and assaulted him and his best friend, he would have been even more afraid to accept her invitation.
Sarah came close to a light smile recalling his initial nervousness.
During the date, she had been able to profile him. His innocent nature and honest charm were quickly apparent.
She knew by the time they left the restaurant that he wasn't a spy, or otherwise intentionally involved with Bryce's plan.
In fact, if not for the secrets now stored in his head, she felt she could have ensured his safe return to his normal life.
Unfortunately, the NSA and Major Casey would never take any of this into consideration. They would consider him a threat to probably just about everything.
It would be up to her to protect Chuck from them as well as from the 'bad guys'.
Sarah got up off of the bed and walked towards the refrigerator.
First things first, she thought - for a regular computer geek, she felt Chuck might have seen her with an almost alarming clarity.
She grabbed a chocolate pudding, hoping it would begin comforting her.
She had been trained to withstand torture and interrogation, but somehow his plain questions kept hitting their targets.
Looking back, she couldn't believe how nearly open she had been.
Sarah shook her head in disbelief. 'Bruce?' 'I may come with baggage?'
She looked down at her snack-size container. "They never give me enough pudding do they?" she asked it.
As she went back for seconds, she dwelled for a moment on her poor performance as a spy.
Chuck had asked her what kind of music she listened to - a simple question that any normal person should be able to answer.
It was a simple question that Sarah with her cover had noticeably stumbled over.
In that moment, she felt it was Jenny that was there on the date - a date with someone who was honestly interested in her.
Jenny however, was not a spy out on a mission.
As she finished off her second pudding, she realized that she had let herself become soft.
In between her time at the CIA among other agents, and the safe environment of the probation work, Sarah had gotten used to the idea that no one ever asked her how she felt or who she was.
She had gotten so used to these conditions that she had let her guard down.
Agent Walker felt her training kick back in. She would focus on her mission, and for the success of the mission and for the safety of everyone involved, she would have to protect herself against this level of transparency.
After all, there would be many new unknowns to deal with and she wouldn't be sure who she could trust.
Director Graham had made one thing clear - Sarah would need to do whatever necessary to get Chuck to trust her.
---------------
Chuck sat in his room with the lights off.
Despite the fact that it must have been early into the next day, he hadn't felt the least bit drowsy.
The black car that had followed him home hadn't made him feel any better about what was happening to him.
Chuck felt he had simply run out of ways to panic.
"Let's see" he thought to himself as he began a list of his recent misfortunes.
First, he was now 'seeing' things and somehow just 'knowing' things he never should be able to, and it really hadn't been his imagination.
The General really had landed earlier than they had announced, and he really had been justified in freaking out at the LargeMart.
What if the Serbian bomb guy had come after him? Chuck and Morgan together had been able to scare off the ninja, but that bomber guy was a scary dude.
"By the way," Chuck pondered, "why was there a ninja in the apartment? And why was he trying to rob me?"
"My computer..." he lamented, "I should've kept a backup of my stuff." Now he would have to start saving up to buy a new system. Then he'd have to start the long process of rebuilding everything all over from whatever old copies of stuff he could find.
Chuck felt his stomach ache. He had taken the company Nerd Herder out on personal time and it was now completely trashed. He and Sarah had just left it there on the road.
What was he going to say to Big Mike? At his pay rate, Chuck would be repaying the Buy More forever.
Chuck took a deep breath and sighed.
"Bryce," he said with scorn. As if Chuck didn't have enough reasons to hate the guy, now Bryce had dumped more reasons on top of him.
It was times like these that he truly felt that Bryce had something against him. He could almost picture Bryce somehow enjoying ruining Chuck's life.
To make matters worse, Bryce was apparently a spy for the CIA.
Weren't spies for the CIA supposed to be the good guys? Good guys aren't supposed to do things like this to normal people like him.
Chuck would have loved to find out what Bryce was thinking. Unfortunately since Bryce was now dead, he would never find the answers to his new questions. There would also never be the answers for what he had done to him back at Stanford either. He had waited too long to ask Bryce those questions.
Chuck looked towards the direction of his game console. Somehow the idea of playing a game right now didn't seem to be offering the usual comfortable distraction that it usually would.
About the only positive distraction the past few days had been Sarah - the beautiful blonde he met at the Buy More.
He was so glad Morgan had pushed him into going on the date. All those nervous feelings had been for nothing.
When he was getting ready for the date, he felt more energetic than he had in a long while - no one since Jill had made him feel like that.
Whatever it was that he had been feeling, Ellie seemed to be proud of him - and that definitely made him feel good about himself.
He began rewinding the heavenly date back to the beginning and watching it over again. "I can't believe I said I could be her very own baggage handler," he said as he slapped his forehead, "what was that about?"
It had been otherwise going so well - at least until the club when the men in black started chasing them.
Chuck's mood dropped a bit. "Why did she have to turn out to be a spy? I guess she was only there because of this Bryce thing. Who was I kidding - I knew it was too good to be true."
"So now what?" he asked the empty room.
He had just stopped a bomb from exploding and had probably saved a bunch of people's lives.
It wasn't like he could go out on a book tour or anything.
"And what about having a bunch of government super secrets in my head? It's not exactly the kind of thing they offer you on career day."
He felt completely alone.
There wasn't anyone he could talk to about this - not that anyone would believe him.
Chuck sulked for a while.
He needed to talk to someone -- like Batman.
Batman was pretty much alone too - he couldn't share his situation with anyone else.
Batman probably stopped bombs all the time.
"Great," Chuck thought, "I'm comparing myself to Batman - I'm totally losing it."
Still, maybe Morgan did have valid points. Maybe being a hero like Batman wasn't all bad - freaky chick part excepted.
If nothing else, Chuck noticed that he hadn't caught himself thinking about any five year plans since.
An early ray of sunshine peeking through his window caused him to look up.
"Well that's nice," he said to himself. A night without any sleep was going to be killer on his shift.
He needed to recharge himself with as much sunlight as he could - along the beach.
As Chuck stood up, he offered himself one bit of hope, "Maybe I'll find some answers there."
Reference List
A-Team
Airplane!
Batman
Back to the Future III
Boards of Canada's "Music is Math"
Bobby's World
Burn Notice
Cake's "Short Skirt Long Jacket"
Contra (original NES)
Dark City
Double Dragon III
Firefly
Get Smart
Ghostbusters
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Homestar Runner
James Bond
M.D.K.
Macintosh "Sad Mac"
Manos: The Hands of Fate
Max Headroom
Mission Impossible
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Office Space
Prince's "Batdance"
Quantum Leap
South Park
Spaceballs
The Thirteenth Floor
They Might Be Giants
Wargames
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Bonus: pineapple