A/N In canon, Casey was cashiered at the end of last episode, and Sarah went off to be with Shaw, leaving Chuck the idiot trainee alone with full access to Castle? What? And that position Sarah was standing in when Chuck came down the stairs, who designed that? If it was supposed to be sexy, who was she being sexy for?

"Initiate download."

"Here and now."

"Desperate times."

"What happened to the laudanol?"

The train yard was dark, empty. Of people. Of trains it had more than enough, a maze of metal and shifting stones underfoot, the catch the dirt and let it settle underneath. The man running through the yard wasn't dressed for the occasion, but then, neither was the man chasing him. They could each hear the other, but that was the first man's only benefit, not even an advantage.

No, that was wrong. He did have one advantage. The man chasing him intended to kill him but didn't want to. Had probably never killed a man before. He was probably nerving himself up for it right now, using the adrenaline of the chase. So…shorten the chase.

The running man fell, with a great scattering of loose stones.

His pursuer, of course, didn't just come running up to him, blazing away. He had to suspect a trap and approach with proper caution. The fallen man acted like prey, scrambling backward in the stones, to distract from the fact that he was also the trap. "Don't," he shouted. "Please don't. Don't you see? This is just what they want you to do." He remembered his first kill, saying pretty much the same things to him. He wondered if they meant more to this guy now than they had to him then.

"I gave you a chance," said the tall man, standing in the shadows.

That was a mistake, as the fallen man knew and the standing one apparently did not. The target is supposed to be just that, a target. Not a person. Tonight's designated target brought his leg up, as if trying to push another inch backward, but in reality he was bringing his ankle holster within reach of his trigger finger.

The yard echoed with the sound of a gunshot.

Three days earlier…

The arena was brightly lit, carpeted, a maze of shelving that the combatants knew well. The people were another matter, constantly shifting yet untouchable. The running man kept glancing at the mirrors, his only benefit, not even an advantage.

The running man rounded the corner, bumping into a customer, reaching for a product on a low shelf. "Skip, you're out," said a gruff voice.

His pursuer raised his arms in triumph. "Yes," Lester shouted. "We did it."

Jeff Barnes shot him in the chest, a Nerf dart sticking to his armor.

Lester looked down, then back up. "You're loathsome," he said to his betrayer. "You don't shoot your partner."

"There are no partners in Outlast," said Casey. He nodded at Jeff. "Good job, Barnes." He lifted the microphone. "Good evening shoppers. Tonight's Outlast is concluded, our winner is Jeffrey Barnes. Please come to the Nerd Herd desk to claim your coupons."

Chuck was first to the desk. "No coupons for you," said Casey, stamping little squares of paper. "You're not even supposed to still be here."

"I just thought I'd take a second to see how you were adjusting," said Chuck. "And the answer is, not well. What are you doing?"

Casey shrugged. "Morgan's off at that 'management seminar'–" their euphemism for the DARPA labs, where he was being poked and prodded after taking the laudanol "–so that leaves me in charge. I'm just channeling our coworkers' instincts for mayhem in more useful directions." He handed out coupons to the customers who came to claim them.

"You were supposed to baby-step your way into a civilian cover." Chuck raised his arms, taking in the whole of the store. "This is not baby steps, Casey, this is baby kicks to the groin. War games in the Buy More are not what I would call a useful direction."

"Then you really are a moron, moron," said Casey. "The employees love it, even if they lose, but more if they win. There's prizes." He pointed at the corner, where a picture of yesterday's winner, also Jeff Barnes, looked out upon his domain. Now it had a second bow. "The customers love it, it's a free floor show and they get coupons for everything they buy, with a bonus if they should actually get touched by one of these losers. Here you go, sir."

Chuck watched as Casey handed out the last coupon, exactly as many as there were customers to claim them, naturally. "What does Big Mike think?"

Casey shrugged. "What do you think he thinks? The coupons are for five percent, but he raised the prices by four. We only lose one percent, but everyone thinks they're getting a deal so they buy even more useless junk they don't need." He cracked his knuckles. "I'll have these jokers locked and loaded in no time."

"Jeff and Lester?"

"Them too."

The intercom came to life. "John Casey, my office."

"We've got to get you back in action," said Chuck.

"This is action," said Casey. "Shaw's back today. He needs to see what he needs to see. Why not have a little fun with the scenario?"

"'A little fun'? Casey, you're weaponizing capitalism."

Casey rolled his eyes. "It came pre-weaponized. Me being put on the outside, where Shaw won't be able to know my every move? That took a little more work, and Keller did most of that for us. I should have thanked him, before I broke his neck."

A little later, in Big Mike's office…

"John, I want you to know from the start that I like you, I really do," said Mike. "But, it's come to my attention that this little reality experience of yours may not be all I was promised."

Casey shifted in his seat, glancing at Lester and Jeff, sitting sullenly on the couch, before looking back to the boss. "In what way, sir?"

"It's an attack on fundamental human decency," said Lester at top volume. "All human virtues, all order, even lifelong friendships and bonds of brotherhood, all thrown over in pursuit of victory at all costs."

Casey took it all in with nothing more than a raised brow. "That means he's upset because he hasn't won yet."

"But I have won," said Lester. Jeff grunted at him, and he quickly backpedalled. "I should have won, along with my lifelong friend and partner here, who was turned into a Judas by this man's insidious game."

Casey chuckled. "If he's Judas then who does that make you?"

"That's not important," said Lester, quickly. "The point is that this so-called game can only be won through betrayal."

Mike laced his fingers, trying to look somber. "That's a serious claim, John. I can't let my crew continue playing a game if it's gonna mean conking each others' heads, stabbing each other in the back. We can't have that, that's Large Mart crap."

"No one needs to stab anyone in the back," said Casey. "These clowns just can't seem to win without it. Anyone can win this game, all on their own."

"Oh, yeah?" said Lester. "Prove it."

Chuck walked down the steps slowly, taking in his favorite sight in the world, closer and more detailed with each step. Agent Walker stood at one of the standing desks, entering data, her back to him. Most of the pleasure of it was her, of course. Perfect posture, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect body under the perfect clothes…

Best of all, she stood with her back to him.

One of the many rules of spy school, always sit with your back to the wall and with a full view of the room. She had to have heard him on the stairs, she ought to have been fighting every spy instinct she had, but somehow she didn't look like she was. "I take it Agent Shaw isn't back yet."

She stiffened immediately, turning to answer him but also putting the nearest barricade behind her. "Soon enough," she said. "Agent Jones should be bringing him back from the airport now."

"Well, she should enjoy the experience more than any of the rest of us," said Chuck, "Not that I really want to use 'enjoy' and 'Shaw' in the same sentence." He remembered Morgan, sitting in the dark, staring at a blank wall, and shuddered.

"How's Casey?" asked Sarah. Being disgraced and dismissed, even as a ruse, had to grate, but only Chuck really had a reason to talk to him now.

He's Casey. "He taught them how to play Outlast."

"Oh, God," said Sarah, with a laugh. "Still, it's something he would do." Hopefully this part of their mission would be wrapped up before things got too out of hand.

Agent Shaw loomed up out of the darkness, having come in through one of the other entrances. "What Mister Casey does with his free time should no longer be a matter of concern," he said, with a notable lack of interest in why someone with Casey's background and skills would still be working in a Buy More.

For a second Chuck wondered if maybe Shaw had been an early candidate for laudanol trials, or maybe they got the drug by filtering it out of his blood. "Not if we were zombie robots or something, but Casey is our friend. Not to mention that anything he does up there is almost certain to affect us down here." He looked around. "Where's Agent Jones?"

"Back in the Orange Orange," said Shaw. He never called it the Double O. "I'm going to suggest that the store be discontinued. Its original purpose has been served, and since you've become an agent it's become a waste of our resources."

"Castle needs a back door," said Sarah. She'd actually liked the posting, or she had, until the guacamole brought Jeff and Lester regularly, but then she liked to watch Chuck, too. And make plans.

"She's wasted there," said Shaw. "I'll bring it up, at our next meeting."

"Why are you carrying a purse?" said Chuck.

"Sam left it in the car," said Shaw, as he tucked it on a shelf. "She's a bit forgetful that way, just like–"

"Just like who?" asked Chuck, when Shaw's face appeared more frozen than usual.

Shaw blinked. "No one important." He tried to smile. "I wanted to thank you both, for expressing such concerns for my safety in your reports of the Castle breach. A number of the meetings I was part of focused on it."

The monitor chimed, and they moved around the table. "Your cover was blown," said Sarah as the boss' face appeared on the screen. Jones' face appeared in a small inset screen, from the register at the Double O.

"Perhaps not, Agent Walker," said General Beckman. "Interrogations of the captured members of the incursion team are not bearing out that supposition. Until we find out what they were after, we have sent Agent Shaw back to you, in a somewhat…limited capacity for the moment. Agent Jones, you may disconnect from this meeting."

"Limited in what way?" asked Chuck, after Jones' window winked out.

"The possibility that the Ring knows of Shaw's presence in LA is small but significant," said Beckman. "He will therefore be leading no missions against the Ring at this time. Which makes this an opportune moment to address other issues that have recently arisen." She glanced at Shaw, giving him the floor.

"Chuck's flash while protecting Colonel Casey's fiancée, and its aftermath, have raised red flags at Langley," said Shaw. "Something caused the Intersect to overload and then malfunction, possibly fatally, and I'm here to find out what that 'something' was. Chuck's a good agent. No one wants to throw that away without cause."

"Define 'cause'," said Sarah.

Shaw shrugged casually, apparently unaware of his danger. "We'll know when we get there. We have to determine the trigger conditions first, and whether we can correct for them." He lifted his briefcase to the table and pulled out a hefty block of paper held together by clips. "Fortunately, the output log that Chuck made after the event was very helpful to the scientists at DARPA. They were able to determine that the set of possible triggers was very small. Some particularly intense stressors. Most of them fall within the bounds of our standard agent testing, so I'll be adapting those for the particulars and we'll go from there."

Sarah glared at the book, not just for the data it contained but for the book itself. Typing that much text at Intersect speeds had left Chuck's hands in pain for days. She reached for it, but Shaw slid it away from her. "I'm sorry, Agent Walker," he said, not sounding sorry. "But this information is need-to-know."

Sarah looked at Shaw, then the General, with incredulity. "Yes, and I need to know."

Beckman shook her head. "I'm sorry, Sarah, but Agent Shaw has full responsibility for Agent Carmichael's training."

"I do," said Shaw. His lips curled up, ever so slightly. "Sam will be assisting me, Agent Walker. Agent Jones. Not you."

A/N2 Because separating Chuck and Sarah always works. I can't take credit for Outlast either. It was featured in the Star Trek novel Battlestations, by Diane Carey. I changed the rules a little. I hope you'll drop me a line and tell me what you think of this rewrite so far.