A/N 5/5/12
If you pay close attention to the declassified scenes from the series you'll see a reference to one in this chapter.
Thanks to uplink2, who looked at this chapter and offered some very salient suggestions for making it closer to what I wanted to achieve. And many thanks to you, my readers; for posting reviews and adding this story to your favorites or alert list. Those reviews and messages are potent fuel for a fan fiction writer; powerful motivators. I appreciate it very much.
I don't own Chuck…but sometimes it feels like these stories may own me.
Chuck Versus the Lost Years
Act 6 - Puzzle Pieces
- I -
Chuck pulled his car into his regular parking spot in front of the elevator next to Nikki's Cadillac. As they got out of the car, Sarah looked around the parking garage and noticed there were four more additional parking spots in the separate area of the garage where Chuck and Nikki's cars were parked facing away from the elevators.
"Is one of these spaces mine?"
"Yes." He gestured to the stall at the end on the right side of his new Porsche. "That one. Of course, if you'd rather park in one of the other spots you can have your pick."
Sarah didn't miss the symbolism of his choice of parking spots for her, and she smiled with amusement. "I like that one."
She walked around the car and trapped him against the side of it as she looked up at him, and then shrugged her shoulder towards Nikki's car. There was symbolism there, too. Nikki was obviously important. "What if I wanted that one?"
Chuck rolled his eyes askance. "Your first day here, and you want to start a turf war with the VP of Operations?"
Sarah grinned at him and gave him a quick kiss. "Probably not a good idea, is it?"
"A turf war? Or pulling rank? Probably not either. But I'm sure Nikki wouldn't mind making it the subject of a wager, she seems to be pretty competitive."
"I think I'd better size up the competition a bit more before I start to make bets."
"Sound thinking," he acknowledged, taking her hand and heading toward the elevator. "C'mon let me show you the offices, I think you're going to like them."
They exited the elevator on the third floor and stepped into the granite-floored entry foyer that was divided from the large reception area by a glass wall and doors with the Carmichael Industries logo on it. Nikki Lawson was sitting at a large desk beyond the entry.
"Hi Boss, Sarah," she greeted, "I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to see you again."
"Hi, Nikki. I hope you aren't getting lonely here, this place looks a little deserted," Sarah said, noticing the way Nikki's use of the moniker 'boss' rolled off her tongue like an endearment. As she looked around the reception area, taking in the ambiance of the place, she placed her hands on her hips and looked intently at her husband. "Chuck, what is the VP of Operations doing greeting clients?"
Nikki took note Sarah's tone and posture and smiled, "We're currently trying to resolve some staffing problems," she answered diplomatically, "I should be able to move into my luxurious new office in a few days when our new office manager starts. Ultimately, Suzy will take this position when she gets back from vacation."
Chuck returned the Bartowski smile to Nikki, "I suppose you want the corner one with the private bathroom and the wet bar?"
"No, no, I'll let you keep your flamboyant digs," she sneered playfully back at him, "my tastes run a little bit more toward the understated." She glanced quickly at Sarah noticing her reaction to the way Chuck smiled at her.
"I can't wait to see what you do with the place," he replied enthusiastically.
"I'll try to keep it tasteful, but I'm also accepting decorating suggestions if you have any, Sarah," she said, looking at her with an amicable smile, "I hear you have quite an eye for design. It's not exactly one of my strong points."
"I have a feeling you don't have any weak points," Sarah replied a little flatly, but with an easy smile, "Though I'd be happy to help if you'd like."
"I would like that. It would give us a chance to get to know each other better." Nikki shifted in her seat at the desk as she tried to read the cryptic look on Sarah's face. She quickly swung her gaze back to Chuck, "Speaking of what I'll be doing to my own office; hold on to your hat, Boss. I think you're going to be surprised by what's happened around here since Monday. And, by the way, there are contractors in the server room, try not to trip over them."
"Okay, now you've peaked my curiosity." Chuck looked back at Sarah who he finally noticed had been closely watching the exchange between Nikki and him. "Sounds like we both get to see something new, shall we take a look around?"
"Sure. Lead on, Chuck," Sarah said, crisply enunciating his name, with a wink.
He offered her his hand and they turned right and walked into a broad hallway connecting to the reception area and began the tour. Nikki let a subtle, amused smile appear on her face and turned back to the work on her computer. Sarah's obvious possessiveness was a very good sign.
Chuck gestured to the right into a large room with computers, electronics equipment, workbenches, test benches, and project tables. "One of our two labs," he said, before pointing to the left side of the hall. "Offices on this side. I'm thinking Nikki might want the one down at the end." Sarah looked down the hallway trying to see into the office he was talking about without making a show of it.
Then as they walked down the hallway he pointed to the right again. "This is the computer lab." Beyond the glass wall was a nerd's paradise of workstations and benches with parts storage underneath them, and beyond that, behind another glass wall, was a room full of servers in nineteen-inch racks, with several technicians busy at work on them with half of the false floor panels pulled up. It looked like controlled pandemonium.
Sarah turned quickly back from the office she was looking in and looked into the computer lab and nodded with a smile. "That's really something. I can only imagine how excited you must be. Quite the toy box."
"Oh, yeah; nerd nirvana." He beamed at her as he walked down the hall backwards and gestured towards the end of it with his thumb, "And down here is going to be the War Room." He stopped dead in his tracks as he reached the hallway portal and looked into the room. His jaw dropped.
"Wow," Sarah exclaimed.
"Yeah…wow. None of this was here on Monday."
The War Room looked complete. Eight computer workstations occupied the center of the room in an open arrangement, the only partitions being the banks of large flat panel monitors that surrounded them. Over the workstations, several very large screens hung from the ceiling. To the right of them, two very large double-sided haptic monitors formed partitions between the workstations in the War Room and the large arched entries of two offices beyond them. To the right of the offices was a large conference room with a table that could seat twenty. And next to it behind glass walls was the server room they had previously seen from beyond the computer lab.
"Very impressive, Chuck. I can't wait to see the electric bill."
"Hi-yo. Yeah, it's going to be a whopper," he chuckled, and then stepped to the right, "C'mon let me show you something."
They walked through the right-hand office doorway into a very large and very elegant looking office with a large L shaped desk, large triple monitors on the return, and a credenza behind it. The back wall was windowed like the ones in the War Room. There was also a very comfortable looking leather executive chair behind the desk. A round worktable was off to the left with four chairs. Beyond it was a doorway that looked like it led to the other office through a short arched hallway, and in the corner next the door was a small wet bar.
A leather L-shaped sofa and a coffee table were off to the right of the entry and in front of it were two leather-upholstered armchairs that could be turned to face the sofa or the desk. There was an entrance to a private bath on the right side of the room beyond the sofa end table. A bookcase occupied the wall on the other side of the bathroom door. The walls were still bare of any pictures, but a couple of framed pictures from their wedding were sitting on the credenza.
"This a very nice office you have here, Chuck."
"It's not my office... it's yours. I hope you like the décor. We tried to match it to the architecture, but I know you like a more contemporary look. Feel free to make changes if you want."
She turned quickly to him and locked her eyes on his, at first looking surprised, and then turning thoughtful as she gazed at him for several seconds. "You weren't going to give up on me, were you?" Her eyes became a little misty.
"No. No, that was never an option."
"Then why did you stop calling me?"
He let his eyes show a flash of sadness to her that he quickly replaced with simple and patient understanding. "I was going through a bit of a rough period. I hadn't given up on you, but I couldn't let it be about what I wanted."
Sarah stepped to him and grabbed his hand as she placed her other hand on his chest over his heart. "I should have thought more about what I was putting you through. I didn't consider enough how heart wrenching all of this must have been for you. I'm sorry, Chuck."
"It's alright. You needed to decide your own path. All I could do was hope that you would eventually see I was on that same path with you. Now you're here, so let's just put that behind us."
They fell into an embrace, and just as their lips were about to touch…
"Um, Boss?" They turned to see Nikki standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but you have a guest."
Towering over Nikki's shoulder in the doorway was Colonel John Casey, and he hadn't missed a thing. He had a tight if slightly snarled smile on his face to prove it.
Time stood still.
"Casey!" Chuck quickly strode towards him and extended his hand. "Nice to see ya, buddy. You've been missed you around here."
With a little grunt from Casey that subtly sounded like agreement, they exchanged a firm four-handed handshake, probably about as intimate as John Casey would get with another man under most circumstances. "It's good to see you too, Bartowski. You look well." He looked back over his shoulder and then back into the office they were standing in. "Nice place you have here."
"You know who these offices used to belong to, don't you?"
Casey glanced at Nikki Lawson briefly, and a very controlled smile crossed his face for an instant. "Yeah, I've been told."
Casey then looked from Chuck to Sarah, and he regarded her appraisingly. "How are you, Walker? Did you finally come to your senses and get in touch with your lady feelings again?"
"I'm fine, Casey, but I wish I knew more about what the last five years has done for you and me," she said guardedly. The disadvantage that her memory loss was causing between Casey and her was a little disconcerting.
"Maybe we can talk about it sometime over a few drinks... maybe more than a few." His face was stoic, but he had a sparkle in his eye. "Or maybe we could just discuss it in the dojo."
"That might be fun. Maybe we should," she answered with a smirk.
Chuck watched the exchange and decided to change the subject. "I see you came alone, Casey. Where is Gertrude?"
Casey shifted his stoic gaze back to Chuck. "She decided to hang out by the pool at the hotel. But she wants us all to have dinner there later tonight. Are you game?" He looked at Sarah questioningly.
"I am," Sarah answered agreeably.
Chuck grinned at her and Casey. "Okay, it sounds like a plan. Although, Sarah and I have to go to Castle this afternoon first. Would you mind coming too, Casey? There's someone on Ellie's research team I'd like your opinion about."
"Hunm, that's all you're going to tell me?"
"Yeah, I think I'll keep the rest of it a surprise, knowing how you like surprises."
"Uh-huh... springing them," Casey responded with narrowing eyes, "It better be a good one."
Chuck's big grin waned ever so slightly as he stuck his hands in his pockets. "I was just giving Sarah a tour of the place, would you like to see the rest of it with us?"
"I've got nothing better to do at the moment, lead on. By the way, which one of these offices is mine?"
- II -
Team Bartowski stepped out of the elevator on the second floor into a foyer with a hallway leading left and the entry to a large room straight ahead. Chuck led them into an area that could be best described as a recreation room. There was an open kitchen with a bar to their right with seating and dining tables beyond, and some Arcade games in an alcove beyond the cozy seating area.
The Missile Command game that Chuck had once beaten to the kill-screen to obtain the override codes that kept a city from being nuked was among the games, along with several other Atari legacy games surrounding it. A regulation pool table occupied one side of the room, and there was a large dance floor and adjoining mirrors along one of the walls with a ballet barre along it on the far side of the room.
Chuck pointed to the ballet barre. "Nikki used to study ballet, so I did that for her."
Sarah stared at her husband and unconsciously crossed her arms over her chest, as she studied the look on his face.
Casey scrutinized the two of them carefully and softly grunted, "I'm starting to wonder about this… Nikki…"
"What's to wonder about? She found you, didn't she?" Chuck retorted.
"Kind of my point, numbnuts," Casey leveled his gaze at Sarah, "Are you okay, Walker? Feeling a little threatened?"
Sarah raised an eyebrow at him, giving him the stink eye. "Very funny, Casey. I don't let a pretty face make me feel threatened," she deflected, but she was still obviously curious about what Casey was saying. "Tell me, what are your concerns about Nikki?"
"There's obviously much more to that young woman than just a pretty face. But let's just say she seems unusually focused," he said, as he smirked back at her.
"Well, okay... so, isn't there more than meets the eye about any woman? " Chuck said sheepishly, as the direction the conversation was taking finally sank in. "Why don't we continue the tour, shall we?" He glanced at Sarah as they walked across the room and she returned the look with her spy face on in a way the caused him to tense.
Casey very subtly smirked at him.
They strode through another doorway into a full gym, and a very large and open martial arts dojo connected to a full, partitioned bath with showers and storage lockers. The dojo had storage racks for an assortment of weapons that fit a wide variety of fighting disciplines, and there were several striking dummies and shelves for gloves and striking pads. Both Casey and Sarah took it all in with very approving expressions on their faces.
"I think I could get used to the idea of working here," Casey said evenly. "Nikki mentioned something about an indoor shooting range?"
Chuck gave him the Bartowski smile. "Follow me and prepare to be impressed."
They walked out of the recreation and training area, and down the short hallway that led from the elevator. Chuck swiped his I.D. badge across the scan pad, and they entered into the lounge area of the shooting range. Casey looked into the weapons and maintenance alcoves and turned to look at Chuck approvingly.
"Very impressive, Chuck, how many of these toys have you played with?"
"All of them Casey, shooting paper and steel is a whole lot easier than shooting a real person."
"Humng"
Sarah looked at Chuck with a sense of intangible apprehension that she couldn't place. For some odd reason, the idea of Chuck handling firearms was making her feel uncomfortable. She remembered the heated discussion she and Chuck had through the cell walls in Castle after he had shot down Casey's helicopter in Berlin; how the thought of Chuck first refusing to use deadly force sounded so naive. Then after several days thinking about it, the thought of Chuck killing someone felt so revolting to her that she never wanted him to have to do it because she feared it would change him in irreparable ways. The sound of Chuck's voice snapped her back to the present.
"Follow me. I'll show you the range," Chuck said enthusiastically.
They walked through the double-doorway into the shooting range. Casey examined the range area, quickly assessing the layout. There was enough room here to set up situational shooting scenarios. Three of the walls incorporated bullet stops, and a doorway to a storage area full of shooting stage props confirmed his suspicion with sanction. Then his eye caught the targets hanging from the target frames still hanging in the range.
"Who did that?"
They all stared at the silhouette targets hanging from the frames. Damn, whoever had done that shooting, well, it was impressive. The shot grouping on every one of the targets was almost identical.
"Well, I didn't do it," Chuck said, as he stepped over to the range video station and checked the records, "I'm not sure if I could do that, even with the Intersect."
He pulled up the most recent range video from the archives and they all watched dumbfounded as Nikki Lawson double-tapped five moving targets with a suppressed large caliber handgun in about eight seconds… twice. The video was very short, so Chuck ran it several times from different camera angles as they all watched Nikki's speed and flawless form. Then they watched another two, each shorter than the one previous and with the same results.
"Wow, what kind of a gun is that?" Sarah asked as she leaned closer to the screen trying to get a better look at it. "I want one."
"Yeah, me too. Holy smack," Casey exclaimed, as he looked back and forth between Chuck and Sarah. "Who the hell did you hire, Bartowski?"
- III -
She stared at the decrypted email message on the screen. A sigh escaped her lips as she thought of the implications of what she was being told to do, and the possible implications if she decided to refuse. Over five years ago she had become a deep cover agent for Fulcrum. She had been recruited by a close associate of Ted Roark and had met the charismatic man on several occasions over the years while doing Agency business in various parts of the country.
He was a sexual predator, and he had taken advantage of the situation by threatening to expose her involvement with his organization almost from the beginning.
It was revolting. She quickly regretted ever deciding to join the group, but the enticement of large sums of money that kept appearing in an offshore account set up for her had kept her willing and compliant. Besides, in five years she'd never been asked to do anything that would be considered espionage, and during that time all that had been required of her was occasionally putting up with Ted Roark's disgusting hands on her body… until now.
Hearing that Ted Roark had been killed by one of his own agents as damage control had made her think that it was over. The money had stopped showing up in her Cayman account long ago, and no one had contacted her in over two years, until yesterday. Now she stared at the assignment she was being given out of the blue and it made her hands shake uncontrollably.
She was being told to access very compartmented information on two CIA agents and an NSA agent; information that even with her access level was going to be very hard to obtain. If she was caught doing this she would be put away for good. The choices that she now had were bad or worse. Why did she ever agree to do this?
Walking briskly over to her closet, she pulled out a small travel bag, and hastily started to pack it.
- IV -
Casey looked into the rear-view mirror of his Crown Victoria scanning the road behind them, and then his eyes went to Chuck in the backseat. "So why are we going to Castle again?"
"We're supposed to talk to some of the Intersect Version 4 research team that is also working on trying to help Sarah. They're using the secure research lab in Castle to do hardware design and integration with the data Ellie and her team acquired from tests on Sarah and I yesterday."
Casey grunted. His penetrating gaze fell briefly on Sarah sitting in the front seat with him, and he gave her a disgusted look, "Dammit, Walker, I wish you had never downloaded that god-forsaken thing."
She fidgeted almost imperceptibly in her seat, "I don't even remember downloading it, let alone why I did it, Casey, so I'm not going to argue with you about it now."
Casey turned his gaze to the road ahead. "We were in a very bad spot at the time. I literally screamed at you not to do it."
"I wish I had listened."
"Roger that," he said, glancing her way.
Casey checked the mirror again, and Chuck caught his eye. Chuck noted the sadness hiding there with some curiosity. Casey had developed a soft spot for his teammates over the last five years, something Chuck had once thought would never be possible. Casey's concern for Sarah touched a spot in his heart that he knew he would probably never be able to discuss with the Colonel without being severely rebuffed. "So, Casey, have you given any more thought about coming back to work with us? We could sure use a guy like you around the office."
"Are you sure about that? Looks to me like you've already hired a replacement for me."
Chuck exchanged another brief look with Casey in the mirror and then looked out the side window, "Believe me, I had no idea Nikki was so multi-talented."
"Like you said, I suspect there is a lot about your new employee that doesn't meet the eye. Her leaving those targets and that video on the range couldn't have been an accident."
"What are you getting at, John?" Sarah inquired.
He glanced at her like he knew she had the answer already, "She tipped her hand. She wants us to know what she's about."
"If she was undercover, why would she do that?" Chuck asked. He was now asking himself even more questions.
"Probably because she doesn't want to be, Chuck," said Sarah thoughtfully, "Where did you find her?"
"She was an analyst at Fort Meade. She came highly recommended by the Director of Science and Technologies' Field Resources Unit."
Sarah perked up. "Digital Dave O'Conner? I've worked with him before. He's a pretty smart cookie. I can't see him getting involved in anything nefarious."
"Fort Meade, huh?" Casey grunted again, "There is no way that that woman is just an analyst. Have you ever flashed on her Bartowski?"
"No, Casey, I haven't, not once."
Casey's grunt was one of curious resolve. He once again locked eyes with Chuck in the mirror, "Chuck I'll come back to work for you with one condition, and it's non-negotiable."
"What's that?"
"That you let me thoroughly vet Nikki Lawson."
Chuck and Casey studied each other in the mirror for several seconds. It unnerved Chuck the way that Casey could do that and still keep the car squarely in the lane. "Okay, John, that sounds fair to me. I trust you'll be discreet about it, of course."
He frowned a little as he thought about Casey's concept of the word 'discretion'. "I'd actually like you to screen all of our new employees before they come on board," he continued, "And to keep an ongoing, but discreet security overview going once we start to ramp the business up. Security is going to be very important for our company going forward. By the way, have you seen anyone back there?"
"I'm impressed, Bartowski. After five years you finally seem to be catching on. No, no one is tailing us."
- V -
"I miss the yogurt shop," Casey muttered nostalgically.
"Really?" Sarah replied skeptically, raising a brow. "I'm trying to take some comfort in the fact I don't have many memories of my cover jobs." She saw her husband's expression turn somber. "Though, there are some memories about them I'd like to have back," she corrected, as her eyes apologetically met Chuck's.
Even Casey's grunt sounded nostalgic. "You probably don't remember, but those frozen yogurt machines would make a quick and convenient ice pack," he said, with a thin smirk.
Chuck felt his smile return as he wondered who had thought up that original use for frozen yogurt, Sarah or Casey. "We decided we needed an entrance to Castle that had less public exposure, so we said goodbye to the yogurt shop."
"Makes sense, but Cobra? Doesn't that moron Grimes have a big enough head already?"
"Easy Casey, Morgan has been coming into his own, his Aikido is getting pretty good."
"HMng. We'll just have to see about that, won't we?"
They stepped down the stairway leading into Castle into the center of bustling activity none of them had seen here before. Ellie saw them and broke away from eight other people around the conference table to come greet them. "John Casey, how have you been?" She gave him a hug that caused the big man to tense with a grimace as he tentatively hugged her back and patted her shoulder, and Chuck and Sarah to smile in amusement.
"I'm good Ellie…but that'll be enough of that." He attempted to extricate himself. "How is your little girl?"
She stepped back a little surprised and then grinned at him after she realized what he had done, "Very clever, John, asking about family like that. Clara is fine. She misses her 'Uncle John'."
Casey's grunt was one of affection this time, as his eyes smiled back at Ellie. Sarah looked on with curious amusement, astounded by the affect the elder Bartowski, and apparently her daughter, had on him. She was still trying to get used to Ellie's affectionate streak herself, and watching Casey try to deal with it was comical.
Chuck then broke the levity with a question. He was feeling impatient about the purpose of their visit, and he wanted to get this part over. "Where is Manoosh, Ellie? We came to see him."
Casey's eyes quickly hardened as they shot over to Chuck, his grunt clearly saying, "WTF?!"
Chuck couldn't contain his snort. "Yeah, that's why I wanted you here. I wanted you to see this, I need your detached judgment about it."
"Detached, huh? Don't know if that's possible, Bartowski."
"Well, I still want your opinion, unbiased or not," answered Chuck.
Ellie looked cautiously back and forth between the two men, and then to Sarah. She gave her brother a little disgruntled glance. "So you didn't come to see me, huh? Doctor Depak is in the fabrication lab," she said, with a tone that implied they better be respectful. "Follow me."
"Doctor?" Casey asked incredulously.
They walked down the hall and entered another secure area requiring a palm scanner for access. As they walked through the doors a bearded Manoosh Depak looked up from a magnifying scope and held his hand up, "STOP! Don't take another step closer!" He quickly threw a microfiber polishing rag onto the Flashcards spread over the tabletop and turned the light off on the magnifying scope. "I'm sorry, Chuck and Sarah, please turn around so I can put these away."
Ellie spun around on her heel, grabbed them by their elbows, and abruptly turned them around facing away from the table. Manoosh then started to gather up the cards and place them into their case. "I'm so sorry. If I'd have known you would be coming in here, I would have had these stored away in a safe place."
Once all the cards were gathered Manoosh walked over to a code and optical key activated wall safe and placed the case in it as he removed a couple of other objects from it. "Okay, it's safe now, but that was close. That would not have been the proper way to greet you after all these years. Please come in now and have a seat, I'm sure you have a lot of questions."
There was a very uncomfortable moment for Chuck and Sarah as they turned back around and looked at the man smiling evenly at them, and they hesitated. Casey stood back out of the way and closely observed the scene.
Chuck had to place Manoosh Depak into protective custody three years ago and, now here he was standing before them. It had been a terrible moment for Chuck doing something to another man that he had almost had done to himself by the CIA all those years before. He just didn't know what to say to Manoosh, and he never thought he would actually see him again.
Manoosh broke the silence. "I believe I know what you're thinking, Chuck. You're probably asking yourself if you can trust a man that you had thrown into a secure facility, and why I would want to have anything to do with helping you."
Chuck had spent a lot of time reflecting on the day he had been forced to make that decision and he thought he knew what needed to be said now. But this man could have been him under not so different circumstances, and he was still at a loss for words. "Yes I am wondering about it. I'm sorry Manoosh, but you gave me no choice. I wish things could have been different. I didn't want to have to do what I did to you."
"I know, Chuck. At least I know it now. A person can learn a lot about circumstances and other peoples motivations once they're given access to the information that casts the light of day on them. And my own motivations at the time were a long shot from honorable."
Chuck raised his eyebrows, "How much do you know, Manoosh?"
He gave Chuck and Sarah a meaningful look. "Pretty much all of it. We share the same clearance. And I know the whole story about how you became the first human Intersect... about your father and his research, the trouble you had with version 2.0 and having to use a governor... how others were trying to steal it and use if for less than honorable purposes... and now Sarah's unfortunate experience with it. All of it, Chuck."
"I'm surprised."
"Yeah, considering what I had gotten myself into with my own Intersect design, and how close I came to selling something on the open arms market that could have been abused so terribly... it's a wonder anyone ever thought I could be trusted with this."
"You're a genius, Manoosh. Sometimes raw talent has a way of reopening doors we never thought would open for us again."
"Thank you for saying that, Chuck. You know, I spent a while in that CIA blockhouse consumed with anger until a friend of yours came to me and offered to give me another chance to make something good from the predicament I had put us in. I accepted an offer to finish my degree and get my doctorate, and it reopened those doors you spoke of. I was offered a job on this project and it got me out of that bunker and gave me an opportunity to build some trust."
Manoosh fixed his eyes on Ellie with affection. "Your sister saw what I was doing and insisted I be given what I needed to get things done. I've been on her team ever since. I owe you, Eleanor, and General Beckman a huge debt of gratitude. Looking at where I am now I wouldn't trade those three years for anything."
"It sounds like I may have one more thing to thank Diane Beckman for."
"She knew what a hard decision that was for you, Chuck. She really didn't want to make you have to make it... considering how you almost ended up with a similar fate."
Manoosh scratched his pointed beard at the end of his chin, and let his gaze fall thoughtfully on all the people standing in the room, finally letting his eyes come back to rest on Chucks. "Anyway, I want you to know that there are no hard feelings, and I'm very excited to be here... even more excited to be given the opportunity to help Sarah. It's important to me, Chuck. I want to help."
"Can you and the Iv4 team help Sarah, Manoosh? Can the Ring Intersect be removed? Can she get her memories back?" Chuck asked hopefully.
Manoosh let his eyes fall on Sarah's and, he held them as he spoke to her. "Yes, I think we can help you, Sarah. You never really lost your memories as you've been discovering. A corrupted Intersect program is just suppressing them. However, I don't believe we will be able to remove the Ring Intersect per say. We don't know enough about the original Ring program. And the fact that Nicholas Quinn succeeded in essentially corrupting the data makes removal all the more difficult."
He smiled encouragingly as he continued. "However, I do believe that we'll be able to overwrite it with the new Iv4 program, and possibly remove Iv4 if the download works without any hitches. I'll keep pursuing the possibility of removing the Ring intersect, but right now it seems to be the least viable of the options available to us. In the meantime we'll keep using and improving the governor to keep the Ring programming as stable as possible and buy us the time needed to get Iv4 ready."
Sarah looked a little alarmed by what she was hearing. The idea of downloading another Intersect was not what she had expected, or wanted to hear. "What about my memories, Manoosh? Will I ever get them back? Are you saying I may never be free from the Intersect?"
"If we can overwrite the corrupted Ring Intersect I'm very optimistic that you'll be able to access your suppressed memories again. Whether or not you'll ever be completely free of at least some Intersect programming of some sort? Right now I don't know, and it would be unfair of me to tell you otherwise."
"Fair enough, Doctor, thank you for your candor… and Manoosh?" He looked back at her questioningly, "I trust you."
"I'll try my best to keep that trust, Sarah."
"How far away is the team from being able to implement Iv4?" Chuck asked, "And what can I do to help?"
Manoosh scratched the hair on his chin again. "Trying to place a time-frame on this is a little difficult at the moment. I'm still working on a few hardware and image encoding integration issues. That's why I had the flashcards out when you came in. I think we were accidentally able to get something useful to the project from them. I'm currently working on a holographic method to compress the image encoding three-dimensionally so it can be downloaded faster, and with much less stress on the brain."
"We're going to need a few more days to correlate the data from the tests we gave to you and Sarah, little brother," Ellie said, breaking into the discussion since the topic had wandered into her area of specialty. "We think that if we can tailor the visual encoding to your individual brain physiologies we'll have a better chance of getting a complete transfer without corruption or data loss, and we'll have some software work for you to start on tomorrow."
Sarah looked at Manoosh and Ellie with a growing sense of alarm as she realized what they were saying. "Are you telling us you're preparing a download for Chuck too?" She gave her husband a look of intense apprehension and his face suddenly started to show he too was now catching on to what was said.
"Waitwaitwaitwait, you want me to upgrade again? Jeez, Ellie, isn't three Intersect downloads enough for one lifetime?"
"Chuck, there's a very good reason for it," Ellie patiently replied. "Iv4 promises to be what dad was trying all those years to achieve, and it will be much safer, in my opinion, for you to download it instead of keeping version 3. Iv4 is the most advanced and stable version of the Intersect, and it will have the least impact on your brain. It will also hopefully be the easiest to remove if we decide that is ultimately the best course of action."
Chuck looked down at his feet and exhaled forcibly before looking back up at Sarah, and then to Ellie and Manoosh. "Okay, I'll plan on being here first thing in the morning to do what I can to help, but just so you know, I'm going to go through the code line by line. I want some sense of control with what we're doing here."
"That's very reasonable, Chuck," said Manoosh, "I'm looking forward to working on the code with you, and you'll have full access to the other workstation in my lab."
"Thank you, Dr. Depak. Then I guess we'll be seeing you in the morning."
"I'll be here at four," said Manoosh with a grin.
"Yoiks! Do you ever sleep?"
"I'll sleep after this project is done and Sarah is free of the Ring Intersect."
Casey nodded where he was standing in the back of the room. No one heard the quiet grunt but him.
As they walked up the stairs to the exit Chuck took Sarah's hand and said, "I hope you'll be okay with hanging out with a couple of coding nerds for a few days, the air may get a little bit thick in here."
Sarah grinned back at him and gave his hand a squeeze. "I'll find a way to stay busy. I still have a new edition of Angry Birds that I haven't had a chance to play."
- VI -
Edgar Sloan sat at his computer watching a video of Charles Carmichael and his wife getting into a 1980's model Ford Crown Victoria parked at the entrance of Carmichael's office building in Pasadena. "Did you have them tailed, Allen?" He asked into his cell phone.
"No, sir. The man driving the car is Colonel John Casey. He's a very seasoned NSA operative. I couldn't consider trying to tail him without at least a four-car team. We didn't have the assets in place to do that."
Sloan wiped his hand over his face in exasperation, "Very well. What else do we know about John Casey?"
"He was the agent that was working the protective detail with Sarah Walker for several years. Apparently he went to work for Carmichael after he left the NSA several months ago."
"That's odd. I'm seeing too many strange coincidences here. Now I recognize Carmichael. He was that geek with Casey and Walker in that opera house years ago. Have you been able to get any intel about what he is up to in those offices of his?" Sloan was beginning to sense something much larger than what was in a pile of dossiers.
"There are a lot of contractors going in and out of Carmichael's building right now. We're going to try to get one of our people in as a SofTech employee. That should allow us to get some sort of electronic surveillance in place at the least. Regular external surveillance is proving difficult, the building is as tight as a drum. We'll try to get some trackers planted on a couple of vehicles and then start to tail some of these people. I need more back channel information if you can get it."
Sloan thought about that request. They hadn't heard back from their Langley contact, however, the embedded agent in the L.A. office had checked in and started collecting information. "I should have more info for you regarding Carmichael in a day or so, Preston. Our agent is starting to dig around at the CIA JPL Annex. In the meantime step up the surveillance and see if we can't find out where some of these people live. We may have to start applying some pressure to find out where the tech has been located. Call me if you get any more information we can use here."
"Yes sir." The call disconnected.
Edger Sloan scowled at his computer monitor. Why was John Casey associated with the private security business of the husband of his former partner? How did Charles Carmichael aka Chuck Bartowski know these two agents, and why did Sarah Walker marry him? Was he the asset they were protecting? He needed answers.
He realized he was going to have to activate his one last agent at Langley since it appeared likely that his first choice had decided to go off-grid. His last asset was rather high up the food chain, and he was reluctant to activate him because of it, but it looked now like he had no choice. He pulled up a pre-prepared encrypted message on his email client and sent it off to a non-descript webmail account.
- VII -
Sarah stood in the closet doorway looking at the clothes hanging within it. She was trying to find something to wear to dinner tonight with John and Gertrude, but she kept getting distracted by the very fact that all these clothes were even hanging here for her to choose from. What an amazing transformation had happened to her since she had met Chuck and fallen into this new life.
The evidence of it was all around her, and the more she saw of it, the more her sense of exploration to learn more about it overtook her. She pulled a pair of very slim fitting jeans from a hanger and held them up in front of her. Well, some things never changed. These felt safe and recognizable.
Then, curiously, she thought about what she was going to wear underneath these jeans as the thought of Chuck pulling them down over her hips slipped into her mind. Where were these thoughts coming from? The mystery of the last five years tickled at her psyche, and tugged at her heart in unexplainable ways. She was confused by the question of what was now and what was then…and whether it even mattered.
Sarah sensed that no one else in the world might be experiencing what she was living at this moment, the duality of a newly rediscovered past and a present existence playing themselves out in the same instant in such a unique way.
She walked over to her dresser drawer and dug around for that special pair of panties she just knew would titillate and throw Chuck into a tailspin. What devilish thoughts. And her hands fell on something that didn't feel like garments in the bottom of the drawer. She pulled a bulging manila envelope from the bottom of the drawer and then looked at it curiously, the corner of her mouth and her eyebrow shooting up.
'For Sarah's P.A.N.T.S.' was written in black felt marker across the front of it. Further intrigued, Sarah opened it, and poured the contents out onto the bedspread. And then she experienced an utterly euphoric flash tempered by the sudden narcotic effect of the governor on her wrist.
Lightheaded, she looked at the objects on the bed, knowing what they meant to her even as she examined them. Several objects stood out from the rest. The charm bracelet. Oh my, the jagged white, yet wonderful memories it elicited. She shook her head in confusion, and with it the pain as she wrapped the bracelet around her wrist. The red case for her 'spy will' was there, as well as a pendant Chuck had given her that she'd worn frequently after their marriage, a pair of twist ties, and another envelope marked 'prenup'. She opened it curiously, and smiled as she read, wishing she had seen this sooner.
Also in the prenup envelope there was a picture hand drawn... on top of a Japanese magazine advertisement? It was a picture of a couple with a baby in front of a picket fence, with the house from the advertisement in the background. Chuck had drawn it as she described the scene. The drawing was so endearing, and it tugged on her heart and lit a light that seemed to illuminate the hidden recesses of her mind. And then suddenly and inexplicably, she felt like her body was moving at two hundred miles per hour, and the sensation caused her to almost fall over onto the bed.
Chuck walked into the room at that instant and looked at the picture lying on the bed, and as he caught Sarah in his arms he knew immediately what she was experiencing as he was caught up with her. Together, they were swept up in the vortex of a bullet train speeding down the tracks. Catching his wife in the dizzying slipstream they fell to the bed and they clung to each other as they felt the gentle rocking of the car on the tracks and the awareness of speed that pulled them into that special moment in their past.
Long minutes, very long minutes passed. A distance in time and space shared intimately, so intimately until they finally came back to the here and now. And they realized as they held each other in a breathless embrace that somehow they had shed their clothes and made mad passionate love somewhere separate from the reality they normally lived within. Something huge had happened here. Something neither of them could, or wanted to attempt to explain.
They laid there in the bed trying to grasp what had happened to them, and then Chuck thought to look at the clock on the headboard. "Oh my God, Sarah," he exclaimed, "We were supposed to meet Casey and Gertrude at seven!"
"That's not for a couple of hours yet, Chuck, we have plenty of time," she said dreamily.
"It's 6:45, Sarah!"
"What?" Sarah said shrilly, sitting bolt upright to look at the clock. Her eyes became huge. "What just happened, Chuck?"
"I... I, I don't know, Sarah!" Somehow they had lost over two hours of time, but it felt very far from lost... or wasted.
Chuck sat up with a lurch in the bed and reached for his phone, blurting out when it connected, "Casey I'm so sorry we're going to be a little late, we're still at home. We'll be out of here in a little bit."
"What now, Bartowski?" he asked sarcastically. "Did the earth move under you and Sarah again?"
"That's a pretty darn good description for it, buddy…we'll see you in a bit."
Casey's grunt sounded like his own version of 'Eew!' "Sorry I asked."
- VIII -
They sat on the sand watching a waxing crescent moon dip towards the horizon and reflect off the water in front of them. Sarah toyed with the charms on the bracelet wrapped around her right wrist and thought about the way the memories attached to it, and time itself had seemingly become compressed after she and Chuck had looked at the picture he had drawn weeks ago in another universe.
What an amazing experience those two hours had been, all those sensations and emotions condensed down to what felt like a few overpowering moments. She looked at Chuck and knew from the look on his face that they were sharing the same thought, but something was holding her back from talking about it.
"Gertrude seems like a nice lady. She and Casey seem to be good for each other," she deflected.
Chuck held her gaze as a knowing smile crossed his face. "Yeah, I could see their relationship going to a level that could cause civilizations to fall."
Sarah let out a quick laugh. "They look like they are very happy together. Casey deserves that. He's given a lot of himself to serve his country over the years."
Chuck fixed his gaze on her eyes, "So have you."
Sarah returned his gaze for a moment, and then her lip quivered a bit as she shifted on the sand to face him. "What happened to us this afternoon?"
He kissed her softly and held her left hand. "I don't know, but I hope it happens again sometime real soon." His fingers caressed the spot where her wedding bands should be.
Sarah twisted her hand around so the face of her watch showed and she looked at it. "Do you think that this may have had anything to do with it? It's causing some pretty weird sensations. Sometimes it feels a little freaky."
"I've sensed it when I touch you. I can feel it now. It seems to have a powerful effect on me too… on more than my Intersect."
Sarah's eyes met her nerd's, and she sheepishly smiled and sighed. "I hope it's not addictive."
Chuck smiled back at her reassuringly. "I've never experienced anything like what I could call withdrawal when I was without the governor, but it was pretty uncomfortable without it." He looked at his own watch. He had started to use his old governor intermittently after uploading version 3.0, and he was wearing it now. And a thought occurred to him. "I don't want to freak you out more, Sarah, but I wonder if our governors and our Intersects might be interacting with each other in some way."
Sarah rolled her eyes at him skeptically. "I think you've been watching too many science fiction movies, Chuck." But then she thought about it for a few seconds. "Maybe we should talk to Ellie and Manoosh about it."
Chuck could see some anxiousness starting to show in her eyes. "I'll talk to Ellie about it in the morning, but lets not be troubled over it now, okay? We haven't experienced anything that I could say warrants being worried over." His smile grew. "In fact, it felt like quite the opposite to me today."
She returned the smile as she looked into his eyes, "Yeah, that was pretty amazing wasn't it?"
"One of the coolest things that's ever happened to me... to us." Chuck thought about what he'd just said and once again felt his fingers on Sarah's left hand. He had brought Sarah here to do this, and now was as good a time as any. "Sarah, there was another moment in my life that was way more amazing for me, one that will always be at the top of the mountain for me."
"What moment was that, Chuck?"
He reached into his pocket and held out his closed hand. "It was the moment I placed these onto your finger." He opened his hand, and the wedding bands sparkled in the moonlight.
Sarah's eyes filled to the brim as she looked at them and then to him, "Are those really mine? I thought they might have been lost forever." She reached out to touch them, running her fingertips over the glittering rings in the palm of his hand. The sensation was electric.
"It's really them. I found them at Quinn's safehouse."
"Those are what Nikki said she was holding for you, aren't they?"
He nodded and smiled, "Mystery solved." He looked at her, the request showing in his eyes, "May I?"
She nodded back enthusiastically, "Yes!"
He placed the rings on her finger and they looked at them for a moment on her hand, and then before he even realized what was coming, Sarah had bowled him over, and they were wrapped up in each other lying in the sand lost in a kiss. Time compressed once again.
- IX -
So they wanted him to find information about Charles Bartowski and his wife Sarah Walker. He smirked at the computer screen. Digging through a bunch of dusty files or accessing a secure database wouldn't even be necessary for that to happen, he already had most of the information in his head. He thought about the trouble those two had been for his boss and him in the recent past; how an associate of the Bartowski's had smashed the plans that Clyde Decker's CIA black ops cell had tried to perpetrate on the CIA by framing Chuck Bartowski for cyber espionage. That friend of the Bartowki's had killed Decker and two of his teammates with an explosive device in a dark parking garage one night. He'd barely survived the blast himself.
His hand ran over the burn scar on the right side of his face as he thought about the pleasure he was going to take in accepting this assignment. He crossed the room and opened an access panel in the side of his closet and pulled a large Zero-Halliburton case from its storage area. He opened it and scanned the case with his eyes to admire the contents. Two FN Herstal Five-SeveN tactical pistols with matching suppressors, a suppressed FN P90 submachine gun with an Eotech holographic sight, and a Glock 26 with a suppressor and a laser site filled the cut-outs in the foam.
A pair of night vision goggles, and several knives accompanied them, along with an assortment of loaded magazines and several tactical grenades. He had wondered if the day would ever come when he would get to use these tools of the trade. Now he nodded to himself as he closed the case and thought how much pleasure he was going to take in using them on these three adversaries, especially Gertrude Verbanski. His hand ran again over the scar on his face. He smiled as he thought about re-opening his own personal sanction on Gertrude Verbanski, and killing her.
Simon McKay grabbed his travel roller and a tactical duffle from his closet and started to pack as he thought about how he was going to conduct this lone op. He would share information with Edgar Sloan, but only enough, and only on a schedule that fit his own designs. He was going to help his Fulcrum associates, but he was also had an agenda of his own.
- X -
Nikki Lawson was staying late again tonight. First in, last out. That was the way she rolled. She'd also hired four new employees today. One, whose business card Chuck had given her that morning that was now sitting on her desk. She found it very amusing that Chuck wanted to hire this man who shared his cover name. People were probably going to think they were related. Another was one of the new 'receptionists' and the office manager, and she was particularly satisfied with that recruit. The new front office person was a Marine officer formerly attached to the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion at Camp Pendleton. She knew Lori Compton personally and was confident that she would make an excellent gatekeeper for the office. She was also looking forward to sparring with Lori again.
The last two recruits were computer intel specialists that Digital Dave had mentioned to her. One was from the same office she used to work in at Fort Meade, and the other was from Dave's group at Field Resources. She had poached Sally Williams from Dave, and he wasn't too pleased with her about it even though he had offered her name to Nikki. Dave had given her a hard time when he'd heard about it and she knew that favors would have to be returned for wooing Sally away with such a huge salary offer. The upside to this was that Sally and all the rest of them were well known and would most likely prove to be trusted members of the team, and they would all be arriving during the day tomorrow.
As she made her rounds before closing up, when Nikki walked through the recreation area she heard heavy breathing and physical commotion coming from the dojo. She peeked around a partition between the weight training area and the dojo and watched as Morgan Grimes performed a rather skillful wrist lock and tossed Alex McHugh to the mat with a push to her shoulder and a quick twisting step of his feet combined with a subtle settling of his stance. Alex rolled and sprang to her feet shaking her finger at him with a grin as he smiled back at her.
"If you keep that up I'm going to make you pay for it later, buster," she exclaimed with a laugh.
"What?" Morgan retorted as he held his hands up, "That is not a fair way to level the playing field."
"Level the playing field, eh? Ooo, you are so going to get it," she said, as she started to shuffle her feet back and forth.
Morgan squared his stance to earth with his hands at his side, palms toward Alex, and then wiggled his fingers to his palms as he grinned, "Bring it, tough girl."
Nikki watched surprised, as Alex flew in with a 540 crescent kick, that if it had landed would have hurt a lot, even with the padded sparring boots she was wearing. Morgan narrowly sidestepped and ducked it as Alex followed up with a sidekick the instant her kicking foot from the previous kick planted on the mat. He took half a step back, bent at the knees, and arched his back as his hand came up and he turned into the kick, parrying the blow with his palm on her ankle just before her foot connected with his sternum.
The parry spun Alex around so her back was to him and Morgan leapt quickly in, grabbing her in a very un-martial arts like bear hug from behind. When he kissed her on the neck she reached behind her with her foot and hooked his leg behind the knee and turned into him. They went tumbling to the mat in an awkward embrace as they laughed.
Seeing where this might be headed Nikki decided she needed to make her presence known, so she stepped out from behind the partition and started to clap, "Bravo!" she exclaimed, "That was very fun to watch!"
Alex and Morgan looked up at her in surprise, but Morgan took advantage of the distraction and planted a quick kiss on Alex before he sat up grinning. Alex sat up behind him and gave him a playful shove on the back of the shoulder that caused his head to bounce around like a bobble head doll. "Hey Nikki," said the little bearded man with a grin, "We saw your car when we came in. Do you ever go home? Or do you live here now?"
"Ha, ha, very funny, Morgan. Somebody has to get some work done around here. Actually, I was finally getting out of the office, and I heard you in here while I was checking the place before I locked up. It's good to see the dojo getting some use, and the two of you are pretty good. It's fun to watch opposing styles like that."
Alex and Morgan exchanged a curious look about Nikki's observation. "Well obviously, not being very large, Aikido works very well for me," said Morgan. "Alex is very quick on her feet so Taekwondo is a natural choice for her, but you should see her Shotokan, she can pack quite a punch. She can break things." He shot Alex a big grin, and she rolled her eyes at him.
Nikki regarded the two of them with a smile… and lied, "I didn't know that you were practitioners. Maybe I could join you sometime?" she said, coyly.
"I'd like that," Alex answered, as Morgan shot his girlfriend a look that might have been asking about her motivations. She smirked back at him.
"Caution might be the word of the day here, Alex," Morgan rebutted.
Alex took a couple of seconds to size Nikki up. She looked very fit, and had to get that way doing something. "I'm sure we could have some fun without hurting each other," she said.
Showing Alex a challenging toothy grin, Nikki deflected, "Well, I won't interrupt your workout any longer. Call anytime Alex, I'm always up for the challenge, or just having someone to workout with if that suits you." She turned to leave and then turned back. "You know, it sounds like almost everyone here is into this sort of thing, maybe we should have an organized session a couple of nights a week for the entire team."
"That would be a lot of fun, Nikki, I like team building. Maybe we could have a team video game night too," Morgan replied, causing Alex to roll her eyes. "Lets mention it to Chuck, okay?"
Nikki smiled at the suggestion for a video game night. She loved working with nerds. "Okay, Morgan, lets do that." She turned to head for the door and waved over her shoulder, "Have a good evening, and try to keep it clean." Nikki Lawson walked to the elevator with a startling and newfound respect for Morgan Grimes.
They watched Nikki leave, and then Alex nudged her boyfriend on the shoulder again, "I wonder what her specialty is?"
"Probably Ninjutsu," Morgan quickly answered, not realizing just how correct he was.