A/N the First: My apologies to my beloved fans across the pond. Also, thanks to the most Ardent of Aardvarks and Ayefah, who helped me with a key scene, quistie64 who proved that awesomeness does come in human form and also can have the delightful sense of humor of a twelve-year-old, to you, the readers who left such great feedback on the previous chapters and who are still here reading, and of course, to the man who never suspected he'd be so well connected to the word basement, the incomparable mxpw.
Warning: some language ahead.
The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain. — Robert Townsend
Faith, Friendship, and the Turn of the Screw
7 JULY 2008
BACHELOR PAD 2.0
19:02 EDT
Chuck held the door open to the apartment so that Sarah could slip inside past him. "I picked up something at Blockbuster," she said, holding up a blue DVD rental case. "If it's terrible, you can't hold it against me. The video clerk said it was 'as amazing as Bergman,' whoever that is."
He had to force himself to smile at her. Casey's words from that morning sat too heavily on him for anything else. "That either means it's an old film or an intellectual film, depending on which Bergman. Sometimes both."
"Which would you prefer?"
"Explosions," he said, and Sarah laughed. She didn't seem quite as at home at the new place as she had been at the Bachelor Pad, but Sarah wasted no time settling in on the couch. They were taking their agreement to be friends seriously, which meant one movie night a week. Before, they would have either talked or made out through the film. Now, they watched the movie.
He set the DVD in the player and turned toward the stairs. "Casey! We're watching a movie. Want in?"
"I'd rather put my thumbs through my eye sockets," was the reply from upstairs.
Sarah raised her eyebrows. "He sounds like he's in a good mood."
He wasn't. After their run earlier, Casey had disappeared upstairs and had apparently attempted to decimate all of France on the bigger TV. Chuck was grateful. He wasn't sure he wanted to deal with Casey, lest Casey revisit what he'd already called "The lady feelings conversation" on the way home. Also, he suspected that most of Casey's anger came from the fact that Casey could no longer deny that he had deep thoughts about the human psyche.
So he was upstairs smashing Europe to pieces and Chuck was watching an intellectual movie with Sarah.
"You know Casey," Chuck said.
"That I do. Is this an extra-special brand of cranky or the regular Mr. Sunshine?"
"Casey needs to be extra-special to be cranky?"
"Point," Sarah said.
The menu for the movie popped up and Chuck frowned. "This is a Michael Bay flick," he said, tilting his head. "How on earth did the video clerk think this was anything like Bergman?"
"Oh, he didn't. I'm just messing with you."
Chuck had to force another smile. He'd actually wanted to see this movie, though. Morgan regularly complained about Michael Bay's lack of finesse, but Chuck couldn't help it. He liked watching explosions—when they weren't close up enough to sear his eyebrows. It was popcorn viewing, the perfect opportunity to turn his brain off.
"To be fair, the clerk did try to recommend something by Ing...mar? Ing...bert? Bergman. Whoever he was. Some director."
Chuck glanced over at Sarah before he hit 'Play.' "And?"
"It looked terrible."
"I'm really glad you went with the mindless explosions, in that case."
"Me, too."
In the end, he was even more grateful that Sarah hadn't picked something from a more dedicated auteur. If the movie had had a more complicated plot than "Things blow up and the heroes try not to get blown up with them," he wouldn't have been able to follow it. His mind was just too full. First, there'd been his encounter with Bryce in the airport. And his conversation with Casey that morning, which still left a pit in his stomach. After that had come an even more sickening realization: Bryce and Sarah had done exactly the same thing to him. They'd both made decisions for him about his own life without telling him.
And now he was sitting next to Sarah, who smelled faintly of apples, on the couch.
He was angry at Bryce. He didn't want to be angry at Sarah. Casey's voice pointed out that fair didn't matter yet again. Either way, he was angry, and there wasn't any chance that it was going to stop until he acknowledged it. He had to face that.
"Oh, come on," Sarah said, and Chuck shook off the fog of deep thought. Sarah was glaring at the television, where the buxom heroine and the handsome hero had just avoided being crushed by a giant sign. "No way. That should've killed them."
"How many times have I seen you avoid certain death by pulling the exact same move?" Chuck asked.
Sarah moved a shoulder. "That's different."
"How?"
"I'm Sarah Walker. That's how."
Chuck laughed, a long, genuine belly laugh that had Sarah grinning back at him. Casey had to be wrong, he thought. His head wasn't clear and it wouldn't be, not while his therapist said there was still a lot of work to do, but there was no way he was possibly mad at Sarah.
Or was he? He was mad at Bryce: his time in the airport had taught him that much. Chuck wasn't confrontational, not when there was a non-confrontational road to be taken. And he had wanted to punch Bryce in the face.
Looked at in an unemotional, dispassionate light, Sarah had done the same thing Bryce had: she had kept a secret from him for his own good. Maybe Casey had a point. Maybe he was secretly furious with Sarah and unable to do anything about it because his head was so screwed up, he didn't know which way was up on most days. He'd felt resentment when Casey had mentioned his theory, but had that been at Casey's words, or at Sarah's actions? It was impossible to untangle the different thoughts and emotions, to spread each out like a piece of thread so that it could be examined in an analytical light. There were just too damned many of them, jumbled up together so that he had no idea where one feeling ended and another began.
"Oh, hey," Sarah said. She picked up her purse. "I got you something."
"Something better than two hours of no plot and unending explosions?"
"Yes, as unbelievable as that is." Sarah dug through her bag and tossed something onto his lap.
Chuck picked it up. "A bracelet?"
"It should be big enough to hide the tattoos."
It was an off-white piece of rope tied in a circle with a pattern of interlocking knots. It was a couple of inches wide, loose enough to fit around his wrist. He waggled his left wrist at her. "Because everybody at the NSA and CIA are starting to wonder exactly what I did to my wrist that requires the bandage?"
"Exactly. It's a fashion accessory, I know, but it should cover up whatever parts of the tattoo your watch doesn't."
"Excellent." He'd been wondering about a replacement for the fake bandage himself, as he'd had to keep changing it to keep it from getting rank. And the longer he went about wearing it, the more suspicious people would get, as he'd said. He slid the bracelet on without looking at the Intersect tattoos, and admired his wrist. "Does it have any special meaning or anything?"
Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Not really. Sailors wear them to help them wipe the sweat off of their foreheads."
"Sexy," Chuck said, and Sarah laughed. "Well, thank you."
"Very welcome. Plus, it's a friendship bracelet. We're friends, right?"
Chuck looked over. No matter how he felt, the resentment, the anger, the wanting to forgive, the ability to do so, nothing really changed that part of it. "We're friends."
11 JULY 2008
LANGLEY, VA
10:38 EDT
Chuck made a running leap, launched off with one foot, and thanks to what was probably a physics miracle or just his own lanky build at play, snatched the Frisbee from the air before it could soar by, or worse, be snatched by the other team. He took a running step, swiveled in place, and fired it off at Karminsky.
Karminsky dropped it. Chuck's team groaned.
"You code with those fingers?" Barton shouted from across the field.
Karminksy used only one finger to show Barton exactly what he thought of that sentiment.
Years of playing Ultimate Frisbee on the Stanford campus with Bryce and the other guys in his frat had prepared Chuck far better for his new life in the CIA than he'd ever guessed. Digital Dave's team handled some of the most complex security programs across the planet with both force and finesse. Put them in a field and hand them a disc, however, and all of that flew out the window. So did manners, sportsmanship, and any office camaraderie. It was war, plain and simple.
Parmook, another teammate of Chuck's ran by, panting a little as he did so. Chuck worried about the sheer number of asthmatics in the game, but he'd learned better than to say so. "C'mon, man, why throw to Karminsky? He couldn't even a catch a thrown error, let alone a Frisbee."
"I like to give everybody a chance," Chuck said. Parmook just rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was the fact that he'd gone to UC Berkeley.
Parmook snorted at that. Chuck muttered something less than flattering about Berkeley and went to intercept.
Karminsky, of the famous butterfingers, trotted along beside Chuck, also a little out of breath. They'd had a break in the weather, which meant that July was no longer attempting to strangle them with humidity, but Chuck figured it was only a matter of hours. Still, it was a mostly clear, cool day, and so the twelve nerds were out on a field, enjoying a somewhat-friendly game.
"Hey, Chuck, why's the blonde not playing today?" Karminsky asked.
Last time they'd done this, after all, it had been twelve nerds and one spy on a field, enjoying a mostly-friendly game.
"She's got a name," Chuck said by reflex. He glanced toward the sidelines where Sarah was sitting on the bleachers, reading a magazine. "And I don't know. Guess she wasn't feeling like it."
"Shame. She's hot."
"She's also a person. You mind?"
"What? Just stating the obvious."
Chuck decided that since Karminsky couldn't catch the Frisbee anyway, next time he'd just throw it at the other man's head and do them all a favor.
Karminsky's flawless face—he'd been voted the "Most Handsome Man in the Office" at the CIA holiday party, according to Dave—was spared by the fact that eleven cell phones began beeping in unison. Chuck's own phone buzzed a few seconds later. He checked the message and looked toward Sarah. Since she was still reading her magazine, Dave hadn't sent her a message, though she did look up when the nerds began to exit the field en masse. Chuck nodded at a few of his teammates and opponents as he went the opposite direction, heading toward the bleachers.
"What's up?" Sarah asked as he took a seat.
He picked up the bottle of Gatorade he'd bought from the vending machine before the game. "Some kind of computer emergency in England."
"What?"
"Somebody tried to hack the Queen's bank account, I guess. It might've been one of us, and they want to contain the problem before MI-6 gets word."
"Weird."
"Just how rich is the Queen?" Chuck asked before he swished Gatorade around in his mouth.
Sarah shrugged. "No idea. But I'll ask her next time I stop by Buckingham Palace for a chat."
Chuck laughed. "You do that. Make sure to update your Facebook status accordingly."
"So is Dave too busy to meet with you today? Should we head out?"
"He says to give him fifteen minutes."
"Only fifteen?"
"Well, yeah. It's the Queen, not the Tower of London. It's not like they're going to lose their heads and forget how to do their jobs."
Sarah shook her head, probably at the horrible pun. Chuck settled in to wait. He'd come to Langley only because he'd done some hacking the night before and he knew that Graham was currently in Southeast Asia, handling some problem or other. Granted, being at Langley was always a danger—who knew if Graham had passed on any of the knowledge of the Lincoln phrases?—but he had the Intersect tattoos. And Sarah still hung around, ostensibly as his bodyguard, though Gwen had told him the government had dropped the necessity of him having Casey or Sarah with him. Ellie had done enough research to let him know that the Lincoln programming, though it did alter Chuck's reflexes somewhat, wouldn't take over unless he was given a direct phrase.
Which told Chuck that either Graham was waiting to separate him from Casey and Sarah to have an agent whisper one of the phrases to him, or Graham was still the only one apart from Sarah with that knowledge and wasn't worried about Chuck at all.
He hoped, sincerely, that it was the latter.
"What the hell," Sarah said.
Chuck looked up. "What?" He looked about, as that had been real confusion in Sarah's voice. Had Graham somehow managed to sneak back into Langley? Had aliens finally arrived to seek revenge on the CIA over Men in Black or Independence Day or any of the Will Smith oeuvre?
It turned out to be something far more frightening than aliens.
"What the hell is she doing here?" he asked, real horror in his voice.
Sarah closed her magazine. "I don't know," she said.
Carina Miller, now that she'd obviously been spotted, waved merrily at the both of them. She'd dressed for the relatively cool weather in a short skirt and what looked like a men's dress shirt, which gaped open nearly to her navel and revealed some kind of bikini top beneath.
"Guess we don't have to ask how she got through security," Chuck muttered under his breath.
"Hush," Sarah told him. She stood, and Chuck, because he was sitting so close to her, could see that she was tensed, her stance wary. She stepped from the bleachers to the grass. "Carina! Hey, what are you doing? Here?"
"Such animosity for an old friend," Carina said, though she was smirking.
Chuck warily rose to his feet, too.
"It wasn't animosity," Sarah said. She gave Carina a hug.
"Sure, sure. Whatever. Hi, Bunker Boy."
"Carina," Chuck said, nodding a greeting at her and keeping his distance.
"When I say 'here,' though, I mean: what are you doing at Langley? You're not CIA. You shouldn't have the clearance."
"Oh, I know a guy." Carina waved the matter of national security off as though it didn't matter, and for all Chuck knew, it truly didn't matter to Carina. "They told me this was where you were, so I thought I'd drop by and see how my best friend and her boyfriend are doing. You are her boyfriend, right, Bunker Boy?"
"We're friends," Sarah said.
"Just wondering, but should I clear my schedule?" Chuck asked.
Both women looked at him. "Whatever for?" Carina asked.
"Well, I figure Loki is in town, I should expect a kidnapping at the very least."
"Aw," Carina said, and reached out to ruffle Chuck's hair. He managed not to jerk away, though Sarah gave him a sympathetic look. Everybody on the team knew he had a thing about being touched. "You look better than the last time I saw you. Which isn't saying much since you were all sweaty and you looked like somebody punched you in both eyes, but hey, now you're healthy and outside without any trouble."
"I missed you, too," Chuck said in a deadpan voice.
"Chin up, Bunker Boy. That was a compliment."
"Could you give us a minute, Chuck?" Sarah asked, and before Carina or Chuck could say anything about it—luckily—she grabbed Carina's arm and hauled her friend away. Chuck watched them go before he took his seat on the bleachers again. He picked up Sarah's magazine and flipped through it. He wrinkled his nose at the proliferation of perfume ads in the middle.
Whatever Sarah was talking to Carina about didn't take long, as she came back and took her seat next to him again. Carina stayed in the background.
"So," Chuck said. "I recall that you once said Carina would be back when she felt life was too boring or too predictable. I find life to be neither at the moment, so what's she doing here?"
"Really?" Sarah asked.
That made him pause for a minute. "Wait, are you bored?"
Sarah shook her head, but the action seemed hurried. "No, it's not that."
"So life's predictable, then?"
"No, no." Sarah waved that off. "No, she's just in town because a major op wrapped up and she heard I—we were staying here semi-permanently. She wants to catch up."
"Oh. That's nice," Chuck said. "You should go do that."
"You sure you don't want to come?"
"The last time I spent an extended amount of time around Carina, I had a bag over my head for most of the time."
"So that's a no."
"Unless you want me to come?"
"It's up to you."
Chuck's phone buzzed: Dave had text messaged him. He glanced over at Carina; she spotted the look and gave him a little wave. He considered. Did Sarah want him to come? Did she want him to get to know her friend better? She didn't talk about many people, which he figured had to be part natural reserve and partly due to the fact that the spy life didn't lead to making many friends. Maybe she wanted him to get to know one of the few friends she had, but that screamed kind of a couple-y activity, and they were only friends, right?
And why the hell did this feel like some kind of test?
"You should go, hang out, paint the town red," he said, testing the waters just in case it was a test.
Sarah's expression gave nothing away about the nature of the question. "You're sure?"
"Yeah. You don't need me hanging around like some lame fifth wheel, you know? Have some girl time, do whatever it is you spies do. I've got to meet with Dave and Russ'll be at his gym later, and he promised me another boxing lesson if I show up."
"Okay." Sarah dug in her purse and handed him her car keys. "Take these."
"Giving me the keys to the Porsche. You're a trusting soul."
"Only because it's you. I'll have my cell phone if you need me."
"Got it." Chuck let Sarah get a few steps away before he called, just loudly enough for Carina to hear, "Just make sure she doesn't kidnap you."
Carina scoffed. "It was one time, Bunker Boy. One time!"
"Have fun," Chuck called back. "Without ransom notes, preferably!"
Carina gave him the finger. He laughed. Once the women had left, he pulled out his phone and checked the message from Dave. The programmer had a twenty minute window available. Twenty whole minutes? Dave usually only had about five minutes open at a time for hanging out with Chuck.
Chuck headed inside. This sounded serious.
11 JULY 2008
CIA CAFETERIA
11:13 EDT
"I'm thinking about quitting."
Chuck, about to reach for a bowl of the rather questionable-looking chili, paused. "Say what?" he asked, turning on the spot to look at Dave.
Dave grabbed the bowl Chuck had been going for. "You heard me," he said in a low voice, looking about surreptitiously. They were a little early for the lunch rush, so there weren't too many people nearby. "I said I was thinking about leaving the CIA."
"Just like that?" Chuck took another bowl and they moved their trays down the rails to the next food station. They were grabbing lunch in the CIA cafeteria, a place Chuck had spent a lot of time—mostly with Sarah—during his last stint in D.C. He had to wonder how many people in the line with them, vying for what looked like truly mediocre food, had a license to kill.
"Well, yeah." Dave gave him a puzzled look. "It's not like they make you take a dirt nap if you want to leave the CIA, Chuck."
Speak for yourself, Chuck almost said.
"And you know, it's been coming for awhile." They shuffled over to the dessert station and were given a choice between watery chocolate pudding and slightly dry pineapple upside down cake. Chuck went with the pineapples. "Kaylee's six now. You know how many of her birthday parties I've managed to make it through without being interrupted by work?"
"Two?" Chuck asked.
"You optimist." Dave grabbed the chocolate pudding for himself and they moved to the pay station. Once Chuck had paid for both of their meals, at his own insistence, they found a table out of the way of most of the room. Dave set his tray down and immediately reached for one of his two Red Bulls. "I can't keep doing this anymore, Chuck. Budget cuts mean they won't hire anybody else, and I'm missing too much of my life. I can make three times as much in the private sector."
"You'll probably have to work just as much, you know," Chuck said. "Especially near deadlines."
"Depends, I guess. The minute I mention maybe leaving the CIA to anybody but you—and by the way, if you tell anybody about this conversation..."
"Dave, I won't say a word. Trust me, Sarah and I both owe you. This is the least I could do."
"Okay. Whew." Dave swigged some Red Bull and relaxed, sagging back against the hard plastic of the cafeteria chair behind him. "The thing is, the minute I even hint at thinking about getting out of the CIA, the bidding war begins. All of the big firms are going to court me."
"That's awesome, though." Chuck dug into the questionable chili and found out that it wasn't as disgusting as he'd thought it would be. He took another bite. "Do you not want that?"
"I don't know." Dave tapped his fingers on the table, obviously agitated. "It's flattering, of course, but..."
"What do you want to do, then?"
"Not security," Dave said.
Chuck looked up. "That's where you made your mark."
"I know. But don't you get tired of the cloak and dagger?"
Chuck thought about the hours of constant vigilance, of being wary that in public, a stranger might come up to him and whisper a phrase that would make him forget everything and turn him into something else. The hours spent wondering if there was more to the Lincoln Project than he'd been able to discover in the Bunker. The days of freaking out about whether he would snap or not, even if Ellie had proved he wouldn't using her weird brand of brain science.
"You have no idea," was all he said to Dave.
"So why not do it?"
"Do what?"
"Leave the CIA. We'll get out, get away from this Fulcrum problem, and we can start our own business together."
"What would we do?"
"A startup. It'd be fun."
"You realize that doing a startup means the hours will be brutal, right?" Chuck asked, though he could actually feel his stomach jumping with excitement, real excitement at the first time in weeks. His life had stretched away in front of him, a lonely existence in a mountain home, cut off from the world.
Maybe he didn't have to live in the mountains. Maybe if he was careful...
"Yeah, they'll be brutal," Dave said. "But only for a little while, while we get it off the ground."
"Get what off the ground?"
"I was thinking about a virtual gaming website."
"Dave, I'm not a game programmer."
"No, no, no, we wouldn't be writing the games." Dave pushed his own bowl of chili aside, the better to gesticulate excitedly. "It'd be refactoring only, making them available for any platform. You know how much is online these days. Cloud storage, online streaming. There's a real opportunity to do the same with games."
"What kind of games?"
"Any kind. Classic, first person shooter, Sega, Playstation, GameBoy, you name it. We offer them all. Maybe on a tiered platform, whatever, I haven't given that part any thought. But you and I, working together, we could do it."
"You've given this a lot of thought," Chuck said.
"When I started at the CIA, I didn't have a family. I wasn't even expecting to have one. But now I do, and this Fulcrum thing like it is: it's not good."
Chuck's stomach pitched. "Is it really that bad? Has there been any movement with all of the stuff Ezersky gave you in February?" He'd heard that the Russian toymaker had been retired early by the CIA and was spending his days on a remote island, probably making more scary roborabbits.
"They're like a hydra," Dave said, looking down. "Every time we find out one thing about them, I think three more new things spring up. And I don't know anything for sure, but I think they're planning something big. I'm a patriot, yes, but Fulcrum, it goes so deep and sooner or later, they're going to come after my family, Chuck. I need to get out. I want you to come with me."
Chuck thought of the contract he'd signed, how he'd agreed to do work as the Intersect while he had the newest version in his head. "I don't think it's that simple."
"Oh." Dave's face fell. But he straightened, looking both ways for eavesdroppers, and leaned forward. Chuck wanted to tell him to quit it, that by trying to avoid looking suspicious, he was only drawing attention. But instead he leaned in, too, and Dave said, "I've been working on my time off on some killer virtualization tech that makes the bandwidth we'd need for these games infinitesimal. In-fin-itesimal, Chuck. If I can tweak this right, it'll make the interface usable on lower powered devices."
"You're talking cell phones?" Chuck asked, his brain racing.
"Cell phones. And the faster the networks get, the faster we'll get. Imagine it for a minute."
He allowed himself a scarce moment of daydreaming before reality butted back in. With a sigh, he leaned back. "Dave, I signed a contract. There's mitigating circumstances I can't control or change."
"Oh."
"But..." Chuck put the rest of his chili aside and reached for the cake. "I can fund it."
"What? You and what millionaire?"
"Me and myself, the millionaire."
Dave blinked. "Get out. Are you rich?"
"I'm not Bruce Wayne, but I do okay."
"Dude, that means nothing to me. Bruce Wayne isn't even Bruce Wayne."
"True." Chuck laughed, with genuine humor. "If you want out, Dave, I will pay for this business. And I can even help, even if I'm not one hundred percent free."
"Deal," Dave said. "Frell yes! Deal, so hard deal." He extended his hand across the table.
Chuck shook it, oddly relieved. Now his life, he thought, actually had something in it besides his family and the CIA. "Deal," he said. "Now we just have to..."
He trailed off as he realized it had gone quiet in the cafeteria, like a wave of silence passing over the tables. Something froze between his shoulder blades and made dread begin to nibble at his spinal column.
Slowly, he turned.
"Is this seat taken?" Langston Graham asked.
11 JULY 2008
THE OFFICE OF LANGSTON GRAHAM
12:21 EDT
Chuck heard the door click shut behind him and tried to pretend like the noise wasn't ominous or portentous of doom or any sort of thing like that, but he couldn't quite convince himself. Still, he forced himself to move forward, knowing that this was a bad idea. Never mind that he wore jeans and a maroon T-shirt in the office of the Director of the CIA—he really just had been by Langley to visit Dave, not in a professional capacity—but that he was now alone behind a closed door with the man who'd not only commissioned him to become a monster, but knew all of the phrases to control him as well.
Somewhere, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Han Solo had a bad feeling about this.
"Relax, Chuck." Graham sat down behind his desk, a massive, mahogany number that Chuck imagined would fit well in any politician's office. It was covered in a discreet number of file folders, and of course the classic bronzed globe of the planet sat on the corner. "I promise you, I won't be activating any of your Lincoln characteristics today. Have a seat."
"I prefer to stand," Chuck said, wanting very much to move the bracelet Sarah had given him up his wrist. He didn't want to expose the tattoos to Graham, though, unless he absolutely had to. "You requested a meeting. Per the terms of my contract, you have five minutes. I'd start talking if I were you."
Graham smiled. Chuck imagined that many sharks had sported that same smile over the years. He straightened his shoulders imperceptibly.
"Very well," Graham said. "Since we don't have much time, I'll keep this brief. We're uploading the new Intersect into a group of candidates tonight. You're on the list."
"What list?"
"The list of candidates to get the new Intersect. You're to report to the DNI at 2100 hours."
Chuck was sure something between his ear canal and his brain's logic center had broken and he wasn't really hearing what he was hearing. He blinked. "Like hell I will."
"Language, Bartowski."
"My apologies, Director. I meant fuck no."
Graham chuckled.
Chuck still couldn't believe that he was hearing this. "In which universe would I ever do that, sir? The first one that was put in my head—against my consent—has caused enough problems, thanks."
"I don't think you understand," Graham said, rising to his feet. He came around the desk, leaned back against it, and crossed his arms over his chest. "This isn't a request, Bartowski. You will be downloading the new Intersect, make no mistake."
"My contract doesn't cover that."
"No. It doesn't. However, I can't in good conscience allow you to run around without the latest Intersect upgrade in your head."
Which would keep him employed by the CIA and NSA for a whole hell of a lot longer, Chuck knew. He was only stuck in indentured servitude—well, as much indentured servitude as the eleven million dollars he didn't really want could ensure—while he had the latest version of the Intersect. Uploading the new version would keep him under the government's thumb a lot longer.
"After all," Graham said, as Chuck began to feel the fury creeping up from his toes. It was the same numbing, all-encompassing feeling of rage Bryce had inspired. It made Chuck want to leap at the other man and just start swinging. "Who knows how long the old Intersect will keep your Lincoln instincts at bay?"
That one drew Chuck up short. "What?"
"They spent two years training you to a killing precision, Bartowski. Powerful subliminal and hypnotic training. And you think one beta test of an Intersect is going to keep that from overpowering your system, and keep you from snapping like a twig? I hardly think so."
"But Ellie said..." Ellie had said that he wasn't in danger of snapping, that the only way Lincoln could overpower him was if a phrase was used. She had been very specific about that. He straightened up again and glared hard at Graham. "That's not possible. Sir." The last was said with a sneer.
"Think hard, Chuck. Would your sister tell you the truth?"
"Yes."
"Really? You don't think she has a greater interest in keeping you from running away again? Easier to conceal a minor fact and keep you here, isn't it?"
"She wouldn't lie to me."
"Are you positive about that? After all, she didn't tell you about the programming forcing you to run, did she?"
"How the hell do you know that?" The instant the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. He'd shown his hand. Carefully, he pushed his astonishment behind a poker face.
"I'm the Director of the CIA, Chuck. When I want to know something, I know it. Like I know that neither Agent Walker nor Dr. Bartowski told you that you were preconditioned to run when your orders were complete, though both had multiple opportunities. If they lied to you about that, what else could they be lying about?"
Denial rose, sharp and hard. "You're trying to get in my head," Chuck said. "It won't work."
"I'm merely pointing out facts you may have missed. Nobody is safe while you are what you are, Chuck. It's your civic duty to protect everybody from yourself."
"It's my civic duty to live my life as I see fit," Chuck said.
"And put countless Americans in danger by refusing to take preventative measures?" Graham shifted his stance, the picture of ease and idleness.
"I have taken preventative measures. I've got your precious Intersect in my skull, I watch my back, I see a therapist twice a week. I don't need a new Intersect, and I think you know that." His face was burning, Chuck realized. He could only hope he wasn't flushed red in anger like he suspected he was. "With all due respect, sir, butt out."
He spun on his heel and headed for the door. Everybody knew you didn't dismiss yourself from the director's office, that you waited until you were dismissed, but Chuck couldn't have cared less about that had he tried. His hands were shaking as he shoved the door open and stormed out. Some part of him almost hoped that Graham sent people after him, as he would really, really love to punch somebody at the moment. Preferably Graham, but he found he wasn't terribly picky.
"2100 hours, Bartowski," Graham called after him, and it was all Chuck could do not to turn and give the Director of the CIA the finger, like Carina had done to him earlier.
He settled on leaving. Even if he wanted to punch somebody in the face, it wasn't worth it to risk people trying to arrest him again. Sarah would be pissed if she had to break up her girls' day out with Carina to break him out of jail.
Nobody followed him out of the CIA. If he had been any less pissed off, he would have considered that a win.
11 JULY 2008
GOLDWYN'S GYM
15:45 EDT
"Something on your mind, Chuck?" Russ Davenport asked in that mild way he had of asking huge questions.
Chuck repeated the combo Russ had been teaching him with a little more force than necessary. He was surprised Russ had even brought it up. Russ's preferred method of therapy was simply to remain quiet until Chuck spilled whatever was on his mind, usually so hurriedly that the words came tumbling over one another in a jumbled mess.
"My boss is a jackass," he said, hitting the combo again.
"Remember to breathe," Russ said. "I thought you liked your boss. Sort of."
"Different boss. Different jackass. Whatever." He was still so furious that his vision got jittery whenever he thought about it too much. Graham wanted him to upload the new Intersect. Graham had made insinuations that Ellie was lying to him. Graham had made insinuations that he was a monster.
He wasn't a monster. He was a human being.
Of course, he'd called himself a monster once. More than once. Quite a few times, and there was always that fear that he really would snap and some innocent people would pay for it with their lives, so if Ellie was concealing the truth to keep him—he hit the bag harder.
"Whoa, there," Russ said, jerking the bag away and throwing off Chuck's rhythm. Chuck stumbled forward, bashing his chin against the bag.
It hurt. He swore.
"Maybe take a drink," Russ said.
"Yeah." Chuck rubbed his chin and reached for the bottle of water. He dumped some of it on his face. It didn't cool him off much, but it was enough. "Sorry. Just mad."
"You want to talk about it?"
Chuck thought it over. "In six hours, it won't matter."
"Then I recommend not letting it rent any room in your head. C'mon, try the combo again. Watch your pacing and your breathing."
"Okay."
He'd been coming to Goldwyn's gym, which was old and slightly grody and smelled like gym socks, ever since they'd arrived back in D.C. and Gwen had suggested he could use more activities to avoid laying in bed all day staring at the ceiling. Russ liked the gym; it was located in the heart of D.C., in among the trendy shops and recruitment offices, not far from the Smithsonian museums and all of the other tourist places. People tended to walk right by this little hole in the wall gym, though, which made it the perfect place for Russ to continue giving Chuck boxing lessons, just like he had during the team's first jaunt in D.C. Casey usually tagged along, as he liked beating on the heavy bags at the "real man's gym," too, but Casey had declared today a holiday.
Chuck was on his own. So he tried to keep his anger in check, and to listen to Russ as the other man patiently corrected his hand placement—Chuck sometimes forgot to protect his face—and reminded him to breathe. Soon, Chuck had almost managed to take some of Russ's advice to heart. He couldn't quite get past Graham's words, though.
Ellie wouldn't lie to him. Granted, there had been that odd moment, just the one, while they'd talked about the Lincoln instincts about leaving. But that didn't mean anything. That didn't mean she was hiding evidence about his mental condition from him.
There had to be another explanation. There was. It was his sister.
Sarah lied to you once, his brain whispered. You trusted her, too.
"Here, let's switch to working on uppercuts," Russ said, and Chuck shook his head, trying to push the voice as far away as he possibly could. "That's the 'I've got a good mad on' punch anyway, might as well stop fighting it."
The uppercut really was a therapeutic punch. Twenty minutes later, they wrapped up their session, and Chuck had managed to shake the voices. Russ asked if he was okay only once more.
"I'm fine," Chuck said.
"You ever need anything, you let me know, got it?" Russ asked. "Whatever it is."
That helped rid the rest of Graham's evil cobwebs from Chuck's brain. "I will do that," Chuck said. "Thanks, Russ."
He showered off the rank stench of their session, threw his work-out clothes in a gym bag, and headed for the outside. Parking was sparse around the gym, since it was in the heart of everything, so he'd parked the Porsche a couple of Metro stops down. It gave him a chance to enjoy the afternoon and the crowds of tourists that were also relaxing in the break from the onslaught of a D.C. summer. He debated stopping by the store on his way home to pick up a new game, which made him think of Dave and the business proposal.
It was halfway there that he realized something: if Graham uploaded the new Intersect into a bunch of new agents, Chuck was off the hook. He could join Dave in the business venture with more than funding.
He could actually have a job that wasn't anything to do with the CIA.
Real excitement flooded through him, riding on something that he realized he hadn't felt in a long time: a sense of freedom.
Of course, of course, it was then that he realized something else.
He was being followed.