Disclaimer: See previous chapters
Chapter 3: A Tale of Two Intersects
"So at 2000 tonight, Dr. Zarnow is going to arrive and test out the Intersect. With his help, you might be able to get it out. Any questions?" General Beckman looked like she wasn't expecting any.
Chuck had a lot of questions, but he didn't think it would be wise to voice some of them. Like: Will trying to remove the government Intersect in any way affect the Fulcrum one I already have in my head? What if I don't want to get it out since it has valuable information? No, it was best not to raise suspicions.
After Graham and Beckman signed off of Casey's screen, Sarah turned to him for some reassurance. "Don't worry, Chuck. As soon as we get it out, you can return to your life. Then you won't be in anymore danger."
"And we won't have to babysit your geek ass any longer," Casey growled out. Chuck was especially scared of him and what he might do if he found out the truth of Chuck's job.
"Yeah, thanks you two," Chuck said faintly. "I really don't want to take up anymore of your time, since it is obviously needed elsewhere. Very far from here. I'll see you guys tomorrow."
Chuck quickly made his way out of Casey's apartment and back to his own. Unfortunately, Chuck's penthouse was extremely close by, all for his protection. He didn't feel very comfortable living so close to the NSA agent, who might find something incriminating at Chuck's place. Good thing he doesn't usually take his work home.
"Listen, Chuck. You have to calm down. I'm going to get someone on Dr. Zarnow right now. For now, he is just going to test the government Intersect's functioning and come up with ways to delete it. Before he gets that far, we'll take care of him." Ted was doing his best to calm down his star programmer, but the guy was just a panicky mess.
"What do you mean by 'take care of him' ?" Yes, Chuck worked for an independent spy organization, but that didn't mean he was a bad guy. And he certainly didn't want anyone killed on his behalf.
"We'll probably bribe him or get him to work for us. If the CIA and NSA are trusting him with such a task, he must be useful somehow. It would be quite a waste of intelligence to just bump him off." Ted was trying to allay Chuck's fears, since Chuck would find it hard to concentrate on his work if he was weighed down by guilt over Dr. Zarnow. "But for now, why don't you head on to your lunch break? Let Uncle Ted take care of the rest." (1)
Chuck walked out into the front courtyard of the building. A bunch of shops and eateries dotted the street along the way. A strip mall was situated on the next block. As he wandered along deciding where to eat, he tried to release some of his anxiety.
Everything is going to be fine. Fulcrum will take care of me. It always has, and it always will. I just have to trust that the situation will be fixed, and I can continue on with my life without fear of incarceration or execution.
His thoughts were interrupted when he saw Sarah cleaning up a table in front of a pretzel shop: Uncle Olaf's Pretzels. Chuck felt his heart stop as he looked at her in her Uncle Olaf uniform and across the street to his place of work. With trepidation, he walked up to her.
"Hey, Sarah. What are you, ah, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, hey Chuck." She turned around and gave him a smile while she gathered up some trays. "I have a job here."
"Don't you already have a job?"
"Yeah, but I need a cover job nearby so that I can be close to you. Your safety is of the utmost importance, so I have to have ready access to you in case of emergency."
So much for clearing his head. The anxiety was coming back. "Well, you didn't really need to do that. I mean, Roark Industries has state of the art security. We have a lot of sensitive stuff in there, so we need to keep everything safe from whoever wants to cause some mischief." Like you and Casey.
"I know security there is top of the line. Casey and I have tried to get in to ensure some surveillance, but we weren't able to do that."
Chuck's heart rate ramped up to near heart attack levels. He also started to feel himself sweat in nervousness at her revelation. "Ah, I don't really think that's necessary. As I said, RI has incredible security, so it's not like I need any extra from the government. Besides, wouldn't it be too much of a hassle to establish your own security on top of our own? I do work at a technology company with a couple of paranoid geeks, so you run the risk of somebody finding your spy stuff. How about this? If our security passes muster with you, then you don't need to add anything extra. Just guard me here and that should be enough. Why don't you bring that up with your bosses?"
Chuck hoped that his placating expression was enough to dissuade her concerns and take his suggestion. At least, he hoped he looked confident and ensuring, and not the nervous wreck he felt inside. Sarah mulled over his suggestions and seemed to come to a conclusion.
"Alright, I'll bring it up. From what we have encountered so far, you guys can withstand an army of hackers and assassins. But I'm going to stay here where I can reach you." She gave him another smile and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
Chuck gave a silent sigh of relief at diverting that disaster for the moment. "That's great. I think I'll get something to go since my lunch break is almost over."
"Good, come on in. And I'm not the only one who'll be around. Casey is trying to get a job at Roark as well."
The world stopped and Chuck's eyes widened. "He is?" he wheezed out about an octave higher than normal.
"Yeah, but so far he's not having any luck. Even the janitor positions immediately filled up. But don't worry, he'll find some way to stay close."
"Great, thanks," Chuck gritted out. Too bad, they really needed a new janitor.
"So after about an hour of flashing on all sorts of government information, Dr. Zarnow was finished with the test and everyone went home. Of course, I was escorted home by Casey and Sarah, who are just watching out for my wellbeing," Chuck finished with a light dose of frustration. Tom Varnes just looked at him with a slightly vacant expression on his face.
"Is she hot?"
Chuck was incredulous. "You mean Sarah?"
"Well, yeah. Aren't female spies supposed to be completely hot?"
Chuck took a moment to collect himself at Tom once again missing the major point he was trying to make. "Despite the fact that she is a federal agent that would not hesitate to kill or imprison me, yes, she is very attractive. But she's one of those, what do you call them, I think honey traps. She is supposed to lure me in with her good looks and charm. Then, when I am lulled into trusting her, she's going to stab me in the back and suck my life force out."
"Ooh, kinky." Judging by the look on his face, Chuck did not want to know what he was thinking.
"Moving on, I can't get too close to her. If I let anything slip, I'm going to go into some secret government bunker. And terrible things will happen to me, like torture. Oh, I don't want to think about this anymore. Right now, I am safe from them in the fortified corporate citadel known as Roark Industries." Chuck sat down and pulled up the latest work on the Intersect.
Varnes noticeably changed tracks in his thought process and focused on the Intersect. "So, what's it like?"
"What's what like?" One can never be too careful when dealing with a Bar-, 'scuse me, Varnes.
"You know, the other Intersect. How's it different from ours?" At least Tom had more focus and intelligence than his non-brother.
Chuck leaned back in his chair and went over the similarities and differences in his head. "Well, the government Intersect is a lot more jarring and disruptive than ours. That must be because it wasn't custom designed for me. You know what? It's a lot saying 'government Intersect' and 'our Intersect'. From now on, they are G-Intersect and F-Intersect respectively. So where was I? Oh, right. With the G-Intersect, a bunch of pictures and documents are bombarded in rapid succession, intercut with other picture cues. I think those intercuts link to other documents. However, it's hard to get a very good look at the data. All I'm able to get are broad and vague facts. It's up to me to surmise what it all means. And I haven't been able to re-flash on something."
"I have a really good memory, which makes it easy to utilize the Intersects. However, it's hard to remember anything specific from the flashes. As such, I could make errors and I can't get anything too in depth."
Tom scoffed. "Then what good is it? Our Intersect is better since it allows for complex computational and data analysis abilities that are beyond soulless machines. We have succeeded in creating a true human supercomputer in you."
Chuck began to pace as he processed the facts, using the F-Intersect to multitask on a couple of ideas at once. "The major advantage of the G-Intersect is that in all of its blunt-force simplicity, it is a lot easier to download. I downloaded it from an e-mail. And there was no need for any preliminary downloads, infrastructure, or training to get it. There were not many details, but just enough information to have an idea of what to do."
"The major problem with the F-Intersect is that it has to be customized to whoever is going to have it. And there are a lot of intermediate steps that have to be implemented. If the G-Intersect can be downloaded into a lot more people without all the prep, dissemination could be easier.
Varnes was smiling as he got onto the same line of thought as Chuck. "So if we can find a workable medium between the two..."
"Come on, Tom," Chuck began excitedly, "we've got a lot of work to do."
"That's pretty funny." Tommy chuckled as he heard the story. "So he steals the government's Intersect, and sends it to an old college buddy that he screwed over? And that buddy happens to be in one of us? Talk about irony. Or fate, whichever it is. So does that mean Larkin is expendable?"
Tommy looked across the hall to Bryce's recovery room. He had spent hours in surgery and was currently recovering from the gunshots. Tommy's hand went to his gun under his jacket. He smirked.
"I'll eliminate Larkin now."
He turned off his phone and made his way to Bryce's room. Unfortunately for him, the bed was empty. Tommy looked frantically around to see if he was anywhere, but turned up nothing.
"DAMN IT!"
(1) Bit of a shout out to aznblackhowling for the Uncle Ted idea
A/N: Well, I hope you guys liked it. I was struggling with the title, so sorry for that. We're really getting into it now. I'm going to find a beta somehow.