A/N: A quick note of thanks to Nevr, who pinch pre-read at the last minute for me. I didn't want to hold this chapter up any longer, after my prolonged delay.
Has our conscience shown?
Has the sweet breeze blown?
Has all the kindness gone?
Hope still lingers on
I drink myself of new found pity
Sitting alone in New York City
And I don't know why
"The World I Know"
Collective Soul
November 27, 2012
Boston, Massachusetts
Late fall in New England was exceptionally ugly, Chuck thought as he hustled through the milling crowd on the sidewalk. Chuck had only been to the Northeast once before, when he was 11. Nantucket in July had been beautiful (at least before Ellie's bad reaction to shrimp). Boston proper in November was the epitome of dreary.
In all large cities, much of the surrounding scenery remained static, only the outline of the skyline varied. The air was just colder here than in Los Angeles, the wind biting instead of balmy, and the bulky coat he wore was the only thing that reminded him he was far from California. The approaching winter showed on the sparse city trees, leafless and stiff and casting spidery shadows on the ground in late afternoon.
The perpetual rage, simmering beneath the surface, left Chuck almost impervious to the cold sharpness of the wind.
His knit hat, a staple for his guise, blended in with the cold weather attire donned by the people around him. He just looked cold, and busy. It suited him and his purpose.
The man he sought, Tsetse as he called himself online, was a rideshare driver in this city. The man still needed a day job to pay the bills, it seemed. After all, Chuck thought bitterly, the cost of living was exceptionally high in the northeast, similar to California.
It sickened Chuck to think of all the unsuspecting riders this man toted around the city, when his sales of murder and mayhem were lagging.
Did he supplement his source when it ran dry? Was any of what Chuck had found and seen actually been caused by the hacker?
Chuck wasn't sure, but it seemed out of character. As if Chuck knew him personally.
All he truly knew of the man was what Chuck had interpreted from his code. And the evidence of his lack of morality. The man didn't seem to enjoy inflicting pain—merely profiting from it. His overall nonchalance about the suffering of others was typical of most hackers, benign and malignant alike. Chuck had always stood out, stood apart, because he was different.
Are you still? Aren't you just like them now?
He wasn't the same as he used to be, but he wasn't like them. At least not yet. He wanted to say it would be never— Sarah had wanted it to be never and he had promised her it would always be never.
Her voice, her smile, the sound of her laughter—all pushed to the back of his mind. The memories acted like poison now, draining his will and his energy. Once enough to sustain him, the physical absence of her was unbearable, and disruptive to his purpose.
With each step he took on the winter-bleached cement he was one step closer to his purpose.
He was here, waiting for his ride. Perhaps it was the carelessness of Tsetse, or Jonas Dewitt as he had been born, to moonlight with a legitimate job. But then again, only someone like Chuck could have tracked him here. No one but Chuck had, he was sure.
It had been a little tricky, taking a bit of finess to arrange a ride for Chuck with the man he sought. Trial and error. But now, Chuck was on his way to the TD Garden, an arena in the city where sports teams played and concerts were held. He had waited until a night with no events, no basketball or hockey games, which would have turned the local street to chaos. Today he was just a pedestrian with a location to meet a vehicle.
As he made his way onto Legends Avenue, the shadows from the surrounding skyscrapers blotted out the diluted winter sunlight. The arena was physically attached to both North Station and the Hub on Causeway, a shopping center, and the cluster of buildings jutted out at odd angles. Such an odd design, he thought as he gazed upwards. The architecture of the building was unique, standing out strangely, like a pile of boxes stacked and about to tip over.
Chuck knew so little about architecture, but he surmised that design in its rawest form was a type of art. The building, as weird as it appeared, had once been a vision in the designer's head. Was it possible…to translate a feeling into blueprints? It seemed likely, as he stood there, dizzy as he craned his neck back, reeling from the sensation that the top of the building was about to fall and crush him.
He checked the time on his phone just as he heard the quick beeping from the car. Chuck saw the proper decal in the back window. He stepped back, peering into the car and confirming the driver was the man he sought. Chuck approached the vehicle, opened the back door, and told the driver his (false) name and destination: Huntington Avenue, Copley Place. It was a 15 minute ride.
The driver was away from the curb and heading into traffic when Chuck pulled his gun from his belt and cocked it. He reached over the seat and pressed the nuzzle of the gun against the man's neck. "You're going to do exactly what I say."
Chuck felt the car swerve a bit as the man released the steering wheel in shock. "Drive without crashing," Chuck snapped.
"I-I don't carry money, man," Tsetse stammered. "What do you want?"
"You're going to drive me to Copley Place, like I asked. You're going to pull into the parking garage for the Westin Hotel and drive to the roof. You follow my directions, not your GPS. I know where I'm going, so don't try anything funny. Do what I say and no one gets hurt."
"No funny, man. No funny." Chuck could see the man's hands shaking as he gripped the wheel. Apparently confrontation wasn't his strong suit, despite the dark world in which he traded. Chuck knew he was taking a chance by letting the man see his face, but his encounter with Freddie had outed him, and it was only a matter of time before word started spreading about Chuck's activities. Chuck had never planned on a complete lack of impunity, only a head start, so he could finish what he needed to finish before someone, well, finished him.
The quick trill of something akin to giddiness at that thought was momentarily frightening. The fear faded slowly, transmuted into satisfaction. That was what he needed, what he wanted. He had deluded himself into believing this quest would answer that need. The fear, he guessed, was from the knowledge that his own death was the only answer, the only thing that would in fact end his suffering.
He remained sitting forward, his eyes darting back and forth, looking for evidence of law enforcement. He turned the gun slightly when he needed to, concealing it from other drivers as they came too close or waited beside their car at a red light. It took just as long as Chuck had expected as the car rolled to a stop in a space on the top floor of the parking garage. They were the only car on this side, which faced an alley.
"Turn off the ignition," Chuck ordered. The man complied. "Hand me the keys." Chuck crossed his arms in front of him to take the keys with his left hand. "I'm getting into the front seat. And then we're going to talk. I'm asking questions. You're answering them."
Chuck kept his gun trained on the man as he exited the back seat, shut the door, then climbed into the passenger seat next to the man.
"I know who you are, Tsetse." Chuck let that information sink in, watching as the man's eyes widened. "I know what you do. What you sell."
"I don't know–"
"Don't deny it, ok? You have no idea who you're dealing with. I'm not here for a come to Jesus moment. I want information."
"Ok." He was quick to agree.
"This past year, almost all the money you've made from your footage came from one source. That's an accurate statement, is it not?"
Tsetse hesitated, but he answered. "Yes."
"The man in the videos. I know who he is. I'm looking for him. And you have information I need to find him."
"He's a psychopath! You're looking for him?"
Chuck wondered if this man watched his footage before he sold it, perhaps deriving pleasure from his own wares, not just for money.
Chuck lifted the gun, moving it closer to the man's face. "You see, he…took something from me. Something he…needs to pay for." He growled under his breath before he continued. "You've dealt with the intermediary. I need access to the intermediary."
"It-it…it's all done digitally. I-I don't know who he is. I've never seen him," Tsetse stuttered, raising his hands, palms outward, in defense.
"Do you contact him when you need material…or does he contact you when he has something to sell and you opt in or out?"
"In the beginning, I contacted him. But soon he was inundated with material. I got a discount…in exchange for exclusivity. I guaranteed him I would buy whatever it was he had to sell, provided it met a…standard, you know what I mean?"
Chuck growled under his breath and pressed the gun to the man's forehead, incensed by the casual way he spoke of such horrors. "I know what you mean, you sick sonofabitch. Are you still his exclusive buyer?"
"No, no, no," the man stammered, alarmed at the closeness of the gun. "I mean, for the last month or so, he's been a ghost. Nothing. And I've been buying only from him for so long all my other contacts have dried up. That's why I'm driving."
"Forgive me if I'm not terribly sympathetic to your plight." Chuck took several steadying breaths. "You can still contact him on your back channel?" The man nodded, almost banging his head on the rearview mirror. "Type it here." Chuck held his phone for the man to use, in full view of Chuck. "Your source has dried up, considering the U.S. government raided the facility." The man looked surprised by the information, but he complied.
Chuck looked at the screen, the address written in a familiar style. The contact information was legitimate. Chuck could use it, he was certain.
"One last thing." Chuck shifted his phone in his hand and manipulated the screen with his thumb. "Was this woman in any footage that you uploaded to the dark web?" On the screen was a picture of Sarah, her identification photo from her old CIA badge, the least painful image of her to carry with him in his phone. It was dated, over five years old, but aside from her hair being shorter, she still had looked relatively the same when she was taken.
The man winced, looking only out of the corner of his eye, as if he feared to see it. "Most of…the girls…were Asian. Japanese." He looked away, uncomfortably shamed. "And…almost always…their faces were covered."
Chuck's breath hissed out through his teeth. His voice rumbled in his throat as he spoke. "He lifted the shroud sometimes, didn't he? When he put the barrel of the gun in the mouth of the girl he was raping?" He gritted his teeth. "Think harder."
"She's blonde. American. Beautiful. There were only a handful of American girls. And she stands out…so, no, I don't remember her. I would have remembered her."
Tsetse's calling attention to Sarah's beauty, in that context, was an abomination. Chuck's rage reached critical mass and exploded. He fired the gun, the man's scream dying in his throat as the tranquilizer took effect. The dart protruded from his forehead as he slumped over the steering wheel.
The only thought on Chuck's mind as he exited the car was wondering if there would be anyone he might encounter on this journey who could tell a tranq pistol from a real gun before he wantonly fired.
]
November 27, 2012
30,000 feet above St. Louis, Missouri
The last time Casey had been alone on a plane with Morgan was when Beckman had sent them to Europe to retrieve Chuck and Sarah after they had gone AWOL, after Daniel Shaw's apparent death. It was only a little over two years ago, but another life just the same.
Casey recalled how nervous Grimes was about flying, which was odd considering how fearless he knew the younger man could be when he needed to be. Talking, as irritating as Casey found it, seemed to help.
"So why Boston?" Casey asked Morgan. Grimes had scoured the security footage at the airport for hours looking for signs of Chuck once the trail in Burbank had run cold. Casey hadn't waited for Grimes to explain the details. They didn't have time; they just followed.
"Probably because the hacker he's looking for is there. It makes sense."
Grimes had tried to explain the convoluted daisy-chain of people Chuck was currently sifting through on his way to finding Quinn. The information Beckman had shared with him about the dark web footage and all this was connected, Casey was sure. The hacker was outside California, which gave the two men visibility in the airport instead of trying to track Chuck on foot or by vehicle.
"He finds this guy and he's one step away from Quinn's inner circle," Casey grumbled.
"We're not gonna be in time to stop him, you know that, right, Casey?" Morgan sighed.
"Damn it, Grimes, we're only six hours behind him."
"Six hours is an eternity when we're talking about Chuck hacking his way through something. He's possessed…in a very bad way."
Casey knew Grimes was right, but he stayed silent. Admitting defeat out loud was demoralizing. He refused to do it.
After a longer pause, Morgan spoke again. "Did you ever see Superman?"
"What?" Casey snapped.
"The OG, you know, Christopher Reeve, Marlon Brando…Warner Brothers, 1978?" Casey grunted. Morgan continued. "I keep thinking about that movie, Casey. The end. Superman is such a good guy, upstanding, self-sacrificing to a fault. Like Chuck, if I'm being honest. I've always thought that way, even before Chuck was the Intersect, before he ever met you or Sarah." Grimes shook his head sadly. "Superman saved everyone else, saved the world…but Lois Lane died, because he couldn't save her in time. And Superman just…snapped."
Casey had been a teenager in high school when that movie was released. Bartowski and Grimes were both movie nerds, and Casey had always tried to stay under the radar, lest they converse with him about the triviality of cinema or television. But he knew exactly what Grimes was talking about. He didn't want to give Grimes the satisfaction of admitting he had seen the movie by engaging in the conversation.
"Like reversing-the-spin-of-the-earth snapped. Superhuman rage like no one had ever dreamed was possible. I feel like that's what we're living in right now."
"She never knew that he did that," Casey grumbled, forgetting himself and his earlier decision for reticence.
"Huh?" Morgan's eyes were agog.
"Lois Lane. She never knew what happened to him once she died. And she never would have asked him to do that, to be contrary to who he was. She loved him too much." Casey huffed out a breath. "You repeat that and I'll break every bone in your body."
"No, no, no, Casey, never." Morgan raised his hand in mock salute. "But, then you know what I'm thinking."
Casey grunted in affirmation. "How do we stop someone blinded by superhuman rage?"
]
November 27, 2012
Boston, Massachusetts
Once Casey and Morgan were cleared through security at Logan International Airport, Casey's phone registered three missed calls from Ellie Woodcomb. They were waiting at the rental car desk when Casey called her back.
"We just landed in Boston, Ellie. We're about six to seven hours behind Chuck, but he's here. Somewhere in the city. We just–"
"John, General Beckman called me. You weren't reachable on the plane." Ellie's voice trembled, saturated with sadness and restrained tears. "The DNA you asked me to provide was a positive match." She choked, sobbing. "Sarah's baby's father was… is…Chuck. Casey, I've been trying to reach him all day and he still doesn't answer me. He needs to know that!"
It twisted inside him like a knife, the added layers of tragedy that seemed to keep multiplying around them. "He dumped his phone for a burner and he wouldn't dare risk contacting someone he knew we could trace back to him. That's the reason he's not answering you, Ellie."
"John, listen to me! My brother has a daughter that he has no idea even exists! Sarah could be alive, that's what General Beckman told me. He doesn't have a clue about any of it. He's just hell bent on destroying himself as long as he can take down the people he thinks ruined his life."
"Ellie, we're going to find him, I promise you."
"You have to. You have to find him so you can tell him the truth."
Casey didn't know if Chuck and Sarah's daughter was still alive, nor did he have any idea where she could be. All he did know was another stupid bit of movie trivia, more Superman. Knowing Superman had a child had saved him in that last dreadful iteration in the franchise.
I was an NSA agent when I saw that movie in 2006. I really can't bring that up in front of Grimes.
]
November 27, 2012
New Quay, Wales, United Kingdom
"Mr. Hammersmith, I have a message for you, sir," the butler said in his prim British accent.
"Go ahead, Tills," Hammersmith called, not looking up from the ledger he was in the midst of examining. The older gentleman preferred to work in the study of his estate.
"Word came from Dresden, via Oslo, over the wire. Halmstad."
Hammersmith dropped his pen, tugging his glasses from his face as he looked up in surprise. "Was that a telephone call, Tills?" Hammersmith couldn't recall hearing the telephone ring. Sometimes when he was thinking, the gears in his mind drowned out ambient noise from his surroundings. And the telephone almost never rang.
"Yes, sir. Unusual, sir. I know."
Something must have gone wrong.
"Nothing else? No instructions, no explanation, just that little bit?" Hammersmith's accent sounded strange, even to his own ears, and he saw the bizarre look on his butler's face. The slavic influence on his speech, though not his native language, was too ingrained after 30 years of pretending to be Russian. It made his true British accent sound affected, ungenuine.
It was a metaphor, Hammersmith believed. His voice and his life. Affected. Ungenuine.
"That's right, sir."
Hammersmith rubbed his hand over his mouth fretfully. He kept his pale blue eyes averted to his desktop when he spoke. "I'm assuming you've still heard nothing from Mary?"
"No, sir, I'm afraid not."
Tills had only a general sense of the network Hammersmith maintained from his home in England. He knew of the code, but nothing of what it represented, what it actually meant. It was safer for the old man that way, easier for him to deny anything if something was found.
Mary, though, Mary was part of his life, outside her code name, outside of her role in his network. Mary was missing. Or Marseille, as everyone else in his network knew her by, including David, who had sent the message with his code name, Dresden.
And now if David was looking for him, he had an awful feeling it was all somehow connected.
He had to do something. He had to talk to David.
