A/N1: Ownership.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 3:11 PM PST
Chuck and Sarah came back down to Castle from the Carmichael offices upstairs. Fitz asked, "How'd it go?" The couple had just spent the last thirty minutes or so on another conference with the bosses in DC. Fitz considered himself lucky that that particular task fell to others.
"Fine, I guess. But DC is still coming to grips with the extent of the infiltration by Fulcrum. The names on the Fulcrum roster hit them pretty hard," said Sarah. "Bigger, deeper, and at higher levels than anyone had understood or feared."
"That's what she said," quipped Rachel, to the chuckled laughter of the others.
Sarah gave her friend a funny scrunched up face look and continued, "They are happy with the way things here are going, but freaked out by the extent of the danger to the system."
"Malone is sending up a CIA ship from Long Beach to Point Mugu. A disguised merchant ship. He'll have it anchor at the base ... Point Mugu doesn't have docking facilities to have it tie up, so it'll just anchor in the harbor. He's going to be transferring the Fulcrum prisoners by launch to it as soon as it arrives. The interrogations can take place onboard. Easier to hold them off-shore and away from anyone else," added Chuck.
"And to dispose of the bodies at sea when we're through with them," said Leo.
Chuck looked uncomfortable, but Sarah said, "Well, yeah. That too."
Chuck said, "What's going on down here?"
Jorge said, "My friends from Langley are going through every cell phone and laptop we were able to find in Ventura, including the mainframe that was the target of the infiltration last night. Too much data is accumulating to check it manually, so I've created an algorithm to data mine it."
Frankie asked, "What's that? Data mining?"
"It's a way to look at huge volumes of information. Using computers to do what it would take dozens of people to do by hand. When the information is all available in the computers, patterns and connections will be shown by the algorithm. For example, if all the Fulcrum agents have the same contact on their phones, that might either be something for us to look at or it just might be the guy in the next holding cell. If they have all attended a meeting last week someplace, that might be good to know...or better yet, if they are all scheduled to attend a meeting next week. The more data entered into the data base, the more pertinent the patterns and connections will be. My guys...the ones we brought out west overnight... are entering the data from the devices as fast as they can.
"Also, another piece for us...can't do this part quickly, but with the cooperation of the cellular providers we should be able to map out where these phones have been over the last few weeks. Maybe there's an interesting location for us to check out.
"Anyway, the plan is that we run through the data continuously and see what comes up. Any connections we find get flagged for Rachel, Brett and Johnny. They'll do the initial manual checks. We figure if they find something interesting, they'll bring it to your attention."
"The interrogations of the prisoners?" asked Chuck.
"I'm having the transcripts of those entered as well. Any connections from those would show up too," said Jorge.
"No," said Chuck. "I meant how are they going? Any word from Point Mugu?"
Rachel stepped into the conversation. "Oh, yeah. I spoke to Casey and Agent Statler a little while ago. The other agents from the FBI's LA office are there and starting work. Jorge and his guys have gotten most of the biometric data synced with the roster, so that bit should start making some rapid progress. Looks like they are going to try to vet the supposedly non-Fulcrum prisoners first and get them cut loose."
"I'm pulled in different directions on the priority of those interrogations, but logically I think that's right. Much as I want to find my dad soonest, we can't hang on to the innocent bystanders indefinitely while we sort through everyone else," said Chuck.
"Yeah," agreed Rachel. "That's what we thought. For what it's worth, though, we've already nailed another Fulcrum agent using a false name and hidden among the Roark Instruments employees. We haven't been wrong to hold them and check them out. We just have to do it faster."
"Ok," said Chuck.
His cell phone made a noise. He glanced at it and said to Sarah, quietly, "Oh, shit."
Sarah raised an eyebrow. He showed her the screen. She let out a sigh and said, "Aw, shit."
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 2:50 PM PST
"Wake me at dinner time, please, babe," said Devon, pulling the covers up to his neck.
"Ok. Will you be staying to eat or do you have to head back to the hospital?" Ellie asked.
"I'll head back. I want to check on Gobbins," he said, referring to his first patient from the prior night, an FBI agent wounded in the shootout in Ventura. Devon had been in two back-to-back surgeries lasting thirteen hours total. Gobbins had survived and was stable. The second patient, a Fulcrum agent, had not fared as well and had died on the operating table despite the efforts of Devon and his team.
"Can't Bill handle that?" she asked, hoping that her fiancé could maybe get a full night's sleep.
"Yeah," said Devon. "But I want to handle it myself. This lady, Gobbins...well, she's one of the good guys, you know? I want to tuck her in for the night and talk to her husband again. I won't stay long."
"OK, Sweetie," she said, leaning over to kiss him. "Have a good sleep."
She thought he might actually have been asleep before she'd closed the door.
She headed back into the living room. A bottle of wine called to her from the kitchen and she looked at it in silent contemplation. A glance at her watch told her it was late enough in the afternoon that she could have a glass without guilt. She poured it and sat down at the table.
The prior night had been nuts. Multiple wounded had been airlifted to Westside. Not being a surgeon, she was doing what she could to help, but the burden landed directly on Devon and his peers. She knew that Sarah and her brother had been involved in the mayhem, but she took the overnight silence as an indication that they were physically alright but very, very busy. She could only imagine the chaos involved with the aftermath of that disaster. She'd made it a point not to reach out to them. They had enough to deal with without her pestering them.
She began to look at that day's mail on the table. Some last minute wedding responses were still trickling in, less than a month before the event. She sighed in frustration. She knew it was inevitable, but it still made her frown a bit. The hotel was bugging her for a final number of guests. For goodness sake, the invitation card had a "respond by" date for a reason.
She opened the envelopes and turned on her laptop. Once the computer had booted up, she pulled up the lists she and Sarah had been using and made the appropriate entries. Checking her emails, she saw one from Daphne Peralta, the wedding planner they had used to help set up the event. Daphne had some questions about the floral arrangements. Ellie considered, for only a moment, checking with Sarah, but concluded that Sarah would be way too busy to have an opinion about baby's breath.
But the thought of Sarah and Chuck and all their team niggled at Ellie a bit. After a few moments, she sent Chuck a text message. Nothing intended to jostle him, but just enough for him to know she was thinking of them both.
HOPE YOU GUYS ARE OK AFTER LAST NIGHT'S INSANITY. NO NEED TO RESPOND. JUST KNOW I'M THINKING ABOUT YOU ALL.
She ended the message with a heart emoji.
Only a couple of minutes later, her phone rang. It was Chuck.
"Hey, little brother. You didn't have to call. I know you're busy," she said.
"Hey, El. Got you on speaker. Sarah's with me. And, yeah. We had to call," he said.
"Hey, Ellie," said Sarah.
"Hey. You guys sound like shit. What happened? Did someone get hurt?" asked Ellie.
"None of our guys got seriously hurt, thank God. No," said Chuck. "Listen, El, we should have called you earlier. But ... well, dad got taken. He got taken by Fulcrum."
"Dad...?"
"Yeah," said Chuck.
Sounding shocked, she said, "What was he even doing there? Doing in Ventura? He's not a spy."
"Jorge was supposed to go, but remember on Thursday he twisted his ankle?" said Sarah.
"Oh, God. No. No. We just got him back," said Ellie with a sob. She started to cry. "We just got him. We can't lose him again, Chuck. We can't."
"I know, El. We're looking for him," said Chuck.
"Ellie," said Sarah. "We're doing everything we can. We have leads and we'll find him."
Ellie took a few deep breaths to steady herself and used her fingers to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "Ok, ok, ok. Right. Ok. I know you are. I know you will both ... look for him. I know." She took another deep breath and said, "And you know what else I know? I know you'll find him and you'll save him. I know you will."
"Ellie..." began Chuck, the tone of voice quiet and reasonable and reassuring. "You know..."
"No, Chuck. You don't have to say it. I know what you're thinking. What you're going to say. You're going to say you'll try. You'll do your best. But that's not it. It's not. I'm not prescient or anything, but I can damn well tell the future this time. You are going to find him and you're going to bring him home. You are Chuck and Sarah. There is nothing you two can't do together. Nothing. I know it's almost bad luck to say it, but it's true." She knocked her knuckles on the tabletop. "You're going to come through for us and for dad. I know it as sure as I know my own name. This isn't mere confidence, guys, it's certainty."
"Well, Ellie..." began Sarah.
Ellie spoke with a strong voice when she said, "I know it to be true. My only question is if I can do anything to help you? Do you need another pair of hands?"
"No, El. Thanks, but we've gotten some reinforcements. We're ok," said Chuck.
"Ok, good. Go do what you have to do. I love you, Sarah. I love you, Chuck. Now bring him home to us. Don't waste any more time talking to me. Bye."
"Bye," Chuck and Sarah said.
Ellie drained her wine glass in three large gulps and reached for the bottle.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 3:25 PM PST
Disconnecting the call with Ellie, Chuck turned to Sarah and said, "She sounded so sure, she almost has me feeling better."
"Yeah. Me too. Until I remembered who she's counting on to deliver the miracle," said Sarah with a grimace.
"Yeah. There's that," agreed Chuck rubbing her back.
Giving a quiet snort, she said, "No pressure."
"Pressure was there anyway," he responded.
"Yeah. It was...it is," she agreed.
They walked back into the main room of Castle.
Rachel said, "Guys, come here a sec, please."
They went to her and stood behind her chair looking over her shoulder at the computer screen. "Look here," said Rachel. "This is exactly the sort of thing Jorge was explaining to Frankie. Three of the Fulcrum men from Ventura attended seminars at this place in the last two months. The Strength Leader Corporation here in LA."
"Strength Leader? What the hell is that? It barely even sounds like English. It sounds like it was named by someone who isn't a native English speaker or it's a bad translation from something into English," said Sarah.
As they watched, another two items popped up on Rachel's screen. "Ok," said Rachel. "Make that five Fulcrum operatives. All in the last two months. How much you want to bet that more hits show up as more of the phones and laptops get uploaded?"
"No bet," said Sarah with a hand on her friend's shoulder looking at the screen.
"Ok, Rach," said Chuck. "Keep an eye on that one, please. Let us know if it develops into anything."
"Will do, Chuck," said Rachel.
"And be sure to get a nap, Rach," said Sarah.
"Sure thing, Sarah," said Rachel, crossing her fingers under the table.
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Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 4:30 PM PST
Orion sat studying the code that the Fulcrum men and women had created for their version of the Intersect, the deadly version that had been killing off the unfortunates homeless of Los Angeles. The code was deeply flawed. So deeply, that it would have to be scrapped and new code created from scratch.
One of the scientists in the lab with Orion asked, "How's it look?"
"Just fine," said Orion.
"Will you be able to tidy it up and get the Intersect working in the next couple of days? You know the Sachem is serious. He'll start killing people then. It's no bluff," the man said.
"Oh, yes," lied Orion. He not only couldn't do it in two days, he wouldn't if he could. But it did him no good to declare that fact or position. Pretending to play along with their demands would just buy him time. 'And maybe the horse will learn to sing,' he thought to himself with amusement. Orion continued, "You have all done a wonderful job here on this code. Came so close. We just have a bit to clean up and we should be good to go. I should have it ready for Ted by two days from now. Shouldn't be a problem."
"Excellent," said the man.
Orion studied the code once again. The bit he was looking at wasn't merely inappropriate for the Intersect coding, it was actually just plain wrong. As if it had been written by someone who failed to understand how these new computer machines worked. But this time something about the messed up code leapt out at him and grabbed his psyche in a death grip. The coding was a clear mistake, but...but...but
'Oh, my God," he thought, suddenly dumbstruck. "OH, MY GOD."
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A/N2: No Jill Roberts so far in this arc. So, no one to magically hand the heroes the next clue needed to track down Orion. Feeding boatloads of information into a mainframe and data mining it for connections is actually a real investigative tool used by (well-funded) law enforcement. It doesn't replace actual investigation, but it does prove useful in culling vast amounts of data to find patterns (as Jorge describes and Rachel shows). It's certainly not as exciting (or easy), though, as having Chuck's ex-girlfriend pointing them in the right direction.
A/N3: There's an old fable of a thief sentenced to death by the King. The thief makes a deal with the King to spare his life if, in the course of the next year, he can teach the King's favorite horse to sing. The thief's fellow prisoners laugh at the man, knowing the impossibility of teaching a horse to sing. The smiling thief replies, "I have a year I didn't have before and who knows what will happen in that time. Maybe the King will be deposed. Maybe the King will die. Maybe I will die. Maybe the horse will die. Or, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to sing." [Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in the book The Mote in God's Eye credit this fable to Herodotus, but I haven't been able to confirm that.]
A/N4: What's going on, guys? What do you have to say for yourselves?