A/N1: Ownership of...aw, to hell with it. Let's just get started.
A/N2: I know it seems that I am constantly thanking Steelejay for his help. This time, though, it goes far beyond mere assistance. For this chapter he is essentially my co-author. And the bit that he imagined, created and wrote is .. well, brilliant. In canon Orion is the smartest scientist/inventor and no one can beat him when it comes to tech stuff. Not in New Day. Chuck/Carmichael can and did beat him. It was very important to me that the contest between the two tech wizards end with an unambiguous Chuck victory, and the way Steelejay imagined for him to do so...well, just wait and see. It's pretty special. I know you'll enjoy it as much as I did (and I know diddly-squat about tech and computers). Thanks, my friend.
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Ellie took a deep breath and said, "Chuck, dad is..."
"Orion," finished Chuck and Ellie simultaneously.
Stephen looked at both of them and said, quietly, "Oh boy."
Sarah, standing a little bit back, her eyes wide with surprise, said, "Wait...what? What the fuck? Your dad is..."
Ellie said, "Did you leave us to hide from the CIA?"
"How did you find me?" Orion asked.
"...Orion?" finished Sarah.
"You can't hide from me," said Chuck.
"Carmichael. I know. Right. How...?" began Orion.
"Did you abandon us to hide?" shouted Ellie.
"Sort of," said Stephen to Ellie. Turning to Chuck, he said, "So, how ..."
Sarah said, "You're Orion? We've been looking for you forever. And you were in my..."
"...did you find me?" asked Stephen to Chuck.
"What do you mean 'sort of'?" demanded Ellie.
"...guest room?" finished Sarah.
Chuck said, "OSI layer 6 on the file you downloaded. I modified the encapsulation to send me a capture of all your network address information."
Stephen froze and just stared at his son, his mouth agape, his eyes almost unblinking. Seeing the look on his face, both Ellie and Sarah stopped talking as well. Eventually, Stephen leaned back in his chair and whispered, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Charles. That's...that's..."
Chuck continued, "It captured the data from all the equipment around you. Imagine my surprise when I saw my own LAN addresses."
"I … I can barely believe it, son. How in God's name did you think of that? It's ...it's beyond brilliant. It's … it's … Oh, my God. The IC is right with what they say about you. About Carmichael, I mean. You're the best. You're … wow...Aces, Charles. Aces," said Stephen. He looked overcome with the emotion of the moment and his amazement at what his son had managed.
"You'd better believe it," said Sarah with a grin. "He's the best." She wasn't at all sure what Chuck had done, but the fact that the legendary Orion was impressed means it must have been pretty cool.
"You still didn't answer my question, dad," said Ellie. "Did you leave us because you are Orion?"
"Yes, Eleanor. Yes, I did," Stephen said sadly.
"To run from the CIA?" she demanded.
Stephen paused, looked away, and said, "Among others."
"I don't understand. I was always able to find you when I went online," said Chuck. "That wasn't hiding too effectively. Ellie and I went out to see you, for God's sake."
"Yes, but first of all, connecting Stephen Bartowski with the Orion identity was supposed to be impossible. And, secondly, when a search was run for my name I arranged an alert. When I would see that it was you, son, I would allow some information about me to get through. That way, you could find me if you chose to."
"Why didn't you destroy these notebooks, dad?" asked Ellie, gesturing with the one she was holding. "One look and I knew it was you."
"I don't know. I guess it was a silly sentimental attachment. Those were the original notebooks with my ideas for the Intersect," he said with a shrug. "And, anyway, what were the odds that someone looking for me would find the notebooks and recognize my handwriting to connect Orion with Stephen Bartowski? One in four billion?"
Sarah noticed that Stephen's manner had changed. He wasn't quite as gentle and wandering. He was somehow … crisper and more focused. This was the man who had led them to Pakistan and tried to fake his own death with a hijacked Air Force drone. It was the same man she'd had breakfast with, but somehow just a bit different.
"Were you even in Pakistan?" she asked.
"No. I haven't been in Pakistan for years," he replied. "Your team found an old set up I'd put in place to draw out hunters. If you'd have been real enemies, I'd have waited for you to have entered the compound before I blew it up."
"And Smith and his Fulcrum team?" asked Sarah.
"Fish food. Although I can't be sure about Smith. He's a really tough one to kill, to tell the truth," said Stephen.
"Funny. He says something similar about you," said Chuck.
"Dad, why'd you really come back to us?" asked Ellie.
"Your visit...well, you were right to yell at me, Eleanor. My abandoning you was really hard on you both. You made me see that. But then Chuck flashed in front of me. I know you have the Intersect, son. It's incredibly dangerous. I wasn't kidding that I want you to shut down the program. The fact that it got to you, my own son, is just infuriating. Ironic, but infuriating. And anyway, I knew the legendary Carmichael and his team were looking for me. Since I could, it seemed wise to get as close to those particular hunters as possible. I knew you were smart and dangerous, but I honestly had no idea you were this smart and this dangerous. What are you going to do now? What are you going to do with me?"
"We found Orion. I'm going to tell my bosses at the IC. I'm going to tell Malone and Graham and Beckman," said Chuck.
"Charles, they will want to put me in a bunker," he said. "Force me to work for them."
"I'm not letting that happen, dad," said Chuck.
Stephen gave a short bark of sardonic laughter and said, "Don't be naïve, son. You don't have the power to stop them if they want to do that."
"Yeah, dad. I do," said Chuck seriously and with unshakeable confidence, but no hint of arrogance.
"What they will want, what I want, is help with the Intersect. I've been insisting that we have the removal tech available before we move to human tests," said Ellie.
"I told you, Eleanor, the project should be shut down. It's too goddamn dangerous. The program can't be removed once it's downloaded into someone," said Stephen sadly. "I've been working on that problem for twenty years. How to remove it. It's just not possible."
"And I told you that just because you can't do it doesn't mean no one else can," said Ellie. She didn't sound angry, but her voice held a power and certainty that brooked no argument.
Stephen sighed sadly, shaking his head.
It was at that point that there was a knock on the door to the apartment. Sarah ducked out of the discussion in the guest room to answer it. Finding it was the rest of their team, she let them into the apartment.
Casey said, "Alright, Walker. We stood everyone down. Now what the hell is going on? Bartowski is acting pretty crazy."
"Is he ok, Sarah?" asked Bryce, sounding concerned.
Chuck, Ellie and Stephen came out of the guest room into the living room.
Chuck said, "Colonel Casey, Agent Bryce Larkin, and Agent Zondra Rizzo, may I introduce you to Stephen Bartowski, Ellie and my dad, and...Orion."
"Huh?" said Casey.
"What the fuck?" said Zondra.
"Holy shit," said Bryce. "Your dad is Orion? YOUR DAD? Your dad invented the Intersect?"
"I did, Agent Larkin," said Stephen, stepping close to him. "And you sent it to Charles." Stephen punched Bryce in the face. Bryce made no effort to dodge or block the blow, although he could have done either easily. His lip split and began to bleed onto his chin. Stephen swung a second time, catching Bryce on the nose, which also began to bleed.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bartowski," he said.
"You could have killed him, you reckless fool," said Stephen, punching Bryce in the face yet again. Bryce continued to stand quietly, his hands at his sides as his face bled.
Although others in the room moved to stop Stephen, some more quickly than others, Ellie was standing closest. She came at her dad from behind and pulled him back by one arm. "Stop it, dad. Stop it."
"But this SOB...we don't even know what he's done to Charles," said Stephen furious.
"I understand, dad. I understand," said Ellie.
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Bartowski," repeated Bryce.
Giving Chuck a look, Ellie said to her dad, "Come with me to my apartment, dad. I want to show you some of the work I've done so far on the Intersect removal."
With a last angry look at Bryce, Stephen was led out of Chuck and Sarah's apartment by his daughter.
"Phew," said Chuck. "Bryce, you ok?"
"Yeah. I'm ok, Chuck. Your dad hits pretty good for an old guy," said Bryce.
Casey came back from the kitchen with some paper towels and an icepack for Bryce, who took them with a grunt of thanks.
"So, what do we do now, Chuck?" asked Zondra.
"Wait a second," said Sarah, with a hand raised. "Before we get to that. Chuck, Orion is supposed to be the smartest of the smartest, but he was blown very far away by whatever it is you did to trick him. To find him. I don't know if you can explain it to us, but please give it a shot. It seems to me that your normal genius, that we've come to expect, was pretty dramatically exceeded this time around."
"Well, I don't know about that, but I really had to think outside the box to beat Orion. He took me to the cleaners the last time we faced him. We ended up chasing him around Pakistan and he was never even there. I had to come up with something pretty original. Something he wouldn't see coming."
"Which was?" said Sarah.
"Ok. Here goes. Sweetie, can you get me your Matryoshka Dolls from the shelf there?" Chuck asked.
"Sure, babe." Sarah reached over and picked up a decorative, somewhat cylindrical wooden doll with an elaborately painted peasant woman in traditional sarafan dress. Chuck knew that Sarah had actually been gifted the dolls by a Russian defector she'd saved from the FSB early in her career. Unlike most current, mass-produced versions, these were a hand-carved, hand-painted representation of the art and were well over 100 years old. They were one of the few personal items Sarah had brought with her from her apartment in DC.
Chuck showed it to the members of his team, setting it on the coffee table as they all sat down on the couch and living room chairs. "This set of dolls has eight in total, but we only need seven of them for this demonstration," Chuck explained. He gently twisted the doll at a horizontal seam near the halfway point and separated it in half. Inside was another similarly painted doll. He removed it and set the two halves of the larger one off to the side.
"I don't know if you guys have ever wondered about it, but it's actually really interesting how computers are able to communicate with each other."
"Is it, though?" Zondra asked, giving Chuck a flat look and earning chuckles from the group.
"Ok, fair enough," Chuck admitted with a grin. "It's only interesting to us nerds, I guess. What's cool is that it doesn't matter what kind of computer you're using; a Microsoft Windows computer, an Apple computer, a Linux or whatever, even a new smartphone." Chuck held up the doll as he spoke. "When it comes to talking on a network, all computer systems communicate with each other using the same standard model, which is called the Open Systems Interconnect, or OSI Model.
"This model is a 7-layer system, which can be visualized using these nesting dolls. This doll you see here represents the very first layer of the model, which is called the Physical layer. This is the raw data, the binary ones and zeroes, that are transmitted onto a network - either over a physical cable or a wireless signal - to be received by another computer. This raw data encapsulates another portion of data. That's what it's actually called - data encapsulation. But here's the key thing to realize; the encapsulation isn't the doll, but rather it's the paint around the doll. The wooden portion is the data that is encapsulated, along with all the other dolls inside it. This happens at every layer of the OSI model, starting at the top, one layer encapsulates another until you get to this one."
Chuck once again gently twisted the doll open to show another, smaller doll nested inside. "Just remember, the paint is the encapsulation, the doll is the data. I won't get into the details of each layer because Zondra would probably strangle me after ten minutes," Chuck joked.
"Nah, I'd just shoot you. And I doubt either of us would make it past five minutes, Chuck," Zondra quipped, earning a friendly shove from Sarah and more laughter from their friends.
"So, let's pretend that I'm actually a computer on a network and I have received this physical data packet. The first thing I do is remove the Physical layer of encapsulation. Basically I strip off and read the instructions that the paint represents and process the data appropriately. I then hand the next chunk of encapsulated data off to the next layer of the model." Chuck pulled the smaller doll out.
"I repeat this process until I get to the layer that's important for us." Chuck took a few moments to separate each doll in succession until he had a very small doll in his hand, though it also had a seam that could be seen, which indicated it had yet another tiny doll inside it.
"This is the next to the last layer in the system, called the Presentation layer. One of the important things that happens at this layer is encryption. Let's say you're working on a document, like Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF and you want to protect it with a password. That is a form of encryption and it happens at this layer of the OSI model." Chuck waggled the little doll as he showed it to everyone.
"What I was able to do is put some extra instructions in the encapsulation - in the paint, not the data itself. This extra instruction was attached specifically to the encryption component. Encryption at this layer is generally fairly easy to break. I knew it would take Orion hardly any time at all to get through it, and when he did, my extra instructions were then able to communicate with the lower layer functions." Chuck motioned to the larger half dolls arrayed around him.
"As part of normal operations, a computer automatically gathers information about all the other nodes on the same local network. The network name, network address, hardware address and so forth. Things like printers, other computers, switches, routers, et cetera.
"These data collection programs and protocols are always running. Even if you're using an air-gapped computer, that computer is still running those functions to see what's around it, there's just nothing to see.
"My extra instructions were able to capture all that information about the other devices on all of the networks Orion was using. It then sent that information to me using normal internet communication protocols. Once I received the data, I was prepared to have to do some geo-location work, but it turned out I didn't need to. You can imagine my shock when I recognized network devices and addresses from my own home network."
There were several long moments of silence as everyone digested the information Chuck had shared. Bryce was obviously more than a little taken aback compared to everyone else. Shell-shocked might be more accurate. Although he still held the ice pack to his face, he looked around the room and could tell they didn't really understand. They were nodding as if what Chuck had described was just another day at the office. He, on the other hand, was gaping like a fish out of water.
"You got something stuck in your throat, Bryce?" Zondra asked.
"This doesn't… I don't… Chuck… What…" Bryce spluttered a bit, then cleared his throat and continued. "Dude, in typical Chuck fashion, you made that sound really simple. But I'm a pretty good computer guy in my own right, and I happen to be familiar with the OSI model. What you just described is insane. Not that I don't believe you, but if that's what you did, you've basically discovered one of the biggest security flaws in internet communication since DARPA developed it."
Chuck grimaced and nodded. "Yeah, I kind of did. But this was seriously one of the most difficult things I've ever accomplished."
"Just 'one of' the most difficult things, Chuck?" Bryce shook his head in wonder as he made exaggerated air quotes with his free hand. "Buddy, you have a gift for understatement."
Chuck just shrugged modestly.
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A/N3: The beginning of this chapter was a bit of a mess as everyone was talking at once and no one was listening to anyone else. I modeled it after a typical family dinner at my house.
A/N4: Bryce was right. If Chuck's plan to catch Orion were to be implemented broadly, it would essentially eliminate the ability of anyone – from the kid in his mom's basement to professional Russians, anyone – to hack into any system anonymously. Cybersecurity would be revolutionized. Microsoft would pay Carmichael Industries a gazillion dollars. It's no wonder Orion and Bryce were blown away by what Chuck did. I'm blown away by what Steelejay did.
A/N5: From Steelejay: I'm not a hacker, but I do play one on Chuck FanFiction. WillieGarvin gives me too much credit (though I do preen like a peacock when he calls me out for my assistance). My goal was to describe a process that didn't stretch Suspension-of-Disbelief to its breaking point, especially knowing there's lots of technically savvy Chuck FF readers out there. If it worked, YAY! If not, well, we are talking about a dude with a computer in his head, so maybe SoD was already stretched too far. Either way, I had a blast helping with one of the best Chuck stories out there.
A/N6: I threw out the canon plot line that put Bryce in touch with Stephen while at Stanford. It was hard enough to have Bryce's actions make any logical sense as they were, without adding in that extra complication. Here in New Day, we know why Bryce changed his mind about getting Chuck involved with the IC. I would have had to create some sort of rationale for Stephen too. If not, Bryce would have been opposing Stephen's wishes by sending Chuck the Intersect and I'd have to deal with that drama between them. Not to mention the questions. How did Bryce communicate with Orion? Was he still able to contact him five years later? If so, was he still getting instructions from him? How did he feel about being a traitor to the IC by hiding all of that? It just got way too messy for me, so I threw it out. As has happened before with canon, I'm not sure the writers considered the logical ramifications of their decisions.
A/N7: How'd we do on this one?