With or without dreams

Everything's always changing

From what I've heard and seen

And from what I believe

There is no time for a dream

"No Time For Dreams"

Last Days of April

November 10, 2104

Washington, DC

To the rest of the world, it was just an office building. Its functionality was real, the illusionary facade upheld by actual businesses renting space in the building from the government. Or at least the shell corporation that was a front for the government. Too many layers of deception underneath to map it out perfectly. But deep below the building were miles of tunnels, secretly accessible from the ground floor. The tunnels led to an elaborate base, a functional substation for the DNI.

Casey's team was already below ground after receiving their orders from the President. Casey's captains had also reported ahead with the intention of organizing all the equipment Chuck and Casey had assembled the day before. Captain Barker, the senior officer aside from Casey, was briefing the men on their mission, at least what he could tell them, considering how little he knew, how much was up to chance. Things Chuck himself wasn't sure of.

The last step before departure was Chuck's promise that he would retrieve the Dial he had previously stolen and subsequently hidden.

"Of course you hid it in the same spot where you took it from," Casey grumbled as he walked behind Chuck.

"The farther from me, the safer it was. No one was thinking it was here." Casey had chased Chuck all the way into the desert thousands of miles away. The Dial had remained in the same building as the Oracle itself.

The early morning hour left the building nearly empty, no one there to notice their incongruous appearance in an office building, donned head-to-toe in black mission gear. The steady pounding of Chuck's boot heels on the tile floor seemed to match the rhythm of his pounding heart.

Chuck traced his previous footsteps, past a set of elevators and into an adjacent corridor. He moved towards the potted ficus tree situated in the corner at the end of the hallway. Chuck pulled a magnetic tool from a pocket in his cargo pants and stooped, pressing it against the plant's ceramic pot, three quarters of the way down. He heard the click, reassured that the box he had buried in the pot was still there. He could feel the resistance in the magnet as he pulled, slowly sliding the box up to the surface. He held the box in the palm of his hand, shaking off the loose dirt.

"In the ficus, Bartowski?" Casey quipped. "That was your plan?"

Chuck flashed a crooked grin. "You didn't think to look there, now did you, Colonel?"

Casey growled and then grunted in return.

Chuck was glad things were starting to feel normal again between Casey and him. Their five-year relationship had its ups and downs. When Casey had first been made aware of Chuck and his hacking, his only goal had been to bring Chuck to justice. The information Chuck had presented, though, had drawn the attention of the President. Once the nature of the information had been clear, and he had started to work with the team, Chuck had earned Casey's grudging respect. On some days, Chuck liked to think of Casey as a friend.

All of that had changed when Casey had learned about Ellie and her unique and in depth knowledge of Chuck's cranial implant. The President's plan had always involved the Oracle; attempting to utilize it without knowing completely how it worked was a last resort. Chuck's willing participation had increased the odds of success. Chuck ran to protect his sister, and stole the control mechanism for the Oracle in the process. The game of cat and mouse had lasted for over a year, each dodge increasing Casey's ire until Chuck started to believe Casey would have shot him dead if he could have.

Fortunately, Casey had been ordered to take Chuck alive. Part of Chuck wanted to believe that particular order wouldn't have been necessary–that Casey had some consideration for Chuck, or at least some modicum of understanding. Even now, feeling the chill between them had dissipated, Chuck wasn't entirely sure. He tried to put that thought out of his mind.

Chuck pressed the button on the bottom of the box and the internal mechanism whirred as the top slid open. Chuck reached in and pulled out the Dial: a crystalline knob, cloudy now that it had been disconnected, attached to a series of layered metallic discs that spun with gears around the central knob. When it was inserted into the control panel of the Oracle, the crystal would come alive with a flutter of rainbow colors as it interfaced with the computer and its systems. Chuck handed it to Casey.

"Now, we're ready to go."

Casey had just activated the door panel that led to the underground base when both he and Chuck felt the floor rumble under their feet. Chuck flashed an alarmed look at Casey, who was already pulling out his firearm and pointing it down the stairs. "Casey, what the–"

He never finished his sentence. Casey pushed Chuck against the wall, shielding him with his body. The acrid smell of burning electronics reached them, making Chuck's eyes water and his nose sting. Quickly following was the staccato pulsing of gunfire from multiple guns.

"Damn it," Casey cursed under his breath. "We're too late."

Casey moved forward expertly, cautious and quick at the same time, all the while shielding Chuck as they moved. Chuck himself knew how to use a gun, but he hated them. He wasn't here as a soldier, as Casey had explained to his men. Chuck was here as a civilian subject matter expert. Casey was sworn to protect him. He swallowed hard, hoping that he wouldn't have to watch anyone die simply because they were protecting him.

"Too late for what?" Chuck asked.

"Shaw." Casey growled his name like it was an epithet.

Everything Casey had told Chuck about Shaw came rushing back into his mind. His betrayal, going rogue. His alternate agenda and the chance that the missing implant was in his possession.

"Casey, he can't activate the Oracle without the Dial."

Casey reached the bottom of the stairs, carefully scanning the area. He looked quickly around the shelter of the wall, to be rewarded with a spray of bullets that sent a puff of plaster into the air around them.

"There's no proof he has the other implant. Beckman always suspected he figured out another way, using the science, without the apparatus."

"Then who's shooting at us? Isn't your entire team already in the base?" Chuck heard the panic in his own voice, forcing himself to take deeper breaths so he wouldn't hyperventilate.

Chuck watched the line of Casey's jaw set like stone. "That's what I'm afraid of. If Shaw is already gone…then they're trying to destroy the only way we have to follow him. But who is that blindly loyal? Obliterate themselves out of loyalty to one crazy man hell bent on resurrecting his dead wife?"

Chuck felt a gnawing sensation behind his breastbone, a heavy weight of dread washing over him. "Casey, if what you're saying is true…and he's already changed something…we can't go back upstairs!"

In between shots, Casey still argued with Chuck. "What the hell are you talking about, Bartowski?"

Chuck's words rushed out in one long breath. "We're shielded inside the base. In the quantum envelope. Time changes around it. If he's already affected the past and you open that door, you don't know who I am or what I'm doing. You may not even exist!"

"But you will?" Casey countered, bewildered.

"The implant protects me. But there isn't a way to predict what Shaw might have changed if he didn't use the Oracle. I can't predict it."

Comprehension finally dawned on Casey. "So two more seconds and—"

"Right," Chuck said quickly. "We just made it."

"So what happens if he destroys the Oracle?" Casey asked.

Chuck went pale. "We're doomed. You're trapped down here in limbo. The temporal field collapses and my brain stops functioning."

Casey's features set. "Well, then. We have to stop him." He raised his gun and took a deep breath. Casey retrieved the Dial from his pocket and tossed it to Chuck. "You get to the Oracle. I'll cover you. Just run and don't look back."

"Wait a minute, Casey! I can't do this alone!" Instinctively, he reached for Casey's arm, but pulled his hand back at the last second at Casey's glare.

"Yes, you can, Chuck." Casey's tone was new, something Chuck had never heard from the man. Soft with compassion, hushed with awe. Chuck felt the heat under his collar from his embarrassment. Casey's blue eyes held Chuck in his gaze, a silent stare that communicated everything else he couldn't speak. A quick flash, and then it was gone.

"Now, go!" Casey shouted, gesturing with his gun the way he wanted Chuck to move.

Chuck obeyed, ducking and running as fast as his legs would carry him. He made a silent vow that he wouldn't leave Casey or his men behind if there was any way. If there was a way, he would find it.

It took less than ten seconds for Chuck to reach the Oracle, though he felt like he'd aged a lifetime during his mad dash. He weaved a path through heaps of twisted, burnt debris, intermingled with dead bodies strewn across the floor, Casey's unit decimated. Chuck counted 16 men. Sixteen. They had all died protecting the time machine, the last few protecting Chuck as he ran.

He heard gunfire ricocheting all around him, energy bullets whizzing uncomfortably close to his head. The dull, solid gray casing of the Oracle loomed in front of Chuck. It was a giant cylinder, nine feet high and sixteen feet in diameter. The door was camouflaged, almost seamless on the surface. Chuck reached the wall and splayed his palm on the metal.

In the panic to escape, Chuck had almost forgotten to worry about his implant. The moment his hand made contact with the Oracle, the implant in his head, surgically implanted when he was an infant, hummed to life. All of Chuck's life, he had felt the low-level buzzing in the background that he had come to recognize as his implant's infiltration of his nervous system. When he had come here to steal the Dial, he had felt the sensation intensify.

This, however, felt different.

Don't be afraid, son. Never forget how special you are. I gave you the implant because it's designed for you. It won't hurt you.

His father's words echoed in his memory. Once a comfort, the memory has been polluted with bitterness after his father had disappeared. His benign implant, or so his father had promised, had slowly been rerouting his neural network, to the point that his sister, a neurologist, had become terrified of its effects.

Now, that buzzing crackled like a bolt of lightning, sizzling his nerves. He gasped, shocked at the sudden pain. It took a few seconds for him to push through it, to find his equilibrium again. When he thought with deliberation, he realized he had control. The implant was a part of his brain, and it acted like a sixth sense. His temporal sense. Was the pain there because something was wrong? Or was his brain just slow to adjust?

His hand slid over the minute crease and he double tapped. The panel, recessed in the wall, whirred to the surface. Chuck palmed the Dial and set the disks into the perfectly fitted groove. The crystal at the center illuminated, a white beam shooting out to fill the room. It morphed from pure white to the individual colors, as if split with a prism.

Chuck was outside his body, outside his head. Time was standing still, he realized with wonder. Everything around him had gone silent, frozen. The disks under the crystal spun of their own accord, first in synchronous motion, but soon each layer spun on its own, forward and backwards in a complicated rhythm.

The Dial is telling the Oracle to search. Anomalies. Outliers. Aberrations. Let it guide you.

His father's voice. It wasn't a memory; it was the implant in his head, transferring information his father had embedded in it, in his own voice. It brought tears to Chuck's eyes, a tether to the present while the past and future seemed to pull on the fibers of his being, threatening to tear him apart.

Chuck didn't know how he knew, only that he was sure what steps he needed to take. He wrapped his hand around the Dial, the warmth from the crystal so hot it burned his palm. He resisted the urge to scream as reality shedded, scattering. The disks stopped spinning with a series of soft clicks.

Only when they stopped moving did he realize he was on his knees, the pain driving him down. He knew he had absorbed an enormous amount of information—he felt heavier, like it had added weight to his brain. Access to the information was another story. He tried and failed to think back like the information was memory.

It is there when you need it. Trust me, son.

Chuck wanted to, so badly. What he felt was his father's betrayal, his abandonment of both him and his sister, making the idea much more difficult. His heart thawed, just enough after hearing his father's voice, that he felt hope instead of despair. A willingness to keep his heart open, no matter the pain.

The door irised open and Chuck rushed inside.

Every panel on the circular walls lit. Lights of every color flashed in their own rhythm. Chuck had never seen this place before, but it was eerily familiar. As he looked, he knew what each panel was for and how to work it. He knew where to go and what to do.

Thank you, Dad. A thought spoken in his mind, emphatic. Everything he had promised the President about his ability to do this was true. He had trusted his father and his father had come through.

It made everything else he needed to do less fearful.

The console in the middle of the room beckoned. Chuck was drawn to it, moving as if possessed by some other-worldly force. When he was close enough, he saw the indentation that matched his right hand. On the panel in front of him was a digital chronometer. Past, present and future. All were paused. Paused.

Time had ceased moving forward. He had felt it as he'd run. This was proof it was true.

If the chronometer was paused, then Chuck had time to go back for Casey and his team. Whomever was still alive. He had counted 16 dead. Including Casey, there were four more. A pang cut into him as he thought it could have been possible to go back and save the men who'd been killed, when he and Casey had been just moments too late.

It was just too complicated. There was no way to pull selected people out of time. Chuck would have to start time moving forward again, putting everyone back into peril. Including himself.

None of this will have happened if you go back and change it. Small comfort, but all he had.

He closed his eyes, concentrating, and when he opened them once more, the chronometer was ticking forward. The noise of gunfire returned, now muffled through the wall of the Oracle. He ran to the door and crawled out on his hands and knees.

"Casey!" Chuck shouted as loudly as he could, so loud his throat hurt. Chuck looked up quickly, able to see Casey about 30 yards away. Chuck couldn't see his face, but at least he had gotten the colonel's attention. He backed up against the wall and told himself, 15 seconds. He would wait 15 seconds, as long as he dared.

Fortunately, Chuck's warning had been enough. As the seconds wound down, Casey, Larkin, and Barker scrambled towards the door. An injured man was slung over Barker's back.

Chuck stood as they rushed past, helping to pull the injured man inside. Chuck was able to seal the door with a thought.

"Why did you wait, Bartowski?" Casey panted. "We gave you ample time. You jeopardized the entire—"

"Casey, it's alright."

All three men stopped what they were doing and stared. Chuck hadn't realized it before, because he had been alone inside, but his voice was different. Like a vibrating echo. Like he was using a microphone, but he wasn't.

"Jesus Christ…what the hell just happened?" Larkin looked bewildered.

"That felt like I heard your voice…inside my head." Barker looked equally confused.

Could the implant do that? Was he communicating telepathically?

"Turn it off, Bartowski," Casey barked. "Whatever the hell you need to do, get out of my head!"

"Casey, I'm not…I mean…I can't read your mind. I'm…projecting…but not receiving."

"You sound like a goddamn public address system! Fix it!"

Sufficiently chastised, Chuck flushed and concentrated. "Is this better?"

He sounded normal again.

"Much. Don't do it again."

"I didn't…I…" Chuck stopped stammering when he noticed everyone's attention was focused on the injured man.

Barker pulled open the man's uniform to reveal an open wound. He was bleeding, but the hole was closer to his shoulder. A non-lethal shot. "I need the medkit." Larkin shrugged his pack off his shoulders and dug inside once he unzipped it.

"Captain Noble?" Chuck asked with a sinking feeling.

Casey shook his head, a brief, choppy movement. His face was grim. "The five of us…we're all that's left. Larkin, Barker, and Sargeant Gale, and us."

"It's alright, Aaron," Barker spoke softly to the injured man as Larkin ran the dermal regenerator over the wound, slowly closing the hole.

"Get us out of here now. Those men did not die for nothing, do you hear me?"

Chuck heard the anger flare in Casey's voice, a thin mask that disguised his deeper emotions.

Chuck walked purposefully towards the center console. He took a deep breath and pressed his hand into the hand-shaped depression.

The instant he acted, a thin metal tube snaked out from the side of the console. On the end was a needle. Chuck, terrified of needles, almost recoiled. He forced his hand to stay, even as the terror gripped him. He grunted as the needle pierced his skin, penetrating deep behind his right eye.

Amazingly, after the stinging subsided, he felt no more pain. He couldn't even feel his own body any longer.

A black void, filled only with the sound of his heartbeat. His heartbeat…and another presence.

Welcome, Charles. I am TOMI.

Time Oracle Manifestation Interface. His father's acronym for his AI.

Prepare for time relocation.

His world blinked off as reality dissolved.