Chapter Text
Bryce
September
The first time, it’s hard to say goodbye.
Bryce Larkin leapt off the roof of the facility, landing hard on the parking lot in the back of the building. The twinge he felt in his knees didn’t matter. He had succeeded.
A shot rang out and Bryce was breathless, back flat to the black tarmac. Only meters away from him stood John Casey, an avenging angel in a criminally cheap suit. He took a breath, heart thumping in time to the shrill call of the burglar alarm, vision dancing at the glaring assault that was the industrial floodlights.
Casey strode closer, his dark silhouette cutting through the burn like an eclipse, a vindictive moon no more friendly than the sun he covered.
He walked leisurely, every step purpose-driven. Now that his prey was caught, one bullet to the chest, he wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon.
When he arrived at his target, Casey pivoted towards the agent’s hand which was slowly but surely inching towards his recently relinquished pager, the device had fallen out of Bryce’s hand when he was struck down, and it laid just out of his grasp.
Slowly, deliberately, Casey stepped forwards towards Bryce’s outstretched palm and a cold rush of desperation roared through his stuttering thoughts, flint colored eyes flashing as he struggled to move, grasping for the salvation he knew lay inches away.
The dark figure loomed overhead, and his- most likely faux- black Oxfords cut through the air with a snap, crushing Bryce’s hand under his foot. The bones crunched easily, as if they belonged to a baby bird not the hardened agent that Bryce Larkin knew himself to be.
“Don’t move” Casey said, pulling back and cocking his standard service issue pistol, aiming it point blank at Bryce’s heaving chest.
“Too late, Casey,” Bryce gasped, “It’s gone.” Despite the overbearing torment that ripped through his system, the agent smiled up at Casey, all teeth.
Casey’s eyes widened minutely at his declaration and that was when Bryce knew Casey would do it.
Or maybe they didn't and Bryce was doomed. It was getting increasingly hard to see with the obscenely bright gleam of the searchlights blazing behind Casey’s face which was almost fully obscured by the subsequent shadows.
It was a shame that Casey’s ugly mug blocked Bryce’s view of the night sky, if he was going to die, he would much rather have something less troll-like to stare at as the life flowed out of him in pints onto the tarmac.
Maybe Chuck. His face was pretty nice to look at. Like a treasure that would have been guarded by the terrible troll from Zork.
It had been too long since Bryce had laid eyes on his best friend, and he missed those doe eyes, the complete and unguarded admiration that used to ooze out of them when he caught Bryce’s eye during one of their library shootouts.
He knew, though, that the same chocolate colored admiration would never be found in those eyes again. But for a moment, Bryce wished that it would, and that golden daydream tugged on his lips until the bare trace of a grin spread across his pale lips.
Casey pulled the trigger.
It was black, at first, but then the black began to split, and his world became a grid, micro sized glowing lines spreading across the void for as far as Bryce could see, scoring his vision like a graph.
Slowly the grid began to flicker. Expand.
Light began to flood in and the grid encroached upon him, growing larger and larger, the miniature tiles expanding to life-size photographs, spilling around the abyss in perfectly square fragments.
Sharper, closer, dangerous.
Larger. Rushing towards him.
Instinctively, Bryce flung up his hands, but no limbs responded to his plea and the images ingrained themselves into his subconscious, burning onto his mind like his nervous system was an old television screen, left on pause for a moment too long.
a flight
, forcibly-
- her mother
silver catering tray
crashing
arms
bodies being flung out the gaping wound in the
little girl
Chuck.
, blood and flame
a bomb in a
belly of the aircraft
wires snapping and contorting around the
legs
, blood and flame
a red table cloth, charred beyond
ripped
mahogany table
c4.
enough to
a speech
government
- recognition
neutralize
greengreen
- lettering stitched onto
uniform.
a name, blocky-
the
tag,
stanfield.
Bryce’s eyes flew open to rain, the droplets splashing in the rusty puddles that surrounded him, painting themselves and his white sleeves in a light pink hue.
He didn’t have the strength to scream.
He went under again.
—
Bryce
December
Bryce awoke in a tube, his chest spasming as he coughed up a fine mist into the face of the scarred man leering over his prone form.
“Where is it?” He growled, brandishing a silver knife at Bryce’s jugular. “What did you do with the Intersect?”
Bryce stayed silent, staring as hard as he could at the man, willing the technology to activate. It had to have worked or… Bryce wouldn’t consider any other option, it had to be gone. It had to.
“Is it in you?” The man whispered, trailing the knife over his chest, the sharpness sparing him from the pain of the cut only until the stinging slice of oxygen glanced over the now reopened wound at the center of his toned chest.
“I could cut it out of you, maybe, save you the pain, yes?”
Reopened.
Bryce smiled.
“Where is it?” The man shouted, the insubordinate grin that danced across Bryce’s features igniting a new fervor in him.
Bryce smiled wider, opening his mouth to tell the man of his Coup de Grace.
“I destroyed it. Or really, a friend did. I’ll have to thank him for that some day.”
The man’s eyes flashed angrily as he finally grasped the situation. The con. He struck out then, moving with all the grace of a bull in the plate ware section of a Williams Sonoma and plunged the knife deep into the soft flesh below him.
The man had believed, correctly, that Bryce Larkin had stolen the Intersect. He believed, again correctly, that Bryce Larkin had died at the facility where he had stolen it. He believed that the Intersect had survived the three and a half minutes of total organ shutdown that Bryce Larkin had endured before his revival in the stasis chamber.
But it had not. The lack of blood flow and oxygen had suffocated the supercomputer, euthanizing it in its infancy, taking millions of encrypted files with it.
Bryce had never been so happy to take a bullet to the aorta.
Concurrently, Bryce would have been happier if he had walked out of the Ring’s warehouse, whole and hale.
The agent ripped the knife from Bryce’s abdomen, sending a sharp shock through his sluggish, barely reawakened nerves. His brain, unable to comprehend the massive trauma, blacked out.
Maybe he screamed then. If he did, it wasn’t by choice.
“It’s gone, I destroyed it.” Bryce smiled again, relief rushing over him despite the glaring issue in his midsection because he knew it was true now.
Casey had delivered the kill shot, eliminating Bryce and totally destroying the Intersect in a way no virus or any other string of code ever could. He was free. Chuck was still safe, just like he had promised Orion.
The man sighed and dropped Bryce’s head back, releasing his grasp on the agent’s dark hair angrily.
“Come.” He said, ripping the power core from the chamber and tossing it to the burly soldier who had accompanied him. “Let him rot.”
The door to the warehouse snapped shut behind them. To Bryce, the blood staining his teeth tasted like freedom and the metallic ringing of his ears were the sound of heaven’s bells.
Gritting his teeth, Bryce pulled himself out of the chamber and strode across the vast, dark, space. The snow that had infiltrated the building during the Ring agent’s exit didn’t bode well for his survival but, historically, Bryce survived anyway. He hadn’t earned the favor of General Beckman by being an easy target.
His eyes caught the padlock on the door.
Master Lock 3.
Bryce Larkin was free at last.
–
Chuck
September
Chuck Bartowski blinked his eyes open to a brown and green blob that’s– no, that wasn’t right – who’s garbled features twisted on the vaguely tan colored maybe-head as his focus blurred in and out.
“Dude?” The figure asked, their voice a distorted and unnatural baritone that Chuck just knew didn’t fit the creature above him. Though he was unsure exactly how he knew.
“Chuck?” the voice said and – hey wait, it knew his name?
Maybe it was some Professor X type mutant or an evil Vulcan, who had stolen his memories in some sort of mind meld late the night before. Maybe while he was isolated, hiding from the frightening mob of ex-sorority girls that had descended on the complex’s courtyard, a betrayal orchestrated by his own sister at his own twenty-sixth birthday party.
Oh God, maybe if it had already taken his memories, the early morning visit was to steal his face too.
A bona fide Texas Chainsaw Massacre style identity theft in his own shitty Burbank apartment, his old nightmare of Leatherface leaping out of his and Bryce’s shared custody VCR from Stanford finally coming true years later.
Or not, seeing that as his vision cleared, it became apparent that it was Morgan’s scruffy face that invaded Chuck’s vision. The kelly green Buy More polo he wore that smelled like it hadn’t been washed since last week’s laundry cycle only confirmed his suspicions.
“Morgan?” Chuck asked anyway, pushing himself up with shaky limbs that felt more like overcooked noodles than arms.
“Yeah, man it’s me.” Morgan said, quickly moving upwards and away from Chuck’s temporary residence on the floor. To his eternal relief, Morgan then offered Chuck his hand, which he gladly took, pulling himself from the carpet on which he had apparently spent the previous night.
“What happened?” Chuck asked, rubbing his face vigorously with both hands and then scanning the area with his still hazy eyes.
“I dunno man, I was hoping you could tell me.” Morgan replied, craning his head to arch over Chuck’s shoulder in order to catch a glimpse of anything amiss, just as Chuck had been doing.
Chuck groaned, digging the heels of his palms once more into his eye sockets, causing white clusters of stars to flash as he tried to get the throbbing behind his temples to abate.
He started to sway again, and the stars blazed across his vision even as he forced his eyelids open once more, their white flashes an unwelcome addition to his current predicament.
“Woah, you okay?” Morgan asked, reaching out to rest a hand on Chuck’s shoulder, helping to ground him.
“Did you spike the punch again?” Chuck mumbled into his hands, too miserable to move but too nauseous to even try sitting down again.
“Geez, something goes wrong, you blame me,” Morgan said, his tone light as he nudged his friend’s shoulder, “All these years, where’s the trust?”
He smacked Chuck’s shoulder harder, an apology of sorts, in Morganese. “Yes I did.”
He flashed a grin over his shoulder at Chuck, who was staring at him through interlaced fingers. “Now c’mon man, you know Big Mike hates it when the captain of the Nerd Herd isn’t there to steer that baby to sales victory.”
He glared balefully at Morgan, though they both knew there was no real heat behind his stare.
“Please, Chuck, you don’t even have to get dressed. I won’t tell anyone you slept in that as long as you drive me.”
Chuck lifted his head, a horrendous idea on his part, but one that validated Morgan’s claim. He was, in fact, still in his Nerd Herd uniform. The Dollar Store tie was crumpled and creased with the off white dress shirt and black work slacks not much better off.
“What happened to your car?” Chuck asked, playing along with Morgan’s game even though Chuck already knew he was in very real danger of killing a pedestrian on a crosswalk in seconds if he drove in his current state.
“I’ll play Call of Duty with you all night tonight if you let me.” Morgan said, deflecting the question aimed at him as he wiggled his already taped fingers.
Chuck knew it was probably just because he didn’t have the funds for a car. But he knew Morgan didn’t like to be alone and driving was just further isolation.
Chuck was already regretting his decision to drink so much at his party as he shrugged and replied, “Done.”
“You serious?” Morgan exclaimed gleefully, jittering in place like an epileptic mutt.
“It’s just a company car, Morgan.” Chuck said, trying fruitlessly to iron his only tie with his bare hands. Giving up on the endeavor for the time being, he snatched the keys, his Herd badge, and Morgan’s lanyard from his dresser and folded the keys to the Nerd Herder into the green and yellow Buy More lanyard.
“It’s not that big a deal.” Chuck smiled as he crossed the room and pressed the keys into Morgan’s shaking palm.
Morgan looked as if someone had told him he was getting free Adderall for life.
“A hoopty’s a hoopty home boy!” Morgan giggled, closing his fingers around the red and white Toyota Yaris’s keys. “That baby’s sitting on chrome.”
Chuck decided not to tell him that the rims were one-hundred percent plastic, spray painted silver on the production line as he followed Morgan out the door, grinning at his friend’s excitement.
And also dreading the ten new dents and shiny new ticket he was sure to acquire on the 10 minute road trip to Buy More.
When Chuck finally walked through the doors, ticket free, his hangover had almost fully cleared. Mostly due to the frantic shouting he engaged in during Morgan’s morning excursion.
Morgan trailblazed off in front of him in search of Burbank’s plentiful ‘hot babes’ who were soon to populate the store’s floors, and to clock both of them in at Big Mike’s desk.
It occurred to Chuck then, as he was booting up the computers that hid just below the gray lip of the Nerd Herd counter that Bryce hadn’t emailed him for his birthday.
Their contact was few and far between, the betrayal still stinging fresh for Chuck every time Bryce’s hypnotic gaze came to mind. But Bryce always emailed for important things. Even if Chuck never responded.
The loss of that thread felt more damning than the first lie that Bryce had implicated him in all those years ago.
Blinking out of his trance, Chuck caught a glimpse of an unfairly handsome man fawning over a display laptop. He tapped on the keys idly and pressed enter, grinning at the results he found.
Until he jumped back in shock as smoke began to escape from its overworked processors as the speakers spit out “ Food is sexy? Am I sexy? Am I... sexy…”
Right.
Irene Demova.
Chuck went through the motions.
–