10:02 P.M. (Eastern)
July 12th, 2018
office of Bryce Larkin
Deputy Director (Operations), Central Intelligence Agency
“I don’t know where they are,” Bryce admitted.
“How can you not know where they are?” came Chuck’s voice from the other side of the country. “The CIA has technology that can track an ant in
“Chuck, listen to me,” Bryce said. “Whoever has them has erected some sort of electronic field around them that has blocked their ID transmitters. They could’ve gone any way after they landed in
“That’s great, Bryce, really it is,” Chuck replied sarcastically. “How many billions of taxpayers dollars go into intelligence technology each year, and somebody is able to befuddle ALL of it with an electric generator.”
“Well, guess what, being an ass about it isn’t helping,” Bryce snapped, his ire rising. “We’re busting our asses out here trying to figure out what happened. What the hell are you doing? Sitting on your couch in your mansion by the sea?”
“If you really want to know, Morgan and I have been reviewing surveillance video from the shops on
“Oh, you name the time and place,” Bryce growled, rising to his feet. “I’ll meet you there, Chuckles.”
There was a brief scuffle in the background, and then John Casey’s voice came on the phone. “Hey Beavis,” he said, “you and Butthead aren’t solving anything here. Why don’t you try being civ –“
His voice cut off. “What is it?” Bryce asked.
“We may have a situation here.”
Ten hours earlier
9:07 A.M. (Pacific)
The women had all left for their all-day shopping spree on Rodeo.
The kids had been herded off with Devin's mother for the day. She was somewhat surprised to see little Chuck. "And he is?" she asked.
"He's my son," Chuck said.
"Excuse me?" Devin's mother asked.
"He didn't know about me until a few days ago," little Chuck chimed in.
Devin's mother gave Chuck a dirty look and muttered something as she walked off that Chuck couldn't quite understand but thought sounded like Goddamn CIA.
And so, the guys were left at the mansion.
Chuck, Morgan, Jayne, Mal, Simon, and Devin all sat around the living room. “So,” Chuck said.
“Yep,” Mal said.
Then it was quiet again. It went on like this for nearly thirty minutes.
Finally, Morgan got up. “That’s it,” he said. “I can’t take this anymore. It’s time for some man stuff.”
Jayne gave him a look. “The hell does that mean?”
“It means I’m going to go get Rambo and put it on the TV,” Morgan said.
An hour later, they all watched, captivated, as Sylvester Stallone single-handedly fought his way through the
“That… that is incredible,” Mal gasped as John Rambo blew away another bad guy with his gun. “I’ve never seen a screen with picture quality like that.”
Chuck looked at him. “You’re kidding,” he said. “Five hundred years in the future and you guys don’t have anything like this?”
“No,” Mal said. “Well, we didn’t on any of the Independent worlds, and we sure didn’t on Serenity.”
Then chatter ceased, and it was quiet until almost the end of the movie, when –
“Aw, what the hell, guys,” they heard John Casey say behind them. “You went and watched Rambo and didn’t invite me?”
“Didn’t know you wanted to watch it, Casey,” Chuck replied. “Besides, you don’t seem much one for male bonding.”
“Hell, I would’ve brought the beer, Chuck.”
“Casey. It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. Don’t you think that’s a little early for beer?” Chuck asked.
“Nah,” Casey said. “Never too early for beer.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered anyway,” Devin stated, leaning forward. “Ellie’s banned alcohol from passing Chuck’s lips.”
“What?” Casey asked. “Are you kidding?”
“I apparently have high blood pressure,” Chuck said disgustedly. “I can’t have caffeine, can’t have any soda, can’t have alcohol, can’t even have apple juice or orange juice after a certain time of night, because it apparently increases acid production in my stomach, which in turn causes me stomach pain, which in turn causes my blood pressure to rise.”
“That all sounds about right,” Simon said.
Chuck turned, looked at Simon, and shook his head. “Simon,” he replied, “I have a sister who is a doctor, and a brother-in-law who is a doctor. The last thing I need is a time-traveling space pirate telling me about my high blood pressure as well.”
“That’s Dr. Space Pirate to you,” Simon snarked.
“Well… anybody up for a game of basketball?” Casey asked. There was a full court behind the house.
“Can’t,” Devin said. “Michael tossed the last basketball over the fence and into the ocean a week ago. It’s probably somewhere in
The credits for Ramborolled as they talked. “So what else is there to do, then?” Casey wanted to know.
Morgan stood up in front of the television. “How good are you guys with guns?”
And so it was that ten minutes later, all seven men had on virtual reality helmets and gloves, hooked into Devin’s X-Box. Halo 4 was the game of the hour, and though Mal and Jayne caught on quickly, Simon was really struggling with the game. Everybody else was making up for him, though, and they were kicking ass and taking names, when the game went dark.
“Incoming emergency call,” was the message that popped on the screen. Chuck ripped his helmet off, and everybody else slowly followed suit.
“Answer,” Chuck said.
The image of Bryce Larkin popped onto the screen. “Bryce, what’s go-“
“Peregrine is Condition Black,” Bryce said. “I need you in a bunker. Right now.”
“What?!” Chuck replied.
“GO!”
“Let’s go!” Casey shouted. “Everybody follow me!”
Barging into the kitchen, he opened the door to the cellar. Chuck brought up the rear as the procession filed down the stairs.
Casey entered a seven digit code on a keypad next to a reinforced door in the wall. It swung open to reveal a fairly high-tech bunker. Supposedly, it was breach-proof, bomb-proof, gas-proof, and nuclear hardened. “Everybody in!”
Chuck tried to fire up the computer system. It came up – and then went right back down. “Oh, no, no, no,” he said. “Not now!”
He tried unsuccessfully several more times. “Shit!”
Crawling underneath a console, he pulled off a panel and ripped two very thick cables from their sockets. Looking at them, he closed his eyes and breathed, “God help me.”
He jammed the two cables together, there was a loud pop – and the computer system started to spool up.
Chuck crawled out from under the console with his hair standing on end. “Just a note,” he said, “don’t do that.”
He collapsed into a chair. “Chuck? You alright?” Devin asked.
Chuck just blew out his breath and shook his head.
Devin took Chuck’s pulse quickly, then checked it again at his carotid artery. “Okay, crap,” he said. “Morgan, open up that first aid kit over there, get me two aspirin.”
“Aspirin?” Simon said. “Is he having a cardiac episode?”
“Pretty damn close,” Devin replied. “His heart is racing, and we need to get it calmed down.”
Chuck dry swallowed the two aspirin. “I want you to just sit there,” Devin said. “Don’t move. Don’t talk, don’t do anything, until your heart rate is back down to normal.”
The seven men sat in the bunker for fifty minutes, Chuck doing nothing but taking regular deep breaths, before something happened. At 1:22 P.M., the phone rang.
Casey picked it up. “This is Casey. Yeah.”
He pushed a button, and set the cradle down. “Okay, so here’s the situation,” Bryce’s voice poured into the room.
“At 12:25 P.M. Pacific time, two Blackhawk helicopters landed at either end of the
“Sarah called in a Condition Black almost immediately. However, her protective detail was taken out within seconds, and the panic and confusion caused in the general public led to the capture of Sarah, Ellie, Zoe, Kaylee, and River within two minutes.
“They were loaded onto the helicopters, which then took off and flew low over the city, using ground clutter to keep radar from tracking them.
“We were finally able to get satellite imagery on them, and we tracked the two helicopters to
“So, you’ve got a team ready to go in there, right?” Chuck asked, the first words he’d spoken in nearly an hour.
“No,” Bryce replied. “San Bernardino Sheriff’s SWAT went in. The hangar was completely empty except for the two Blackhawks.”
“That’s impossible,” Morgan replied. “They couldn’t have just disappeared.”
“That’s all I know right now,” Bryce said. “Stay in the bunker. I’ll keep you posted.”
7:02 P.M. (Pacific)
“Here’s the deal, Chuck,” Bryce said. “We don’t know where they are. I don’t know where they are.”
“How can you not know where they are?” Chuck exclaimed, pacing the room as Devin and Simon watched him worriedly. “The CIA has technology that can track an ant in
“Chuck listen to me,” Bryce replied. “Whoever has them has erected some sort of electronic field around them that has blocked their ID transmitters. They could’ve gone any way after they landed in
“That’s great, Bryce, really it is,” Chuck said with a sarcastic tone, the color rising in his face. “How many billions of taxpayers dollars go into intelligence technology each year, and somebody is able to befuddle ALL of it with an electric generator.”
“Well, guess what, being an ass about it isn’t helping,” Bryce snapped back. “We’re busting our asses out here trying to figure out what happened. What the hell are you doing? Sitting on your couch in your mansion by the sea?”
“If you really want to know, Morgan and I have been reviewing surveillance video from the shops on
“Oh, you name the time and place,” Chuck heard Bryce growl. “I’ll meet you there, Chuckles.”
At that moment, Casey grabbed Chuck by the scruff of his neck, removed the phone from his hand, and forcibly planted Chuck into a chair. “Hey Beavis,” he said, “you and Butthead aren’t solving anything here. Why don’t you try being civ –“
Casey looked at Chuck. Chuck’s face was bright red, and he looked like he was having trouble breathing. His eyes were wide with fear, and he had a white-knuckle grip on the armrests of his chair.
“We may have a situation here,” Casey said, hanging up the phone.
Devin and Simon practically crashed into the wall getting to Chuck. “I think he’s going into cardiac arrest,” Devin said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Simon, get the first aid kit.”
“Def… def… defi…” Chuck gasped.
“Defibrillator?” Devin asked anxiously.
Chuck nodded, and weakly lifted his right arm, pointing to the cabinet by the door.
Simon returned to Chuck’s side with the first aid kit as Mal crossed to the cabinet to retrieve the defibrillator. He put two more aspirin into Chuck’s mouth, and Chuck struggled to swallow them.
Mal set the defibrillator down by Devin’s side, and he opened it up. Hitting the switch, he said, “Charging 20. Clear?”
Simon backed away from Chuck, and just as Devin was about to place the tiny paddles to Chuck’s chest, Morgan started yelling. “Hey hey hey! You can’t shock him while his heart’s still beating, can you?!”
Devin ignored him and pressed the paddles to Chuck’s heart. There was a zap, and Chuck went still. His breathing returned to if not a normal rate, then a less frantic one. Very slowly, his face began to return to its normal color.
“Defib’s not for a stopped heart, Morgan,” Devin explained as he put the defibrillator back in its case. “It’s for a heart that’s beating irregularly. The electricity momentarily stops the heart, causing the nervous function in the cardiac muscles to reset and go back to a normal rhythm.”
“Oh,” Morgan said quietly. “I never knew that.”
“Yeah, well, we need to get Chuck to a hospital, like post fucking haste, or his life is going to be anything but awesome,” Devin replied.
Everybody turned to look at Casey. “Wonderful,” he breathed.
Picking up the phone, Casey dialed Bryce. “Yeah, listen, we need to get Chuck to a hospital,” he said.
“He’s had a heart attack.”
