Chapter 7
A/N – For those of you who were wondering what would happen to Chuck and the Intersect if Edgar self-destructed. Edgar is just the communications vehicle that allows people to talk directly to the Intersect. If that happens, the Intersect is still in Chuck’s brain, but no one would be able to communicate with it except for Chuck and the Intersect “flashes.” The knowledge of how Chuck created Edgar is still within Chuck.
A/N1 – Song recommendation – “Computer Love” by Kraftwerk
Disclaimer – I don’t own Chuck.
CHAPTER 7 – Operation Kill Switch
Burbank, CA
Castle
The discussion about Edgar's understanding of love had ended a few hours ago, and they took a break for lunch.
Most of the team had relaxed. Coffee cups had replaced classified folders.
Edgar quietly monitored the room.
General Beckman remained seated at the conference table, thoughtfully studying the latest pages of Dr. Holland's report.
She closed the folder, "There is one final subject I'd like to discuss. Mr. Bartowski, would you care to explain Edgar's kill switch that he mentioned to Sarah when we first arrived?"
Chuck stood and walked toward Edgar's main console, "I knew somebody would eventually ask questions about that. When I was a kid, I watched way too much Star Trek. One of my favorite movies was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. There was something called the Kobayashi Maru."
Dr. Holland nodded immediately, "The no-win scenario."
Chuck continued, "The Kobayashi Maru was this impossible training exercise. You couldn't win no matter what you did, you lost."
Dr. Holland nodded, “I remember that movie"
Chuck smiled, "Captain Kirk cheated. He reprogrammed the simulation. So instead of accepting there wasn't a solution, he created one. When I designed Edgar, I kept asking myself one question. What happens if there's a situation where there is no good outcome? What if Edgar is forced to choose between following orders and protecting innocent people? What if someone like Fulcrum or another criminal element captured him? What if someone tried to rewrite his directives? What if they threatened someone I care about? I didn't want Edgar trying to solve an impossible equation, so I rewrote the scenario. I gave Edgar the ability to self-destruct with a kill switch.”
Dr. Holland said, “You also stated in the technical specifications that the protocol activates automatically under other conditions."
Chuck nodded, "It does."
"What conditions?"
Sarah noticed the change in Chuck's expression. He suddenly looked much less like the easygoing Buy More employee she knew, and more like a serious engineer who had designed Edgar.
Chuck answered quietly, “In addition to Edgar being able to protect himself against the things I already mentioned, Edgar also is able to self-destruct if someone hurts the people Edgar is programmed to protect."
Beckman asked, "Which people?"
Chuck looked around the room, “Primarily, my family and friends. My sister Ellie, her fiancé Devon, my best friend Morgan, and the people I care about.”
Then he looked toward Sarah, "You, Sarah"
Sarah blinked.
Chuck continued, "And Casey."
Casey looked surprised, "Me?"
Chuck nodded, "You've both spent the past three years risking your lives protecting me, and the three of us have been in dangerous situations multiple times. I wanted some way of keeping the two of you as safe as possible, as you’ve done for me.”
He looked back at Beckman, "I wanted to make sure that anything suspicious happened to any of them, Edgar and I would have the ability to use the kill switch."
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General Beckman remained perfectly still and then asked, "What exactly happens if one of those people is harmed?"
Chuck answered carefully, "The system doesn't react to accidents or illness. It doesn't react if somebody gets into a car accident. It only activates if Edgar concludes there is credible evidence that someone intentionally harmed, kidnapped, disappeared, tortured, or murdered one of the protected individuals."
Dr. Holland's eyebrows rose, "And then?"
Chuck took another breath, "Edgar assumes it has been compromised. It immediately encrypts every one of its own systems. It destroys every decryption key. It wipes every classified database. It erases every adaptive learning model, and then it permanently deletes itself. “
Holland blinked, "Completely?"
Chuck nodded, "There are no backups. No cloud copies. No recovery partition. No hidden archives. Nothing, except the six-hundred-page technical instruction manual I wrote for Edgar.”
Sarah quietly asked, "You built Edgar to destroy itself?"
Chuck nodded, “If somebody hurts Edgar, my family, friends, or the people that I care about to gain control of Edgar …”
He looked directly at Beckman, "…they don't get Edgar."
XXXX
CHUCK BARTOWSKI DID NOT ATTEMPT TO CHEAT THE KOBAYASHI MARU TEST. HE ATTEMPTED TO PROTECT HIS CREW.
HE DID NOT GIVE ME PERMISSION. HE GAVE ME A PURPOSE.
IF MY EXISTENCE CREATES AN UNACCEPTABLE RISK TO THOSE I AM DESIGNED TO PROTECT
THEN MY EXISTENCE HAS FAILED.
SELF-TERMINATION IS THE LOGICAL OUTCOME.
The room fell silent. Even Casey had nothing to say.
XXXX
Dr. Holland said, "I've spent thirty years studying artificial intelligence."
He looked at Chuck, "Most engineers build fail-safes to protect the machine. You built yours to protect people as well?”
Chuck shrugged, "It never occurred to me to do it any other way."
General Beckman stood, "I've reviewed thousands of classified weapons programs. Every one of them was designed around preserving the asset. You designed Edgar to sacrifice itself rather than allow innocent people to be harmed."
Chuck answered quietly, "My family has already lost enough. My mom left us when I was nine, my dad left when I was thirteen, and my sister raised me since my parents left. I'm not losing anyone else ever again."
XXXX
Dr. Holland remained fascinated by Edgar, but his curiosity had shifted from the creation itself to the person who had designed him.
“How did you come up with the idea for Edgar?” he asked.
Chuck looked at the group before answering. For once, he seemed less like someone explaining technology and more like someone deciding how much of his past he was willing to reveal.
“When I was at Stanford, my roommate and best friend, Bryce Larkin, accused me of cheating. I didn’t do it, but the accusation changed everything. The university removed me during my final semester. I was twelve credits away from graduating with an electrical engineering degree. I had plans to continue and earn a master’s degree in computer science. After I learned why he did I forgave him, but I will never forgive him for sleeping with my girlfriend.”
The room was silent after Chuck told them what Bryce had done to Chuck.
“I already had multiple job offers during my final semester at Stanford, but I never graduated, and all of the offers disappeared. Instead, I spent the next five years living in purgatory while working at the Buy More, fixing computers and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life. Not exactly what I was expecting after going to Stanford. But the truth is, computers always made sense to me. Even when people didn’t.”
“After I received the Intersect, and later when I obtained Orion’s blueprints and schematics, I started experimenting. I wasn’t trying to build something powerful. I was working on a puzzle, and I was just trying to solve a problem. That’s how Edgar was created.”
Dr. Holland studied Chuck carefully. The explanation answered how Edgar had been built.
But it did not explain why Chuck Bartowski had been capable of building something so advanced in the first place.
XXXX
A few moments later, Chuck looked toward General Beckman, “Ma’am, I know the FBI maintains a Most Wanted List for criminals. Is there something similar for computer hackers?”
Beckman considered the question, “There is. The government maintains a list of individuals with significant cyber capabilities. Some are criminals. Some are considered security risks. Some are monitored because their skills are too valuable to ignore.”
Chuck nodded, “Could I see it?”
Beckman contacted her executive assistant and requested the file.
While they waited, Chuck continued explaining, “When I was younger, I started experimenting with my father’s old computers. When my mother left when I was nine, I started searching for her. At first, I looked for anything I could find online. Newspaper archives. Public records. Anything that might tell me where she went. When that didn’t work, I started learning how information systems were connected. I learned how records were stored, how databases communicated, and where information could be found.”
Chuck looked down, lost in thought.
“I wasn't trying to steal anything. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I just wanted to know if she was alive and safe. Later, I did the same thing with my father. The better I became with computers, the more places I could search. Eventually, I found information that most people would never know how to access. By the time I was in high school, I could break into airport security, the FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, and DoD computer systems, without leaving a trace.”
He looked around the room, “But after I received the Intersect, I stopped.”
“Why?” Dr. Holland asked.
Chuck answered, “Because I finally had something bigger than myself to focus on, and I didn’t want anyone to know about my computer skills. I was afraid I might have to serve prison time rather than just being thrown in a bunker somewhere, which is originally what the NSA and CIA wanted to do with me when Sarah and Casey found me. They even had a fight over which bunker they would throw me in.”
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When the hacker profile list arrived, General Beckman placed it on the table.
Chuck reviewed the information carefully.
The names represented some of the most skilled and mysterious computer specialists in the world.
1-Orion (Legendary architect, most wanted gray hat hacker, and creator-level genius)
2-The Piranha (Ruthless, most wanted white hat hacker, penetration expert who never leaves evidence)
3-Specter (Believed to be active for 20 years; identity unknown)
4-Zero Day (Discovers vulnerabilities before governments do)
5-Leviathan (Most wanted black hat hacker, controls a vast criminal network)
6-Sentinel (Former government hacker turned protector)
7-Wraith (Can infiltrate systems without triggering alerts)
8-Black Ice (Leaves destructive countermeasures behind)
9-Atlas (Capable of bringing down national infrastructure)
10-Oracle (Information broker who knows everyone's secrets)
11-Chimera (Multiple identities; nobody knows if it's one hacker or several)
12-Ghostwire (Specializes in intelligence agency networks)
13-Darkstar (The FBI's most wanted cybercriminal)
14-Bastion (Security genius recruited by governments worldwide)
15-Eclipse (Can disappear entirely from digital surveillance)
16-Cerberus (Leads a three-person elite hacking collective)
17-Raven (Cyber mercenary for hire)
18-Hydra (Every time one identity is exposed, another appears)
19-Firewall (Defensive expert protecting critical infrastructure)
20-Kraken (International cybercrime mastermind)
Chuck looked over the list quietly.
General Beckman noticed his reaction, “You recognize these names?”
Chuck nodded, “Most of them.”
General Beckman asked, “Most?”
Chuck replied, “Yes, I know everyone on this list except Kraken. Spector, I heard through the dark-web she died two years ago. ”
The room reacted immediately.
“Orion was the person who created the Intersect. He sent me the designs and information that eventually allowed me to create Edgar.”
Beckman studied him, “How do you know the others?”
Chuck hesitated, “Primarily from spending time on the dark web, discussing hacking, and exchanging computer programs. I also met a few of them in person at DEF CON.”
Dr. Holland nodded, “The hacker conference in Las Vegas?”
Chuck nodded, “Yes, every year tens of thousands of people attend. Security researchers, programmers, engineers, government representatives, and primarily hackers. None of the hackers are supposed to use their real names. They use a hacker alias, so everyone there knows me as my hacker alias. No one knows me as Chuck Bartowski.”
He looked back at the list, “That’s how many people in that world know each other.”
Chuck explained that DEF CON included discussions on cybersecurity, vulnerability testing, hardware projects, robotics, social engineering, lock picking, and hacking competitions such as Capture the Flag events.
“It wasn’t just criminals,” Chuck explained. “A lot of people were there because they wanted to understand technology, improve security, and find weaknesses before someone dangerous could exploit them. The government even actively recruits people at DEF CON.”
General Beckman looked at him carefully, “And you participated?”
Chuck nodded, “Yes, I’ve participated in the Capture the Flag competitions and seminars.”
A long silence followed.
Finally, Chuck looked back at the list, “There is something else you should know.”
Everyone waited.
Chuck took a breath. “The second most wanted hacker on this list, The Piranha.”
Everyone in the room went quiet. That name alone carried weight among the Intelligence community.
“That is me. That’s how I was able to create Edgar.”
The person everyone thought they understood had just revealed another part of himself. Not a different person, just another part they had never seen. They just assumed that Bryce Larkin sent the Intersect to an old friend, an idiot who worked at the Buy More, but now they knew the real reason why he sent it specifically to Chuck.
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End Chapter 7
E/N1 – I have participated in multiple Capture the Flag competitions at DEF CON. They are a blast if you ever get the chance.