"Chuck"

If one could try staring at Charles Irving Bartowski aka Chuck, The twenty three year old lanky brown haired Stanford dropout, they wouldn't find anything interesting about him. And he didn't blame people for that. He knew what he was.

Ridiculously average

"Chuck, Pay attention."

He really felt like he could use some sleep but the workload kept piling up and so far Buy More seemed the only place which seemed interested in hiring someone branded as a "cheater". Even though it was his room mate slash best friend aka the douche bag Bryce who put those papers under his bed. As if that wasn't enough instead of comforting him or offering him some sort of "I believe in you" his girlfriend whom he was planning to marry some day (Though now that he thought about, may be it felt a bit rushed.) started sleeping with Bryce right away. What a fantastic way to add insult to the injury. He had no option to work extra hours because he couldn't afford disappointing that Manager guy.

"Chuck!"

The woman in front of him literally yelled in his face, jolting the young man almost off his desk and if he didn't manage to grab the edge of the table in time, on the floor. He let out a sigh as he found himself facing a exasperated glare from his newly appointed assistant manager Understandable, he was actually trying catch a bit of power nap after dealing with dozen of broken computers.

All he could offer was an apologetic look. No excuses. He literally ran out of everyone he had. "Sorry, Hannah."

And he was. Most guys at the Buy More would have been chomping at the bit and couldn't have even dreamed about falling asleep if they had the chance to share the work-space with Hannah Williams.

They weren't friends. Even acquaintances would be a long stretch . It was quite unfortunate though. She happened to be quite incredible girl

Long dark hair, green eyes and a body to go with it all. She was quite the beauty. She graduated from the UCLA and while working at Buymore, she was also freelancing for a bunch of companies and her parents were really rich. And last but not the least, She was going to leave this place by the end of this month.

However Chuck knew very well where he stood in terms of social hierarchy. The chances for him to get anywhere past her name were...arguably somewhere between fat chance and snowball's chance in hell.

Letting out a sigh, Hannah shook her head, "It's alright. You are the only one who managed to get halfway, others are still far left behind." She tapped on the table, glancing at the completed socket, "You know, if you try a bit harder, you can still get something out of life. I mean compared to others, you do some quality work around here"

Laughing a bit, Chuck nodded in gratitude, "Thanks."

Hannah rolled her eyes in irritation, despite what people tended to believe, she was quite attentive to the detail and the fact that she was studying management also helped. This guy was probably the only decent techie the place had to offer and he didn't seem to have much friends either. He was trying to get someone hired, Moran or something like that but the managed hadn't approved yet. Now she knew he was kicked out from Stanford but she didn't know the exact details. Though he didn't seem like someone who would engage in any sort of problematic activities.

"Would you like to lend me a hand? I studied the same subjects like you did." She offered.

"Nah, I am pretty fine on my own." Chuck waved his hands with a lame smile and immediately became absorbed in his work.

Hannah frowned a bit before walking away, If the idiot was too prideful to admit that he could use some help, she had no reason to help him out. In the end, that wasn't any of her business.

...xxxxxxx...xxxxxxxxx...

Well, after eight in the evening, Chuck entered inside his residence which was more likely Ellie and Devon's residence at this point. Both of them were out of town right now, on some romantic trekking trip. Morgan was visiting his cousin in Canada. In short he had the house all to himself. Which didn't seem to make him feel any better, he should have just stayed at Buy More, probably earn some extra bucks in case.

He walked around the room, glancing at the picture of his parents. Just thinking about them brought a dull anger out of him. The sort you feel when you can't do anything about.

His father was a commercial scientist. An engineer who disappeared somewhat seven years ago and his mother had been gone since such a long time that he didn't remember anything about her apart from her name and picture.

One after another, both of them left him and Ellie.

With no contingency plan, no contact around to take them in . no money to help them out and if it wasn't for Ellie putting some very solid efforts during her college days, he would have became ward of the state at the age of 14. However they somehow managed to pull through. He got into Stanford and Ellie was already in the medical school by then.

But then Larkin had to strike.

His degree and his fiance both of them were now gone. He was tagged as a cheater and he would never be able to work as an official software engineer or be the next Bill Gates like he wanted to be. His sister at least found some sort of closure in life, she was a doctor, had a lovely and very very awesome boyfriend. But he was still stuck in the hole, that wasn't even for the mistakes he made. If he was going down for something he did or was about do, that might have been easier to accept. Not this. This was enough to make him laugh if this entire scenario wasn't so pathetic.

Enough of nine to five crap, what the hell he was going to do with his own life. Everything was so confusing, so frustrating and it just made him very very angry.

Clenching his fists tightly, he started walking towards his own room which also used to be his father's room before he disappeared. He started stomping on everything with a purpose. He had many ideas when he was at Stanford. Ideas which could have made him very famous and rich. Perhaps if he took a good look at them, he might be able to reignite that spark in him again. However at this point his notes didn't make as much sense as they should, designs were either too complicated to work alone or too costly for someone like him to afford. A part of him felt that he might have just lost his edge or perhaps his work from back then wasn't as relevant three years later. He just didn't know what to do about it.

Though tearing through his own closet felt really pleasant. As if he was going through some sort of therapy. Eventually he found something lying behind his drawer. A small case, which appeared to be a bit old and dusted but something about it screamed important. His father's name was written on it and just reading that was enough to send him in a small fit of rage.

However he was so upset, he didn't even notice the biometric scanner on the front and when his finger brushed against it the case opened, with a loud hiss causing him to get startled for a moment. As soon as that case opened, he was quite surprised to find a wrist watch of sorts and a bunch of little instruments alongside manuals which seemed gibberish to him.

What the hell is this?

Chuck thought as he pulled out the shiny-ish wrist watch, and he had to admit, even after all this years, the watch still seemed kinda trendy.

It doesn't show the time though, may be it needs a battery

He put the light green watch on his wrist, The moment he did though, it's "screen" started playing multitude of images, audio files and visuals. What amused him most was the image of Ryu from the street fighter. Another picture, a guy climbing a mountain, some sort of sparring match going between two individuals dressed in military uniform, probably Marines. Someone in a heavy suit of body armor trying to diffuse an explosive. It was hard to make sense out of these things. He tried to look away for moment, just to examine what the hell was happening but he couldn't. There was an comfortable tingle inside his brain, a sensation which felt both pleasant and stimulating at the same time. Before long, everything became a blur and his eyes remained glued to the small dial of the watch...

Until it clicked off on it's own. The screen now replaced with what appeared to be numbers displaying time and date.

No way! It's almost midnight

Chuck shook his head in disbelief. He couldn't be staring at those images for more than a few minutes, right? that didn't make sense. Immediately, he stared at his own reflection in the mirror and he was quite horrified at what he saw, His skin was pale, his eyes bloodshot and he was shaking furiously. He clenched his stomach, starting to feel nauseous all of a sudden.

He did the only thing he could do. He passed out.

...xxxxxx...xxxxxxx...

A comic book-ish sort of beginning. I hope you enjoy this prologue.

Ta da.