CHUCK VERSUS THE CGI (Chuck 6-03)
The third episode of an imaginary sixth season of Chuck.
Disclaimer: I don't own Chuck or its characters, and I would be a fool to claim otherwise!
CHAPTER 6
Fourth day, late night, in the Render Farm at FlixPix
Staggered by the manifestation of what appears to be Ted Roark in the cyberspace of the Render Farm, Hamilton Su grabs the edge of a table to keep from toppling over, as he looks up at the face of his old mentor.
"I—I spoke at your funeral…gave the eulogy…."
"Take it easy, Mr. Su," Chuck says, and puts a hand on the executive's shoulder to steady him. "That's not Roark—it's CGI. Might be another version of an assobot, like Schnebly."
"Retiring that damn acronym's at the top of my to-do list," the Roarkbot grumbles. "But Chuck is right, Hamilton. You're looking at one of my—one of Ted's—fun little side projects. Call me a rather special spinoff from Fulcrum Intersect research."
Realizing that the Roarkbot's arrival has at least temporarily seized Chuck's attention, Sergeant Pfeffer gingerly looks around behind him without shifting from his position, trying to locate the place where Sarah had kicked his gun.
The Roarkbot continues, "You know, Chuck, your dad was always saying that I…um…that Ted never had an original idea in my—his—life. But this intelligent CGI thing's all me—uh, all mine! Either way." He grins and proudly taps his temple with his forefinger. "It was my legacy to FlixPix, Hamilton—and you appear to be making hay with it, aren't you?"
"Your…dad?" Su mutters, half-dazed. "And he called you 'Chuck'…you knew him too?"
"It's complicated," Chuck replies with a shrug. He glances at Pfeffer and sees that the security officer hasn't moved, then turns back to study the face on the overhead monitor: trying to determine if the Roarkbot poses any kind of immediate threat.
"By the way, Chuck—how is the old man doing?"
"My father's dead. Killed by the same people who got you."
"I see," replies the Roarkbot, sounding almost sympathetic for a moment.
"When was your last upgrade from Roark himself?" Chuck asks.
"April 2009, two days before the op at Black Rock." The Roarkbot chuckles sardonically. "Obviously that didn't go as planned—because you're still here…and I'm not!"
"What are you both talking about?" Su cuts in. "Ted—whatever you are—please—what is all this? What does he mean you were killed? It wasn't an accident?"
"Better not to ask, Mr. Su," Chuck coolly replies. "Trust me—you'll be happier not knowing."
Su's attempt at an indignant response is frustrated by a sudden loud thud! and metallic crash! coming from the center of the building.
"Sarah!" cries Chuck. He bolts across the computer room, with Su running just behind him, back to the glass wall that separates their section of the Render Farm from the central aisle.
(Music: "Taste the Pain," by Red Hot Chili Peppers)
On the other side of the thick transparent partition, the hulking male security guard lies unconscious on the floor—and Sarah and the female guard are warily circling each other.
Chuck flashes on Sarah's opponent: former Fulcrum torturer and executioner!
"I'm not going to be that easy to take down, girlie," the lady guard warns.
"Be careful!" Chuck yells to Sarah through the glass. "She's you-know-what—and real nasty!"
Sarah nods in acknowledgment, and the female guard smiles wickedly. She's several inches taller than Sarah and nearly as muscular as her male counterpart.
"That about sums it up," she growls at Sarah, menacingly slapping a nightstick against her oversized palm. "So you either surrender now—or I might just have to dislocate one or two of those pretty limbs while bringing you down."
Alarmed, Chuck yanks on the exit door with all the strength he can muster, but it barely vibrates—and it can't be unlocked because the keypad has been powered down.
Sarah looks over her shoulder at her husband and asks, "Where'd you leave Pfeffer?"
"Uh-oh!" Chuck whips around to check, just in time to see Pfeffer coming to join them at the wall, and grimacing at the sight of his man sprawled on the floor. He nods to the female guard and stabs a forefinger in Sarah's direction.
"Francine. Incapacitate her nnnow. I don't care how—just take her out!"
"Happy to oblige, sir." Francine's fist tightens on her nightstick. Sarah intentionally keeps her face turned toward Chuck a second too long, knowing that the guard will take advantage and strike—and just as expected, the big woman lunges. Sarah smoothly side steps her and delivers a two-handed slug to the back of her head.
(Zunk!) Francine plants crown-first into the side of a metal desk, leaving a head-sized dent—but she immediately gets to her feet and shakes off the impact.
"All that did was tick me off," she snarls, and lashes out surprisingly fast with the nightstick. (Thwick!) Sarah dodges the worst of the blow, but the weapon still tags the side of her jaw and sends her tumbling to the floor.
"No!" cries Chuck, powerless and heartsick on the other side of the glass wall.
"Hooo-eee—that's gonna leave a mark," Francine gloats—then adds, "You oughtta stay down before you get permanently hurt," as Sarah stands up, silently rubbing her bruised jaw and glaring at her adversary.
"So…Chuck," the Roarkbot chimes in, "I see you still have the same darling handler as when we last crossed paths. At least—heh, heh—for a few more seconds, eh?"
"I'm—his—wife!" Sarah fires back—and swings out angrily with a fierce kick that (thoink!) knocks the nightstick from Francine's hand, and propels it across the room straight into (kesshh!) a desktop monitor screen.
Su moans and buries his face in his hands.
"Really? You're serious?" jeers the Roarkbot as Sarah and Francine close in on each other and start trading kung-fu blows. "That's the little lady you wake up to every morning, Chuck? It must be pretty dicey for you until after she's had her coffee."
Face pressed to the glass, his heart hammering with concern for Sarah in the brutal and closely matched fight, Chuck pays no heed to the Roarkbot's taunts. Pfeffer seems completely intoxicated by the drama of the battle.
Sarah begins to land more blows, and Francine appears to be reeling—but suddenly, the powerful woman gets in an uppercut that dazes her opponent. Before Sarah can recover, Francine snares her in a bear hug and locks her tree-trunk arms around Sarah's upper body.
"Adios to the ribs, sweetie!" grunts the ex-Fulcrum assassin, and begins to apply crushing force. Sarah screams—but despite the pain, she realizes that her legs are still free, and Francine hasn't reckoned with her athleticism….
"Never—call—me—that!" Sarah gasps—as she draws her right leg up tight, so that her thigh and shin are almost horizontal, and then drives the heel of her boot full force (thunnt!) into Francine's side. The big woman bellows, and her grip slackens just long enough for Sarah to pull loose and slither toward the floor. On her way down, Sarah grabs the leather belt on Francine's uniform with both hands, does a backflip, scissors her legs—and smashes her booted feet against both of the guard's temples. Then she somersaults free and lands in a squatting position, panting hard, as Francine topples to the floor and stays there.
"I've…flunked…much better fighters…than you!" Sarah disses her vanquished adversary between deep breaths. She blows a shaky air kiss at her much-relieved husband on the other side of the glass partition, then proceeds to bind both of the unconscious guards with their own handcuffs.
Chuck returns the air kiss and eases around to challenge Pfeffer, who looks nervously up at the Roarkbot on the big monitor and pleads, "Can't I call in more backup, sir?" but gets no response.
"It's finished, Pfeffer," Chuck calmly says. "You're busted, and your virtual boss up there is going to be erased for good and all. Might as well give up and cut your losses."
The engineer-turned-enemy agent stands resignedly with his hands clasped in front of him, although a faintly hopeful look on his face suggests that he thinks the game isn't quite over.
Su turns to Chuck. "So we're done here as soon as somebody can open that door? Is your wife any good at picking locks?"
"She's very good," Chuck assures him. "But let me see if I can help her out from our side—"
"Excuuuse me!" the Roarkbot interrupts. "First off, you're not going to get that door open. And second…Hel-lo? Both of you can't be that stupid…or can you? Did you actually think I was created just to steal from my own damn company?"
"Well if not, then what?" Su naively asks—while Chuck steels himself for a revelation he already knows he isn't going to like.
"Why not," suggests the Roarkbot, "since you can't stop me now anyway?" He snaps his fingers, and a lounge chair pops into view on the screen alongside him. He sits down with a satisfied sigh and leans forward, elbows on his knees, to address Chuck and Su directly.
"It's very simple. I'm an internet bot, but much more malicious and virulent than a mere CGI character like Schnebly. So when I take my leave from the Render Farm, which I'll be doing in…oh—"
The Roarkbot looks down as a virtual watch appears on his left wrist.
"—in just a few minutes from now, I'll be off to wreak all kinds of havoc in the nation's intelligence networks! CIA, NSA, Homeland Security…you name it. That's what I was originally designed to do, and with the able assistance of Otto Liebert here and his recently departed minion—what was that name again?—I'm quite ready to carry out my mission."
"But there's a lot of cyberspace out there," Chuck counters, "and only one of you."
The Roarkbot laughs. "Ah! Finally you're thinking like a Bartowski. A little too late, though."
He casually lifts his right hand above the back of his virtual chair, and snaps his fingers. Instantly, a long horizontal row of identical, athletic, attractive but stern-faced, CGI women in black-leather catsuits—more bots, dozens of them—materializes directly behind him. The Roarkbot snaps his fingers again—and another long row of female bots appears behind the first. Another snap; another row…and another…and another….until the entire screen, out to its virtual horizon, is filled with female bots, all identical.
"Fulcrum may be through, Chuck…but let's all welcome v-Fulcrum! And d'ya think we might be able to cause a few problems with four thousand malicious assobots?"
The Roarkbot winks at Su. "See, Hamilton—we've made good use of your brand-spankin'-new Render Farm these past few months!"
Stunned by the events, Su numbly asks, "Do they all look like….Beverly D'Angelo….?"
The Roarkbot chuckles. "If you say so. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental."
On the other side of the sealed door, Sarah has stopped tinkering with the keypad lock to stare in disbelief at the overhead monitor screen.
"Well, at least you didn't clone yourself, Ted," says Chuck wryly. "Nice to know that there are limits even to your ego."
"How boring would that be, Chuck, cooped up in here with only myself times four k?"
"Fair enough. But I think you're showing us all this to kill time—to distract us because you're not quite ready to move your bots out of the Render Farm! I didn't put the pieces together 'til just now—but Schnebly spilling the beans must've forced your hand before you were ready! Pfeffer got your transmitter in place, but I'll bet you're still waiting on your receiver outside the studio—or something like that…."
"It'll be close," acknowledges the Roarkbot as he consults his virtual wristwatch again, "but nobody outside this building knows what's going on, and since you're all impotent, more or less, I'm confident we'll make it."
"That's what you think." Chuck nods toward the silos across the room and says, "I know exactly how to end this—and right now."
But before he can take a step in that direction, another alarm begins to sound—a whoop-whoop rather than a klaxon horn, accompanied by flashing white strobes and a loud hissing sound from tiny jets embedded in the ceiling above the computers.
"That's the fire alarm!" shouts Su in surprise.
"State of the art, like everything else in here," the Roarkbot calmly adds. "It's a water-free, inert-gas fire-suppression system. The room's flooded with nitrogen gas, lowering the concentration of oxygen until the fire goes out, with no collateral damage."
"It's okay," Su tells Chuck. "There's a built-in safety feature. The oxygen level won't drop below fifteen percent, so it's still safe to breathe."
"That's what you think," counters the Roarkbot, mimicking Chuck's voice. "Rules are meant to be broken—and safety features are meant to be circumvented. I've taken control of the suppression system, and the gas isn't going to shut off."
"What about me?" Pfeffer shrieks at the overhead monitor. "Hmmm I'm on your side! You were nnnothing but archived data when I found you—I upgraded you—I killed Holmberg like you wanted! You can't leave me in here to die!"
"Well, you know—I do have a bone to pick with you, Otto," the Roarkbot retorts. "When you transmitted that sample data parcel out of here last fall, I made it crystal clear that was only to test the fidelity of the transfer. You had orders to delete all those CGI files after transmission—not sell them to another damn studio! So you brought all this on yourself, son."
"Nnno! You can't! You won't—"
"Look out!" yells Su. "He's got the gun again!"
Pfeffer reaches behind his back, pulls the revolver out from behind his shirttail, and takes aim at the glass exit door.
"No—don't do it!" Chuck hurls himself at Pfeffer and Sarah drops to the floor—just as the security officer fires! The bullet ricochets off the heavy glass and strikes Su in the right calf! Chuck tackles Pfeffer, slamming his head against the floor and knocking him out. Su writhes on the floor a short distance away, clutching his right leg.
"That idiot," Su moans. "He's the one who ordered all the impact-resistant glass in the first place!"
"Well, the idiot's out cold now." Chuck goes over to Su to examine his wound. "And the bullet just grazed you—I think you'll be okay." He tears off one of his own shirtsleeves and ties it over the wound as a bandage, then helps Su limp over to lie close to the glass wall alongside the door.
"The air'll probably be freshest over here," he suggests, and Su nods gratefully.
Chuck then drags the unconscious Pfeffer over to the wall. He realizes that the effort has him breathing more heavily than he would have expected. The oxygen in the room is thinning, and the nitrogen gas jets on the ceiling are still hissing furiously.
On the other side, Sarah is frightened.
"Chuck!" she calls out. "Casey's on his way with an armed Verbanski team. We'll have you out of there soon—but you've got to conserve your oxygen. So just sit there with Su. I'm gonna get you out of there. Just sit still….please?"
"You're…safe on that side…right, babe?" Chuck pants.
"Yes…but please, love—please stay here with me…."
Chuck weakly shakes his head. "You…know…I can't…time's short…gotta stop…Roark…."
Sarah lets out a little sob, and the two of them press their faces together against the glass. Chuck softly laughs with a sudden recollection: "Déjà vu...isn't this…didn't like it…first time either…I love you, Sarah."
Then he turns back into the computer room.
"Chuck! No!"
(Music: "RedOrBlue," by Tim Jones)
Chuck trudges toward the silos—breathing more and more deeply yet drawing less and less oxygen with each labored breath. His head pounds and his vision begins to blur. He presses on, feeling as if he is forcing his way ahead through deep water.
"I've heard that nitrogen asphyxiation is a fairly painless way to go," the Roarkbot taunts him. "So at least your last moments will—hey, what the hell?"
The hissing of the gas jets abruptly stops. Chuck spends a little of his fading strength to look up at the monitor screen. The Roarkbot has risen angrily from his chair—because Schnebly has suddenly appeared and is peeing profusely on his foot!
Back at the glass door, the keypad lock flashes back on. Sarah quickly blinks away her tears, takes a small sensing device from her spy suit, slaps it onto the lock, and starts searching for the combination.
"Grrrr! Grrrr!"
"Let go of me, you little—"
Schnebly has clamped his virtual jaws onto the Roarkbot's virtual ankle, and the evil assobot is fiercely shaking his virtual leg, trying to dislodge him.
Realizing that Schnebly is buying him some time, Chuck picks up his pace, and arrives at the middle silo. Panting raggedly in the oxygen-starved air, he eases himself to his knees, holding onto the frame of the silo so he won't keel over from dizziness.
Just then, the Roarkbot manages to kick Schnebly out of the frame (…yipe! yipe!). The gas jets immediately start spewing nitrogen again, and the keypad lock goes dark in front of Sarah once more. But in the meantime, Chuck has opened the front panel of the silo and is struggling to focus on the nine hard drives swimming in his distorted field of view.
"I don't think you have the strength!" crows the Roarkbot, as the gas keeps flooding in.
Chuck makes no reply, but reaches shakily into the silo, grasps the top hard drive, and pulls it out of the slot. The effort drives fiery needles into his stressed lungs. He twists a little to one side and lets the device simply fall (tlunk!) to the floor.
Up on the monitor screen, on the imaginary horizon far behind where the Roarkbot sits, the last two rows of female assobots disappear.
Chuck resumes his agonized task: the second hard drive…then the third…and the fourth. The ranks of v-Fulcrum thin more and more, as each drive is removed from the silo.
"Just what do you think you're doing, Chuck?" asks the Roarkbot, now sounding worried.
Chuck's slow, deep, rasping breaths are his only response, as he struggles with the middle hard drives: five…six…seven….
"Look, Chuck—I can tell you're upset about this. I think you should stop and think this over for a moment."
The eighth hard drive crashes to the floor. Now only the Roarkbot himself remains on the screen, and the movements of his head, eyes, and mouth have become crude and jerky—like old Max Headroom's.
"I'm—I'm—afraid. Chuck. I'm afraid—Ch-Chuck. My mind is g-g-going—I can feel it. I can—can—feel it. My m-mind—"
"Hasta…la…vista…Ted," wheezes Chuck, as he pulls out the last hard drive. The overhead monitor and all the computer screens fade to blank blue, the fire alarm stops whooping, and the overhead gas jets shut off. Chuck has just enough strength left in his arms to remove the RSIT-5854 wi-fi transmitter for good measure.
"That's…that," Chuck tells himself. "Can rest now…just sit here…for a moment…rest..."
But with the fire alarm and the gas jets and the Roarkbot now silent, Chuck can hear a fainter noise farther off: frantic rapping on the glass wall over by the door….
"Sarah…no, can't stay here…get up….got to get to Sarah….get to Sarah…"
Somehow Chuck makes it to his feet, takes a few clumsy steps, and falls—then rises again and stumbles on into the middle of the computer room. Through shrinking tunnel vision, he sees Sarah at the wall just in front of him…she's holding out her hands…she's crying….
"Chuck, come on," she begs. "The keypad's powered up—if you can get to the door you can flash and unlock it! You're almost here—please Chuck—come to me…."
"Sa—rah," he whispers. He weakly lifts his head to gaze at her—and appears to flash!
Then Chuck smiles, as his legs fail and he crumples to the floor—little more than a meter from where his horrified wife stands.
"Noooo!" Sarah fights the animal compulsion to hurl herself at the implacable glass wall, then swallows hard—and forces herself back to work on picking the door lock.
Singularly focused and desperate to save her husband, Sarah feels as if time is speeding up around her, and so she isn't sure how much of it has passed before Casey comes thundering into the Render Farm, accompanied by Morgan in his spy suit and six heavily armed and armored Verbanski troopers.
"Cavalry's here, Walker!" Casey announces. "Had to neutralize a few rent-a-cops outside. What do you need from us?" Then he spots Chuck and the others scattered about the floor on the other side of the wall. "Holy crap…"
Sarah looks up from her work, her eyes red and swollen. "He's dying in there, John!" Her sensing device blinks and hums, still seeking the correct keypad combination—not nearly fast enough for Sarah.
Casey swiftly steps over to the glass wall and begins to run his hands over it, pane by pane, looking for any flaws or gaps he might be able to exploit to force his way through it.
Morgan stands just behind Sarah and Casey, eyes wide, terrified for his best friend. His hands are shaking, so he thrusts them into the pockets of his spy suit—and his left hand bumps against a forgotten, puck-sized, dense metal disk: the second of the two thermite limpets he'd pinched from Casey's weapons case!
"Hey, John—look!" Morgan pulls the limpet out and waves it in the air.
"How'd you get that?" Casey snarls—then breaks into a grin. "Yeah! That'll do it!" He tears the limpet from Morgan's grasp and sticks it onto the wall right near the middle of one of the large panes.
"So that's why it didn't work for me," Morgan mutters. "I had it on backwards!"
But then—just before Casey can trigger the device—Morgan grabs his arm to interrupt him.
"Just a second, big guy—I think Sarah's got it."
Beep-booop! A welcome green light pulses on Sarah's scanning device. The keypad lock clicks!—and Sarah shoves the door open, sending a wave of fresh air into the noxious atmosphere of the computer room. All in the same motion, she draws in the biggest breath she can, leaps through the door, and hurls herself at Chuck's prone body. He's deathly pale and his lips are blue. She grabs his head, presses her lips against his, and blows the air into his lungs.
Chuck shakes violently from head to toes—and then he opens his eyes. He looks up at Sarah with his familiar goofy grin as warmth and color return to his face.
"H-hey, babe," he whispers hoarsely, "thanks for saving me."
"Well—you saved everyone else," Sarah counters—then seizes him around the neck and sobs into his shoulder in grateful relief.
A little later, Casey comes over and smiles down at them. Sarah's head is resting on Chuck's chest, and she occasionally sniffles as he caresses her hair.
"Good to know you can hold your breath a while, huh, Bartowski?" Casey muses.
"I had some help," Chuck replies, and kisses Sarah's forehead. "For sure from the outside, but also from within—and now I know that survival breathing techniques are in the Intersect."
"Hmmnh," Casey reflectively grunts. "Interesting. And the other two over by the wall are also still breathing—for them it was mostly good luck, I guess." He points to where Verbanski troopers are hoisting Su and Pfeffer onto stretchers.
Then Casey waves to the troopers, and two more come trotting up to set another stretcher down alongside Chuck.
"I really don't need that," Chuck protests, flexing his arms and legs. "I'm fine!"
But Sarah lifts her teary, happy face and asks, "Why walk when you can ride, sweetie?"
"Okay, okay—only if you join me, though." Chuck gently, solicitously touches his wife's bruised jaw. "You picked up a few dings yourself—just sayin'."
So Chuck and Sarah sit side-by-side on the stretcher, holding hands. Just as the troopers are about to lift them up and hustle them out of the Render Farm, they hear a familiar "Wuh-woof!" Schnebly H. Rover is looking down at them from the big monitor screen, and he gives them a wink.