Chuck desperately jammed both his feet into the window frames when Tang hurled him forward, blocking himself from being thrown out of the tower. He did it again when Tang attempted a second toss. "Stop that and die like a man, Chuck!" Tang warned him, pushing with all his might to get him out.
"Come on, Harry, let's talk this over like men!" Chuck pleaded, pressing into the window frame for all it was worth.
A groan rang out behind him. Chuck looked over his shoulder to see Clarence elbowing Denbrock in the ribs, then shove him sideways. "I'm coming, Chuck!" the Canadian agent rushed forward and bashed Tang in the back of the head, making him release Chuck with a crash onto the table. Clarence spun Tang around and head-butted him hard. "OOOOOOOWWWW!" he yelled in pain, stumbling backwards from Tang while clutching his head, "That was dumb! Hooooooo boy, that was dumb!"
"You bet it was, fat man!" Tang lunged at him and drove a karate kick square into Clarence's chest. Clarence groaned, but stayed upright, blocking Tang's subsequent martial art chops. Chuck, meanwhile, saw Denbrock collecting himself and aiming his gun square for Clarence's back. He quickly rushed forward and shoved Denbrock's arm to the side as he fired, the bullet hitting one of the other Fulcrum agents nearby and sending him crumpling to the floor. The other agent drew his gun and fired at Chuck, but Denbrock made the mistake of pushing Chuck backwards, thus putting himself in the line of fire and letting the bullet hit him in the arm. "You..!" an enraged Denbrock turned in a rage and shot at his colleague, sending him down motionless to the floor as well. "Oh! Norm, I'm sorry...!" he gasped in horror.
"Chuck, down!" Clarence shouted a warning, hitting the deck in front of Chuck. Chuck did the same, and Tang's latest kick slammed into Denbrock, knocking him back over the nearest table. Clarence quickly picked up another table and smashed it down on Tang's head before he could recover. "Table for one, sir," he told Tang with a grin.
"You'll pay for that, fat...!" Tang started to turn around, but trailed off, his eyes rolling back into his head. He toppled face-first to the floor, out cold. "Thanks," Chuck thanked Clarence.
"Old friend of yours?" Clarence asked, drawing a set of handcuffs and striding towards Denbrock.
"Former co-worker. Bullied me and everyone else all the time. He was the last guy I'd expect to get tangled up in Fulcrum, though," Chuck admitted, staring down at the unconscious Tang.
"Well, now you can say you got the last laugh on him in the end," Clarence pulled Denbrock's hands around a support pillar and handcuffed them together. "OK, Malcolm, talk!" he ordered him, "Where's that reverse Intersect!?"
"I'll never tell you, Sullivan!" Denbrock roared defiantly.
"Well, OK. But Tag has ways to make people talk. Tag," Clarence called to his dog, who trotted over. Clarence pulled off Denbrock's shoes and socks. "Let him have it," he told his pet, who started licking Denbrock's feet. "Stop, stop, that tickles!" Denbrock protested, laughing uncontrollably. Tag instead licked harder. "All right, all right!" he caved in, "The big one's on Goat Island! We set it up under one of the restaurants! But you're too late; we're activating it in less than ten minutes! We're going to get that top secret military information no matter what! And your team's dead, because my colleagues led them into an ambush, so you're on your own!"
"Dead!?" Chuck's heart froze, "Sarah...!?"
"Maybe not," Clarence tried to assured him, "If they used the reverse Intersect on Knelman to get Canadian intelligence, I'm sure they'd want to get some American intel as well. So she and Major Casey might still be alive for now."
"But not for long!" Denbrock taunted him, then broke into more laughter as Tag increased the licking on his feet. Before Chuck could fully process this terrible thought, a loud groan from the kitchen area reached his ears. "Someone's back there," he told Clarence, who had apparently heard it as well.
"Andrews..." Clarence guessed, rushing for the kitchen. Sure enough, his superior was inside, handcuffed to a chair. "Boss, you all right!?" he asked Andrews, looking around for a key.
"I think so," Andrews moaned, although Chuck could tell the man had been worked over hard, "Keys are over there, Sullivan," he gestured with his head toward the stove.
Clarence obligingly ran off to get them. "Mr. Andrews, where are the international military leaders now!?" Chuck grilled him, "We went to the Embassy and found they'd been switched out of the conference room..."
"They're on the Niagara River, aboard a Hornblower Cruise boat," Andrews gasped, grimacing in pain, "I decided once I heard Colonel Knelman was dead to move them in the interests of security. They've been onboard the boat cruising the Niagara River downstream of the tourist area all day..."
"Since it's mostly state parks and steep cliffs there, no one would see them," Clarence mused, unlocking Andrews from the chair, "And I guess you had snipers all along the banks too?"
"Yes. But Major Denbrock forced me to send a false message to the captain to take them up to the Falls right about now, so they could view the fireworks. The reverse Intersect's on Goat Island; they're going to turn it on while the generals are looking at the fireworks and drain their minds of all their military secrets...!"
"So Denbrock forced the information out of you?" Clarence inquired, helping him up.
"He used brutal methods on me until I cracked. He'd requested a meeting with me after I learned of Knelman's death, saying he would be taking command of Colonel Knelman's unit. Only he brought several more Fulcrum agents to the rendezvous spot and tranquilized me. He'd tipped off the Fulcrum mastermind that Colonel Knelman was coming to arrest him before that to get him out of the way...
"Who is the Fulcrum head!?" Chuck demanded.
"He gave the name Anthony Carlson, but I'm sure that's an alias..."
"OK boss, call the special operations forces and have them get to Goat Island A.S.A.P.," Clarence requested, "Chuck and I are going to try and stop it ourselves in the meantime."
"With all due respect, Lieutenant Sullivan, it's going to take you a lot longer than ten minutes to get down and over there," Andrews lamented, "I don't know how we can stop them in time..."
"Not to worry boss," Clarence's gaze fell on a maintenance closet nearby, "I have an idea. It might be stupid, but it also just might work-if we hurry and we have the proper materials here..."
"You're absolutely sure you know what you're doing with this?" a very hesitant Chuck asked Clarence, who was making the final adjustments to a rudimentary glider he had assembled out of poles and large canvas strips atop the Skylon Tower's roof, "You're completely sure it'll hold our weight and fly straight?"
"Uh, yeah, I'm pretty sure," Clarence nodded, although he didn't seem fully confident to Chuck. "And so I know, you have done this before?" he pressed the Canadian.
"Yeah, sure I have...once, in a simulator during spy training," Clarence admitted. Chuck put a hand over his face. "For Sarah, for Sarah, for Sarah..." he mumbled to himself, trying to get up the courage to do what they were going to do.
"OK, guess we're ready," Clarence called to him, having lashed Tag firmly to the makeshift glider. Chuck reluctantly walked over and grabbed on. "Nervous?" Clarence asked him, seizing hold of the support bar himself.
"Extremely," Chuck confessed, gulping at the steep two hundred foot drop to the Falls below, "There were a lot of things I thought I might like trying when I got sucked into the spy business, but reenacting the beginning of the climax of Young Sherlock Holmes wasn't one of them, since that's basically what we're about to do."
"Well lest you forget, Holmes and Watson had a pretty darn successful flight there in the end, didn't they?" Clarence reminded him.
"The flight itself, yeah; the landing, not quite so much," Chuck pointed out with a shudder, "Still," he took a deep breath, "I guess I'm ready as I'll ever be..."
"OK then. Ready, Tag?" Clarence asked his dog, who had placed his paws over his eyes, unable to watch. "Take that as a yes. OK then," the Canadian agent declared, planting his feet hard into the roof, "One for the money, two for the show, three for truth and justice, and here we go!"
He pushed off hard-too hard, in fact, prompting the glider to tumble over, smashing his and Chuck's faces into the roof hard. The glider flipped over and over down the roof until it finally slid off into the brisk evening air. It immediately sank like a stone. "Get it up, get it up!" Chuck shrieked.
"Don't worry, the wind'll catch us," Clarence shouted back.
"It better soon; we're losing altitude really quick here!" Chuck saw the ground getting closer and closer. It was then, though, that a strong blast of wind blew into the glider, lifting it up and out over the Niagara River. "See, nothing to worry about," Clarence called to Chuck.
"Nothing to worry about!? Now we're drifting downstream!" Chuck protested And indeed, the blowback from Horseshoe Falls was pushing the glider away from it. "Get it back around!" he demanded to Clarence.
"I'm trying, I'm trying!" Clarence pulled a few wires on the glider, to seemingly no effect.
"I've got the distinct feeling you just winged this idea!" Chuck roasted him, glancing up at the sky so he wouldn't be paralyzed by the river so far below them.
"Well it was better than nothing, wasn't it!?" Clarence pulled another wire, which broke off in his hand, causing the glider to lean dangerously sideways. "Uh oh, think I just ruined our lateral control!" the Canadian agent mumbled.
"Well fix it!" Chuck ordered him, screaming at the raging rapids below them, seemingly getting closer again.
"I'm trying!" Clarence randomly tied other wires together on the glider to compensate for the lost one. "Don't you give up on me, Tag!" he shouted to his dog, who was howling in terror himself below him.
"He's the realist; he knows this was suicidal!" Chuck covered his eyes, unable to watch.
"Think I got it..." Clarence declared, tying the final set of knots. Chuck felt the glider return to a horizontal position. He dared to open his eyes and saw they'd drifted over to the American side now, hovering on the north side of the American Falls. "OK, good job there," he weakly commended Clarence.
"Thanks. OK," Clarence leaned down on the support bar, "Gonna try and angle it for the north end of Goat Island and hope we can surprise them here..."
"You hear something?" Chuck spoke up worriedly, "It sounds a lot like honking..."
He looked ahead...and saw a flock of Canada geese coming straight at them, honking loudly. "Geese, geese, geese, turn this thing!" he begged Clarence. But it was too late: the two geese on the left side of the V behind the leader slammed hard right into Chuck and Clarence, honking in distress. "Get off me, get off me...OOOOOOOWWWWW!" Clarence yelped as the goose he'd crashed into bit his nose before fluttering off. Seconds later, another goose slammed just as hard into his face. Chuck too was now crashed into by another goose. And then another after that. And then another after that. And the one after that, after slamming into him as well, also relieved itself right in his face too. Groaning, Chuck shoved it away and wiped off the aftereffects, as well as the feathers that were now all over him. "Let me guess, this wasn't in the simulator either, was it?" he complained to Clarence.
"To be honest, no; shoo, shoo, shoo!" Clarence shoved the last goose in line off himself. The Canadian agent took a deep breath and looked down. "There it is," he pointed at the shoreline of the north side of Goat Island, now almost directly below them, "We'll come down there."
"IF we can get down," Chuck pointed out, "Suppose we're stuck up here...!?"
A loud back rang up from the Niagara River to their right. Chuck saw a bright white comet coming straight at them. "HEADS UP!" he cried out, but too late before the incoming firework plowed through the glider fabric, tearing a large hole in it before exploding overhead in a shower of orange sparkles. The glider immediately nose-dived to the island below. Chuck screamed in terror and grabbed hold of Clarence, visions of a painful crash and death racing through his mind. Fortunately, they did not crash into the ground as he'd feared-but they did slam hard into a tree upon landing, and although the glider absorbed a good amount of the force of the impact, it still stung Chuck hard. "Go on, say it..." he mumbled in agony to Clarence as they slid down the tree to dry land.
"This was dumb. Hoooooo boy, this was dumb!" Clarence obliged, moaning in pain himself upon impact with the ground. "Tag, you OK?" he turned to his dog, who let out a loud howl, but seemed unharmed from the crash as far as Chuck could tell. "Shhh, not so loud, Tag; this place is crawling with bad guys...!" Clarence hissed to his pet.
A loud cacophony of cocking sounds rang out. "Too late," Chuck groaned, seeing they were now surrounded by heavily armed Fulcrum agents, "Rescue failed..."
"Status report, Colonel Smiley?" General Beckman asked him on her computer.
"My bombers just took off, General. Ten minutes to target," Smiley said gravely, "With the general's permission, I must ask: if by chance your agents are still alive and capable of communication, is there a signal my men should look for to abort the mission?"
"Well, if they are still alive, they'll get a message to you somehow," Beckman told him with a shake of her head, "But I think we must assume under the circumstances that they have been taken out. Carry out your mission to the best of your capacity."
"Sarah..." Chuck mumbled, seeing her and Casey handcuffed to stakes by the restaurant on the south end of Goat Island as his guards pushed him out of the woods.
"Chuck," her face lit up at the sight of him, "They said you and Clarence and the others were walking into a trap at the Skylon Tower..."
"We did; the rest of the team's dead," Clarence shook his head solemnly, "Ow, not so tight!" he complained to the Fulcrum agent handcuffing him to another stake.
"Shut up," the agent snarled, slapping him. Chuck glanced down the line and saw Joyce and Peter also handcuffed to stakes, and that both had been shot. "Oh God, you two OK?" he asked them.
"I think so," Joyce grimaced in visible pain, "Peter's barely hanging on, though," she gestured worriedly at him, slumped forward and not moving, "They killed everyone else..."
"And we wouldn't have had to if you'd all let us do our little project here unmolested," came a new voice. The Fulcrum agents parted to reveal a long-haired man with a horribly scarred face that made Chuck shiver. "Scorpius?" he inquired.
"You might say that, Mr. Bartowski. Otherwise known as Dr. Austin Miegs. I'm glad we have you alive. I was hoping a more thorough research on you concerning the Intersect's functions in reverse might show me something interesting."
"You call sucking information out of people's minds science!?" Sarah growled at him, "You're no scientist; you're a megalomaniac!"
"Am I, Agent Walker? I'm willing to test the boundaries of experimentation to find out what the thing I've discovered can do. No one else has dared to go that far..."
"Because they know what you're doing is wrong," Chuck spoke up, "And the Intersect's not your discovery; it's Orion's..."
"Orion? He was a fool. So bent on being a nice guy, following the rules. He didn't care about scientific discovery; he was a weak coward who backed away when he realized the power of what we created," Dr. Miegs sneered, giving Chuck a particularly harsh glare for reasons he didn't understand, "Well I'm following through on what he should have done; tonight, I'm fulfilling the Intersect's maximum possible functions. Bring it up," he called to several more Fulcrum agents nearby, who punched information into a computer console. Chuck heard a loud humming start up inside the restaurant, and noticed the roof starting to open up. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed the Hornblower Cruise boat at the base of the Falls below, its occupants unaware of what was going to happen to them in a moment. He looked forward again, and gasped at the sight of a gigantic entwined set of Intersect cubes now popping out of the top of the restaurant. "Uh, anyone got any ideas how to stop that?" he mumbled to the others.
"I'm thinking, moron," Casey grumbled at him, "In the meantime, everyone, shut your eyes and don't look at it," he ordered the others.
"Chuck, wait, leave your eyes open," Clarence whispered at him.
"You're going to endanger him, Canuck...!" Casey snarled.
"No, trust me, John," Clarence begged them, "Seeing what happened in the van yesterday night, I think it might give him a boost of strength like Popeye eating spinach. Trust me," he told Chuck with pleading eyes.
"Well, OK," Chuck turned his gaze towards the giant Intersect cubes, "But you'd better be right..."
"We're all set," Dr. Miegs radioed Roark in his office.
"Wonderful, Scorpius. You may fire it up when ready," Roark told him. "You ready for the show, ladies and gentlemen?" he turned to acknowledge the Ring Elders, watching on the screen on the rear wall.
"Yes. But this better work, Roark, or else," one of the Elders warned him.
"Hey, have I ever let down yet?" Roark flashed them a big dopey grin. "Just keep your eyes on that screen," he pointed to the one at the front of the room, "Because we are about to make some magic. Tell them sunglasses on, Doc," he radioed Roark back, then pulled a control panel out of his desk and set it down within reach. "Here's to you, Orion, wherever you are," he raised his middle finger high in the air, "And now, live from Niagara Falls," he dramatically pressed the control panel's start button, "It's Fulcrum Night!"
"Good show, huh, babe?" Devon asked Ellie on the Canadian cliff, watching the fireworks explode over the Falls.
"Not bad," she gave a soft nod, clearly still worried about Chuck. "Hey, what's that now?" she pointed at Goat Island, where a strange red glow now appeared.
"Hey, look at that!" Morgan said, pointing at scores of Intersect images now flashing across the Falls, "That's got to be real cutting edge technology...the best of the best..." he started leaning forward against the rail, unable to look away from the images. "Morgan, are you all right?" Ellie frowned at him.
"Perfectly fine, El...which rings a bell...I can tell," Morgan droned, fixated on the images, as if his soul was being drained away...
Chuck felt a surge in his body as the reverse Intersect roared to life above him. In a flash, he broke his handcuffs, lunged forward with a yell, and started slugging Fulcrum agents left and right. "See, I told you all, there he goes!" Clarence shouted to the others.
"OK, so what do we do!?" Casey complained, his eyes squinted tightly shut.
"Chuck, get us loose so we can help you stop them!" Sarah called to him. Letting out a loud Tarzan yell, Chuck cartwheeled backwards towards the stakes, kicking a whole row of Fulcrum agents square in the face in the process. He grabbed their sunglasses, rushed backwards, and broke everyone else's handcuffs loose as well, shoving the sunglasses into their hands. "See I...owww!" Clarence groaned as Chuck uncontrollably slugged him in the face, "Against them, Chuck!" he pushed him forward towards the oncoming Fulcrum agents. Chuck somersaulted spectacularly through the air, avoiding their bullets, and whaled away at the agents. "Go for it!" Clarence cheered them on, applauding as Sarah and Joyce grabbed some of the Fulcrum team's dropped guns and opened fire on them. His expression, froze, however, at the sight of Casey starting to raise his gun towards Chuck from behind, a deeply pained and conflicted look on his face. The NSA agent trained him in his sights-then lowered the gun in a flash, looking guilty. He raised it again, however and reached for the trigger. "Tag!" Clarence frantically unhooked his dog from the tree the Fulcrum agents had leashed him to and pointed at Casey. Tag loped towards him and jumped on top of Casey, knocking him down seconds before he would have pulled the trigger on Chuck. "Get off me, you mutt!" Casey roared, trying to push Tag, who was licking his face, off of him.
"Oh, he just wanted to say hello, John," Clarence said out loud, picking up Casey's gun from the ground. He then grabbed Casey by the collar and whispered furiously in his ear, "I don't care what orders you might have, Major; don't ever do that again if you know what's good for you...!"
"You think I wanted to do that!?" Casey hissed back, looking pained, "I can't stand him sometimes, but I know he's a good man. I can see why Walker likes him. But orders are orders...!"
"Even bad orders!?" Clarence demanded. Before Casey could say anything, however, Chuck let out a loud groan in front of him. They turned to see Hondo wrestling him motionless, and even a superpowered Chuck couldn't fight back against Hondo's colossal strength. "Ladies, guns on the ground now!" Dr. Miegs threatened Sarah and Joyce, thrusting a knife to Chuck's throat. The women quickly complied. "I've had enough of you, Mr. Bartowski," Dr. Miegs snarled, pressing the knife tighter against Chuck's throat, "I'm ending this now..."
"Drop the knife!" Clarence aimed the gun at him. Dr. Miegs laughed. "Please, Lieutenant Sullivan. Major Denbrock showed me your files. You're incapable of shooting me or anyone else."
"Don't think I won't," Clarence warned, although his hand was starting to shake.
"Oh I know you won't," Miegs laughed, "You're just going to drop that in grief and watch Mr. Bartowski die here, aren't you?"
Clarence turned sideways to Sarah, who gave him a pleading look that clearly telegraphed, "Just this once, for Chuck." He quickly spun towards Miegs, who was about to slash Chuck's throat, took a deep breath, tilted the gun downwards, and fired into his leg. "OOOOWWWW! You shot me!" Miegs howled, dropping the knife, "How could you...!?"
Clarence shot him in the other leg, sending him down to the ground. Roaring, Hondo dropped Chuck to the ground and lumbered towards Clarence, who fired several more shots into him, to no effect. "Don't shoot him; shoot the Intersect!" Sarah shouted, pointing at it, "It's probably our only chance to stop it!"
"Now that I have no problem with," Clarence aimed up at the giant reverse Intersect. "No, don't, stop!" Miegs warned him, but the Canadian agent fired his remaining bullets towards it, followed by the now rearmed Sarah and Joyce moments later. A shattering noise rang out, and the reverse Intersect started making ominous wailing noises. "You fools! You've compromised its integrity! It's going to explode in thirty seconds!" Miegs wailed, stumbling to his feet. "Hondo, everyone, run for it!" he cried to the giant agent, who turned and stared in panic at the shrieking reverse Intersect, then broke into a run. "Chuck, move!" Sarah rushed to him, helped him up, and dragged him to safety with the others behind a large boulder by the edge of the Falls. No sooner had they jumped to safety than the reverse Intersect exploded in a colossal fireball, the shock wave sending numerous Fulcrum agents that hadn't gotten out of the way in time, including a screaming Hondo, into the Niagara River and, seconds later, over the Falls. Chuck lowered his head and braced himself against the shockwave. It seemed to go on an eternity, but eventually faded away. He looked up and saw the reverse Intersect burning, completely destroyed. He let out a yell of delight. "We did it!" he shouted, high-fiving the others.
"Sure did," Clarence returned the high five, "Told you looking at it would work."
"Tell you what, Clarence, that felt great to be unstoppable like that," Chuck told him excitedly, "You know, if they ever upgrade the Intersect, and it's still in my head, I hope it has the power to let me kick..."
"Wait a minute, kids," Casey interrupted, looking grave, "We're not out of the woods yet. Remember what's coming at nine?"
He held up his watch, which read three minutes to nine. "General Beckman's airstrike," Chuck abruptly remembered with a shudder, "It's got to be on its way now..."
"Oh my god," Sarah mumbled, her eyes widening, "They're going to bomb the Falls to dust...hundreds of people could get killed..."
"Did you bring a radio, Clarence!?" Joyce turned to him in a flash, "We've got to recall them if we can get their frequency!"
"Got one right...uh oh...!" Clarence's expression dropped as he felt around in his now empty pockets, "It must have fallen out when Chuck and I were gliding over the Falls...!"
"Oh terrific, Canuck!" Casey growled in disgust. "Come on!" he shouted, rushing towards a golf cart parked behind the restaurant that had been unharmed by the blast, "We've got to get to the north side of the island real fast and come up with something real quick...!"
Back on the Canadian shore, Morgan snapped out of a trance once the fireball of the exploding reverse Intersect had died down. "Wow, I just had the most amazing sensation," he declared out loud, "And I don't know why, but I suddenly feel a hundred times smarter right now. How about the two of you?" he turned to Ellie and Devon, who were shaking off blank expressions.
"Uh, guess so, Morgan," Devon mumbled, "I kind of don't know what happened in the last two minutes for some reason. Oh well..." he shrugged, staring at the fireworks. "Show's still great..."
"Honey, look over there," a concerned Ellie pointed at the fireball burning on Goat Island, "It looks like something went wrong there..."
"Whoa, did you see that!?" Morgan pointed at Horseshoe Falls, "It looks like a couple guys just went over-and look, there goes a big guy!" he pointed again at the dark silhouette of Hondo plunging over the Falls with a scream. Both Ellie and Devon froze in shock at the sight. "You think that's what he thought it was!?" she asked her fiancé worriedly.
"Too dark to tell for sure, babe. But if it was a man, don't worry; that was way too big to be Chuck. And maybe it was just a log or something..."
"Oh my god, that man just went over the Falls!" a woman screamed next to them. Other bystanders started gathering around the railing, mumbling in shock. The three Americans exchanged worried glances. "There's no way Chuck would be mixed up with anything like that, babe..." Devon insisted to Ellie.
"Devon, I want to be absolutely sure of that," she told him with a worried expression. "Miss," she called to another woman nearby with binoculars, "Cant we borrow those for a moment...?"
"Are those what I think they are?" Chuck gulped, pointing at numerous white pinpricks of light on the horizon as the golf cart slid to an abrupt stop on the north side of Goat Island.
"Sure are, Bartowski," Casey told him grimly, running to the shore and staring at the incoming jets himself, "And we've got about a minute and twenty seconds to come up with something to make them call off this attack. Anyone with any ideas?" he asked the others, "Because I've got nothing right now."
For a moment, there was silence on the shore. "Wait," Clarence held up his hand, "Remember in The Rock, when Nicholas Cage tried to stop the air strike on Alcatraz, he used green flares to..."
"Except that didn't work, and we don't have any green flares," Casey growled in disgust, "Forty-five seconds..."
"Wait," an idea had struck Chuck. "Didn't we pick up flare guns from Denbrock's briefcase back at the tower?" he asked Clarence.
"I think so...yeah, I've still got them," Clarence pulled three sets out of his pocket.
"You know Morse code, right?"
"Forty seconds, Bartowski; what's your point...!?" Casey shouted impatiently.
"If we send up "Stop" in Morse code, they'll know we've destroyed the reverse Intersect," Sarah snapped her fingers, having gotten the idea. "Lock and load, quick!" she shouted to Clarence, taking one gun off him and tossing another to Joyce. "Which letters for 'stop?'" she asked Chuck.
"Uh..." Chuck thought hard.
"Twenty seconds, moron!" Casey bellowed, his eyes locked in on the increasingly large white dots approaching the island.
"I can't function under this kind of pressure, Casey, I'm sorry!" Chuck bellowed back.
"Never mind, I've got it: dot-dot-dot, dash, dash-dash-dash, dot-dash-dash-dot!" Clarence shouted, jamming cartridges into his gun.
"OK, fire that up as fast as you can!" Sarah ordered him and Joyce, running straight to the waterline and aiming her gun in the air. "Now!" she yelled to them. The three of them fired up their fires in the specified order towards the now fully visible bombers, which continued bearing down on the island with a scream of their engines. "Come on, come on!" Chuck begged, crossing his fingers. The jets were almost on top of the island now...
...but suddenly started rapidly peeling away to the left and right, breaking off the attack. "Yes! We did it!" Chuck shouted in delight, pumping his fist in the air, "We did...!"
His words abruptly caught in his throat, however, as the last jet in formation, perhaps having not seen the flares from the rear of the squadron, abruptly dropped a bomb towards the island. And Chuck quickly saw where its trajectory was going to take it. "SARAH, LOOK OUT!" he screamed to her, but it was too late: the bomb landed and exploded not more than fifteen feet from her, and the force of the shock instantly blew her sideways into the Niagara River. "SARAH!" horrified, Chuck sprinted along the shoreline, trying to keep her in sight. He lunged towards the bank. "No!" Casey grabbed him around the chest and wrestled him still.
"Let go of me!" Chuck protested, trying to twist loose.
"Forget it, Bartowski, she's lost!" Casey yelled, audibly horrified at the turn of events himself, "You jump in there, you're dead too!"
Chuck kicked him hard in the shin, making Casey loosen his grip, then spun and delivered a harder kick to his balls. "Forgive me, Casey," he quickly rambled before diving headfirst into the river. "SARAH!" he screamed for her again, seeing the current carrying her down the river. And the in glow of the fireworks, he could visibly tell the blast had knocked her unconscious. It was entirely up to him to save her-without getting himself killed. The mist of the Falls loomed ominously ahead of him, no more than two thousand feet away. And the current was sweeping Sarah rapidly towards the drop. He had to hurry, or they'd both be dead...
"HOLD ON, SARAH!" he cried to her even though he knew she was out cold and couldn't hear him. He stroked frantically through the surf, the strength of the current at least giving him momentum. Fifteen hundred feet to the drop now; he was starting to catch up to her now, but the river seemed to be getting faster the quicker it got to the Falls. Chuck was struggling to stay above the water, which roared past him like an express train. It was not out of the question he'd be pulled under before he reached Sarah...
One thousand feet to the drop...he could see the gorge below the Falls. Only one person-young Roger Woodward in 1960, he knew-had ever survived an accidental plunge over the Falls. Unless he reached Sarah in time, Casey was almost certainly right that they were both dead. But he couldn't just let her die like this...
Five hundred feet to the drop...he was almost within reach of her now, but the river kept speeding up. He reached out for her, but missed, and the current swept him under for a moment. Chuck desperately fought his way back to the surface. Two hundred feet to go...she was spiraling, motionless, through the rapids, faster and faster. Chuck kicked and stroked as hard as he could to catch up, knowing he might well be in the final moments of his life. But if it didn't work, at least they'd die together. But he couldn't let that happen. One hundred feet to the drop...
"SARAH!" he let out one last desperate scream, stroking like mad for her. Fifty feet to the drop...with one final desperate lunge, he leaped forward and grabbed her around the waist. He cried out in triumph...and then realized he was still floating straight for the drop, now just twenty feet away. Chuck frantically looked around for something, anything to grab hold of. Out of the corner of his eye, a large rock loomed on the right. He quickly splashed sideways and grabbed hold of it with his free hand-but the rock started groaning under his weight. Chuck knew it wouldn't hold for long-and he was now just a few feet away from the edge, close enough that his legs kicked wildly into thin air hundreds of feet above the gorge. And Sarah's limp body slipped around in his grasp; he wasn't sure how long he could hold onto her. "CASEY! CLARENCE! ANYBODY!" he screamed for aid over the roar of the Falls, shuddering as the rock groaned and shifted sideways. If help didn't come immediately, he knew, he and Sarah would be swept over to their doom anyway...