Chapter 28: The Game Night Part 3
California, Burbank Buy More, February 2nd, 2008
Chuck hadn't flashed on the man - neither in the store nor now. But this couldn't be a coincidence. The man had been acting weird, and his story didn't really check out, now that Chuck thought about it. How many Japanese porn games were even available on that platform? And the man hadn't looked like an addict or gang member, either, which might've explained his behaviour.
In any case, Chuck couldn't ignore this. Someone had killed the man - violently, it seemed. And if they had made him talk, they'd come here. Or were already present. Damn
He looked around. The event wouldn't start for a few hours yet, which meant the store was still open, and customers were passing the food court. And none of them looked suspicious. Or triggered the Intersect. Which didn't mean anything, of course. The Intersect wasn't infallible, and good spies wouldn't look suspicious.
In any case, he had to inform the others. He headed back to the Wienerlicious stand. "Sarah?"
"Yes?" she replied in that tone he knew meant 'I'm busy, so this better be important'.
"I think we've got a problem," he told her. "A problem-problem, not something…" He gestured at the rows of screens and consoles Jeff and Lester were setting up.
Now he had her full attention. "What did you find out?"
"Uh, it's not that I had a sudden revelation, you know?" He glanced around, just in case someone might be watching. "But there was this weird customer two days ago who wanted his broken console back. His specific broken console. And today, they found his body in the harbour, murdered."
"Which console is it?"
"Uh… one of those?" He pointed at the tournament area. Then he blinked. "Wait… I got the repair report in my office! I'll be right back!"
He turned and headed back to the store. Where had he stashed Anna's report, again? Not with the regular reports, or someone might have tried to swipe it - people did a lot of stupid things for porn, after all. About a fifth of the Nerd Herd calls were probably the result of someone browsing a porn site and getting a virus.
Right, he had left it in his shirt. Which had been put into the laundry… Damn.
Chuck made an about-face, as Casey would say, and returned to Sarah.
"Did someone steal the report?" she asked in a whisper as soon as he reached her.
"Uh… not exactly. I think it's in the laundry. Sorry," he said.
"How many consoles are there?"
"Forty," he replied. "Six per team, and four in reserve."
"How fast can you check them?"
"Uh…" He looked around. "That's not the problem." At worst, he'd have to spend a few minutes per console."
"What?"
"See those guys there?" He nodded towards a group of people occupying the pizza corner. "They are observers from the other stores. They checked the consoles for tampering in the morning. If I suddenly want to check the consoles again…" He winced.
She narrowed her eyes, and, for a moment, he was afraid she'd propose a Casey solution to the problem of interfering civilians. "Then we have to check them after the tournament and keep our eyes open for anyone who tries to get them."
Chuck nodded. "Uh, sure."
"Don't worry," Caridad commented as she passed them to pick up a can of mustard, "I'm on it!"
"Oh, no!" Vi butted in - Chuck hadn't seen her around until she spoke up. "You just keep making hot dogs; I'll take care of this."
"Really? Big Mike will get security to throw you out if he spots you!"
"Hah! If he could do that, you wouldn't be here. Besides, he won't spot me!"
Chuck winced. "Guys! We've got this - you don't need to do anything, really." Why were both Slayers interested in messing with a spy mission?
"Casey can't be everywhere," Caridad retorted. "And I know the area like the back of my hand."
Oh. Of course. That explained the sudden desire to work as a spy. Chuck looked around. Where was Morgan? Handling Slayers was Watcher work! And Morgan should be here. "Has anyone seen Morgan?"
"No…" Caridad frowned. "He was keeping an eye on Vi."
"What? I don't need a keeper!"
"Kirsten?" Chuck called out to Bane. "Have you seen Morgan?"
"He had to go to the bathroom…" She trailed off, and Chuck could see her growing tense. "But that was ten minutes ago."
Damn.
"Keep an eye on the consoles! I'll check the bathrooms!" Chuck told Sarah and started moving. He hadn't taken more than a few steps, though, before Caridad and Vi passed him. The two Slayers weren't going full speed - impossible in this crowd - but they were still weaving through the people mingling in the food court with supernatural grace. Fortunately, the TV crew wasn't present yet, but if anyone paid attention…
Chuck himself had some trouble, almost shoulder-checking a man balancing two supersized menus on a tray and bumping into another overweight passerby as he dodged the first.
"Hey!" the man complained, but Chuck was already past. "Sorry, emergency!" he yelled over his shoulder.
Vi and Caridad would already be… Chuck's eyes widened. They were going to the closest bathrooms - the public ones. Morgan never went there. Not since he had had to clean them when he had started at the Buy More. He always went to the staff bathrooms.
Chuck pulled out his phone, giving a family with three small kids a wide berth, and started texting while he cleared the food court.
STAFF BATHROOM
He bumped into a woman, who spilled her drink on her partner, but he sent the text. And once he had left the food court, he could run more easily. But he was alone - should he wait for the Slayers?
"Move!"
That was Bane. She was right behind him.
Chuck sped up.
"We informed Casey. He's on the way," the spy told him as they ran past Nerd Herd desk.
But would the two of them be enough to handle whatever was awaiting them? "Are you armed?" he asked, opening the door to the staff area.
Instead of answering, she drew a compact pistol from under her skirt.
"Right." He pulled out his pencil-stake, feeling under-armed. But Morgan was in danger. "It's this way."
"I've been here before," she replied.
Oh. Of course - Morgan liked to use the home entertainment room for 'private entertainment'. One of the reasons Chuck didn't like using the room to play video games.
Bane took the lead in the hallway, gun pointed ahead.
"Watch out for friendlies," Chuck said as they entered the break room, where he grabbed a length of pipe stashed behind the door.
"Aren't you armed?" Bane asked as they continued their advance.
"It wasn't supposed to be a mission!" he retorted. It was supposed to be a game night!
"We're always on a mission," she replied before she kicked open the door leading to the staff washrooms.
Now that was a peculiar wording… Chuck jerked back just in time to avoid getting shot. Silenced pistol, he noted as he rolled over his shoulder and came up in a crouch.
But Bane had done a combat roll and come up shooting. By the time Chuck reached the door, she was already kneeling next to a man holding his bleeding shoulder and thigh. The entrance to the restrooms had been torn open, and Chuck could spot Morgan's jacket hanging on the hook on the inner side.
"Where did you take Morgan?" she asked as Chuck picked up the pistol the man had dropped. Glock-17, nine bullets left, silencer.
The man groaned but didn't reply.
Bane kicked his bleeding thigh, making him scream in pain. "Talk!"
"Uh…" Chuck wasn't sure about this. But he wasn't flashing on anything or anyone. So, what else might…
Caridad arrived, Vi on her heels. "Where's Morgan?" She sniffed the air. "Blood… his blood."
What? Chuck took another look at the toilet stall. Yes, there was a spot of blood on the floor.
"They hurt him?" Bane kicked the man, harder this time, and he screamed again.
Chuck was glad the area was pretty much sound-proof, as the impromptu rock karaoke a few months ago had proved. If anyone happened to stumble on them… "Can you track him?"
"Of course," Caridad said.
"What?" Bane looked confused. "He's got a locator?"
"Uh… something like it," Chuck said, staring pointedly at the man on the floor.
A moment later, she had knocked him out.
"This way!" Caridad snapped and took off towards the backdoor with Vi.
"Shouldn't we secure him?" Chuck asked as Bane followed them. "And, uh… treat his wounds?"
"Later!"
Damn. Chuck hesitated a moment, then ran after the others. The man would survive. Probably.
At least he was armed now.
He reached the exit to the loading ramps in time to catch Bane turning the corner. That made sense, of course - on that side were dense bushes. Demons had once used it to get close to the store without being detected.
Halfway to the corner, he heard yelling and screaming, but when he rounded it, leading with his gun, the fight was already over. The Slayers were standing over two knocked out - Chuck saw no blood - men, and Bane was cutting the zip ties with which Morgan had been secured to the fence here.
They had worked him over, too - Chuck could see a few cuts and growing bruises on Morgan's face. But he was alive. And he wasn't bleeding much. And he was conscious.
"Chuck! They want a console we repaired!" Morgan blurted out. "They were talking to their boss on the phone while they beat me up!"
"Uh. So there are more of them," Chuck said.
"Can you track their phones?" Vi asked.
"Not with enough precision to find them inside the store," Chuck said. Same cell. And even if he rigged up a detector, if they mingled with the growing crowd… "We'll have to guard the consoles."
"And treat his wounds," Bane said.
Morgan claimed that he was fine, but she wasn't listening to him.
How would the bad guys go after the consoles? By now, they were all in the food court, in plain view of dozens of people at all times. So how… "Wait, guys!" Chuck blurted out. "We need to protect Anna! She was the one to talk to the dead guy!" And, he realised with a sinking feeling, so was he… "Ok… Caridad, Vi - tie up and gag those guys, and the one in the staff area, and stash them all in… hell, put them into the cells in The Castle." They already were privy to the base, anyway, and could transport the prisoners easily. "I'll go back to the others. We need to protect Anna. And the consoles."
"You shouldn't go alone," Morgan said.
"It's just a short trip," Chuck retorted, sending a text to Sarah and Casey. And he was armed now - he put the Glock into his waistband in the small of his back and let the shirt cover it.
But even a short trip - from the break room, where Bane was treating Morgan's wounds with the first aid kit, to the food court area - could be very long, Chuck discovered quickly. He knew he was in danger, that there were enemies around, but he had no idea who they were - they could be anywhere and anyone.
The two young men studying the flatscreens in the electronics section? The middle-aged couple arguing over a kitchen aid? Or the lone man studying the crowd?
Chuck had to fight the urge to keep his hand on the grip of his pistol as he passed through the store. If anyone jumped him…
The single man's eyes lit up as Chuck drew closer. Why wasn't the Intersect kicking in? Chuck prepared to dive behind the blender alley, as Morgan called the kitchen aid section, when the man exclaimed: "Claire! There you are!"
Chuck glanced over his shoulder. There was a woman walking towards the other man. So, he had been looking for her. False alert.
Unless this was just a ploy to make him lower his guard. Had he seen the woman before? The Intersect still wasn't working. And the gun in the small of his back felt as if it might slip into his trousers if he moved too quickly.
But Chuck reached the food court area without getting into a fight or gunning someone down by mistake. "Sarah!"
He forced himself to smile as he waved at her. "Morgan is a little banged up, but fine," he told her. "Bane's treating him."
She nodded sharply, her attention on the row of consoles and screens in the centre of the area. And, he presumed, on Anna, who was supervising the crowd playing on the 'open' consoles. "I haven't spotted anyone suspicious so far," she whispered.
"There's at least one - their boss - around; Morgan overheard the kidnappers talking to them on the phone," Chuck explained. "Perhaps they've given up?" They lost three people so far, after all. On the other hand, they had already killed one man for this… "Forget that."
Once more, Sarah nodded.
"Also, do we have a spare back holster? My gun keeps slipping down my pants."
A little later, with the gun slipping problem fixed by some spy trick of Sarah's, Chuck was looking at the tournament tables. Anna had her hands full with the boys and teenagers who had started a small tournament of their own on the spare consoles, Bane and Caridad were busy at the food stand, Vi was… where was the Slayer?
Chuck looked at Casey, who was standing on the other side of the court, arms crossed, and glaring at everyone in the vicinity. No, no Slayer there. Which was a good thing, of course - Caridad wouldn't have taken that well.
But where were the enemy spies? And what was in the console that was important enough to kill people for? Perhaps they should interrogate the prisoners… but that would leave them short at least one trained spy when the enemies struck.
And they would have to make a move - the tournament was about to start, and then everyone would be watching the consoles like a hawk. Unless the bad guys planned to wait until it was over, and strike during cleanup. Though that would make them stand out since everyone not on cleanup duty would be leaving, with the store closing down.
Which, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling, would also mean there would be far fewer potential witnesses around. Uh.
"Oh, the TV crew's arrived!" Morgan's comment interrupted Chuck's increasingly gloomy thoughts - only to introduce a new problem to worry about.
He couldn't be seen on TV. Not with Dad's mission going on.
"And here's your hot dog! Enjoy your meal!"
"Finally! I'm starving!"
Sarah had a lot of experience making and serving hot dogs, so she had no trouble working the grill and keeping a smile on her face as she served the crowd. And was observing the tables, where the competitors were now taking their seats, and wishing that the TV crew had been held up in traffic. The press's presence only made an already bad situation worse. Chuck had pretty much abandoned the area since the TV crew had been all but hounding him, which left Grimes in charge of the tournament. Fortunately, Chuck's friend didn't look too hurt, or people might have questioned his 'slipped in the bathroom' story.
It was still a less than ideal situation, in her opinion. At least the cameraman was actually focusing on the players and the TV screens instead of on the pretty girls in the audience, so Sarah didn't have to dodge the press herself. Of course, given the cut of the Wienerlicious uniforms, the odds of any shoot showing her face instead of her cleavage and legs were slim to none anyway. Still, she appreciated the lack of attention.
As, she presumed, did Bane, although the spy was putting up a good show about being worried for Grimes. Sarah could almost believe that she had fallen for Grimes, if not for, well, Bane being Bane and Grimes being Grimes.
In any case, she had been in worse situations. They had been surprised by events, but now they got a handle on them. Chuck was safe - Casey kept an eye on him. Grimes had been saved. They had eyes on the objective and forces in place to intercept any attempt to grab it. They didn't know, yet, which console contained whatever the enemy was seeking, but once the game night was over, they'd have all the time needed to sort that out.
And with two Slayers present watching everyone like hawks, even Jeff and Lester were acting subdued enough to avoid making a scene.
All in all, things could've gone worse.
"And now, for the start of the event, San Diego versus Burbank! The challengers versus the reigning champions! Two teams enter, one team leaves!" Grimes's voice came out of every speaker in the building, or so it seemed.
"Challengers?"
"We'll show you!"
"We'll kick you back to Mexico!"
"Get ready to be teabagged!"
"Damn," Sarah heard Caridad complain next to her, "those people need some help with the trash talking. No demon would lose their composure over such weak insults."
"They aren't going to fight demons," Sarah pointed out.
"Technically, they are," the Slayer retorted as she filled a bottle from the bucket of mayonnaise under the counter. "Jeff's got enough slime demon blood to qualify, and the tall one from the other team smells like a Brachen demon."
A Brachen demon? Sarah frowned for a moment. "Those are the harmless ones?"
"Well, as harmless as any other human - they can go bad as well. But they aren't evil from birth or such, so we're not killing them on sight," Caridad explained. With a chuckle, she added: "Not that all of them know that, of course!"
Ah. That explained where Vi was - Sarah saw that Vi had managed to get close behind the San Diego team as they took their seats, and the supposed Brachen demon was now shaking and had to be reminded by his teammates to enter the game. "Isn't that cheating?" she said.
"Nope. Just a happy side effect of doing or duty and reminding the demons that we've got an eye on them," Caridad replied with a wide grin.
Sarah snorted. Chuck would disagree, of course, but she understood the sentiment. Spies didn't play fair either.
"And it's on!" Grimes yelled, wildly waving his free hand around.
On the big TV screen mounted behind the players - so they couldn't cheat by looking at it - a computer picture appeared, showing the game from the point of view of 'CKillerXXXX' according to the tag. Who barely managed to take a few steps before getting killed.
"And the Burbank Sniper takes first blood! That must've hurt!" Grimes gloated. "And there's more where that came from!"
"Boo! You camper!"
"Get good you shrub!"
She shook her head. Chuck's friend obviously didn't care to be a neutral commentator. Chuck would've done it differently, but the crowd liked it, judging by their reactions. Well, apart from the supporters from San Diego.
Her view of the demon player was briefly obscured by the cameraman walking between her and the tables, taking a close up of the players' faces.
No, she realised once she saw the angle at which he held the camera. Not the players' faces.
The consoles.
Chuck's mobile phone vibrated, interrupting his attempt to use the store's security cameras, linked to his Nerd Herd desk thanks to a nifty little program he had installed, to find the enemy spies. He checked the display - Sarah. She wouldn't call unless it was important. And he should get his spy comm gear.
"The TV crew are fake," Sarah told him as soon as he accepted the call. "They're filming the consoles, not the players."
He swallowed the joke about product placement that somehow appeared in his mind. Instead, he said: "They're trying to identify the missing console. They must know the serial number." That made sense, of course.
"Yes," she replied. "But they can't get it now. Not with so many witnesses."
"So we have time until the event ends, then."
"Unless they create a diversion."
"Diversion? Uh. Like a… fire alert?" That's what he would do. Had done.
"Yes, like a fire alert."
"Uh…" It was highly illegal. Fire alerts were vital. Tampering with them could endanger lives - hundreds, in the case of a building as large as the Buy More, doubly so during a crowd-packing event. As Ellie had told him in detail after the Malibu mission. But a false alert would endanger all those people anyway. Especially if followed by a firefight between spies. "I'll disable the alert and put it on a loop." That way, he could check if there really was a fire before sounding the alert.
"Good. Casey's setting up for fire support."
Smart. With two Slayers on the ground and Sarah and Bane, they didn't need anyone else on the floor. "I'll keep an eye on the security," he said. "Safely away from the press."
"Be careful."
"Don't worry," he told her, turning around to watch a customer slowly walk towards him. "Careful is my middle…" he trailed off as he flashed.
Jack O'Riley. Three convictions for blackmail and extortion. Suspected of two counts of murders without any evidence, and a string of cons and blackmail. Last thought to target starter business in the IT field.
Chuck shook his head, blinking. O'Riley was coming for him. And the man had noticed his reaction - his hand slipped under his leather jacket.
Chuck was faster, though. His day planner flew through the air like a rectangle-shaped discus and hit the other man in the face as Chuck ducked below the desk and drew his pilfered gun. He came up - but O'Riley had disappeared. Fled? "Enemy here! O'Riley!" he whispered to the phone he had dropped.
Movement on his left side drew his attention, and he whirled - and almost shot an older woman peering at the rows and rows of games.
He dropped to the floor before he realised what he was doing, and a fraction of a second later, he heard the sound of a bullet wheezing past. Silenced pistol, he noted. Probably a .45 - smaller calibres didn't do as well with subsonic munition.
He was already rolling over his shoulder, coming up pressed against the Nerd Herd desk and aiming… O'Riley had disappeared again. Chuck pulled his laptop down and started to switch the camera feeds around. He needed the ones covering this section, and he needed it yesterday. Before O'Riley found a clear line of fire.
There! Chuck grinned. There was O'Riley, sneaking…
Once more, Chuck hit the ground just in time for a bullet to miss him. He returned fire with his own silenced pistol, driving O'Riley to jump into cover behind the printer lane. Chuck's underpowered bullets wouldn't go through those machines, but if he caught a glimpse…
Without taking his eyes off the row of cardboard boxes, he drew the laptop towards him. It would be difficult to set up a shot using the security camera, but… A glance at the laptop killed that plan - the bullet that had missed him hadn't missed the computer.
"That was an overpriced business model," Chuck muttered as he shifted his position. Big Mike would explode if he got the bill.
Where were the others? Sarah would've heard the fight. And it wasn't that far from the food court to the Nerd Herd desk. So, where were the reinforcements?
Footsteps! Chuck rose, raising his gun, then froze. Vi stood there, frowning. "Where's the enemy?"
"Uh…" Chuck looked around. No sign of O'Riley. "He's disappeared again."
"Yeah, I noticed."
"I need another laptop," Chuck said.
"Is this the time to think about computers?"
"To check the security cameras!" he explained, already moving to the computer section.
But before he reached it, he heard yells and screams from the food court area.
"Fire! Fire!"
So much for his plan to block the fire alert diversion.
"Fire! Fire!"
Sarah jerked when she heard the yelling. So much for Chuck blocking the fire alerts. She looked around as the first people in the crowd started to move. There would be a panic and…
"That's pathetic! A fake fire alert? Can you be any more obvious!"
Sarah blinked. What?
One of the players from the San Diego Buy More was yelling at Grimes, and the crowd stopped moving.
"You're losing and want to break off the match! Pathetic!" the man went on.
"That's not us!" Grimes retorted. "That's one of yours trying to keep us from coming back!"
"You're walking into our trap!" Lester added.
"Hah! Are you delusional? You're about to get curb stomped!"
"We're going to put you out of your misery!"
"We'll see about that! Guys! Execute Plan Beta!"
"Beta as in buggy and improvised?"
"Certainly not Alpha, hah!"
And as Sarah, halfway around the food counter, watched, the match continued, with the crowd settling down. Were all the Buy More staffers crazy? She had assumed a particular collection of misfits had accrued in Burbank as sometimes happened, but everyone else from the visiting stores seemed to take games as seriously as the locals. She might owe Chuck an apology.
After she took care of the missing spy and his accomplices. And ensured that there wasn't an actual fire. "Do you have eyes on the ones yelling fire?" she whispered into her radio.
"They're in the northern section," Casey answered, "I can see them on the cameras. Two men, armed - it's the TV team."
She could handle two men. "I'm on it," she said.
"Bartowski's grabbing a computer," Casey told her as she cleared the food counter and moved through the back of the crowd. "But I don't see the man he fought."
That meant the man - O'Riley, was it? - had to be in a spot outside camera coverage, which was useful information by itself. But she had to deal with the two firestarters first.
"They're entering the toilets now."
Probably to start a real fire. Sarah sped up, drawing her gun as she closed in on the toilets - the silencer wasn't the best, but this far from the main event, no one should overhear it. She kicked the door open and shot the man serving as a lookout before he could raise his own pistol, then crouched down and turned around. The other had to be in one of the stalls.
She tilted her head, peering through the gap at the bottom. She couldn't see any shoes, but there was a mass of toilet paper on the floor in the last stall - ready to be set on fire. She could fire through the stall, but her subsonic bullets might be deflected or stopped if they hit at a poor angle, and if she caught a bullet herself…
Sarah looked around and grinned. Perfect.
She grabbed the bucket in the corner and swung it as she rushed forward, then let it go. It sailed over the stall, and Sarah heard a muttered curse right before she kicked the stall open. The man had been standing on the toilet and lost his balance when her bucket hit him, having to use both hands to keep himself from falling.
"Freeze!" she snapped, aiming at his head.
He froze. Thirty seconds later, he was unconscious and tied up on the floor, and Sarah was hanging an 'out of order, do not enter' sign on the door outside.
"...now let's reboot and see if I can get a connection working," mumbled Chuck as he finished installing his program on the laptop he had borrowed from the electronics section. It was a display model, so the battery was already charged.
"What are you doing?" Vi asked.
"I'm hooking this up to the security cameras so we can check them here," he told her.
"Couldn't we have gone to the security centre? You have one, right?"
"Uh… with this, we can move and keep checking." It was a good excuse for not thinking of the simpler solution, in Chuck's opinion. "Otherwise, I'd have to stay there and guide you through your phone."
"We really need those spy radios you guys have," Vi replied.
Chuck nodded. So did he.
The computer finished rebooting - finally! - and Chuck started the security camera feed grabber. It worked! He smiled as he began to go through the different cameras. O'Riley had to be somewhere.
"Oh no!" Vi's exclamation interrupted him.
"What?"
"Caridad took down the fake TV crew! Without me!" the Slayer complained.
Chuck shook his head. Slayers! But with two wanna-be arsonists down, the TV crew down, and the ones who had kidnapped Morgan taken care of, there couldn't be many enemy spies left in the store.
And that meant O'Riley would be trying to flee. And the main entrance and exit was in plain view of the food court, which meant...
"Come on!" Chuck blurted out, "We need to get to the loading area." The enemy had kidnapped Mogan in the staff area, so they were familiar with the layout, and Chuck didn't think O'Riley would head out through the same route Morgan had been taken through, so that left the loading ramps in the back.
Vi took off like a rocket. The Slayer was at the door to the staff area before Chuck had grabbed the laptop, and by the time he reached the break room, the Slayer must have reached the loading area already.
He quickly checked on the laptop - yes, there she was, searching for O'Riley.
Who, Chuck realised with a sinking feeling as he saw the next camera feed appear, wasn't there, but headed to an emergency exit. Close to Chuck's position.
Pressing his lips together, he drew his pistol and started running again.
He had to get into a position where he could ambush or, at least, block O'Riley. That meant reaching the door first. There was a room near it where he could take cover, and once the man walked past… Well, Chuck could shoot him in the leg. Or something.
But when he reached the emergency doors inside the store, so had O'Riley. Chuck dived into the camping section's display, taking cover behind the log at the fake camping site as the man opened fire. But the log was thick enough to…
A bullet blew straight through it an inch in front of his head. The thing was made out of plastic! Big Mike had been cheap again! Chuck scrambled backwards, two more bullets missing him, then rose with his gun drawn. He fired two shots towards where he had seen the spy last then dashed across the display and took cover behind the fortunately oversized and over-engineered portable generator.
This time, he could hear the underpowered bullets ricochet as they hit the solid metal of the generator. But where was O'Riley? Just from the angles of the shots, he had to be… Chuck peered through a gap between the tank - empty, or at least it should be empty - and the main part of the generator. Folding chair and table section - clear. No one hiding behind the trail ration aisle, either - they still hadn't moved that to the food section despite regulations. That left… Yes! Something moved behind the tent row. Chuck tracked the movement through the gaps in the aisle, lining up his shot for the moment he had a clear line of fire.
But what exited the aisle wasn't O'Riley - it was a shopping cart covered in a tarp the colour of the man's shirt. Chuck gasped, then whirled and threw himself to the side, behind the Football-team-sized cooler.
But no one shot at him. Why would the man use a distraction, but didn't follow up? The emergency exit! He scrambled up and rushed towards the doors again. Though he would be too late to stop the man, he should be able to catch up in the hallway behind the doors that led outside the actual building, or in the parking lot there.
Unless O'Riley expected that. Which he probably would, Chuck realised as he ran past the outdoor clothing section. With the… Oh!
He grabbed a mannequin wearing an ugly neon 'don't shoot me, I'm no deer' jacket and dragged it with him to the emergency doors - which had been opened already - then pushed it through first.
He felt it jerk under his hand as two bullets hit the mannequin and let it drop to the floor as he slid around the door's frame, leading with his gun. His first shot hit O'Riley's arm, making him drop his weapon, but his second shot missed as the man jerked and jumped towards Chuck in a combat roll. Despite being wounded, the man managed to complete the roll and execute a roundhouse kick that disarmed Chuck.
Chuck managed to dodge the follow-up slash with a combat knife that had appeared in the man's hand, and the next and the next before O'Riley overextended. Chuck kicked the mannequin into the man's leg, causing him to stumble, then slammed his pencil into the wounded arm, point first.
O'Riley went down, screaming in pain and clutching his arm, where the pencil was stuck in the wound, but a roundhouse kick to the temple shut him up.
Chuck closed his eyes for a moment, leaning against the wall and panting.
That had been close. Very close.
"Aw... you got him already."
It took Chuck a moment to recover from the near heart-attack Vi suddenly appearing next to him caused, but at least now he didn't have to lug the man around himself.
"...and in an unexpected but inevitable reversal, the Burbank Bandits manage to win the match with a last-minute play that utterly destroyed the overconfident San Diego Sharks! A fitting revenge for their first-round defeat - and a perfect plan executed flawlessly, folks! Game, set and match! Let's hear it for Burbank! We are the champions! There's no time for losers!"
As Morgan shed any pretences about being impartial and shamelessly started to gloat, Chuck leaned against the Wienerlicious's food stand - or what was left of it - and crossed his arms. "All's well that ends well, huh?" he commented, looking at Sarah next to him.
Her smile looked a little tired - but then, she had spent the last two hours mostly serving hot dogs.
"And you probably made a profit," he went on in a bright voice, the hurriedly added: "I'm joking!" when her smile turned into a glare. "And it wasn't funny?"
She shook her head, but she seemed mollified. Chuck felt relieved. "So… that was game night. Worth it, I think."
"Hm?"
"It was a lot of stress," he explained as he watched Morgan wave around the trophy, hugging Bane with his free arm, "but it was also fun. Even if I didn't get to play much myself." Though he got to catch enemy spies.
"We still need to recover the console," she reminded him.
"Yes, but we know which console." And all the bad guys were in cells now. Or the morgue.
"So, did you get the game night out of your system?"
She was smiling a little mischievously, he noticed. "Uh… let's say I got the huge tournament for half a dozen store teams out of my system?"
That made her laugh. "As long as you don't organise local game nights in our living room."
Chuck was glad he hadn't mentioned his plans for a smaller game night, just a few friends playing together. Perhaps in a few months, when things had settled down...
California, Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, February 3rd, 2008
"So… O'Riley had blackmailed a computer programmer from Silicon Valley he had met in the online gaming scene into handing over the source code of the new network application that his firm was developing for the government. And he hid it inside a gaming console's memory." Chuck shook his head as he summed up the debriefing's results while Sarah parked their car. "Do you think he got a little too much into his role?"
"Perhaps," she replied. "There would have been better ways to smuggle the data out."
"Good for us," he commented as they exited the car and walked towards the lift which would take them up to their temporary apartment. Not so good for the poor contact O'Riley had killed, though.
"Yes," Sarah agreed.
"So… now we have to maintain our cover, hm? Newlyweds?" Chuck asked.
Her grin matched his, to his slight relief. The game night had been a little stressful for everyone, after all. But by the time the lift reached their floor, they were in each others' arms, kissing passionately.
And they kissed some more in the hallway. And next to the door. Some hands may have wandered as well. Just maintaining their cover, in case someone had the entrance and lift under surveillance.
They managed to open the door to their new flat, and not fall down as they entered, still embracing. Perhaps the couch instead of the bed, Chuck thought. It was closer.
"Hi, son."
And, he realised with a gasp as Sarah tore away from him and drew a gun, it was occupied. By his dad.