Chuck vs. the Seventh Day, Chapter 6
CAST (in order of appearance):
Lt. Colonel John Casey - Adam Baldwin
General Diane Beckman - Bonita Fredericy
Chuck Bartowski - Zachary Levi
Sarah Walker Bartowski - Yvonne Strahovski
Devon Woodcomb - Ryan McPartlin
Ellie Bartowski Woodcomb - Sarah Lancaster
Morgan Grimes - Joshua Gomez
February 15th, 2012
12:17 PM Pacific Standard Time
Casey's cell phone rang. Removing his surveillance headset, he rose and crossed the room. Picking the phone up off his desk, he answered it.
"This is Casey, secure."
"Colonel Casey, this is General Beckman. We have a serious problem."
"What's the situation, General?"
"Walker and Bartowski have gone off the reservation. You are to terminate them with extreme prejudice."
And the line went dead. John Casey's hand slowly came down from the side of his head, as he looked at the cell phone in his hand like it was a poisonous snake.
"The hell I will," he whispered.
Chuck's computer beeped, indicating that he had just received an e-mail. The announcement said that it had come from Bryce Larkin.
His eyes widened. "Sarah!" he shouted. "I just got an e-mail from Bryce!"
Sarah came running into the room, a child clutched in each arm. "What does it say?" she asked, worriedly.
Chuck clicked on the e-mail, and it opened. There was an attachment – "", it said.
"It's an encrypted e-mail," Chuck replied, double-clicking on the attachment. Sure enough, a new window popped up. "The terrible troll raises its sword," it said.
"Here we go again," breathed Chuck, as he typed in "Attack troll with nasty knife."
But no series of flashing images filled his screen. Instead, a video of Bryce appeared.
"Chuck, I need you to listen to me very carefully," Bryce's image said. "I am on the run from Fulcrum right now with a US Navy pilot and her aircraft. Commodore Saxon is not, repeat NOT Fulcrum any longer, but he told me who is. I'm assuming Sarah is there with you, so tell her to look away when this video ends, because I'm sending you an Intersect update with everything you need to know. To trigger the flash, you'll need to go to Google image search, search the phrase 'banana daiquiri', and click on the fourth image option that appears."
The image went black, and then Bryce reappeared. "Oh, yeah, make sure you turn the moderate safesearch filter on Google on, you perv."
Chuck's face turned bright red as the screen went black again. Then, three bold white words appeared:
"SARAH LOOK AWAY."
So she did. And then, the screen went crazy. For the next five minutes, a series of rapid fire images assaulted Chuck's brain – and then, without warning, they came to an end.
Chuck sat, looking at the computer, seemingly catatonic. Sarah turned to look at him. "Chuck? Are you okay?"
He said nothing – and then she realized that John and Lisa were being strangely quiet. She looked down at them –
Both of them had their eyes fixed on the computer screen. Both of them had absorbed the entire Intersect update. "Oh God," Sarah whispered, horrified.
But then, John blinked and shook his head. He looked up at Sarah and smiled. Lisa, on the other hand, started to cry.
The noise brought Chuck out of his catatonia. He shook his head. "Banana daiquiri," he muttered, pulling up Google image search – and setting the filter to "moderate".
Sarah noticed that. "And exactly why was safe search off, mister?" she asked, keeping a light and teasing tone in her voice despite the severity of the situation.
"Uh, I have no comment in this matter," Chuck replied, as he typed in banana daiquiri and hit enter. He went across to the fourth picture and clicked on it –
And froze again, his eyes rolling back as the flash was triggered. John, who had gotten down and was crawling around on the floor, didn't even notice – but Lisa had exactly the same reaction as her father. She instantly stopped crying as, Sarah assumed, she began to flash on the same thing Chuck was flashing on.
They snapped out of it right at the same time. Chuck took a deep breath, and Lisa looked up at her mother with wide eyes. "Ful-cum," she intoned solemnly, and then she began to cry again.
Chuck's head whipped around when he heard that, and he looked from Lisa to Sarah and back again. "What did she just say?"
"Chuck, I think they both absorbed the Intersect update," Sarah replied. "Lisa saw the trigger image, and I think she had a flash, just like you."
Chuck's jaw dropped. "Are you telling me that Lisa has the same capacity for subliminal image retention that I do?"
"And probably John as well – Chuck, they ARE your children," Sarah said.
"Well, we'll talk about it later," Chuck replied, distractedly. "We've got a huge problem. General Melvin Powers, General Robert Kellerman, Admiral Fred McConnell, Secretary Linda Foster, Secretary Marianne O'Hare, Justice Ian Noble, and Senator Lou DeBlasio are all Fulcrum."
"Ho-ly shit," Sarah breathed, forgetting about her own children, still in the room.
Chuck's face had taken on a grim appearance, and his mouth was set in a thin line. "But that all pales in comparison with the fact that Fulcrum Command is General Beckman."
Sarah's heart felt like it had stopped. The blood drained from her head, and she began to wobble. Chuck stood up quickly, grabbing Sarah before she could fall, and gently taking Lisa from her arms, setting the little girl on the floor.
That's when the lights went out. Everything went dark. Chuck's computer switched over to its battery backup – but his Firefox window, autorefreshing the Google page, suddenly went to a "404 page not found."
"Uh-oh," Chuck breathed, a feeling of dread filling him. "Power's out… Internet's down…" He picked up the phone on his desk. "Phone's dead…" He pulled out his cell phone. "And no signal."
"Chuck, we need to get out of here right now," Sarah said, alarm in her voice.
And that's when the sound of automatic gunfire pierced the calm afternoon.
Casey had armed himself for war. He had body armor on, and he had loaded the Suburban with enough weaponry to invade a small country.
Strapping on the twin S&W .357s he always carried, he slung his Saiga-12 shotgun over his back, and headed out of his apartment, locking it behind him. He crossed the courtyard to the Woodcombs apartment, and banged on the door.
Devin answered the door. "Hey, John – what the hell?"
"Is Ellie here?" Casey asked.
"Uh, yeah – what's going on?"
"The two of you and Katie are in a great deal of danger," Casey replied. "I need you to get Katie and her carseat and come with me right now."
Devin looked into Casey's eyes and knew immediately that he should not argue with him. "Ellie!" he yelled. "Get Katie, get her carseat, get the diaper bag! We need to go right now!"
When Ellie appeared in the door, her first words were, "What the hell are you talking about?" But Casey was gratified to see that she had Katie in one arm, the carseat in her hand, and the diaper bag slung over her shoulder.
"The director of the NSA has ordered a hit on your brother and Sarah," Casey said. "I'm afraid they might come after you as well. We need to get in the Suburban and get the hell out of here as quickly as we can."
Ellie's eyes went huge. "What about Chuck and Sarah?" she said.
"That's our next stop."
The sound of a great many bullets pinging off the front of the house echoed throughout the building.
Sarah glared at Chuck. "Now aren't you glad that Director Tyler insisted on installing that armor and bulletproof glass last night?"
Chuck was very glad, but he didn't say anything. He and Sarah were both on the ground, John being protected by Chuck's body and Sarah by Lisa's.
"We need to get the kids into the Dodge," Sarah said. "They'll be behind two layers of armor that way."
"Agreed," Chuck replied.
Staying low – despite the armor on the house, neither of them was taking any chances – the two stood, clutching their children in their arms. Quickly, they exited the back door of Chuck's office and darted across the laundry room, through the garage door.
Chuck unlocked the doors of the Dodge with his remote, and they put the two kids in their carseats, buckling them in and shutting the doors behind them. Still low, Sarah crept to the window in the garage door, where Chuck joined her a minute later.
The gunfire had stopped. "I think they've figured out that we're bulletproof," Chuck whispered.
"Yeah, I think so too," Sarah said, pointing at the man standing on top of the ice cream truck parked in front of the house. He was assembling a rather nasty looking launch assembly.
"They came in an ice cream truck?" Chuck asked in disbelief.
"It's an effective cover," Sarah muttered, as the man finished putting the launcher together, and aimed it at the front door. "Get down!"
A moment later, there was a tremendous BOOM as the anti-tank missile hit the front door of the house, breaching the armor and blowing open a hole. "We've got to get out of here, right now!" Sarah hissed, running for the Porsche. "I'll create a distraction – you take the Dodge and get out of here!"
Chuck's eyes went wide. "No! You can't go out there and distract them! I mean, what if something happens?"
Sarah stopped and walked back to him, fire blazing in her eyes. "This is what I DO, Chuck!"
"NO!" Chuck shouted. "You are my wife, you are THEIR mother" – he indicated the twins – "I cannot just let you run out there and sacrifice yourself this way!"
"I am doing this because I love you and because I love them!" Sarah yelled back, tears beginning to pool in her eyes. "Now I need you to get in the Dodge, and be ready to take off as fast as you can as soon as the Porsche is out in the street!"
She grabbed the back of Chuck's head and pulled him to her, kissing him furiously. In a way, it was very reminiscent of their first kiss, on the San Pedro Docks – full of fire, full of passion, with imminent doom close at hand.
Casey slammed on the brakes in the middle of Moorpark Street, bringing the Suburban to a stop right before St. Clair Avenue, cars swerving around him, horns blowing, middle fingers flying. He looked to his right, locking eyes with Devin. "Switch places with me," he ordered the younger man, jamming the gearshift into park.
Devin didn't argue, just unbuckled his seatbelt and moved over into the driver's seat, as Casey crouched between the two seats. "Ellie, I need you to hand me the long gray box in the back seat," Casey instructed.
Ellie reached back and grabbed the box, handing it to Casey. Casey opened it up, and withdrew a Stinger missile launcher as Devin put the Suburban back into drive. Casey rolled down his window, extending the launcher out the window and watching it for lock-on as Devin took the left turn onto St. Clair.
Casey could see the NSA strike team outside of the house. Foolishly, all but one of them were standing on their vehicle. The Stinger gave him a lock tone.
"Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker," Casey breathed, pressing the launch button.
The air-to-air missile blasted out of its launch tube, covering the block between the Suburban and the ice cream truck in a matter of two seconds. None of the three men standing on top of it had time to do a thing except scream as the Stinger impacted the ice cream truck and turned it into a gigantic fireball.
"Keep going to the end of the street, and then turn around and come back," Casey instructed Devin, as he opened his door and rolled out onto the lawn across from the Bartowskis house. Rolling up to his feet, he drew his twin .357s and put two bullets into the fourth member of the NSA strike team simultaneously – one in his heart, one in his head.
"And that is all she wrote," Casey said with a smile. Looking across the burning wreckage of the ice cream truck, he watched the Bartowskis' garage door scroll up as he strolled across the street.
Sarah had been just about ready to hit the garage door opener and go when there was an enormous explosion in the street. That was followed by screeching tires, and then two gunshots.
Then all went quiet. Very, very quiet. All Sarah heard was the sound of something burning somewhere.
She opened the door of the Porsche and got out. Chuck looked over at her curiously, and then got out of the Dodge.
"What the hell just happened?"
"I have no idea," Sarah said. She drew her Colt 1911 from behind her back, and then hit the garage door opener.
As the garage door slowly scrolled upwards, she could see something burning in the street, and then she saw somebody crossing the lawn.
"Well, good afternoon!" shouted John Casey cheerfully, tucking his guns back into their holsters. "I gotta say, I'm really disappointed in the utter inability of my NSA colleagues to do anything right!"
As he entered the garage, his Suburban came down the street and pulled into the driveway, Devin at the wheel. "Needless to say," Casey continued, "we all need to get the fuck out of here, right now. Only problem is, I'm pretty positive that your two cars and the Suburban all have trackers on them."
And just as he said that, Morgan came rolling up in the Mystery Machine. His eyes went wide as he climbed out, taking in the carnage in the street and the huge hole in the front of the house.
Casey looked out in the street, smiled, and looked back at Sarah. "I never thought I'd say this, but I am elated to see him."
Author's note: I think it goes without saying that Wednesday will have more than two parts. More to come soon!