It seems like when Casey and Chuck get together, they'll always get themselves into a lot of trouble. This Chapter is about one of those cases.

Chuck Versus Agent Insanity – Part II

Chapter II

Another Day, Another Vic

When Carina and Chuck got back to the hotel Casey was still snoring mightily under the kitchen table.

'Do they offer some type of muffler devices at four-star hotels these days?' Chuck wondered but kept that to himself.

Instead he said, 'Is it just me, or Casey has spent roughly 85% of the time over the last week sleeping here or there. Poisoned by your devilish concoctions, sprays, whatever? You're not a dart girl, are you?'

'Well, some of the time he slept was thanks to your kicking him in the head if I remember correctly, so how exactly am I the only bad guy here?' Carina retorted.

Yeah, Chuck remembered this now. And at the end of their mini-honeymoon, Sarah admitted to him that she had sprayed Casey at half-time of their mmmm.. love marathon. Just in case.

He looked worried now. "Were they turning themselves into another Carina? Drugging people for their own pleasure? Frivolous with the methods? Rogue?'

He remembered watching Sarah kill Mauser. He was so upset then. But later she explained why she did that. He had quickly forgotten about this, probably because his life was so full of high-adrenaline situations. It didn't make it right, though.

'Would you go and try wake Casey up?' Carina interrupted his thoughts. 'I need to take a shower. We'll have to decide what we do next.'

Chuck wasn't sure he was the most qualified person in the world for such a formidable task but the gentleman in him had no choice.

When he reached the kitchen, he first decided to move the table away from Casey so he had some space. And then he tried his best. Casey wouldn't care.

'Hello, Casey, general Beckman is here, ... wake up.' Chuck started again.

'Grr, Grrr,' Casey was obviously dreaming something, judging from the movements under his eyelids.

'Beckman is here in the other room, she wants to talk to you.' Chuck was yelling now.

Clearly, the general's name was nowhere near enough or just hadn't reached the right areas of Casey's brain.

Allowing a tight-lipped smile, Chuck started looking for something else. 'Yeah, it might work, it might work' he muttered out.

'Casey, Casey,' Chuck was shaking his shoulder now, 'Get up. Did you know? It's Ronald Reagan's birthday today. It's his 97th. The ceremony starts in 25 minutes, hurry up!'

He repeated it twice more.

The snoring stopped.

'Wow, it worked!' a triumphant Chuck exclaimed.

I wasn't meant to be, however. Casey just turned aside, opened his right eye slightly and roared at him, 'Nice try, numb-nuts. February 6.'

'What,' Chuck couldn't understand, 'February 6 what?'

'Idiot. Reagan's birthday, February 6. And next year it'll be his 99th. And Bartowski, one more thing', a super-cranky Casey went on. 'One more try to wake me up and I'll knee-cap you.'

At that, Casey gave Chuck a really vicious one-eyed look, turned his back on him and continued with whatever he was dreaming about.

Chuck sighed and turned. Carina was standing 10 feet away from him, watching the whole show, grinning. She was again only a towel away from her birth suit.

But this time Chuck didn't notice. 'Enjoying it, huh? Weren't you supposed to be taking a shower?'

"Ah, yeah,', she chuckled, 'but just before entering the bathroom I remembered to give you a heads up. That's why I came here. But it'd have been so impolite to interrupt this." She was really laughing now.

'What?' Chuck inquired.

'What what, Chuck?'

'What did you want to say?'

'Ah, nothing that important, just that it's been already arranged and I'll be working at Orange, Orange, as a temporary replacement to Sarah. Thus, we'll have access to the Castle again. And I think you and Casey should reapply for your former jobs at the Buy More. You should try to talk Casey into that once he wakes up.'

'Don't you see, Carina? The guy is dead-sleeping. Why don't you try …?'

'Well super agent Carmichael,' she interrupted, pursing her lips, 'here is your first mission. 'Wake up Casey without getting knee-capped. You have 5 minutes." At that Carina winked at him, turned around and rushed to the bathroom.

'Easy for you to say, you medi..evil manipulator,' Chuck blurred the two words, exhaling this through his clenched teeth.

His thoughts focused on Carina now. She did so many outrageous things, but with such lightness, so playfully, that he couldn't be seriously angry at her. Yet, so much around her remained mystery.

Now Chuck remembered his new ability. The lie detector. Yeah, he should think of the right questions and then confront Carina, once his new ability flashes again.

With that thought and a corresponding evil grin, he turned back to the colonel, still sleeping on the kitchen floor.

'Think, think, think.'

Suddenly, Chuck noticed that Casey's key-chain had slid off his pocket, probably when he turned last and was lying on the floor next to him.

'Yeah, the Vic', Chuck exclaimed.

He stepped forward, very carefully, and picked up Casey's keys. Then he went to the window. The kitchen overlooked the parking lot and he could see Casey's beloved car there.

The black Vic with this new, white upholstery, looked really beautiful even to 'not exactly a car' guy like him. He looked at the panic button of the car remote.

Then he remembered Casey's threat. Yeah, he better be careful. There was a smarter way to do that. He stepped away from the window, took his snickers off, his left hand was up, holding the remote, reaching the window and pointing at the parking lot. He closed his eyes and pressed the panic button. Then in one jump he was back to Casey, left the keys there on the floor, next to him and raced away from the kitchen.

It was beyond apparent now, that Casey had just upgraded his car alarm with some new state-of-the-art stuff. Never before in his life had Chuck heard anything like that.

The blaring sound of the car alarm was an audio concoction of … everything under the sun.

Most probably, Casey had mixed into one file every digital sound he had been able to put his hands on, then upgrading his alarm system with it.

Military sirens, police whistles, standard car alarms squealing, of all types and in all frequency bands, gunshots, missiles and bombs landing on their targets.

Chuck even flashed on the audio signature of eight B-52 jets engines, recorded from a close proximity.

A wild-life buff could catch the roaring of at least three badly pissed-off lions, obviously fighting for the only female around. It was one hell of a fight.

Jeff's highly trained stalker ear would have discerned the lovemaking sounds of several couples at once. The thumping, groaning, everything.

La Cuidad would have detected the desperate and very last screams of many of her torture victims whereas Sasha Benacheck would have found out everything that had happened in all Bulgarian and Soviet prisons in a single gulp.

Casey must have really enjoyed doing this mixture.

Chuck was now positive about that even with his hands pressed on the ears. It started low but was gradually gaining more and more power. But how could it be THAT loud now?

Chuck realized that Casey had opened the window of the kitchen trying to shout something at somebody outside and the sound was entering now without anything between the source and Chuck's head.

Still, there was no explanation why so powerful this horrible, horrible siren noise was. Everything was vibrating here.

Now Chuck remembered that several days ago Casey had installed in the Vic not one but two of those extra-power speakers that all these crazy teenagers have in their nitro-sports cars. Chuck had wondered about it.

Crazy teenagers tend to use those to see how many cranky buildings they can demolish in a single pass, but Casey?

Now the pieces of this particular puzzle were taking their rightful place. Obviously, the colonel hadn't trusted his new alarm's dedicated speaker and wired it up to the two super-power ones in his trunk. Chuck was pretty positive now that it had enough power to sound-screen the western hemisphere.

Worst of all, while it had started not that loud, now it was gradually gathering force and was next to unbearable even for the elephants in the quite distant jungles of Indonesia.

Chuck was totally freaking out now. What to do, what to do? Does he go back to the kitchen with the crazy colonel? He looked at his knee-caps. Oh no, he still wanted them in two pieces, tops.

But the noise was simply too unbearable. He looked around for the earphones. Couldn't see them.

He sighed, got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen still pressing his ears as hard as possible.

Casey was at the window, opened now, pointing his gun at somebody outside. Was he shooting at somebody or just shouting? Chuck couldn't tell. It was impossible to hear anything because the omnipotent, monstrous sound cocktail was drowning down every other audio wave.

Chuck had approached Casey and was now trying to signal him with his eyes and head to go to the parking lot and try to do something with the alarm there.

But the colonel wouldn't listen. He had one of those enraged mad expressions Chuck remembered when his previous Vic had exploded.

'Somebody's messing with the Vic. I'm gonna kill the bastard' he was shouting, but nobody could hear that.

He was obviously ready to shoot at anybody who would approach the Vic.

Casey had put the pair of earphones from the music system on his head. Luckily for him, they happened to have been left in the kitchen. Clearly the noise level looked somewhat tolerable to him.

Chuck realized that Casey was of no use.

'Think, think, think,' Chuck was desperately looking around, still pressing his ears as hard as he possibly could. He felt so helpless.

But then he saw Casey's car keys on the floor, exactly where he had left them.

'The remote'. He jumped toward them, knelt and picked them up. He immediately put the keys into his pocket and pressed the ears again. Then he went back to Casey, snatched away his headset and placed it on his head. Then he picked the remote again and started pushing all the buttons there, starting with the panic one.

Casey had figured out what Chuck's plan was so he didn't protest the headset gone, just pressed his ears. He could see how horrible the noise was now.

'Hmmm.' It was grunt number 12, meaning 'good thinking numb-nuts'.

Chuck was pushing the buttons of the remote but it wouldn't stop. Oh God. Probably, when Casey had been modifying the alarm with his insane sound, he had screwed up something so the alarm wouldn't respond now.

But then, it happened. Finally.

Two of the hotel security guards, earphones on their heads, and most probably wax earplugs under them, stuck in the ears, appeared from somewhere, both holding Uzi machine guns.

The Vic's trunk was wide open. Clearly, Casey had wired the alarm to the automatic lock there, going for a stronger impact on potential violators. Or maybe the trunk itself hadn't been able to withstand the audio torture and had given up.

The guards raised their guns and before Casey was able to do anything started shooting tens, probably hundreds of bullets at the speakers.

Casey had dropped his gun somewhere when he had to press his ears. Even if he had it, he wouldn't shoot at them. They were obviously former military, looking like marines, judging from their gait. Semper Fidelis, comrades.

So it stopped. Finally. Thank you God!

But there was no way out of so many bullets that one or more to not have hit the fuel tank of the Vic.

The horrible sound had stopped but Chuck and Casey now had the rare honor to collectively observe their second Crown Vic, limited edition, exploding in flames.

'Aaaaaaaaaargh!' blared colonel Casey, obviously trying to match the power of his already dead super-power speakers.

xxx