Chapter 1 – The Pre-Title Sequence

February 16, 1977, 9:15, AM. Miami, FL

The delivery man was nervous. He couldn't help it. Any transaction was a tense situation to him, and usually they didn't involve black market arms. His boss was paying him well, but anyone who was interested in the product he was trafficking in probably didn't take bad news well.

Not even the setting of the transaction calmed the man's nerves. Hotel room suites were nice, of course, but they didn't have a lot of exits. Especially when those suites were on the 37th floor.

The current resident of the suite, the other party to the transaction, didn't show any nerves at all. In fact, he was lounging on a chair, dressed in the one of the hotel's monogrammed bathrobe. Two days' worth of stubble descended from his sideburns, and his shaggy hair was slightly unkempt. Clearly, he didn't dress for his meetings. His three associates, however, did, as their finely tailored suits attested. Those suit jackets didn't hide the firearms holstered underneath, though.

"That's a small case, Jack," the bathrobe-clad man said to the other. Of course, his name wasn't Jack, but the courier wasn't about to object. "Hardly what I ordered."

"They're in a safe place. The man I represent merely wanted to show you an example of what we have to offer." The delivery man put the case on a table, trying to ignore the mess of white powder scattered all over. He opened the case, and nodded for the other to examine it.

"Not bad," Bathrobe said, removing the firearm from the case. He pointed it at the seller, causing him to nearly lose his breakfast. Bathrobe chuckled, and put the machine gun down. "99 more of these, right?"

"In a safe place," the courier repeated. "Once we complete the transaction, I will take you to them."

Bathrobe frowned. "And what exactly do you take me for? In case you haven't noticed, I've got more friends here than you do." Twitchy looked around, and saw the three other men on the room slowly approach him, hands at their holsters.

Twitchy backed away slowly, struggling to move his legs. He was stopped in his tracks, though, when he heard the door open. Glancing over he saw a young woman, barely into her twenties, look around curiously. Momentarily, the girl's beauty took the courier's attention away from the situation. As did the fact that she was only wearing a towel.

"Honey, what's going on?" the girl asked Bathrobe.

"Just a little business, Pumpkin. I'll be done in a moment, then we can head down to the pool. Why don't you just go back in the bedroom and make yourself pretty."

The girl shrugged. "Ok." Barely giving the courier or the guards any interest, she headed back into the other room.

Bathrobe watched her leave, then turned back to the courier. A second later, he let out another high-pitched laugh. "Oh man, you should see the look on your face! You are so scared, you're twitchy all over. I think I'll call you that. Relax Twitchy, we can work something out. In fact," he snapped his finger and one of the guards came up to him. "My wallet."

After the guard rummaged through the hotel room drawers for a few moments, the wallet was found, and handed over to the robe-clad man. "Here you go, Twitchy. You made a down payment as you say, here's mine." He held a ten dollar bill out to the courier.

Twitchy stared at the bill for a moment, then across at the three burly guards. Finally, he reluctantly grabbed the money.

Bathrobe clapped his hands. "Alright!" He laughed again, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Ah perfect timing! We can celebrate with breakfast."

One of the armed guards opened the door, and the waiter wheeled in the tray. "Your order, sir."

"Oh great," Bathrobe leapt to his feet. He leaned over as the waiter removed the silver lid from the tray.

"Hey, this isn't eggs benedict."

"Nope," the waited said, as he smashed the tray into Bathrobe's face. Seeing one of the armed men approaching, he grabbed the serving fork and thrust it into his arm.

The guard dropped the gun just as the other two men were preparing to fire. The waiter dove to the ground, grabbing the loose firearm. A second later, two shots were fired, each hitting a guard in the chest.

The waiter turned to see Twitchy standing there, like a deer caught in headlights. "How are you?" the waiter asked, his voice laced with amusement. When the courier didn't respond, the waiter sighed and knocked him over the head with the butt of the gun.

"Freeze, dirtbag!"

The waiter looked over to see Bathrobe, aiming the machine gun at him. "Really?" he asked.

"You're not going anywhere, Man!" Bathrobe waved the machine gun.

The waiter slowly moved forward. "What are you doing?" Bathrobe demanded, his voice quivering slightly.

"I'm sure we can discuss this. No need for any further violence."

"Stop moving!" Bathrobe began to back up, despite his advantage. After a few steps, he was standing on the hotel room balcony.

"Ok," the waiter said reassuringly, hands in the air. He dropped his gun to the ground. "We can just talk."

"Talk? Are you insane? What could we have to talk about?"

"Well, for one thing," the waiter said, "that the tie on your bathrobe is loose." In a blur of movement, he reached out and tugged at the tie on the robe, and pulled forward. The other man tried to reach out to balance himself. The waiter reached out his hand, but rather than steady the other, he grabbed the machine gun. Unable to gain his footing, the arms dealer fell backward. With a cry, he fell over the balcony railing.

The waiter returned the machine gun to its case. As he was moving past the breakfast cart, he paused, grabbed a handful of Belgian waffle and shoved it into his mouth. "Not bad."

"Hey, where is Carl?"

The waiter turned to see the young woman standing in the bedroom doorway, a towel still wrapped around her. She didn't seem to notice the men on the ground, as she focused her attention on the waiter.

"Oh, he had an early flight."

The girl thought about this for a moment, but didn't reply. "Who are you?" she finally asked.

"The name is Montgomery. Roan Montgomery."

"Oh." The girl looked around briefly. "Is that breakfast?"

"Why yes, it is." Roan approached the girl. "But before we eat, I should clean up a bit." He yanked the towel away. "There, much better. Now, maybe we should work on the bedroom first."

The girl giggled. "Oh, Roan."

February 4, 2011. 9:45 AM, Echo Park, CA

"Nobody does it better

Makes me feel sad for the rest

Nobody does it half as good as you

Baby, you're the best."

Chuck tried to ignore the noise as long as he could, before he finally dropped the notebook back onto the kitchen table and headed down the hallway. The music gradually got louder until he reached Morgan's room. The door was partially open, so Chuck headed inside.

Chuck could only see a silhouette dancing behind the folded screen, which as far as he was concerned, was more than enough. Unfortunately, the screen didn't block the sound of his best friend singing along to the music. He cleared his throat meaningfully.

"Oh hey, Chuck," Morgan peeked his head from behind the screen. "Good morning."

"Uh sure, buddy. I don't suppose you could, you know, turn the sound down a bit."

"Oh sorry about that." He reached over to his iPod, and adjusted the volume. "Ever since I got involved in this whole spy thing, I've come to realize how much these songs get you pumped up. Totally gets me ready for the day."

"I see," Chuck replied, trying not to look directly at his friend. "Nice partition."

"Thanks. Picked it up at a yard sale."

"I see." Finally, Chuck couldn't hold back his curiosity. "Um Morgan, are you wearing a unitard?"

"It's Alex's," Morgan replied. "Doesn't restrict your movement at all. You should get one."

"Yeah, that may not happen. Just keep it a little quieter."

"Sure thing. I'll see you at the Buy More later?"

"Yup." As Chuck was turning to head back to the kitchen, he stopped and added, "Whatever you do, don't let Casey ever see you in that."

Morgan paused for a moment. "Hmm. You're probably right about that."

Shaking his head, Chuck returned to the kitchen, and found where he had left off in the notebook.

So, first off, I have to say that this not exactly a spoof, so much as an homage to James Bond. If there's one thing in this world that's been over-spoofed, it's the James Bond movies, so I'm trying to avoid an Austin Powers type take on this. I'll probably fail in that, of course. My goal is to kind of… homage-ify the Bond flicks, both from a direct story standpoint using the 70's plot, and from Chuck's own point-of-view. We'll see how it works. Usually, I wind up crumbling under the weight of my own ambition.

The prequel part will be fun too. I want to look at some of the older characters from a different viewpoint, but I don't want to be one of those prequels that keep throwing characters in for no useful purpose *Cough, Star Wars, Cough*. So…no baby Casey.

So have I piqued everyone's interest? Please let me know if you like the premise. I'm hoping to make this a "spot the reference" kind of thing, so hopefully that will be kinda fun, even if the story doesn't hold up.

As always, reviews are greatly welcome!