A/N: I'm trying to work on this as much as possible outside of my job. ANYTHING TO NOT GET BOGGED DOWN BY WHAT'S IN THE NEWS, AM I RIGHT? This is supposed to be a fictional dystopia. Why are there suddenly so many parallels to real life? What. Is. Happening.
ANYWHO, LOOK AT THIS ESCAPIST FAN FICTION. Please, lose yourselves in it. Drown a little in the fantasy. Please. I'm trying to help you all.
-HAPPY CHARAH THOUGHTS-
Disclaimer: I'm not making money from this. These aren't my characters. CHUCK doesn't belong to me.
Last time in the SteamVerse:
Gibson blackmailed Casey into helping him bring down Theodore West, and because Chuck is...well, he's Chuck, isn't he...the toymaker and the con woman were roped into the suicide mission as well. All their bags are packed, they're ready to go...Chuck and Sarah crawled into a wagon together...
Let's get some action up in here...(Not that kind, YOU STOP THAT.)
The toymaker focused on his breathing as the wagon rolled slowly along. He figured Casey was purposely going slowly so as not to appear to be rushing. Everything had to be business as usual. And that meant staying under this tarp in this small bit of room that wasn't packed with ammunition and ale. That meant being pressed up against Sarah in a way that was both incredibly comfortable, and incredibly uncomfortable.
Her fists were smashed between their chests.
He wasn't sure if it was to keep their chests from being pressed flush together, or if that was just where they'd ended up because it was more comfortable. But there was no room for him to roll away, or even just to shift onto his back to make it so her face wasn't so close to his, where he could feel her breath against his chin.
So he stayed where he was, not moving a muscle for fear that if he did, he would brush against her in an inappropriate way—or, rather, in a more inappropriate way than he was already pressed against her.
He opened his eyes in the darkness, the moonlight only allowing him to see the silhouette of the side of her face, the wisps of hair that escaped her hat and fell over her ear.
And that was when she spoke, her voice quiet, but loud enough to carry over the creaking of the wagon and clopping of the horse's hooves against the ground.
"Chuck?"
He thought he felt her watching him. He swallowed. "Hm?"
"I was upset last night. It wasn't supposed to come to this, you know. There wasn't supposed to be anything here. Just another empty lead. A dead end."
She was quiet for long enough that he felt it safe to respond.
"I know. Once again I've gotten you into a potentially deadly adventure. Or…rather…a misadventure."
"You're not to blame, Chuck. I made it sound that way, but you aren't. I felt trapped and helpless. And I hate feeling trapped more than anything." He felt his heart sink and he was glad it was so dark, because it meant she couldn't see the look that inevitably came over his face at her words. "But none of this is your fault."
"We might've left last night if—"
"If you weren't a good man, Chuck. You were right. You are right. And maybe—maybe we might win an ally in Major Casey if we play our cards right."
Always an angle, Chuck thought to himself. He didn't blame her. She was a con artist. Anything to survive. He even smiled a little, though he knew she couldn't see it.
"Well, don't you know. I'm rather good with cards."
He heard her giggle and his smile grew. Then her fist flattened on his chest, so warm and comforting over his heart. And then he felt self-conscious, wondering if she could feel the way it was racing, threatening to beat itself out of his chest.
"I'm sorry I was cruel to you last night. It was unwarranted. I'm just…" She paused, searching for a word.
"Tired," he breathed.
"Yes," she responded, relief spilling from that single word on her lips. "So tired."
He slid his own hand over hers. And he felt his heart racing through her hand, the deep thumping pulse of it, not at all steady…quick, erratic. He knew she could feel it.
And he panicked. "Are you afraid?"
Maybe she might think fear had been the reason for the increased heart rate. He felt foolish for even trying, for letting her in on his own fear.
"Of course not," he answered for her, his fingers curling around hers. "You are the bravest person I've ever met."
He saw her head shake a little. "Showing fear means failure in my business. That's all it is. I am afraid. Of a lot of things. Of all the things that could go wrong. The smallest mishap could get us killed."
Chuck felt himself sag against her even more, shutting his eyes tightly. "I know."
"I didn't say that to frighten you further. I promise I'll do whatever I can to protect you. Whatever is humanly possible." She paused. And then quietly, very quietly, so quietly he nearly didn't hear her, she asked him, "Do you trust me?"
"I do," he replied readily.
He opened his eyes and saw the corner of her lips stretch in a smile.
"Just don't let the fear have control over you, Chuck. Stick to the plan. Stay outside. Where it's safest."
He nodded.
"And what happens if we do get out of this alive?" he couldn't help asking.
She curled her fingers against his chest, a bit haltingly. "One mission at a time."
They were quiet for the next few minutes, staying like that, close and warm, until the wagon finally pulled to a stop. He heard a voice from close by the back of the wagon.
"What's this?" a voice near the back of the wagon asked.
"Just the ale shipment for the week," Agent Gibson said. "We've got a new buyer."
"What happened to Turner?"
"Not convinced he wasn't trying to fleece us. Thought it best to try someone new. Seems like a serious chap, but he knows good alcohol."
The Bostonian chuckled and slapped the side of the wagon hard. Chuck felt Sarah's body twitch against his in surprise, and he felt a small gasp against his cheek. He squeezed her hand harder, more for him than her, he knew.
"Right. The boss says he wants the hotel's best champagne tonight. Don't let him down, Mr. Denton."
"The world's best champagne," Gibson said. "Let there be no doubt."
"Good."
And then the wagon rolled on for a few moments, before stopping again.
Sarah held onto Chuck's arm tightly and breathed a soft, "Don't move."
He didn't.
And then the tarp was thrown off of them and Chuck squinted up at Casey, who was wearing a peculiar smirk. "Rise and shine, lovebirds. It's time to get started."
Sarah edged up onto her elbow and fixed her hat with her free hand, looking up over the edge of the wagon. Chuck followed suit, looking in the other direction. No one seemed to be around the grounds.
So they climbed out. Chuck grabbed one side of the ale flat and Casey the other, following Gibson's instructions and unloading the wagon's contents down the stairs into the basement. The ale, they left in the cellar that stretched around the corner, and they set the crates with their weapons in the center of the basement's floor.
As Gibson shut the basement door behind him, sliding the lock in place, Casey turned up the lights. Sarah grabbed a crowbar and pried the lids off of the crates, grabbing a few weapons for herself.
Chuck glanced away as she tugged on the leg of her trousers and revealed her calf and shin. In that moment before he caught himself staring, he had seen knives strapped in a holster attached to her leg just above the end of her boot, no doubt where she could get to them. He heard her tightening the holster and swallowed.
Whether it was the sight of those sharp knives in contrast to her soft skin that had unsettled him, or simply the sight of said soft skin, he wasn't sure. Best not to dwell too much, either way.
"Saphead."
He turned just as Gibson slammed a large box shaped object into his chest. He coughed and glared, wrapping an arm around it.
"Your camera." Then he handed him the three-legged stand. "Think you can manage this part of it?"
Chuck wouldn't give the man the satisfaction of thinking he'd angered him, so he just nodded. "Yes."
"Need me to show you how to—?"
"No." Chuck had never used a recording device before, but he had read about them extensively, even considered building one to see if he could somehow use it for one of his toys. A toy that recorded voices, perhaps. And spoke back at you when you squeezed it.
The IEL agent grabbed the crank that was on the side of it camera.
"Don't crank too fast, and don't crank too slow. Just the right speed will do the job." Gibson demonstrated. "And never ever stop the crank. Understood?"
"Yes."
"Good."
Gibson moved away from him as Casey eyed the guns in the crates, lifting them up, checking their weight, strapping them on at an almost alarming rate. Did he truly need that much?
Chuck thought the plan was to sneak West out under cover, not charge in with guns blazing.
They were all going to die. He was all but convinced this was his last night on Earth.
Sarah followed the IEL agent to the control panel, and he moved in close to show her what she had to do to turn out the lights. Chuck assumed, of course. He couldn't see Sarah's face, which was probably for the best. But Gibson seemed a bit reluctant to leave her there, hovering, staring, taking her in. Like she was a painting hung on the wall in some exclusive museum. It made something inside of him squirm.
Sarah had been visibly annoyed when he had given her the job at the light switch. And it had annoyed Chuck as well; it had been obvious the agent gave her this assignment to keep her safe.
Of course the toymaker was jealous of the agent's attentions towards Sarah. Chuck's feelings for her made it easy for the green-eyed-monster to find berth in his chest when a man like Agent Marcel Gibson looked at her, acted for her, in that way.
But mostly, it was annoying how unconsciously the agent assumed the woman on the team would be best suited to turn off some lights, rather than be in the thick of the plan.
He suspected she was far more capable than the three men in this basement put together.
"Major? It's time. Are you…" Gibson turned on his heel and frowned in confusion as his green eyes stopped on the bounty hunter. "How do you suppose you're to fit under my cart with all of that?" he asked, gesturing to the weapons hanging from nearly every strap, every belt, every loop of Casey's clothing.
"Let that be my business." Casey fitted the clunky goggles over his eyes, obscuring at least half of his face, and then he pulled his bowler hat down further over his head.
Gibson merely shrugged, then exchanged an amused look with Sarah. "Well? Whatever makes you feel more comfortable I suppose." And then he turned to face Sarah and looked at her. It was a long look. One that said he thought there was a chance this was his last good look at the woman who had obviously enchanted him.
"God speed, beautiful. I hope we meet again."
Chuck looked down at the floor at his feet when the man took her hand, otherwise he would have seen the way she yanked it out of his grip and took a step away from the agent.
He heard Gibson chuckle. And then, "Ah! Almost forgot. Watches."
They all took their timepieces out and set them to be completely in sync, and then without another word, Gibson strode to the basement door that led outside. "Come along, Major."
Casey turned to glance at them. Chuck couldn't read the look because of the goggles, but the man studied them for awhile. And then he grunted, his lips tilted up at the edges.
And then the two men were gone, leaving Chuck and Sarah alone.
"You'd better get in place, Chuck. You don't want to miss the festivities."
He faced her and smiled. "World's best champagne," he mocked, affecting Gibson's tone.
"Let there be no doubt," Sarah chimed in, lifting her chin mockingly and then rolling her eyes.
Chuck laughed and shook his head.
And then she surprised him, closing the distance between them. He hadn't noticed the gun in her hand until she was pressing it into his palm. "Take this."
"N-No, I—"
"I know, Chuck. But you need protection. Agent Gibson stuck me here to keep me out of danger," she said, her tone genuine in its sarcasm. It made him feel good. "So I can't help you, I can't protect you. But this might."
She shrugged and he wondered if she meant for him to see her worry.
He did his best not to read into it and nodded, taking the gun, putting it down the back of his belt loop and holding his hands up. "There. Protected."
She looked at him closely as he tried to reassure her with a smile. Could she see through him? What was she thinking?
"Chuck, if things go south…" She swallowed. "Run."
He frowned.
"I'll find you," she said quickly. "Just run. Alright?"
He nodded.
"What I mean is…Don't be a hero. I know that's hard for you. It seems to be in your blood. But please, beat down the urge to save the world for tonight, and focus on saving yourself."
"I'll try."
Her gaze swept down to his chest, then back up to meet his eyes, and he wondered if she was resisting the urge to touch him. He wished she would stop resisting and just do it. He needed it.
"Now go. And remember…not too fast, not too slow." She smirked a little as he beamed down at her for the barb against the agent. She sobered quickly. "Be safe."
"And you, Miss Walker."
She offered him his goggles—his disguise—and he took them from her. The brushing of her fingers with his as he took the goggles was something he would take with him. A last bit of warmth and reassurance. A spark of courage.
He fitted the goggles over his face, a little disoriented by them for a moment. Glad she couldn't see his eyes, he let everything he was feeling out through them as he looked at her. She merely looked back for a moment, her features unreadable, her body tense, unmoving.
And then he walked out of the basement door and put his bowler hat on over his curls, heading up the stairs carefully, glancing around for anyone who might think it strange to see a man wearing an obvious disguise come out of the hotel's basement.
As he slid around the corner of the hotel, staying in the shadows, he thought to himself: So it begins.
}o{
Chuck slid in behind some bushes outside of the Crown Room.
Sitting in that room were some of the world's most powerful moguls, he knew. Signing any business deals with these men, some of which were enemies of the empire, would make Theodore West a traitor. Proof of this meeting would be a surefire way to make sure the man was locked away in prison, likely without a trial even.
It was during their supper that plans would be made, blueprints shared, documents signed. Collecting those along with the video footage would give them proof.
Gibson had named a few of the men West wasn't allowed to do business with. Umberto Ayala, West's equivalent in Colombia; Javier Peralta, one of the biggest oil tycoons in the Central and South American alliance; Ricardo Mata, right hand man to Mexico's foreign ambassador to the United States Empire; and the worst of all of them, Gerardo Reyes, who was what Gibson had called a "drug trafficking king" over the border separating Mexico from the United States Empire.
It was obvious what a meeting like this would do for West's illegal trade operations. And Gibson seemed not to have any doubts about what their plans entailed—an offshore pipeline that would pump money into these men's pockets, while draining the Central and South American people of their own resources.
When Casey had asked why the Empire hadn't obtained this kind of evidence against West before, Gibson said this was unprecedented—the first meeting West hosted with these men on American soil.
Chuck had disliked the smirk on Gibson's face when the man said, "West has gone untouched for so long, he thinks we've forgotten him, and he's gotten ballsy."
Although maybe Chuck just disliked Gibson.
And not just because of the extra attention the man was paying a certain con woman (who he thought was a bounty hunter), and not because there was a thread of interest and perhaps even camaraderie between the two—a connection perhaps because they both lived such dangerous, lonely lives?
It was because there was something unsettling about him. Something that made Chuck fear the Imperial Espionage League more than he had before. But he couldn't put his finger on it. There was an underlying ferociousness to him. And Chuck knew his jealousy wasn't why he was seeing it perhaps clearer than Casey and Sarah were. Maybe it was that he had never lived the way they did. Traveling all over the country, all over the world even, and risking their lives. The danger and adrenaline he'd so far only had a taste of…
But that was changing tonight.
He could feel it.
The air had a particular chill to it that had nothing to do with the waves crashing onto the beach behind him. It was as though the very night was awake, waiting…for a battle? Even a quiet fog was slowly rolling in from the ocean, like a thick grey wall.
He broke out into a cold sweat and swallowed thickly, pressing himself to the wall and sinking down behind the bush as he pulled his goggles down to rest around his neck in order to be better able to see what he was doing. He squinted in the dark as he attached the camera to the stand and planted the legs in the dirt.
Then he poked his head up from behind the bush and cast his eyes to the left, then to the right. Nobody was behind the hotel. No one was walking along the shore. No one was strolling the grounds, taking in the misty night air.
He was alone out here.
Chillingly alone.
Silently reminding himself that this was a good thing, Chuck scooted along the wall until he reached the edge of the windows that reached all the way up, practically to the Crown Room's ceiling. The windows spanned the entire arc of the room, so he was careful not to position himself so far over that he'd be in view.
And he slid his goggles back over his eyes, fixing his hat down around his hair, inching over as much as he dared so that he could glance into the room. He squinted at the sudden brightness. It spilled out through the windows, electricity seeming to fill the massive space so much better than lamp light or candles would.
Chuck spotted Theo West at the middle of a long table, Ishmael Grand sitting beside him. Chuck took in the smaller man, looked for signs of nervousness. There were none. And Chuck wondered if Gibson had even informed his asset of what would occur tonight. He assumed not. And that didn't sit particularly well with Chuck, though he couldn't entirely blame the agent. If Grand slipped, if he told West, everything would be ruined.
Chuck could hear the rumble of West's voice as he spoke to everyone at the table. Men were adorned in the richest of clothing, wearing ascots, shoulders topped with epaulettes signifying their wealth and power in their home countries. And all were in good spirits.
Wetting his lips, Chuck reached behind him to grab the camera, taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and lifting the box with legs, setting it right at the edge of the window, the lens angled towards the table, taking in Theo West and the men sitting on either side of him. Chuck didn't recognize anyone besides Ishmael Grand and West himself. The only reason he knew West was because of the way the man commanded the room, his grey hair tinged pepper black here and there, his thin shoulders straight and proud, and the watchful eye he swept over everyone in the room. It was as though he was waiting for something to go wrong, always prepared for the worst.
Sarah did the same thing when she walked into a room.
It was an indication of intelligence, Chuck knew, but also a deeply ingrained knowledge of just how many people out there wanted to kill him, betray him, take him down. He and Sarah were both criminals, weren't they? Perhaps that was the behavior of a criminal. Always careful. Always ready.
Theo West wouldn't be ready for them, though. There was no way he could be. He was prepared for one of the foreign leaders to try to stage something perhaps, but the hotel maître d? Never.
The toymaker concentrated on that comforting thought as he licked his dry lips again and fixed the positioning of the camera, pulling the side panel open. The film was there. He shut it again with a click and huffed at himself. Of course it was there. What exactly did he think he was going to do if it wasn't there?
Shaking his head, he eased down onto his knees and looked into the small eyepiece. Then he began to turn the crank mounted on the side of the box, slowly at first, but then speeding it up. Not too fast. He was glad he heard it in Sarah's teasing voice instead of in Gibson's patronizing tone. He could almost see her smirk when she'd delivered the line, and he felt a tug at his lips.
The toymaker couldn't hear what was being said inside.
It was no matter. The video footage was all Gibson said he needed. Anyhow, Chuck was certain this thing couldn't capture sound. So he kept recording, slowly panning the camera to the left, then sweeping it just as slowly to the right, taking in as many of the faces sitting at the table as he could.
And then West cast a glance over his shoulder at the door to the room, before turning to the man who set next to him. He was a heavyset fellow with skin the color of cherry wood and a bushy black mustache. They leaned in with their heads close and the large fellow nodded brusquely, before waving to the man next to him.
The three of them spoke together, and then West signaled towards Mr. Grand.
The IEL asset nodded, going into his jacket pocket and pulling out some sort of folded piece of paper. Chuck's first guess was that it was a document West drew up with his lawyers, one that would seal the partnership—a partnership that directly broke the Empire's trade laws. Especially if one of the people in on the meeting was Gerardo Reyes. Chuck had no idea who was who, but as long as he could capture most of these men's faces with this camera, he had no doubt the IEL would be able to pick them out. Especially if the resulting footage was as clear as what he saw through the eyepiece.
Grand handed West the document and the crime lord immediately unfolded it and laid it out on the table. Now all they had to do was wait.
But it wasn't for long.
Not even a minute later, as Chuck forced himself to continue breathing, turning the crank on the side of the camera, listening to the clackety-clack of the film inside of the box, the main doors opened and Agent Marcel Gibson calmly pushed a cart with bottles of chilled champagne into the room. A crisp, white tablecloth was laid over the cart, falling all the way down to the floor.
Under that tablecloth, Chuck knew, awaited Major John Casey, equipped with an armory's worth of weapons. And miraculously, Gibson was pushing the cart as though there weren't two hundred or more extra pounds there.
It was happening.
Chuck felt it in his bones.
His heart was racing.
He had a terrible feeling. It was sudden and chilling. And he wondered if it had to do with the Intersect. Was it warning him danger was nearby? Was that part of its function?
The document was flattened on the table between the three men: West, the heavyset fellow, and the younger man who'd been pulled into the conversation. West was gesturing to something in the document and the others were nodding.
Would they sign the document before the long hand on Chuck's timepiece hit the fifty-five dash mark?
Would it matter?
Gibson hadn't mentioned that being part of the plan but Chuck assumed he wanted those documents signed, for proof this was an illegal business meeting rather than a friendly meal.
Chuck continued cranking and used his other hand to reach over to his right side to pull the watch out of his jacket pocket. He popped it open with a flick of his wrist and looked at the face, angling it towards the moon. Only two minutes until Sarah would turn off the electricity in the hotel.
And the men were so close to signing.
Agent Gibson was busying himself by pouring champagne into glasses, perhaps to toast the partnership between Theodore West and the king of drug trafficking, a partnership that would put "Big Theo" behind bars for good if it could be proven he'd colluded with the criminal.
The heavyset fellow lifted his hand to shake West's and the ring on his hand glinted. Cold ripped through Chuck as his head seared with pain. He pulled back with a hiss, his hand stilling as images flashed before his eyes. The same ring covered with blood, wiped clean with a once white cloth that was now splattered with red. The finger wearing the ring pulling a trigger, the thump of a body hitting the floor. Bottles and bottles of…was it opium? Men strewn about a dingy basement with pipes and needles around them.
With a gasp, he tipped to the side, barely catching himself against the wall, breathing hard. He'd flashed on Gerardo Reyes' ring. So West was making an illegal deal with the drug trafficking king. A man who had murdered many—not just with his bare hands, but by promoting the massive trafficking of addictive opioids to the masses on both sides of the border. Entire opium dens in San Francisco shut down, den owners arrested and sentenced, while Reyes sat pretty in his throne on the border. Untouchable.
Perhaps until now.
Chuck realized then he'd stopped turning the crank. And in spite of the ache in his head, which was dulling as the seconds passed, thankfully, he sat up straight again and kept turning the crank.
It seemed he hadn't missed anything, at least. They were still having a discussion.
He knew he had to stop recording soon. He had to get away from the room, far enough away that no one would suspect he was a part of it. That way he could get the film back to Gibson without being implicated in the plot.
This was the plan.
But Chuck knew if he could get footage of the men signing the document, that would be especially valuable, in case Gibson and Casey couldn't obtain the array of papers that were placed in front of the men. Chuck figured all of said papers were rather important.
So he stayed put, still cranking, his toes and fingers numbing a bit in the cold, and also from anticipation and perhaps even a smidgeon of terror. The flash hadn't helped any.
He glanced down at his watch again. Thirty seconds.
The fog reached the beach and was rolling across the sand towards the hotel, though it seemed less thick than it had been out at sea. Less of a wall, more of a mist.
He continued to crank.
Gibson was looking down at his timepiece, and Casey, in the cramped space under the cart was most likely doing the same. And Sarah Walker, Chuck knew, stood down at the control panel in the hotel's basement, staring at the face of her own timepiece, waiting…waiting…waiting…
Chuck's eyes flicked back into the room as Gibson's shoulders tensed. Fifteen seconds.
Chuck was careful to crank at exactly the right speed as pens were exchanged, the document signed. They'd done it. He'd caught it on camera.
Ten seconds…
Five…
Chuck stopped cranking and pulled the camera down off of the stand, moving it all to the side so that he could kneel and look in the window. He couldn't help himself. He wanted to see it all happen before he took off for safety.
The Crown Room went dark at zero, and Chuck couldn't see anything at all inside. He heard muffled outcries of anger and shouts of confusion through the window.
But it was strange that the rest of the hotel seemed to have light.
And even stranger when five seconds after the lights in the room went out, they went back on again.
Chuck's stomach twisted in knots.
Both Gibson and Casey were leaned over the shoulder of both West and Ishmael Grand, Gibson's hands on the papers strewn about, his gloved hand wrapped around the document each of the men had just signed. And Casey had a rope around Big Theo's torso, pinning his arms to his side, ready to cart the crime lord was frozen in place. And then Gibson and Casey turned wide eyes on one another over Theodore West's head.
"This is bad," Chuck muttered under his breath.
Two men at the table stood, knocking their chairs over as their hands came up with pistols. Chuck was sure he was about to watch a double homicide.
And then the entire hotel went dark again after an unsettling flicker.
A cacophony immediately erupted from the Crown Room. There was yelling and confusion. Chuck was frozen in place, not knowing what to do.
Chuck staggered back from the window as a flurry of gunshots sounded and a bullet cracked right through the glass, whizzing past him. His boot caught on a root and he fell flat on his back, reaching up to grab the strap of the camera.
It was time to go.
But before he could get to his feet and run, a large, dark figure burst through the window the bullet had just cracked.
Chuck watched as Major John Casey rolled onto his back with a pained grunt, covered in shards of glass as he clambered to his feet. He immediately spun on his heels while simultaneously taking two pistols out of their holsters, cocking them, and shooting them back into the room with an unnecessary but nonetheless mighty roar.
Chuck stared with wide eyes from his spot in the dirt, the camera dangling from his hand by the strap, his jaw practically in his lap.
Casey must've finally seen him out of the corner of his eye because he turned his head and gaped back.
"You get it?" he growled, gesturing to the camera with one of his pistols.
Chuck couldn't speak. So he nodded instead. Frantically.
"Then wut the hell ya still doin' 'ere?! RUN, DAMNIT!"
More bullets whizzed out through the window Casey had just left from, sending the bounty hunter down to his knees to avoid getting one embedded in his brain. "I said run!" he yelled, and then he took off, shooting through each window as he ran and roaring again.
Chuck grabbed swung the strap over his shoulders, the large, boxy camera crashing into his back painfully. He ignored the sharp jab and grabbed the camera stand, running in the opposite direction and bursting around the corner of the hotel.
He put the brakes on immediately, skidding to a stop on the dirt path, even falling to his knees a little.
Because two men with guns in one hand and their newsboys in the other had just turned the corner at the front of the hotel and were dashing towards him.
"There! Get 'im!" one of them yelled. And two more rounded the corner.
"AHHH!"
Chuck scampered back around the corner as bullets smacked against the wall, chipping off pieces and sending it careening over his back.
He looked the way Casey had run. And then he looked out towards the beach.
The toymaker was relatively certain he wouldn't be able to swim to Japan.
Shaking his head, he decided to look up this time. There was a gutter pipe that went up to the roof of the Crown Room.
"Good enough," he breathed, hoping it would hold.
And then he looked down at the camera stand in his hand. It was too bulky. He tossed it behind the bush where he'd been perched, then leapt up to grab the gutter, climbing as fast as he could, ignoring the corner of the camera box digging into his ribcage, trying not to lose his grip when his foot slipped against the wall.
He finally pulled himself up onto the roof, staggering up the sloped tiles to snag the flagpole and hang on for dear life to keep from sliding off and breaking his neck.
And down below he heard murmurs of confusion as the men who had shot at him finally came around the corner.
Chuck used the toes of his boots to pull himself up into a crouching position, then he scooted around to the other side and reached out until his large hand closed over the eave of the roof of another part of the hotel, a much flatter roof.
Remembering Sarah's tactics that she'd taught him, he pushed off of the Crown Room's roof and sailed across the foot and a half of space to cling to the eave with both hands, grunting as the camera smacked into him again, and then he hoisted himself up onto the roof, lying on his stomach with his cheek pressed against the dusty, clay-colored tile.
He panted.
"That could not have gone worse."
}o{
Four minutes earlier
Sarah stared at her timepiece, watching as the long hand slowly ticked closer to the fifty-five mark.
Gibson had been so busy trying to romance her into a proper goodbye that he'd neglected to tell her which damn lever to pull to extinguish the hotel's electricity.
But it was easy enough, wasn't it? There was probably some sort of generator for each room, right? That made sense in her head. And the larger lever was probably the right one. It probably turned everything off, since it was the largest one.
At least, that was her hope.
She took a deep breath, shutting her eyes, letting calm slowly settle inside of her. If it was just her, she knew she'd be fine. But it wasn't just her, and this was why she'd never pulled cons with a team.
Sarah Walker hated depending on other people for her success…and even less so for her survival.
But the fact was, her survival wasn't all she had to worry about. There was a toymaker up there somewhere, and he was very much in danger if this didn't go perfectly to plan. Even if it did go perfectly to plan, he was in danger.
And she wasn't there to protect him.
She'd shoved the gun into his hands knowing full well he wasn't going to use it, even if his life was on the line. She was sure he didn't even know how to. If they both survived this, she would force him to let her give him some lessons. Because she couldn't always be with him, every second of every day.
Sarah looked down at the face of her timepiece again. Ten wrapped her fingers around the lever's handle and wet her lips, narrowing her eyes in determination. In moments, the entire hotel would be draped in darkness.
And then she would run, find Chuck, and they would meet Gibson at the rendezvous point near the docks, where they'd agreed to meet during planning that morning.
Five seconds…
Four…
Three…
Two…
One.
Sarah yanked down on the lever.
Nothing happened.
"Shit!" she hissed, looking at the dim electric bulb hanging from the ceiling. It hadn't worked. Then what the hell was that lever for?! She pushed the lever back up again, then grabbed two other levers at once and tried to pull them both down, but there was a lock on them both. She didn't know how to disengage the lock.
"SHIT!" she barked, spinning on her heel. She spotted a wrench on a nearby work bench and lunged for it. Then she spun again and hurled it as hard as she could towards the control panel.
It connected with a loud clang, but bounced off after merely setting off a small shower of sparks.
With no other ideas, the con woman went to her last resort and pulled a gun out of her shoulder holster, covering her face as she pulled the trigger.
There was a loud crash, sparks went everywhere, and the room was shrouded in darkness.
For a moment, all Sarah heard was the sound of her heavy breathing and the hiss of smoke coming out of the fried control panel.
Then she heard yelling from above.
Sarah had the wherewithal to remember the lamp she'd strategically placed at her feet. She felt around for it, wrapped her fingers around it, and lit it as quickly as she could.
Hoisting it up in front of her, she rushed to the door that the men had gone through and grabbed the handle to yank it open and escape…but it was locked.
Chuck had shut it behind him.
When Agent Gibson had told him specifically not to let it shut because it automatically locked, the toymaker had let it shut, essentially forcing her to escape through the hotel. There was no way she was getting through this door.
"Chuck!" she hissed, kicking at the door in anger. She knew he'd probably been scared out of his mind, trying to hold it together, and he'd forgotten Gibson's deliberate order.
She backed away from the door, across the basement, and to the staircase that led up to what Gibson's floor plans had said was the kitchen, she remembered.
She halted on the bottom step when she heard voices close to the door.
"Well, obviously it's the electricity!" came one voice in particular as the door was opened.
Sarah turned off her lamp and staggered over to hide under the staircase, crouching in the shadows as the light from the kitchen spilled down into the basement.
"Get down there and see what happened. Here, take my gun. And take this fellow with you, too. Gonna make sure Boss is okay." There was a pause. "Well? Go!"
Sarah watched as newly shined dress shoes clambered down the wooden staircase as though the wearer had been shoved. And then she spotted the bellhop slowly move down them once he caught his footing.
Behind him came what Sarah assumed to be one of Theodore West's guard dogs, one of the mob.
Because she could clearly see a gun in his hand as he carefully followed behind the bellhop.
The bellhop held up his candle as he reached the bottom step and inched across the basement towards the control panel. "It ain't lit up," he informed his companion. "That's not right."
"Generator go down?"
"Ain't a generator. It's a transformer."
"I don't care what it is. What the hell happened to it?"
They both rounded one of the beams and stopped at the control panel, their backs facing Sarah, she noted with relief.
She snuck out from behind the staircase and inched closer, moving stealthily through the shadows.
"That a bullet?"
"Bullet?" the bellhop squeaked. "Someone shot it? W-With a gun?"
"Sure looks it to me. I've gotta tell—"
But Sarah had her arm around the mob man's neck before he could finish his sentence, her other hand chopping his gun out of his grip as she tightened her hold on his neck.
He struggled but she held fast, gritting her teeth, not letting up, not stopping for anything.
The bellhop looked on in horror as his companion went limp in Sarah's embrace, slumping to the floor lifelessly, his trachea crushed.
Off in the distance, she heard gunshots. Not just one or two…
She and the bellhop both jumped at the symphony of consistent pop-pop-popping coming from the back of the hotel.
Where the Crown Room was.
Her heart seized but she kept ahold of herself, holding her hands up placatingly as the bellhop froze. "I'm from the government," she breathed, sparing a quick glance up the stairs. Nobody else was coming down, thank God. "Just sit down right here. Stay—Stay here, alright? Don't move and you won't get hurt."
He'd projected his attack long before he even moved a muscle and Sarah easily side-stepped his lunge, grabbing his arm, twisting it behind him and bringing her elbow around to crash into his temple.
He crumbled to the ground unconscious
"They never listen," she muttered, stomping out the candle the bellhop had been holding to make sure the entire hotel didn't burn down in the meantime. She hurried over in the scant light from the kitchen at the top of the stairs and snagged the gun off of the ground, tucking it in the loop of her belt and rushing up the stairs two at a time.
She was glad Casey had the idea for them to wear disguises, because she immediately met with an unruly sous chef at the top of the stairs.
The coat, goggles, and hat under which she'd tucked her vibrant blond braid would do the trick.
The sous chef ended up sprawled on the ground unconscious and everyone else in the kitchen intelligently put their hands up when she pulled her gun out.
She decided not to even use her voice, not wanting to reveal her sex. The less they knew about her, the worse the description the patrolmen would get when these people were questioned later.
Sarah sprinted through the kitchen and burst into a hallway, getting slammed into by a man trying to get away from…something.
She hit the wall and glared as he staggered away, not even offering an apology, the bastard.
"There! The mask!"
She cast her gaze to the right as a face lit by a lamp glared at her, lifting a gun in his free hand.
Sarah staggered backwards and hit the wall again, ducking to the ground and hearing the report of the gun, as well as the unsettling crunch of the bullet burying itself in the plaster where her head had just been.
She glanced to her left and dove into another hallway, avoiding getting hit by another flurry of bullets.
"He went that way! Go!"
Sarah ran.
She ran as fast as she could down the hallway, when a man stepped out in front of her, leering smugly as he blocked her path.
She merely leaned in and slammed her shoulder into his chest, sending him crashing into the wall behind him as she turned the corner and continued sprinting.
She'd lost track of the layout she'd tried to burn into her brain from Gibson's maps. She had no idea where she was, no idea which wing of the hotel she was even in.
So she just kept running.
Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around her waist and brought her down hard, knocking the air out of her. She struggled for only a moment before she flicked a knife from her wrist into her palm.
The man who'd grabbed her had a knife in his back a moment later, and she was up and running again, sliding the bloodied knife back into the strap at her forearm.
Finally, she saw the stairwell behind a propped open door and she sighed in relief. The higher up she climbed in the hotel, the closer she was to the roof. Her sanctuary. The one place that never let her down. She had the high ground there, both literally and figuratively.
They would never best her there.
"He's gone up the stairs! Cut him off on the third floor!" she heard below her as she raced up the steps and burst through the door into what looked like the staff's dormitory.
She dropped her caution and ran even faster down the hallway to the staircase.
At the top of the stairs, a rotund man blocked her way, lifting a gun, but she moved fast, darting to her right and planting her boot against the wooden molding on the wall and using it to spring up at her enemy. Her fist crashed into his face, stunning him long enough for her to grab his thin red tie in her left hand and yank, crouching down to roll his incredible weight over her back.
She let go of the tie and didn't even watch as he cascaded down the staircase with a cry of surprise and then terror.
She heard nothing else from him as she rushed through the doorway.
"Here!" she heard at the end of the corridor. And in spite of knowing they'd see her, she burst into the hallway and made a break for cover, making herself as difficult a target as possible as she zig-zagged towards the corner, behind which she might find a moment's respite.
"There! Right there! Shoot, damn it!"
Someone listened, the blast from a pistol sending chips of paint and wallpaper in a cloud over her head as she yelped and ducked around the corner. She let out a rasping groan, trying to catch her breath for just a moment, and then she sprinted down the hallway again.
All she needed were some stairs. Where in the hell were the stai—
Something crashed into her shoulder then, sending her sprawling into the wall. Pain rocked through her, sharp and mind-blowing.
She thought for a split second she'd been shot, but then she looked up to see a man standing over her with a wooden club in his hand.
"So you're the one causing a ruckus?" he growled, showing crooked teeth as he grinned. "I got 'im, gents!" he yelled down the hallway.
And then he lifted the club over his head to bring it down on her. She saw the opening and took it, slamming the heel of her boot right between his legs.
The club toppled from his fingers to the floor as he let out a howl of pain, crumbling forward and holding himself with both hands.
Sarah swept the club up in her hand, climbed to her feet, and brought it down with a sickening thump on the back of his head. She dropped the bloodied club and kept going, letting out a harsh breath.
She had to get on the roof, she had to get to the back of the hotel where she could see where Chuck had been. Or at least, where he was supposed to be for his role in this damned mission that had been fated to go south, she realized now.
They never could have gotten through the night something going wrong. She'd been a fool to have faith in this cockamamie plan, even for a moment.
She'd heard those gunshots when she was down in the basement.
She knew there was a very good chance that when she looked down at the spot where Chuck had been catching footage of the meeting in the Crown Room, there was a very good chance she'd spot the toymaker sprawled out in the dirt…dead.
She forced it out of her mind. She couldn't—She daren't think that way. Not when she still had to survive this. She just had to get to the roof, and then she'd try to find out what happened to Chuck.
One thing at a time.
Finally, she saw the staircase that wound up to the fourth floor. All she had to do was get to it.
"There! He's headed for the stairs!"
Sarah rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and groaned, spinning on her heel and pulling her pistol out. A man in a brown jacket was racing down the hallway, lifting his own gun to shoot at her, but she put a bullet in his shoulder before he could pull his trigger.
The next fellow got one in his kneecap.
And the last man was nicked by her third bullet, sending him crumbling to the ground crying out, covering the bleeding wound on his neck with both hands.
She holstered her gun and rushed up the stairs, hearing more of West's men sprinting after her.
"Fourth floor!" one of them yelled.
Sarah knocked over a woman at the top of the stairs, unable to stop herself.
"Who—Henry! Oh, Henry!" the woman screamed in dismay.
It looked like a few of the lamps in the hallway had been turned on at least, either by staff or the residents who had the knowledge to do so themselves.
"Sorry," Sarah panted halfheartedly, before sprinting down the hallway again.
She heard the woman scream behind her again, "They have guns! Oh, Henry!" and she knew they were still behind her. But then she slid to a halt, her boots skidding against the carpet.
Because two men had cut her off at the end of the hallway.
Just then, a guest opened his door and peeked out, half his face covered in shaving cream. Sarah lunged and grabbed his shirtfront, spinning him out into the hallway and taking his place in the room just as shots were fired. She thought she felt one tear at her shirt it came so close, but she pushed that out of her mind and slammed the door shut behind her. She locked it, as if that would make any difference at all.
They had her cornered.
But at least she had the window.
If she had the time to climb out of it.
So she'd make time.
She barricaded the door as best she could, shoving the nearby chair underneath it. She knew it wouldn't hold them for long. They had guns, after all.
Sarah took a moment to catch her breath. But she only had a moment, because what sounded like a very large boot slammed hard into the door behind her. She yelped and jumped, not wasting anymore time as she spun on her heel and raced towards the window.
Wham!
The door sounded like it was starting to splinter. That, or the chair was splintering. Either way, they were almost inside.
If they got inside, she was dead.
She was exhausted from fighting her way up this far through the hotel. She was hurting from that club crashing into her shoulder. Her knuckles were swelling from hitting the hefty fellow with the stone jaw in the stairwell.
Panic hit her hard as she heard a pistol discharge, the wood of the door cracking. She spared a glance over her shoulder as she yanked the window open.
She didn't want to die like this. Like a rat caught in a trap.
Scared, adrenaline coursing through her only making her panic that much worse, she scrambled out of the window and up to grab the eave above it. She braced her boot on the windowsill and hoisted herself up.
But the fog had made the sill slippery with moisture, and she was too panicked to be careful.
Her boot slid suddenly and her fingers slipped on the damp tile they were clinging to.
And with a scream on her lips, she pitched backwards.
A/N: Oh, dear. Who let Evil Steampunk Chuckster in here?
Leave a review. Please. I need them.
-ESC