A/N1: Jeez. I really hope Tyler Martin doesn't own Chuck. But if he did, it explains why we don't have a movie all these years later.
A/N2: Here we are. The thirty-third (33rd) arc of New Day. It's the Martin Arc. It's based on, sort of, Chuck versus the Third Dimension (season 2, episode 12). I hope like hell that it makes more sense than the canon episode, which I consider to be a hot mess. I've seen it a few times now and I still can't make a bit of sense out of the plot, but it's supposed to be cool if you are wearing the 3D glasses.
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Castle Studios Gym
Colt said, "Come on now, Chuck. You can do it. You can do it." The big man's fingertips were lightly touching the back of Chuck's arms.
"I got it," hissed Chuck, through gritted teeth.
He pushed through the hardest part of the squat and brought the bar up to his full height. He, Sarah, and Fitz's man Marco were doing heavy squats in the Studio's gym, with Colt spotting them. Chuck had just beaten his personal record of 320 pounds and pushed up to 350 pounds. He might be sore later, but at the moment he felt pretty damn good. He knew he wasn't as strong as Casey or Fitz, and nowhere near as strong as Colt, but he was pretty proud of himself anyway.
Once he'd stepped out from under the bar, now seated on the rack, Sarah gave him a big kiss and a smile. "Terrific, Sweetie. A new PR."
"Thanks," said Chuck with a huge grin. "But you know pound for pound you're still stronger than any of us."
"Well done, Chuck. Well done. I knew you could manage," said Colt, his voice rumbling up from somewhere near his heels, holding out a hand to give Chuck a high five of celebration. Chuck grinned and slapped the offered hand.
Marco gave Chuck a slap on the back and said, "Way to go, big guy."
"Thanks," said Chuck, as he noticed Marco putting some more weights on the bar to work in a set. He gave Sarah a look and she just laughed. They both knew that there was always going to be someone stronger than they were, and faster, and richer, and whatever else.
She leaned over and whispered to him, "But you're the sexiest."
Chuck grinned and whispered back, "Not a fair comparison. He's not playing for the same team."
"I can hear you two, you know," said Marco, laughing. They all laughed.
Sarah said, "Marco, what's going on over at Building Six today? I saw them setting up for something with a few dozen women."
"Yeah. Dancers. Tyler Martin is coming in to shoot his latest music video," replied Marco.
"Who's that?" she asked, but Marco was already doing his squats so Chuck answered for him.
"Brit rockstar. Pretty big. Pretty famous. Generally, not your style of music though," he said. "Little too hard."
"I like his music. He's a poet," said Colt, nodding his head.
"Eh," said Chuck. "I'm not a huge fan. I think his lyrics are kind of banal, to tell the truth."
"So, what would I know him from?" asked Sarah.
Having finished his set, Marco said, "The sex tape. The one last year."
"Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. I remember that. Him and two girls, right?" asked Sarah.
"I think it was three," said Marco. "But I honestly wasn't counting the girls."
"It was three," said Colt.
"Yeah. I remember now. Quite the character," she said.
"Oh, yeah," said Chuck. "That's an understatement."
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Changing Room, Building Six, Castle Studios
Later that day, Tyler Martin was pacing back and forth in the changing room at the Studio, and he was deeply frustrated. The dancing on the video they were trying to shoot was for shit. He hated to admit it, but he knew it was his own fault. He'd trusted to that idiot choreographer he'd met at Sting's party and the man had been a bloody hack. His choreography was uninspired and needed more pizzazz. So, Martin fired the loser and was considering taking over the task himself. He expected it to extend the shooting schedule, but it was worth it to get the result he needed.
They were all taking a short break after a couple of hours work. He quickly popped an upper and washed it down with a cold amber ale that had been stocked in the room for him. Knowing his own body and his reactions to the myriad combination of chemicals he had coursing through his blood at the moment, he was certain that the mix wouldn't interfere with his performance in the video. No one expected him to be an actor anyway.
He pushed some of the furniture out of the way, clearing a space. In the now open area, he began to hum the music to the song and move with it. Right. Left. Spin. Kick. Left. Right. Kick. He knocked over a chair and ignored it. How about a slide here? He tried it and it sucked. Ok, no slide. He kept working at the routine until his manager knocked on his door and called his name.
Gavin Khalil was there to get him squared away and put his head back on the right path. And he was Martin's friend. He knew he needed the man around to keep him from wandering off into his own things. Keep him on track. They made a good team. Martin to be the creative genius and Gavin to handle the business side and not let him embarrass himself too badly or get too stoned to actually perform when needed.
Which brought him back in his mind to the sex tape. Gavin's idea and a brilliant bit of publicity to be sure. Hell of a way to get the fans talking about him before the release of the next album. All the embarrassment and denials and exhortations for personal privacy and all the rest of the bullshit. He had people talking and that's just what he wanted. And he had to admit that his naked butt looked pretty damn good.
He went to the door and let Gavin in and closed the door behind him.
"I can call around," the other man said. "Find us a better dance man. Someone without his head up his arse."
"What would you say if I told you I wanted to try it myself? Try to come up with a routine?"
"My first thought is you're mad. You are a good dancer, but you've never tried your hand at choreographing a whole bit. A whole song," he said.
"Right. But it's not going to be a whole song, right, Gav? We only cut to the dancers for the middle minute or so. Maybe minute ten. The rest of it is the footage at the beginning and the fireworks at the end."
"Alright, let's say you're right. Let's say you can do it. We are on a clock here. We're renting this spot by the day and paying all those folks by the hour," said the manager.
Martin grinned at him with the sort of confidence that he knew would drive his friend crazy and said, "Aw, bloody 'ell. An angry record company for you to deal with. What's the fuckin' world coming to?"
Gavin sighed and said, "Let's see what you've got."
Outside the door to the room they heard Danny, one of Martin's bodyguards, say, "Hey. You can't go in there. What're you doing...?"
There was a sound like a cough and they heard a thump, like a body hitting the ground. Martin and Khalil looked at each other with confusion.
The door opened and middle-aged blond-haired man stood there looking at them. He was dressed in jeans and wearing a light jacket and a blue baseball cap. They could just see Danny's feet on the floor through the door. The man's face and pale eyes were hard, not angry, just concentrating. In his hand he held a pistol with a long silencer.
"What the fuck?" cried Martin, in an instant more terrified than he'd ever been.
Gavin rushed at the man, who calmly fired twice, putting two bullets into the Gavin's brain, which sprayed out the back of his head. Gavin's momentum, however, carried him forward to crash into the gunman and knock him back out of the doorway.
Martin took that opportunity to run past him and out the door, screaming at anyone and everyone to run away. He thought of all the stories of mass shootings in the States and couldn't believe he was going to die in one, even with his bodyguards somewhere around. But those fellows were unarmed and this madman had a gun.
"RUN. BLOKE WITH A GUN. RUN," he kept yelling and running.
He slipped on a bit of tile and it saved his life, as a bullet passed just by his head to hit the doorjamb of the exit from the building.
Now outside, he kept running, but found it hard to do. All the cigarettes and joints he'd smoked in his life had destroyed his wind. He'd been fast as a boy in school, but not anymore. A glance over his shoulder showed the gunman still pursuing him, pausing to take aim just outside the door.
Was this even actually happening? Could this be just a really terrible trip? Maybe he'd taken acid rather than an upper? Could that be? He tried to judge the world as he ran. To determine if this was real or not real. Lines seemed straight. Colors appropriate to the world as he remembered it. There were no people around, though. On a bad trip the people looked bad. He had a flash of memory of a bad acid trip where everyone looked like lizards...which made it very awkward to check into the hotel at the time. He couldn't stop running now, though, in case this was real.
Martin jerked himself around a corner and continued to run through the Studio grounds. He was almost blind with terror and he turned another corner and ran another dozen yards and straight into a couple. There was a beautiful blonde and a tall brown haired fellow.
"Run," he panted to them. "'E's got a gun. 'E's got a gun. 'E's comin' this way." He could barely get the words out and he was staggering with the exertion he'd just endured. "Run."
"Calm down. Calm down. Who's coming?" asked the woman.
"A gunman. A shooter. 'E's got a pistol and one of those silencer things like from the movies. 'E's comin' after me. You've got to run away," he said desperately.
The blonde woman then did something that surprised the living hell out of Martin, she pushed him to the ground behind her and pulled out a pistol of her own. "You stay down," she said to Martin. Then she said to the man she was with, "Get behind me." The woman with the gun went to one knee in front of Martin.
The man said, "Um, no." He took out a gun of his own and went to one knee next to her.
"Chuck..." she said, exasperated, glancing his way.
"Eyes front, Sweetie," the man told her.
The gunman turned the corner and found himself confronted by an armed man and woman protecting Martin.
He turned back around the corner and fled. The couple protecting Martin stood up. The blonde woman seemed to want to move to chase the gunman, but the man put a light hand on her arm and said, "Stay, please, Sweetie. We don't even know what's going on and you don't want a running gunfight through the Studio."
The woman settled back and said, "Yeah. You're right." Neither of them holstered their weapons though and kept an eye on the corner the gunman had disappeared around.
The man turned to Martin and said, "Only one gunman?"
"Only one," he replied, nodding.
To Martin's confused mind, the woman seemed to be speaking into her watch for some insane reason. "Casey, shooter in the Studio near Building Six, Chuck and I are ok...no, we don't know what's going on. Scramble Fitz's guys please, just in case...no, Colt's guys aren't armed...great. Have Fitz tell the Studio security guys not to engage if they can help it, they aren't armed either, but they should get on to 911 if they haven't already...No, I don't think it's a mass shooting. Wrong weapon. Silenced pistol, more like a hit...Ok. I'll let you know."
The man reached down and pulled Martin to his feet. "Just breathe," he said. "In and out...in and out...you got it."
"You just saved my life. Thank you. Thank you. Who in God's name are you people?" said Martin. Now that he had a moment, he realized that the woman was incredibly beautiful. Only a second or two later he remembered the death. He said, "Oh, God. Oh, God. Gavin. Danny. Oh, God." He started to shake from the reaction and bent over to puke.
His eyes were wild and he was still breathing heavily, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Looking at the couple in front of him he was suddenly assailed once again by the bizarre nature of the last couple of minutes. Staring at his saviors, he said desperately, "Are you real? Please tell me you're real. If you're not, this is the worst acid trip I've ever 'ad."
"We're real," said the man. "What's your name?"
"You don't recognize me?" he asked, startled.
"Should we?" asked the woman.
"Most people do. I'm Tyler Martin," he tried to sound self-important, but didn't really pull it off while standing next to a puddle of his own vomit.
"Hi, Tyler. I'm Sarah and this is Chuck," said the woman. She turned to the man and said, "Let's get him inside. If that guy is still after him, we shouldn't leave him out here in the open."
"Right," said the man Martin now knew as Chuck. "Hunker down for the police to arrive."
"Exactly," said Sarah.
They went through a nearby door and Sarah spoke into her watch again. "Case, if anyone's looking for us or Tyler Martin we are in Building Four, near the south entrance." She put her hand down and said to Martin, "Ok, Tyler, tell us what's going on here."
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Robbery and Homicide Squad Room, LAPD Southeast Community Police Station
Booker looked at the medical report in front of him and immediately glanced up at the medical thesaurus he had up on his computer. From everything he could tell, the man had died of cardiac problems. Or he had measles. Or he was poisoned. Why couldn't these guys speak English?
Chen was just finishing up a call with a witness on a separate case when Lt. Spangler, the replacement for Mauser (who had died a hero, as the Carmichael team had explained), announced loudly enough for the entire squad to hear, "Active shooter over at Castle Studios. Reports of casualties. SWAT's flooding it with their guys. Garcia and Brauser, you're up. See what you can get."
Booker and Chen glanced at each other. Chen, who was still on a call, gestured with his head, so Booker went over alone. After a few words with the new Lieutenant, the man called out, "Never mind. Booker and Chen want this one. Garcia, Brauser, you're off the hook."
The man went back to his desk, his phone and his coffee, leaving the detectives to sort the rest out.
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A/N3: Honestly, I didn't plan to have Booker and Chen back so soon. I really didn't. But there was always such mayhem in Los Angeles in canon and no one ever called the cops. I don't know where you live, but where I live folks call the cops for every little thing. Kid locks himself in the bathroom and suddenly you have four cops trying to talk to him through the door into turning the doorknob the right way. But not in canon. So, I thought this was more realistic. And, anyway, I like these guys.
A/N4: What think you, gentlefolk?