Chuck vs. the Spiked Eggnog, Chapter 4: "Chuck vs. the Casino"

- and the world momentarily went black as Chuck blinked in surprise at Casey’s rather explosive answer.

“You’re outta your goddamn minds!” Casey exclaimed vehemently, thrusting his hands outward. “Seriously! You two have gone directly around the bend, past Hoover Dam, and you’re floating down the Colorado River with no rudder!”

Chuck looked over at Sarah, who shrugged. “I told you that’s what he was gonna say,” she said.

“You know what, he’s right,” Chuck admitted. “Casey, you’re right. I’m sorry we wasted your time.”

Casey waved his hands in the air furiously. “Nobody said you were wasting my time! I just said you were out of your goddamn minds! I want to know exactly what the two of you were thinking when you came up with this half-cocked plan to rip off a casino!”

Chuck shrugged. “Well, it’s never been done before.”

“Hah!” Casey laughed. “You should know better than that, Captain Intersect!”

“What do you mean?” Chuck asked, confused.

“Let me give you some mental stimuli,” Casey snarked. “Bronze medal. The Horseshoe, 1954.”

Chuck’s eyes rolled back in his head as a series of images flashed before his eyes. A lockbox. A scrawny-looking man running with said lockbox. Said man being tackled. Chips and cash flying everywhere.

“Doug Ross grabbed a lockbox at the Horseshoe, attempted to escape. He was stopped and apprehended,” Chuck said.

“Exactly,” Casey said with a smile, nodding his head. “Number two. The Flamingo, 1971.”

Chuck’s mind was assaulted again. A man. Definitely a hippie. Duffel bag clutched to his chest. Daylight plays on his face before a security guard smashes him in the nose with a nightstick. “Spirit in the Sky” incongruously plays in Chuck’s head.

“Tyler Durden,” Chuck gasped. “Tried to rob the Flamingo. Actually tasted fresh oxygen. Of course, he was breathing out of a tube for the next six months.”

“God damn hippie,” Casey grumbled. “And the champion. Caesar’s Palace, 1987.”

The Intersect went crazy one final time. A man in a horrible leisure suit on the driveway out front of Caesar’s Palace, arms full of cash, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth. Armed security guards yelling at him to freeze. Armed security guards firing their weapons. The man falls, a cloud of cash flying into the air.

“Will Hunting,” Chuck said. “Closest any man has ever come to robbing a Las Vegas casino. He came, he grabbed…”

“They conquered,” Casey finished the sentence for him.

The older man looked at Chuck and Sarah. “Do you understand the complications in robbing a Las Vegas casino? There’s cameras. There’s sensors. There’s enough armed personnel to occupy Paris.”

Chuck raised an eyebrow at that one. “Okay, bad example,” Casey allowed. “But still, even if you manage to get out the front door – you’re still in the middle of the fucking desert! Have you two geniuses even considered that?!”

Chuck looked at Casey, and then over at Sarah. “You’re right,” Sarah said. “Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. We’d just get ourselves in over our heads.”

“Thanks for lunch, Casey,” Chuck said, as he stood.

“No problem, guys,” Casey said. “Listen, we go way back, and I still owe you, for the thing, with the guy, in the place…”

“Yeah, I always wanted to be kidnapped and taken to Utah,” Chuck cracked.

Casey looked up at him strangely. “Utah? I thought it was Belize.”

Sarah looked at them both. “You know, it was Belize, but for some reason, I thought it was Utah for a moment too.”

“Strange,” Chuck said, but continued to walk away. He and Sarah had almost reached the back door of Casey’s house when Casey called, “Listen, just which casinos were you mindjobs planning on hitting?”

Sarah turned around. “Uh, the Mirage, the Bellagio…”

“The MGM Grand,” Chuck finished.

Casey’s fork clattered to his plate. “Those are Bryce Larkin’s casinos!” he called, standing up and quickly crossing the back patio. “Just what do you guys have against Bryce Larkin?”

Chuck smiled. “I think the more important question is what do you have against him, Casey?”

“He stabbed me in the back. He betrayed everything I stood for,” Casey growled.

Chuck looked at Sarah questioningly. She smiled and nodded her head slightly.

“But if you’re gonna rob Bryce Larkin, you better know,” Casey continued, “you think you’ve got him down, and he’ll bounce right back up again. I’ve seen it happen. Twice. He’ll come at you like none other. He’ll go after you, your family. You know, Vegas, it used to be civilized. You’d hit a guy, he’d wack you. Boom. Done.

“Not Bryce Larkin. He kills you, and then he goes to work on you.”

Chuck nodded. “Well, then we’ll be careful.”

Casey shook his head. “Seriously, this is lunacy. No joke, you’re gonna need a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros, a Leon Spinks, and the biggest Ella Fitzgerald of ALL TIME to pull this off. You’re looking at minimum ten men.”

Chuck smiled. “We were thinking eleven, but you’re right on the same line of thought as us.”

Casey grimaced. “Exactly what lunatics you two have in mind for this job?”

“Well, our inside man is Big Mike,” Chuck began. “He recently developed a bad case of… uh, whatever. He’s put in for a transfer from New Jersey to a warmer climate. But, since Big Mike can no longer get past the gaming commission, he’ll be known as Mr. Mark Christopher Lawrence.”

“Catchy name,” Casey said. “Too catchy. Tell him to drop the Christopher.”

“He’s not gonna like that,” Sarah warned.

“Tough. Tell him he’s Mark Lawrence or I name him.”

Chuck suppressed a smile at the thought of Casey thinking up a new name for the six-foot-four, three hundred fifty pound black man. “So that’s our inside man,” he repeated. “Electronics, we were thinking Jill Tanner.”

“She’s dead,” Sarah interrupted.

Chuck looked over at her, shocked. “No shit! On a job?”

“Skin cancer,” Sarah replied. “Hit the tanning booths a bit too much.”

“You send flowers?”

“Dated her ex for a while…”

Chuck literally laughed out loud at that one. “Okay, how about Morgan Grimes then?”

“He’s working for the feds, last I heard,” Casey said. “I mean, you could give him a call…”

“I’m sure I can pull a few strings,” Chuck replied. “He owes me. Everything, really.”

“Drivers are Jeff and Lester,” Sarah continued.

“What, the Mormon twins?” Casey snorted derisively.

Chuck frowned. “Number one, they’re barely Mormon, and number two, I’d hardly call them twins. Jeff’s a six-foot-two alcoholic white man, and Lester’s a five-foot-six Indian guy. They just happen to have the same birth date, and just happened to be adopted by the same parents.”

“From what we hear, though, they’re having a little trouble filling the time,” Sarah interjected. “Seems they got arrested a couple weeks back for staging a drag race in the middle of Provo.”

Casey squinted his eyes. “Provo? What the hell?”

“Apparently, it was a remote control truck against a lifted four-by-four,” Chuck finished. “I guess the Provo police weren’t too pleased about the distraction it caused.”

Casey sighed. “Okay, so you’ve got your inside man, your electronics, and your drivers. What about a lifter? And your Boesky?”

“Two for the price of one,” Chuck replied. “I figure, I get my sister and her husband – Devin and Ellie Woodcomb – out here. She could lift Nathan Fillion’s wallet out of his tightest pair of leather pants, and Devin can pass himself off as just about anybody you want – as long as that individual is ‘awesome’,” he added, rolling his eyes.

“Our greaseman is Anna Wu,” Sarah continued. “She’s actually Morgan Grimes girlfriend. I have it on good authority that she is… well, Morgan’s exact terminology was ‘surprisingly flexible’.”

Chuck groaned in horror. “Dear sweet Lord, I really did NOT need to know that,” he grumbled.

Sarah smiled. “You know I say those things intentionally, right?”

“I bet you do…”

“Alright, alright,” Casey said irritably. “Moving on. Demolitions?”

“No question,” Chuck replied. “We get Lou. She’s still apparently friendly with her ex, Stavros Demetrios –“

“The international financier?”

“Yeah, and heavy grade arms dealer,” Sarah finished. “We figure she greases his palm with three or four hundred, we get the explosives and arms we need, nobody’s the wiser.”

“Now, you figure the total take on this…”

“Well,” Chuck replied, “as I’m sure you’re aware, the policy in Bryce Larkin’s casinos is to have enough cash in the cage to cover every chip on the floor at any given moment. On a weeknight, that’s fifteen million dollars. On a Saturday night, you’re looking at closer to eighty million.”

He grinned, a gleam appearing in his eyes. “But on a fight night, like the night of the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight, three weeks from tonight, you’re looking at over one hundred fifty million, without breaking a sweat.”

Casey’s eyebrows climbed, and he whistled. “And you think you’re gonna walk out of there with that?”

Chuck nodded.

“So, I guess the final question is, who’s your financier?”

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other. “Well… that’s why we came to talk to you.”

Casey looked at them for a moment, shocked. Finally, he said, “I need something to drink. Can we take this discussion inside?”

Chuck and Sarah nodded, and got up to follow him into the house. He opened the door, and they headed inside. After the bright sunlight, the dim light of the house seemed almost pitch black –

To be continued…

---

Author’s note: You may have noticed a slight discrepancy between this chapter and Ocean’s 11. You may remember that in the movie, Danny Ocean states that Nevada state law requires all chips in play on a casino floor to be covered by cash on hand. This is actually not a law at all. Therefore, I decided to change that plot point just a wee bit.

Chuck vs. the Spiked Eggnog, Chapter 3: "Chuck vs. the Dilithium Crystals"

- and the blackness receded as the Bird of Prey blasted out of its time warp, streaking toward Earth at high warp speed, but decelerating rapidly.

“What’s our location?” Chuck asked groggily, coming out of the trance he seemed to have fallen into.

There was nothing for a moment, and then he heard Bryce quietly say, “Earth. Judging from the atmospheric pollution content, I’d say we’ve arrived somewhere in the late twentieth century.”

Chuck looked around the bridge. Aside from Bryce, the rest of the crew still seemed to be in something of a trance – Jeff at the communications station, Lester manning weapons, Anna at the helm. Morgan stood behind Chuck, his eyes glazed over.

“Yo!” Chuck shouted. “Good morning, San Francisco!”

The other four bridge crew snapped out of it. “Uh, sorry about that, sir,” Anna apologized. “I’m aiming for San Francisco.”

“Set us down in Golden Gate Park,” Chuck ordered. “And Lester, do me a favor and activate the cloaking device.”

“Engineering to bridge!” The panicked voice of Major John Casey rang out over the intercom.

“This is the bridge.”

“Admiral, you’d better get down here, right now!”

Chuck looked at Bryce. Bryce met Chuck’s worried expression with, as always, a look of logical calm. “Bryce, you’re with me.”

When the two men arrived in engineering, Casey looked like he was just about to have an aneurysm. “We’ve got a serious problem, folks. The dilithium crystals – well, they couldn’t handle the strain of the time travel. They’re decrystallizing.”

Chuck’s jaw dropped. “Shit!”

“We don’t have the technology to re-crystallize them, either,” Casey told him. “Even in our century, the equipment required is dangerous to use.”

Chuck looked at Bryce. “Ideas?”

Bryce nodded his head. “Actually, yes. There is a possible twentieth century method for, if not recrystallizing the dilithium, then at the very least, renewing it enough to return us to the twenty-third century.”

Chuck narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

“During the twentieth century, several navies undertook a dubious flirtation with nuclear power for their sea-going vessels. The United States Navy was one of those, and they generally had at least one nuclear powered vessel docked in San Francisco Bay.

“Their reactors were poorly shielded by our standards, and tended to leak large amounts of alpha radiation, which, while fairly harmless to humans, would be ideal for energizing the dilithium crystals to a point where they will stop decaying.”

Chuck nodded approvingly. “Casey? What do you think?”

Casey shrugged. “It’s certainly not a bad idea, but I think it’s a crapshoot at best. I’ll put together a collector, but you guys are gonna have to find me a ship.”

He turned back to the dilithium crystals, but then stopped. “One more thing. These dilithium crystals are going to have to have enough energy to not just get us back to the 23rd century, but first beam up those whales and then have enough power to get us out of Earth’s gravity well with them on board. Will this radiation experiment provide enough power for that, Bryce?”

Bryce cocked an eyebrow. “I cannot say for sure. I have only hypothetical models to work with.”

“Great,” Casey muttered, walking off. Chuck wasn’t sure, but he thought he might’ve overheard something along the lines of goddamn Vulcan logic.

“Again with the Vulcan logic bit,” Bryce said. “Everybody seems to have forgotten that I am half human and that I was raised in Connecticut.”

“Yeah, but Bryce, when they took your memories out of Morgan’s head and put them back in yours, they seem to have forgotten to put your emotions back.”

Bryce shook his head. “Irrelevant. Emotionalism is illogical.”

Chuck threw his hands up in the air. “Whatever.”

When they returned to the bridge, Chuck began to hand out assignments. “Alright, here’s the deal,” he said. “Lester and Jeff, your mission is to locate a US Navy nuclear-powered ship. You’ll be beamed in, and you’ll be collecting alpha radiation with a collector Major Casey provides you.

“Anna and Morgan – your mission is to work with Major Casey, locate us the supplies to build a whale tank, and build us that tank.”

“Yes sir,” Anna responded, while Morgan breathed, “Oh, joy.”

“Bryce and I will locate our whales. Any questions?”

There were none. “Alright, let’s head out,” Chuck said. “Everyone remember where we parked.”

---

Four hours later, everybody had already managed some level of success at their mission – everybody except for Chuck and Bryce. Jeff and Lester had managed to find a nuclear-powered ship – the USS Enterprise, no less – in San Francisco Bay. Casey and Morgan had found a plastics company that could manufacture what they needed, and Anna had found a helicopter with which to transport it.

Of course, when Chuck asked Casey how exactly he was paying for the material, Casey had sort of hemmed and hawed before finally admitting that he turned over the formula for transparent aluminum. Bryce’s eyebrows just about crawled off the top of his forehead when he heard that.

“Casey, you can’t do that!” Chuck exploded. “You might be changing the future!”

“Chuck, he’s the guy who invents it!” Casey shot back. “So he has it a couple years early! So what?! It’s not like he has the technology to manufacture it right now!”

Chuck had just sighed in disgust and closed his communicator. “So, it’s just us, still trying to find a couple of whales,” he sighed.

“Well, sir, I believe we can have Jeff track any whale songs coming from the city, triangulate their position, and – what?”

Chuck had smacked Bryce on the shoulder, and was pointing wordlessly at the side of a bus. “Or, we could just do that,” Bryce said.

SEE GEORGE AND GRACIE AT THE SAUSALITO MARINE INSTITUTE! the sign proclaimed. Next to their names was a picture of, yes indeed, two humpback whales.

“Let’s go to Sausalito,” Chuck said.

Half an hour later, they were at the Sausalito Marine Institute. Walking in the front door, Chuck dropped a bill into the box that said “Donations Please.” Knowing very little about the currency of 1986 America, he hoped that the one with the “5” on it wasn’t too much or too little.

Tours form here every 30 minutes, a sign informed him and Bryce. “What say we join the tour, recon the place?” Chuck suggested.

“Not a bad idea,” Bryce agreed.

They joined a group of about ten people waiting on benches. Five minutes later, a door that said “Tours Only” opened, and a stunning blonde woman walked out.

Chuck’s eyes widened when he saw her, and he stood up quickly. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a body to kill for. He realized that even Bryce was taking notice, and Bryce NEVER took notice except for that one time every seven years.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m Doctor Sarah Walker, associate director of wildlife studies for the Sausalito Marine Institute. I’ll just head off any wise remarks right now – yes, I really am a marine biologist and NOT a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.”

A ripple of laughter ran through the small group. Chuck didn’t really get the joke, but something about the way she said it made him smile.

“Ordinarily, one of our tour guides would give the tour, but we had a little bit of an accident involving a staircase and a hangover this morning, so I’m filling in!” she continued. “If you’ll follow me, we’ve got some pretty incredible things to see.”

Over the next forty minutes, Chuck learned more about marine mammalian life than he could’ve ever hoped to learn in the 23rd century, when most species were extinct. He also saw some pretty gruesome evidence of why the species had gone extinct. “Horrifying,” Bryce noted calmly.

Then, Dr. Walker led the group outside onto what resembled a pool deck – except the pool was enormous, and clearly had salt water in it – along with two humpback whales. One of them surfaced and exhaled, sending up from its blowhole a plume of vapor which then rained down on the crowd.

“This is perfect, Bryce,” Chuck murmured. “We beam up the whales, hit the gas for the 23rd century, avert the destruction of Earth – not a bad day’s work, huh?”

There was no answer. “Bryce?”

Chuck turned around. There was no sign of Bryce – until he heard Dr. Walker yell, “What the HELL?!”

Chuck closed his eyes. “Oh please God no.”

He ran to the edge of the tank, just in time to see Bryce hauling himself out. “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?” he yelled simultaneously with Dr. Walker.

She whirled to face him. “Do you know him?” she demanded.

“Unfortunately,” Chuck admitted. He turned to Bryce. “What the hell was that all about?”

“I was simply attempting to communicate, Admiral.”

Chuck smacked his hand against his forehead. “Stop calling me Admiral, dammit!”

“I did not call you Admiral Dammit.”

Sarah Walker looked between the two of them. “The two of you have about ten seconds to explain what’s going on before I call the police.”

Bryce looked at Dr. Walker. “Gracie is pregnant.”

Sarah’s eyes widened, and she punched Bryce, sending him flying back into the tank. “Okay, Admiral Dammit,” she hissed, “you start explaining, or you join your friend the freak in the tub.”

Her blue eyes pierced into Chuck, and all at once, he felt an overwhelming urge to tell her the truth, ever last ounce of it, and before he even realized what he was doing, it was spilling out of him like word vomit. “We’re from the twenty-third century,” he blurted. “We came because we have to get two humpback whales, because they’re extinct in our time, and the planet is about to be destroyed by some alien life form that seems to be pissed off about the fact that they’re gone. Bryce, my friend, he’s half alien, and he can read minds by doing some sort of mind meld thing, and I don’t think he was trying to do anything else.”

Bryce had hauled himself out of the pool again. “That is correct, Admiral,” he confirmed.

Dr. Walker’s eyes had gone wide as plates, and her jaw was just hanging open. She stood there for a moment, speechless, before she finally turned to the rest of the group. “Uh… uh, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to cut the tour off early,” she said, much to their disappointment. “Please feel free to show yourselves around the remainder of the institute, and if you wish to join the next tour, there should be another one forming in about twenty minutes.”

As the group dispersed, she turned to Chuck. “I don’t know why,” she began, “because that’s the biggest bullshit story I’ve heard in my entire life, and I’ve heard some good ones, but for some reason… I believe you.”

She couldn’t have shocked Chuck more if she’d stripped naked right there. “I’m sorry?” he asked in disbelief. “You BELIEVE me?”

Sarah shrugged. “What can I say?”

“Hot damn,” Chuck whispered with a grin. He whipped out his communicator and opened it. “Bartowski to Casey,” he said. “Casey, please come in.”

“Yeah, what is it?” he heard the irritable voice of his chief engineer say. “We’re a little busy renewing some dilithium crystals here.”

“So that mission was successful, then?”

“Yeah, Jeff fell and cracked his head pretty good. Fortunately, he doesn’t really have much of a brain, otherwise it would’ve been a problem.”

Chuck heard Jeff’s voice come through faintly in the background. “I’m fine, Adm’ral!”

Chuck narrowed his eyes. “Casey, he sounds drunk.”

“Morgan liquored him up pretty good. The Klingon painkillers we have are crap.”

“Alright, whatever. We’ve got a pair of whales. We have three humans and two whales to beam up.”

Casey snorted. “Dream on… sir. I have a transporter range of about 100 feet right now. You’re gonna have to be right outside the ship for me to beam you in, and we’re gonna have to be right over those whales to beam them up. Tank’s ready, but the transporters are… well… not so good.”

“Hell,” Chuck muttered. “Alright. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

He looked at Dr. Walker. “Do you have a car or something?”

She was staring at him again. “Uh, yeah… uh, three to beam up… what does that mean?”

“Transporters,” Chuck explained. “They move matter from place to place, and that’s the number of people I needed beamed up.”

“Why three?”

She had Chuck there. “Um… well, I guess I thought you might like to come with us. After all, you do seem to believe us, and, um, we’re gonna need somebody who knows what to do with these things.”

And then she actually smiled. “Twenty-third century, huh? That could be fun.”

Forty minutes later, her Blazer skidded to a stop in Golden Gate Park. “Let’s go!” Chuck shouted, as they bailed from the truck. He ran toward where he thought he remembered the Bird of Prey being – and was knocked off his feet as he ran smack into the side of it.

Painfully, he got back to his feet. “Found it!” he called weakly, waving to Bryce and Sarah, who jogged over – much more slowly – to join him.

When they were next to him, he opened his communicator again. “Bartowski to Casey,” he said. “Three to beam up.”

“Oh, holy shit!” Sarah Walker exclaimed in surprise as the transporter beam began to dissolve her form. Chuck grinned and closed his eyes as the cool wash of the transporter beam dissolved to blackness –

To be continued…

---

Author's Note: for those of you who may not have recognized this chapter, it's a spoof of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which remains to this date unquestionably the funniest and most popular of the Star Trek films. For character comparison, Chuck is Admiral James T. Kirk, Bryce is Captain Spock, Morgan is Dr. McCoy, Jeff is Uhura, Lester is Chekov, Anna is Mr. Sulu, and Casey is Scotty.

Sarah vs. Nine Months, Month Seven

It was a big day for the Bartowski family. A very big day.

Seven months before, Chuck had sold the video game “Mindnode” to Electronic Arts. Its premise was very familiar – an unsuspecting individual gets a large government database accidentally downloaded into his head and has to use the information to help two government agents take down bad guys – although he’d mixed it up a little, and used a CIA agent and a British MI-6 agent instead of an NSA agent.

When John Casey had heard about it, he had said, “I’d call it plagiarism, except you’re only plagiarizing yourself. How dare you.”

Nonetheless, Electronic Arts had paid Chuck six hundred thousand dollars for the game, enough for him and Morgan to form the start-up Nerd Cave Video Games. Five months later, they had turned around and sold another game to Activision for two million dollars.

The first game, though, was being released to the public tomorrow – Tuesday, September 21st, 2010. However, E.A. had offered Chuck the chance to have a big release party for it the day before, at the location of his choice.

Because Chuck was a rather loyal person, he had chosen the Buy More in Burbank to hold the release party. Needless to say, Big Mike was ecstatic, though his employees were less than thrilled at the extra work that they had to put in to get the store ready.

Of course, Electronic Arts decided that they were going to make it a big red carpet event. They invited in the actors that they had had do voices for the game – Lee Pace as the civilian, Kristen Bell as the CIA agent, and Gareth David-Lloyd as the MI-6 agent.

When Sarah found out about all that – and especially about David-Lloyd, who she’d had somewhat of a celebrity crush on since meeting him at Comic-Con two years before – she had told Chuck that there was no way in hell they were going to show up in the Beast. “You’re the creator of this game,” she insisted, “and there will be famous people on hand. We are taking the Porsche.”

“I’ll have to drive,” he warned her.

“I am painfully aware of that.”

Unfortunately, all of Sarah’s formal wear was designed for a woman who was NOT seven months pregnant with twins. She complained about it one night to Chuck and Devin one night, who were busy watching the Lakers get their asses kicked by the Phoenix Suns.

She hadn’t even thought they were listening, but the next morning, a very haughty woman with a measuring tape had shown up at the front door of the house, ordered Sarah to stick her arms out, and had taken several measurements. The morning after that, a delivery driver had dropped off an incredible dress.

The dress was made of a cloth that made Sarah’s skin tingle when she touched it. Forest green with very subtle grey accents, it fit Sarah like a glove, but when she saw the “Oscar de la Renta” tag on the bag, she had just about had a heart attack. Of course, that was before she saw the attached note.

Knock ‘em dead, kid, it said. It was signed, Art Graham.

She smiled and shook her head. Leave it to Chuck to contact the former CIA director about something like that.

And so, at 11:00 AM on Monday the 20th, Sarah’s Porsche 911 rolled up to the red carpet in front of the Buy More at the Empire Power Center in Burbank. A white gloved valet opened her door, while Chuck, looking fantastic – AS ALWAYS, the bastard, she though – in a tuxedo, jumped out and ran around to help her out.

They had gotten maybe five feet down the carpet toward the front door of the Buy More when an obnoxiously perky reporter popped in front of them. “Kristin Dos Santos, E! News!” she announced. They both stopped, Sarah blowing out her breath and rolling her eyes. Then she saw the camera.

Oh, Jesus H. Christ.

“So, Mr. Bartowski, what was the inspiration for your video game?”

Sarah’s breath caught in her chest. What the hell was Chuck going to say to that?

“What can I say,” he answered smoothly. “It just came to me one day. I have to give one of my college buddies a little credit for it – he sent me an e-mail, and as I was reading it, well, it just sort of popped into my head.”

Sarah smiled and tried not to laugh. To think that Chuck had just told this woman EXACTLY what had happened, and yet, she had no idea.

“And you must be Mrs. Bartowski!” Dos Santos said.

“Sarah,” she replied. “Please.”

“Well, it looks like you’re gonna be adding to your family pretty soon – you look just about ready to pop!”

Lord, give me patience, Sarah thought, eyeing the woman’s neck and wondering how much pressure she’d have to apply to knock her out. “Still got about another two months – twins,” Sarah said.

Kristin Dos Santos was about to ask Chuck another question, but he’d spotted Kristen Bell, and was suddenly dragging Sarah off that direction. Sarah couldn’t help but laugh as the entertainment “reporter” was left in their dust, mouth gaping open like a beached fish.

The event went quite well, although about an hour into it, Sarah suddenly found herself having to use the restroom about every fifteen minutes. It was not pleasant – first of all, she hated public restrooms. Secondly, there was quite the line. Third – and this was most definitely the worst part of her day – she discovered that it was quite impossible for her to shut the door behind her in the Buy More’s normal stalls, and ended up having to use the handicapped stall every single time.

When she came out of the restroom after the fourth time with a look of murderous rage on her face, Chuck quickly got up from the table. “Uh, Big Mike,” he said, approaching his former boss. “Do you think I could get the key to the employee restroom and give it to Sarah? She’s having to use the restroom pretty regularly here, and I think she might go set the Large Mart on fire if she has to use the restroom here one more time.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Big Mike replied. “LESTER!”

Lester came scurrying over – dressed in a yellow polo? “When the hell did you get promoted to assistant manager?” Chuck asked, incredulous.

“Not too long back,” Lester replied.

“He ain’t lived up to his potential yet,” Big Mike grumbled.

“Come on, Big Mike, I had to follow Harry Tang and this taskmaster,” Lester complained, indicating Chuck.

“Yeah, well, tough,” Big Mike replied. “You’re gettin’ paid the same that they did, I expect the same level of work. Gimme the key to the employee restroom.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Bartowski needs a restroom she can go to where she doesn’t have to stand in line with all these other people.”

Lester’s face took on a comical look of horror. “Wait a second,” he replied. “That means I have to go urinate with the common folk!”

Chuck rolled his eyes as Big Mike handed him the key to the employee restroom. “Don’t forget to return it, Bartowski!”

“Yes, sir, Big Mike,” Chuck replied – and then mentally smacked himself. He hadn’t worked here for seven months, and yet he was still calling Big Mike “sir”.

He walked back to Sarah and handed her the key. “It’s the employee restroom,” he told her. “Probably cleaner than the public ones, no line.”

She smiled. A year and a half they’d been married, and Chuck still took it upon himself to do all those little things that made her fall in love with him in the first place. “Thank you.”

Sarah stood and headed off toward the employee restroom. Chuck tried not to shake his head as she walked away.

“Excuse me, are you Chuck Bartowski?”

Chuck turned his head to the right – and stood up so fast that he knocked his chair over. “Jesus Christ! I mean, George Clooney!”

Clooney smiled. “Not quite the first time, but right the second.”

“Wow!” Chuck gasped. “I mean, I can’t believe you’re here, at the release party for my game!”

“Well, I came because it occurs to me that this would make a fantastic movie,” Clooney replied. “I wanted to talk to you about that possibility.”

Chuck rested his chin on his hand. “You… want to turn my game into a movie?”

“Yeah,” Clooney answered. “I figure, use Lee Pace, Kristen Bell, Gareth David-Lloyd in the starring roles – bit of continuity from the game.”

“Wow,” Chuck said again. “Um, there’s people who I need to speak with…”

Just then, Sarah returned from the bathroom. “Uh, Sarah, this is George Clooney,” Chuck said. “This is my wife, Sarah Bartowski.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said, taking the hand of a very shocked Sarah. “I was just talking to your husband about the possibility of turning the game into a feature film.”

Sarah’s right eyebrow went up. “Uh… Chuck, can I talk to you for a moment?”

He nodded. “I’ll give you two a minute,” Clooney said, and walked off, calling Lee Pace’s name as he went.

“Do you think the CIA will go for it?” Chuck asked Sarah.

She blew her breath out slowly. “I really don’t know,” she said. “I could’ve gotten Director Graham to sign off on it, but I don’t know about this new director, Sam Tyler… he seems like a bit of a hardass.”

“What about the NSA?”

“I’m sure Casey can grease the skids some, but they’re gonna be even more difficult.”

Chuck sighed. “Come on. They let me release the video game. I don’t think I’d even be involved with the movie, except like as a producer or something.”

“I just don’t know,” Sarah said.

Clooney returned then. “So…”

“Let’s go for it,” Chuck said, to Sarah’s surprise.

“Great!” Clooney said, his face breaking into a smile. “Why don’t you give me your card… and I’ll have my people at Section 8 contact you.”

Chuck smiled back. “Sounds good,” he replied, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a Nerd Cave business card.

Clooney took the card, shook Chuck's hand, and walked off again. “Are you out of your mind?” Sarah asked angrily.

“I believe that I have given enough to the government that they owe me,” Chuck replied.

“Yeah, well, what about me?” Sarah said. “I’m your WIFE and you didn’t listen to a word I said!”

That one stopped Chuck short. “I… I really thought you’d be okay with it,” he answered. “I mean, you’ve always…”

His face fell. “I’m sorry… I mean, he’s right over there, I can go tell him no…”

And then he turned the puppy dog eyes on her. The expression that invariably ended up with Sarah either 1) acceding to his request, 2) getting naked, or 3) both. “That’s foul play, Chuck,” she grumbled.

A little bit of a smile broke out on his face. “Oh, ALRIGHT,” she sighed. “I’ll make it work with the agencies.”

“Have I told you lately how much I love you?” he asked, the smile turning huge.

She shook her head, smiling ruefully. “No, but you can show me by going over to Large Mart and getting me the biggest bottle of water they have. Nobody told me that pregnancy was going to end up with more water coming out of me than I can take in at once.”

“Okay, seriously, too much information,” Chuck informed her, standing.

Five minutes later, he was back, handing her a liter bottle of Arrowhead water. “That big enough for you?”

“Mmm-hmmm,” she replied, as she sucked it down like a camel just come out of the desert after two months.

She stood up to stretch out her back, and walked across the store, drinking the water. Morgan came up behind Chuck, watching Sarah suck the water down in disbelief. “That’s just unnatural,” he uttered.

Chuck’s face immediately went from curious to pissed-off. He slowly turned his head toward Morgan, and said, “If you ever talk about my wife that way again, I will put a deadbolt on the Morgan Door.”

Because yes, there was indeed a Morgan Door on the house in Studio City.

Chuck vs. the Spiked Eggnog, Chapter 2: "Chuck vs. Krypton"

- and in the amount of time it took for Chuck to blink, the bar was plunged into darkness.

“What the hell?” he asked, surprised. “Have there been power outages like this recently?”

“This is Los Angeles, dude,” Morgan replied. “There have been power outages like you wouldn’t believe since you’ve been gone.”

Chuck turned and looked outside. “Does that include every car on Figueroa coming to a dead stop?” he asked.

Morgan turned and looked as well. “Okay, now that’s weird.”

But just as suddenly as the power had gone out, it came back on. The television flickered back on, returning to the cabin of the USAF 777 in flight over the Pacific Coast.

“Sorry about that, folks,” Ryan Seacrest said onscreen. “It looks like we lost our feed for a moment there. There was some sort of in-flight emergency up here, I guess we lost power for a moment, but the pilots are saying everything’s alright.”

The camera panned around the cabin, capturing the shocked expressions on the faces of the reporters and VIPs around Seacrest – and there she was.

Sarah Walker.

Chuck hadn’t seen her in years, not since he’d left Los Angeles behind to go home, to try to find answers. But there were no answers – just chunks of rock, blown to smithereens.

Ryan Seacrest was still speaking onscreen. “According to the pilot, we are still go for launch on the first operational test of NASA’s new launch vehicle,” he said. “As a reminder, this new vehicle is carried to 45,000 feet by either a 777 or an Airbus 330, and it launches from there. This is designed to cut costs per mission by millions of dollars.”

That’s when the screen started shaking. “Uh, I think we’re experiencing a little turbulence,” Seacrest said, his face starting to drain of color. Then, the aircraft started shaking violently, Seacrest’s eyes went wide –

And the screen cut to the FOX logo, with a “Please stand by” caption.

“Holy shit,” Morgan breathed. “Did you see that, Chuck?”

He turned to the stool that Chuck had been sitting on. “Chuck?”

But Chuck was outside, having locked himself in a phone booth. A moment later, the door of the booth burst open –

And a streak of blue and red flashed into the sky, rocketing itself toward the doomed aircraft.

“What was that?!” a lady in the bar asked, seeing the streak.

Morgan raced outside, watching the red and blue streak scream across downtown Los Angeles and high into the sky.

“It’s a bird!” one man yelled.

“No, it’s a plane!” another yelled back.

But Morgan knew the truth. “No, it’s not!” he shouted. “It’s Superman! Superman’s back!”

And Superman was back indeed. Known to his friends and family as the mild-mannered Nerd Herder Chuck Bartowski, he had reverted to his public image as Superman for the first time in years.

There was a very good reason for that. Forty-five thousand feet above him, a plane was in trouble. And Sarah Walker was on that plane.

It took him less than a minute to reach the plane. It was in worse trouble than he had thought. The launch vehicle had failed to separate from the 777 properly, its main engines had fired, and the 777’s modified stabilizer was beginning to collapse.

Chuck got underneath the launch vehicle, bracing his feet against the body of the 777. He pushed with all his strength, and very slowly, the couplings separated, allowing the launch vehicle to break free.

Continuing to push upward, he boosted the launch vehicle until it had reached the stratosphere. At that point, its own power was enough to launch it into orbit.

But all was not well. Chuck turned around to dive back toward the 777, and as he did so, he watched in horror as the 777’s damaged tail structure finally disintegrated, sending the aircraft into an uncontrollable spin.

Pressing his arms flat against his body, he dove rapidly toward the doomed aircraft. With a heavy thud, he landed on its right wing. Grasping the leading edge of the wing, he pulled, attempting to muscle the plane out of its spin.

Unfortunately, between the speed at which the plane was spinning and the force of his strength pulling backward on the wing, the wing failed and snapped off, hurtling off into space, taking Chuck with it.

With the loss of the wing, what was left of the 777 began to roll in addition to its spin. Casting the broken wing aside, Chuck dove back toward the aircraft. Planting himself under the left wing root, he pushed upward, trying to stop the roll before going back to controlling the spin.

The roll slowed, but as it did so, the left wing too snapped off, leaving the fuselage of the 777 as basically an aluminum tube filled with human beings, hurtling toward the earth. “For God’s sake,” Chuck breathed, irritated. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Gathering his strength, he breathed deeply and flew back toward the 777’s fuselage. Matching its rate of roll, he lined up with the wing spar that ran under the plane – one of its strongest points. Bracing himself there, he pushed his body in the direction opposite the roll.

Slowly but surely, the fuselage stopped rolling, but it was still diving toward the earth at several hundred miles an hour. Chuck pushed upward, and pushed upward some more, but the aircraft was hurtling toward the ground at far too high a speed. As he pushed, he could feel the bottom of the fuselage begin to crumple against his back.

This was not good. Los Angeles was getting bigger and bigger in Chuck’s eyes, and if he didn’t stop this 777, it was going to be an utter disaster. He couldn’t allow that. Not now, not after all that had happened while he had been away.

Using his hands to drag himself down the fuselage, he pulled himself to the nose of the aircraft. Getting in front of the fuselage, he put his hands on the nose, and began trying to fly upward.

The aircraft slowed more, but it was still heading toward Los Angeles like a cruise missile. Chuck looked over his shoulder – and realized that the airplane’s ballistic trajectory had it headed directly toward Chavez Ravine. Dodger Stadium lay at the end of the airplane’s path.

If the airplane hit Dodger Stadium, there was going to be a gigantic body count. Chavez Ravine would be devastated, and who would be blamed?

Superman.

Well, Chuck wasn’t about to allow that. He pushed even harder against the nose of the airplane. The aluminum nose cone began to crumple slightly, but the aircraft continued to slow.

Chuck looked over his shoulder again. The Dodgers and the Giants were on the field, but they were beginning to scatter. People were starting to panic and try to flee the stadium. This had to stop, right now.

He gave the airplane one last almighty shove. The nose cone crumpled completely, but its momentum dropped to practically nothing. He grabbed the fuselage on either side of the cockpit, and very gently, let the 777 settle to the ground. The nose rested right above the pitcher’s mound, with the body stretching almost completely across the outfield.

The people in the stands looked on in shock. Then one began to clap, then two, then ten, then a thousand, and before Chuck realized it, Superman was receiving a standing ovation.

Slightly embarrassed, Chuck waved and nodded to the crowd, before flying around to the side hatch of the aircraft. Grabbing it by the sides, he popped it off, and stepped inside the cabin.

Every passenger was strapped into their seat, catatonic. There were a few gasps of surprise when they realized who it was.

Ryan Seacrest looked up at him in amazement. “Holy crap,” he whispered. “You’re really back!”

Chuck smiled and nodded. He looked up at the people onboard the aircraft. “I hope this experience hasn’t put any of you off of flying,” he began, trying not to smile. “Statistically speaking, it’s still by far the safest way to travel.”

There were nervous giggles throughout the aircraft, but one didn’t laugh. The one who was still staring at him in shock.

Chuck turned and made eye contact with her. Sarah Walker. Her eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open. Chuck wanted to say something, but suddenly, his mouth had gone completely dry and his mind blank.

So, he just nodded, said, “Ma’am,” and leapt out the door. He streaked upwards, rocketing out into space, where everything faded to black –

To be continued…

Chuck vs. the Spiked Eggnog, Chapter 1: "Chuck vs. the Three Spirits"

Author’s note: at the encouragement of a couple of people, I’ve decided to write another “Chuck has cracked-out dreams” fic. This one takes place around Christmas 2008, or right in the middle of Chapter 12 of Chuck vs. the Bright Side of Life.

---

“Dude, I can’t believe we got invited to Chuck’s sister’s Christmas party.”

“I thought you didn’t like it when they were called Christmas parties.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You know, because last year, you made Big Mike call the one at the store the holiday party…”

“Dude, I don’t care. I’ll call it the Lester-Sucks-Ass Party if it means I get invited back. Have you tasted these Swedish meatballs? I mean, holy crap. The woman’s a genius.”

“Yeah, well, you want genius, you just watch this.”

“Jeff… JEFFREY! What did you just put in the eggnog?”

“Chill, dude. It’s just something to make the party a little more… fun.”

---

Charles Bartowski was a man of no small account. Feared throughout London, he was the scourge of the banking world. His fortune was comparable to that of much greater men than he.

He did not aspire for their greatness. He merely aspired for their money. And ordinarily, he was quite a confident man.

But not tonight. For tonight, he had been visited – visited by the spirit of his long dead business partner, Bryce Larkin. Bryce had warned him of the tribulations that awaited him in eternal Sheol, burdened forever with the chains of Fulcrum.

“You will have one last chance, Chuck,” Bryce’s ghostly visage had informed him. “Tonight, three spirits shall visit you. Heed their words! Listen to what they say!”

“Three spirits?!” Bartowski wailed in horror. “Can you not just speak your piece? Why must I endure this?”

“Three spirits, Chuck!” Bryce moaned. “CHUUUUUUUCK!”

And so Chuck sat, huddled in the center of his bed, room brightly lit by fire and candles, fearing the arrival of the first spirit. He did not enjoy this prospect at all.

Then the clock struck one. One by one, each of the candles blew out, and the fire flickered and died. The windows banged open, and a gust of wind rushed in.

Borne on that gust of wind was a spirit of far less horrific appearance than Bryce. Indeed, this spirit appeared to be almost an angel – skin of alabaster, hair of amber, eyes of sapphire – a woman greatly to be desired.

“Hello, Chuck,” she said. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

Chuck was having difficulty comprehending. “Is that what I should call you?” he asked. “Or do you have a name, spirit?”

She nodded her head. “You may call me Sarah.”

“Very well… Sarah.”

She indicated the window. “Come quickly, Chuck. We must go. There is much to see and little time to see it in.”

The Ghost of Christmas Past extended her hand, and Chuck placed his own in it. He expected a hand of ice, as one would expect of a spirit, but rather, her hand was warm, almost as living flesh.

She guided him to the window, and was about to fly out, when he stopped her. “Wait!” Chuck cried. “It is far to the ground… what if I should fall?”

Sarah looked back at him. “Trust me, Chuck.”

And so he did. She flew out the window, trailing him behind. They flew through the night, backward in time, backward, backward. Finally, they landed at a Christmas years before.

“Big Mike’s!” Chuck exclaimed in joy. The place where he had gotten his start. The “technological novelty” shop where he and Bryce had been apprentices. And tonight was the annual Christmas party.

Chuck looked in the window, to find Big Mike’s old assistant arguing with him. “Must you call it a Christmas party, Big Mike?” Lester asked. “Have you no consideration for my Jewish faith?”

“Young man, when you start paying me money, I will call it whatever you desire. But until that day, this shall be known as BIG MIKE’S CHRISTMAS PARTY!” the larger man boomed.

Chuck smiled. “A good memory, this?” Sarah asked him.

“Oh, of course,” he replied. “One of the best.”

Then he saw a much younger version of himself, accompanied by a much younger Bryce, come down a set of stairs. “Big Mike!” he heard himself call. “We have some numbers that we wish to discuss with you!”

“Crazy white boys,” the older Chuck heard Big Mike mutter under his breath. Then, Big Mike turned to face his two apprentices. “Gentlemen, it is Christmas. I have no desire to speak of numbers, nor should you.”

And as Chuck watched, the shop faded from before his sight, replaced by a vision of another Christmas. This could have been any number of Christmases – for there was his sister, Eleanor Faye, and her suitor, Dr. Devin Woodcomb. However, when he watched himself come through the door, accompanied by Jill Tanner, he turned to Sarah.

“Please, not this Christmas,” he pleaded. “The memories are far too painful.”

Sarah looked at him, kindly but sadly. “You must confront the demons of your past, Chuck.”

He watched as he appeared to be so happy with Jill, the woman he had loved. He watched, the memories tearing at his heart, as he confided in his sister his intent to ask for Jill’s hand in marriage. Then, when the scene began to shift, he turned toward the spirit, with rage in his eyes.

“Don’t you DARE take me there,” he shouted.

And yet, she did. He watched, mortified and broken, as he asked Jill for her hand in marriage, and she rejected him, saying that she had found another. One who was kinder, less interested in the things of this world and more in those of love.

“Please, no more,” he finally begged Sarah.

That’s when everything went dark. He looked up – and he was back in his bedroom. He looked around. She was gone. The scene was gone.

The clock struck two, and his door burst open!

“AWESOME!” a very large man boomed at Chuck. “Greetings, Chuck Bartowski! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, and it is AWESOME to meet you!”

Chuck stared at the man in disbelief. He had to be at least eight feet tall. He tried to think of something to say, but could come up with nothing better than, “And what should I call you… good spirit?”

The spirit laughed. “Why, you may call me Captain AWESOME!”

Chuck raised an eyebrow. “You’re not entirely sane, are you, spirit?”

He laughed again. “Sane? Why, I find sanity to be highly overrated!”

Then, he flung open the window. “Come, Chuck! We have much to see, and so little time in which to see it!”

“Oh, good Lord, here we go again,” Chuck muttered, as Captain Awesome dragged him out the window into the night.

This time, though, they did not fly through time. Rather, they flew across London, to a small home on the edge of the city. Captain Awesome landed in front of it, and plopped Chuck before the window.

“Look, and tell me what you see!” he boomed.

Chuck looked through the window. “Why, that’s my clerk, Morgan Grimes!” he gasped. “And his wife, Anna, and their children, Jessica, Vicky, and Tim!”

It was clear that they were preparing for Christmas dinner. They seemed so happy – a family built on love. And yet, it rapidly became clear to Chuck that all was not well.

Tim moved listlessly. He walked about with the assistance of a crutch – when he walked, which was rarely. He was quiet, and his face often seemed downcast.

“What is wrong with the child, Tim?” Chuck asked Captain Awesome.

“He is very ill,” the spirit informed him, with a somber face. “Morgan has taken him to doctors throughout London, trying to determine what is wrong. However, none of them know, and Morgan cannot afford to take him to Paris, where there is supposedly a doctor who can help him.”

“Why did he never tell me about this?” Chuck asked himself angrily.

Though he had aimed the question at himself, the spirit nonetheless replied. “He knows you only as a hard man, Chuck,” Captain Awesome said quietly. “He would not expect you to have sympathy for his family, for the plight of his child.”

“But I’m not that hard a man!” Chuck protested, turning toward the spirit. “This is a child! No child deserves to suffer in this fashion! All he had to do was tell me!”

Captain Awesome smiled sadly. “And yet, he could not know that. How would he? You’re the man who refused to give him Christmas Day off to spend with his family.”

Chuck stood, staring at the spirit, his mouth hanging open. “But… but!”

Captain Awesome shook his head. “And it does not improve,” he said softly. “I see, not too far in the future, an empty chair, grieving parents, children lost in despair.”

“No!” Chuck shouted, shaking his head. “No, that cannot happen! Tell me how to prevent it!”

But even as he spoke, Captain Awesome faded away into the night, leaving only a dark, snow-filled street before Chuck.

That’s when he was hit in the head with a snowball. “Hey, Bartowski!” he heard from behind him.

Chuck turned to see a man, slightly taller than himself. Brown hair, a chiseled jaw, wearing a black robe – and carrying a scythe.

He began to tremble. “Are you… are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” the spirit replied sardonically. “You can call me John, though.”

John grabbed Chuck’s shoulder and forcibly turned him to look back inside the Grimes home. “Look there, bucko,” he said. “See what you caused?”

And indeed, it was just as the Ghost of Christmas Present had foretold. An empty chair, Morgan quiet, Anna in tears, Jessica and Vicky angry and aloof. “No,” Chuck whispered. “This cannot be!”

“And yet, there it is, sure as you’re standing there,” John cracked. “Come on, I got something else to show you.”

“No!” Chuck shouted. But John reached out and grabbed his wrist – and when his hand came out from under the robe, Chuck saw – no flesh, just bone.

As soon as John’s hand touched his wrist, the London street disappeared, to be replaced by a graveyard. “Why are we here?” Chuck asked quietly.

John said nothing, just pointed toward a headstone. Chuck approached it nervously.

When he got close enough to read it, his eyes widened. “Charles Irving Bartowski”, it informed him. “1809-1850.”

“But… 1850… this is 1849!” Chuck wailed in dismay. “Are you to say that by next Christmas, I will be dead.”

John smiled evilly, his eyes beginning to glow. “But, but, this is Christmas yet to come! Surely it can still be changed! I can be a better man!”

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come ignored Chuck’s entreaties. Without a word, he guided Chuck forward – and the ground where his tomb was began to sink.

“No!” Chuck cried, as John pushed him inexorably forward. “Please, no!”

But John ignored his cries, and with one final shove, sent Chuck tumbling into the abyss.

“Nooooo!” Chuck screamed, as he fell downward. Then everything went black –

To be continued…

John Casey's Five Favorite Guns

John Casey’s Five Favorite Guns

5) Saiga-12 shotgun, with Callahan Full-bore Auto-lock modifications

Yeah, as all you Browncoats out there are quite aware, I did in fact just describe Vera – Jayne Cobb’s favorite piece of weaponry. But let me tell you something. Though Vera may be a fictional gun, the IZHMASH Saiga-12 shotgun is one fine piece of machinery, even if a commie bastard did design it. The modifications used to turn it into Vera – completely doable.

Once you’ve modified that shotgun, it is an unstoppable force. You can use her in full automatic, single shot, you name it – she’s gonna take your target down. Believe me when I say, if that was the gun I’d used on Bryce Larkin, he would NOT have come back to cause trouble two months later.

4) Israeli Military Industries Uzi sub-machine gun

This baby is a beautiful piece of machinery. Compact and lightweight, an Uzi can go with me pretty much wherever I need to go, and it can put out six hundred rounds per minute, traveling at four hundred meters per second. That’s what I call rapid-fire.

Sure, it’s got drawbacks, like the fact that the design is sixty years old, but who cares. The best guns are those that have been around for awhile. The Uzi has gotten me out of a lot of tight spots, usually involving Russians. I tell you what, though. If I hear Bartowski and Grimes talking about sandwiches ONE MORE GOD DAMN TIME, I might be employing the Uzi again…

3) M109 155 mm self-propelled Howitzer

See, now, this is where I differ from a great number of my colleagues. They tell me the M109 isn’t a gun, it’s a tracked vehicle. It’s an artillery piece. It’s damn well near a tank.

Bullshit. It’s got a barrel, it ejects a projectile at high speed on a ballistic profile, and said projectile is ejected courtesy an explosive powder. In my book, that baby’s a gun.

I’ve seen these things in action, too. Sure, it was the Army’s A6 Paladin modification, over in Iraq, but it’s still the same thing. And are they ever destructive. Watching one of these babies tear an enemy fortification into little tiny pieces of confetti is a thing of beauty.

2) M1911 handgun, as designed by John Browning and popularized by Colt

Ah, this is my favorite handgun. Designed for an Army contract by John Browning and accepted into service in 1911, models of this baby still roll off of production lines today. It’s one of the most popular handguns ever created, used by the US Uniformed Services, large numbers of police departments, and militaries around the world.

This is also Walker’s favorite handgun. This is one area where I will grudgingly admit that she has good taste, although if you ever tell her that, I will find you and forcibly remove your spleen. She’s got a pretty nice model of it, too – when she was in CIA training, one of her trainers, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, gave her a gift upon her certification. It was a Colt 1911 Series 70, issued only to Marine Recon units. I tell you – she can pick a fly off a skyscraper with that thing at five hundred yards. But I’m not jealous. Not me.

I want Walker’s goddamn gun.

1) Any gun in my hand with Bryce Larkin at the other end

They tell me that he isn’t actually a bad guy. I say that’s a load of horse manure. He blew up a multi-billion dollar government asset, and he’s not a bad guy. Sure, and I’m the Crown Prince of Bhutan.

See, I had to use a weenie-ass NSA issue Browning Hi-Power when I took him down, because I wasn’t expecting to have to neutralize anybody when I reported for duty that day. If I’d known, I would’ve shown up with my 1911 on one hip, my Uzi on the other, and my Saiga-12 in my hands, ready for some action.

The second time I shot him, I had a Desert Eagle forty-four in my hand. That should’ve dropped him permanently; unfortunately, the bastard was wearing body armor. If I get a third chance, though… he won’t be getting back up.