Overwhelmed
18 NOVEMBER 2007
ROBOT VAULT
01:43 PST
Chuck didn't need to be told twice. Maybe it was the shelves full of robots that activated themselves, maybe it was the creepy red eyes staring beadily at him, maybe it was the robot arm dropping in from the ceiling, or maybe it was the fact that one simply didn't say no to Sarah Walker, but at her command, Chuck surged to his feet.
He'd had better ideas.
The top of his head collided solidly with the robot arm that had nearly decapitated him earlier. White sparks scattered across his vision. He crashed forward.
Sarah was quicker on her feet than him, thankfully. In a blink, she maneuvered herself between him and the floor, shoving until he was semi-upright. "C'mon!" She yanked on his arm and he had no choice but to go along, even in his dazed state. She half-shoved him, half-pulled him to the ladder.
"What's going on?" Casey demanded.
"The robots are awake!" Sarah tried to push Chuck up the ladder.
He shook his head to clear it and decided to get with the program, grabbing clumsily for the rung. He glanced over his shoulder.
None of the robo-rabbits had moved.
"Uh, Sarah?" he asked.
"What? Get up there!"
"The robots aren't moving."
"Robots?" Casey demanded.
"Yeah, the vault contains a bunch of toy robot prototypes and something Sarah said woke them—"
"Hey!"
"But they're not moving now."
Even if they weren't moving, the robots had tracked his and Sarah's movement across the vault. Twenty little coffee-bean heads swiveled on their bodies so that forty little eyes could watch the two spies run across the vault. It was almost like the robots were waiting for something to happen.
Uh-oh.
"I'm sorry," Casey said, and it sounded like he might be laughing. "Did you say you're running from toy robots?"
Sarah and Chuck exchanged a look as laughter burst out over the comm link.
"It's much creepier in person, trust me," Chuck said stiffly.
"Oh, I'm sure it is."
"Anyway, they're not moving now, but we should probably—"
He'd spoken too soon. In the middle of his sentence, the robot on the end of the shelf nearest them seemed to quiver all over—right until it launched itself into the air with a little springing noise. It landed on the ground and righted itself.
Chuck and Sarah stared.
The robot paused.
Its old neighbor jumped and landed just as easily.
The first robot began a silent waddle across the floor. Maybe it was his addiction to overly cheesy science-fiction movies, but that seemed a bit unfair to Chuck. Tiny toy robots should make sounds like wind-up toys. Otherwise, how was one to know when it was coming?
"They can jump?" he asked Sarah, just to make sure his head-butt against the robot arm hadn't caused permanent damage.
"They can jump," Sarah said. "Move!"
Faced with manic hopping robots, Chuck believed there wasn't much of a choice but to listen to his partner. He raced up the ladder. "Casey, how long left on that transmission?" he asked as he moved out of the way to let Sarah up.
"It's at ninety-two percent. What's going on now?"
"Well, we left the insanely cute tinker toy army of death in the vault and Sarah's shutting the door now…" Chuck trailed off when Sarah, trying to close the trapdoor, shook her head. "Or not. What's going on?"
"It's not shutting."
"Ninety-four percent."
"Why isn't it closing? It opened easily enough."
Sarah gave him a look that was probably supposed to be annoyed. The facemask dampened the effect. "And I'm supposed to know that how?"
"Good point."
"Ninety-six percent," Casey said.
Chuck moved to a prudent distance away from the trapdoor, not commenting at all when Sarah joined him. He was going to have nightmares about the silent, eerie way those robots had begun crawling toward them, and he actually liked that sort of thing, so he couldn't fault the super-spy beside him in the slightest. In fact, he turned to her and shrugged. "We're probably okay. There's no way—"
Poing. Poing.
"They can jump this high," Chuck finished, and turned his head very slowly.
Four more robo-rabbits jumped through the hole in the floor.
As one, they all began crawling toward the spies.
"Casey?" Sarah demanded, her voice going a little higher as she and Chuck backed away. "What's that transmission at?"
"Ninety-seven percent. Why?"
"We've got company!"
"Robot company or human company?"
"Robot!"
"And creepy as hell," Chuck added, still backing away as even more of the robo-rabbits leaped through the trapdoor. Damn, those suckers could jump.
Sarah reached out and blindly fumbled for his arm. "Chuck, go get the cloner and transmitter."
"It's not done—"
"Now!"
Though he wanted to point out that the robo-rabbits of doom hadn't actually harmed them or made any overtures of doing so yet, Chuck knew better than to argue with that tone. He sidled off toward the computer, gulping when half of the little coffee-bean heads followed his progress. "Casey, hit 'finalize.'"
"Okay. Done."
Chuck yanked the Firewire cable out and stuffed it into his pocket. The cloner itself went into the holster easily, but he fumbled with folding down the transmitter dish, his fingers clumsy in his haste.
It probably wasn't helped by the fact that the robots began to waddle toward him.
"Hurry," Sarah said rather needlessly as Chuck doubled his efforts with the dish.
"What's going on?"
"The robots are moving again."
"Definitely time to go," Chuck started to say, but he froze as the nearest robot to both of them stopped shuffling abruptly. Sarah, likewise, didn't seem to be able to move. "Sarah? What's it doing?"
"Why the hell do you think I would know these things?"
Another good point. The edge in her voice told him that she wasn't really snapping at him: she was just as freaked out about all of this as he was, if not more. In a way, it was comforting to know that something could flap the unflappable Sarah Walker.
Of course, in another, larger way, it was not so comforting. After all, he and Sarah were currently in the same room as twenty—no, twenty four, Chuck corrected as four more robots joined their brothers in arms—of those somethings that had indeed freaked Sarah, a hardened CIA spy, out. He'd have to marvel later. Right now, he was too busy staring in horror as the nearest robo-rabbit shuddered. Silently, the head slid backward along its body, revealing a tiny panel on its chest where the head had been previously.
The panel opened without a noise.
Sarah figured out what the tiny bit of silver poking out of the robot was first. By the time Chuck's brain registered what it was, Sarah had already hit him from the side in a tackle that would make a pro-footballer jealous.
The dart sailed harmlessly over their heads.
"Oh, that's so not good," Chuck breathed.
"Casey," Sarah said as she and Chuck lurched to their feet and began racing for the door, "change of plans. Incoming!"
"I'll have the van waiting. What are the robots doing now?"
"They're armed!" They hit the hallway sprinting, which was like an invitation to the robots. Chuck could hear the poing noise ricocheting off the walls. He glanced back, just once, and had the sudden urge to wet himself. Not only could the little buggers jump, but they could jump fast.
He ran faster. After a look back, Sarah did the same.
"Armed how?" Casey demanded.
"Darts!"
"Poisonous?"
"Don't know, don't want to find out!" Sarah and Chuck took the stairs two at a time, racing by boring modern art.
Poing. Poing.
"Oh, crap," Chuck said as two of the army peeled away, landing at the base of the stairs. "Damn, these things make Olympic long jumpers look like a bunch of out-of-shape slackers."
He nearly yelped when the heads receded and the chest panels opened. But there was nowhere to go but back up the stairs, where the nineteen other robots were currently hopping their way toward him.
"That's enough of that," Sarah growled, yanking out her gun while still running.
The robot aiming its dart at Chuck vanished without even a skid mark.
"Okay, that's hot," Chuck said.
Sarah took out another robo-rabbit and didn't reply. They finished the sprint to the ground floor and raced down the hallway, aiming for the front door. Chuck could hear the deranged robot army poinging along behind them.
"You got enough bullets in that thing for all of them?" Chuck demanded as they made a right turn.
"Nope." Sarah whipped a knife from her wrist-sheath and twisted so that she was running backwards. A split-second later, one of their pursuers fell over in a crackle of sparks, a knife jutting out of its torso. Mid-turn, Sarah pulled out another S&W and tossed it to Chuck. He caught it only by reflex. "Make yourself useful."
"Sarah, this is a gun, I—"
"And they're robots, not people. So shoot them."
She wanted him to shoot tiny moving targets while running full-speed through a dark house with his night-vision goggles on his forehead rather than over his eyes. Oh yeah, he thought. Piece of cake.
Not.
He felt something clip the top of his ear, bringing on a surprising burst of bright red pain. "Ow!"
"What? What is it?"
"They're shooting at me!"
"Shoot back!" Casey, from the van, felt the need to add his two cents.
They didn't have a choice, Chuck saw. Even as he and Sarah ran full-out, the robo-rabbits kept up. One hopped clear over the spies and hit the ground a good ten feet in front of them with a landing that even the Russian judge would have to give a perfect ten. A second joined it. A third. A fifth. A tenth.
"Shoot, Chuck!" Sarah shouted, her arm swinging up to do the same.
"This is like the deadliest game of Whack-A-Mole ever," Chuck muttered, but he obediently aimed and squeezed off a shot at one of the robots aiming at Sarah. "Hey! I hit one!"
It was like Duck Hunt, he thought, automatically moving so that he was back to back with Sarah. He let her take out the robots between them and the door, as she was a better shot, while he focused on the robots circling behind them. At least they were slow to take aim—
"Ow!" A sharp prick in the meaty part of his calf made him slap at the wounded site. "What the—ow!" Another dart hit him just below the ribcage. "Damn, that stings!"
Behind him, he heard Sarah's sharp intake of breath, a sign that she had been hit. She growled something that was probably an expletive and took out two more robots with a single shot. Chuck wasn't even sure it was possible even though he had just seen it happen out of the corner of his eye.
"Casey, we're hit," Sarah said as Chuck took careful aim.
He missed completely. He blamed it on the fact that the room jittered.
Not just shook. The room itself actually started doing something not commonly seen outside of tap-dancing routines or—
"Earthquake!" Chuck yelped.
"What are you talking about?"
How did she not feel that? How on earth could she ignore the rattling walls or the fact that the two boring pieces of furniture in the room with them were dancing? The floor vibrating under his sneakers? How could she completely miss all of that?
So he tried to grab her shoulder and swing her around, to show her that the room was indeed doing a very complex version of the rumba.
He forgot about Mission Mode Sarah.
"Look out!" She shot out her left hand and caught him perfectly between the neck and shoulder, shoving him down. He took a knee even as Sarah's right hand swung around in an arc, taking out robot minions. The logical part of Chuck's brain began to count the foes, which was admittedly easier to do since he was so much closer to them on the floor.
The rest of him just wondered why they weren't shaking. And why Sarah was so insistent on fighting off their tiny enemies when they clearly had bigger problems. Like the house coming down around their ears.
The robot nearest Chuck prepared to fire. He lunged forward, grabbed it, and hurled it like a softball. It smacked into the wall with a scatter of sparks and fell to the rumbling ground. "Earthquake!" Chuck shouted again, now that that problem was out of the way.
Sarah ignored him to keep shooting. Oh, right. She wasn't from California. She wouldn't know what to do in an earthquake. No time to explain, Chuck thought as the walls began to jump around like the Harlem Globetrotters.
He did the only thing he could think of: he shoved his shoulder into Sarah's abdomen, surged to his feet, and ran for it, Sarah over his shoulder.
"Chuck, what the fu—"
"Earthquake!" Chuck kicked a robot out of the way, ignoring the sting in his thigh from its buddy's dart. "Got to get you safe!"
"Chuck—put me down—"
"Not until you're safe!" Heedless of the robots hop-hopping their way behind him, Chuck raced through the house. Earthquake protocol dictated getting to the nearest doorway, but this wasn't some measly little three point oh earthquake. This was the Big One, the earthquake set on making California its own islandic nation. The only doorway in the house that could possibly be safe enough was the front door with its fortified arch. Chuck sprinted there now, bobbing and weaving as the floor rumbled and tossed below his feet like an angry predator.
And why the hell was it suddenly so hot in the house? Seriously, had the earthquake opened up a crack in the floor that would also serve as ventilation for Hell? Sweat sprouted all over his body, and each breath felt like sucking on an exhaust pipe. He pushed on.
Sarah was also not helping matters. For one thing, she wouldn't make a good hostage: she wriggled and struggled and hit him with the sides of her fist, demanding that he let her down. When he only tightened his grip, she started swearing, and not just in English. He caught some Russian—fitting, given that they were being chased by maniacal little Russian robots—and Spanish, possibly Italian and something that may have been Urdu.
He crossed the foyer in three long strides, stumbling a little when the earthquake tossed a particularly nasty tremor his way, and dropped Sarah on her feet. "There. Satisfied?"
"What the hell did you do that for?"
"Earthquake!" Chuck turned to point the very obvious rocking of the earth out, and yelped. "Robots! Robots!"
Sarah shot at one, cursed when the slide on her gun stayed back, and grabbed the gun out of Chuck's hand. She took out two more in quick succession and yanked open the front door. "Go!"
"Sarah, it's an earthquake, you shouldn't go outside in an—"
Sarah pushed him through the door. Chuck stumbled and nearly took a facer down the stairs. He lunged for a pillar and held on for dear life, praying that the shaking would just end already. This had to be the longest earthquake ever.
After a couple more shots, he heard Sarah stagger out after him and slam the door behind her.
Not fast enough, unfortunately. A lone robo-rabbit hopped through. Chuck stared blearily at it, wondering why the earthquake currently shaking him to pieces wasn't tossing it around like a hipster in a hurricane. He almost opened his mouth to ask.
The gunshot startled him. One blink, and the robo-rabbit had vanished. Pieces of it clattered onto the front walk.
Chuck clutched the pillar tighter.
"What the blazes is actually going on out there?" Casey demanded. "Did you two just launch a full-scale war against little robots, Walker?"
Sarah shuffled over to pry Chuck away from the pillar. He ignored her. No way was he going anywhere until the lawn stopped moving like an angry ocean and the earth stopped shaking, even though it was so hot outside that he was half-convinced he'd somehow landed on Tatooine. "Yes," she said as she tugged on Chuck's arm with a shaking hand, "and they hit us with some sort of drugged…"
Her eyes rolled back into her head.
Her body hit the front porch with a thud.
"Sarah!" Chuck let go of the pillar to lurch toward her.
Bad idea. His vision did one dangerous pinwheel around and settled firmly so that the world was upside down. He fell to his knees and tried not to lose his dinner right then and there. He'd never liked the Tilt-A-Whirl.
"Chuck, what just happened out there?" Casey demanded. It sounded like he might be shouting down a very long tunnel.
"Sorry, Case, I'm losing you," Chuck said, and he promptly passed out right on top of Sarah. He'd feel bad about that later.
18 NOVEMBER 2007
CASTLE: DOWNSTAIRS
19:03 PST
He had no idea what was going on. One second before, Chuck was positive that he hadn't existed. Or maybe he had always existed and this was just what being timeless felt like, but he doubted it. His mind had simply blinked into existence, fully formed, ready to take on a life ready-made for him. The problem was, he couldn't seem to get to that life. Everything felt separated from time and too slow besides, as if the fourth dimension had stopped working for him entirely.
Sensations trickled in, all hard-won. Somebody had glued his eyes shut and replaced his limbs with lead. Appropriately, his head now seemed to be roughly the size of a prizewinning pumpkin. His throat was sandpaper, his mouth an Oklahoma field in the middle of the Great Depression.
And he had yet to open his eyes. He wanted to—just like he wanted badly to know what was going on—but the connections between his brain and those muscles had withered and rusted with time, leaving him high and dry.
All he could do was make a whuffling little groan noise. At least he thought that was him. It was hard to be sure since his ears didn't seem to want to work properly.
"Chuck?"
Something touched him. Was that his arm? It had been his arm once, so it probably still was. The touch was cool, soothing, but not as comforting at the voice.
A voice he had once been certain he would never hear again. Wait. When was that?
Where was he?
That must have come out as a question, because the second most majestic voice in the world spoke again. And it answered him.
"You're in Castle, Chuck. C'mon, let's see those pretty eyes of yours."
"N'pretty," Chuck mumbled as his mouth remembered how to work.
"Oh, come on, you know the girls in tenth grade voted yours the prettiest eyes in the school."
They had also voted Morgan "Most Gnome-like," so Chuck didn't really give the girls of his past much credence.
Still, he obeyed Ellie, blinking his eyes open despite the glue frosting his eyelids. She hadn't lied, he saw. That sheet metal roof, moodily lit in blue and purple, could be nowhere but in a super-secret underground facility. Or specifically, he saw as he looked around, the infirmary of a super-secret underground facility. It was still in the process of being set up, but it was unmistakable. Two cots had been brought into the tiny space in the meantime, and there were medical supplies and equipment in various states of being unpacked lying about. He was on the cot nearest the door, with Ellie leaning over him from a stool beside his bed.
He blinked at her a few times and tried to sit up. Ellie put a hand on his shoulder. "Nuh-uh, stay down. Get your bearings for a minute. You're bound to be dizzy."
"Wh'happened?"
"You and Sarah had a fun run-in with quite the nasty concoction of chemicals." Ellie smiled, though it was strained.
"'M I okay?"
"Yeah, the drug faded pretty quickly, and we've been flushing out your system." Ellie reached out and smoothed his hair back. With anybody else, Chuck would have flinched. "It's still Sunday. You've been out for about fifteen hours, and as far as I can tell, you're going to be fine. Whatever they hit you with has nothing on that famous Bartowski blood. But just to be sure, Devon's at the hospital running some tox panels."
Since concepts like pain were also returning to Chuck's existence, and he felt vaguely like somebody had kicked him in the forehead a few times just for the fun of it, he only grunted. Had it always been this hot in Castle? Belatedly, he realized that he was covered in sweat.
"Sarah?" he asked, hoping that Ellie understood what he was asking, since his throat hurt too badly to talk much.
"She's fine. She woke up awhile ago—she got a lighter dose than you did. Apparently she doesn't have a target on her forehead." Ellie flicked him gently on said body part. "Here, let's get you sitting up so that you can sip this." She helped Chuck lean back against the wall. He was grateful for its cooling sensation against his back.
He was even more grateful, though, for the cup of water Ellie handed him. His hand shook a little as he sipped.
"All right," Ellie said when he handed the cup of water back. "Let's do the doctor thing."
Chuck cleared the rust from his throat. "You're loving this part."
"Not when you're hurting," Ellie corrected. "I didn't even get a chance to start poking through your head before you decided to hit it on some random Russian's front porch."
"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Chuck said, wincing as he felt around his forehead for a goose-egg. That certainly explained the headache.
Ellie pulled his hand away. "Any dizziness?"
"A little, but it's going away."
"Double-vision?"
"No."
They ran through the checklist. "Why'm I so hot?" Chuck asked when Ellie was satisfied. He peeled his shirt away from his chest. Somebody had changed his clothes so that he was in one of his work-out shirts and sweatpants. He could only hope that it had been Awesome or Casey, and that the shirt had hopefully been clean when it had been put on him.
"It's a residual effect of the drugs that were turning your system into their own personal rave." Ellie rose and fetched a thermometer. Chuck obediently held it under his tongue, more than familiar with the routine. "Sarah had the same symptoms. It'll fade when the drugs are completely out of your system, but until then, you'll be a little warm."
"Great." It was hard to talk around the thermometer, but he always figured doctors were well versed in translating. "Do you mind if I…" He gestured at his shirt.
"Go ahead."
Chuck pulled the T-shirt off and folded it in front of him. It didn't cool him off as much as he'd hoped, unfortunately. He smiled when Ellie adjusted the thermostat. "Thanks."
"I'll just invest in a parka." Ellie took the thermometer, frowned at the reading, and noted it down. "Now, let's talk about what you remember."
"Honestly? Not much." Everything in his head felt a little blurry, which didn't bode well for anything. He was probably on medical leave from flashing. Again. "It's all fuzzy."
"Hm. Last clear memory?"
"Getting out of the van with Sarah." Casey had made a final jealous grunt that Sarah would be the one accompanying Chuck into the estate, but it hadn't been jealousy to be in Chuck's company. It had been envy that Sarah was the one getting to face more danger. "After that, it's all a crap shoot."
"Do you remember anything that happened in the estate?"
"Pieces." He remembered the robo-rabbits. He'd never forget them, their eerie, silent way of moving, the way they'd hopped, the pain of the darts biting into his skin. He remembered how Sarah's hand had trembled when she—when she'd what? She'd been trying to pull him away from something. A pillar. He'd been holding on pretty tightly, he recalled, though he had no idea why. Everything felt discordant and out of order, with rough edges that would never fit together seamlessly.
So he shook his head. "I don't remember much, I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. It's okay." Ellie wrote something on her clipboard. "Sarah had the same problem."
"Really?" That made him feel better. Or rather, less like a failure.
"I think it's one of the effects of the drug. I'm not sure if that will go away or not when the drug is fully out of your system."
The fact that he may not get those memories back should have frightened him. Instead, he almost felt like shrugging. "So it's just like Sarah and I got drunk together, then?"
"Um, yes. I suppose."
Before she could continue her questions, Sarah poked her head into Ellie's office. She smiled when both Bartowskis glanced over at her. "Hey, you're awake!"
"Oh, God," Chuck groaned when her voice hurt his head, "she's perky."
"Ooh. Right. Sorry." Sarah gave him a sheepish smile. "I'll tone it down. How's your head?"
Chuck waggled one hand and used the other to unfold his T-shirt. "How come you're so upbeat?"
"I got hit less than you did." After glancing at Ellie, apparently, for permission, Sarah came in and sat on the end of Chuck's cot. She'd pulled on jeans and a blouse so that she looked absolutely normal, not remotely like somebody who had spent most of the day in a drug-induced coma. "And it passes quickly after you wake up. I was fine after I took a shower."
Chuck closed his eyes and flushed at the quick flashback that went through his mind at the word "shower." He drew the T-shirt on, hoping that the movement would hide the blush.
Ellie, always in doctor mode, picked up a second clipboard and noted something down as she moved over to the cabinet full of medical goodies that Chuck could learn to fear before long. "How's the head, Sarah?"
"Almost back to normal."
"The fever's gone?"
"I think so." Sarah eyed the thermometer that Ellie pulled out of the cabinet and sighed. "I don't need that, I swear."
"Indulge me."
"She's a lousy patient," Chuck told Ellie with no small amount of glee. It was unfair that Sarah could look so composed when he felt like something Godzilla had stepped in.
"Oh, trust me, I already know."
Sarah mumbled something around the thermometer. Given her mastery of pretty much every language on the planet, he figured that she probably meant for her words to be unintelligible.
"Hey, Walker, when I said five minutes, I didn't actually mean twenty—oh, it's awake."
"Hey to you, too, Casey," Chuck said, giving the NSA agent a look that was half-resignation and half-scowl. "It?"
Casey shrugged from the doorway. He was in off-duty clothes, just a polo shirt and jeans, but everything about him still smacked of G-man. "Not much good without the thing in your head, are you?"
Ellie glared. "John, that's enough."
"No, it's okay, Ellie. Believe it or not, an insult is Casey-speak for 'I was worried, but I'm glad you're okay.'" Chuck rolled his eyes.
"If that helps you sleep at night, sure, you go right on believing that. Walker, c'mon, let's go."
Apologetic now, Sarah pulled the thermometer out as Casey left. "It's his car," she told Ellie more than Chuck. "He's usually nicer."
Chuck coughed.
"Well, a little nicer," Sarah said, giving him a look. "He's antsy about his car, so I'm going to give him a ride to go get it. And I'd better go before he decides to just hijack my car and drive it over to the cleaners without me. I'm glad you're okay, Chuck." She patted him on the knee, gave Ellie a final smile, and hurried away. Part of Chuck couldn't help but think she was fleeing before Ellie could do anything else vaguely medical. Lousy patient indeed.
"He really was worried," Chuck told Ellie.
"Uh-huh."
"Deep down. Very, very deep down."
"Okay, Chuck. I got it." Ellie rolled her eyes and picked up the clipboard. "Moving on now. Is there anything else you remember?"
"Um, not much." He sifted through the pieces of his memories from the night before, and frowned. "Just the robots attacking us until the earthquake started."
"Chuck, there wasn't any earthquake last night."
"What? That's ridiculous. I felt—"
"The effects of a drug that a tiny Russian robot pumped into you." Ellie gave him a level stare. "It was all a hallucination, likely brought on by a combination of your panic and the drug."
"Oh." How could it not have been real, though? Even if he could barely remember anything about it, Chuck could still taste the remnants of terror. The freaking walls had been shaking.
Ellie gave him a supportive smile. "We both know your instinctive reaction to earthquakes."
"Ellie, that was one time, like fifteen years ago—"
"Still." One corner of Ellie's mouth tilted upward. "Sarah told me what you did."
That sort of statement, he had begun to learn, could mean bad things for him. He wouldn't call Sarah and Ellie best buddies, not precisely, but their relationship had eased since Ellie had joined Prometheus. Even so, the two women had only one solid thing in common: him. Which could be daunting. As far as he knew, Ellie hadn't actually gotten out the pictures of baby Chuck, but she'd already threatened it a least once.
Chuck felt an "uh-oh" was justified in this case.
"What did I do?" he asked, dreading the answer.
"You evidently are quite the master of the fireman's carry. Sarah says you picked her up and got her to the doorway in what was apparently a 'hailstorm' of robot fire." Ellie made air quotes with her fingers.
Had he really done that? Really? What the hell? That sounded more like some over-muscled action hero than him. "Are you sure? Man, if I really did do that to Sarah, she must have been..." He paused to think about it. "Pissed beyond all reckoning, honestly."
"She'll get over it. I thought it was sweet." Ellie clapped him on the knee, just as Sarah had. "Go on, take a shower. It'll help you cool down."
"Okay." He was a little unsteady as he rose, but he figured that would pass. Besides, he'd dealt with much worse when he hadn't even been injured. At the doorway, he paused and turned. "Just out of curiosity, why aren't you freaking out more? I mean, I was shot at by robots last night."
"Trust me, given your penchant for getting into trouble, I'm amazed that that was all that happened." Ellie mustered up a smile, but Chuck could see tension straining the edges. "I already had my freak-out. Your friend, Frank, is it? Frank already suffered for it, don't worry."
"Whoa. Devon taught you how to box?"
"Devon? No, Sarah."
Just when he thought his partner's relationship with his sister couldn't get any scarier, they proved him wrong. Chuck gave Ellie a baffled look and decided the wisest course was just to leave that one alone. He headed for the showers.
18 NOVEMBER 2007CASTLE: LOCKER ROOM
18:49 PST
Because the cool water sluicing over him felt nice after what seemed like years of being stuck in an overeager sauna, Chuck silenced the little voices that whispered and warned about water conservation, about what would happen if he used up all of the water, and there was nothing left, and it was too long until the next shipment arrived, and—
"Gorram it," he muttered and stuck his head under the showerhead in defiance. "You're in Burbank. Act like it."
He took an extra fifteen minutes under the cool spray until the voices got too loud to ignore. It wasn't precisely thumbing his nose at Siberia, but it was pretty damn close. That made him feel a bit more grounded as he stepped out of the shower and into a pair of jeans that were just now beginning to grow comfortable from wear. He'd avoid putting on a shirt until he absolutely had to, as he could feel the drug already beginning to work through his system and overheat everything.
A glance in the mirror made him frown. He crossed to his locker, felt around in the back, and pulled out a small black kit. Everything needed to be laid out with precision, which was much easier to do outside of the confines of his bunker. Just more space everywhere. As much as he cursed it on a daily basis, he couldn't help but be grateful for it now. He spread out a white gym towel on the bench and set out the tools he would need, lining up the edges perfectly. Only when he was satisfied did he nod to himself and get to work.
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