"Partners?" Chuck offers. He can almost make out Casey rolling his eyes, even from behind the several partitions and blinds that lie between them. Sarah kicks out at her wall, twice, to let him know she agrees.

The room is chilly, metallic, and cold. And colder. Chuck can't quite express how bitterly cold he is, but it's a bit of a saddening thing when he realises that he's gotten used to horrible, horrible situations. It's just one frightening thing after another, although at least now he has kickass skills from the Intersect.

Kickass skills don't help when you're locked in a room without a doorknob, though. Especially not when it's about two feet thick.

"Okay, okay, got to figure out how to get out now. Sarah! Any ideas? Oh wait, I forgot, you can't talk to me. Ca—never mind." He knows that Casey is rolling his eyes.

"Great. Now I've got to just sit tight and wait for the other two to rescue me? I thought I got over this years ago. Huh, call ourselves a crack team…"

His eyes flickered around the room.

"What sort of idiot villains lock us up in the best way for us to get out possible? They suck as villains! Though I suppose I like them sucking as villains—aha, time to McGuyver me out of here…"

Sarah kicked the wall twice, paused and kicked the wall again. Chuck froze and crept over to the other wall as silently as he could.

"Are they coming for you, Sarah?"

What sort of villains gagged a badass chick and left her legs free? What, were they nuts? A good type of nuts, Chuck reminded himself, because it meant that he would be able to get out of here.

"Oh! They are!" he said, as the cell next to his erupted into the sounds of a fight. Gunshots rang out, and Chuck backed hastily away from the wall, returning to his assembly. "Shitshitshit, I hope Sarah's okay…"

Footsteps in the hall, and Chuck raised his makeshift club.

A door farther down, about where Casey would theoretically be held, clanged. Chuck flashed to the blueprint of the base in his mind, and waited. Casey would be along very shortly—

His door swung open.

"Casey!" he began, and found himself staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

"If we can't have the Intersect in your head, spy," one of his captors said, "We'll just have to make sure that it's so completely scrambled that no one else will ever be able to piece it out aga—"

Chuck smashed the gun out of his hand while the villain was monologuing and on the backstroke, hit him in the head. The club disentegrated with the force of the blow, and Chuck was out of there.

Though really, what sort of villain keeps talking while you're holding a spy prisoner?

A horrible one. Not genre savvy at all.

He took a left to meet up with Casey. If they'd had any kind of common sense at all, they would have bound his limbs or chained him to a wall so that he couldn't move.

Sarah was waiting for him in front of Casey's cell.

"Sorry I'm late guys, I got ambushed so I knocked his gun out of his hand and knocked him unconscious—"

"You didn't grab his gun?" Casey growled from inside the cell. Sure enough, he was chained to a gurney.

Chuck winced.

Casey rolled his eyes. "Great. Now we've got brains—" he glanced at Sarah, "With no mouth, and a mouth with no mind. And me. How the hell are we going to get out of here, Chuckles?"

"Together," Chuck said, trying to force a smile.

Casey glared at him.

"Alright, so…umm…the layout of the place is…"

"Get the gag off Walker first."

"Oh! Right!" Chuck ripped off the binding. Sarah shook her head to clear it, making her hair flop down into her face.

"Here, hang on…" Chuck said, tying up her hair for her.

"Knife in my pocket," Casey said. "They didn't search me properly. Amateurs. Use it to cut Walker out of her ropes."

"Right," Chuck said, and stuck his hand down Casey's pants.

"Not…nngh, not that pocket, you idiot. Lower down—left a bit —"

"Casey, you are aware that that sounds almost pornographic, right?"

"Shut up, Walker."

"Aha! I'll have you out in a sec, Sarah."

Sounds intensified in the corridor.

"Hurry, Chuckles."

When her ropes fell away, Sarah headed out into the corridor to wreak mayhem.

"How do I get you out, Casey?"

"Their one bit of common-sense," Casey grunted. "They've chained me down, and files would take too long. You're going to have to use the gurney as some kind of battering ram, at least until we break it."

"Won't that drive bits of it into your spine?"

"Better that than a bullet."

"Oh."

"Get me rolling, Bartowski."

Gunshots rang out again, and Chuck grabbed the ropes, looking at them for a second before throwing them between Casey's legs and wheeling the gurney outside.

"What are ropes doing there, Bartowski?!"

"I need storage space. You can be like my…Bag of Holding!"

"You're an idiot."

"So you've said."

"It hasn't changed."

Sarah sighted down the gun she'd acquired. "Alright, let's get out of here. Chuck, how?"

Chuck looked at the blueprint again. "Down this way, and take a left. But it's a wide open space that we'll have to pass through."

"Alternatives?"

"There is an underground passage, but it's small and it will be difficult if not impossible to push Casey through. Also difficult to defend against."

"Wide open space," Casey grunted. "Go."

Chuck wheeled him down the corridor, Sarah covering his back.

---

"Not good not good not good!" Chuck cried as he ran away as fast he could, dodging the bullets that sprayed around him. "What kind of idiot uses a submachine gun in an enclosed space?! The riccochets could kill him!"

"It's not about that," Casey said. "It's a good tactic, actually—stand at the mouth of an enclosed space, and fire in bursts at the walls. Because of the shape of the projectile there's less likelihood that they'll rebound backward. But it requires some fairly precise aim."

Sarah ducked out from behind a wall and shot. The spray of bullet fire paused for a while. Sarah ducked back. The gunfire began again.

"And," Casey continued, "There's always a chance that a bullet might bounce around a corner."

"Ack!" Chuck said, and leaped upward, in time for a bullet to lodge itself where his foot had been. "You're telling me that now?!"

"Better late than never," Casey said.

"You're mad," Chuck hissed.

"Keep running, Bartowski."

---

"What sort of IDIOTS BUILD A WIND TUNNEL IN A BUILDING?!"

"Rich ones," Casey offered serenely from his gurney. "And extremely idiotic ones."

"Wasn't this in the blueprint?"

"NO! Some of us are eking out a living at the Nerd Herd and these guys build a WIND TUNNEL?!"

"You don't work there anymore."

"THE PRINCIPLE APPLIES."

"You need more training. You can't keep up with the gurney."

"Easy for you t—ooh."

"I don't like that look on your face, Bartowski…"

"You don't like my face normally."

"True."

"Argh! Sarah…you know what? Hop on."

"What?"

"We're going to ride this gurney down the length of the wind tunnel. It should open to the outside, or at least, it'll be faster than what we're making about now."

"And it's time-sensitive. Right. Casey, it's for the mission."

"You just want to ride me, Walker."

"Chuck suggested the idea."

"I'm amenable to that."

"You're WHAT?"

Gunshot.

"Ohshit ohshit oh—"

"That is Not A Steering Wheel, Bartowski."

"Chuck, grip him with your knees, and hold on to my waist. I'm going to need to shift positions every now and then, just in case.

Casey sighed from under them. "Bartowski, get your foot off the ground."

"Oh. Okay. Who—-"

The gurney began to accelerate.

"Alright," Chuck said. "Alright! This is great! This is terrific!"

"This is terrifying," Casey said from under them. "All I can see is Walker. And that is still not a steering wheel, Bartowski."

Sarah deliberately shifted. And shot.

Chuck cringed and tightened his hold around her waist. "This is ridiculous…this is a ridiculous position. How did we…ohh craaaaaaaaaap."

The gurney blew past two more of the oddly uniformed captors. And then they were free.

"Bartowski, if you like touching my dick so much, we'll take care of it when we get back to base, okay? Just let go of it…nice and easily now…"

"Poor Casey," Sarah said. "Poor Casey."

"Sorry…" Chuck said.

"You'd better make it up to me too, Walker."

"Are we trading sexual favours?"

"Who said anything about sex?"

"…"

"Can we please flirt sometime when we're not approaching EMINENT DOOM?"

"Bartowski, you've got to learn to take it as it comes. And don't snigger, Walker."

"Would I do that?"

"Yes."

"Fine—why not, Casey. We can take care of it at the same as we take care of Chuck."

"Partners?" Casey said from under them both.

The gurney sped out into open jungle and over a rock, making both of them bounce on Casey.

"Partners," Sarah said, and Chuck groaned.