callofkaren | [For Chuck.] Call of Duty!

Entry tags:

chuck,
in-game

[For Chuck.] Call of Duty!

After exhausting most of the options that Karen could be out in snow and still call it fun, she found herself spending most of the day inside the compound, watching bad Canadian TV and eating the cookies so many people seemed to want to bake.

Nothing really held her attention as long as Call of Duty did when she got a chance at it, though. She hadn't really gone too far in her game, having been interrupted so many times, and she felt like she was losing her touch. ...well, not really. But she did feel like she hadn't played it in way too long, and she was going to use the next rare free hours to play.

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Chuck had figured out pretty quickly that he didn't do cold weather well. A life time of living in southern California had kind of conditioned him to run screaming into the night when the weather even got below fifty degrees.

So after a day of wandering the compound without much to do, he'd found himself in the other rec room. Where the girl he'd met-- and kinda made out with-- on his first day on the island was sitting. Playing Xbox.

His mouth gaped open.

"Wait...so this place doesn't have a DVD player, but there's Call of Duty?" He asked, pretty much astonished.

Karen hit pause and glanced over at the voice, wincing a bit when she recognzed Chuck. It wasn't every day you ended up accidentally making out with someone, and she doubted she'd forget him every time soon.

But she was good at pretending certain things hadn't happened (like Addison), so she just sat up a bit on the couch and nodded. "It's kinda wrong, but I'm not complaining."

"Yeaahh, this place is making less and less sense every day, actually." He said. First the fictional people, then the snow. But then again, the island existing in the first place didn't make sense in the first place.

"So...you play often?"

"As much as I can," Karen replied, which was pretty much code for...well, all the time. She tilted her head as she looked Chuck over. "Do you?"

"It was kind of a big thing with me and my buddy Morgan back home," Chuck said, realizing that Morgan was probably somewhere, crying over a game of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Tears in the buttons of the controller. Probably not good for gameplay.

"Oh, thank god," Karen said with a sigh of relief. "I've already beat the game on single player twice, and all my friends suck when it comes to multiplayer." She made space on the couch and held up the second controller expectantly.

He raised his eyebrows, impressed. Karen hadn't really seemed like the type of girl who'd be into that stuff. Actually he hadn't really met any girls who were into that stuff. Not counting Jill back at Stanford.

"Really? Even without god mode and noclip?" Chuck asked, walking over to take the controller and a seat. He wasn't really big on cheat codes, but Morgan tended to use them when he got bored sometimes.

"You'd think god mode would be a piece of cake, wouldn't you?" Karen just sighed heavily and shook her head as she saved her game and went back to the start menu. "But that only works if the person you're playing with can actually figure out how to shoot."

"...okay...wow. That's--that's a new one." He said, blinking a few times. Those were like, the basic controls of the game. Besides walking and crouching.

Karen nodded the equivalent to well, duh, and she wondered for a moment if her younger, dumber namesake was rubbing off on her. "The funniest part? He faced a wall and threw a grenade at it, just to have it bounce back to his feet."

"And this wasn't on purpose? Yeah...whoever this guy is, I think he might have some kind of a weird, completely not useful talent."

The corner of Chuck's mouth turned up into a grin, and he twiddled his thumbs on the controller buttons. He was still a little worried about his index finger, though. Maybe it was frostbite.

"I laughed for about five minutes straight," Karen agreed with a grin of her own.

She settled back into the couch, and started setting up the multiplayer option. If Chuck really was as into it as he said he was, he'd have no problem following. "Hey, have you heard anything about there being a Call of Duty four?"

"Yeah, it just came out," Chuck said easily. If there was one thing that Buy More was good for, it was getting the heads up on new game releases. He hadn't beaten it yet or anything-- his life had gotten...a little too complicated.

Karen's thumb fumbled over the stick for a second — she could be excused, this was justifiable — and she stared over at Chuck. "Are you serious? What's new?"

"It's pretty much the same," He explained, "I mean, it's a modern game, so the guns are a lot cooler and they kind of scaled the drama up."

Chuck paused for a second, tilting his head as he drew his eyebrows together. "So wait, when are you from that you know Call of Duty but not Call of Duty: 4?"

The different times thing was still pretty weird.

Karen hit pause, even if they were barely a few minutes into the game, and stared over at Chuck. "It was February 2006 when I showed up here and are you serious? Modern?"

Chuck was beginning to get the feeling that Karen probably wasn't as hardcore about Call of Duty as Morgan was. For one thing, he probably wouldn't have paused a game unless it was a matter of life and death.

"Yeah, most of the story's in the Middle East," He explained. "You know, this is probably the first time I've talked to a girl about Call of Duty and she hasn't completely zoned out."

"Yeah, I get that a lot," Karen said, mostly out of habit. She was caught up in trying to picture Call of Duty as modern, with modern soldiers and more awesome guns...

"Downside though, I've heard the one-player campaign's kind of short." He shrugged.

Okay, now Chuck was starting to sound like he was selling the game at the Buy More. And he wasn't even a green shirt. He almost visibly winced.

"One-player's just to get a feel of the game anyway," Karen waved it off. "The real fun is multi-player. We used to have LAN games in my office back home."

"Wow. Okay, so, how do I get your old job?" Chuck asked, eyebrows slightly raised. They used to have X-Box tournaments at Buy More sometimes though.

Until Harry Tang complained so much that Big Mike made them stop.

"You get excited about selling paper," Karen said dryly, though there was a smile on her face. She kinda missed Stanford, especially the gaming. Nobody in Scranton save Jim - and probably Dwight, but going to Dwight was the last resort in boredom - had probably even heard of Call of Duty.

"Wait, so you sold paper? People actually still do that?" Not that there was anything wrong with it or anything, it just wasn't the kind of job that Chuck imagined people did. Like churning butter.

Edited 2007-12-18 07:18 (UTC)

"Yes," Karen said slowly, and with a great deal of patience. There was always a 90/10 chance she got that reaction when it came to telling people what she did for a job. "Dunder Mifflin was a distribution company, we sold mainly to smaller businesses."

"...that might just be worse than the Buy More," Chuck said, chuckling nervously, a little amazed. He fiddled with the controller in his hands, eyebrows slightly raised.

"Yeah, just a little," Karen said with a wry smile, and she turned back to the game, her mind once again wandering to a newer, more modern Call of Duty. "What's Buy More?"

Chuck immediately wished that he hadn't mentioned it. "It's a--- It's an electronics store?"

It wasn't really a question, but Chuck's voice lifted at the end of the sentence anyway. "I work-- worked there."

Karen nodded, her attention turning back to the game. "So you were a salesman too? You just got to sell something a little better than paper."

"Um. Actually I fixed computers. I was a part of the Nerd Herd? You know, those guys with the ties and the pocket protectors?"

He nearly winced, because 'pocket protectors' wasn't really the best combination of words to use around cute girls.

Karen chose to leave the whole pocket protector thing alone, because she knew (from experience) that nerds were sensitive about that kinda thing. "I guess you're from a different universe, then. There's a Best Buy where I'm from, and those guys are called the Geek Squad."

"Well, that name's just dumb," Chuck joked, mostly trying to keep himself from thinking about this weird alternate dimension thing. Though to be honest, if Morgan was around, they'd probably still be geeking out about it.

Maybe there was a mirror universe Chuck with a moustache.

"Ehhh, I don't know," Karen said. She shrugged one shoulder, then the other, the equivalent of weighing the options when her hands were otherwise occupied. "Best Buy, Buy More, Geek Squad, Nerd Herd...not really spoiled for choice on good names there."

She blinked at the screen when the level ended. "You know something, Chuck? I think we make a damn good team." She was almost tempted to ask what he thought about pranking.

Chuck had mostly been going on auto-pilot, and had barely noticed that the level was over.

"That's probably because you just so happen to be playing with the best sniper in the western United States." He grinned. "I don't mean to brag or anything."

"Uh huh," Karen grinned right back. "And I lay the best cover fire on the Eastern seaboard. And for the record, I am bragging."

He nodded.

"You know, there are probably some eight year olds somewhere who'd disagree with you." Chuck said, eyebrows slightly raised.

"Mm, and they're whiny babies," Karen replied easily. "Now, show me a couple of twelve-year-olds, and maybe I'll have some competition."

"Yeah, as long as it's not a school night," He said, remembering nights when Morgan had probably gotten some kind in Wisconsin into a lot of trouble with his parents. Chuck had tried to tell him in the end that going to bed at 3am had not meant that the kid wussed out.

Karen honest-to-god snorted then, and covered her her mouth with one hand to hold back her laughter. "You say that like you've got experience."

"Yeah, Morgan-- my friend back home-- he gets really into it. It's a really long story involving almost calling some kid's mom in Wisconsin. I...don't think you want to hear it."

It was pretty embarrassing for everyone involved.

"Oh, you'd be thinking wrong," Karen answered with another laugh. It was totally the kind of story she'd love to hear, only not when they were about to start a campaign and it might afford distractions. "But I'm sure that's a story for another day."

"Yeah, Embarrassing and Geeky Story Day," Chuck said. "Actually, I'm pretty sure I'd kind of monopolize the conversation....were that...actually a holiday."

He looked down at the controller in his hands, pretty sure that was as close to being physically painful that a statement could get.

"So! Are we still going or--- Because I could probably keep this up for hours."

Karen tried harder not to smile the more Chuck kept talking. He was like one of those geeks who were actually kind of adorable without realizing it, so she kept her mouth shut.

Especially if Chuck didn't seem to realize what he'd just said.

"I could play for hours too," she said, then let her shoulders drop. "But it gets a little boring once you've played everything three times."

"What, you mean this place doesn't have XBox Live?" Chuck joked. "How--How'd this thing end up here in the first place? I mean, maybe another game'll show up the same way. Like maybe Call of Duty Four?"

Because being sucked to the island of no return without getting the chance to play it was cruel and unusual punishment. Only slightly less horrible than being denied James Bond movies.

Of course, Lazlo had been lying about all that, but the idea of it was horrifying all the same.

"We didn't even have an XBox until a few months ago," Karen said, feeling like Chuck should at least know how lucky he was. He might have been stuck reading about the mating habits of lemurs, or watching himself as a TV/movie/whatever. "And if Call of Duty four shows up somehow, I'll do a dance of joy."

Chuck couldn't help but laugh. "Wow. You'll have to let me know if that happens," He said. "I'll-- I'll join in. As long as it's not a tango. I kinda have issues with the tango."

"The tango?" Karen asked, and it was almost like she sensed a good story behind that. After months with Jim, it'd become almost like a sixth sense. "That's kinda random."

There was definitely a story behind it. One involving spies and terrorists and almost being thrown off a building. The tragedy was that Chuck couldn't tell Karen any of it.

"Yeah, it's a long, boring story involving my sister's boyfriend and a pretty bad date." He said, "Not with my sister's boyfriend. The date, I mean."

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[For Chuck.] Call of Duty!

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