CHAPTER 1: Aluminum Foil
Movies have been responsible for a lot of the world's greatest scientific misconceptions. You wouldn't be the first person to be disappointed there's not enough oxygen in space for fiery explosions, that dinosaur DNA only lasts a few million years when preserved in amber, or that catching oneself with a grappling hook while falling from a building would end in severed limbs on the best of days. But sometimes reality is actually a saving grace. Especially when the only guy in the room who might be able to defuse the bomb just took a syringe dart to the thigh and didn't hit the floor instantly because that's not how real-life pharmacokinetics works.
The timer was set to 10 minutes, which was about as much useful consciousness Mac estimated he had left. He grimaced as he took a couple of seconds of that to pull the tiny barbed needle from his leg. The pressurized drug cartridge had discharged the second the needle broke skin, but in case they could get some prints off it later... He broke the needle off against the linoleum floor and pocketed the dart, then turned back to the bomb. If he had those ten precious minutes, he would use them.
"Jack, how are things coming with the evacuation?" He asked into his earpiece.
"Not awesome." Came Jack's harried reply.
"Riley, how evacuated is 'not awesome'." MacGyver asked.
"We're riding at 43% of people still in the buildings, Mac." Riley responded. In the background he could hear her typing furiously from the van across the street. "At this rate it'll take a solid 20 more minutes to get everyone out."
"Not good enough. Jack, get building security on it and make your way to subsection 3, room B95."
"You found the bomb?"
"Yes, and we have..." He looked at the timer. "9 minutes and 23 seconds to disarm it. But whoever set the bomb found me too. They're headed towards the north staircase of building 3. See if you can get them for questioning."
"You fought them off?" Jack asked, impressed.
"No, not quite. It's weird- I'll tell you when you get here." Jack may have responded, but Mac had already turned his full attention to the bomb. It was in a fenestrated clear plastic case bolted to the floor, a tangle of wires and cell phone parts inside with an almost cartoonish clock face counting down to 0. Out of the holes in the sides, additional wires held the box to the floor at tension like a spider web, leaving just enough space for someone to kneel in front. He figured if he tried to move the box or change the tension on the wires, he'd end up atomized. What he needed to do was disconnect the timer, detonator, and anything capable of receiving a transmission. And he needed to do it without moving anything outside the box.
The easiest part- and probably the most important if he actually wanted his full 9 minutes and 3 seconds' worth of bomb defusing time- was disabling the receivers. He couldn't remember…
"Riley, you still there?" Mac asked.
"Here, Mac, what's up?"
"How many layers of aluminum foil does it take to block a cell signal?"
"Gimme a sec." Riley responded. Mac made himself take a breath as he listened to her type. "Just one it looks like."
"Thanks!" Okay, that was solved if he could find some aluminum foil or some other flexible metal.
Then, he needed to get into that box. Disabling the tripwires themselves was probably not an option. There were too many and cutting each of them and fashioning something to perfectly simulate tension would take far too long, so moving the bomb or physically dismantling the casing wasn't an option. He took a couple more seconds to evaluate what he could see of the internal workings of the bomb. Nothing looked heat sensitive, so maybe he could go through the casing instead...
He needed a kitchen. Preferably a fancy one, which a business center like this would almost certainly have for entertaining guests from all over the world. And fortunately, given that he had spent the last half hour ducking room to room inside this building looking for the bomb, he knew where he could get one.
It was up the hallway about four rooms. Mac jogged over, keeping the familiar creeping sense of urgency in check. The bomb was stable unless acted upon by a cell signal, and he'd gone up against explosive devices with significantly less time on their timers than this. He pushed through the kitchen's double doors and surveyed it before digging around. It was empty, but the lights were on. The kitchen staff must have been bored or stressed enough with their day today that they had evacuated without too much urging. Less explaining for him. Hopefully, a nice justified break for them.
Food was still present, half-prepared, on long metal tables. Underneath it, there were drawers and cabinets labeled with a mix of professional-grade labels and printer paper affixed with masking tape. He pulled a roll of aluminum foil from a drawer near the walk-in freezer and with a little more searching, a miniature butane torch from the rack over one of the stainless-steel countertops.
Back in the storage area, the bomb was crossing the 6-minute mark. He knelt in front of it, quickly molding an aluminum-foil tent around the exterior of the box, careful to avoid the wires, while still giving him space to work.
5 minutes left.
He melted a large square out of the polycarbonate resin with the butane torch, trying to get as much of the heated resin to drop onto the clock face and not weld anything to itself that was going to make the next few minutes harder than they had to be.
4 minutes left.
The tripwires were held inside to pressure triggers connected to a miniature processing unit by three tiny green wires. He cut them in one go. No explosion. Cool.
From the side he could see the timer was also connected to a separate detonator with wires, which were hidden beneath the timer. Which was resting on a pressure trigger.
3 minutes left.
Mac ripped the plastic nameplate off the outside of the door and levered it under the timer's corner, compensating manually for the ever-so-slight change in weight distribution. He used that corner to access the wires beneath, cutting them away from the timer itself. He let out a small sigh.
1 minute left.
It was a solid ten seconds before Mac realized the timer was still counting. While no longer physically in contact with the detonator, a discreet antenna that had clearly been added to the device post-manufacture caught Mac's eye. He needed to get it outside the aluminum tent to ensure a wireless signal couldn't trip the detonator.
There was no way he would be able to find something the exact weight of the timer quickly enough to switch it out Indiana Jones style. Unless...
As the seconds ticked down, Mac melted the edge of the casing with the torch and pressed the plastic nameplate into it, welding it in place. He waited a precious ten seconds for the creation to cool, then ever-so-carefully, he moved the timer, a millimeter at at time, upwards until the welded plastic caught and held the pressure trigger in place. Then he ripped the antenna out of the back of the timer and pressed the aluminum tent down over the hole he'd been working through.
The timer still counted. 3...2...1... Mac held his breath.
...0.
No kaboom. Mac waited another four seconds. He let the breath out slowly and let himself fall back onto the floor, letting relief wash over him as the fact that he had survived, that the building was still intact, that he'd managed, one more time, to stop something that should have killed him and everyone around him, slowly sunk into place.
He did it. Awesome.
He tapped his earpiece. "Jack, bomb's neutralized." He said, still laying on the floor like a tired three-year-old after a day at an amusement park. There was a second's pause before Jack answered.
"If my watch's working right, you cut that pretty close." Jack said. "Not that I didn't think you had it in you, Mac, but damn. You know a quarter of those people didn't even evac yet?"
"Yeah and whose responsibility was that, again, Jack?"
"Mine. But to be clear, we all had complete faith in you and no one expects anything of me." Jack retorted. "And speaking of that. I didn't find your guy, Mac. Must have gone up the other stairwell. "Riley, can you get the security footage?"
"Yeah, already got it and the footage from the rest of the building. It'll take a while to go through, though. Might be a long night..."
Then another moment of creeping unease hit Mac. In the haste to save the building from the bomb, he'd forgotten all about the guy with the dart gun. He did a quick check on himself. He was shaking slightly, sweating, dizzy, nauseated. Not awesome.
Another thing about disabling someone with a drug- you have no idea how their body will react to it. There's a reason police prefer tasers when talking about less-lethal weapons. In addition to taking too long to manifest, drug effects are largely based on dose, which themselves are based on weight. Too little drug per kilogram, and the target doesn't get disabled. Too much, and they stop breathing. Its impossible to calibrate a perfect dose if you don't know your target's weight, and even then sometimes biology gets in the way.
Given this particular situation, I'm gonna guess that someone aired on the "get him on the floor first and worry about overdose second" train. If you're ever in a situation where you know you're going to pass out and will probably go out really hard, the best thing you can do is make yourself safe. If you collapse, "unconscious you" won't be able to catch themself, so get yourself as horizontal as possible before that happens. Being horizontal will also keep some blood in your brain if the drug tanks your blood pressure.
"Unconscious you" is also not at all like "sleeping you." Sleeping you can still change positions to keep their airway open. Unconscious you can't, and will suffocate if they're flat on their back or facedown. If you have a few seconds, get into recovery position- lay on your side with your head resting on your lower arm, and put your upper arm and leg slightly in front of you. This will brace you in a position where your airway is naturally open and keep you alive until EMS show up. Also, you'll breath in less puke when your body decides to expel its stomach contents trying to save you.
Mac fished the empty dart out of his pocket and held it in his hand as he pushed himself into recovery position. If EMS could figure out what was in his system, they might be able to treat him better in the case the dose was more than his body could process on his own.
"Mac, you still on comms here?" He heard.
Mac swallowed hard. "Jack I need you to meet me down here as soon as possible. Subsection 3, Room B95." He said, pulling the dart out of his pocket. "The guy we talked about hit me with a syringe dart. It's in my hand. If I'm unconscious when you get here, I need you to call 911."