The Lab
Mission City
14 years ago
"Angus, I'm not sure this is a good idea." Wilt licked his dry lips. Angus threw him a grin that usually meant an adventure that ended them up in trouble.
"It's going to be awesome, Wilt!" Wilt looked down at the coffee can Angus packed with bits of banana wires, firecrackers and something he'd scraped from twenty broken smoke detectors. The blonde had explained to him that there was a radioactive isotope-americium 240 that Angus thought he could magnify with the isotope of potassium 40 in bananas. Wilt had stopped listening after that. Bananas were radioactive?
Angus bent over the can and carefully soldered connections between wires and an antenna he'd pulled off a broken walkie-talkie. He looked up seeing his best friend stared at him incredulously. Angus smiled and pushed a button on the other half of the walkie-talkie. Wilt's heart thumped with surprise at a bright spark from the can lid.
"Is that a trigger?"
"Yeah, we should be able to fire it from a safe distance." Wilt gulped.
"Safe distance? Exactly how unsafe are we talking about here?" Mac shrugged reaching for a screwdriver.
"I don't know, fifty feet?"
"And what happens if we aren't a safe distance away?" Angus grinned as he put the final touches connecting the fireworks to the trigger. He glanced at Wilt not noticing the fear in his friend's eyes. He shrugged.
"Nothings going to happen." Wilt nodded not at all reassured. He'd had a broken arm from the last time nothing was going to happen. Angus set the can down and looked at Wilt expectantly. Wilt looked at the silver can with a broken antenna popping out from the top with trepidation. Angus frowned, hurt by his friend's lack of enthusiasm. Wilt offered a weak smile, always there to support his friend no matter what.
"So where are we going to set it off?" Wilt asked. Angus sighed biting his lip. His eyes lit up, and he grinned. Wilt squirmed not liking the wicked glint in his friend's blue eyes. Wilt thought about it only a second before he got it. He stood up and shook his head waving his hands as he passed the length of the tree house.
"No, Angus you can't!"
"Why not? It's perfect."
"Dude! They'll kill us. Donny's been looking for payback since fifth grade." A hard glint entered Angus's blue eyes.
"So have I." When he noticed how this shook Wilt, Angus shrugged. "Besides it probably won't do much more than spark out anyway." Wilt sighed and ran his hands over his face.
"I must be crazy as a lizard! Alright, bro, let's do this." Wilt found himself grinning caught up in Angus's excitement.
The next Saturday the two boys met in the front of the empty school. Angus parked his bike and pulled the bomb out of his backpack. A hint of doubt had sunk into his eyes. Wilt sighed and put an arm around his friend's shoulders. The cloud passed, and Angus smiled bumping Wilt's hip with his own as he ducked out of his friend's reach. Wilt shook his head. He knew Angus didn't go for all that mushy stuff. Wilt felt a pang in his heart for his friend. Wilt knew this would probably end the same way as most of their experiments did- either spectacular failures or explosive beyond their expectations- but he didn't want to take away the happiness he saw in Angus.
Wilt remembered the night of Angus's tenth birthday party, the crushing hurt in his blue eyes, the way his lips trembled and his fists shook with trying not to cry. As if crying was a bad thing, Wilt bawled more about it than Angus did. Angus curled up inside like a turtle. With the constant onslaught of name calling, shoving, wedgies and swirlies, Angus only came alive when alone with Wilt, making something or experimenting. The vastness of his friend's brilliance and curiosity was staggering, but Angus hid it under layers of walls. Wilt's house and the Lab were the only places Angus felt safe enough to be himself. Wilt felt honored to be the only one Angus let in enough to see behind the hard shell. He would do anything to keep even a small bit of happiness in those blue eyes.
"Alright," Wilt grumbled," how are we going to get into the stadium?" Angus chuckled and pulled a paper clip out of his pocket. Wilt looked at him confused.
"What's that for? Holding back your hair in the blast?" Angus rolled his eyes. He crossed to the chain linked fence and bent over the lock. In half a minute the lock popped open. Wilt stared at Angus wide-eyed. "How in the hell did you do that?" Angus laughed and led the way to the center of the football field.
They paused taking in the empty field and grinned at each other with the same wild sense of adventure. Angus placed the bomb at the 50-yard line. He pulled Wilt to the edge of the field.
"Ready?" Angus asked his eyes almost popping out of his head with excitement.
"No," Wilt growled realizing what they are about to do. Angus frowned. Wilt rolled his eyes. "Yes." Angus grinned and hit the button on the walkie-talkie.
It seemed to unfold in slow motion. There was a small flash followed by a soft bang then a wave of light followed by a howl of wind that blew them back through the fence. The thunderous crash that followed was deafening. Angus and Wilt laid sprawled on the fallen fence dazed for a long few minutes.
"You ok?" Angus finally asked Wilt. His shaky voice sounded like Wilt heard it under water. He managed a nod closing his eyes reassuring himself he hadn't peed or pooped in his pants. Angus sat up and laughed pulling long wooden splinters out of his hair. Wilt looked over at him and laughed. They fist bumped. Their excitement melted away when they saw the devastation they had wrought. The bleachers were pulverized, and a crater the size of a small swimming pool surrounded by burnt grass spread out covering most of the playing field.
"Holy shit!" Wilt exclaimed. Angus blankly nodded. He rubbed dirt off his face. They could hear sirens coming in all directions and shared a panicked look.
"Pinkie swear we'll never tell anyone what we did." Angus hissed. Wilt nodded and held out his finger.
"No kidding, shit Mama's going to kill us."
Jack roared with laughter and wiped his eyes. The others surrounding the firepit joined in except Mac who rubbed his forehead and shook his head resigned to this story dramatically told whenever someone new joined their odd family.
"That never gets old." Riley said sipping her beer. Bozer looked over to Matty who was staring at Mac in disbelief.
"You made a nuke out of bananas and smoke detectors?"
"Well, I added in a brine ion enhancer and a copper coil to…" Mac explained defensively. Matty held up her hand forestalling his lecture. Mac sighed and looked down at the empty beer bottle he held on his lap.
"Yes, I did. It was only a small one."
"A nuke is still a nuke," Matty said. She frowned and looked at Mac as if seeing what a threat he could be. Mac squirmed under her frank assessment. He swallowed nervously.
"I'm sure he could do a better job of it now," Jack said handing Mac another long neck. Mac shot him a hot glare. Not surprisingly, this did nothing to reassure Matty. Jack smiled enjoying Mac being in the hot seat for once.
"So why didn't they rebuild the field?" Riley asked.
"The half-life is about 400 years." Mac murmured staring into the fire. The others broke into laughter. Mac sighed and rubbed his eyes bracing for the heckling.
"So what happened after?" Matty asked. Bozer glanced at Mac and smiled.
"Well after we got out of the hospital…"
"Hospital?" Jack looked at Mac. Mac shrugged.
"Radiation poisoning." He grumbled. He looked up at the collected gasps, "It wasn't that bad." Mac quickly added. Bozer shook his head.
"Not that bad? I was itching for weeks!"
"Did you get busted?" Riley asked. Bozer and Mac both winced.
"Yeah, it was almost a public lynching. If it wasn't for my Mama and some of the teachers we woulda been run out of town. As it was, we had 1,000 hours of community service." Bozer said. Mac stared at his feet squirming at the memory. "Let's just say not a scrap of garbage hit the ground in the entire town that we didn't clean up over the next year and a half." There was a moment of silence while everyone pondered this. Jack studied his partner feeling him retreat inside himself. Jack frowned at the sadness in Mac's eyes. Mac looked up feeling the older man eye him. Mac stood up.
"More beer?" The others nodded and returned to talking about their latest case. Mac crossed into the kitchen and closed his eyes taking a second to pause and bring his emotions back to heel. He wasn't surprised to hear Jack's boots behind him. Mac opened the fridge and knelt digging out beer, taking far longer than needed-a fact that did not escape Jack's notice. Shoulders slumping in defeat Mac sighed and stood up pulling out the beer and faced his partner.
"Are you upset I got Bozer to tell Matty that story? She's not freaked out; it just gives her more of a picture of how smart you are." Mac rubbed his forehead and shook his head.
"No, that's fine. It's fun to hear Bozer tell it." Mac moved to step past Jack.
"He does have a flair for the dramatic." Jack agreed. He snagged Mac's arm and half turned him, "So why are you upset?"
"I'm not upset. We dealt with this a long time ago."
"I'm not buying it. This story dragged something from that ginormous brain, what's going on?" Mac huffed and pulled his arm free.
"Nothing...it's just." Mac's gaze drifted far away he looked at Jack with a nostalgic sadness. He ran his hair through his hair. "It's just that was the last straw."
"Last straw?"
"Yeah, I went to live with Bozer after that." Mac turned to go back to the deck. Jack did some quick calculations of the Macgyver timeline he knew.
"That's when your grandfather left?" Mac paused. He turned and grimaced.
"My grandfather never went anywhere. I was the one who had to leave." Mac strode out to the deck cutting off Jack's reply. Jack gritted his teeth adding yet another person to his Macgyver's family punch-in-the-face list.