When he was coming up in Delta, one of his instructors had said that the key to winning a fight came down to motivation. Looking at Hugh, MacGyver's screams and vulnerability playing frame by frame through his mind, Jack was highly motivated. When they had sparred, Hugh always won. Part of the reason was he always took the fights more seriously than Jack was willing to. Jack had always pulled back because Hugh had been a friend, a brother. The tiny flame of fear dancing in Hugh's eyes made Jack smile. There would be no holding back. None.
Hugh came in with a fast flurry of punches. Jack blocked most of them, a left cross made him shake his head and back up.
"Always did miss that right cross, Jacky boy." Hugh said. Jack didn't answer, he took another step in retreat. Hugh smiled and followed him, swinging a right haymaker. Jack blocked it with his left arm, wrapped the chair leg behind the joint and twisted his body into Hugh's arm. Hugh's elbow was bent back and snapped. He began to slump to the ground. Jack held on to the broken arm and lashed out with his left elbow catching Hugh's jaw breaking it and pulverizing many bones in Hugh's face. Hugh's scream of pain was little more than a bloody gurgle.
Jack let go and the man fell to one knee. Hugh fell onto his back and kicked Jack's bad leg. Jack grunted, letting the pain fuel him. He too fell to one knee, bringing up the chair leg. He slashed across Hugh's neck at the right angle to snap the man's left collar bone. Hugh was no quitter, he went to strike Jack's face with his right boot. Jack wove back enough so it hit the side of his head with less force. Jack still saw stars. He fell back on his ass. Jack forced himself into an awkward backwards roll over his right shoulder. He came up in a crouch and caught Hugh's leg on the return swing. He bent his hip in on the outside of the knee. Hugh gurgled loudly as the knee snapped like a wishbone. Jack stood up over Hugh and studied him. The man was broken. Terror flashed in Hugh's eyes.
"Y...y...you owe me...you...promised…" Hugh gurgled weakly. Jack smiled raised his boot and slammed down on Hugh's abdomen. The man's eyes widened in agony and a bloody wheeze was all he could manage. Dying by an abdominal bleed took hours and was excruciating.
"I lied." Jack said shrugging. He dropped the chair leg and retrieved Hugh's gun. He checked the load, full. He racked in a round. Time to open a can of Texan whoop-ass. He thought. He looked around the room. He knew outside the door were many soldiers, too many for him to take on in a straight fight. His gaze fell on the single lightbulb dangling in the center of the room. He pulled Hugh's chair over and climbed and jumped bringing the light and it's wires down. He landed silently and pulled the light as close to the door as he could. He carefully placed it on the ground. He carried over the back of his broken chair and unwound one of the long strings of bamboo that had held the chair together. It was thin, sharp and about 18 inches long. Jack lifted the heaviest part of the chair and lifted it.
No, he amended to himself. It was time to open a can of Jack Dalton Whoop-Ass with a side of MacGyver. He threw the chair. The large screen shattered with a crash. Jack went to the light bulb, crouched and gently tapped it on the stone floor. It cracked like an egg, the glass falling away leaving a dimly glowing filament and jagged edges. Jack smiled grimly and waited. The first soldier through the door got the homemade taser in the testicles. He screamed and fell. The second got the broken edges in the thigh. He stayed on his feet and lifted his carbine. In the complete blackness the man panicked and let off a long round. Jack hugged the floor. The bullets ricocheted with dull pings. Several hit the growing number of soldiers framing the doorway. They lost all control and the cave was full of a shower of bullets.
Jack covered his head and winced as the echoing bedlam numbed his ears and rattled his already sore head. He really hadn't expected this undisciplined over reaction, but he'd take it. Dodging legs and boots blindly, wincing when his gun arm got stepped on, he managed to make it to the doorway. He shoved two soldiers aside, one turned to punch the other and they fell against the wall above Jack. Jack ducked and caterpillar crawled out into the hallway. The well lit hallway. He looked up into the startled faces of soldiers running into the melee. Jack didn't try to rise, he rolled on his side and fired taking a breath to aim. He hit one for one. The soldiers at the back got the message after several of their comrades fell dead or wounded to the stone floor. Jack grunted as a boot from the fighting pair above him nailed his kidneys. He instantly felt nauseous. He pulled himself awkwardly into the corridor and swayed to his feet. Bullets began to ping all around him, he fell to his knee as a bullet hit the front of his bad thigh. He cried out in pain and landed on a fallen soldier's carbine. That's going to leave a mark, he thought as he felt skin tear and blood flow.
Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he rolled coming up with it in his fists. He didn't pause to consider the burning pain of his leg, or allow it the luxury of failing him. He launched into a fast run, coming out of the cave with a low roll. He again stayed low, pivoting and firing in controlled bursts. He kept moving as he fired. The soldier's again panicked and fired blindly. Jack shook his head, kind of offended by their ineptness. He pushed himself to his feet much slower than he wanted to. He double-tapped a soldier also crawling to his feet. Jack bent and grabbed two carbines. After checking their loads he slung one over his shoulder and held the other ready. He stayed to the shadows as he crept forward.
The caves became smaller and darker as he crept forward. A single intermittent row of lightbulbs hung above him. He leaned on the wall, pausing to shake his head. He felt like cotton was shoved deep into his skull and dangled out his ears. Or was that his brains? He stopped and closed his eyes taking a breath. Jack could feel the adrenaline of the past few minutes ebbing. He thought of Mac tacked to the table, what was that evil bitch doing to him? Motivation. He cracked his neck and stilled, listening. Coming from in front of him and behind him he could hear the dim thud of boots and shouting. Jack almost laughed. Amateurs, they were acting like security guards instead of soldiers. As many people as Hugh had recruited, Jack realized very few were probably actual experienced soldiers.
Jack felt a whisper of touch behind him, he whirled and cussed as his bad leg gave out. He managed to bring the carbine up as he fell to one knee. He froze finding himself face to face with the terrified face of a tall sickly thin boy. Jack took a steadying breath.
"That's a great way to get yourself dead." He said softly. The kid looked at him blankly, probably didn't speak English. The boy moved to Jack's side and helped him to his feet. He pulled Jack to a dark corner. He pushed him forward. In the blackness, Jack felt the opening to a small cave, a very small cave. He laid flat and crawled into the cave. The boy crawled behind him. The cave was barely large enough for Jack to fit and the air was stifling. While not normally given to claustrophobia, Jack felt like he was in a coffin. He forced himself to breathe slower and closed his eyes moving by feel. He gritted his teeth fighting fatigue, pain and fear dragging himself forward inch by inch. He pictured Mac, the times the kid saved his life. The times Mac had sacrificed himself to help others. Motivation. Inch by inch, Jack painfully pulled forward.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Sarana hummed to herself as she pulled the long red thorns from Mac's body. Each one left a red raised welt with spiderwebs of red radiating out from the center. Mac closed his eyes and didn't notice. She carefully laid the bloody thorns in a plastic case. She opened the shackles. Mac's wrists and ankles were red and raw. When he was free Mac curled into a ball on his side. Sarana covered him with several blankets and gently pulled his wet hair out of his face and smoothed it down. Mac curled into a smaller ball. Lupia smiled and sat beside the table with an open file folder, she jotted down notes.
Suddenly alarms started to bellow and the large cavern outside the cave door became a beehive of shouting and boots stomping, she heard the roar of the military engines thrum through the stone walls. She lept to her feet. Oscar came running in toward her.
"What is it?" She demanded.
"Dalton escaped. Loki is dead." Oscar panted.
"The processing plant?" She asked. Oscar shrugged. She began to thrust tools into boxes. "Hurry, we must get out of here." She said. Oscar paused and indicated MacGyver.
"What about him?"
"He comes with us." She said.
"But…" He asked. Sarana silenced him with a glare.
"My research isn't finished. Go load the van, hurry."
When something touched Jack's bleeding hands, he squawked in surprise. He looked up as a light flared to life. A small girl with a candle bent before him in another larger tunnel. With relief, Jack crawled from the tight passageway. The tunnel he was in was tall enough he could stand if he hunched at the waist. The only light came from a small candle lamp the girl held. Jack slumped against the wall as the tall boy crawled out beside him. He braced his shoulder under Jack's arm and took some weight off of the older man. Jack shook his head to keep away the cobwebs that seemed to be growing in front of his eyes.
The girl led them down a twisty warren of tunnels. Jack focused on standing and moving. Cold sweat ran down his face. He could feel blood soaking his leg. The girl put a hand on his stomach stopping him from walking. Jack looked down and down and down. They had come out on a ledge no more than a foot wide. Below them was a huge open cavern. Jack looked down on the heart of Valhalla. A loud klaxon blared, figures below looked like ants as they ran along the large cavern. Jack could hear the uproar but couldn't make sense of what everyone was doing.
If the unprofessionalism of the soldiers he'd run into was any indication, he doubted they knew what they were doing. Jack smiled as he looked at the far end of the cavern. He saw a large entryway into another large cavern that was covered by the kind of plastic that covers meat lockers. Behind the plastic, Jack could see a bustle of nerd-types with bio-suites bent over equipment and canisters.
What made him smile was the large cylindrical tanks lining the cavern wall beneath where he stood. Each had a different label, but at least two were labelled flammable. One thing Jack had learned over the years with Mac is that anything that was in a can and said flammable somehow could translate into a bomb. He frowned scouring the rest of the cavern. He didn't see Mac. He paused squinting. He saw Oscar Lupia running to a military ambulance with boxes. Jack turned to the girl. Maybe she spoke English.
"How do we get down there?" He said pointing at himself then down. She frowned and responded quickly. It took two repetitions before Jack realized she was speaking heavily accented English.
"Tunnel there." She pointed along the ledge to another small cave entrance. Jack nodded. He gently pushed away from the boy and leaned against the stone. He quickly removed the strap from his carbine and handed the gun to the boy. The boy took it with a grin. Jack bent and wrapped the strap around his leg. He had to hang his head and catch his breath a long minute to keep from passing out. He forced himself to stand unaided. The boy went to hand back the gun.
Jack waved for him to keep it.
"Go have fun." He said. The boy took it and said something in their own language. Jack ignored that. He bent to the girl. "You have to get you and all your friends out of here. This place is going to go boom-boom." The girl frowned.
"Boom-boom?" Jack pantomimed a blast. Her eyes widened and she talked rapidly to the boy. He answered back and like a goat disappeared along the narrow path at a run.
"You better go too, sweetheart." Jack said. The girl grinned up at him and offered him the small lamp.
"Boom-boom good." She said. He nodded taking the lamp gratefully and nodded.
"Boom-boom, very good." He agreed. She lifted a small hand to his cheek and smeared it with grime, her touch gentle.
"Thank...thank…"She frowned. Jack chucked her under the chin.
"No, thank you, darling." He said. She nodded and was gone in the dark like a spider. He shook his head. He took a deep breath and began inching along the narrow ledge as fast as he could. "Don't look down…" He whispered again and again. He didn't have the fear of heights that MacGyver had, but Jack wasn't feeling overly safe at that moment. He reached the cave and grunted shifting himself into another cave the size of a coffin. Jack moved more quickly with the light. There was a sharp turn then there was a freight elevator. And two soldiers.
Jack gently put the light on the ground. The soldiers turned toward him. He quickly leveled his carbine and shot them. He gathered the light and climbed on the flimsy rig. There was a single switch unit, at child height he thought angrily. He pressed the one on the bottom. It shook, howled, then slowly squeaked into motion. Jack ignored the rocking cart instead taking time to raid the two soldiers. He found ample ammunition for the carbine and even better, three grenades. Jack grinned. He had been wondering how to start the tanks on fire, he figured a grenade would do the job. Assuming it didn't bring the whole cave down. Jack shrugged one of the carbines over his shoulder. He quickly reached the bottom of the cavern. Pandemonium and movement surrounded him. He kept to the shadows but no one seemed to notice him. He straightened, wincing at the pain in his leg and walked as if he owned the place.
He quickly reached the tanks. He frowned, he had no way of coming up with a timer. He figured sometimes the easiest was best. Suddenly there were shouts and bullets started to come at him. He ducked behind a truck, grabbed two grenades pulled both pins and lobbed them at the tanks. He threw himself under the truck and covered his ears with his hands.
Jack opened his eyes. He was flat on his back. The truck above him had been blown onto its side. He had blacked out and blood now ran freely down the side of his face. He fought to his feet and promptly fell back to stone. Everything spun around him. He wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep a year. He thought of Mac and knew he didn't have much time. If she hadn't already Sarana would be trying to leave with him. With a groan Jack floundered to his feet and staggered down the cavern.
His eyes widened as he took in the sheer scope of the destruction he'd wrought. Broken bodies fanned out from the blast, vehicles were knocked over. The cavern was filling with smoke. He heard a bang and looked up, a large chunk of stone was coming down above him.
Jack dove out of the way as it smashed onto the stone ground. Other stones and cavern entrances were collapsing. Jack realized this whole mine was hollowed out like a termite nest. It was probably going down layer by layer. A thought occurred to him. On the far end of the large cavern the doorway to the processing center was coming down. Jack felt a cold shiver slide down his spine. Would the binary agent be set free? Had he just gassed everyone for miles?
Whoops. He thought grimly. Jack forced the thought away, he wasn't dead yet and maybe the devices would be destroyed and buried.
Either way he picked up his pace and lurched forward as fast as he could searching cavern by cavern. He stopped panting. He knew he couldn't keep running. His eyes lit up. He saw the small white vehicle Oscar had originally brought them in. The wooden trailer was unhitched. Jack reached it and painfully climbed in it. He was going to try hotwiring it when he saw a large red button on the dash. He pushed it and the little engine revved to life. Jack let loose a Texan yell and stomped the gas dodging debris, cars, people and equipment as he searched for Mac.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Sarana was knocked to the ground with the loud blast. She sat up as chunks of stones began to rain down on her. Oscar came up behind her and stood her up. She fought to free herself from him.
"Grab MacGyver!" She howled. Oscar tightened his grip and pulled her backwards.
"No time." He grunted. She fought looking at Mac curled up on the table. Stones had begun to rain down on him, so far none bigger than a grapefruit. Sarana knew it would only be minutes before the whole cavern collapsed. She screamed in frustration, then turned and ran alongside her brother. So close, she had been so close…
Jack saw them run for the ambulance. He almost followed them worrying that they already had Mac stowed in it, but when Sarana turned and screamed in frustration, Jack knew Mac had been left behind. He whipped around the wheel. He saw a curled up form unmoving under blankets. Dread chilled him as he squealed to a stop beside Mac. Jack winced as a stone from the ceiling landed on his shoulder. He looked up to see a large crack growing. He ran to his partner. He rolled Mac's limp body over. Lifting his friend with a grunt of pain, he awkwardly carried him a few steps to the small cart. The seat was small, but there was enough for two. He climbed in behind the wheel and put one arm around Mac leaning him close to him. Mac's head flopped onto Jack's shoulder. Jack whipped the small vehicle around and headed out of the cavern.
Jack could almost feel each second tick by. He dearly wished they were not on a glorified golf cart, but it was handy going around the multitude of obstacles. He squeezed Mac's shoulders.
"Almost there, Mac. Hang on, bud." He said softly. Mac gave no indication he'd heard, Jack paused not sure which way to go when he saw a long string of kids scurrying along a narrower cavern. He turned the wheel and followed them. The cavern was barely wide enough for the cart to get through, and Jack had to duck low. He put his arm over Mac's head hoping to protect it a little. He winced as a good chunk of flesh scraped away a couple of times, but didn't slow. He could hear huge crashing behind him and the cart jumped sideways into the wall when there was a pair of explosions. Jack could feel the air thicken with smoke and stone grit. The entire mine was coming down.
Jack suddenly found himself in bright light driving across sand. He squinted trying to get his eyes use to the brightness. Suddenly the cart turned sideways sliding in the sand and there was no ground under them. Jack reached over and clung to MacGyver as they started tumbling end over end down what felt like a mountain.
