He woke gradually, indescribably content. Wrapped up snuggly but not too hot, relaxed and so well rested. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd gotten a good night's sleep—
The realization roused him further, and MacGyver slowly became aware of the sound of soft white noise, and the faint chugging of a window-mounted air conditioner. It wasn't until he opened his eyes that he realized there was light, and he found himself staring at a spotless white popcorn ceiling.
He had absolutely no idea where he was.
Adrenaline banished the feeling of peace with the last of the cobwebs, and Mac froze on the surface he was lying atop, trying to get his bearings without giving himself away further. The room was cool but he was quite warm, and lying on something soft. The white noise was on a different frequency than the air conditioner, but both covered any other noises. The only scent he could detect smelled like freshly done laundry.
After a moment or two without any additional sound or movement, Mac warily turned his head—not enough to trigger a motion sensor, just in case this was the same setup as the video game 'load' screen from the mental hospital.
It was not. He was sprawled comfortably on what looked like a California King, wearing at minimum a fluffy white bathrobe, in what looked like an upscale hotel room. Something that looked like his wallet, watch, and swiss army knife were lying on a valet tray on the nightstand, underneath a fancy, fifties-style lamp that was responsible for the soft glow of the room. Slowly turning his head the other way found a matching lamp as well as an old-school clock, that seemed to be running though there was no sound of ticking.
He turned a wrist experimentally and didn't detect any bindings, and did the same to an ankle, revealing that his feet were bare and he was lying atop the luxurious duvet. With no other option, Mac carefully picked up his head.
The hotel room was large and well-appointed. A highboy stood against the far wall, with a matching long, narrow table above which a very high-end, ultra modern television was framed like a painting and mounted to the wall. There was a secretary-style desk on the other side of what he assumed was either the closet or the door that linked this room to the next suite. Two high-backed wing chairs were facing one another in front of what he assumed were the windows, but thick, lush curtains blocked any natural light. On the other side was a hallway that he assumed led to the in-suite bathroom and, hopefully, the exit into the hotel hallway.
He was alone.
The TV on the wall had been framed in deep mahogany to match the furniture and make it seem less anachronistic, and it was displaying static. But the pattern of that static was off; there was no reason an OLED screen would display that unless it was actually displaying it rather than not getting signal—
Though he hadn't moved any further, the static on the TV faded to black, and as the white noise faded, the faint strands of music started up.
Dated footage started up, in the style of a home camcorder movie, though the images were static; a young girl with dark, wild hair sitting on an eighties-style couch in her pajamas, stuffing a fistful of popcorn in her face. Her pajamas were printed with colorful unicorns, and it was obvious someone had taken a sharpie and added rocket-powered skateboards and stylized sunglasses. A page turned, like he was viewing a scrapbook, and there were three tween girls on a bed, slumber party style, two clunky laptops between the three while one held an old flip-style cellphone out to whoever was taking the picture, showing an image of the exact same picture, having first been taken with the phone.
Mac was unsurprised when the deep, movie-trailer voice started up. "Child prodigy Riley Davis had everything a girl could want."
It was Riley's trailer. The story of her torture.
Mac immediately sat up on the bed, surprised when he didn't feel even slightly light-headed. The scrapbook page had turned; it was still a picture frame but inside that frame was video, a surveillance angle of a coffee shop, showing three goth girls sitting together at a corner table. As he watched, one of them took control of the laptop in front of a clearly teen-aged Riley, tapping on the keys, and then all three looked expectantly out the window.
...how the hell did Murdoc have photos and videos of Riley as a child?
Mac averted his eyes, refusing to engage, and instead carefully shifted his weight, listening intently for any clicking or shifting sounds that would indicate the bed might be booby-trapped. The happy soundtrack of the trailer stopped instantly, actually allowing him to listen, and Mac refused to glance back at the television, carefully shifting his weight until he felt safe enough to swing a leg over the side.
Nothing happened. The movie trailer remained 'paused', and there was no tell-tale click of an IED being armed or triggered. Mac carefully stood, and his bare toes dug automatically into the thick pile carpet. He felt absolutely no after-effects from the sedative. He was steady on his feet, and the only pain he felt was from the slice on his forearm. When he shook the bathrobe's sleeve down, to make sure the burn film was still in place, he discovered his arm was otherwise bare.
He wasn't wearing anything under the robe.
Disgust roiled up in his stomach, and Mac immediately started exploring the space. He was right; the hall led to what he assumed was the bathroom, but the door was closed and it didn't budge, even when he tried to rattle it. The larger door he assumed led to the hallway was the same. There was absolutely no play in either one.
Magnetic locks, probably.
The same was true for the drawers in the highboy, and as Mac passed the TV and his eyes fell across the paused footage of Riley and her friends in the coffee shop, the video resumed.
"Until she—"
And it paused itself again as soon as he was no longer standing in front of it.
The wooden door of the secretary's desk area was also locked down, as was every drawer. When Mac threw back the heavy curtains he found cartoon florida windows painted on the solid wall, showing a fantastic plaza in some European city. Mac studied the skyline a moment but he wasn't able to place it, and then he started noticing the painted on people—like the man chasing a blowing piece of paper underneath a temporary crane that was lifting boxes up to the third story window of the building, with a black crow fluttering at the top, playfully tugging the crane's rope knot loose.
The man under the soon-to-be-falling platform was Jack.
In fact they were all in the little mural—and all in life-threatening situations. He was inside what looked like a laboratory classroom, a red swiss army knife on the bench beside him as he poured frantically over several sheets of paper, the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth in cartoon concentration. His cartoon self was completely oblivious to the catastrophe that was about to occur behind him—forgotten beakers of chemicals bubbling out and splashing over lit Bunsen burners, cylinders of gas sitting just beside them with their contents whistling out. An old-fashioned alarm clock rattling comically off the teacher's desk while a small microwave shuddered and spewed out black smoke, and the tail of some kind of reptile—likely an alligator or crocodile—slinking behind the sink cabinet.
Meanwhile, down on the street level, Riley was a nurse in the exact same costume as the mental hospital, hurrying by while a man seated at a café table ogled her—Mac recognized the man as Brandon, Murdoc's hacker and deceased partner, complete with his own little cartoon laptop and a small red ribbon on the table in front of him. Bozer was the maître d' of the café, glaring furiously at a waiter who was about to trip and spill a pot of coffee onto a blond janitor kneeled beside a leaking ice dispenser. Something a bright, venomous green was coiled up in the café's fake lime tree, complete with forked tongue, and a dead rat with X'ed out eyes was draped dramatically over the shelf of the outdoor cupboard where spare plates, dishes, and salt and pepper shakers were stored.
Matty was in a maid's uniform, chasing some pigeons away from a fountain of what looked like a cross between a phoenix and a swan, only it was misshapen and seemed to be choking and drowning on the water it was spitting into the air. One of the decorative tiles at the base of the fountain was tilted slightly, an access panel to the fountain's mechanism that had been broken, and its missing hingepin was lying right in the maid's path to trip her into the fountain.
Any of it could be a clue, and Mac reluctantly studied it in detail before he turned back to the bed. The nightstand drawers were similarly sealed, and his wallet and watch were props, but the swiss army knife was legitimately his, and he almost pocketed it before he realized how very much he did not want to start this 'exam' in a bathrobe.
As he glanced around the room again, debating trying to use the SAK to jimmy one of the dresser drawers open, his eyes once again fell across the TV, and once again it unpaused.
"—hacked one intelligence agency too many..."
The scrapbook went suddenly black and white, showing Riley being shoved through FBI processing. Her younger face was set in a scowl, but underneath it he could see how scared she looked.
"...and the world that was once rolled out at her feet taken far out of her reach."
The next page looked like something from a newspaper in a Harry Potter movie; four 'photos' framed in drab designs, all from prison, all showing fights. Mac felt his mouth go dry as he was able to pick Riley out in each and every one of them. Riley using a cafeteria tray to jab another inmate in the throat; Riley disappearing under three other inmates, just flailing arms and kicking legs. Riley putting books away in the library while, two aisles down, two inmates were clearly watching her.
Footage of a guard's booth, one of the men with his hands down his pants while looking at his banks of cameras of sleeping female inmates.
Mac tore his eyes away, and the playback obediently paused.
He didn't let his eyes wander there again. He headed for the dresser and studied the seams of the drawers, easing the slimmest blade in between to gently probe. He hit something with give that stopped him instantly: wire.
The second drawer he tried he found the same, and he backed off the dresser immediately. The closet door was also wired. So was the bathroom.
It didn't mean it was wired to blow. It didn't even mean the wires were hooked to anything. There was no scent of any kind of explosive. But there was no disengaging the magnetic locks without moving or at worst, cutting those wires, and he wasn't in the mood to blow up before the test even got started.
It was an escape room, but the only thing that he seemed able to interact with was the damn television. Just like it played a little video and then gave you the rules, Murdoc was going to make him watch Riley's 'trailer' before he could get on with the 'game'.
Mac closed his eyes, running the facts and coming to the same conclusion. He could probably build a decent bomb suit with the pillows, curtains, and duvet, but it would take time and he had no idea where he was, nor where Jack was—or what was happening to him. This was the faster way, and it was all in the past. Riley was safe now. She'd survived, and there was no reason to believe Murdoc had gotten to her safehouse.
She would have gotten the Batsignal the same time the rest of them did. Matty and Bozer would have kept her safe.
Like they tried to keep you safe, his brain whispered, and Mac opened his eyes and forced his gaze back to the television.
Mercifully the prison footage only continued another few seconds. The scrapbook page turned, showing what looked almost like an interrogation room. But this one was in color; Riley's bright orange jumpsuit as she slumped at the table, wrists cuffed as the person across from her reached over and—
It was him. And the man leaning on the wall was Jack. It was footage of their talk with Riley before he broke her out of prison.
"When her hope is at its lowest, a demon from her past offers her salvation, and a second chance at the life she lost..."
The Mac on the screen suddenly removed his hands from hers, yanking the cuffs open, as Riley stared at him in undisguised surprise. Mac watched his younger self offer her a little smirk, twirling a bent paper clip in his fingers.
"And with nothing left to lose, Riley takes a leap of faith..."
The scrapbook page turned, showing a much more recent Riley in her apartment bedroom, pacing back and forth. She was in pajama shorts and a cropped tank top, clearly either getting ready for bed or having just gotten out of it, and she ran a hand through her hair, shaking it out before pausing. She seemed to come to a decision, stalking to her dresser and scooping up her phone before shooting off a text.
"...and puts her life in the hands of the father figure who abandoned her as a child..."
Same bedroom, same camera angle, only this time it was filled with Phoenix forensic analysts. Riley was in the corner of the room, wrapped in Jack's arms as he swayed back and forth with her. Under the soundtrack was the audio from the room, and Jack's voice had been isolated.
"I gotchu, baby, you're safe. He ain't gettin' near you again, I promise you."
It was footage from the night Riley had discovered the photos Murdoc had taken of her on her own phone. The night Mac realized that Murdoc had gotten past their safeguards. The last night Riley had ever spent in that apartment.
"...and the boy next door."
The camera shifted to another 'picture' in the scrapbook; this was one of Mac out on his deck, grinning at someone out of frame. It was definitely from better times; there were no dark circles under his eyes, and his laugh was carefree as he grabbed a nearby towel and threw it playfully at someone.
The page turned; the team was at skeeball and pizza. It wasn't surveillance cam footage, either; someone had been seated nearby and straight up filmed them. Jack was boasting loudly about his record while Riley shoved him out of the way of her next skeeball shot, Bozer was sending Mac a side-eye warning while he sucked on a milkshake, and Mac had his hands in his pockets, laughing at their antics.
Their clothes placed it; it was the skeeball and pizza trip they'd taken after Jack had gotten re-certified for field work. After he'd recovered from Murdoc's assassin shooting him in the chest and leaving him to die in the gravel off Linbar Drive.
Brandon was probably the videographer; they hadn't know what he looked like back then.
The soundtrack took an uneasy turn, and the scrapbook theme faded to another long shot, this one of a burning cabin. There were shapes on the ground Mac recognized instantly as himself and Bozer, and then Jack pushed himself to his feet and started walking—away from them.
"But not everyone deserves second chances..."
Mac watched himself clumsily grab onto a mostly unconscious Bozer, turning his head and clearly calling out to Jack—and Jack not turning around. The footage switched to a view of the War Room, their compromised video system, and focused on Riley, staring at something on her screen with a look of horror on her face.
"...and even guardian angels can lose their wings."
The image shifted to a shot over Riley's shoulder, focused on the laptop screen in front of her. On the laptop screen lights flashed as fluorescence bulbs came online, and a view of a morgue became visible, showing a naked cadaver laid out under the harsh glare. Mac was absolutely stunned to recognize himself.
The view panned in slowly, so that Riley and the foreground disappeared, and it melted into a full screen shot of the morgue. The footage still seemed grainy and disjointed; the darkly-dressed coroner walked into the frame but seemed to jerk and flit around the table as the footage stuttered in a typical horror movie trope. When it finally stabilized, Mac watched in fascinated horror as the coroner wrapped a tailor's tape measure around his unresisting bicep.
The shape seemed to move with inhuman speed, appearing almost at random points around the table, measuring the length of his arm, the diameter of his thigh, jotting down the numbers on a pad of paper—and on the body itself. His body. He was clearly deeply unconscious, utterly unresponsive, and then the footage stabilized again, and the coroner—who was clearly Murdoc—gently laid his pen and tape measure on Mac's bare chest. He eased off one of his black gloves, ghosting his fingertips up Mac's sternum before settling them gently around his throat.
Murdoc's head tilted to the side, as if appreciating an extraordinary piece of art—and his fingers tightened.
"I won't deny that I want to feel it," Murdoc's voice whispered with perfect clarity over the low, ominous music. "Every shiver, every quiver of your body as your life leaves this shell. I want to watch your eyes turn black as the light leaves you. I want to experience it the way I taught you, Angus."
His hand hadn't let up, and even in the grainy footage Mac could see Murdoc's knuckles were turning white. Unconsciously, Mac's own hand curled up to his chest, his fingers brushing the ghost of that vise grip around his throat like he could actually feel it.
But his body on the screen didn't move. He was unconscious; he couldn't even cough. Helpless to save himself. Completely at the assassin's mercy, as second after second ticked by.
His right leg twitched, his brain registering that it needed oxygen and trying to rouse his body.
And Murdoc didn't release him. He leaned in closer, watching his face intently. "But the end I've designed for you, the end you've made for yourself, you deserve it, Angus. You've earned it. And as much as I want this...it would be truly cruel of me to deny you." Despite the words and the reverent, almost tender tone, it was several more seconds before the psychopath could bring himself to loosen his grip.
Mac's body didn't cough, didn't respond at all other than the first visible inhale, deeper than the ones before it as his body fought the only way it could for air. MacGyver unconsciously mirrored that too, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen as he watched the assassin shudder and come back to himself, regretfully slipping on his glove.
The footage slowly panned out, coming back to Riley's shoulder as she studied the video. Her face wasn't visible but a tendril of damp hair gave away a slight tremble.
Riley had... seen that? She'd seen that, and hadn't told him?
"This wasn't your fault," came Murdoc's voice, pitched to be soothing, as Riley seemed as transfixed by the video as Mac was. "He was going to die anyway, Riley. I've learned my lesson, you see. You can't count on partners, can't count on teams. I've been lucky enough to survive that lesson, and I'll tell you honestly..." The assassin gusted out a regretful sigh, as Riley shook. "I don't think you're going to be as fortunate."
The soundtrack kicked into a Matrix-esque trip-hop kind of mix, and the montage fit to the beats perfectly. A security cam shot of what looked like a showroom, Agent Ramirez twitching on the ground as Brandon grabbed Riley by the arms and dragged her away. A much more intimate shot of Riley lying in a bed not unlike the one Mac just woke up in, bound by at least her wrists to the headboard of the bed as Brandon straddled her, his hips grinding down and his hands braced beside her as she smiled bitterly at him. A shot from the ceiling of a dingy shower, featuring Riley in a torn, sodden, bloody tee-shirt hugging herself, sobbing silently into the weak stream of water.
The techno settled into a melancholy violin tune, and Murdoc's amused voice rang out. "...because you don't believe Angus can save you..."
Riley, wearing the nurse's costume she'd had in the hospital, scooted closer to the laptop seen in a previous clip, and Mac heard her crack her knuckles, such a familiar sound that it literally hurt. "You know what?" she snapped, sounding annoyed. "You're right. You got me. How about I help you with that laptop, and you let me go on my merry way."
The scene switched to Murdoc's face, grinning broadly as Riley settled down in the seat beside him, so close her bare arm brushed against his jacket. Her hands were free, no restraints.
The laptop screen again, this time of computer code dribbling down the screen in an effect any movie cinephile would recognize. A male voice, cocky and condescending—"I put this little opportunity here just for you. This rig has one purpose and one only—to kick us off. First move was yours, Artemis. Enjoy the show."
The voice wasn't Murdoc's—it was Brandon's. The scene shifted back to Murdoc and Riley, sitting next to one another in front of the laptop. Murdoc leaned comfortably back in his chair, throwing Riley a fond look as she continued studying the screen. Though his lips didn't move, it was his voice that sounded next, in an almost coo.
"Relax, Riley. I won't tell them."
The techno track kicked back up, and so did the action. A shot from the desk of Riley hurling herself away from Murdoc, who was already reaching for her. A shot that Mac recognized from his own phone as the proof of life shot, a camera in the corner of a prison cell, with Riley hugging herself tightly while curled up on a thin mattress on the floor. Riley in the nurse's uniform, regaining consciousness on the gurney he'd found her strapped to. Riley, screaming hoarsely in the throes of an electroshock treatment that he'd caused.
The footage jolted and jittered like it had for the morgue scene, and suddenly there were patients swarming the gurney, one of them grabbing the neckline of the uniform and ripping it open as buttons popped into the air. A super up-close shot of Riley's face, her mouth open wide in a gasp of pain, as she was bent over what looked like a desk, and the soundtrack crescendoed as a figure behind her thrust her brutally against it again, and again—
The music cut in a ringing silence, and then they were back in the gurney room, same camera shot, except this time Mac was in there with her. He was holding her tightly, she was sobbing into his shoulder and he was running a tentative hand soothingly up her back.
His voice sounded breathless. "You're okay, Riley, you're okay. I've got you, just breathe." She gasped out a rough sob, and he tightened his hold on her. "Just breathe. I'll take care of anyone who comes through that door."
Riley picked up her head with a sniffle, and Mac let her pull away. She was clutching the torn neckline of her costume, and Mac watched himself deliberately look away, so the camera wouldn't see her exposed.
"Let's get that fixed, yeah?"
The soundtrack began again, violently, showing a view of one of the hospital hallways. Mac was staggering away from a wall, barely able to stand but facing down three patients as Riley deliberately turned and hurried away, leaving him there. The cameras followed her stumbling down the hallways, alone, until she jogged towards the exit, and the door opened, exposing the hallway camera to so much light it whited out and melted into footage of the hospital parking lot, Riley pulling herself up short as she realized she wasn't alone.
A priest was standing there, hands clasped in front of him, and Mac forced himself to relax a jaw he didn't remember clenching as it dawned on him what he was about to see.
He'd been out there waiting. For me, Mac realized with a jolt. The boss fight. And instead he'd sent Riley right to him.
The soundtrack hushed so that the dialogue was easy to hear. "...my dear, you're bleeding!"
"Uh." Riley had already started to J-hook even as the patient dressed in robes approached her, his right hand held out to her as if to steady her. "I-I'm good, padre—"
"Don't be frightened," he told her soothingly, as the camera caught the glint of something in the patient's left hand. "I am a man of the cloth, you are safe here. Come, let me help you."
"I don't—"
He lunged for her, and Riley stumbled when her bare foot came down on loose gravel. He reached for the neckline of her uniform the way the other patients had and Mac watched her respond out of panic, rather than with her training, ignoring his left hand—
He plunged the knife into her back, clearly aiming for her spine, and Riley's cry was quiet. Small.
Broken.
"Help you back to Hell, Lilith," the fake priest snarled, ripping the knife free, and then the footage jolted forward with that horror movie effect, the priest simply disappeared and the camera zoomed in on her, lying on her back on the pavement as it turned even blacker beneath her. She was gasping for air, her fingernails digging for purchase, searching for something to stop the pain.
"...M-Mac—"
The scene slowly went black, like someone's eyesight fading, and Mac actually flinched when the movie trailer voice spoke over her shallow gasps.
"Salvation comes at a price...and everyone dies alone."
By then the scene had faded to black, and Riley gasped once, then again, and then there was simply silence.
MacGyver stared sightlessly at the now-dark screen, unable to breathe himself as he tried to process the images. Had Riley...? There was no mistaking what he'd seen, Brandon on top of her, and then—
Then it must have been Murdoc—
But—
But he'd tried to be misleading with Bozer's trailer, Mac told himself, crushing the terrycloth bunched between his fingers. Sure, he'd used real audio clips, but he'd rearranged them, twisted them. All he'd actually seen was Brandon on top of a still-dressed Riley, and the other could simply have been Riley struggling to get away—
Mac forced himself to swallow around a dry throat. She wouldn't speak to him, wouldn't even text him, was it because...because of what Murdoc had just alluded to?
He'd had her so long. Longer than Bozer. Of course he hadn't just left her to herself. Of course he'd been screwing with her, maybe actually—
Mac turned away from the television, away from that thought before he could finish it, and was about seventy percent sure he was going to throw up. A click sounded in the room with him, momentarily distracting him, and he spun quickly, eyes locking onto the location of the sound to find himself staring at the closet door.
Which was still closed.
Warily, Mac advanced on it, and when nothing else happened, he carefully reached out and gently tapped the wood. It rattled in its doorframe.
The magnetic lock had released, just like it really was a fucking escape room.
He saw immediately that the wires inside led not to explosives but just to the magnetic lock, and there was far more slack in them than needed. Just something to slow him down. The only thing inside the closet was an immaculately pressed tuxedo, complete with tails. Highly polished dress shoes had been placed on the suitcase stand, with a fresh pair of black dress socks beside them. In an upholstered cubby in the wall where a safe would typically be mounted, there was a pristinely white undershirt and handkerchief, and the only splash of color in the entire closet, light blue plaid boxer briefs.
Mac studied the contents a moment, quite certain that everything would fit like it had been tailored for him—which it had been. And well-made cloth could come in handy, outside of its primary purpose of keeping him clothed, which it would do much better than the fluffy terrycloth robe he was wearing.
On a whim, Mac tried the bathroom door; still locked. And just because the wire on the closet door hadn't led to an unpleasant surprise didn't mean the wires on any of the other furniture would be the same.
Mac donned the boxer briefs and trousers before feeling comfortable enough to shrug out of the bathrobe, and he'd just pulled the cotton undershirt over his head when he spotted it, a mark on the inside of his right elbow.
Ink.
-.03
He stared at it a second, but the ink was mostly unsmudged. It was definitely a number. A cold pit opened in his stomach as he pulled up the short sleeve, and found another mark on the widest part of his right bicep.
-.2
It was a measurement.
Mac dragged the front of the shirt up, using the mirror on the inside of the closet door, and there on his abdomen was another. He was sure if he'd bothered to look, he'd have found more, on his thigh, his calf—
Everywhere Murdoc had measured him.
The scene from Riley's trailer, that had clearly happened after the limo and before he woke up in the 'loading' screen. In reality it had been weeks ago. But this—
This had happened in the last few hours.
He dropped the hem of the shirt, no longer able to see the ink but feeling it burning into his skin.
Mac refused to let himself think about it, and instead reluctantly shrugged into the rest of the outfit, noting the sleeves had buttons, not cufflinks, and that the tuxedo tie was in fact a strip of fabric rather than the more convenient pre-done version with the hook and loop closure. Clearly Murdoc was trying to keep the number of tools he had available to him at a minimum.
There was nothing in the pockets of the trousers, vest, or jacket, and Mac slipped the satin tie under his collar but left it untied. As soon as he pulled the coat off the hanger, there was another click, to his right.
The bathroom.
It was exactly what one would expect in an upscale hotel. Large fluffy towels, high end toiletries, a comb and his preferred brand of hair product. Even his cologne. All laid out as if he was expected to get all dolled up for a fancy cocktail party.
He considered using the thick, leaded crystal water glass to shatter the artfully framed, beveled mirror, but he wasn't sure it would get him anything other than cut. There were two sealed bottles of water on the sink, as well, but Mac didn't trust them as far as he could throw them. He shifted items around until he found whichever was attached to a sensor, and a third click sounded from the hallway.
The exit.
Mac put an ear to the door and listened, but he heard no sound. He waved a finger in front of the peephole aperture, just to see if it would trigger anything, but nothing happened. Mac took a deep breath, then peered through it.
Murdoc leered at him from the other side.
Mac jerked back with a start, then wrenched the door open, only to find a perfectly empty hallway. Unnerved, he glanced through the peephole again.
Murdoc was still there. Unmoving; it was simply an image on a sticker on the lens.
More annoyed at himself than anything, Mac studied the hallway, noting a dozen doors, just like his. Each one had a keycard entry pad on the doorhandle, and Mac hesitated, then turned and went back into his room. The wallet on the valet tray on the nightstand was not actually his, though it was his style, distressed brown leather, and Mac picked it up and flipped through it. There was a replica of his California driver's license, a couple credit cards, about sixty dollars US in various bills, and—
Bingo. Room key card.
Mac inspected the wallet for anything else, any uneven seams or bulges indicating something had been concealed inside it, and once he was certain nothing would explode, sting, or shock him, he tucked it into his trouser pocket with his SAK. It was going to be hot wearing the jacket around, but something told him he was going to need it, so Mac threw it over his arm, ignored the watch still on the valet tray, and went back to the door. He pulled it open and checked the hallway, again finding it empty; once the lock had gone dormant he tested his key card and found that the doorlock did indeed disengage.
Mac gave the hallway one more glance, then carefully—and quietly—pulled the door closed behind him.
Nothing happened.
The decorations in the hallway were from the same general period as the décor in his room, which didn't tell him much about where he was, but whatever this building was, it wasn't a set. The door was solid wood, there were intricate plaster decorations on the ceilings, the chandeliers were obviously replicas but they weren't cheap. Just like his room, the hallway smelled vaguely of a pleasant detergent, with just a hint of something under it that he couldn't quite place.
"Hello?" he called, not really expecting an answer.
He didn't get one.
Mac chose the wall on his right, pausing to listen at each door. The only sound he could make out was the steady thrum of the air conditions in each one, and he was about to give up finding anyone else on the floor when there was a deep, muffled thud.
It repeated after another few seconds, and Mac tracked it to the opposite side of the hallway. The next time he heard it, it was a little louder, and he thought he could also hear a voice. When he put his ear to the door that was diagonal from his own room, he heard the faint strands of a trip-hop techno beat, followed by a thud and a muffled, explosive curse.
Mac banged on the door. "Jack?"
The music—more correctly, the same 'movie trailer' he'd seen in his own room—died down to the violin solo, and he heard muttering he assumed was the TV. Then—
"...Mac?"
"Yeah, it's me. Hang on." Mac waved his keycard at the door, unsurprised when it gave him a gentle red blink of denial. Trying to rattle the door found it was immovable, which meant the magnetic lock was still engaged. Jack obviously hadn't progressed through all the 'steps' yet. Having seen it on the frame of his own door, Mac took out his knife and severed the power to the electromagnet, shocking his hand a little in the process. Once that was done, he used the awl tool to pop the casing off the card reader on the doorknob, pulling one of the fine wires from its place and touching it to a conductive plate. The lock disengaged, and Mac carefully turned the knob and pressed the door open.
Like his, there was no internal safety lock—no barricading themselves in their rooms, which was interesting—and the door wasn't wired or otherwise boobytrapped. In fact, it looked like a mirror of his room, with both the closet and bathroom doors closed, and Mac stepped into the room in time to hear Riley gasping desperately for breath as she bled out in the parking lot.
Bracing himself a little, Mac stepped into the room. "Jack?"
"Here." It was a tight growl, and there was another loud, forceful thump. It almost sounded like Jack was trying to move the furniture.
Mac proceeded into the room and found Jack standing on the bed with his back to the room, one shoe planted against the wall, heaving against the headboard like he was trying to rip it off the wall. He'd already put on most of the tux, just missing the vest and jacket, and the bed was partially unmade, the duvet flipped into a pile on the other side.
"...what are you...?"
Jack gave up with a curse, breathing hard, and turned his head just enough to cast an infuriated glare over his shoulder. "You wanna hurry the hell up and help me with this?!" He raised his left wrist—or tried to—and Mac saw the problem.
Well, half the problem.
"Uh—yeah," he muttered, hurrying over and pulling his knife back out. The handcuffs had been attached to the decorative wrought iron rod of the headboard, and clearly Murdoc hadn't skimped on that, either, because it looked like Jack had been struggling with it a while. Sweat was dripping down his face, and now that Mac was closer he could see that it stained the back of Jack's shirt, as well—
And sweat was not the only thing on his shirt. The collar contained several smudged, and one absolutely pristine, lip prints, and at least a few drops of something that looked a lot like blood. Raising his eyes to Jack's face, Mac saw additional lipstick smears, and maybe the beginning of a bruise or a hickey under his right ear, but no sign of injury. Just anger.
"Today!" Jack snapped, and Mac refocused on the handcuffs. No paperclip, which was his go-to, and no handcuff key on the SAK, so—
"Hold it taut." Jack yanked the cuff as far as he could, and Mac debated before he selected the thickest screwdriver. "Brace it on the headboard," he instructed, and once Jack did so, Mac angled the screwdriver into one of the links of the chain between the cuffs and then pushed down sharply. The chain link broke with a tinkling of metal and Jack stumbled back a step on the springy mattress.
Mac reached out a hand to steady him but Jack batted it away with a snarl, stalking off the bed directly for the TV—which Mac realized was still on when he heard "Child prodigy Riley Davis had everything a girl could—"
With a roar of pure rage, Jack grabbed the TV, picture frame and all, and physically ripped it right out of the drywall. While he wasn't able to tear the cables out of the wall, he apparently did manage to dislodge the power cord, because the voice on the trailer never finished its statement. Jack flung the television into the hardwood table beneath it so hard Mac heard the wood crack. The TV never had a chance.
He stood in front of the wreckage, back heaving, and Mac didn't attempt to touch him again. Instead, he glanced around the room, matching it to his own. Same furniture, same configuration, although obviously he hadn't been handcuffed to the bed—and he'd only had to watch Riley's 'trailer' once. He circled the bed, telling himself it wasn't because he was trying to put space between himself and Jack, and threw back the heavy curtains to find what appeared to be the same mural painted in his own room.
Knowing Murdoc like he did, likely it wasn't exactly the same. And likely something in it was foreshadowing things to come. The odds of Jack having a phone, so they could take pictures and do a side by side comparison, were slim to none, and Mac didn't dare ask him. Instead, he turned to the nightstand, finding the same valet tray, holding a wallet—much like Jack's own—and a watch.
It drew his eye to the pillow that the duvet had been tossed over, and Mac spotted what looked like several more drops of blood. He was already reaching for it when his partner brought him up short.
"Don't," Jack snarled, though his back was still to the room. "Just don't."
He didn't turn around.
Mac hesitated for a long moment, then clenched his jaw and flipped the corner of the duvet over. The moment he did, he felt his heart jump in his chest.
For a split second, he thought it was Riley.
But it wasn't. Same hair, same build, same complexion—except this woman was clearly dead. Dried blood was caked around her throat, it had dribbled down the shirt she was wearing, that unless Mac was mistaken was the same kind of shirt Jack owned. A choker was barely visible under the gore, and it was all too easy to put it together.
Mac closed his eyes, taking a slow, shallow breath. "...what happened?"
"Goddamn Murdoc is what happened!" Jack bellowed, whirling around and throwing his arm into the air. "What do you mean 'what happened'?! You think that I—"
"No," he interrupted quickly, holding up his hand palm out to Jack before he could finish. "Of course I don't. I know you'd never hurt a civilian." Mac tried not to put any inflection on the words at all, any reason for Jack to question his sincerity. When Jack merely huffed a quick, angry breath, Mac pressed that hand to the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off a tension headache. "We're in this together, okay," he said more quietly, hoping that Jack would follow suit. "Everything's a clue. Just...tell me what happened."
Jack took a few short, sharp breaths, adding a second to each in a quick version of a Delta calming technique. From straight observation, it was difficult to tell if it was working. "What do you know."
Mac tried not to bristle at the tone. "Your transport got hit on the way to Phoenix. Simmons was shot, Navarro had to stay behind to administer first aid. You got into one of Murdoc's Ubers. They were trying to intercept when I left."
Jack took another breath, and this one actually seemed to help. "How was Grant last you heard?"
"Alive. That's all I know," Mac added apologetically, and Jack turned and started pacing the room, scrubbing his short-cropped hair. "Did that Uber bring you here?"
"Man, I don't even know where fuckin' here is!" But this time, it sounded like Jack was more frustrated than angry. "No," he finally answered, shortly. "Transferred to a limo at Century City." He broke off suddenly, then his shoulders sagged a little as some of the fury drained away. "She was in it. The distraction."
Mac turned back to the body, studying her. The similarity between her and Riley wasn't a coincidence; Murdoc had deliberately targeted a woman who would remind them of her. Maybe tagged her as a body double for the mental hospital, so that he could keep tabs on her after he killed his hacker. And if Jack had watched her die, watched that device kill her and been unable to stop it—
Despite himself, Mac crouched beside the bed, studying the choker. It was a thin satin ribbon, it might have actually been red before the blood, not unlike one of the dozen Riley herself owned. There was a silver charm on it, and Mac tilted his head, then distastefully gathered a corner of the surprisingly soft cotton sheet and used it to wipe some of the congealed blood away.
It wasn't just a charm. It was a handcuff key.
As carefully and respectfully as possible, Mac reached behind the dead woman's neck and undid the choker clasp, carefully peeling the stiff ribbon free of the sticky, congealed blood. It revealed the deep, clean slit in her neck, all the way around, where thin airline cable had cut through both her carotid and jugular and more than halfway through the exposed white cartilage of her trachea.
"...come on, man—"
Mac grimaced and carefully cleaned the key before he plucked it off the ribbon, then held it up.
The message here was obvious. Jack could have gotten out of his handcuffs the second he woke up, if he'd been willing to check the dead body lying on the bed beside him.
Jack stared at him, apparently speechless, and Mac straightened and offered him the object across the foot of the bed. "Unless you just like the bracelet," he added, when Jack made no move to accept it. His expression was completely unguarded, and just—
Stricken. This woman's death had hit him hard. And then having to watch Riley's trailer, over and over again—
Jack stalked just close enough to snatch it from his hand, and Mac left him to it, regarding the body sadly before curiosity got the better of him, and he knelt again to study the garotte device. If it was the same as the one on Riley, he'd never have gotten it off without a screwdriver, which Jack wouldn't have, and though it would be cold comfort, at least confirming that there was no way Jack could have saved her—
The box was the same shape as the one Riley had worn, but he couldn't feel the head of a screw, and Mac angled the device just enough to see—
To see a handcuff key hole where the screw should have been.
He heard the cuff ratchet open, and then get flung across the room, and Mac quickly readjusted the garotte device back against the pillow, and carefully, gently replaced the duvet. He stood and cleared his throat.
"There was nothing you could have done—"
"Don't fucking tell me that," Jack snapped, yanking on the closet door without luck. "I know that," he then said, but it was quieter. Maybe not as confident. "...she—that goddamn psycho made me drug myself."
Mac looked up at Jack in surprise, and replied before he could stop himself. "So that's what he meant."
"What who meant?" Jack questioned sharply.
"...Murdoc." Mac licked dry lips, briefly unable to look Jack in the eye. "I...I knew he'd kill you if I didn't show. He was waiting at the warehouse where he—where he killed Drew. He said...that you'd gotten 'a new appreciation of my position' at the start of the last exam."
Even across the room, he could see Jack's jaw clench, and he gave the closet door another savage tug as he spun back to face him. "Are you telling me—" But then he paused, visibly holding himself back. "Are you telling me that you were with him, again, and you—you just did what he fucking asked?!"
"I didn't have a choice!" Mac shot back, thinking uncomfortably of the seconds between sitting in his own car, and getting into Murdoc's. He'd had an entire warehouse of tools. A projector, with a very hot lamp and a power cord, Murdoc's relatively trapped position behind the steering wheel, the bucket of popcorn, the tablet, the phone— "He would have killed you," Mac repeated helplessly. "Jack—"
"Mac, how many people gotta die before you get it together?!" Again, Jack waved an arm, this time at the body under the duvet. "How many people gotta get threatened into doin' his dirty work, get dressed up like hookers to—"
"Sex worker," Mac's mouth corrected automatically.
It worked to startle his partner a bit, and the former Delta blinked at him in rage-filled confusion. "What?"
"The, uh...the proper term is sex worker," the blond man explained a little lamely, and the change in Jack's expression almost made Mac take a step back.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" he shouted, his voice climbing half an octave. "Time and place!"
And it infuriated Mac. "Yeah, time and place," he agreed hotly. "We are standing in one of Murdoc's traps, and you want to fight with me?! If we don't work together, we're not going to get out of this! So maybe stop lecturing me on what I should and shouldn't have done, especially when you made the same damn choice!"
Jack looked livid, but slowly shook his head, then turned and gave the closet door a kick that broke the wood around the magnetic lock. He then ripped the door open and apparently didn't find anything interesting inside, because he slammed it shut. Without a latch it simply bounced back open, and Jack eyed it furiously.
"Mine had this tux in it," Mac barely managed to keep his tone civil. "You're obviously already dressed."
At that Jack actually glanced at him, then his lip curled and he moved on to break the bathroom door open. Mac could hear him take stock of the room, based on the number of products that were swiped off the vanity to scatter over the floor. Mac grabbed the wallet off the valet tray, unsurprised to find Jack's contained almost exactly what his had, and when Jack reappeared from the bathroom, looking about zero percent calmer, Mac simply tossed it at him.
"Room key might be useful," he continued, as Jack reflexively caught it. "Get cleaned up, I'm going to figure out if there are any differences between this mural and mine, maybe a clue he's left us." Mac didn't want to mention it, but the dead Riley stand-in was wearing Riley's preferred lipstick—which was an uncolored gloss. Whoever had made out with Jack, and left that hickey, hadn't been her.
Mac firmly applied the brakes when his train of thought began automatically enumerating the remaining possibilities, and he refocused those thoughts—and his gaze—on analyzing the mural in front of him. On what he might still be able to change or prevent. Whether it was the wisdom of his words or the fact he simply turned his back on his partner, after a few seconds he heard Jack stalk back into the bathroom, and after a moment, the sound of water running.
The mural in front of him was, at first glance, very similar to the one in his room, and many of the key details were exactly the same. Riley with her leering stalker. Matty still about to take a header into the fountain of a misshapen Phoenix. Bozer still glaring at the waiter—
Only the waiter wasn't about to trip and spill hot coffee onto a blond janitor. He was about to slip in a puddle and drop a tray full of hamburgers—stacked tall and held together with large knives stabbed through the tops of the buns—on a brown-haired traffic cop glaring at the cartoon of Brandon ogling Riley. Mac tried to parse out what that meant, even as he noticed the leaking ice dispenser from his own mural was responsible for the puddle.
Mac dragged his eyes up away from the street level. The same crane was hauling boxes to the third floor window, and the same raven was tugging the knots loose. The same piece of paper was blowing under the soon-to-be-falling platform. But this time no one was chasing it. Instead, cartoon Jack was leaning out of one of the second story windows, red-faced and yelling down to the street as white steam or smoke billowed out of the room from behind him. Mac's chem lab, up on the fourth floor, still contained the bubbling-over chemicals, the cylinders of gas leaking too close to open flames, the alarm clock and the microwave, the tip of the green tail. Even the sheets of paper and the swiss army knife were there on the desk.
What it did not contain was a cartoon Mac. There was no one visible in the room.
He found his cartoon self on the fire escape of the building, bumping butt-first down a flight of stairs and sure to slide right through the gap under the railing to fall to his death.
There were other details that were slightly off. The number of birds flying through the air was different, five of them in a V rather than four. The clouds were off too, but Mac couldn't quite place how. The bricks on the side of the building were multicolored, some redder, some lighter tan, and he hadn't checked his for a pattern but this one definitely seemed to have one.
A glance at the secretary didn't provide pen or paper, and Mac was scanning the room for anything that would do the trick when Jack came back out of the bathroom, face clean and a few damp spots on his tux shirt. His expression was almost contemplative, but as soon as he realized Mac was looking his way it smoothed into the closest thing to a neutral look he'd had since Mac had walked into the room.
At least the blood on his collar had come out.
...which meant—
"Jack, can you grab me whatever soap you used on your shirt?" He was already fishing around in his pockets for the handkerchief Murdoc had left him. "And any cologne left in there?"
In answer, Jack held out his hand, gesturing sarcastically to the door. The message was clear.
Get it yourself.
Tamping down on his irritation, Mac did just that. The bathroom looked like a barbarian had torn through it, but the cologne—and a sniff confirmed it was the brand Jack used, just like his own had been in his room—was in a fairly durable glass bottle and had survived with nothing more than a chip. Mac scooped up the last unused washcloth as well, dampening it in the sink before carrying the items back into the room. His partner was standing right where he left him, arms folded and all but tapping a toe in irritation, and Mac took a deep breath and forced himself to ignore him.
Which was harder than usual. His go-to was explaining why he was doing something, and the silence was almost painfully awkward as Mac applied the soap to the mural. Jack didn't even make a snarky comment about him 'cleaning up Murdoc's dirty work.' He didn't say a word.
Mac fanned the now-cleaned mural with the curtain to help the water evaporate, then applied a thin misting of the cologne. He snagged a pillow off the floor—one of the victims of Jack's struggle to get un-handcuffed—and draped the handkerchief in his pocket evenly across the pillow before gently pressing it to the wall, using the pillow to carefully and evenly roll the fabric.
As he pulled it away, a serviceable copy of the brick pattern on the mural was left transferred to the handkerchief.
"...great, just need like fifty more and you got your own copy," Jack finally snarked, and Mac shot him an irritated look over his shoulder as he shook the handkerchief out gently to help the alcohol from the cologne evaporate.
"I'm pretty sure this is a blueprint for how he intends to kill us." He jerked his chin at the mural. "But in mine you were about to get crushed by that platform and I was taking a test in the lab instead of falling down a flight of stairs."
After a few seconds of terse silence, Jack finally moved away from the wall and stonily joined Mac, examining the mural before his lips twisted up in a frown. "Some of this shit already happened."
Mac nodded. "Riley getting stalked by Brandon, Bozer and the freezer, Matty and water. But the rest of it..." After a moment Mac blew out a frustrated sigh. "I guess we'll find out."
"Only one way to do that," Jack remarked tersely, gesturing to his room's door. "Unless you have any more arts and crafts you wanna do before we go."
Mac huffed a sigh, then led the way into the hall, opening Jack's door slowly, carefully, half expecting someone to jump out and attack them, but it was eerily quiet. He glanced back at his partner, who motioned for him to get on with it, and frowned as he stepped out.
Nothing. No sounds, no smells, no hands reaching from around the corner to grab him. Just incredibly eerie silence.
"So where are we supposed to go?" Jack asked with a tone that implied it was taking a lot of self-control to be civil about it. Mac sighed.
"I don't know. I'm guessing we're on the fourth floor," he gestured to the number on Jack's door—416—as he spoke, "but I have no idea what that means in terms of where we actually are. Or where we're supposed to go. I mean, first instinct is down because that's where the exits are, but it's not like he'd ever let it be that easy, so."
"Okay, well, it's a hotel," Jack reasoned, scratching the back of his head. "When you need information at a swanky hotel like this, you call the concierge. I didn't see a phone in my room and I doubt that rat bastard would be dumb enough to put a phone in yours, so if we can't call—"
"Then we go to the lobby and ask," Mac finished, nodding. There were no signs anywhere on the walls like one would normally see in a hotel; no indicators of where certain room numbers would be, no fire exit plans, nothing pointing them towards anything in particular. By unspoken agreement, they headed towards the right, eyes searching for anything out of place, any kind of subtle clue. The hallway was painted a rich blue in the alcoves around the wooden doors and a pale, creamy yellow the rest of the way. The pattern on the carpet was oddly disorienting, a mix of blues, oranges, browns, and golds that, while it went with the decor, made the hallway seem almost wavy. He would have hated to walk down this hallway drunk.
They made it to the end of the hall without incident—or any sign of the stairs. Looking left and right painted an almost identical picture; the hallways continued for about fifteen feet, then turned back in the direction the agents just came from. There were more doors, but none that didn't have room numbers and still, no signs.
"Well now what?" Jack huffed.
"I don't know," Mac tried not to sound exasperated. He started walking towards the left, peering around corner. He saw a nearly identical hallway, though with a branch to the right about halfway down. Still no signs—neither those indicating where they should be going, nor any indicators of other people.
"Nothing special this way," Jack reported, and Mac looked over to see that he'd gone to look around the corner to their right. "Just more rooms. You?"
"Same here," Mac replied with a sigh. The pair of them came back together in front of the hallway they came from.
"Well, he's your stalker," Jack scoffed. "Where does he want us to go?"
"If I knew that, we wouldn't be standing around here," Mac growled irritably.
"Okay, well, you better come up with an answer, man, because I am not wandering around this damn place forever."
Mac opened his mouth to snap at him, but at that moment, he heard a faint noise that made him stop. It almost sounded like the air conditionings in the rooms—a low, persistent whirring sound—but that wouldn't make sense; he couldn't hear those unless he was standing directly in front of the doors and listening for it. It was coming from the hallway Jack had looked down.
It could just be the hallway air conditioning, but—
"Come on."
Mac led the way down the right hand hallway, then turned right around the corner. Jack followed close behind. The whirring sound grew steadily louder as they approached the branch-off on the left, and Mac only hesitated a moment at the corner to make sure there were no surprises waiting for them.
The turn brought them to a short hallway with two alcoves on the left and right. On the right were the elevators—which Mac didn't trust for a moment—and an ice machine rumbling away on the left. The hallway terminated in a metal door that very clearly led to the stairwell.
"How did you do that?" Jack muttered in confusion.
Mac indicated the purring machine. "Ice is usually near an exit. Least, it has been in almost every hotel I've ever been in."
Jack thought about that, muttering a "Huh." as they started walking towards the stairs. The second they passed in front of the elevators, the one on the right dinged, and the doors immediately slid open.
The two agents stopped short, looking at each other, then the waiting elevator.
"Not a chance," Mac muttered, shaking his head and striding towards the stairwell. He examined the push bar, but it didn't seem connected to anything sinister, though the window in the door was blacked out. He gave it an experimental shove—but it didn't budge, and neither did the door. The bar was locked in place.
"Son of a bitch," the blond man snarled in frustration, shoving off of the bar and pacing away from it, pinching the bridge of his nose. Jack, who had been right behind him, grabbed the bar himself, trying to push it forward, but like with Mac, it wouldn't move.
The elevator remained invitingly open.
And the message was clear. To proceed, they needed to get in that elevator. Mac dropped his hand, giving the cab a visual inspection, and for all intents and purposes...it was an elevator. A nice one. No buttons for an operator, but it was dated, like the rest of the hotel. The buttons were not digital, nor were any of the floor indicator lights. Mac put some weight in the cab but nothing happened, and he continued his inspection, clocking the ceiling access panel, the ventilation—and it appeared unblocked, which was a nod in its favor—and the certificate frame holding a homemade sign telling them the operating certificate was with the front desk.
"Alright, let me—"
Jack was already striding into the elevator beside him, checking all the same places. The second he transferred his weight into the cab, before his trailing leg had even cleared the doors, they started to close.
"—Jack, catch the doors—!"
But they closed like there was no such thing as a photoelectric door sensor, and Jack yanked his leg through rather than trying to scoot back out in the time allotted. Probably a good thing; the doors crashed shut behind him, and Mac couldn't help a frustrated exhale.
That's all it was. Not even words.
"Dude, what the fuck? If you wanted me to catch the doors you shoulda told me before I was already inside—"
"I did, and I didn't expect them to close so quickly—" Seeing as he'd seen the aforementioned sensors between the doors before he'd even dared to step inside the cab.
"Well it's a little late now!"
"I see that!" Mac snapped, even as there was a mechanical hum and the elevator—started going up, rather than down. Both men exchanged an uneasy look. "I guess we're going...up."
He'd barely finished the sentence before there was the feeling of a little catch—no more than a click—and the elevator was in freefall.
Mac's stomach rose into his throat, and the freefall lasted far longer than he was comfortable with before the elevator lurched to a stop. It had a little give, not violent enough to throw them to the floor, indicating the emergency brakes had engaged.
From outside the elevator cab, there was a long, ratcheting groan.
Jack had frozen, feet and arms splayed wide, and Mac forced himself to release the brass chair rail he'd grabbed. Falling in an elevator was one of the less awesome possibilities on his list of falling, because you had no way of knowing how fast you were falling—or how much time you had until you hit something solid. They'd fallen at least ten seconds, but typically air in an elevator shaft provided some friction, slowing the elevator cab so—
At least three floors. And they'd been on the fourth before they'd gone up however much before they fell.
On the plus side, not too much farther to fall?
Even falling a story onto concrete would break legs. Any farther and it could be lethal.
Jack was already looking towards the ceiling, and Mac forced his tense neck to nod. "Gimme a boost?"
For whatever reason, the access panel wasn't locked, and with Jack groaning beneath him, Mac was able to pop it out and grab the edge of the access hatch, pulling himself onto the roof of the cab. There was very little light, so Mac shimmied further onto the roof, pushing himself into a crouch as he fished his SAK out of his pocket. He'd been neurotic about the battery on the flashlight—because Murdoc—and the beam was true as he moved it systematically across the roof of the cab.
"What's the verdict?" Jack demanded from below.
Mac licked his bottom lip, estimating how much more abuse the heavily ground-down emergency brakes could take. Not to mention the state of both the primary and secondary cables. "...uh...not great," he admitted, setting the SAK down so that the light was focused on the primary brake before carefully scooting around and glancing down through the access hatch. "You better get up here."
Even hauling Jack's weight from the floor of the cab to the roof degraded their position, and Jack's waist hadn't even cleared the hatch before the brakes groaned and they jolted down another six or so feet before they caught again. Jack's hands spasmodically grabbed anything he could get hold of, and Mac bit back any sound of pain as he hauled the older agent fully out of the cab.
"We've got seconds," he told Jack, helping him stand and gesturing at the elevator shaft doorway just visible in the SAK's diffuse light, offset above them a couple feet. Mac had no idea what floor it was.
Luckily, Jack needed no further encouragement. He tried the standard trigger the elevator would typically trip if it stopped at that floor—which didn't work—and then put his shoulder into it. Light spilled into the elevator shaft as Jack successfully muscled the doors open, and he paused only once the doors were about hip-width apart, hopping into the gap and keeping it open with his body as he tried to push the doors farther apart.
His hop—pushing his weight against the roof of the cab—dislodged the elevator further, and it jolted down another three feet, this time coming up sharply enough that it knocked Mac to his knees. He grabbed the central cable reflexively, knowing that it was going to give with the elevator, knowing that it wasn't going to save him when the entire mechanism gave, and Jack glanced over his shoulder before he somersaulted his body through the gap he'd already created, and reappeared chest down, his right arm fully extended down.
"Mac!" he called sharply. The order to get over there and grab his hand didn't even need to be said, but Mac couldn't make himself move. He was frozen there, gasping in trembling breaths while hardly daring to move a muscle. His eyes were wide as saucers, and his blood was pounding so loudly in his ears that he could barely hear the groan of the brakes. Even in such a small space, he felt oddly disoriented as his body shook.
"I can't," the blond man choked out, shaking his head slightly, unable to tear his eyes away from where his SAK lay on the roof of the cab, just out of his reach. "I'm sorry, I just—"
"Mac, look at me!" Jack's voice broke through his haze, loud and cutting but oddly not aggressive, and the blond man blinked, forcing himself to look up at his partner. "I know you're freaking out, but you've gotta get over here or I can't help you, okay? I can't get through this death trap without you; you know I can't. Now hurry!"
Mac nodded quickly, taking a breath and tentatively shifting himself forward as the elevator groaned in protest. He couldn't quite stand up, but he managed a sort of restricted shuffle across the top of the cab, doing his best not to do any overly quick or sharp moves, lest the brakes give out all at once.
"That's it; easy, Mac. C'mon," Jack encouraged from above, and even though the blond agent didn't dare tear his eyes away from his task, he noticed that his partner sounded sincere.
Just as he'd worked up the courage to try and stand up, the cab jolted down another few inches. Mac didn't realize he'd yelped until he heard the echo, and the groaning of the cab got louder.
He was out of time.
"Mac, come on!" Jack shouted. He was stretched out as far as he could go, reaching for him, and Mac felt his body move without him even telling it to. His left hand grabbed his SAK from where it had settled after the last jolt, and he shot to his feet, his right hand reaching up with everything he had as he jumped.
That pressure was the final straw, and the cab fell away beneath him. Almost in slow motion, Mac realized his momentum was not going to be enough to carry him up to Jack's waiting hand. At the last possible second, Jack lunged forward, left hand grabbing the elevator door and right leg bracing so he could get the extra reach, and Mac felt his partner's hand close around his wrist.
The pressure was painful but he didn't fight it; almost like muscle memory, his other hand found purchase on the interior mechanism of the door and his feet struggled to push him up. Jack heaved back, using his legs more than his arms, and Mac was able to grab the interior lip of the doors. Once he had his waist clear of the elevator shaft, Jack let him go, and Mac flopped down beside him, belly first, his fingers digging into the short, thick carpeting. He never heard the cab hit the bottom of the shaft, just the echo of the echo of it, and concluded that the cab had been completely destroyed, meaning it had fallen far enough to do fatal damage to a human body.
His body.
Mac turned his head, looking back towards his partner, only to find Jack on his back, still panting, his expression livid. Any trace of the supportive friend he'd heard encouraging him to cross the cab to him was gone. "Now you listen to me right now," he growled, as soon as he had Mac's eyes. "Murdoc's gonna use our fears against us, same as he did to Boze and Riley. That ain't a surprise. That freak designed this place so neither one of us could get through it alone, so for fuck's sake, stow your shit."
Mac blinked at him, managing a swallow, and then slowly nodded his head. Right. Jack was right. He should have expected that, should continue to expect it. Rather than continue staring at his infuriated partner, Mac rolled onto his back—away from Jack—and evaluated the hallway from his new perspective.
The nearest room said 217. Which made no sense, but at least gave him an idea of the floor. Painfully, Mac pushed himself into a sitting position, eyeing the empty elevator shaft for a moment before shifting his gaze to Jack. The older agent was also rolling to his feet, rolling his arm in its socket, and Mac almost apologized before he managed to bite it back. Jack wouldn't appreciate the gesture.
Instead he said, "The brakes were ground down, they weren't loosened."
Jack had gotten to his feet, giving the elevator shaft a dark look before he took a few steps down the hallway—not offering Mac a hand up. "Yeah, and?"
Mac rolled to his feet, turning off the flashlight on his SAK and stuffing it into his pocket, trying to ignore the way his hand was shaking. "...and it means that Murdoc didn't decide when the elevator was going to fall."
That drew Jack up short; he turned and gave Mac a hooded look. "...what are you tryin' to say?"
What was he trying to say, indeed. Mac took a deep breath, letting it out in a whoosh. "I'm saying that if we hadn't escaped, we would have actually died just now," he elaborated heavily. "Murdoc couldn't have prevented it. He's not—in control of things like he's been for other exams." If Mac had eaten the paralytic in Bozer's exam, he wouldn't have died, he would have simply failed and Bozer would have paid the price. This time—
"He's playing for keeps," Mac finished quietly. "If we screw up..."
If they screwed up—even once—they were going to die.
Jack seemed to think about that for a few seconds, then his mouth twisted up. "Then don't screw up again," he growled, and continued down the hallway. Without another option, Mac followed.
So. It's been a while, huh?
Sorry about that, everyone. Life has been crazy as always. I quit my job, moved over 500 miles to be closer to my family, found another job (after being super goddamn depressed about not being able to find one), finally found an apartment, met my nephew for the first time, my sister and BIL got the rona (don't worry; they're doing okay)—It's been a time. BUT, as always, we are doing our best to get this done and out to you guys as soon as possible. Please bear with us. You're not gonna want to miss this.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed part one of this beast of an exam (we're not done with it yet but it is shaping up to be a very ambitious undertaking). As always, my eternal gratitude to Haven126 cannot be overstated, as without her, this would not have been possible. Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you soon!