Jack glanced over at Mac, having trouble returning his attention to the road. Mac sat with shoulders slumped, hands in lap, staring out the passenger's side window. As they drove past stores, the lights passed over the younger man making him look like a pale statue.

"Hey Mac, you ok?" Jack asked for the thousandth time. Mac glanced at him. Jack frowned. Mac's face was still, almost devoid of its usual spark of life. His hands sat in his lap unmoving. Mac tried to offer a smile, but it was the tiniest flicker of movement at the corner of his mouth. He then turned back to staring out the window. The silence was painful. "I mean I get it if you aren't…" Jack began. He started to babble about the case, about past cases, horses, the Dallas Cowboys and anything else that crossed his mind. Mac didn't move a muscle, just stared out the window. As they pulled into the Phoenix underground parking, Mac sighed heavily. Jack frowned. Mac looked at him with an expression Jack had never seen on his younger friend's face-defeat.

Mac slowly climbed out of the car as if every muscle hurt. He slouched, hands in pockets and walked his eyes never leaving the ground. In the elevator, Jack got his first real look at the state of his friend, and he felt fear lick his spine. Mac's cheekbones were angular; his cheeks sucked in. Black circled hollow eyes. His skin was pale sallow, and he was soaked as if he'd gone swimming in his clothes. Most worrying was the bagginess of his belt and waist band. Mac had pulled the belt tighter by a whole notch, and it looked like he could probably go back another. Mac moved with dull listlessness, his feet almost dragging with each step as if he didn't have the strength to walk.

Jack put his hand on his partner's shoulder, wincing when he felt the bony joints. Mac looked up at him slowly and again tried to smile failing miserably. His head hung forward as if he didn't have the strength to hold it up. Mac stumbled. Jack steadied him. Mac closed his eyes listing to the side, his face turning into a coffee stained white. Jack held him up and steadied him. Mac never looked up from the floor his damp bangs hanging down like a curtain over his eyes. Jack ducked under the kid's left arm as they left the elevator and hobbled toward medical. By the time they entered, Mac could barely lift his legs, and his head had flopped down.

A fresh set of arms came to help Jack haul his charge to the closest triage bed. Jack looked up relieved to see the elfin features of the redheaded Sally Weathers, head of nursing at Phoenix. Between the two of them, they got Mac laid out on a cart. He blinked slowly up at Sally then moved to crawl onto his side. Sally shot Jack a worried look and helped the blond. She brushed wet bangs out of Mac's eyes.

"Hey Mac, how are you?" She asked. Mac let out a long breath and stared ahead. Sally frowned. Mac didn't look angry, which she would normally expect if Jack had forced him to come. Mac didn't look to be in any discomfort; he looked exhausted and thin. Sally took his vitals while shooting questions at Jack. Her eyebrows raised when Jack told her Mac had led the way here.

Sally made some notes on her clipboard.

"Mac, let's get you into something cooler." Mac slowly pushed up to sitting with trembling arms that looked thin as twigs. Jack and Sally helped him get into a gown. Jack hissed when he saw how prominent the kid's ribs were. Mac flopped down to the cart breathing faster. Sally nodded and left to talk to Dr. Carl, the MD on call. Jack pulled a chair to the side of the gurney and sat face to face with his partner. Mac looked at him, and Jack could see his eyes moisten with tears.

"Hey, hey. What's wrong?" Jack asked rubbing Mac's back. Jack swallowed a frown as he could feel every knuckle of the kid's spine. Mac closed his eyes.

"I'm just tired." Mac murmured his voice barely audible. He sounded like his throat had been scrubbed raw. Mac reached up a hand and absently dabbed at his eyes.

"When was the last time you slept?" Jack asked. Mac stared into space a long minute.

"I slept in the car." Jack frowned.

"You were awake the entire drive here." Mac's lips quirked in a shallow imitation of his natural smile.

"No, when we came home from the airport." Jack's mouth hung agape.

"Mac? What the hell? Why didn't you tell me?"

"There wasn't anything you could do." Mac's voice took on a flatness that set Jack's teeth on edge. Jack might have had something to say about that when Sally and Doc Carl entered. Jack always thought Doc Carl looked about 12 years old. He was tall and thin and had a soft corona of brown curls circling a face that had more freckles than whiskers. His eyes always seemed to be wide with wonder. Jack had woken up many times to those eyes and his infectious smile; he always found them an affirmation of life. Even Mac didn't hate him completely, the highest of compliments. The man frowned at Mac and shot Jack a worried look. Jack nodded with a deep sigh. Doc Carl bent down to look Mac face to face.

"Hey, Mac. How are you feeling?" He asked. His voice was a musical tenor. Mac glared at him and tried to push himself up to sitting again. Doc Carl helped him. Mac accepted the help until he was sitting up then he slapped the doctor's hand away. Mac looked at the end of the cart. Jack's laugh caused the younger man to shift his angry look to his partner.

"Dude, you won't get very far, probably just do a header to the floor." Mac's eyes flashed with frustration as he took in Jack and the Doc in front of him and could hear Sally behind him. Jack could tell his partner was feeling trapped. Jack was about to offer a comforting pat on the shoulder when Mac seemed to deflate. His shoulders slumped, and his head dipped with a sigh of defeat. Doc Carl glanced over Mac's head to Sally. They shared a silent communication Jack didn't like as if something they verified a theory. "What?" Before the medical staff had time to answer, Mac's arms gave out, and he flopped forward. Jack managed to catch Mac across the chest, and the three of them eased him back to his side. Jack didn't like how sweaty his partner was already.

"Sally?" Doc Carl asked. Sally nodded. The tall doctor pushed Jack by the shoulder toward the curtain. Jack planted his feet anger in his dark eyes. Doc Carl met his passion with a nod and indicated the door to the ER section of medical. Jack nodded. He crossed to Mac's side. He bent so he was almost nose to nose with Mac.

"I'll be back in a little while." Mac snorted and shrugged. Jack straightened feeling a hurt anger flush his face. Before he could say anything, Doc Carl grabbed his arm and led him away. He didn't talk until both of them were in the elevator heading to ops.

"Sally has to take some tests, but I have a guess as to what is going on with MacGyver."

"Is it that green goo?"

"No, or I don't think so. I believe that Mac was exposed to the pathogen after, but the excoriation from the 'green goo' as you call it, speeded the process up." Jack scowled.

"He was poisoned?"

"Yes, I think so. And it's a particular and targetted pathogen, one that I've seen before." Jack demanded an explanation, but Doc Carl only led the way to the war room.

Jack was surprised to see Riley and Bozer both leaning over lap tops with the clippings spread out on the wooden table between them. Jack looked at his watch, and his eyebrows rose. It had taken him and Mac almost two hours to get here and get settled. Matty walked into the room with a determined stride. She touched the glass blocking others from seeing and hearing them. She looked up at Jack.

"How's Mac?" She asked her voice thick with worry. Jack looked down and shook his head. Matty turned to Doc Carl. "Is it what you thought?"

"I'm afraid so, Matty."

"What the hell-!" Jack exploded tired of all this beating around the bush. Doc Carl held up his hand he glanced at Matty who nodded. Riley and Bozer looked up waiting.

"A few years ago, I was a doctor assigned with the WHO to investigate a series of villages in the South Sudan where all of the people had died of malnutrition and starvation. We looked for all of the obvious causes, drought, food sources and so on. While our estimates showed it was possible, we could find no direct cause for so many in different villages to die from the same thing. We considered it an anomaly. Then a year later we were called to the same thing in Somalia. It kept on coming up in remote villages in Pakistan, China and then we started seeing it in city centers like Damascus and Bogota.

"Working with CDC we found out that there was a pathogen, well more precisely a neurotoxin secreted by a pathogen-specifically the bacterium that is thought to cause Lyme disease. Each time we found it, it was modified just a little differently than the one used before it. It affects the hypothalamus with the enteric neural system in the stomach controls, appetite, thirst, sleep cycles, mood and a lot of other things."

"Enteric, as in stomach?" Riley asked.

"We have a brain in our gut?" Bozer rubbed a hand across his belly. Doc Carl nodded.

"Research isn't sure how it's exactly connected, but there are neurons in the lining of your gastrointestinal tract that sends signals back up to the brain."

"This hippo thymus or whatever?" Jack asked wrinkling his nose. He hated science.

"Hypothalamus, yes. When you eat or drink, your body uses a feedback loop to tell it when it's hungry or full. It also regulates body temperature, mood, sleep cycles and lots of other things."

"So?" Jack asked leaning forward not trying to hide his impatience.

"That's why Mac is sweating so much; his brain is telling his body that he is overheating, so it keeps trying to cool him down."
"But he's not hot," Matty interjected rubbing her chin.

"Exactly, so he doesn't stop sweating, his body is desperate for water intake-"
"That's why he's so thirsty! His brain is telling him he's in a desert." Bozer exclaimed.

"Exactly," Doc Carl repeated.

"And it tells him he's full when he's only eaten two bites." Riley sat back tapping her chin with a pen.

"And why he hasn't slept." Jack mused. He paused and turned looking at the tall doctor with a worried scowl. "What is it doing to his mood?" Doc Carl sighed and crossed his arms across his chest.

"You've seen how listless and defeated he seemed?"

"Yeah." Jack waited.

"Depression." Matty guessed. Doc Carl nodded.

"That's the same as all these clippings, but these clippings date from the past 18 months, they are all failure to thrive or malnutrition," Riley said lifting a handful of clippings.

"I think that in someone as healthy as Mac multiple doses over a period of say six months would be necessary to bring him to the stage he's in now...but after falling into the chemicals at the factory…?" Doc Carl shrugged and ran his hand through his hair.

"So what do we do? What's the cure?" Bozer asked standing up and walking up to the lean doctor. Before Doc Carl could answer, Jack piped in,

"I think there's a bigger picture here." He said softly. Bozer turned with anger in his eyes.

"More important than getting Mac healthy again?" Bozer challenged. Matty stepped between the two men holding up a placating hand.

"Bozer, that's everybody's top concern." She turned to Jack cocking an eyebrow. "What are you thinking?" Jack began to pace his hands moving as he tried to shape his ideas into questions.

"First of all, who could do this? I mean all over the world and here in LA? Who could make and distribute this crap? Second, how did Mac get exposed? The pharmacy is the only place that makes sense-"

"And that would explain why all those suits stripped the place." Riley offered. Jack and Matty shared a look.

"The CIA." They both said at the same time.

"Why would they want to do this in LA?" Bozer asked itching his neck.

"Think about it, Bozer, homeless die every day on the streets and if this took six months to a year to take effect no one could put it all together," Matty said, her jaw flinched with anger.

"And if they perfected this new strain...it's a good place to test it without drawing international attention." Doc Carl said.

"If that's true, how did Jin Fai put it together?" Riley asked. Everyone turned to look at her. "I've been hunting these obits online, records of their death, any autopsies and there's nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?" Matty asked puzzled.

"I mean nothing. All of these people's birth records, school grades, autopsies, police reports... everything's been wiped." Riley finished. Jack shared a worried look with Matty. Not only did that likely mean CIA, but a high black ops program in the CIA.

"Not everything," Bozer said with a smile.

"Boze?" Jack asked. Bozer crossed to the laptop he'd been using and turned it to face the others.

"Social media, I found more than thirty names are friends on Facebook with Fai."

"Thirty? That must be how she got an idea something is going on." Jack offered.

"Or it's how she kept a record of the results of the tests," Matty said. Jack whirled and glared at the smaller woman who met his gaze without flinching.

"And there's the Bosnians, what do they have to do with it?" Riley asked.

"I think my head is starting to hurt." Bozer moaned. Riley's computer made a loud beep. Riley leaned over and smiled. She looked up; everyone stepped closer.

"I didn't get a good camera angle from the pharmacy clean up crew, but I was running a program to un-digitize footage from Jin Fai's place."

"Put it up." They all turned. They could see a view of the parking lot in front of the Jin's apartment building apparently from a light or phone pole. A black limo screeched into the lot. Jin Fai came running out talking on her cell. She dove into the limo, and it sped off.

"The plates for that are diplomatic plates," Matty observed.

"Let me guess, Bosnian Consulate?" Jack asked looking at Riley. She nodded. The camera had run another 30 seconds before a familiar gray car pulled up to the door. Rijad Dedic calmly got out wearing a well fitted black suit. He carried a medium sized suitcase.

"That's Halil Gauric driving," Riley said as she enhanced the photo. The screen froze after the assassin entered the building. "That's the only view I found that showed anything." Everyone turned around except Jack who was studying the frozen face of Rijad a dark promise of death in his eyes. Jack's hands wrapped in white knuckled fists and the rage seemed to radiate off of him. Matty walked up to him and touched his fist. He looked down at her not seeing her for a long minute.

"Jack, Mac needs us focused," Matty said softly. Jack smiled. It was not a friendly smile.

"Oh I'm focused, don't worry about that." He thought about Jin Yu's body thrown into the bottom of the closet like dirty laundry after being tortured for information. Jack thought of little Jin Fai, her attitude. He glanced over to Riley. The young Chinese woman reminded him so much of Riley, but he had to remind himself, she wasn't Riley. Would she just leave knowing her grandmother was going to be questioned then killed? Jack hoped not. He closed his eyes and dropped his gaze to the floor as he rubbed his forehead. Jack could feel the other's worried looks. He turned to Riley bracing himself.

"Did you run the pharmacy as Mac asked you?" Jack's voice was soft, tired, and resigned. Riley glanced at Bozer and Matty. Matty nodded.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I found out that the pharmacy has shown an extra $40,000 unexplained income over the past two years." Jack nodded.

"Were you able to trace it?" Riley shook her head.

"Could you get anything from the Bosnian Consulate?" Matty asked.

"No, they have an onsite server. I can't hack it unless I'm on a computer."

"There in the consulate?" Jack said whirling to face her. "No, absolutely not!"

"Jack-"

"No, I told you, Mac told you it's too dangerous." Jack's voice increased in volume. Riley stood up, her hackles raised.

"Settle down! Jack, this might be the only way to save Mac." Jack huffed his jaw muscles dancing with anger, frustration, and worry. They all jumped when a phone rang. Doc Carl pulled it out of his pocket.

"Sally…? Yes, start two liters of lactated ringers…." Doc Carl turned and sprinted from the war room. Jack was a step behind him, his heart sinking knowing something had gone wrong.